"Claw" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... out came the princess, attended by one of the maids of honor, and followed by Grandmagnificolowsky. The ladies were muffled up in their fur cloaks, and the maid of honor seemed to be carrying a basket. Poor famished Glumdalkin! so great was her astonishment, that she positively paused, with her claw suspended over the leg of the partridge, to see what her royal ...
— Tales From Catland, for Little Kittens • Tabitha Grimalkin
... but he refused them all, and shook them off, and went to the door. But as he put his foot over the threshold, the strange old man stood up and put his hand that was thin and withered like a bird's claw on Hanrahan's hand, and said: 'It is not Hanrahan, the learned man and the great songmaker, that should go out from a gathering like this, on a Samhain night. And stop here, now,' he said, 'and play a hand with ...
— Stories of Red Hanrahan • W. B. Yeats
... tucked-up sleeves, and the great knives which they wear at their sides. They are licensed assassins, who track our steps without pity and cut our throats without giving us time to cry mercy. And now, my child," she added, raising her claw, "receive my blessing. May St. James, the patron saint ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... or a decoy, To offer, and yet snap, who would enjoy; Yea, the more eager on't, the more in danger, Be he the master of it, or a stranger. Bush, why dost bear a rose if none must have it. Who dost expose it, yet claw those that crave it? Art become freakish? dost the wanton play, Or doth thy testy humour tend ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... their foolish insipid verses, and there wants not others that admire them as much? They believe presently that Virgil's soul is transmigrated into them! But nothing like this, when with mutual compliments they praise, admire, and claw one another. Whereas if another do but slip a word and one more quick-sighted than the rest discover it by accident, O Hercules! what uproars, what bickerings, what taunts, what invectives! If I lie, let me have the ill will of all the grammarians. I knew in my time one of many ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... escape?" "No," exclaimed the knowing shape, "You shall perish by Lynch-Law." Through his skull he struck a claw, On the tempest burst a wail, Through the bars a serpent-tail, Flashing like a lightning spire, Seemed to set the cell on fire; Far and wide was heard the clang, Through the whirlwind as they sprang. Many a year the sulphurous fume Stung ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... The brown claw of the old hunter was never far from the grip of his gun when he lay before a campfire. Jack saw the hand clamp upon the weapon even before ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... but as I made a movement, biff!... The son of a sea-cook grabs me with one of his many legs by the coat and remains there hanging from me. The cussed critter was as heavy as lead; he was already reaching up after me with another claw when I remembered that I had in my vest pocket a toothpick that I had bought in Chicago, and that it had a knife attachment; I opened this, and in a moment slashed off the tail of my coat, and cataplun! ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... found that I could easily twist the wire down its leg, so that the claw would appear to be grasping the rabbit's wrist, while the sage-looking bird stood on one leg; and, satisfied in this, I was about to arrange the jay and other birds, but thought I would do the rabbit first, and, taking it up, I thrust ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... and here!" exclaimed the Russian. "But you shall fight like a gentleman for once in your life. I will not claw and scratch with you, like the women do, but with any weapon ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... devil had him by the hair, as the saying is; he felt, too, that the hair was being twisted round the pitiless red claw. Startled and afraid lest he should sell his honesty for such a trifle, he answered the diabolical suggestion by ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... are as cross as she is," answered the boy; "but when mamma comes home, she'll claw up both ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... conjure up our dear old grandmothers in their great scoop bonnets, and grandfathers with their high coat collars coming nearly to their bald crowns! And the Deacon's Seat under the pulpit—how easy to make believe the deacons in claw-hammer coats and queer ...
— Three Young Knights • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... not like to step on the cat's tail. He knew by experience that a cat is apt to claw anybody well who ventures on such a caper; but the little Goody laughed out, and stepping on it herself, invited ...
— The Two Story Mittens and the Little Play Mittens - Being the Fourth Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... plumber, you old dumb-duck!" shrieked his little daughter. "What did you come here and spoil everything for? He'd have had to marry me tomorrow if you'd minded your own business. I'll claw your eyes out." But her hands were imprisoned in her father's hard fists, and she turned and spat at the petrified Clavering. "I hate you! I hate you! But I'm going to marry you all the same. One way or another I'll get you. I meant to wait awhile; for I hadn't ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... ask my God Sunday by Sunday to brood across the land, and bind all its children's hearts in a close-knit fellowship;—yet, when I see its people betrayed, and their jawbone broken by a stroke from the hand of gold; when I see freedom passing from us, and the whole land being grasped by the golden claw, so that the generation after us shall be born without freedom, to labour for the men who have grasped all, shall I hold my peace? The Boer and the Englishman who have been in this land, have not always loved mercy, nor ...
— Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland • Olive Schreiner
... I was not fully in command of my senses. I was clamped in a padded claw. I wanted to roll over. I tried hard, and made it. I could hear Kramer talking, others answering, but it seemed too great an effort to listen to ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer
... venture out, unless with some rifles in company, for fear of another mischance. We have plenty of lynxes here; but I doubt if they would attack even a child, although they fight when assailed, and bite and claw severely." ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... the dog, putting up his fore-claw along his nose, and winking at Jack; 'you have yourself, man—don't be faint-hearted: he'll bet the contents of this bag;' and with that the ould thief gave it another great big shake, to make the guineas jingle again. 'It's ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... of God, charity, kind gentlemen, charity!" and the old crone stretches forth a long, bony claw. Should you pass on she calls down curses on your head. If you are wise, you go back and fling her a copper to stop the cold streaks that are shooting up your spine. And these old women were the most trying sights ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... evil. "Yah, yah, missie!" he said, reaching out a skinny claw and seizing the stick. "Look, this big notch, that is my father, Baas Frank shot him; and this next notch, that is my mother, Baas Frank shot her; and this next notch, that is my uncle, an old, old man, Baas Frank shot him also. ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... making a bow with an air which displayed his tail-feathers to advantage, "let me congratulate you on the charming family you have raised. A finer brood of young, healthy ducks I never saw. Give me your claw, my dear friend," he said, addressing the eldest son. "In our barn-yard no family is more respected than that ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... rolled in quick succession towards us, the sky to windward looked threatening in the extreme; that terrible wall of foam loomed higher through the gloom of night. Still, as long as the schooner's head could be kept turned away from the reef, we might hope to claw off from it. The chart had shown us that a reef existed, but its form was indistinctly marked. Hitherto we had found it running in a direct line, north and south, but it might suddenly trend to the east, and if so, without a moment's warning, we might be upon it. Harry, ...
— The Cruise of the Dainty - Rovings in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... him back to the door, where the aroma was finest and strongest. There he tore at the lowest bar with tooth and claw, but it did not move. He had the aroma and nothing more, and no big, strong wolf can live on odors only. The vague disappointment grew into a positive rage. He felt instinctively that he could not reach the good things that the wonderful ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... claw the elbow o' troublesome thought; But man is a soger, and life is a faught; My mirth and gude humour are coin in my pouch, And my Freedom's my ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... its ghastly head to hers; she felt its foul breath upon her cheek—its green dragon-like eyes penetrated her soul, and made her brain dizzy—it fanned her by the flapping of its mighty wings. It breathed into her ear vile whispers, tempting her to crime. It placed its huge vulture's claw upon her heart, as if to tear it from ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... delightful sense of humor, something that you can always count upon. She wrung her little claw-like hands together, twisted them with emotion; yet her sense of humor prevailed. She flashed ...
— Peking Dust • Ellen N. La Motte
... nay s'foot, I must claw out another device, we must not part so, Graccus; prethee keepe the sceane, til I fetch more actors to fill ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... the conditions and address ourselves with wonder, with awe, with love, as we well may, to that being in whom we move. I abate no jot of those vaster hopes, yet I would pursue that ardent aspiration, content as to here and today. I do not believe in a nature red with tooth and claw. If indeed she appears so terrible to any it is because they themselves have armed her. Again, behind the anger of the Gods there is a love. Are the rocks barren? Lay thy brow against them and learn what memories they keep. Is the brown earth unbeautiful? ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... having mothered him from his birth, worked with him through the long night of agony; and who, when the end came, cut the faded cotton flowers from her hat to put in the tiny claw-like hand that had never touched a real blossom; and it was Nance's heart that broke when ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... "handed it on" to future generations. Now, I have observed that the men who do this kind of work are always the second-rate men: first come the inventors, the pioneers, and then the perfecters; it is always at the close of a school that the tip-top men arise. They claw in their material from everywhere around, and use it up so thoroughly as to leave nothing for the later comers to do with it that was not done before, and done better, done when the stuff was fresh and the impulse full of its first vigour. Haydn ...
— Haydn • John F. Runciman
... Natural Selection as contrasted with other attempts to explain the process of Evolution is the part played by the struggle for existence. All naturalists in all ages must have known something of the operations of "Nature red in tooth and claw"; but it was left for this great theory to suggest that vast extermination is a necessary condition of progress, and even of maintaining ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... through the sitting-room, Rachel preceding me with my traps, I caught a glimpse of traces of better times. There was a plain wooden mantelpiece, a wide fireplace with big brass andirons, a sideboard with and without brass handles and a limited number of claw feet,—which if brought under the spell of the scraper and varnish-pot might once more regain its lost estate,—a corner-cupboard built into the wall, half full of fragments of old china, and, to do justice to the major's former statement, there was also a pair of ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... stern. He was not a clumsy fellow, but darkly forceful and direct, a man capable of a quick, desperate deed. At the moment there was the grim tiger in their eyes and from the soft paw the swift protrusion of the cruel claw. One thought of the wild revolutionary song, "Ca ca, ca ira, les aristocrats a la lanterne!" They were the children of the mob that had sung that song. With a bow, the spokesman said: "Messieurs, we think you are Germans and we wish to know if we are right." ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... waves came softly in, bearing that peculiar sea-weedy scent from the shore. Then he had another look at the crab, and could distinctly see its peculiar water-breathing apparatus at work, playing like some piece of mechanism about its mouth, while sometimes one claw would be raised a little way, then another, as if the mollusc were sparring at Arthur, and asking him ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... terminal portion of a limb bearing a lateral movable claw like that of a crab; specifically applied to the feet in some Parasitica in which the opposable ...
— Explanation of Terms Used in Entomology • John. B. Smith
... blood run cold. They call 'em Injin Devils down our way; and I guess there ain't no kind uv devils make a wuss-soundin' noise. I jist shut my eyes, and lay low; for when I knowed that furce, wild creter wor within two foot uv me, and nothing ter keep him off but a karkiss that he'd claw ter pieces in ten minutes, I kinder wondered how I'd been sich a plaguy fool as to think uv the plan, and ter feel ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... throne, they, quaking, see their ruler sitting there, With sharp claw the painted cushion of his seat they see him tear. Restless the giraffe must bear him on, till strength and life-blood fail her; Mastered by such daring rider, rearing, plunging, naught ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... was busy with a pleasanter task was correspondingly cheerful. She altered father's "Prince Albert" into a stately full-dress coat, ripping up its waist-seams, and pinned back the skirts of the coat into the proper claw-hammer shape. ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... them with the suddenness of rage. She kicked, and scratched, and bit, and clawed and spat. She seemed not to feel the defensive blows that were showered upon her in turn. Her own hard little fists were now doubled for a thump or opened, like a claw, for scratching. ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... under the luring glow of the moon. And a thing happened, all at once, to stab the truth home to him. A baby snowshoe rabbit, a third grown, hopped out into the open close to the cabin door, and as it nibbled at the green grass, a gray catapult of claw and feathers shot out of the air, and Peter heard the crying agony of the rabbit as the owl bore it off into the thick spruce tops. Even then—unafraid—Peter wanted to go out ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... were spent, mostly, in showing me that I was no longer my own master. There was not, however, that continuous hell-blast upon me that so scorched my soul on the following afternoon. The cats were tossing me in their velvet paws—only occasionally protruding a sharp claw as a reminder, until they could feel surer of their victim. They would say to me: 'Now we will exalt you to heaven;' and up I went, higher, higher, higher into the empyrean, until I heard the music of the spheres, and all things ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... little more than maintain a secure footing, and it was this moment that Tarzan chose to charge. With a roar that mingled with the booming thunder from above he leaped toward the panther, who could only claw futilely with one huge paw while he clung to the branch with the other; but the ape-man did not come within that parabola of destruction. Instead he leaped above menacing claws and snapping fangs, turning in mid-air and alighting upon Sheeta's back, and at the ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... cat he soon spied, As he walk'd the bank-side, And soon of his folly repented. She put out her paw, Seized him with her claw, And eat ...
— Sweets for Leisure Hours - Amusing Tales for Little Readers • A. Phillips
... beer-pots and spittoons and new long pipes, Might turn a caravansery's, wherein You found Noureddin Ali, loftily drunk, And that fair Persian, bathed in tears, You'd not have given away For all the diamonds in the Vale Perilous You had that dark and disleaved afternoon Escaped on a roc's claw, Disguised like Sindbad—but in Christmas beef! And all the blissful while The schoolboy satchel at your hip Was such a bulse of gems as should amaze Grey-whiskered chapmen drawn From over Caspian: yea, the Chief Jewellers Of Tartary and ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... friends. One's never seen without the other.... It's a fact, indeed—where the horse puts its hoof, there the crab sticks its claw.' ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... softly to himself as he scratched his left ear with his hind claw, but no one was paying much ...
— Tik-Tok of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... betwixt the evil pair, Faithless to God—for laws without a care— One was the claw, the other one the will Controlling. Yet to mass they both went still, And on the rosary told their beads each day. But none the less the world believed that they Unto the powers of hell their souls had sold. Even in whispers men each other told The details ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... mavis, I sing on the branches early, And such my love of song, I sleep but half the night-tide rarely; No raven I, of greedy maw, no kite of bloody beak, No bird of devastating claw, but a woodland songster meek. I love the apple's infant bloom; my ancestry have fared For ages on the nourishment the orchard hath prepared: Their hey-day was the summer, their joy the summer's dawn, And their dancing-floor it was the green ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... was the price agreed upon; here it is," he said, taking out a thick bundle of notes that occupied the whole inside of the poor, limp pocket-book; and as the old woman stretched out a skinny claw for them and began to slowly count them, he turned his gaze away, on to the upturned face of the girl watching ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... to be spun; in another a quantity of linsey-woolsey just from the loom; ears of Indian corn, and strings of dried apples and peaches, hung in gay festoons along the walls, mingled with the gaud of red peppers; and a door left ajar gave him a peep into the best parlor, where the claw-footed chairs and dark mahogany tables shone like mirrors; and irons, with their accompanying shovel and tongs, glistened from their covert of asparagus tops; mock-oranges and conch-shells decorated ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... to-morrow. In the first and best place, I am very near recovered; that is, though still a mummy, I have no pain left, nor scarce any sensation of gout except in my right hand, which is still in complexion and shape a lobster's claw. Now, unless any body can prove to me that three weeks are longer than five months and a half, they will hardly convince me that the bootikins are not a cure for fits of the gout and a Very short cure, though they ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... that the figure of his chum, now lying prostrate on the floor of the cavern with the head extending outward, was being drawn away from him by the claw which still clung ...
— Boy Scouts on the Great Divide - or, The Ending of the Trail • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... had arrived, but were not in the least prepared for use. A large basket showed a quantity of live crabs, which lay quietly enough, but a twitching claw here ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... himself into the cold, and leaves the crumbs from under the table to some other dog with less good-breeding and more worldly wisdom. The sensible thing to do is to stay where you like best to be; stay there with tooth and claw ready and a stout hide on which cudgels break. People, after all, soon get tired of kicking a dog that ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... collision with Romola; no persuasive blandness could cushion him against the shock towards which he was being driven like a timid animal urged to a desperate leap by the terror of the tooth and the claw ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... course fancy cutlets are meant, not the French chops, so called), only they are shaped to imitate a real cutlet, with a little bone inserted; or, in the case of lobster cutlets, a small claw is used to simulate the chop bone. Many only stick a sprig of parsley where the bone should be, to keep ...
— Choice Cookery • Catherine Owen
... bedside there was a claw-footed table, which also had the look of an old friend; and on it a dainty porringer, filled with cuttings of fragrant sweetbriar. This was some womanly conceit, I said to myself; and then I laughed, though ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... offspring's Nature's general law, From tigresses and cubs to ducks and ducklings; There's nothing whets the beak, or arms the claw Like an invasion of their babes and sucklings; And all who have seen a human nursery, saw How mothers love their children's squalls and chucklings: This strong extreme effect (to tire no longer Your patience) shows the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... reminds me of? Out in Springfield, Ill., there was a blacksmith who, not having much to do, took a piece of soft iron and attempted to weld it into an agricultural implement, but discovered that the iron would not hold out; then he concluded it would make a claw hammer; but having too much iron, attempted to make an ax, but decided after working awhile that there was not enough iron left. Finally, becoming disgusted, he filled the forge full of coal and brought the iron to a white heat; then with his tongs he lifted it from the bed of coals, and thrusting ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... out his bean shooter, and the grandparent took it, lay on his back, and with the handle of the bean shooter in one claw and the missile end in the other began to send pebbles at Donald at a great rate. He could hear them whistling past his ears, but could not see them to dodge. Fortunately none struck him, and when ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... both Flossie and Freddie laugh. There was running water in the kitchen, and Snoop loved to sit on the edge of the sink and play with the drops as they fell from the bottom of the faucet. He would watch until a drop was just falling, then reach out with his paw and give it a claw just as if he was reaching ...
— The Bobbsey Twins - Or, Merry Days Indoors and Out • Laura Lee Hope
... vos lits? qui les fait—les bons saints du paradis, peut-etre?" And Marianne and Lizette would slink away to the waiting beds. Nothing escaped this eye. If the poule sultane was gone lame, limping in the inner quadrangle, madame's eye saw the trouble—a thorn in the left claw, before the feathered cripple had had time to reach her objective point, her mistress's capacious lap, and the healing touch of her skilful surgeon's fingers. Neither were the cockatoes nor the white parrots given license to make all the noise in the court-yard. When madame ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... the wind. I do not know whether they meant to be as humorous as they were, but I can hardly think they were not amused at each other. They stood and lay very close together, with fierce glances, and quick, jerky motions of the head. Now and then one, tired of inaction, raised a deliberate claw, bowed its head, scratched with incredible rapidity, shook its tumbled feathers, and looked round with angry self-consciousness, as though to say: "I will ask any one to think me absurd at his peril." Now and then one of them kicked diligently at the ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... cunning, with slanted rat's eyes. Ornate head-dress and stiffly inlaid robes denoted him to be the High Priest. He held a claw-like hand high. ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... of Cock-fighting. Here Master Capon vaunts that his Game-Cock was hard enough for the gallant Shake-bag of Sir John Boaster; although Sir John Boasters famous Shake-bag, but three weeks before, had fought against that incomparable Game-Cock of Squire Owls-eg, and claw'd him off severely. ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... because we can replace the killing of the unfit by a scientific breeding which will prevent the unfit from getting a chance at life. We can replace instinct by self-discipline. We can substitute for the regime of "Nature red in tooth and claw with ravin" the regime of man the creator, knowing what he wishes to be and how to set about to be it. Whether this can happen, whether the thing which we call civilization is to be the great triumph of the ages, ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... banter and suggestive conversation among Christians, what would he say of the shameful backbiting which is heard whenever people meet, though but two individuals? Yes, what would be his judgment of those who in public preaching clinch and claw, attack ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... croaked, laying her hand, like a claw, upon his arm. 'Patience. I'll get at it. I know I can! If he was to hold it back from me,' said Good Mrs Brown, crooking her ten fingers, 'I'd tear ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... baseball club, but made of straw {294} tied around two or three switches and tightly sewn up in burlap.—One big fellow is selected for the bear. He has a school bag tightly strapped on his back, and in that a toy balloon fully blown up. This is his heart. On his neck is a bear-claw necklace of wooden ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... Valley of Jehoshaphat is the most ghastly sight I have seen in the world. From all quarters they come hither to bury their dead. When his time is come yonder hoary old miser, with whom we made our voyage, will lay his carcase to rest here. To do that, and to claw together money, has been the purpose of that strange ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... old, old-fashioned secretary, that filled up from floor to ceiling; and over the fireplace a mirror of equally antique date tilted forward from the wall. Opposite the secretary, a plain mahogany table; and eight high-backed, claw-footed chairs ranged stiffly ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... judge, being at Jaraicejo, laid his claw upon four Gitanos, and having nothing, as it appears, to accuse them of, except being Gitanos, put them to the torture, and made them accuse themselves, which they did; for, on the first appeal which was made to the rack, they confessed that they ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... the last word at him, and the priest took it up. "Ay, wretch! Wretched man indeed!" he repeated slowly, stretching out his long thin hand and laying it like the claw of some bird of prey on the tradesman's shoulder, which flinched, I saw, under the touch. "How dare you—such as you—meddle with matters of the nobility? Matters that do not concern you? Trouble! I see trouble hanging over ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... vessel on a dead lee shore. As the night closed in, it blew a dreadful gale, and the ship was nearly buried with the press of canvas which she was obliged to carry: for had we sea-room, we should have been lying-to under storm staysails; but we were forced to carry on at all risks, that we might claw off shore. The sea broke over us as we lay in the trough, deluging us with water from the forecastle, aft, to the binnacles; and very often as the ship descended with a plunge, it was with such force that I really thought she would divide in half with the ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... thing that stares me in the face every waking hour, like a grisly spectre with bloody fang and claw, is the extermination of species. To me, that is a horrible thing. It is wholesale murder, no less. It is capital crime, and a black disgrace to the races of civilized mankind. I say "civilized mankind," because ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... smoke and made a power dive. Forrester dodged and the fangs of the monster missed him by inches. Mars sank claw-deep into the ground, and Forrester slammed the War God on the side of his head with one mighty forepaw. Mars blew out a cloud of evil-smelling smoke and managed to jerk himself free. He leaped to all four feet, glaring at Forrester with great, ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... strewed with the bones of the victims whom the monster had devoured? O insatiate brute, and most disgusting, brazen, and scaly reptile! Let us be thankful, children, that it has not gobbled us up too. Quick. Let us turn away, and pray that we may be kept out of the reach of his horrible maw, jaw, claw! ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... out kangarooing. Killed an immense fellow: when standing on his hind legs fighting with me and the dogs, he was a foot higher than myself. He ran at me, and nearly gave me a desperate dig with his claw, which tore my only good hunting-shirt miserably. Smashed his ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... put into the hearts of all magistrates, zeal and care to cherish, defend, and guard the ecclesiastical discipline, together with the rest of Christ's ordinances, and to stop their ears against the importunate suits of whatsoever claw-backs who would stir them up against the church; and that, also, all governors and rulers of churches, being everywhere furnished and helped with the strength of the Holy Spirit, may diligently and faithfully ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... be an old beggar-woman and two little beggar-children, stragglers from some far-off region, who, as the carriage rolled onward, held out their hands and lifted up their doleful voices, most piteously beseeching charity. A yellow claw—the very same that had clawed together so much wealth—poked itself out of the coach-window, and dropt some copper coins upon the ground; so that, though the great man's name seems to have been Gathergold, he might just as suitably have been ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... scanning the clauses of the bill with Judge Parkinson for the last time, and giving orders to the captains of mercenaries as to the disposition of their forces; writing out passes for the deserving and the true. For these latter, also, and for the wavering there is a claw-hammer on the marble-topped mantel wielded by Mr. Bijah Bixby, pro tem chief of staff—or of the hammer, for he is self-appointed and very useful. He opens the mysterious packing cases which come up to the Railroad Room thrice a week, and there is water to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... saw a shrike pursue a chickadee, when the latter escaped by taking refuge in a small hole in a tree. One day in early spring he saw two hen-hawks that were circling and screaming high in air, approach each other, extend a claw, and grasping them together, fall toward the earth flapping and struggling as if they were tied together; on nearing the ground they separated and soared aloft again. He supposed that it was not a passage of war but of love, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... the water's edge, they moved in a solid mass, arms pinned down, shoulder to shoulder and chest to back. At times a man got an arm out of the press and began to claw the up-turned, tear-stained faces of his neighbors in wild endeavors to lift his whole body. But soon his madness subsided, the writhing arm sank back, and the man vanished out of sight. The mass once more moved stolidly, solidly onward. ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... knows, the one the people round about know, and the one God knows. That was the one you saw for a minute and, not to disappoint you, I've had to live up to it. It hasn't been easy. As you will see from his letter, even Louis doesn't need me now. And as for my boy—I know now, that though beasts claw at his life and colds and hungers and desolations come to him, they cannot put out the shine of him. But for me it has been very lonely. I wanted to be the thing of soft corners and seduction that you were sickened of. ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... away with one paw, while he stuck the claws of the other into the flesh of his antagonist, and rolled with him on the ground. Glass managed to reach his knife, and plunged it several times into the bear, while the latter, with tooth and claw, tore his flesh. At last, blinded with blood and exhaustion, the knife fell from the trapper's hand, and he became insensible. His companion, who thought his turn would come next, did not even think of ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... "But the lion, all at once, tried to reach out and claw a boy who was going to give an apple to an elephant. I saw that. I don't know what made the lion ...
— Nero, the Circus Lion - His Many Adventures • Richard Barnum
... he had a paw, suh, An', when Brer Buzzard try fer ter drap 'im. He'd scratch an' tickle 'im wid his claw, suh; An' when Brer Buzzard try fer ter flap 'im, He'd scratch an' wink ...
— Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit • Joel Chandler Harris
... belong to old man Clark, young Joe Clark's uncle, said the ancient, smacking his lips delicately over the ale and extending a tremulous claw to the tobacco-pouch pushed towards him; and he was never tired of showing it off to people. He used to call it 'is blue-eyed darling, and the fuss 'e made ...
— Captains All and Others • W.W. Jacobs
... calm or squall, run on deck, leave your robe de chambre in the round-house, and slide down into the lee gangway, where, according to previous contract, you see a grim-looking seven-foot seaman—pick out the tallest—waiting for you with a couple of buckets of sea-water, one held ready in his claw, with a half-grin upon his puckered phiz as he inwardly blesses the simplicity of the landsman who turns out of his hammock in the morning-watch to be soused like the captain's turtle in cold salt water; and i' faith! startlingly cold it gets when on the Banks, even in July, especially if within ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... lose him!" said Vince, with another laugh, as he lifted out his prize for it to come on to the rock with a bang. "Why, he has got the line twisted all round his claw, and—Ah! would you bite! I've got him safe this ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... na blate ava, Ae time ye're mockin Kirk an' a', An' then tae me ye gie' your jaw, Or my abode, An' tell how weel I laid my claw On patient Job. ...
— Verses and Rhymes by the way • Nora Pembroke
... Pussy, And then she will purr, And thus show her thanks For my kindness to her; I'll not pinch her ears, Nor tread on her paw, Lest I should provoke her To use her sharp claw; I never will vex her, Nor make her displeased, For Pussy don't like To ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... process and the frontal bone. The pliers must now be inserted into the groove already made by the saw on the hard palate, and the separation continued to the full extent backwards. A comparatively slight force exerted on the tumour either by the hand, or (when the tumour is small) by a pair of strong claw forceps, will suffice to break down the posterior attachments of the bone and remove it entire. The necessary laceration of the soft parts behind is so far an advantage, as it lessens the risk of haemorrhage from the ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... a toothache," continued Anko, "but I got a lobster to pull the tooth with his claw, so the ...
— The Sea Fairies • L. Frank Baum
... looked very blue, And wailed, "Oh, dear! what shall we do!" But the gingham dog and the calico cat Wallowed this way and tumbled that, Employing every tooth and claw— In the awfullest way you ever saw— And, oh! how the gingham and calico flew! (Don't fancy I exaggerate— I got my news from ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... words and made liars of themselves. Oh, they are wicked knaves! A Pale-face is a panther. When a-hungered, you can hear him whining in the bushes like a strayed infant; but when you come within his leap, beware of tooth and claw!" ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... it is now guessed that Caleb fought the Captain Marcus upon your account. Oh! that tale is talked of—for one thing, the young wild-cat left a claw behind him which the ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... and amusement at every hour. She comes home late from a feast, spends barely six hours in disturbed slumber, and has hardly rested so long as it takes a pebble to fall to the ground from a crane's claw before we have to dress her again for another meal. From the council-board she goes to hear some learned discourse, from her books in the temple to sacrifice and prayer, from the sanctuary to the workshops of artists, from pictures and statues to the audience-chamber, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... gaunt, forbidding anatomy, with hooked nose and brown skin. Tousled grey hair, like that of a Skye terrier, hung over her forehead, half concealing a pair of coal-black eyes. She rose up, barred the entrance with one claw-like hand, and ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... her stirred To anger by the plaguing bird: Proud of his love the beauteous dame With burning rage was all aflame. Now here, now there, again, again She chased the crow, but all in vain, Enraging her, so quick to strike With beak and wing and claw alike: Then how the proud lip quivered, how The dark frown marked her angry brow! When Rama saw her cheek aglow With passion, he rebuked the crow. But bold in impudence the bird, With no respect for Rama's word, Fearless again at Sita flew: Then Rama's wrath to fury grew. The hero ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... language which I don't understand. You say that she was beautiful, and I suppose you know what you mean by the word. How then is a beautiful person to be degraded by anything the likes of you, or your fellow-dog, do to her? The thing's absurd. You can't claw her soul or blacken the edges of that. You can't sell that into prostitution or worse. That is her own, and it's that which makes her beautiful,—in spite of the precious pair of you, bickering and mauling each other to possess her. Possess her, poor fool! Can you ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... would never take a blow without returning it; and having, like other heroes of antiquity, descended to the infernal regions, he received a cuff from the Arch-fiend who presided there, which he instantly returned, using the expression in the text. Sometimes the proverb is worded thus—'Claw for claw, and the devil take the shortest nails, as Conan ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... pincers—a claw some eight miles thick, bit into the east side of the salient near Pont-a-Mousson on the west bank of the Moselle River. The other claw of the pincers was about eight miles thick and it bit into the western flank of the salient in the vicinity of the little town of Haudiomont, ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... frightened creatures had opened the door, intending to kill the men wielding the ram—and had been unable to do a complete job. The doors gaped open. I stumbled over the reeking heap of slain. A dying man raised one horrible crab claw to me, called out my name! It was Jake, his ugly face now a horror. I had not even known he had received the reviving shot of ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... There is only one more thing to do— And seized by beak, and talon, and claw, Bony hand, and hairy paw, Yea, crooked horn, and tusky jaw, The four huge Bodies are haul'd and shoven Each after ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... longer am. I know not for what reason the Vineyard has lost its season." Her husband, who heard this, replied, "Vineyard thou wast, and Vineyard thou art: the Vineyard lost its season, for the lion's claw." The king, who understood what he meant, answered, "I entered the Vineyard; I touched the leaves; but I swear by my crown that I have not tasted the fruit." Then the steward understood that his wife was innocent, and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... out and smashed all the teeth of that side of the jaw. The second shot struck the tiger in the chest, but too low. What happened then Mr. Fraser does not exactly know, but he next found himself lying in front of the tiger, one claw of the beast's right foot being hooked into his left leg, in this way trying to draw Mr. Fraser towards him; the other paw was on his right leg. Mr. Fraser's chin and coat were covered with foam from the beast's mouth. He tried hard to draw himself out of the tiger's ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... Poitiers on his own confession of a compact with Satan, by which he agreed "to preach and did preach that everything told of sorcerers was mere fable, and that it was cruelly done to condemn them to death." This contract was found among his papers signed "with the Devil's own claw," as Howell says speaking of a similar case. It is not to be wondered at that the earlier doubters were cautious. There was literally a reign of terror, and during such regimes men are commonly found ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... matoutou falaise, or spider of the cliffs, of two varieties, red or almost black when adult, and bluish silvery tint when young,—less in size than the tarantula, but equally hairy and venomous; and the crabe-c'est-ma-faute (the "Through-my-fault Crab"), having one very small and one very large claw, which latter it carries folded up against its body, so as to have suggested the idea of a penitent striking his bosom, and uttering the sacramental words of the Catholic confession, "Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault."... Indeed I cannot recollect one-half of ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... pinions vigorously, and struck two sturdy strokes. Then the rope drew taut, and it fell back where it was wont to fall—it wrenched its claw, and the dream vanished.——Next morning the aristocratic English family was much concerned, and the landlord himself felt annoyed, for the condor lay dead ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... jungle or by reedy jheel, A tigress, comeliest of the forest, set The males at war; her hide was lit with gold, Black-broidered like the veil Yasodhara Wore for me; hot the strife waged in that wood With tooth and claw, while underneath a neem The fair beast watched us bleed, thus fiercely wooed. And I remember, at the end she came Snarling past this and that torn forest-lord Which I had conquered, and with fawning jaws Licked my quick-heaving flank, ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... lonesomeness," said Dad, "and I tell you, John, when that gits a hold of a man he ain't responsible. It's the same as shuttin' a man up in jail to break him off of booze—say, he'll claw the rocks out of the wall with his finger nails to git out where he can ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... stopped in the moonlight, at the landing of the stairs. White, claw-like hand clutched at the drunken curtain and ripped it from its fastenings. The pale light of the moon fell harsh upon it.... ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... flower-heads of this plant are remarkable from producing only 3 or 4 perfect flowers, which are situated exteriorly. All the other many flowers abort, and are modified into rigid points, with a bundle of vessels running up their centres. After a time 5 long, elastic, claw-like projections, which represent the divisions of the calyx, are developed on their summits. As soon as the perfect flowers wither they bend downwards, supposing the peduncle to stand upright, and ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... twinkling; then setting it upon one end, he began to hammer away at the orifices through which the stalk and root of the future tree make their way when the nut germinates. Having at length removed the filling up of these orifices, he inserted a claw, and actually split the strong inner shell, dividing it neatly into halves. At this stage of the proceedings, half a dozen greedy neighbours, who had been looking on, without offering a helping claw, shuffled nimbly forward to share the spoil, and it was curious to see how quickly they cleaned ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... head and muttering, finally spoke. "Very well, you nasty young man, I'll sell my glass. Give me the coin!" and he stretched out a dirty claw. ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... though it was) never tasted food more sweet. I was thus rapturously employed when I heard a dolorous whine and, starting about, beheld a ragged creature on the opposite side of the hedge who glared at the food with haggard eyes and reached out claw-like hands ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... winter, and it was only when a well-to-do relative sent her a check that she could afford a few weeks in Florida. But Miss Eyester was one of his favourites, and he immediately expressed the hope that she was to stay the entire season, while he noticed that she was wearing a mounted bear-claw ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... typified his armourial cognizance; [Hence the origin of Supporters] and horrible and laidly looked they in the guise of griffins, with artful scales of thin steel painted green, red forked tongues, and griping the banner in one huge claw, while, much to the marvel of the bystanders, they contrived to walk very statelily on the other. "Oh, the brave monsters!" exclaimed the butcher. "Cogs bones, this beats ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... red with blood. The half-ruined castle of Corbus fights with the winter, like a strong man with his enemies; the gargoyles on its towers bark at the winds, the graven monsters on the ramparts snarl and snort, the sculptured lions claw and bite the wind and rain[4]. In the gloomy halls the griffins seize with their teeth the great beams of the roofs, and the door is afraid of the noise of its own opening. The very shadows feel fear and the pillars are chilled with terror. The armour of the ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo
... State or Church, for which Rousseau had pined. He saw it result in the return of a portion of mankind to what we now believe to have been their primitive state, a state in which they were 'red in tooth and claw.' It was not that paradisaic state of love and innocence, which, curiously enough, both Rousseau and the theologians seem to have imagined was ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... neighbor,' rejoins Mr. Sam Blowaway, a leader of the national Young American party, 'pears how, if your old chap over there attempts that game, he'll get himself boots deep into a scrape he'll not find it so easy to claw out on.' And Sam got right up, and looked brimstone at him, straight across ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... substituted for that of the Medici, Savonarola for a while being at the head of the government, although only for a brief period which ended amid an orgy of lawlessness; and then, after a restless period of eighteen years, in which Florence had every claw cut and was weakened also by dissension, the Medici returned—the change being the work of Lorenzo's second son, Giovanni de' Medici, who on the eve of becoming Pope Leo X procured their reinstatement, thus justifying the wisdom of his father in placing him in the Church. Piero having been drowned ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... fortunate enough to find Mr. Andrew Larkspur alone, and disengaged. He was a little, sandy-haired man, of some sixty years of age, spare and wizened, with a sharp nose, like a beak, and thin, long arms, ending in large, claw-like hands, that were like the talons of a bird of prey. Altogether, Mr. Lark spur had very much of the aspect of an elderly vulture which had undergone partial transformation into a ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... Ordinarily she would pass it in contempt, but such impertinence must not remain unpunished. With a snarl of rage she dashed through the entrance and struck the wretched creature a terrible blow with one claw-armed paw that tore it into shreds and turning, with a second quick thrust tossed it out where it fell among the trumpet-vines, a ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... his attack, The snout now stinging, now the back, And now the chambers of the nose; The pigmy fly no mercy shows. The lion's rage was at its height; His viewless foe now laugh'd outright, When on his battle-ground he saw, That every savage tooth and claw Had got its proper beauty By doing bloody duty; Himself, the hapless lion, tore his hide, And lash'd with sounding tail from side to side. Ah! bootless blow, and bite, and curse! He beat the harmless air, and worse; For, though so fierce ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... ears. His back and head were of a reddish-brown colour, his cheeks red, his feet white, and he had three odd white spots on each side of his chest. But the funniest thing which I noticed about him, (I was always an observant rat,) was that he had a claw on his forefeet in addition to four toes, which I had never before seen in the tribes ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.
... considerable natural abilities, and all-must be brave and celebrated in battle. To disobey the mandate of a chief is at times to court instant death at his hands. At the present time the two most formidable chiefs of the Blackfeet nations are Sapoo-max-sikes, or "The Great Crow's Claw;" and Oma-ka-pee-mulkee-yeu, or "The Great Swan." These men are widely different in their characters; the Crow's Claw being a man whose word once given can be relied on to the death, but the other is represented as a man of colossal size ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... immense force, and on several occasions proved destructive to itself, as the broken limbs of the table used at Kinsale could testify. The table was a round, rather heavy walnut one, with a central column standing on three claw legs. Mr. Armstrong says that on several occasions he succeeded in raising the table without contact. It rose to the fingers held over it at a height of several inches, like the keeper of ...
— Psychic Phenomena - A Brief Account of the Physical Manifestations Observed - in Psychical Research • Edward T. Bennett
... exaggerations of sympathy, which do some injustice to the great Artificer whom we are for the moment assuming to be responsible for sentient life. Many of us are much concerned about "nature, red in tooth and claw." It is a sort of nightmare to us to think of the tremendous fecundity of swamp and jungle, warren and pond, and of the ruthless struggle for existence which has made earth, air, and sea one mighty battle-ground. In this we are again letting the fallacy ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... one who sent it. This dramatic instinct made a good reader of her when she took her turn with Barbara in reading aloud. They used to take page about, sitting with their arms around each other on the old claw- foot sofa, backed up against the ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... of woman's wakeness in ye. Oh, my cat-o'-cats! let any man throw her from him, which way he will, she's on her legs and at him again, tooth and claw. ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... waits thee, Queen Atossa waits to see Dire fulfilment of her troublous, vision-haunted sleep in thee. She hath dreamt, and she shall see it, how an eagle, cowed with awe, Gave his kingly crest to pluck before a puny falcon's claw. Haste thee! where the mighty shade of great Darius through the gloom Rises dread, to teach thee wisdom, couldst thou learn it, from the tomb. There begin the sad rehearsal, and, while streaming tears are shed, To the thousand tongues that ask ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... ignoring the presence of Frenchmen armed with murderous guns. I cannot discern the origin of the pseudo-Oriental legend which declares that the "crow of the wilderness" (raven) taught Cain to bury his brother by slaying a brother crow, and scraping a grave for it with beak and claw. The murderous bird then perched upon a palm-tree, whose branches, before erect, have ever drooped, and croaked the truth into Adam's ear: hence it has ever been of evil augury to mankind. The hoopoe, which the French absurdly call coq de montagne, also trotted by the path-side ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... perhaps the gaunt silhouette of the gallows, vivid in an overstimulated fancy, has sent many a man roving; the whisper down the world of yellow gold to be taken from the earth, transforming the blackened claw gripping it into the potent fingers of a money king, has entered the ear of many a wanderer and drawn him to such a land as this. An evil nature, a flare of temper, a wrong done and redressed in hot wrath and red blood, a mistake or a weakness or a wild spirit born a hundred years too late, any of ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory |
