"Gripping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... But, spinning, he clutched at Sutter's arm, gripping it with the desperation of a drowning man. Half inside, half outside the cone of blue light he seemed propelled into the depths of the bisected shell by an irresistible force. In vain did Sutter fight to release the hold upon his arm. His squirming legs fastened themselves ...
— Made in Tanganyika • Carl Richard Jacobi
... "Conscience," he began, gripping his hands at his back and schooling his syllables so sternly that, in what seemed to him his hour of Gethsemane, he spoke with a sort of unedged flatness, "your semblance of success has been splendid, magnificent. Until to-night I believed absolutely that you no ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... come rarely together, Gripping the driver's haft, And it's good to feel the jar of the steel And the spring of the hickory shaft. Why trouble or seek for the praise of a clique? A cleek here is common to all; And the lie that ...
— Songs of Action • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Sergeant-Major, and so far as I can gather there was never a case of the horse beating the rider. His skill as a breaker of horses deserves especial mention because of the characteristic manner in which it is done. By simply sticking in the saddle, and gripping with his legs, he wears down the horse's opposition, silently matching his powers of endurance against the tricks and tempers of the unruly member. Seldom does whip or spur come into play when Baden-Powell is fighting for the ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... the cave where the altar was erected—a cave in Superstition Mountains. She knelt and closed her eyes as the officiating-priest uttered a prayer, and, gripping his knife of jade stone, plunged it into her heart. She fell without a struggle. And ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... In a small open space on the other side of the hedge it illuminated the wild tortured face of Christine Manderson. And standing before her, gripping both her hands and holding her ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... the gate, when they were well out of hearing of 'Lias, she fell on the boy with a torrent of words, gripping him the while with her long thin hand, so that only violence could have released him. Her eyes flamed at him under the brown woollen shawl she wore pinned under her chin; the little emaciated creature became a fury. What did he come there for, 'moiderin 'Lias wi his divilments'? ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... De Lacy marked the old Knight's fall; then as for an instant his opponent's eye wandered thither, he sprang up inside his stroke, and gripping him with both hands about the ankles threw him over his head and ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... more, the stranger had tried to thrust him off; and a struggle followed, which ended in Zeb's getting by and gripping the mast again between him and ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... hence find gripping pangs and burning coals, for they have turned themselves away from this throne, and from the grace that proceeds therefrom; nor is it to any purpose whatever they plead for themselves. They are fallen from grace, and what can help them? Christ is become of none effect unto such, whosoever ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... wasn't mistaken!" Roger Strang sat forward in his chair, his hands gripping the arms until his knuckles were white. "I told you exactly what happened. They got him as he came off the elevator, and shot at him. Not at me, Morrel, at my son. They just clubbed me in the face to get me out ...
— Infinite Intruder • Alan Edward Nourse
... something to achieve. There is no such thing as over-intellectuality, but there is such a thing as a one-sided intellectuality. A person "takes it out" as we say in considering the consequences of proposed lines of action. A certain flabbiness of fiber prevents the contemplated object from gripping him and engaging him in action. And most persons are naturally diverted from a proposed course of action by unusual, unforeseen obstacles, or by presentation of inducements to an action that ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... together and leaped upon his opponent. The fight was on: fast and furious. The followers of each leader, appalled at the fierceness of the combat, stood as though frozen in their places. The flag, clutched by both fighters, was in danger of being torn from end to end. Then came the clinch. Gripping, writhing, twisting, tangled in the colors, the lithe young bodies wavered to their fall. And when they fell the flag fell with them, into the grime and slush of the road. In an instant Pen was on his feet again, but Aleck did not rise. He pulled himself ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... The teachers at Gary organize games in which the children are divided into two sides. Some of the children play the game, while others keep score. Unconsciously, under the stress of the most gripping of impulses—the desire to win—these little scorekeepers learn addition. As they advance in the work, they take up practical problems—measure the room for flooring and measure the school pavement for cementing. At school No. 4, in Indianapolis, ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing
... reading at the little pine table. He continued curled up in the big armchair—retrieved from the attic of the shell-battered Chateau d'Enghien. He concluded the great work sitting cross-legged on his bed, and the very restlessness which the story provoked was a sure sign of its gripping interest. ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... but it was too late now to turn back, and some desperate expedient was necessary. I found myself on deck, gripping a backstay and looking giddily down and then up at the dinghy, as it bobbed like a cork in the trough of the sea alongside, while Davies settled the ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... black gloves, till (as undertakers' gloves are generally meant to do) they burst in half-a-dozen places; taking off his hat, wiping his head fiercely, and putting the hat on again behind before; till at last he snatched his arm from Tom's, and gripping him by ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... at the spot where the pile of wood had been, and shuddered; then, calling up all the energy which remained—feeling, as he did, that at any time the tree against which he was held might give way—he wound his legs round it, gripping hard, and tried to pass the rafter along till its end rested against the next ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... of accomplishment, if only that streak of light were all she was likely to see or think of. If the horror which was gripping her throat should not take shape! If things would remain shrouded in impenetrable darkness, and not force themselves in shadowy suggestion upon her excited fancy! But the blackness of the passageway through which she had just ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... thoroughly in my element listening to the significant wail of the enemy's shell, punctuated by the ear-splitting report of our own gun. Weissman, gripping the rail with both hands, and to my surprise ducking when one went overhead, watched the target with a fixed expression, but made no attempt to control our gun-fire, which was far from creditable, as is inevitable when it is left to the mercy of the ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... coking-ovens building on the flat below the furnace, and the furnace itself taking on undreamed-of magnitudes under the hands of the army of workmen. Thomas Jefferson did his best to keep the pace, being driven by a new and eager thirst for knowledge mechanical, and by a gripping desire to be present at all the assemblings of all the complicated parts of the threefold machine. And when he found it impossible to be in three places at one and the same moment, it ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... glad to, but one can't restrain oneself. All at once your eyes become clouded, your head whirls, it seems as if some one were gripping your heart with his hand and you can think only of misfortune and sin. You walk about as if half crazed, and see nothing all around you. But now when your anger has calmed down, then you're at ease, as if nothing had happened. [LUKERYA comes in ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... His mother was a quiet, undemonstrative woman of the New England race, and if mother and son loved each other,—as it now transpired that they did,—no mention had ever been made of the fact on either side. The consequence was, that when, at parting, an iron hand seemed to be gripping the boy's throat, he had been so taken at unawares, that he had found it impossible to articulate a single word. On the mother's part there had been one little, half-suppressed sob that sounded in his ears yet. It left an ache in him that he did not at first know what to do with, but which ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... she was staring ahead into the blank wall of gloom as she spoke, and that it was not thought of the bloodshells, but of Quade, that made her fingers close more tightly about his own. His right hand was gripping the butt of his automatic. Every nerve in him was on the alert, yet she could detect nothing of caution or ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... riding clear of clouds, shone out over the concourse of men and women. Anywhere among them all might be Leh Shin, the needy Chinaman, and gripping his large hands into fists, Mhtoon Pah watched for him and expected him, but watch as he might, he did not come, neither was there any sign of him among all the crowd of faces that passed and repassed ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... banished the sergeant, and spent five minutes alone gripping the edge of his desk. Then he yanked Lab Nine's silent genius down to his office. That didn't help for the tracer stayed asleep. Not even a hiccup rewarded Moglaut's most active efforts on Lonnie's wave length. On others, fine. Through the night and on into the next day, ...
— Zero Data • Charles Saphro
... A gripping story about two young children, a boy of about fourteen and his sister of about twelve, who set off with their father, a south-sea whaling captain, on what is intended to be his last voyage, their mother having died during his previous three-year voyage. Unfortunately some of the ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... Gripping the spear before him in his right hand, Ross cautiously felt behind him with the left. His finger tips glided over a seamless surface where the growths had been torn or peeled away. Though he could not, or dared not, turn his head to see, he was certain that this was his proof ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... strung along the main-topsail-yard; the ship rearing and plunging under us, like a runaway steed; each man gripping his reef-point, and sideways leaning, dragging the sail over toward Jackson, whose business it was to confine the ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... the boy. He raised himself to the tips of his toes, bared his teeth to the gum, and with clutching talons, gripping at the air, yelled: "Aggh! If I had me growth! I'd bite his heart out! I'd ...
— The Mascot of Sweet Briar Gulch • Henry Wallace Phillips
... luxurious substitute: death and homicide in abundance. Comedy until you burst. Juicy melodrama. And the movie actor with his heavy-handed emphases for example, in a tragic, many-colored story of adultery (in period costumes) surpasses the hammy Hamlet in heart-gripping effect. ...
— The Prose of Alfred Lichtenstein • Alfred Lichtenstein
... it is, if—if it succeeds," Jem Three said, gripping the twisted old fingers warmly. "I kind of thought I'd rather not tell first off. But I can, ...
— Judith Lynn - A Story of the Sea • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... sink behind the dim grey forest. The Nestor, in the evening mist, was a golden shadow under the hill. This beauty made him melancholy. He was wishing passionately, as he stood there, for work, hard, dangerous, gripping work. He did not know that that was to be the last idle minute of his life. Hearing a step on the path he turned round to ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... FERROVIUS (gripping his shoulders) Oh, do not harden your heart, young man. Come: try for yourself whether our way is not better than yours. I will now strike you on one cheek; and you will turn the other and learn how much better you will feel than if you gave way to ...
— Androcles and the Lion • George Bernard Shaw
... meant him to be a wheel-horse. He had never had any hope of being chief of staff. Hawk-eyed, with a great beak nose and iron-gray hair, intensely and solemnly serious, lacking a sense of humor, he would have looked at home with his big, bony hands gripping a broadsword hilt and his lank body clothed in chain armor. He had a mastiff's devotion to its master ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... whispered Will, half-bashfully shrinking back, and gripping his comrade's arm. "Oh, Josh, I never knew your ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn
... assault and keeping on the defensive till he should lure me on to give him an advantage. And in this at length he had nearly succeeded, but happening to forget the seat which lay behind him in the bows of the boat, he overbalanced himself against it and fell backwards, still gripping his weapon ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... gripping his sword. At the entrance to General Jackson's headquarters in Royal Street they were questioned by a sentry, who looked from the swarthy old man to the pale lad, ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... constant waggings of the terrier's rough tail. And he walked somewhat abstractedly through the old paved court, past the unsympathetic sun-dial, and out through the great gates, which were guarded on either side by stone griffins, gripping in their paws worn shields decorated with defaced tracings of the old Vaignecourt emblems. Clematis clasped these fabulous beasts in a dainty embrace, winding little tendrils of delicate green over their curved claws, and festooning their savage-looking ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... Oxford, either rich or poor, need embark in the service which had been alluded to; which remark, however, only seemed to add fuel to the fire. For Hardy now rose from his chair, and began striding up and down the room, his right arm behind his back, the hand gripping his left elbow, his left hand brought round in front close to his body, and holding the bowl of his pipe, from which he was blowing off clouds in puffs like an engine just starting with a heavy train. The ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... his hand, and silently waited. The priest's head was raised, and his lips moved slowly in prayer. The maid sat rigid, her hands tightly gripping the edge of the bench. Though he knew that every moment brought nearer the chance of discovery, that the lives of them all hung on a thread as slender as a hair, the Captain stood without the twitching of a muscle, without a sign of fear or haste in ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... should judge," said the curate in a cheery tone—an athletic and Oxford-looking curate, his high white collar and high black waistcoat gripping a throat and chest that showed oars and cricket bats in every muscle. ...
— A Gentleman's Gentleman - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... "Mukoki," he said gently, gripping the warrior's hand, "Mukoki—I love your Great Spirit! I love the one who made these glorious forests, and that glorious moon up there, and the mountains and lakes and rivers! I Want to know more about him. You must tell me, so that I will know when he talks ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... head throbbed painfully and his eyeballs burned in their sockets. But he had air. And that was enough. As the pressure of blood on his brain lessened, he became conscious of the fact that he was still gripping the islander's throat. He released his fingers and the big head tilted forward until it rested face down on the water. With a start Gregory realized that the air had come too late for Red-beard. He must get the man ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... chap!" said Dan, with more than his wonted fervor, gripping his brother officer's hand. "And may we have ...
— Dave Darrin After The Mine Layers • H. Irving Hancock
... our treatment of a bird, we should make certain arrangements for it; we should place within its reach the branch of a tree, or crossed sticks which would afford foothold for its claws, since these are not designed to be spread out on the ground like the feet of creeping things, but are adapted to gripping a stick. We know that a bird "left free to move" over a vast, illimitable plain ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... what," hoarsely said the butcher, still gripping Purt's shoulder, "a boy can deny his own father, but 'e can't deny his dawg—no, sir! That there brute knows ye, bub. Only yisterday he grabbed several links of frankfurter sassingers off'n this hook ...
— The Girls of Central High in Camp - The Old Professor's Secret • Gertrude W. Morrison
... the historical records of American stamina goes The End of the Trail by James Earle Fraser. No single work of art at the Exposition has attracted more popular applause than this. It has a gripping, manly pathos that makes a direct appeal. The physical vigor of the rider, over-tried but sound, saves it from mere sentiment. An Indian brave, utterly exhausted, his strong endurance worn through by the long, hard ride, storm-spent, ...
— The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition • Stella G. S. Perry
... C. R. W. Nevinson could do justice to the interior of a Tank. You see a hand gripping something; you see the eyes and forehead of an engineer's face; you perceive that an overall bluishness beyond the engine is the back of another man. "Don't hold that," says someone; "it is too hot. Hold on to ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... saints. Raffaelle worked on, not looking off, though clang of trumpet, or fanfare of cymbal, often told him there was much going on worth looking at down below. He was only seven years old, but he labored as earnestly as if he were a man grown, his little rosy ringers gripping that pencil which was to make him in life and death famous as kings are not famous, and let his tender body lie in its last sleep in the ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... the Viscount, who had at length adjusted the trace to his own liking and Master Milo's frowning approval. "Good-by, Bev," he continued, gripping the hand Barnabas extended. "We are going down to Devenham for a week or so—Clemency's own wish, and when we come back I have a feeling that the—the shadows, y' know, will have passed quite away, y'know,—for good and all. ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... made interruption. She had sat immovable, her eyes upon his face, her hands gripping the arms of her chair. Long before the tale was finished her sad eyes had overflowed, the tears raining down her cheeks, and falling upon the cross ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... it," he cried. "Gaydon will never feel a hand gripping the life out of his throat because he forgot to search ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... "This afternoon he was in the dock, with his fate in the balance—the condemned cell or a favoured table at Claridge's. And your meeting! One can imagine him gripping your hands, with tears in his eyes, his voice broken with emotion, sobbing out his thanks. And instead you exchange polite bows. I would not have ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... mercifully dumb; though, even had he contrived to utter the rich Swedish oaths which occurred to him, his remarks could scarcely have been heard, for the crowd on the dock was cheering as one man. They had often paid good money to see far less gripping sights in the movies. They roared applause. The liner, meanwhile, continued to move stodgily ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... he would whisper, his trembling hand gripping the girl's arm until it bruised the flesh, "I am the work of Thy hands. Break me if Thou wilt. But give me courage not to cry out ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... And the kneeling fugitive, disarmed, gripping his bleeding hand, sullenly arose to his feet. "You've led me a chase, but I have you at last," the engineer continued. "Now you're going back to San Mateo and ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... at the hand of iron gripping his collar. "I know one thing, and it is something you, fine gentleman that you are, do not know. I know who my mother ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... with a mighty swing, and caught at Rainey's in mid-air, gripping it till Rainey bit his lips to repress a cry ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... derby hat pulled low over his eyes and gripping his suit case, Henkel slunk through the corridors of Bancroft Hall. Now he faced the hardest ordeal of all in going out through the entrance of the great white building, beyond which stood ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... brought closely and intimately in touch with these dark skinned children, their color struck her at first with a sort of terror—it seemed ominous and forbidding. She found herself shrinking away and gripping herself lest they should perceive. She could not help but think that in most other things they were as different from her as in color. She groped for new ways to teach colored brains and marshal colored thoughts and the result was puzzling both ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... No one spoke. There was no sound but the rattle of the wheels. It was too dark to see the expression on the faces of the twins. Rex was leaning partly forward, one hand gripping Roy's knee. He could think of nothing save the night Mr. Keeler had spent with them and the horror they had had of him before they found out that it was his brother whose picture was ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... man, collecting his scattered wits and his vast strength, made a violent effort to spring to his feet. But Rupert's whole weight was upon him, his long thin fingers were gripping him by each shoulder, his face grinned at him, close, detested, infuriating. The grasp that held him seemed to belong to no flesh and blood, it was as the grasp of skeleton hands, the grinning face became like a ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... bidding. Resolutely gripping the bar, he raised it on high and dealt the stubborn obstruction to Tom's freedom a reverberating blow. Three times he brought it down upon the opposing portal. Half a dozen more swings of the bar and splinters ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... glowed with the excitement of his delirium as he climbed, and then apparently catching his breath he rested before he called out: "I'm comin' down, clear the track for old Dan Tucker," and from the convulsive gripping of his hands and arms and the hysterical intake of his breath we who had seen Joe Nevison dive from the top of the old tree, from limb to limb to the bottom, knew what he was doing. His heart was thumping audibly when he ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... cunning against cat ferocity. Crouched in the snow, spitting and snarling, his teeth bared and round eyes blazing and long claws aching to close in a death grip, Upweekis waited impatient as a fury for the rush. He is an ugly fighter; but he must always get close, gripping his enemy with teeth and fore claws while the hind claws get in their deadly work, kicking downward in powerful spasmodic blows and ripping everything before them. A dog would rush in now and be torn to pieces; but not so the wolves. ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... levity Breslin stared in bewilderment; Lisner glared, gripping his fist convulsively; and Mr. Ben Creagan, an uneasy third inquisitor, breathed hard through his nose. Anastacio Barela, the fourth and last inquisitor, maintained unmoved the disinterested attitude ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... one of the colonists who was Captain Smith's loyal friend. Pocahontas turned to him, gripping her slender hands together in an agony ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... It was Edith's voice. It came to me that she had heard the shots and followed me. I felt every faculty concentrate into a mighty effort. I wrenched myself free from the gripping tentacle and it swept back. I turned to catch Edith, and as I did ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... a great clod of earth and launched it at Makoma. But the hero had his sack held over his left arm and the stones and earth fell harmlessly upon it, and, tightly gripping his iron hammer, he rushed in and struck the giant to the ground. Chi-dubula-taka grovelled before him, all the while growing smaller and smaller; and when he had become a convenient size Makoma picked him up and put him into ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... conscious of a shiver which seemed to spread from her heart throughout her limbs. She sat quite still, gripping her little ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Gripping the edge of the stretcher with one hand I reach out the other, trying to grasp some projection on the face of the cliff. Not being able to see I simply push farther away till it is out ...
— The Lost Kafoozalum • Pauline Ashwell
... he pushed on, knees gripping his horse in the tensity of his desire to hasten, thinking to hold the animal up from stumbling as an anxious rider in the night will do. Now he believed it could not have been Joan, and felt a momentary ease; now he was convinced that Mary could ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... waving his soft hat: and the next minute was lying stunned across a carrot-bed, with eight fingers gripping the back of his neck and two thumbs squeezing ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... German part," I said, gripping the corrugations of my truncheon more tightly. "I'm a little ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 28, 1914 • Various
... gripping it heartily. "If there is any mystery surrounding poor Abingdon's death, I believe you are the man to clear it up. But, frankly, it was his heart. I believe he had a touch of the sun once in India. Who knows? His idea that ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... of the quadriceps extensor in attempting to regain the balance when falling backwards; of the gastrocnemius, plantaris, or tendo-calcaneus in jumping or dancing; of the adductors of the thigh in gripping a horse when it swerves—"rider's sprain"; of the abdominal muscles in vomiting, and of the biceps in sudden movements of the arm. Sometimes the effort is one that would scarcely be thought likely to rupture a muscle, as in the ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... Madam Bartlett sat facing each other in the sepulchral library, where the green reading-light cast its sickly light on Lincoln and his Cabinet, on Andrew Jackson dying in the bosom of his family, on Madam savagely gripping the lions' heads on the ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... the spade and brought it down smartly on the object. When it hit, he almost dropped the spade. He had been gripping the handle rigidly, braced for a recoil. But the spade struck that unyielding surface and stayed. There was no perceptible give, but ...
— The Leech • Phillips Barbee
... he exclaimed, like one greatly amazed, "Lord love my eyes and limbs!" Then, all at once, he took my hand, gripping it very hard, and held it thus a long moment, loosing it as suddenly; and so I turned and, lifting the blanket, went out into the dreary desolation ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... poem by Edward Sill in 'The Manhood of the Master' cheers me up now as then with the thought that a broken sword flung away by a craven as useless was used by a king's son to win victory in the same battle. God will use it and perform His work. We have dedicated ourselves for His duty which is gripping our souls. He will use them according ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... of disturbing their slumbering shipmates; when this sort of steady quietude would begin to prevail, habitually, the silent steersman would watch the cabin-scuttle; and ere long the old man would emerge, gripping at the iron banister, to help his crippled way. Some considering touch of humanity was in him; for at times like these, he usually abstained from patrolling the quarter-deck; because to his wearied mates, seeking repose within six inches of his ivory heel, such would have been the reverberating ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... the water, and still supporting the now unconscious form of Lady Margaret, swam rapidly towards the yacht. Two minutes later he was gripping the wheel and concentrating all his immense will power upon the task ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 19th, 1914 • Various
... taken her at her own estimate of her personal and social importance. She had the effect of challenging you to do less, as she advanced slowly between the wall of state-rooms and the backs of the people gripping their chairs, and eyed them with a sort of imperious surprise that they should have left no place for her. So at least I read her glance, while I read in that of the young lady coming after, and showing her beauty first over this shoulder and then over ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... for she was clearly bent on seeking out Leavitt at once. A strange calmness overlay her. She paid no heed to Lakalatcha's gigantic, smoke-belching cone, but, with fingers gripping the rail, scanned the forbidding and inscrutable forest, behind which lay the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... entirely of amateurs from the countryside. With Federal staunchness, and without any attempts at punctilious unison, they proceeded to play some of my compositions in a loud and irrefutable manner. They then paid me homage in a little speech, and I replied heartily, after which there was much gripping of all sorts of horny hands on my part, as we drank a few bottles of wine on the beach. For years afterwards I never passed this beach on very frequent visits without receiving a friendly handshake or a greeting. I was generally in doubt as to what the ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... The wine he had drunk had not taken effect and Steve Hunter had been forced to go home disappointed. All the evening something stronger than wine had been gripping him. Now he knew what it was. All through the evening thoughts and desires had whirled through his brain. Now they were all gone. "I won't let her do it," he muttered, and running quickly to the ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... nature of the wood-dog that he will run from the presence of man if chance of escape be offered; yet if cornered he will show all the ferocity of a wounded boar. In this instance the dog could not retreat to advantage, and so he sprang at the horse, gripping the tender muzzle in his strong, sharp teeth, and hanging there like a rat on a terrier. The horse, maddened with pain, plunged and reared. His master drew his hunting-knife and made an ineffectual pass at the ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... leaning forward, convulsively gripping a stout black knee with each of his thick hands; his mouth had fallen open so that the gold fillings of three teeth gleamed; his eyes were blinking, two tears rolled slowly out of ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... noiseless and silent, Merla crept swiftly, under the shade of the camel's body, across the enclosure to the mud partition behind which her youngest brother slept, and roused him. "Nungoon!" she said breathlessly, gripping his shoulder, "take the track to the river, and run for your life. You will overtake the Englishman. Tell him this. 'Merla says: Run to the launch and get off the land quickly, and never come back to Omdurman, or come with a guard. They seek to kill ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... Braith would say when they parted, gripping Rex's hand and smiling at him. But Rex did not see Braith's face ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... full exercise of her profession—all these together make of the emancipated modern woman a compulsory vestal, before whom life, with its great clarifying sorrows and its deep, entrancing joys, rolls on without touching or gripping her soul. ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... Gripping her nephew's arm with her bony old woman's hand, Miss O'Donoghue began a laborious ascent, pausing every five steps to breathe stertorously and reproachfully, and look round upon the sandstone walls with supreme disdain; but this was nothing to the air with which, when at last installed ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... me in life," said Mr. Wilder, and proceeded to tell me how the Doctor had filled him with optimism and success. He was always doing this, gripping young men by the shoulders and shaking them into healthful life. And then men of political or national prominence were always seeking him out, to gain a little dynamic energy and balance from the Doctor's storehouse of experience and philosophy. He ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... Hold 'em! Hold 'em! Hold 'em!" chanted the grand-stand. Clint was scowling ferociously and gripping his hands hard between his knees. Amy was patting his feet on the boards. Chase was studying the situation intently, outwardly quite unaffected by the crisis. "Someone," he observed, "is making a mistake there. They'll never get six yards ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... of an excited group of Indians. Two of them threw themselves upon him, but with a hard right and left he laid them low and, seizing a stick of wood, sprang toward two others who were seeking to batter the life out of Cameron as he lay gripping his enemy by the throat with one hand and with the other by the wrist to check a knife thrust. Swinging his stick around his head and repeating his cry for help, Martin made Cameron's assailants give back a space and before they could renew the attack Sergeant Crisp burst open ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... everything about altruism that social science would ever formulate, and had stopped right there. All at once, his look altered; from objective it became subjective. The question seemed suddenly to hook onto something inside, like a still street-car gripping hold of a cable and beginning to move; the mind's eye of the young man appeared to be seized and swept inward. Presently without a word he ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... within the other room and closed the door softly. Olga stood, her hands gripping the back of ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... In his mind he could reconstitute the scene—Rrisa's hands gripping the rail, his climb over it, his leap. For a moment the Master stood there with blank eyes, peering out over the burning, tawny desolation of the great sand-barrens that stretched away, ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... visitor? Softly Howland went back to his heavy coat and slipped his small revolver into his hip pocket. The knock came again. Then he walked to the door, shot back the bolt, and, with his right hand gripping the butt of his pistol, flung ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... of turning, he leaned forward, gripping the Lectern with both hands, and seemed again to be searching for ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... the villagers were making for the wood, and the whole place rang with cries of excitement and dismay. The wintry scene was revealed only too clearly by the ruddy glare and by the same sinister light. Lambert suddenly beheld Chaldea at his elbow. Gripping his arm, she spoke hoarsely, "The tiny rye is dead. He drove the engine over a bank and it smashed him ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... sticks for his nest, he searches out a tree and breaks off the dead branches by his weight. If the stick be stubborn, he rises far above it and drops like a cannon ball, gripping it in his claws and snapping it short off at the same instant by the force of his blow. Twice I have been guided to where Ismaques and his mate were collecting material by reports like pistol shots ringing through the wood, as the ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... tone an aching knot in the boy's throat relaxed. He began to talk hurriedly, in a desperate whisper, his hands like little birds' claws gripping the other's great gauntleted fist. "You do not know how wicked I am—I am so wholly forward the wonder is the devil does not take me at once. I live only in what my father calls the lust of the eye. I—I would rather ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... contracts and extends himself that he pulls to and fro those who are trying to restrain him by their gripping weight, and I can see the zigzags of the candle held by a kneeling man whose other arm engirdles the mutilated maniac, who shouts so fiercely that he wakes up the sleepers and dispels the drowsiness of the rest. On all ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... came his reply. His face, with the light of the candle gleaming full upon it, bore a queer pallor—the white of cold ashes. His right hand, which had been resting carelessly on the blanket, was now gripping it, the muscles tense and knotted. Yet after another long silence his voice came ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... up to trap, creeps like a rascal from the sheriff's-office, and with his capias armed, ere you are half-dressed, gives you the chase, and, as you "leg" away for the bare life, his knuckles dig into the seat of your unmentionables, gripping you like a tiger—that indeed is une ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... quickly raised his rifle and fired; and the horse, spilling its rider out of the saddle, floated away tail first. The fugitive, gripping his rifle, bobbed and whirled at the whim of the greedy water as shots struck near him. Making a desperate effort, he staggered up the bank and fell ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford
... joined us. Looking round I perceived a very ancient man clad in a white robe. He was broad-faced and bald-headed, and his eyes burned beneath his shaggy eyebrows like two coals in ashes. He supported himself on a staff of cedar-wood, gripping it with both hands that for thinness were like to those of a mummy. For a while he considered us both as though he were reading our souls, then said in a ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... for anyone to do? He paused, then turned and went downstairs again, telling himself that he was a fool—that he was making mountains of molehills, that there did not exist, in fact, even a molehill; yet having all the while a sickening feeling within him, as if some gripping hand had got hold of his poor physical and material heart, and was squeezing it. His room looked more gloomy than ever when he got back to it, but it did not matter now, because he was not going to remain there. He only stopped for a minute ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... oxygen tanks, the two cadets shot toward the ship. They quickly clambered onto the stern where Connel lay stretched out on the side of the hull, arms extended, his gloved hands gripping the small cleat on the side ...
— Sabotage in Space • Carey Rockwell
... before him, slender, but generously formed; her hair—once so thin and uncared-for—fell in heavy waves over her forehead. She had emerged from her stunted shell into a glorious maturity. "Pelle," she said, with downcast eyes, gripping both his hands, "don't go there to- night—wait till tomorrow! All the others are rejoicing over the victory to-night—and so should you! ... Come with me, to my room, Pelle, you are so unhappy." Her face showed him that she was fighting down ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... Archie responded by gripping his companion tightly by the wrist, and the two young men stood listening to a faint rustling away to their left, till every sound they could hear came from behind them, where their commander and the Resident were still talking at the ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... talk like that, Mother!" cried Susie, gripping her hand convulsively. "You thought you'd get it again and put it back. You didn't mean to steal from me. I know all about it. And I've got the money. Mr. Ralston found a check you had thrown away—you'd signed your name on it in the wrong place. When we saw the date, ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... layer after layer of cargo; through brandy casks, pianos, boxes of ladies' bonnets; and all this in a hold whose shape made it harder and harder the more he mounted towards the cargo hatch. This a very gripping tale, faultlessly written, and very hard to put down. Unlike other tales of the sea nobody gets killed, though some of the rats have to go, even being eaten as the ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... him again, and quarter poles seemed to dance before his eyes like giddy marionettes, while the long rows of blue seats appeared to be tilted up at a dangerous angle. Then slowly the clown's bewilderment merged into keen understanding, but his painted face reflected none of the anguish that was gripping at his ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... and waved the sceptre in a fine manner. So we followed, each tiny boy gripping my hand tight. We were all three a trifle awed. Elsbeth led us into a dark underbrush. The branches, as they flew back in our faces, left them wet with dew. A wee path, made by the girl's dear feet, guided our footsteps. Perfumes of elderberry and wild cucumber ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie
... gripping his shoulder; it seemed urging him to arise. He felt each separate finger—long, slender, like bands of steel. The nail at each finger-end was more nearly a claw, the whole hand a thin, clutching thing ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... noise which came from Nickey's room, and when there was a crash as if the chimney had fallen, she could stand it no longer, and hurried aloft. Nickey stood in the middle of the floor, clad in swimming trunks, gripping a large weight (purloined from the barn) in either hand, very red in the face, ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... She was still wearing her costume of the Swan-Maiden, and there was something frailly virginal and elusive about her as she drew away from him that set the hot, foreign blood in him on fire. In two strides he was at her side, his hands gripping her bare arms with a savage clasp that ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... captain cried, gripping him by the shoulder and almost throwing him over the rail. But the flame and smoke were too terrible, and he followed hard after McCoy, both men wriggling on the rope and sliding down into the boat together. A sailor in the bow, without waiting for orders, ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... retraced his steps to where the saddle lay. After that he almost trotted down the coulee, and he would not look back again until it struck him as odd that the nickerings of the horse did not grow perceptibly fainter. With a queer gripping of the muscles in his throat he did turn, then, and saw Rambler's head over the little ridge he had just crossed. The horse was making shift to follow him rather than be left alone in that strange country. Ford ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... by such nonsense. The calf resting at the end of his pegged rope arose, looked about him and lay down again as if he would not be a party to poor Peter's absurd nocturnal enterprise. The darkness and the vastness of the wooded country seemed to chill Peter's hopes. Now that the gripping spell was over he hardly ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... Hen standing near by, and hardly knowing whether to look delighted at seeing his cruel boss thus being tied up, or show the dreadful fear that was gripping his soul as he ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... arms; and then there was no little diversion; dire was the screaming of the porkers, yet the purchaser invariably appeared to know how to manage his bargain, keeping the left arm round the body of the swine and with the right hand fast gripping the ear—some few were led away by strings. There were some Welsh cattle, small of course, and the purchasers of these seemed to be Englishmen, tall burly fellows in general, far exceeding the ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... stranger," said Johnny gripping the other's hand, "I can give you welcome, comrade. We are ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... could plainly see the Maid, coming last of all, her body swung round in the saddle as she looked back at the foremost foemen, who were within a lance's length of her. And D'Aulon and Pierre du Lys, gripping each at her reins, were spurring forward. But through the press of our clubmen and flying horsemen they might not win, and now I saw, what never man saw before, the sword of the Maid bare in battle! She smote ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... weave his adventures into a gripping masterpiece. Starting in as cabin-boy on a freighter to Alaska, young Thorwald, in the past ten years, has simply crowded his life with adventure, thrill, and experience, though thrills mean nothing to him. He was in the Klondike ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... own thought of womanhood as something so rare a thought might tarnish it. First love, shorn of boy fallacies, strong, irresistible, protective, passionate. He closed his eyes and, for the first time in his life, touched leather, gripping the horn of his saddle as if he would squeeze it ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... and solemn; one that no outside eye has ever gazed on, no lips have ever dared to breathe. They stood in the shadow of death, their own and another's. Their heads were bowed. Their bodies shook and trembled. With hands raised they took the oath, terrible, relentless, overpowering, gripping them from now on as in a vice; both sexes alike, with voices spent and faint ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... my life," commented Collins, as he squared himself for an encounter and made ready to leap on the man when he came within gripping distance. "Here! get out of the way, madmazelly. Business before pleasure. And, besides, you're like to get bowled over in the rush. Here, chauffeur!"—this to the driver of a big, black motor-car which swept round the angle of the bridge at that moment, and made as though to scud down ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... the processes of a tree into their mechanical and chemical elements, but there is besides a kind of force there which we must call vital. The whole growth and development of the tree, its manner of branching and gripping the soil, its fixity of species, its individuality—all imply something that does not belong to the order of the inorganic, automatic forces. In the living animal how the psychic stands related to the physical or physiological and arises out of it, science cannot tell us, but the relation ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... Gripping Bronner's hand, Boynton left the room. Lindsey accompanied the Major to the door and into the reading room, pointing to the placard tacked up under ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... hands fell on his shoulders. The fingers bit deeply into the flesh, drawing a groan of pain from Hamlin. He was lifted to his feet—off his feet, so that he dangled in the air like a pendulum. He was suspended by the shoulders, Lawler's fingers gripping him like iron hooks; he was shaken until his feet, powerless to retard the movement, were flopping back and forth wildly, and his teeth rattled despite his efforts to clench them. It seemed to him that Lawler would snap ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... said Amy, gripping both hands tight in her lap as the car swerved sharply and executed a magnificent skid on two wheels, "you know it won't do either the boys or us any good if we get killed ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... command was fairly out of his mouth, the man called Dave made a kick at the detective's uplifted arm, so swift and accurate and forceful that Nick felt the bones of his wrist fairly crack under the blow, and the fingers of his hand gripping the weapon turned numb and tingling as ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... ensued was even more dreadful. Davidson felt sick. He tore his feet from the spot and walked straight before him, gripping the revolver and peering into the obscurity fearfully. Suddenly a bulky shape sprang from the ground within a few yards of him and bounded away. Instinctively he fired at it, started to run in pursuit, and stumbled against something soft which ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... blackness to which he had been stranger for more than half his life—had come upon him as an enemy smothering him, muffling his head in its terrible black folds, stopping his nostrils with its black fingers, gripping his windpipe with black cords, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... he remarked, ignoring the unnatural calm with which they greeted his entrance. He shook hands with them in turn, striding from one to another and gripping their hands so heartily that Nathaniel Letton could not forbear to wince. Daylight flung himself into a massive chair and sprawled lazily, with an appearance of fatigue. The leather grip he had brought into the room he dropped carelessly beside ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... the fountain pool. Orchids, dangling from the metal lattice, hung their sensuous blossoms in vapour-laden air. Luxurious vines, climatized to this unreal world, clambered over cosy arbours, or clung with gripping fingers to the mossy ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... that," she slowly said. "Till the next one." The old unhappiness had returned, gripping her heart. She no longer looked at him, but stared away, straight in ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... rock. And your "boy" remarks nonchalantly, "Plenty coolie fall here. Too high place." Or they are clambering over boulders, one or two told off to disentangle the line wherever it catches. Or they are struggling along a greasy slope, their bare feet gripping the mud, hardly able to advance a step or even to hold their own. As a labour-saving machine one must welcome the advent of the steamboat, as one is constrained to welcome even that of the motor-omnibus. But from the traveller's point of view it is different. ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... unpainted to stand for a chlorine atom. Now try to pile them up so that above and below each black ball, to the right and left of it, and also in front and behind it, there shall be a white ball. The pile which you would probably get would look like that of Fig. 69. I have omitted the gripping part of each dumbell because I don't believe it is there. In my picture each circle represents the nucleus of an atom. I haven't attempted to show the planetary electrons. Other crystals have more complex arrangements for piling ...
— Letters of a Radio-Engineer to His Son • John Mills
... man paused, his head bent forward, his eyes alert and searching, both hands gripping the table. There was a long silence, in which the ticking of the clock upon the wall seemed unduly loud and in which the buzz of cross-cut saws came sounding through the evening air. Yet ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the Professor, gripping his gun resolutely, crept along toward the opposite side of the camp where the noise had seemed to come from. So quietly had he moved that he made scarcely a sound, until suddenly there came a commotion that more than made up for the noise he ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Ozarks • Frank Gee Patchin
... toes, in order to make her feet seem smaller and left bloody marks on the glass slipper. Madame Perrault's slipper was, I think, of white fur, and there was no such brutality in her fairyland. But, except Hans Christian Andersen's, there are no such gripping fairy tales as those of the Brethren Grimm. During this vacation, too, I discovered the "Leprachaun," the little Irish fairy with the hammer. He was not at all like the English fairies in Shakespeare's "Midsummer ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... flying at a height of about half a mile. Shrouded in the tropical twilight, the landscape below was but dimly discernible. As the darkness came on, Ethel discovered that a small light glowed from the side of the car in front of the driver. Gripping the hand-rail, she made bold to raise herself; and, stopping beneath the searchlight and machine-gun that hung, one beneath the other, on swivels in the center of the framework, she peered forward over ...
— In the Clutch of the War-God • Milo Hastings
... fife-rail, and returned to drag Larry reeling to his feet and help him to the fife-rail. Out of the wash, Tony, the Greek, crawled on hands and knees and sank down helplessly at the fife-rail. There was nothing suicidal now in his mood. Struggle as he would, he could not lift himself until the mate, gripping his oilskin at the collar, with one hand flung him through the air into the ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... hospital experiment. The one, the universities, with rare if wonderful exceptions, are fairly hopeless; the other is not only rich in promise, but few realize how full in performance. Most of the literature which is gripping that great intellectual no-man's land of the silent readers, is basing its appeal, and its story, on the rather uncolored and bald facts which come from Freud, Trotter, Robinson, Dewey, E.B. Holt, ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... one of his remarkable exhibitions of youthfulness. Flinging aside his decrepitude, as though it had been no more than an affectation, he shot bolt upright, gripping the arms of his chair. "Last night, within a handful of hours of my forbidding him the house, he had the impertinence to call here to inform me that he was in love with Terry. Not content with that, he added insult to his impertinence ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... of wheels brought him back to the time and place. He looked up, shaking off the spell; but his hands were tightly shut, as if he might be gripping the last tatters of abandoned hope. With a quick gesture he made as though to wrap them close about him, and then smiled at the realism into ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris |
