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More "Clutch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Alexai Dmitritch," Paklin began, "you are upset, and for a very good reason. But have you forgotten in what times and in what country we are living? Amongst us a drowning man must himself create the straw to clutch at. Why be sentimental over it? One must look the devil straight in the face and not get excited ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... in much the same condition, but I managed to mutter something as I moved the lever, and touched the clutch-pedal with a caress timid as a falling snowflake. Almost apologetically, I slid the lever into position, and let in the clutch. Somehow, I had not expected it to answer so soon; but, as if it disliked being patted by a stranger, ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... when his brother demanded the reason for this treatment, he said, 'Because thou hast twelve rods in thine hand, and I have but one. Give thine to me, and peace shall prevail between us!' But Judah refused to do his bidding, and Joseph beat him until he dropped ten rods, and only two remained in his clutch. Joseph now invited his brethren to abandon Judah and follow after him. They all did thus, except Benjamin, who stayed true to Judah. Levi was grieved over the desertion of Judah, and he descended ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... time that he had got his clutch on Crosby's money the bandit was choking to death at the end of his own rope, hung from the limb of an apple-tree, and, having secured the gold, the Cowboys went their way into the darkness. Crosby soon made his appearance in the ranks of the Continentals, and, though ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... destined to see once again the settlement at Sydney, whence had radiated the series of his valuable and unsparing researches; but on the next and final occasion he was "caught in the clutch of circumstance." His leave-taking in August, 1803, was essentially his farewell; and his general observations on the country he had served, and which does not forget the service, are, though brief, full of interest. He had ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... beasts are perfect in the field, And men seem men so suddenly— (But take ten swords and ten times ten And blow the bugle in praising men; For we are for all men under the sun, And they are against us every one; And misers haggle and madmen clutch, And there is peril in praising much. And we have the terrible tongues uncurled That praise the world to the sons of ...
— Poems • G.K. Chesterton
... than they began to throw up defences and remove their valuables into the interior. It was in the highest degree irksome to Raleigh to wait thus inactive, while this handsome Spanish colony was slipping from his clutch, but he had been forbidden to move without orders. After three days' waiting for Essex, a council of war was held on board the 'War Sprite.' On the fourth Raleigh leaped into his barge at the head of a landing company, refusing the help of the Flemings who were with him, and stormed ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... street. There, something in the air—the balm of advancing spring; a faint chill, the Parthian shot of retreating winter; some psychic apprehension of the rising sap; the slight northing of the sun; or some subconscious clutch at knowledge of minute alterations in the landscape—apprised Mr. Brassfield's strangely circumscribed mind of the maladjustment with time resulting from the reign of Amidon. But however bewildered Florian's mentality might become at such things, it was different with ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... had hated it, and to her last breath she meant to fight against it, dragging herself up again and again above its flood till she gained the bright pinnacles of success which presented such a slippery surface to her clutch. ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... to roll. She had seen them passing, with their guns, in those first proud days of the war, when they had reckoned themselves invincible, and been so sure of victory. She knew what cruelties, what indignities, they had put upon the helpless people the war had swept into their clutch. She knew the defilements of which ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... about the fingers, that told much. Marilda had at once sent for Dr. Brownlow as the nearest, and he was at home; but he could only look and do nothing, but attempt to revive circulation, all in vain; and with Marilda standing by, with one convulsive clutch of Angela's hand, the true mother of her orphaned life, little Lena sank to a peaceful rest from the ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... not his arms been firmly held by three laughing girls, who pulled not wisely, but too well. He was further incommoded by the presence of a small urchin who lay on the dusty ground beneath his feet, fastening an upward clutch on the ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... underneath our financial arrangements. It is now an incredible promise. The value of a pound note waves about while you look at it. What will happen to it when peace comes no man can tell. Nor what will happen to the mark. The rouble has gone into the Abyss. Our giddy money specialists clutch their handfuls of paper and watch it flying down the steep. Much as we may hate the Germans, some of us will have to sit down with some of the enemy to arrange a common scheme for the preservation of credit in money. And ...
— In The Fourth Year - Anticipations of a World Peace (1918) • H.G. Wells
... him—of my only son in the clutch of his bitter foe, and I thank you for reminding me of him, little as I have for these long years needed spur to my remembrance. Bring ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... shore through the rolling seas with those two women, my belly cleaves to my backbone and I become faint.... For the current was against us, and neither Sipi nor Solepa were good swimmers, and many times had we to clutch hold of the jagged coral, which tore our skins so that our blood ran out freely, and had the sharks come to us then I would not be here with thee to-night drinking this, thy good sweet grog which thou givest me out of thy kind heart. Ta|pa|! When I look into ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... only made him more unhappy than he was before. But why should it do this? Was he not doing what was best? Would it not be better for Uncle Billy, for Mrs. Burnham, for himself? Must he, for the sake of some farfetched moral principle, throw himself into the merciless clutch of Simon Craft? ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... King, and General Guph sprang forward to obey. Polychrome stood quite still, yet when Guph attempted to clutch her his hands met in air, and now the Rainbow's Daughter was in another part of the room, as ...
— Tik-Tok of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... suspicion as to what she had been up to in his absence quieted her. There was little forcing or pretense in this gayety; it bubbled and sparkled from the strong swift current of her healthy passionate young life which, suspended in the icy clutch of fear when he was away from her, flowed as freely as the brooks in spring as soon as she realized ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... priest went to anoint his hands with the oil of extreme unction, he refused to open his right hand, which clutched a few dirty coins, not considering that very soon neither his hand nor he himself would be his own any more. And so we close and clench, not our hand, but our heart, seeking to clutch the world ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... Soapy's design to assume the role of the despicable and execrated "masher." The refined and elegant appearance of his victim and the contiguity of the conscientious cop encouraged him to believe that he would soon feel the pleasant official clutch upon his arm that would insure his winter quarters on the right little, tight ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... made a swift plunge to take the cloaked figure by surprise, but even as one hand shot out and gripped the throat while the other held his threatening iron aloft, his clutch relaxed, his arm fell nervelessly at ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... be travelled at a foot's-pace the guide took advantage of the soft grassy track which leads out of Hilo, to go off at full gallop, a proceeding which made me at once conscious of the demerits of my novel way of riding. To guide the horse and to clutch the horn of the saddle with both hands were clearly incompatible, so I abandoned the first as being the least important. Then my feet either slipped too far into the stirrups and were cut, or they were jerked out; ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... Mary-dear straightened and, slipping her clutch to the lapel of his old coat, spoke. She looked into his eyes with a smile that was sweeter—oh, much sweeter!—for tears that dimmed it, and she choked most awfully between words. "Jim"—and a ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... had just been stowed; old Hobbs was at the helm, and Ellis himself was to windward, when Arden, in the pride of his newly-acquired accomplishment, as he was running forward on the lee-side, as he said, to take a swing on the shrouds, his foot slipped, he lost his balance, and before he could clutch a rope, over the slight bulwarks he went, head foremost into the water. Ernest was sitting on the same side of the little vessel. Quick as thought, before Ellis, who had been looking to windward, knew what had happened, or Arden could cry out, Ernest sprang overboard. He knew ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... so dizzy that he had to clutch hold of the arm of shaggy Hanak, who was standing by his side. Quite early that very morning he had felt a sort of numbing paralysis in all his limbs, a sort of griping cramp convulsing his inner parts, and an unspeakable fear had arisen within his soul, but the feeling ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... "to see him clutch his flesh and shriek and mouth, is enough to make a man live sober for his remaining days," and he shook his big shoulders ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... his teeth, as he jabbed the key with frantic haste into the lock. "I'll fix you for this!" He made a clutch at her throat, as he ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... Greer threw in the clutch, and presently a veritable stream of flour began to issue from the mouth of the machine. Ambrose repressed an inclination ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... seems much frightened by being put into the tub, spread a bath towel or small thin blanket over it and have someone hold his hands, so that he will not clutch so wildly at everything, then lower him into the water, towel and all, and he will ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery
... comb and gills do not attain the size of those parts in the perfect male, the spurs appear but remain short and blunt, and the hackle feathers of the neck and saddle instead of being long and narrow are short and broadly webbed. The capon will take to a clutch of chickens, attend them in their search for food, and brood them under his ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham
... risen from my seat, and Christian Ann had come hurrying up, and we two women were standing about baby, both ready to clutch at her, when she blinked her blue eyes and looked at us, and then held out ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... younger turned, More honouring Pagans who in ignorance erred, Than those who, taught of God, concealed their gift, Divorcing Faith from Love. Natheless they clung, That remnant spared, to rocky hills of Wales With eagle clutch, whoe'er in England ruled, From Horsa's day to Edward's. Centuries eight In gorge or vale sea-lulled they held their own, By native monarchs swayed, while native harps Rang out from native cliffs ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... efforts at self-control, Wilbur felt a slow, cold clutch at his heart. That sickening, uncanny lifting of the schooner out of the glassy water, at a time when there was not enough wind to so much as wrinkle the surface, sent a creep of something very like horror ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... little or no gloss, and differ among themselves a good deal in colour. In one clutch the ground-colour is white, spotted and blotched, not very thickly, with neutral tint and inky purple, chiefly at the larger end. Other eggs are pinkish salmon, and the shell is more or less thickly or thinly covered with pale greyish purple or neutral tint, ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... finger hath impressed Denotes how soft that chin which bears his touch: Her lips, whose kisses pout to leave their nest, Bid man be valiant ere he merit such: Her glance, how wildly beautiful! how much Hath Phoebus wooed in vain to spoil her cheek Which glows yet smoother from his amorous clutch! Who round the North for paler dames would seek? How poor their forms appear? how languid, wan, ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... employed should be provided with a special fastening (e. g., a clutch similar to that employed for the free wheel of a bicycle), or should be readily detachable so that, on ceasing to turn, the handle should not, by its weight and air resistance, act as a brake and stop the ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre
... of the young captain and Hank Butts anything like play. Making their way out along the top of the cabin deck-house was in itself hazardous. They were forced to clutch at any rigging that came to hand to avoid being washed overboard, for the waves were dashing furiously ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock
... another clutch at the creature, which evaded him and, with a rapid movement, wound the rope around his neck so tightly that he choked, and began to turn black in the face. Mr. Lawrence, who, though mortified by the sensation they were creating, ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... windows on the Calle de Plateros, and in their shade beautiful women gaze curiously on the scene beneath. Gayly dressed groups throng the balconies, and at the street-corners dark-faced men scowl, mutter deep curses, and clutch their knives. The street resounds with the heavy tramp of infantry, the rattle of gun-carriages, and the clatter of horses' hoofs. "Los Yanquies!" is the cry, and every neck is stretched to obtain a glimpse of the six thousand bemired ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... washed at the kitchen sink and then walked to the door to shout for Barney. On the other side of the yard, Barney released the pump windmill clutch. While Johnny watched from the porch, the weight of the heavy slop cauldron slowly turned the big windmill and as the arm adorned by the kettle rotated downward, the cast-iron pot slipped off and fell to the hard-packed ...
— Make Mine Homogenized • Rick Raphael
... left hand was fast growing benumbed with grasping the rock. He had almost resigned himself to his fate, and expected the next moment to be dashed to pieces on the field of ice beneath. Suddenly, however, he recollected his pocket-knife, and a new ray of hope dawned. Giving up the attempt to clutch at the furious bird, he drew the knife out of his pocket, and opened it with his teeth, and aiming two or three blows at the creature's breast, he found at last that he had been successful in reaching some mortal part. The fluttering ...
— Harper's Young People, November 18, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... in a rampart wall. Reefs, serried, rank on rank, like sentinels, guarded approach to the coast in jagged masses, that would rip the bottom from any keel like the teeth of a saw; and over these rolled the roaring breakers with a clutch to the back-wash that bade the gazing sailors beware. Birds, birds in myriads upon myriads, screamed and circled over the eerie heights of the beetling cliffs. This did not look like Kamchatka. These birds were not birds of the Asiatic home port. These ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... screamed. "I am not fit to die! Oh, forgive me, Maurice, as you hope for forgiveness yourself! Maurice! Maurice!" She strove to get towards him, to clutch at his wrist, at his sleeve, but he stood with his hand on his sword, gazing at her with a face which was all wreathed and contorted with merriment. At the sight of that dreadful mocking face the prayers froze upon her lips. As well pray for mercy to the dropping ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... been hard on him before he was struck down, her spirit ran open-armed to make amends. What manner of man he was she did not know. But what availed that to keep her, a creature of fire and dew, from the clutch of emotions strange and poignant? He had called himself a liar and a coyote, yet she knew it was not true, or at worst, true in some qualified sense. He might be hard, reckless, even wicked in some ways. But, vaguely, she felt that if he were a sinner he sinned with self-respect. ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... but clutch the seat and shut his eyes. He dared not look down, lest he lose his balance and fall; he dared not look about him, for there were, in all parts of the heavens, the most terrifying animals—a great scorpion, a lion, two ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... as he thought. Only for the quick clutch he made, the dog must have sped away like the wind, and they would have been as badly off as before. But with the weight of the two boys on the rope, even the powerful Kaiser was not able to go faster ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... car swept past. Shouts of merriment sounded forth upon the night air from the occupants of the car. The fright they had given the two by the side of the road evidently gave them much amusement. Their laughter caused the rescuer to straighten suddenly up, and clutch the old man ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... Him they are unconsciously united. The sailor was right when he saw the little boy fall overboard and waited a minute before he plunged to his rescue. When the distracted mother asked him in agony why he had waited so long, he sensibly replied: "I knew that if I went in before he would clutch and drag me down. I waited until his struggles were over, and then I was able to help him when he did ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... when the winter changed the time of its appearance. The like might befall Markheim: the solid walls might become transparent and reveal his doings like those of bees in a glass hive; the stout planks might yield under his foot like quicksands and detain him in their clutch; ay, and there were soberer accidents that might destroy him: if, for instance, the house should fall and imprison him beside the body of his victim; the house next door should fly on fire, and the firemen invade him from all sides. These things he feared; and, in a sense, ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... raising of a force of five thousand horse and fifty thousand foot for the expulsion of the Saracens from Jerusalem. Nor is this the only instance in which even the noble among men have sought to clutch the grand opening futures, and wreathe the beauty of their promise about the consecrated graves of the past. "Servants of Sepulchres" is a title which even now, not individuals alone, but whole ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... lay at the mooring, one end resting lightly the sand-bar. With strong, nervous clutch Bostil felt the knots of the cables. Then he peered into the opaque gloom of that strange and huge V-shaped split between the great canyon walls. Bostil's mind had begun to relax from the single idea. Was he alone? Except for the low murmur of the river there was dead ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... tides stir not a land-locked sea. On gods or fools the high risk falls — on you — The clean clear bitter-sweet that's not for me. Love soars from earth to ecstasies unwist. Love is flung Lucifer-like from Heaven to Hell. But — there are wanderers in the middle mist, Who cry for shadows, clutch, and cannot tell Whether they love at all, or, loving, whom: An old song's lady, a fool in fancy dress, Or phantoms, or their own face on the gloom; For love of Love, or from heart's loneliness. Pleasure's not theirs, nor pain. They doubt, ...
— The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke • Rupert Brooke
... "Let up!" And then he made a clutch for his assailant, catching him by the foot. But the man broke away and went crashing through the corn, calling on ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... foible! Measure distance! Lunge! Now the thrust ends in the merest harmless touch; But ere the beaten man throws up the sponge, As the boxers say, relaxing his hilt-clutch, There'll be lunges and ripostes of other sort. Firm foot and steady hand must be their friend; The encounter will be struggle, not mere sport, Ere ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 February 15, 1890 • Various
... protracted. Nor was all the brutality by any means on one side; neither will I pretend that I was getting much more than my deserts in the defeat that threatened to end in my extinction. Not for an instant had my enemy loosened his deadly clutch, and now he had me penned against the banisters, and my one hope was that they would give way before our united weight, and precipitate us both into the room below. That would be better than being slowly throttled, ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... came and went, and still the West held him in its powerful clutch. Success smiled upon his pathway, and into his life entered the sweet, new joy of a woman's love and devotion, and into his home came the happy music of children's voices. When his eldest boy was eight years old, his district elected ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... the lawyer's grasp, Beryl saw the red "B. B." like a bloody brand. At that instant she felt that the death clutch fastened upon her throat; that fate had cast her adrift, on the black waves of despair. In her reeling brain kaleidoscopic images danced; her father's face, the lateen sail of fishing boats rocking on blue ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... old holy man strove from the axe to tear With a chain-laden hand his master's crowned head, Thou gav'st thy hand unto the noble pair; Before ye, struck with horror, fell That Areopagus of hell. Be proud, O Bard! and thou, fiend-wolf of blood and guile, Sport with my head awhile; 'Tis in thy clutch. But hark! and know, thou Godless one, My shout shall follow thee, my triumph-laugh of joy! Aye, drink our blood, live to destroy: Thou'rt but a pigmy still; thy race shall soon be run. An hour will come, an hour thou can'st not flee— Thou shalt fall, Tyrant! Indignation Will Wake at last. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... prudent friend. His attention had done all that attention could do; his handsome, slightly anxious, yet still more definitely "amused" face sufficiently played its part. He clutched, however, at what he could best clutch at—the fact that she let him off, definitely let him off. She let him off, it seemed, even from so much as answering; so that while he smiled back at her in return for her information he felt his lips remain ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... had no answer. He stood, in Ruth's sharp clutch, and hung his head without a word. The girl ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson
... when we seek to kindle the brightness of that moral beauty which outshines all the triumphs of mere intellectual forces? Should women murmur because they cannot be superior in everything, when it is conceded that they are superior in the best thing? Nor let her clutch what she can neither retain nor enjoy. In the primeval Paradise there was one tree the fruit of which our mother Eve was forbidden to touch or to eat. There is a tree which grows in our times, whose fruit, when eaten by some, produces unrest, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... shoulder, and she had lost a main quantity of blood; but I soon had that tied up the way it ought to be with the tail of my shirt and a scarf I had on, got her head on my sound knee and my back against a trunk, and settled down to wait for morning. Uma was for neither use nor ornament, and could only clutch hold of me and shake and cry. I don’t suppose there was ever anybody worse scared, and, to do her justice, she had had a lively night of it. As for me, I was in a good bit of pain and fever, but not so bad when I sat still; and every ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson
... then I saw something come up above the sill, and clutch at the broken window-frame. It caught a piece of the woodwork; and, now, I could make out that it was a hand and arm. A moment later, the face of one of the Swine-creatures rose into view. Then, ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... suppose that moment comes to most women in their married lives. But to me, when it happens, it will be worse than for most women because I've always had my way. You mustn't let me have my way then—simply clutch me, be cruel, brutal, anything only don't let me go. Then, if you keep me through that, you'll ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... reached to clutch the child's arm if she was startled. A little misstep would send the blind girl over the edge of the wharf. But it ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... with staring eyes as the beautiful demon, elegantly spurning the roof sods, went at easy, measured bounds toward the open chink—toward its doom. One, two, three—clearing the prickly cedar bush, its forefeet fell on the hidden trap; clutch, a savage shriek, a flashing,—a struggle baffling the eyes to follow, and the master of the squirrels ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... plainly agitated. He felt a spasmodic clutch at his heart when he imagined the sorrow of a homeless, blind child, but thinking of Peg's struggle to make a little go a long way, he dashed his ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... engine in front of him woke into life deafeningly and, waving away the mechanics holding the wings, he pressed the clutch pedal and moved ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 12, 1919 • Various
... of this demoniac stratagem gave one simultaneous shout of indignation. Those nearest the wagons strove to clutch at them with their hands. Some held on even to the wheels, some mounted the horses, some snatched the reins. But sharp swords were near; and, at the word of command, every outstretched arm was hacked off, and fell, severed, to ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... foamed. The south wind, breath of the ocean, hath driven them back. The sea is cleft asunder; the ebbing waters spewed up sand. Well I know Almighty God hath showed you mercy, ye bronze-clad earls. Most haste is best now, that ye may escape the clutch of foes since God hath reared a rampart of the red seastreams. These walls are fairly builded to the roof of heaven, ...
— Codex Junius 11 • Unknown
... that embodied British sovereignty in America. Naturally the material tokens of British rule radiated from the town, covering all of the island of Manhattan, most of Long Island, and all of Staten Island, and retaining a clutch here and there on the ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... for the Germans are beginning to show signs of fatigue. News comes to us from the interior, from a reliable source, which indicates that the situation on the other side of the Rhine is anything but calm. More than ever now must we hang on, for the victory is almost within our clutch. ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... clapping of hands, as if he had performed a deed of valor. But, notwithstanding the miserable vanity and impudence of the man, it had gone to Hester's heart to see him, with his low visage and puny form, in the mighty clutch of her father. That which would have made most despise the poor creature the more, his physical inferiority, made her pity ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... read to the company; and, as all were in sympathy with America, it was received with great applause. Little, however, did any of them then imagine, how invincible was the animal the British government was about to clutch in its talons, supposing it ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... performance, and somebody usually goes raving mad for love. When Melba sings the mad scene from Lucia, and that beautiful voice descends by lingering half-notes from madness and nameless longing to love and prayer, the women in the house sob in sheer delight and clutch the hands of their companions in an ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed
... across the aisle, was arranging his overcoat on the back of the seat. Jinnie looked at him with interest—he had been so kind to her—and noted his thick, blond hair, which had been cropped close to a massive head. She admired him, too. Suddenly he looked up, and the girl felt a clutch at her heart. Just why that happened she could not tell. Again came the charming smile, the parted lips showing a ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... threw his arms round him, and, though the smaller boy of the two, extricated himself from the clutch of the bully, and sent him in turn staggering back. Livid with rage, Tom rushed at him; but Charlie eluded him, and left him to overbalance himself and fall sprawling on the paved floor. At this instant the doctor's door opened, and the head master ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... could swim; their father had taught them when they were very little girls, and Anna knew that if she would leave the rabbit to drown that she could reach the shore safely; but this seemed hardly to be thought of. She now resolved to clutch at the first branch within reach, hoping in that way to scramble to safety with Trit. But the boat was being carried steadily along by the current, although the water came in ...
— A Little Maid of Old Maine • Alice Turner Curtis
... let me clutch thee:— I have thee not and yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible To feeling as to sight? or art thou but A dagger of the mind, a false creation Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain? I see thee yet in form as palpable As that which now I draw.... ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... that kind. He remembered how he had floored Master Weeks, and he had just "spunk" enough left in him to try to repeat his former successful experiment on the new master. He sprang at him, open-handed, to clutch him. So the master had to strike,—once, but very hard, and just in the place to tell. No doubt, the authority that doth hedge a schoolmaster added to the effect of the blow; but the blow was itself a neat one, and did not require to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... life—with hands and feet, only the possession of the prehensile thumb, perhaps, preventing him from using his teeth; for Ross, unable to avoid his next blind lunge, went down, with the whole two hundred pounds of Foster on top of him, and felt the stricture of his clutch ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... man had clutched the rope over his head to save his neck from being broken. The Sheriff dismounted from his horse, climbed up the gallows and tied the prisoner's hands more firmly behind his back. The gallows was braced, and Omic contrived to clutch one of the braces with his hands, fastened behind his back as they were, as he fell when the drop-rope was cut. He hung in that position for some time, until his strength gave way and he swung off. When he had hung sufficiently long, the by-standers drew him to ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... I know him well," cried a girlish voice, in accents which betrayed her Welsh origin. "He has ever been a traitor to his country, a traitor to all who trust him; a covetous, grasping man, who will clutch at what he can get, and never cease scheming after lands and titles so long as the ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... his wife should conform without a murmur to the ceremonies established for the coronation. Only this concession was made to their susceptibilities: that in the rules the phrase, bear the cloak was substituted for carry the train, "for," as Miot de Mlito says, "Vanity will clutch at a straw." ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... walked around the piazza to the front of the house. In the street the head-lights of the roadster shot divergent rays through the darkness. They went out. The old Captain took a seat in the car beside the physician, while Peter stood on the running-board. A moment later, the clutch snarled, and the machine puttered down the street. Peter clung to the standards of the auto ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... will you be doing, pray?" I inquired. He replied that he was proposing to sit inside and watch events, steer, work the clutch, and so on. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 19, 1919 • Various
... Frank threw in the clutch, and the big machine very slowly and painfully plowed its way through the clinging mud of the road and turned its face toward the crossroads and, in ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope
... "I won't throw the clutch into high-gear," promised Walter, laughing. "Look out for the flying ice, girls. I haven't the screen up, for I want ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr
... noticed how the heavy tapestry shivered under Correy's clutch. Had this been observed by anyone besides himself? If by chance some person wandering about the court had been looking up—but no, the few people gathered there stood too far forward to see what was going on in this part of the gallery; and relieved from all further anxiety on ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... broken by mad war-whoops! Alas! to those fierce wild men, what is love, or loveliness? Pride, and passion, and the old accursed hunger for gold flame up in their savage breasts. Wrathful, loathsome fingers clutch the long, fair hair that even the fingers of love have caressed but with reverent half-touch,—and love, and hope, and life go out in one dread moment of horror and despair. Now, through the reverberations of more ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... you try to escape," I once asked an exile at Sredni-Koylmsk, "and make your way across Bering Straits to America?" For I was aware that, once in the United States, a Russian "political" is safe from the clutch ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... indifference. She was therefore astonished at the calmness with which Amelie received the message she was charged to deliver. She did not see in the dimness of the twilight that Amelie's face from being pale grew livid. She did not feel the deadly clutch which, like an iron wrench, had seized her heart. She did not know that as her mistress walked to the door an automatic stiffness was in her limbs. Nevertheless she followed her anxiously. But at the door ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... and his eyes starting from their sockets, he found himself once more at the surface, breathing in great gulps of the blessed air, and alone. For a moment he could not believe it, but gazed wildly about him, expecting each instant to feel the awful clutch that should again drag him under. He was nearly exhausted, and so weak that had not a floating oar come within his reach he must quickly have sunk, to rise ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... tree, growing out of a fissure in the rock, which came out by the roots and went hurtling down into space. From overhead he heard Robert's terrified cry. The rope stood the strain of his sudden clutch, however, and all was well. A little lower down, holding on with one hand, he took his torch from his pocket and examined the surface of the cliff. Nothing apparently had been disturbed, nor was there any sign of any heavy body having ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... disengaging herself from the frantic clutch of the still shrieking Esmeralda, Jane crossed the room to look into the little cradle, knowing what she should see there even before the tiny skeleton disclosed itself in all ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... my hand so firmly that I simply couldn't pull it out of his clutch," Belle replied. "Then he took off my rings as easily and in as matter-of-fact way as though they were ...
— The High School Boys in Summer Camp • H. Irving Hancock
... grip of the letter—a puff of wind hastened to whirl it aloft. Rozenoffski grasped at it desperately, but it eluded him, and then descending sailed sternwards. He gave chase, stumbling over belated chairs and deck-quoits, but at last it was safe in his clutch, and as he handed it to the agitated owner whom he found at his elbow, he noted with a thrill that the characters ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... shine in his presence; for being the president of an academy of which he, Voltaire, was only a simple member. Above all this, the king loved him, and praised his extraordinary talent and scholarship. Voltaire only watched for an opportunity to clutch this dangerous enemy, and ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... Now, as we round the curve you see it. That is the famous building that saved so many lives—the only one left in the great barren waste of sand. You know the water formed an eddy about it, and thus, as house after house floated and circled about it men and women would clutch the roof and climb upon it. The water reached half way to the ceiling on the second floor ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... sight when I got in, and I didn't have much skin on my elbows, and my hands were stuck up with splinters, as I had to hold on to anything I could clutch, being afraid the window would not hold my feet and the shingles being rotten. But otherwise no damage was done, and I got the note Taylor had tied to the string, which I had pulled up by the time the Ogress had departed. I gave it ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... a clutch at the table-cloth. My forehead struck the corner of the fender and the last thing I remembered was a crash of falling crockery. Then all became darkness. My parlour-maid found me lying face downwards on the hearth-rug ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... last healing comes, one can fancy with what a tight grasp 'the lame man held Peter and John.' The timidity and helplessness of a lifetime made him hold fast, even while, walking and leaping, he tried how the unaccustomed 'feet and ankle bones' could do their work. How he would clutch the arms of his two supporters, and feel himself firm and safe only as long as he grasped them! That is faith, cleaving to Christ, twining round Him with all the tendrils of our heart, as the vine does round its pole; holding to Him by His hand, as a tottering ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... wailing, broken-hearted pleading in the harmonious Spanish tongue, and then two figures tumbled out into the light of the lanterns. One was the old woman; the other was a man clothed with a sumptuous and flashing splendour. The woman seemed to clutch and beseech from him something against his will. The man broke from her and struck her brutally back into the tent, where she lay, whimpering and invisible. Observing Tansey, he walked rapidly to the table where he sat. Tansey recognized him to be Ramon Torres, a Mexican, the proprietor ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... to follow, it was very certain that Wilkes would not stay. His great enemy had sworn his destruction, and would now take his choice, whether to do him to death himself, or to throw him into the clutch of the ferocious Hohenlo. "As for my own particular," said the counsellor, "the word is go, whosoever cometh or cometh not," and he announced to Walsingham his intention of departing without permission, should he not immediately receive it from England. "I ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... for the spring days were chilly. There was a clock ticking delicately on the mantel-piece, and my mind fastened on to the sound as if there were possibility of checking and steadying my whirling thoughts by thinking of it—pretty much as a man would clutch a straw in a whirlpool. The rustle of a dress sounded in the corridor outside, and a step paused at the door. My heart beat furiously, and then as the door opened it seemed as if it stopped for a second. Miss Rossano ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... heels in wrath are digging Trenches in the grassy soil, And his fingers clutch and loosen, Dreaming of the ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... plucked him from his sleep; for a moment he wrestled and struggled to raise his head from the pillow and loosen the clutch of the night-hag who had suddenly seized him, and with choking throat and streaming brow he sat up in bed. Even then his dream was more real to him than the sight of his own familiar room, more real than the touch of sheet and blanket or the dew of anguish which ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... preoccupation and the rooted idea of acquiring, accumulating, and possessing, rapacity and avarice, more particularly in the class which, tied to the globe, fasts for sixty generations in order to support other classes, and whose crooked fingers are always outstretched to clutch the soil whose fruits they cause to grow;-we shall see this class at work.—Finally, his more delicate mental organization makes of him from the earliest days an imaginative being in which swarming fancies develop themselves into monstrous chimeras to expand his hopes, fears and desires beyond all ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... that is the main line, dying in me; the grafted tree is the Vaufontaine, the interloper and the mongrel; and the sapling from the same seed as the crabbed old tree"—he reached out as though to clutch Philip's arm, but drew back, sat erect in his chair, and said with ringing decision: "the sapling is Philip d'Avranche, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the air, and the young horsemen scattered in every direction. But Jack was watching his chance, and as the car slued around once more he managed to leap from his horse and clutch the side of the automobile. Then he leaped into the car and turned off the power, and in a few seconds he brought ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... his side at night her arm stole about his, as if to clutch him, fearful lest in the empty reaches of sleep he might escape, lest his errant man's thoughts and desires might abandon her for the usual avenues of life. Long after he had fallen into the regular sleep of night, she lay awake by his side, her eyes glittering with passion and defeat. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... The sudden clutch was wholly unexpected, and the knife dropped. With his other hand Jack picked it up. As he did so, the March Hare uttered a cry. It was neither loud nor long, but there was something so startling in ...
— Jack of Both Sides - The Story of a School War • Florence Coombe
... was trickery, business barter, commerce finesse, government exploitation, slaughter honorable, and murder a fine art; when religion was ignorant superstition, piety the worship of a fetich and education a clutch for honors, there was small hope for the race. Under these conditions everything tended towards division, dissipation, disintegration, ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... strait the allies turned fiercely to bay. On the evening of December 17th a young officer, who was destined once more to thwart Buonaparte's designs, led a small body of picked men into the dockyard to snatch from the rescuing clutch of the Jacobins the French warships that could not be carried off. Then was seen a weird sight. The galley slaves, now freed from their chains and clustering in angry groups, menaced the intruders. Yet the British seamen spread the ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... Polk got cool enough I picked him up, and with no greater effort than you would employ in persuading a drowning man to clutch a straw, I inveigled him into accompanying me to a cool corner in a ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... hath impress'd, Denotes how soft that chin which bears his touch, Her lips whose kisses pout to leave their nest, Bid man be valiant ere he merit such; Her glance how wildly beautiful—how much Hath Phoebus woo'd in vain to spoil her cheek, Which grows yet smoother from his amorous clutch, Who round the north for paler dames would seek? How poor their forms appear! how ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... sinewed strong, The fingers that on greatness clutch, Yet lo! the marks their lines along Of one ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... muttered, "—well, it's my turn now." He drew the gun from its holster and twirled the cylinder with his thumb. The boat approached slowly, the man resting on his oars except at such times as it was necessary to force the light craft out of the clutch of backwaters and eddies. Not until he was nearly opposite did Purdy see his face: "Long Bill," he growled, and returning the gun, wriggled from the willows and hailed him. Long Bill shot his boat into a pool of still water and surveyed the ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... across the sky, The white clouds scud before the storm; And naked in the howling night The red-eyed lighthouse lifts its form. The waves with slippery fingers clutch The massive tower, and climb and fall, And, muttering, growl with baffled rage Their ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... corresponding to the first decisive clap of thunder—wherever it was—Chaos set in in that firmament. And Chaos was developing rapidly at the time when the doctor, rescued by Sally's intrepidity from the maternal clutch, started on what he believed would be his last walk with his idol at St. Sennans. Now he knew that, when he got back to London, though there might be, academically speaking, opportunities of seeing Sally, it wasn't going to be the same thing. That was ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... have wished to find his way out, escape was, in fact, out of the question; on the south and north was one continuous dead wall, which, even had he wished to scale, there was nothing which he could clutch ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... passed. Without a word Doctor John was on his knees beside the bed, and Doctor George, glancing up, saw that it was Clary's Father who had entered. Then he stood up straight, and would have retreated hastily, but his forefinger was tight in the clutch of a weak, small hand. Doctor George was chained to the ...
— A Big Temptation • L. T. Meade
... the remedy or palliative of which you speak. Name it, for goodness' sake! Like a drowning man, I will clutch it, if it be but ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur
... Juan Belvidero looked at him with a feverish glitter in her eyes. She was silent. Then—"I should need no hired bravo to kill my lover if he forsook me!" she cried at last, and laughed, but the marvelously wrought gold comfit box in her fingers was crushed by her convulsive clutch. ...
— The Elixir of Life • Honore de Balzac
... in. The Vicomte, in whose fingers the wheel seemed scarcely to rest, so light and apparently careless was his touch, touched a lever by his side, released the clutch, and swung the great car round the corner at a speed which made Duncombe grasp the sides. At a pace which seemed to him most ridiculous, they dashed into the Rue de Rivoli, and with another sharp turn pulled up before Maxim's. The Vicomte rose with a yawn as ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... day we did no work. In fact, we slept till three in the afternoon, or at least I did, for I awoke to find Maud cooking dinner. Her power of recuperation was wonderful. There was something tenacious about that lily-frail body of hers, a clutch on existence which one could not reconcile ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... frowning and muttering in his choleric fashion, but the fierce glitter began to go out of his eyes and his hands ceased to tremble and clutch at the things before him. The girl was silent, because again there seemed to her to be nothing that she could say. She longed very much to plead her brother's cause, but she was sure that would only excite her grandfather, and he was ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... danger, and, landing, signalled the other boats to do likewise. Unfortunately, the warning came too late for the No-Name, which was drawn into a sag, a sort of hollow lying just above the rapid, to clutch the unwary and drive them over the fall to certain destruction. Powell for a moment had given his attention to the last boat, and as he turned again and hurried along to discover the fortune of the No-Name, which was plunging down, without hope of escape, ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... screamed Mr. Montagu. "I don't see through you! I don't!" But as he leaned forward to clutch at him in his terror, all that he could see before him was a closed door beyond a dozen tables, a disused entranceway diagonally opposite the one that had let them in. "I don't believe you!" he wailed. "Oh, my God, my God, my God, where are you?" He turned frantically ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the victim and the length of slack, then why do they manacle the arms of the victim? Society, as a whole, is unable to answer this question. But I know why; so does any amateur who ever engaged in a lynching bee and saw the victim throw up his hands, clutch the rope, and ease the throttle of the noose about his neck ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... through the open window after Bella, although in a more conventional manner, paying no heed to Ruth's plea. The frightened girl, however, escaped her aunt's clutch by slipping off the borrowed skirt and descending the trumpet-vine trellis ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson
... hands for a fat man. They were tapering, slender, delicate, blue-veined, temperamental hands. At this moment, despite his purpling face, and his staring eyes, they were the most noticeable thing about him. His fingers clawed the empty air, quivering, vibrant, as though poised to clutch at ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... summer, violet, dream-like. By now there had been burning and harrowing in the Valley; war had laid his mailed hand upon the region. It was not yet the straining clutch of later days, but it was bad enough. The Indian summer wrapped with a soft touch of mourning purple much of desolation, much of untilled earth, and charred roof-tree, and broken walls. The air was soft and ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... away from that fatal globe, his first thought was for Dorothy, and he tore off his helmet and turned toward her. The force of even that slight movement, wafted him gently into the air where he hung suspended several minutes before his struggles enabled him to clutch a post and draw himself down to the floor. A quick glance around informed him that Dorothy, as well as the others, was still unconscious. Making his way rapidly to her, he placed her face downward upon the floor ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... is far too easy! An innocent child may die; do not give to a false-hearted knave the simple exit common to the brave and true! Disgrace!—disgrace! Shame, confusion, and the curse of the country,—let these be your vengeance on the man who seeks to clutch the reins of government!—the man who would drive the people like whipped ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... were loosened, probably by the blow he received at the outset, and there were finger-nail dents on the throat as from the grasp of a strangling hand. That his opponent should have disengaged himself from his clutch was matter of extreme surprise to all who had experienced submersion, and knew its meaning. Even to those who have never been under water against their will, the phrase "the grip of a drowning man" has a terribly convincing sound. That this opponent rose to the surface alive, and escaped, ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... history present us a form of heroism superior in kind or degree to that which this illustrious advocate exhibited during nearly two years, when he went forth daily, with his life in his hand, in the holy hope to snatch some human victim from the clutch of the destroyer ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... in alarm at Father Cipriano. Jurissa thrust his right hand under his cloak, and seemed to clutch some weapon. Even the counsellor's dame for a moment turned her eyes from the jewels she was admiring to the anxious countenance of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... personage felt some one clutch him firmly by the collar. Turning round, he perceived a man of short stature, in an old, worn uniform, and recognised, not without terror, Akaky Akakiyevich. The official's face was white as snow, and looked just like a corpse's. But the horror ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... lied to me!" It was the last fierce flicker of hope when hope seemed dead: the last clutch of the drowning at the straw that floated ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... crashed to starboard. Were it not for the restraint of the fiddles everything must have been swept to the floor. There were one or two minor accidents. A steward, taken unawares, was thrown headlong on top of his laden tray. Others were compelled to clutch the backs of chairs and cling to pillars. One man involuntarily seized the hair of a lady who devoted an hour before each meal to her coiffure. The Sirdar, with a frenzied bound, tried to ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... at last!" staring at the shaking signature at the end of the letter that speaks so plainly of the coming icy clutch that should prevent the poor hand from forming ever again even such sadly erratic characters as these. "At least," glancing at the half-read letter on the cloth—"this tells me so. His solicitor's, I suppose. Though what Wynter could want with ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... the trees he saw they were all dead, with neither leaf nor twig upon them, their roots were crooked out of the ground as if they would throw his horse, and their limbs were stretched as if they strained to clutch him. ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... incessant calls had brought at last a little wearily before the curtain, as one might look at a god. And their eyes met. He did not start or betray himself in any way—perhaps his training befriended him there, but as he left the stage he staggered, and I saw his hand go to clutch the curtain for support. I knew then that, before the night was over, Isobel's history would no longer be ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... suddenly by a sound which rose out of the farther end of the corridor and made her start and clutch her father's arm. Joe pressed his face against the bars and looked along at his fellow prisoner, who was dragging his tin cup over the bars of his cell door with ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... of the automobile that spoke, and in vain did his fair companion clutch at the tails of the linen duster that he wore; he was in the full tide of eloquence ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... best efforts at self-control, Wilbur felt a slow, cold clutch at his heart. That sickening, uncanny lifting of the schooner out of the glassy water, at a time when there was not enough wind to so much as wrinkle the surface, sent a creep of something very like horror through ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... that was the sharp thought, the bitter thought, that drove into the glazed eyes a fierce light of pain. You laugh at it? Are pain and jealousy less savage realities down here in this place I am taking you to than in your own house or your own heart,—your heart, which they clutch at sometimes? The note is the same, I fancy, be the octave ...
— Life in the Iron-Mills • Rebecca Harding Davis
... old Gid has got one more privilege of these north woods into his clutch and is now handlin' the weather for the section," he said. "For if we ain't goin' to have a spell of the soft and moist that will put you out of business for a while, then I ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... whirled around to the farther side and swarmed up it like a monkey. He reached the fork and swung himself out on the branch with not a second to spare. The grizzly, frothing with rage and hate, had hurled himself against the tree and his up-reaching claw had torn the bark in a vain attempt to clutch the leg that he only missed ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... that a drowning man will clutch at a straw; the truth of the remark applies to the half-informed in Fiddle connoisseurship. It is very amusing to note the pile of nothings that these persons heap up under the name of "guiding points" in relation to Fiddles. I will endeavour to call to mind a few ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... disrelish for his flippant tone, by removing her hand from his arm. But at once the faint hiss of a snake as it glided into the swamp from somewhere just in front of them made her clutch his wet sleeve afresh. His hints as to the nature of the treasure had roused her inquisitiveness to a keen point. Yet, remembering what he had said about her praiseworthy dearth of feminine curiosity, she approached the subject in ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... fall overboard and waited a minute before he plunged to his rescue. When the distracted mother asked him in agony why he had waited so long, he sensibly replied: "I knew that if I went in before he would clutch and drag me down. I waited until his struggles were over, and then I was able to help him when he did not grasp ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... had accompanied it. He recalled every detail of his conversation with me. His confidence that life would now be fine for him—how could life ever be fine for a man who let the prizes, the treasures, slip from his fingers, without an attempt to clutch them? It was so now that he saw the whole of the affair—blame of Marie Ivanovna there was none, only of his own weakness, his imbecile, idiotic weakness. In that last conversation with her why could he not have said that he refused to let her go, held to her, dominated ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... is heavy with death; like the footsteps of death are the moments. "Arise!"—At the word, with a bound, to their feet spring the vigilant Frenchmen; And the dark, dismal forests resound to the crack and the roar of their rifles; And seven writhing forms on the ground clutch the earth. From the pine-tops the screech owl Screams and flaps his wide wings in affright, and plunges away through the shadows; And swift on the wings of the night flee the dim, phantom forms of the spirit. Like cabris [80] when white wolves pursue, ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... within the wooden hutch; "Hammersmith House—a most absurd dilemma— His lordship's motor-cars have strained a clutch, And taxis are required at 8 pip emma (Six of your finest and most up-to-date, With no false starts and no foul petrol leaking), To bear a certain party of the great To the Melpomene at ten past ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 7, 1919. • Various
... speaking. We had all gone along so with the story, that the stout seafarer, as he wrought the whole scene up about us, seemed instinctively to lean back and brace his feet against the ground, and clutch his net. The young woman looked up, this time; and the cold snow-blast seemed to howl through that still summer's noon, and the terrific ice-fields and hills to be crashing against the solid earth that we sat upon, and all things round changed to the ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... logs. They were in the deep gloom of a jungle from which the thick growth above shut out nearly all the light. As they pushed the canoe forward, unseen vines seized their throats in a garroting clutch, while solid masses of spider-webs stuck to their faces and spiders the size of a saucer ran over them. As Johnny sat in the bow, he collected the most spiders, since Dick only got those which his companion managed to dodge, but then Johnny was used to the critters ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... even than this followed. It was not very long before the opium nearly lost its power to excite and enliven, though it still kept an inexorable clutch on every fibre of my frame, and I was compelled to take it daily to keep the very current ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... better," said he firmly. "I thought he was dead. His blood flows; then I will save him. Don't clutch me so, Josephine; don't cling to me like that. Now is the time to show your breed: not turn sick at the sight of a little blood, like that foolish creature, but help me ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... of human history present us a form of heroism superior in kind or degree to that which this illustrious advocate exhibited during nearly two years, when he went forth daily, with his life in his hand, in the holy hope to snatch some human victim from the clutch of the destroyer thirsting ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... brilliant philosophy, though I suppose you do not know what that is. It's holding to your ideal, the thing that seems most worth while, and forcing everything else into line with that. Now, you see I had a bad handicap—a clutch on me that made me a weak, sickly fellow, but through it all ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... never for an instant turning his face, until his companions lost sight of him. But once out of their vision his, manner took on a strange and sudden change. He lowered the head strap of his pack over his breast, so that he might clutch at it with one hand, and move his head freely. His eyes glowed with the dull fire of wakening excitement; his steps were quick, and yet cautious, every movement in his advance was one of listening and watchful expectancy. A person watching the old warrior would ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... however, first charted by Baudin, and his names survive there. Flinders had marked these shores with a dotted line on his chart, to signify that he had not surveyed them. He intended to complete this bit of work on his return, but he was "caught in the clutch of circumstance," and was never permitted to return. Such names as Cape Borda, Cape Linois, Maupertuis Bay, Cape Gautheaume, Bougainville Bay, and a few others, preserve the memory of the French expedition on Kangaroo Island. A rock, ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... speech-bearing men the truth shall hear Of every deed through mouth of the Judge, And likewise of words the penalty pay Of all that with folly were spoken before, 1285 Of daring thoughts. Then parts into three Into clutch of fire each one of folk, Of those that have dwelt in course of time Upon the broad earth. The righteous shall be Upmost-in flame, host of the blessed, 1290 Crowd eager for glory, as they may bear it, And without torment easily suffer, Band of the ...
— Elene; Judith; Athelstan, or the Fight at Brunanburh; Byrhtnoth, or the Fight at Maldon; and the Dream of the Rood • Anonymous
... woman's or a child's. Again he looked at the face. Ah, there was no imperial grandeur here! Only a feeble, sallow, tired, and sickly creature, whom a strong man could crush down with one blow of his fist. Rohan grew weak as he looked, and the long knife almost fell from his clutch. ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... dark woods down in the valley, that the big brown owl did not get one or the other of them. He was asleep on a big dead branch as brown as himself, and looking so like a part of it that they were just going to alight, either upon him or within reach of his deadly clutch, when a red squirrel saw them and shrieked at them. Two great, round, glaring orange eyes opened upon them from that brown prong of the branch, so suddenly that they gave two startled squawks and nearly fell to the ground. How the red squirrel tittered, ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... advantages of having books come at will, and ministering spirits in waiting on all your pursuits—there is too much of every thing except time, and too little of that. The treasures are within our reach, but we cannot clutch; we have, but we cannot hold. We have neither leisure to be good, nor to be great: who can think of living for posterity, when he can scarcely live for the day? and sufficient for the day are never the hours thereof. From want of time, and from ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... upon the cathedral—or into a troubled doze rather, from which he awoke all at once with a start, and, seeing the window shut, rose hurriedly to go and open it for the "Boy." He had done so before at night often when he chanced to forget it. But when he got to it now he had to clutch the frame to support himself, and he looked out stupidly for some seconds, wondering in a dazed way why the sun was shining when it should be dark. Then suddenly full consciousness returned, and he remembered. He should never open the ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... they sailed along, following its graceful windings—sometimes touching bottom, and sometimes skimming smoothly over deep water, where Kitty could no longer clutch for the tall, bright grass that here and there had reared itself above the surface. Often Big Tom would sing out, "Lie low!" as some great bough, hanging over the stream, seemed stretching out its ...
— Po-No-Kah - An Indian Tale of Long Ago • Mary Mapes Dodge
... now, and leave them to triumph over my defeat; for I dare not leave to my successor the accursed inheritance of civil war. To the last hour of my life I must humble my will before the decree of that cruel destiny which has persecuted me from boyhood! Be it so!—I must clutch at the remedy—the fearful remedy—I ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... were Bud Lee's thoughts with his captive, nor with the herds Carson's men were driving back to the higher pastures. They were entirely for Judith, and they were filled with fear. She had been gone for three full days; she was somewhere in the clutch of Trevors or of one of his cutthroats. He thought of her, of Quinnion's red-rimmed, evil eyes, and as he had not prayed in all the years of his life Bud ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... to search for its owner. There were half a dozen different cars with which Van Buren was familiar. He ran to it, glanced at its levers, wheel, and clutch, recognized the one type he had coveted, and hurled himself ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... she was fulsome about it: Madame, in all things worldly, was in nothing weak; there was measure and sense in her hottest pursuit of self-interest, calm and considerateness in her closest clutch of gain; without, then, laying herself open to my contempt as a time-server and a toadie, she marked with tact that she was pleased people connected with her establishment should frequent such associates as must cultivate and elevate, rather than those who might deteriorate and depress. She never ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... understood me, the scoundrel, for in an instant I felt a cold ring of steel against my ear, and a tiger clutch on my cravat. "Sit down," he said. "What a fool you are! Guess you forgot that there coroner's business and the rest." Needless to say that I obeyed. "Best not try that again," continued my guest. "Wait a moment"; and rising, he closed ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell
... gigantic Evangelist strides the shoulders of a colossal Prophet. Saint John rides on Ezekiel; Saint Mark bestrides Daniel; Saint Matthew is on the shoulders of Isaiah; Saint Luke is carried by Jeremiah. The effect verges on the grotesque. The balance of Christ's Church seems uncertain. The Evangelists clutch the Prophets by the hair, and while the synagogue stands firm, the Church looks small, feeble, and vacillating. The new dispensation has not the air of mastery either physical or intellectual; the old gives it all the support ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... the machine man. "The dying world holds your imagination within a morbid clutch. It is all a matter of mental condition. Free your mind of this fascinating influence and come with us to visit other worlds, many of them are both beautiful and new. You will then feel a ...
— The Jameson Satellite • Neil Ronald Jones
... had been a long sunshiny one, full of absorbing interests, and as she stood drinking in the perfume from a spray of lilac she had broken to choose the bit for the Deacon, she suddenly realized that not one minute had she found in which to let the horrible dread creep close and clutch at her throat. Helping along in the construction of a bucket of tea-cakes, the printing of four cakes of butter, the simmering of a large pan of horehound syrup and the excitement of pouring it into the family bottles that Mother was filling against a sudden night ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... on his engine as I leaped into the car. My "Let her go!" wasn't needed to make him throw in his clutch, and give me a flying start straight ahead down the broad plank way of the Embarcadero. Looking back as we hit the belt-line tracks, I saw a small car with two men in it, shoot out from one of the wide doorways ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... reel, And fall, as falls the bearded rye beneath the reaper's steel; And then arose a mighty shout that might have waked the dead,— "Hurrah! they run! the field is won! Hurrah! the foe is fled!" And every man hath dropped his gun to clutch a neighbor's hand, As his heart kept praying all the while for ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... Clutching the joint of his throat, the other snatching the brand Ere it had time to fall, and holding it steady and high. Strong was the fisher, brave, and swift of mind and of eye— Strongly he threw in the clutch; but Rahero resisted the strain, And jerked, and the spine of life snapped with a crack in twain, And the man came slack in his hands and tumbled a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... doubled back," he cried. "He's gone to New Haven." He stooped and threw in the clutch. The car ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis
... sooner did the inhabitants perceive the 'War Sprite' and the 'Dreadnought,' than they began to throw up defences and remove their valuables into the interior. It was in the highest degree irksome to Raleigh to wait thus inactive, while this handsome Spanish colony was slipping from his clutch, but he had been forbidden to move without orders. After three days' waiting for Essex, a council of war was held on board the 'War Sprite.' On the fourth Raleigh leaped into his barge at the head of a landing ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... smouldered under the black shadow thrown by the headgear. A dark ulster of some frieze-like material was turned up in the collar until it covered his ears. His neck was pushed forward from his rounded shoulders, and he seemed, as the car now slid noiselessly down the long, sloping road, with the clutch disengaged and the engine running free, to be peering ahead of him through the darkness in search of ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... reply in a low, level voice, a voice in which there was something that made her pluck the child to her and hold him tight to her breast. "You are not going home to-night. You are going for a ride with me; and if—— Oh, that's your little game, is it?" lurching forward as she made a frantic clutch at the handle of the door. "Sit down, do you hear me?—or it will be worse for you! There!"—the cold bore of a revolver barrel touched her temple and wrung a quaking gasp of terror from her—"Do you feel that? Now you sit down and be quiet! If you make a single ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... get hold of something, lad, and clutch it tight. It will begin with a heavy squall and, like enough, lay her pretty well over on her beam ends, ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... when Skipper Tom and the discredited boy were left alone by the kitchen fire. The gale was down then, a wet wind blowing wildly in from the sea. Tom Lute's cottage shook in its passing fingers, which seemed somehow not to linger long enough to clutch it well, but to grasp in driven haste and sweep on. The boy sat snuggled to the fire for its consolation; he was covered with shame, oppressed, sore, and hopeless. He was disgraced: he was outcast, and now forever, from ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... are disposed to glean philosophy from the mayhap less noticeable objects of this busy world, there are few sights more lovely than childhood. The little cherub who now sits at my knee, and tries, with tiny effort, to clutch the quill with which I am playing for you, good reader; whose capricious taste, varying from ink-stand to paper, and from that to books, and every other portable thing—all 'moveables that I could tell you of'—he has in his little person those elements which constitute both the freshness ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... was ended, and the road went overboard in a long, steep cascade. She pushed out the clutch and coasted. The whir of the engine ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... four years. And I'm so changed. This"—she gave herself a downward look—"this isn't the 'gel' he wants.... Probably by now he's given me up. Maybe he's found another. Everything that's bad and hateful can find me out here. Bad things can find you out and try to clutch after you anywheres. But when something wild and clean comes hunting for you, something out of the big lonely places—why, it would be scared to follow ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... cause of irritation, and the sheath and penis should be washed with soapsuds, any sebaceous matter removed from the bilocular cavity at the end of the penis, and the whole lubricated with sweet oil. Irritable mares should be induced to urinate before they are harnessed, and those that clutch the lines under the tail may have the tail set high by cutting the cords on its lower surface, or it may be prevented from getting over the reins by having a strap carried from its free end to the breeching. Those proving troublesome when "in ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... as the bride shudders, the bridegroom's hand compresses hers with a sudden vigorous clutch, as if he feared to lose her, even ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... Paris when he was nineteen. She touched his hand as she scanned the red cicatrice on the inside of his white wrist. A quick impulse that was somewhat spasmodic impelled her fingers to close in a sort of clutch upon his hand. He felt the pressure of her pointed nails in ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... great many travellers had jumped like myself; but not all with the same happy result. They had mostly reached the ground more or less bruised, but at the moment of escape from the clutch of death we do not much feel our hurts. These unhappy victims, frightened as they were, had managed to creep and hide behind the untouched portion of the bulwark, and happy to have escaped from immediate death, sheltered from the tremendous cataract of stones, they remained quiet, trembling, ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... head-lights of the roadster shot divergent rays through the darkness. They went out. The old Captain took a seat in the car beside the physician, while Peter stood on the running-board. A moment later, the clutch snarled, and the machine puttered down the street. Peter clung to the standards of ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... voice checked further expression of his low thought. "You have no power to curse anything! You have no power to harm me, or to teach me anything! God is here! He will protect me! He keeps all them that love Him!" She gasped again as his clutch tightened ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... the functions of the clutch, carburetor, valves, magneto, spark plug, differential cam shaft, and different speed gears, and be able to explain difference between a two ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... lame, but she is of colossal stature, like the gods; and sometimes, while her sword is not yet unsheathed, she stretches out her huge left arm and grasps her victim. The mighty hand is invisible, but the victim totters under the dire clutch. ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... a man close at hand," said Peter. "Will any one pass a rope round my waist? I am sure I could clutch him." ...
— The History of Little Peter, the Ship Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... sent up by the swamped burning mountains stopped all accurate view, though the blaze from the fires lit it like gold. But I had a last sight of a horde of soldiery rushing up the slopes of the Mountain, with a scum of surge billowing at their heels, and licking many of them back in its clutch. And then my eye fell on old Zaemon waving to me with the Symbol to shut down the door in the roof ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... people, the seat being suspended on posts and the body on elliptical springs. There were two speeds—one of ten and the other of twenty miles per hour—obtained by shifting the belt, which was done by a clutch lever in front of the driving seat. Thrown forward, the lever put in the high speed; thrown back, the low speed; with the lever upright the engine could run free. To start the car it was necessary to turn the motor over by hand ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... yo', honey, darlin', is yo' now? Don't you know dat I done chase dat ole debbil, an' made him drap you ter sabe heself? When I clutch him tight an' pinch he arms, he groan wif pain an' drap ye on de flo', slap me clean ober, and run fer his life. Open yer eyes now, deares', fer here comes Massa Love ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... rumble of guns and started in a hurry after the column. Sergeant Merchant's bicycle—our spare, a Rudge—burnt out its clutch, and we left it in exchange for some pears at a cottage with a delicious garden in Champbreton. Doue was a couple of ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... me the secret of the old man's midnight anvil work. He was transforming his sovereigns into gold-leaf, which must have been of a rude, thick kind, because to produce the gold-leaf of commerce he still needed the vellum as well as a 'clutch' and other machinery, of which we had ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... a little hand clutch her skirts, and turned to see a frightened little face looking ...
— The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows Johnston
... housekeeper went through the open window after Bella, although in a more conventional manner, paying no heed to Ruth's plea. The frightened girl, however, escaped her aunt's clutch by slipping off the borrowed skirt and descending the trumpet-vine ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson
... me) is a triumph for Carthagenova, who will express superbly the offended pride and the duplicity of a sovereign. The Throne will speak. He will withdraw the concessions that have been made, he arms himself in wrath. Pharaoh rises to his feet to clutch ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... and sharp like the one over-night, but horribly protracted. Nor was all the brutality by any means on one side; neither will I pretend that I was getting much more than my deserts in the defeat that threatened to end in my extinction. Not for an instant had my enemy loosened his deadly clutch, and now he had me penned against the banisters, and my one hope was that they would give way before our united weight, and precipitate us both into the room below. That would be better than being slowly throttled, even if it were only a better death. ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... that the tie was a four-in-hand of raw silk, very choice in color but of a fatally loose oriental weave; and once entangled in its meshes the task of extricating its delicate threads from the clutch that gripped them seemed hopeless. It apparently failed to dawn on either of the young persons brought into such embarrassingly close contact by the dilemma that the kitten could be handed over to Bob; or that the tie might be removed. Instead they drew together, trying vainly to liberate the struggling ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... other men," remarked the Berber dervish. "Well, I know that Allah has placed them in the clutch of our fingers, yet it may be that they with the big hats will stand firmer than the cursed men ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to reveal the hollowness of life, its mock tragedies, its real agony of tears. All at once the impulse seized him to look at the bright steel. With a savage laugh he sprang back across the room and took down the sword. The blade leaped forth at his clutch, and he kissed it in ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... was gone, every treaty was thrown to the winds, and every hand seemed extended by a common impulse to clutch what it could from a woman's weakness.[14] The first to move was Frederick II, King of Prussia, he whom his admirers have called the Great. He was a young man, he had just succeeded to the Prussian kingdom which his father had left peaceful and prosperous, guarded by a powerful and well-trained ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... set my teeth and breathe hard. No, we shall not! We turn too sharp, and do not take a wide-enough sweep. The coach gives a horrible lurch. One side of us is up on the hedge-bank!—we are going over! I give a little agonized yell, and make a snatch at Frank, while my fingers clutch his nearest hand with the tenacity of a devil-fish. If it were his hair, or his nose, I should equally grasp it. Then, somehow—to this moment I do not know how—we right ourselves. The grooms are down like a shot, pulling at the horses' heads, ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... perchance it might have come down to us from one planted by Marban's hand. Of blackthorns there are plenty. The adjective he uses is "dusky." Could he have chosen a more appropriate one? I thought, too, of "the clutch of eggs, the honey and the mast" that God sent him, of "the sweet apples and red whortleberries," and of his dish of "strawberries of ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... announced Teddy; and before any one could have interfered if they had wanted to, he had jumped into the driver's seat and had thrown in the clutch. Teddy was young, but he knew ...
— Billie Bradley at Three Towers Hall - or, Leading a Needed Rebellion • Janet D. Wheeler
... frenzied clutch, and swung into space; but willing hands quickly drew him up until ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... of Athens and the foe of Sparta, the chief among those cities which oppose the new order of things. Yet Thebes in 379 B.C. lies hard and fast within the Spartan clutch. How she got there is now for us ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... as he saw the strong hands reach up and clutch the jutting facets. He even opened his mouth to offer a warning as he saw the heavily-booted feet mount to their first foothold. But he refrained. He realized it might be disconcerting. A few breathless moments passed as Buck mounted ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... meaning, she spoke so rapidly. When the gipsy answered, I caught the word Droa, uttered under the breath two or three times. The woman seemed to be giving some directions; she spoke almost in a whisper, and I saw the long bony hand clutch Zillah's arm, as if to impress what she was saying more forcibly upon the girl's attention. Then I saw Zillah hand the piece of gold I had given her that morning, to the woman, while she asked ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... most of the incidents of existence—for Aunt Hannah, for Uncle Reuben's incomprehensible prayers, for the thought of the long Puritanical Sunday just coming. And, in addition, the low vibrations of that distant sobbing stirred in him again, by association, certain memories which were like a clutch of physical pain, and which the healthy young animal instinctively and passionately avoided whenever it could. But to-night, in the dark and in solitude, there were no distractions, and as the boy put his head down on his arms, rolling it from side to side as though to shake them off, the ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... right in plain sight. He had failed because his mind was so full of Grandfather Frog and Longlegs that he forgot to look around, as he usually does. Just skimming the tops of the bulrushes he sailed swiftly out over the Smiling Pool and reached down with his great, cruel claws to clutch Grandfather Frog, who sat there pretending to be asleep, but all the time watching Longlegs and deep down inside chuckling to think how he ...
— The Adventures of Grandfather Frog • Thornton W. Burgess
... like drugs; but I've always had a hankering for a new country, and those hills, shining in the heat, were compelling—very compelling. Besides, I reflected, a trip like that might help to straighten Whitney up a little. I hadn't much hope, to be sure, but drowning men clutch at straws. It's curious what sophistry you use to convince yourself, isn't it? And then—something happened that for two weeks ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... still nobler in the dim light which effaced all the weaker, emptier touches. Daphne felt rising within her that mingled passion of the jealous woman, which is half love, half hate, of which she had felt the first stirrings in her early jealousy of Elsie Maddison. It was the clutch of something racial and inherited—a something which the Northerner hardly knows. She had felt it before on one or two occasions, but not with this intensity. The grace of Chloe Fairmile haunted her memory, and the perfection, the corrupt perfection ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... is a challenge all must meet, And nobly must we dare; Its gold is tawdry when we cheat, Its fame a bitter snare If it be stolen from life's clutch; Men must be true ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... what of that, when, week by week, High at the sight of it hope rises? What in my Magazine I seek Is just—a medium for Prizes! I can't be bothered to read much, I like my literature in snippets. My hope is, with good luck, to clutch Villas, gold watches, sable tippets. A coupon and some weekly pence Give me a chance of an annuity. Oh, the excitement is intense! I read with ardent assiduity, Not what the poor ink-spillers say In sparkling "par," or essay ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 30, 1890. • Various
... oblivious mill, and know your hearts shall sleep as sand within her shells! By the dead worlds that drift in yonder void, and long have sung the swan-song of their deities, this too shall pass, and ere it passes flesh shall learn its impotence! Grey stalkers from the past shall clutch the throat of days! All wrongs shall rise and ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan
... Johnny washed at the kitchen sink and then walked to the door to shout for Barney. On the other side of the yard, Barney released the pump windmill clutch. While Johnny watched from the porch, the weight of the heavy slop cauldron slowly turned the big windmill and as the arm adorned by the kettle rotated downward, the cast-iron pot slipped off and fell to the hard-packed ground with a ...
— Make Mine Homogenized • Rick Raphael
... Mr. Montagu. "I don't see through you! I don't!" But as he leaned forward to clutch at him in his terror, all that he could see before him was a closed door beyond a dozen tables, a disused entranceway diagonally opposite the one that had let them in. "I don't believe you!" he wailed. "Oh, my God, my God, my ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... in his desert lair— Now half the world! Beholding with dismay That Human Freedom is the tiger's prey, A giant, down whose shoulders, broad and bare, The long, thick, crimson flow is Sampson's hair, Makes haste to clutch the beast. Oh, how the clay beneath their struggle, reddens, night and day, Till lies the beast, a ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... an eel. Once he slipped free of Ivan's clutch and started to run. Ivan reached out quickly and grasped him by the left shoulder and drew ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes
... shut upon it tight. With that rigidity of grasp with which no living man, in the full strength and energy of life, can clutch a prize ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... road brought us in sight of a whitewashed cottage and put a period to my father's discourse, as a garden gate flew open and out into the highway ran a lean young man with an angry woman in pursuit. His shoulders were bent and he put up both hands to ward off her clutch. But in the middle of the road she gripped him by the collar and caught him two sound cuffs on the nape of ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... this warm June evening—June 15th it was—while packing his sack with cheese and maize-flour in the dirty yard of a so-called "post-house," more hindered than helped by his Georgian guide, that he realized the approach of a familiar, bearded figure. The figure emerged. There was a sudden clutch and lift of the heart ... then a rush of wild delight. There stood his Russian steamer-friend, part of the scale and splendor, as though grown out of the very soil. He occupied in a flash the middle of the picture. He gave it meaning. He was part of it, exactly as a tree or big grey ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... panting; her right arm, rigid, still remained in his powerful clutch. He released it presently, stepped back, and played the light over her from ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... lay on his left leg, was not hurt, and his right arm was free. He drew his revolver, and when the Arab stood over him he shot him in the breast. The man fell—but not dead—across Harry, with whom he grappled, seeking to clutch him with the left hand by the throat and sabre him with the right. But Harry caught his right wrist, and a struggle took place, in ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... out of the house carried her, at first, toward the tree, and Little cried wildly to Coventry to save her. He awoke from his stupor of horror, and made an attempt to clutch her; but then the main force of the mighty water drove her away from him toward the house; her helpless body was whirled round and round three times, by the struggling eddies, and then hurried away like a ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... hat, and the matted mane of thick yellow hair swept over his forehead and shaded his small, twinkling eyes. At times, with a vague, nearly automatic gesture, he reached his hand forward, the fingers prehensile, and directed towards the horizon, as if he would clutch it and draw it nearer; and at intervals he muttered, "Hurry, hurry, hurry on, hurry on." For now at ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... taken to produce this handful of silver. Or on a larger scale—as the successful speculator sweeps to himself the mass of notes and bills, all as good as gold, for which he has set every penny of his worldly means upon the stake, and feels with a thrill which makes him clutch the precious paper, that had things not turned out as, thank Heaven! they have, that then, and then!——He has had a tolerably vigorous ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 454 - Volume 18, New Series, September 11, 1852 • Various
... may be, as already said, a third, or a fifth, or a fourth; but the whole movement leads nowhere; it is an unfinished sentence. Yet, in spite of all these drawbacks and of this childish immaturity, the amateur and enthusiast finds himself charmed and held as if in the clutch of some Old-World spell, and this at what others will call the dreary and monotonous intoning ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... in the last sentence which was equivalent to the clutch of his strong hand on Rosamond's delicate arm. But for all that, his will was not a whit stronger than hers. She immediately walked out of the room in silence, but with an intense determination to hinder what Lydgate ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... was a fascinating sight. Few things could be finer than to see him snatch away a barbed-wire entanglement of blackberry-bushes, clutch a three-inch thorn sapling with his hairy left, and with one swing of his terrible right cut the taproot through. I had figured that it would take a month to clear away that mess along the brook, but on the evening of the fifth ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... is Hercules!" roared the mighty stranger. "And you will never get out of my clutch, until you tell me the nearest way to the ...
— The Three Golden Apples - (From: "A Wonder-Book For Girls and Boys") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... for Janina makes A grave for thee where every turret quakes, And thou shalt drop below To where the spirits, to a tree enchained, Will clutch thee, there to be 'mid them retained For all to-come ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... was a merchant, a burgess of the city of Glasgow, had been chosen by the accused as his attorney and was acting within his rights in demanding to see the papers. The magistrates consulted in a whisper and his lordship remarked there could be no objection. The Sheriff, however, continued to clutch them. 'You ask him,' was the order of the stranger to Kerr, 'he dare not refuse you.' Reluctantly the Sheriff handed them to the stranger, who quickly glanced over them. 'Is this all?' he demanded. 'Yes, that is ...
— The Narrative of Gordon Sellar Who Emigrated to Canada in 1825 • Gordon Sellar
... more sought after by women and girls than are beads and looking-glasses it surely shows a terribly depraved taste. Even the chattering monkeys in the trees overhead would spurn the poison and eagerly clutch the bright trinket. Perhaps the looking-glasses I gave the poor females would, after the orgies were over, serve to show them that their beauty was not increased by this beastly carousal, and thus be a means of blessing. It may be asked, Can the ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... heave live talk kern start leap stick walk sperm wrath knee cliff chalk serve floor spleen writ lawn were czar have bronze daub herb haunch frank buzz fault strength flaunt slake snatch spawn sneak haunt smack dredge drift purse sharp clamp church fund clutch kneel ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... minute Tom had extricated himself, Pete's clutch giving way easily; a leg was dragged out from beneath him, and Tom sat panting on the grass, ready to spring up if Pete ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... corporations which had allied themselves with the enemy, in regard to the fate of their own bills, by making them stand that, unless they stopped their interested opposition to the university bill in the House, a feeling would be created in the Senate very unfortunate for them. In this way their clutch upon sundry members of the Assembly was somewhat relaxed, and these were allowed to ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... vision of the tragi-comedy of life in its height and its depth, its freedom, and its wide horizon. This drama has for the most part little to do with the operation of the Fate which works itself out when a man's soul is in the stern clutch of Necessity. We are far here from Euripides and from Ibsen. Life is always a pageant here, a tragi-comedy, which may lean sometimes more to comedy, and sometimes more to tragedy, but has in it always, even in Lear, an atmosphere of ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... and fell, Gallia's devices, found to answer well In wary onset and in finish slow, Old Attic swiftness, seen in hold and throw. Supplement or supplant. When AJAX stood Before ULYSSES, neither seemed in mood For long manoeuvring. To the clutch they came With sinews of snap-steel and souls of flame. "Close lock'd above, their heads and arm are mix'd; Below their planted feet at distance fix'd: Like two strong rafters, which the builder forms ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 25, 1892 • Various
... him swiftly, and went upstairs in the possession of an astounding truth, but rapt with it in such a whirlwind of wonder that she could do no more than clutch it to her bosom as she flew. She sent out word that she was not coming down to dinner, and locked herself in with her truth, to make what she ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... "Cotch him! Massa Tom's hurt!" and only just in time did Mr. Peterson clutch the young inventor in his arms. For Tom, white of face, had fallen back in ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... haunts, carried away some of its surroundings in order that the taxidermist might reproduce as far as possible its natural environment. Hence every case has a value that is missing when one sees merely the isolated stuffed bird. In one instance realism has dictated the addition of a clutch of pipit's eggs found on the Bass Rock, in a nest invisible to the spectator. The collection in the Natural History Museum at South Kensington is of course more considerable, and finer, but some of Mr. Booth's cases are certainly superior, and his collection ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... Amelia completed her faint, and I had to clutch hold of her round the waist or she would have fallen to the floor. Whilst attending to her I saw the black cat crouching for a spring, and jumped up to turn the ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... and small, like a woman's or a child's. Again he looked at the face. Ah, there was no imperial grandeur here! Only a feeble, sallow, tired, and sickly creature, whom a strong man could crush down with one blow of his fist. Rohan grew weak as he looked, and the long knife almost fell from his clutch. ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... thoroughly frightened there could not be the slightest doubt. Even when they told their story many looked behind them, as if they expected the ghost to pop out of the woods and clutch them by ...
— Young Hunters of the Lake • Ralph Bonehill
... white-capped breakers, rising in fury as they reached the little craft, and flinging themselves wildly across it. Wanda paid no heed. Her voice rose once again, thrilling the air with its wild sweet melody, and then she sank, without even a convulsive clutch at the frail ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... my night: Each tyrant rages 'gainst opposing foe In deadly fight—yet brings to light no friend: In travail sore hope comes not to the birth— Fear hydra-headed terror still begets;— All fancies grim I see, and straight embrace, At hope I clutch, who still eludes my grasp; Her rainbow hues adored are but a frame That serve by contrast to make fear more dark. Severus haunts me—oh, I know his love, Yet hopeless love must mate with jealousy,— While Polyeucte, who has ...
— Polyuecte • Pierre Corneille
... while Lennon tottered and reeled like a drunken man. Time and again he stumbled and would have sunk down upon the hot sand but for the convulsive clutch of his left hand on the pony's mane and the strong support of Carmena at his other side. He was giddy and nauseated and leaden-footed. Every step required an agonized effort ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... doubling up of the sagging silhouette, and the groan of a clutch violently thrown. A woman's shriek flying thin and high like a javelin of horror. A crowd sprung full grown out of the bog of the morning. White, peering faces showing up in the brilliant paths of the acetylene lamps. A uniform pushing through. A crowbar ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... stick walk sperm wrath knee cliff chalk serve floor spleen writ lawn were czar have bronze daub herb haunch frank buzz fault strength flaunt slake snatch spawn sneak haunt smack dredge drift purse sharp clamp church fund clutch kneel ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... regardless of all this skepticism. It was necessarily slow, for beginners at a single-command monoplane school are permitted to fly only under the most favorable weather conditions. Even then, old Mother Earth, who is not kindly disposed toward those of her children who leave her so jauntily, would clutch us back to her bosom, whenever we gave her the slightest opportunity, with an embrace that was anything but tender. We were inclined to think rather highly of our own courage in defying her; and sometimes our ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... and the same faith as the Anglicans are to-day? We pause for a reply. Of course we know that Anglicans are very hard pressed, and in a quandary, and that some allowance must be made for drowning men when they stretch forth their trembling hands to clutch at straws. But really the claim to continuity, however vital to them, should hardly be put forward in the face of such clear and overwhelming evidence of its falsity. The ultimate effects of such vain efforts to prove black to be white can only be to make ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan
... inward, its music sings to itself. Tossed City sinners go in and out, and pass, and penetrate, but still the music dreams, and still the dim gold blinks above their heads. A muffled God walks the aisles, and you, in the bristling wilderness of chairs, can clutch at His skirts and never see His eyes. Nothing comes forward from that altar to meet you. It is as if He walked talking to Himself, and as if even His speech were lost ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... had any hope that his bullet had gone home and that this was the fall of a dying man, it was instantly removed. Lean arms, amazingly swift, amazingly strong, coiled round him. Hands gripped at him with a clutch so powerful that the fingers burned into his flesh. And, most horrible of all, Red Jim fought in utter silence, as a bull-terrier fights when it goes ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... emotional as a man; does that not draw? He speaks to you, I venture to say, through my poor words, and says, 'Come unto Me, and I will give you rest'; does that not draw? We are all in the bog. He stands on firm ground, and puts out a hand. If you like to clutch it, by the pledge of the nail-prints on the palm, He will lift you from 'the horrible pit and the miry clay, and set your feet upon a rock.' God grant that all of us may say, 'Draw us, and we will ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... breaking into a run from impatience, now settling down doggedly to walk; and at last, clear and distinct, he saw the Gateway in the moonlight, and stopped to take his drink. It was cool now, the water, and infinitely sweet; yet he knew that the moment he drained the last drop he would feel the clutch of fear. It is an unreasoning thing, that fear of the desert which comes when the last drop is gone; and yet it is real and known to every wanderer, and guarded against by the bravest. He screwed the cap on his canteen and hurried up the slope, ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... a great clapping of hands, as if he had performed a deed of valor. But, notwithstanding the miserable vanity and impudence of the man, it had gone to Hester's heart to see him, with his low visage and puny form, in the mighty clutch of her father. That which would have made most despise the poor creature the more, his physical inferiority, made her pity him, even ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... (it was no longer) the night that sealed my eyes seemed to clutch my soul. I was for the moment "down and out"; but I braced my spirits in the presence of this dominating man. I would show him how a Canadian soldier could bear misfortune. So I gathered myself together as best I could under the circumstances; swore ...
— Through St. Dunstan's to Light • James H. Rawlinson
... with flaming bowl, Don't he mean to take his toll, Snip! Snap! Dragon! Take care you don't take too much, Be not greedy in your clutch, ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... keep me by you, and even let your work go—everything, just for a time until I'm safe. I suppose that moment comes to most women in their married lives. But to me, when it happens, it will be worse than for most women because I've always had my way. You mustn't let me have my way then—simply clutch me, be cruel, brutal, anything only don't let me go. Then, if you keep me through that, you'll always ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... down the hillside to the level of the hollow, the authority of his look and gesture making way for him through the crowd that surged this way and that, and walked up to us where we stood, hemmed round, but no longer in the clutch of our enemies. "It was a very big wolf this time, ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... only freeman of his land? Should when he pleases, and on whom he will, Wage war, with any or with no pretence Of provocation given, or wrong sustained, And force the beggarly last doit, by means That his own humour dictates, from the clutch Of poverty, that thus he may procure His thousands, weary of penurious life, A splendid opportunity to die? Say ye, who (with less prudence than of old Jotham ascribed to his assembled trees In politic convention) put your trust I' th' shadow of a bramble, and recline In fancied ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... till three nights from now, And since the way is short, I'll tell you how The interim may be disposed of best:— In short, let me propose a merry jest!" At this Sir Gawayne gave a sudden start, For some old memory seemed to clutch his heart, And in the baron's eyes he seemed to see A twinkling gleam of green benignity Not wholly strange; but like a flash 't was gone. Gawayne sank back, and his good host went on: "Two days you sojourn here, and while I take My daily hunting in the wood, you make My house and castle yours; ...
— Gawayne And The Green Knight - A Fairy Tale • Charlton Miner Lewis
... round so that Charles was minded to clutch the barber-pole, but he bethought himself in time that it was dusty. He looked at his father ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... truly forboded that the aid she had given was not hidden from her father, and that quickly she would fill up the cup of woe. And she dreaded the guilty knowledge of her handmaids; her eyes were filled with fire and her ears rung with a terrible cry. Often did she clutch at her throat, and often did she drag out her hair by the roots and groan in wretched despair. There on that very day the maiden would have tasted the drugs and perished and so have made void the purposes of Hera, had not the goddess driven her, all bewildered, to flee ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... the clutch, and slipped in first speed. Then releasing the clutch pedal gradually she felt the car move slowly forward. A flush of pleasure came to her face; for, though she had several times performed this feat of late, the demonstrator had always sat beside her. Now ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... Bill held the reins in one hand and attempted to take mine with the other, a proceeding which I checked, whereupon he was exceedingly confused. The whip fell from his clutch over the dasher, and in recovering it his hat fell off; shame kept him silent for the rest of ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... already in the clutch of old times. "Run away and play, you kids. Irish and me have got steen things to talk about, ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... responded by a clutch at it, but before he could touch it he had an awful cut across the lips, delivered with such scientific accuracy from the left shoulder that it was clear it came from a disciple of Jackson or Tom Cribb. The ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... trusted; and no one, unless it were Loki, the Mischief-maker, could ever say any thing in her praise. She was always lurking among hidden rocks, or in the deep sea, or along the shores of silent fjords, and reaching out with her long lean fingers, seeking to clutch in her greedy grasp whatever prey might unwarily come near her. And many richly-laden vessels, and many brave seamen and daring warriors, had she dragged down to her blue-hung chamber ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... this time lay at full length in the mud. The guardsmen tried to rouse him by shaking, but in vain. Finally, one of them, losing all patience, pricked him with his bayonet on the lower part of the ribs exposed by the raising of the jacket as he fell. I was now near enough to act, and with a sudden clutch I pulled the guardsman away, whirled him around, and stood in his place. As I was stooping over the Turk he raised himself slowly, doubtless aroused by the pain of the puncture, and turned on me a most beseeching look, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... could carry on its wings three-quarters of a ton of armored, turreted airship. Swirling like a leaf, the plane broke through the clutch of the blast. Instantly it grew calm. Outside that vortex, hardly a breath of air was stirring. It was as if the whole fury of the air was concentrated within ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... to within an inch of their lives, mope about the dirty premises, making their nightly sittings in the door yard, if the house has one; a stray turkey, or two, running, from fear of the untutored dogs, into the nearest wood, in the spring, to make their rude nests, and bring out half a clutch of young, and creeping about the fields through the summer with a chicken or two, which the foxes, or other vermin, have spared, and then dogged down in the winter, to provide a half got-up Christmas-dinner; and the ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... present. But would any one believe that he would have carried the country, had he dared to face the country with such a measure in his hands? Ventilation, indeed! He had not dared to ventilate his proposition. He had used this short Session in order that he might keep his clutch fastened on power, and in doing so was indifferent alike to the Constitution, to his party, and to the country. Harder words had never been spoken in the House than were uttered on this occasion. But the Minister was successful. He had been supported on the Address; and he went home ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... Though they were not scrupulously just, these big men were generous, and were willing to give away what they had acquired. Though grasping, they were not avaricious. They grasped things with the strong prehensile grasp of the infant, rather than with the clutch of the miser. They took them because they were there, and not because they had any well-defined idea as to whether they ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... crowd stared at him wonderingly. John Redpath threw in his clutch. "So long," he said. "I've a brother in Tucson, and I'm going to his place until ...
— The Seed of the Toc-Toc Birds • Francis Flagg
... place, and held the pocket-book aloft in his hand with a triumphant gesture. Cyril tried in vain to clutch at it. The witness turned round sharply, disturbed by this incident. "What's that?" the judge exclaimed, puckering his brows in disapprobation, and looking angrily towards ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... first start of half-amused surprise was over I saw him by the flickering lamp-light clutch at space as he tried to steady himself, stumble on the slippery curb, and the next moment go down on the back of his head with a ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... Sam made a clutch at the paddle, missed it, and disappeared once more from sight. The shark rushed to the spot and turned in dismay, and driven to desperation, Tom hit the monster over the head with the paddle. Then the ...
— The Rover Boys on Land and Sea - The Crusoes of Seven Islands • Arthur M. Winfield
... of open drain known in France as a canivet—but fortunately I had practised crossing it when out one day trying a Napier, and we manoeuvred it pretty fairly. My relief on getting to hospital was tremendous. My back was aching, so was my knee (from constant clutch-slipping over the bumps and cobbles), and my eyes felt as if they were popping out of my head. In fact I had a pretty complete "stretcher face!" I had often ragged the others about their "stretcher faces," which ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... casting upon me, and forced me into speech,—endowed me with the power to show that there still was in me something of a man; though every second the strands of my manhood, as it seemed, were slipping faster through the fingers which were strained to clutch them. ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... fought so desperately that it was no easy matter to get her clutch away from Jeff's clothing. By this time, however, Just was also in the water, and the three soon had the ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... at the head of the paper, with its grotesque perky lion and unicorn, conveyed to Doggie a sense of the grip of some uncanny power. The typewritten words scarcely mattered. The impress fascinated him. There was no getting away from it. Those two pawing beasts held him in their clutch. They headed a Death Warrant, from which ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... sand. Both men bobbed in haste to gather them up, and Graham came hurriedly down to help. As Blakely straightened again he swayed and staggered slightly, and the doctor grasped him by the arm, a sudden clutch that perhaps shook loose some of the recovered papers from the long, slim fingers. At all events, a few went suddenly back to earth, and, as Cutler turned, wondering what was amiss, he saw Blakely, with almost ashen face, supported by the doctor's sturdy arm to a seat on the edge of the piazza; ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... the letter in her shoe," repeated Mr. Gryce, with his finest smile, "she had but to signify that the boots sent by Altman were a size too small, for her to retain her secret and keep the one article she traded upon from his envious clutch. You seem struck dumb by this, Miss Butterworth. Have I enlightened you on a point ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... poverty worth while!" said Richard, manfully kissing Dorothy all over again, since she had come within his clutch. Then, replacing her in her chair, the more readily because he reflected that he might easily repossess himself of her, he continued: "And the prospect of being a poor man's wife does not ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... at the order, but in as few moments as possible the cables are smoking through the hawse-pipes. The anchors touch bottom, and hold. All hands clutch the stanchions or shrouds in anticipation of the shock. It comes. The ship, racing on, is brought up with a round turn of such sudden force as to shake every nail in her timbers. Aloft there is crash upon crash, and the lighter spars ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... of his friend before his sight, regardless of himself, made a spring from his side, and snatched a dagger from the belt of one of the murderers. The ruffian instantly caught the intrepid boy by the throat, and in that horrible clutch would certainly have deprived him of life had not the lion grasp of Wallace seized the man in his arms, and with a pressure that made his mouth and nostrils burst with blood, compelled him to forego his hold. Edwin released, Wallace dropped his assailant, who, ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... that, but for his wit, we might have released such substance to clutch at such a shadow, had set us all twittering ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... crawled upon her neck, but she dared not move. She lowered her eyes before the congregation—a hundred-eyed Cerberus that watched the gates through which her sins were fast thrusting her. Her soul was filled with a delirious, almost a fanatic joy. For she was out of the clutch of the tyrant, Freedom. Dogma and creed pinioned her with beneficent cruelty, as steel braces bind the feet of a crippled child. She was hedged, adjured, shackled, shored up, strait-jacketed, silenced, ordered. When they came out the minister stopped to greet them. Mary could only ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... fame; He did not find his sleep less sweet For music in some neighboring street, Nor rustling hear in every breeze The laurels of Miltiades. Honor and blessings on his head While living, good report when dead, Who, not too eager for renown, Accepts, but does not clutch, the crown." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... place in which to dwell. There above them towered the great white crucifix; there in the corner were piled the remains of the Portuguese. A skull with long hair still hanging to it grinned at her, a withered hand was thrust forward as though to clutch her. Oh, no wonder that in such a spot Jacob Meyer had seen ghosts! In front, too, was the yawning grave where they had found the monk; indeed, his bones wrapped in dark robes still lay within, for Jacob had tumbled them back again. ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... the weaker, emptier touches. Daphne felt rising within her that mingled passion of the jealous woman, which is half love, half hate, of which she had felt the first stirrings in her early jealousy of Elsie Maddison. It was the clutch of something racial and inherited—a something which the Northerner hardly knows. She had felt it before on one or two occasions, but not with this intensity. The grace of Chloe Fairmile haunted her memory, and the perfection, the corrupt perfection of her ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a moment. She felt in the terror of her young heart an almost irresistible desire to clutch at Glynn's neck; but the well-known voice reassured her, and her natural tendency to place blind, implicit confidence in others, served her in this hour of need, for she obeyed ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... some poor unfortunate of my tribe, run back upon the line of years, and speak of the wars of Valerian, of the day when she parted from her great husband, and her two sons, and of that dark day too when the news came that they were all fast in the clutch of that foul barbarian, Sapor—-and stood a silent and astonished witness of a love, such as I never saw in any other, and which seemed so great as to be a necessary seed of death to her frail and shattered frame? Of thee especially have I heard her descant ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... its native haunts, carried away some of its surroundings in order that the taxidermist might reproduce as far as possible its natural environment. Hence every case has a value that is missing when one sees merely the isolated stuffed bird. In one instance realism has dictated the addition of a clutch of pipit's eggs found on the Bass Rock, in a nest invisible to the spectator. The collection in the Natural History Museum at South Kensington is of course more considerable, and finer, but some of Mr. Booth's cases are certainly superior, and his collection has the special ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... of it, and arrived in sight of Rilla gate, when he halted the third time. "A man must decide for himself, o' course, when it comes to the point. Still, in certain cases there's others to be considered. . . . If I knew how far she meant it! . . . She must ha' meant something." Yes, he felt the clutch on his biceps again and the small hand trembling under his large enfolding one. "She must ha' meant something. Not, to be sure, that it would seriously influence his decisions! But it seemed hardly fair not ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... these sons of blood! As I came on, his face so madden'd me That ever and anon I clutch'd my dagger 190 ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... me the little, elfish creature with her frightened eyes and short, curly hair seemed standing; on the other, the girl to whom Harrie was engaged. I could not help them. Could not help Selwyn. Could help no one! If David Guard—at thought of him the clutch at my throat lessened. David Guard could help them. He had promised to come whenever I sent for him, and to him I could talk as to no one ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... into the earth, at each downward leap. Here and there, where the incline was steeper, four or five foot-tramps followed rapidly upon each other; and then, gathering himself up, with a sudden, strong clutch, as it were, the young man continued on as before. Thus the slope was left behind; and now began a low, long stretch, lying between meadows, overshadowed by a bordering of willow-trees, and studded with lengths of surreptitious puddles, for the ground was clayey, and the rain was unabsorbed. ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... accompanied by a loud hissing or "crowing" sound. This feature of the disease is one that frightens the parents, though it seldom means anything serious. The child sits up in bed, frightened, and struggles for breath. It may clutch its throat with its hands as if something was tied round its neck. The lips may become slightly blue and the perspiration appears upon the child's brow. After some time,—it may be two or three hours,—the attack wears away and the child goes to sleep. Next morning it wakes up apparently ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague
... impulse. The intervals sounded may be, as already said, a third, or a fifth, or a fourth; but the whole movement leads nowhere; it is an unfinished sentence. Yet, in spite of all these drawbacks and of this childish immaturity, the amateur and enthusiast finds himself charmed and held as if in the clutch of some Old-World spell, and this at what others will call the dreary and monotonous ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... withdrew into the brake fighting, as it were, a rear-guard action of oratory up each step. The collapsed harmonium was hauled in last, and with the perfect unreason of crowds, they cheered it loudly, till the chauffeur slipped in his clutch and sped away. Then the crowd broke up, congratulating all concerned except the sexton, who was held to have disgraced his office by having sworn at ladies. We strolled across the green towards Woodhouse, ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... toward this Kichitaro[u]? Surely the boy is not to be held guilty of the father's offence!"—"That is a man's way of reasoning," answered O'Iwa. "A woman, ignorant and foolish, has but her feelings to consult. To seven births this Iwa will clutch and chew the wicked son of a wicked father. Against Kichitaro[u] is the vow made." She raised her head. Iemon turned away shuddering. She had aged into a hag. The shining face, the marks like black spots in pumice standing out, the mere dots of eyes in their puffy ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... plunged into a bath of liquid silver. The moon, immense and coldly luminous, had risen and hung in the sky huge and pale. If the morning sun had turned every wire and blade to gold, the moon silvered the whole plane. Space about them stretched off dim and threatening. Bill shivered. His clutch on the wheel loosened and ...
— Battling the Clouds - or, For a Comrade's Honor • Captain Frank Cobb
... at that moment Chloe Elliston saw a look of terror flash into his eyes. Saw his fingers clutch and grope uncertainly at the gay scarf at his throat. Saw the muscles of his face work painfully. Saw his colour fade from rich tan to sickly yellow. An inarticulate, gurgling sound escaped his lips, and his eyes stared in horror toward a ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... and grim. Nick fairly writhed in that iron clutch, and his face had assumed a sickly sallow color; while his eyes reminded Hugh of those of a hunted wild animal at bay, fear and defiance struggling ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... begin by what you call trusting a friend, that is, aiding him to self-destruction—buying him arsenic to clear his complexion—you end by dragging all near you into your own abyss, as a drowning man would clutch at his own brother. Lionel Haughton, the saddest expression I ever saw in your father's face was when—when—but you ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the muddy fields, the small barn and outbuildings. The clutch of fear made him shout their names, though he knew they ...
— Now We Are Three • Joe L. Hensley
... with herself. She knew that she hated dinginess as much as her mother had hated it, and to her last breath she meant to fight against it, dragging herself up again and again above its flood till she gained the bright pinnacles of success which presented such a slippery surface to her clutch. ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... startled cry of "Father!" on the part of the young man, but he did not loosen his hold on him. He took an extra twist in the coat collar of his captive, and looked sharply at Mr. Hardy, as much as to say: "He may be your son, but he's my victim, and I mean to keep a good clutch ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon
... windows were shimmering with a ghostly light. As he came through the trees he saw they were all dead, with neither leaf nor twig upon them, their roots were crooked out of the ground as if they would throw his horse, and their limbs were stretched as if they strained to clutch him. ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... second shot as he fell, but it was from the death clutch upon the trigger, and the bullet went over the heads of the crowd, while instantly was heard the doctor's ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
... are safe! Here comes the boat! You must let me help you in, Lady Ruth!" he says, dodging a wave and ready to clutch her ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... left out of the first clutch," said Mrs. Joyce. "There was eleven hatched out, but sure the rats got the rest of them." "I'd be glad," said Joyce, "if you'd fatten them six, and you needn't spare the yellow meal. It'll be worth your while to have them as ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... and innocent crowd like an evil spirit. I flung myself down upon a bench, and under pretence of sleeping, quietly observed him. Once or twice, as he passed to and fro before me, he almost brushed my knee, so close was he—so close that I had to clutch the bench tightly for fear I should leap up and throttle him. He did not notice me. Doubtless he thought me already tossing out to sea with the gulls swooping over me, and the waves merrily dashing over my dead face. The waiting game had changed ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... like the footsteps of death are the moments. "Arise!"—At the word, with a bound, to their feet spring the vigilant Frenchmen; And the dark, dismal forests resound to the crack and the roar of their rifles; And seven writhing forms on the ground clutch the earth. From the pine-tops the screech owl Screams and flaps his wide wings in affright, and plunges away through the shadows; And swift on the wings of the night flee the dim, phantom forms of the spirit. Like cabris [80] when white wolves pursue, fled the four yet remaining Dakotas; Through ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... following out natural and rascally inclinations. I first came to this conclusion one early morning, several years ago, as I watched an old crow diligently exploring a fringe of bushes that grew along the wall of a deserted pasture. He had eaten a clutch of thrush's eggs, and carried off three young sparrows to feed his own young, before I found out what he was about. Since then I have surprised him ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... to be commended for his decision. They declared that they were the more inclined to take him up because of it. It was their wives, where they had wives, and especially their daughters, with the young men who had not known the brunt of the battle, and felt inclined to clutch their professional dignities and privileges, that were of a different mind. Girls like the Millars turned up their saucy little noses at the shop. They thought it was mean-spirited and vulgar-minded, "low" of Tom Robinson to sit down with such a calling. They ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... you get in the top of the tree For all your crying and grief? Not a star would you clutch of all you see— You could ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... mountains, and the men on one side of the river felt that the men on the other side were their enemies. Again there were war, pillage, and sorrow. Great empires arose and met in the shock of conflict, leaving trails of skeletons across the earth. Then came the great roads, reaching out with their stony clutch and bringing the ends of the earth together. Men met, mingled, passed and repassed, and learned that human nature is much the same everywhere, with hopes and fears in common. Still there were many things to divide and estrange men from each ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... impede So strangely at times the vex'd effort at speed, That a keen eye might guess it was made—not for him, But some brawler more stalwart of stature and limb. That it irk'd him, in truth, you at times could divine, For when low was the music, and spilt was the wine, He would clutch at the garment, as though it oppress'd And stifled some impulse that choked ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... His sudden start, and clutch at the child's hand made the child cry out. He checked her with a savage word, and while she whimpered unheeded, he stood motionless, sheltering himself behind a girl with a large hat who stood in front of him, his eyes fixed on the Great End wagon. A ghastly white had replaced the patchy red on ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the cruel green depths, when his ears were bursting and his eyes starting from their sockets, he found himself once more at the surface, breathing in great gulps of the blessed air, and alone. For a moment he could not believe it, but gazed wildly about him, expecting each instant to feel the awful clutch that should again drag him under. He was nearly exhausted, and so weak that had not a floating oar come within his reach he must quickly have sunk, to ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... had taken a new clutch upon my heart. I looked back, expecting to see Elizabeth all smiles, but if you will believe me the foolish girl was sobbing as if her heart was broken. Mrs. O'Shaughnessy drew her head down upon her shoulder and was trying to quiet her. The road along there ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... inconceivable rapidity; at last he fell asleep, to awake an hour or two later in an intolerable agony of mind. His heart beat thick and fast, and a shapeless horror seemed to envelop him. He struck a light and tried to read, but a ghastly and poisonous fear of he knew not what, seemed to clutch at his mind. At last he fell into a broken sleep; but when he rose in the morning, he knew that some mysterious evil had befallen him. If he had been older and wiser, he would have gone at once to some ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... about slowly, and at half past one were quite ready to sit still and not only eat our lunch but watch business mankind eat his. If any one wishes to feel the clutch and motive power of the Whirlpool let him go to the Mazarin any time between twelve-thirty and two o'clock. The streets themselves are surging with men, all hurrying first in one direction, then another, until it seems ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... women went on caring him till he came to sensible years; and one day when he went out he saw a wild duck on the lake with her clutch, and he made a cast at her that cut the wings off her that she could not fly, and he brought her back to the cabin, and that was his ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... grovelling and sensual,—witness Coleridge. In his case we feel something like disgust. But where, as in his son Hartley, there is hereditary infirmity, where the man sees the principle that might rescue him slip from the clutch of a nerveless will, like a rope through the fingers of a drowning man, and the confession of faith is the moan of despair, there is room for no harsher feeling than pity. Rousseau showed through life a singular proneness for being convinced by his own eloquence; he was always his own first convert; ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... it him! How inconceivable his madness seemed now, his fear of scandal, his thought of others! Others? There was one of whom he dared not think; for when he did his head began to tremble on his shoulders; and he had to clutch the arms of the chair to stay the palsy that shook him. If she, the girl who had destroyed him, thought it was all one to him whom the drug advantaged, or who lived or who died, he would teach her—before he died! ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... astonishingly rich in the grotesque element. We carefully studied the gargoyles round the roof, and, in spite of defacements, made out most of them—here a grinning demon with a struggling human being in its clutch—there an odd beast, part human, part pig, clothed in a kind of jacket, playing a harp—dozens of comic, hideous, heterogeneous figures in various ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... (vinculum) 45. clutches, tongs, forceps, pincers, nippers, pliers, vice. paw, hand, finger, wrist, fist, neaf^, neif^. bird in hand; captive &c 754. V. retain, keep; hold fast one's own, hold tight one's own, hold fast one's ground, hold tight one's ground; clinch, clench, clutch, grasp, gripe, hug, have a firm hold of. secure, withhold, detain; hold back, keep back; keep close; husband &c (store) 636; reserve; have in stock, have on hand, keep in stock &c (possess) 777; entail, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... his heels in wrath are digging Trenches in the grassy soil, And his fingers clutch and loosen, Dreaming ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... uplifted his stick, and struck a black-gowned boy a smart blow on the shoulders. The boy looked at him wofully and resentfully, but said nothing, nor can I imagine why the thing was done. In Tythebarne Street to-day I saw a woman suddenly assault a man, clutch at his hair, and cuff him about the ears. The man, who was of decent aspect enough, immediately took to his heels, full speed, and the woman ran after him, and, as far as I could discern the ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... along, following its graceful windings—sometimes touching bottom, and sometimes skimming smoothly over deep water, where Kitty could no longer clutch for the tall, bright grass that here and there had reared itself above the surface. Often Big Tom would sing out, "Lie low!" as some great bough, hanging over the stream, seemed stretching out its arms to catch them; and often they were nearly checked in their course by a fallen trunk, or the ...
— Po-No-Kah - An Indian Tale of Long Ago • Mary Mapes Dodge
... taut and the buckets again slid up and down. Her heart was beating wildly as she lifted her eyes to the dizzy height. She knew well what the stopping and the starting meant. Sharp drawn against the lofty sky, the great cable seemed a slender thread to hold a human life in trust. What if the clutch should slip that held the bucket in place? What if other clutches should slip and let the heavy masses of steel slide down the cable to dash into the one that held the girl who had grown so dear to her? In vain she pushed these possibilities aside. They returned with increased ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... they poured in; the dancers ceased to dance; the music ceased to play; and Margot, shutting a tight clutch on the loosened part of her half-unfastened bodice, swung away from Cleek's side, and flew in a panic ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... threw in the descending clutch, and the big monoplane began to drop as swiftly as a buzzard that has espied some prey far ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... annoyance it must be to have a bough up there that you couldn't flick at with your stick as you passed by, and that even when weighed down by its summer greenery would bemock you if you made a casual clutch at its foliage, and laugh at you in its leaves. I went inside and returned with a step-ladder and an umbrella and a carving-knife, and I stood on the summit of the ladder and made abortive slashes at space with my right hand, while the open umbrella in my left made equally ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... the indefinite in that, I imagined, to suspend operations; it would be a straw for the woman to clutch. She would not risk the unpleasant notoriety of a wedding postponement, if there could be a chance that she had acted impulsively at least, and had been misled by circumstantial evidence she had ignored till there came ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... had not caused Mr Pilkington to clutch for support at the back of a chair, he would undoubtedly ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... of aristocratic opulence. But the rather prominent eyes and the impulsive stammering manner, which seemed to indicate a torrent of ideas intermittently pressing for utterance and always checked in their course by a clutch of nervousness, drew no pity, as in the case of a more imposing personage, but a desire to laugh, which was, however, entirely lacking in malice. Mr. Rodney was evidently so painfully conscious of the oddity of his appearance, and his very ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... sternly. "His world is no joke. He has a strong clutch—but I have a stronger... Maskull was his, but Nightspore ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... Wynter! Gone at last!" staring at the shaking signature at the end of the letter that speaks so plainly of the coming icy clutch that should prevent the poor hand from forming ever again even such sadly erratic characters as these. "At least," glancing at the half-read letter on the cloth—"this tells me so. His solicitor's, I suppose. Though what Wynter could want with a solicitor—— Poor old fellow! ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... had presented me irresistibly in the light of a victim. Like all persons who achieve the miracle of changing their point of view when they are old she had been intensely converted; she had seized my hint with a desperate, tremulous clutch. ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... more would her destroyed visage lean in a real manner on that of Ramuntcho; then, in the doubt of having a mind which would fly, in the horror and the misery of annihilation, of becoming powder and nothing, she wanted again kisses from that son, and she clutched at him as clutch the wrecked who fall into the ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... in the field And men seem men so suddenly But take ten swords, and ten times ten, And blow the bugle in praising men For we are for all men under the sun And they are against us every one And misers haggle, and mad men clutch And there is peril in praising much And we have the terrible tongues un-curled That praise the world to the sons of ...
— A Cluster of Grapes - A Book of Twentieth Century Poetry • Various
... glances down at the grave; then up to the sky, till the moon, coursing across high heaven, falls full upon his face. With his body slightly leaning backward, the arms along his sides, stiffly extended, the hands closed in convulsive clutch, ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... be—for she had stumbled into the greatest triumph in her history. When bankers and merchants shook hands with the Hebrew speculator, they noticed—though they did not understand—an unusual warmth of pressure. It was not rejoicing with the nation; it was the imaginary clutch of six millions more of gold. Thus it is seen that the great wealth of the Rothschild was not always used to the best advantage of mankind as a Christian would argue; but a promise given by a Rothschild was as good ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... the hole with the swift clutch of a miser visiting his treasure-chest. The woman surveyed him with pleasure and with pride in her achievement, and with the calmness of routine she fitted a bar across the door of the cupboard where it opened into the envoy's room. Udal was fumbling ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... Montagu. "I don't see through you! I don't!" But as he leaned forward to clutch at him in his terror, all that he could see before him was a closed door beyond a dozen tables, a disused entranceway diagonally opposite the one that had let them in. "I don't believe you!" he wailed. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... progress in public life, the high offices he had held, the extravagant eulogiums he had received from colleagues and the press, deceived him as to the real nature of his position before the country, and blinded him to the superior chances of other men. Five times in his life he made a distinct clutch at the bawble, but never with such prospect of success that any man could discern it but himself and those who used his eyes. It is a satisfaction to know that, of the Presidency seekers,—Clay, Webster, Calhoun, Douglas, ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... confused by it; still frightened by it. For a moment he had felt himself caught in the clutch of some power over which he had no control. That was the startling truth that stood out most prominently. He had been like one intoxicated—he who never before in his life had lost a grip upon himself. That fact struck at the very heart ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... twist, as directed, as hard a turn as she could make. To her horror she fancied the muscles of her wrist not quite equal to the need of that dread movement. The floor was slanting so that she was obliged to throw out her left hand to clutch at a support in order ...
— The Submarine Boys on Duty - Life of a Diving Torpedo Boat • Victor G. Durham
... the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud: Beneath the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... took Daubrecq off his guard. Lupin now released himself entirely and sprang at the other to clutch him by the throat. But Daubrecq had at once put himself on the defensive and stepped back and their four hands seized ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... that blasted tree right away over there with horrid twisted arms that look as if they are trying to clutch at something?" ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... "His world is no joke. He has a strong clutch—but I have a stronger... Maskull was his, but ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... into it on low gear; you buzz bravely for possibly fifty feet; you slow down, slow down; your driving wheels begin to spin—that finishes you. Every revolution digs a deeper hole. It is useless to apply power. If you are wise you throw out your clutch the instant she stalls, and thus save digging yourself in unnecessarily. But if you are really wise you don't get in that fix at all. The next stage is that wherein you thrust beneath the hind wheels certain expedients such as robes, ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... he had anything to fear from me. His gun dropped loosely across his saddle, his leg rubbed mine. I saw this, and I changed my plan of action. As our horses reached the stones I stooped, as if to encourage mine, and, with a sudden clutch, snatched the gun bodily from his hand, at the same time that I backed my horse with all my strength. It was done in a moment! A second and I had him at the end of the gun, and my finger was on the trigger. Never was victory more ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... bodies of frantic Germans, slaughtered by the defenders, fell heavily against it; while one huge Brandenburger who had leapt in advance of his friends, and who had been caught by a bullet fired from one of the loopholes, fixed a dying clutch on the summit of the wall, and held on convulsively for a few moments. Then, with a piercing scream, he fell backwards, carrying with him some two feet of the top of the slender defence which Henri and his ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... the events that had so swiftly passed before them had gravely relaxed the vigilance of Evander's guardians. Garlinge and Clupp—a strong Gyas and a strong Cloanthes—open-eyed and open-mouthed, were open-handed also and clawed no clutch upon their prisoner's shoulder. Thoroughgood, confused between jealous thoughts of Tiffany and envious admiration of the manner in which Halfman handled the gentry, was as heedless as his inferiors, and was therefore taken too much by surprise to offer the slightest resistance when Evander, ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... heart sank and grew heavy, Doris was moved with an almost terrible understanding of the girl across the room. She wanted to push her on her way instead of holding her back, and at the same time she was striving to clutch her as she ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... know. Who but I?' she cackled. 'We who go down to the burning-ghats clutch at the hands of those coming up from the River of Life with full water-jars—yes, brimming water-jars. I did the boy wrong. He lent thee his strength? It is true that the old eat the young daily. Stands now ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... learned later they guessed rightly) the man was the master of the house, who, coming home blind drunk from some distant inn, had fallen at his own threshold and got frozen to death. As they could not unclasp his fingers from the broken bottleneck they had to let him clutch it as a dead warrior clutches the ...
— A Christmas Mystery - The Story of Three Wise Men • William J. Locke
... go faster, it was getting dark. But was this the track after all,—it seemed to be fading out as the other had done? She put on the gas and bumped heavily into a hidden rut. Quickly she threw the clutch into low, and—more gas— What was that? The wheel did not grip, the engine would not pull,—the matchless Harmer Six was helpless. Again and again Connie tried to extricate herself, but it was useless. ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... Russian's hand strangling me. I struck water, sank; the hands that gripped my throat relaxed for a moment their clutch. I strove to writhe loose; felt that I was being hurled with dreadful speed on—full realization came—on the breast of that racing torrent dropping from some far ocean cleft and rushing—where? A little time, a few breathless instants, I struggled with the devil ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... nothing but the smoothly-worn marble shute to tell the tale of the merry past; but we obtain a realistic idea of their sportive games by taking the bulldogs to the upper chamber, and giving them a start down the slide. As they clutch and claw, and look scared, and appeal mutely for assistance, only to slide gradually down, down, down, and fall with a splash into the tank at last, we have only to imagine the bull-dogs transformed into Fatteh-ali Shah's naiads, to learn something of the truth of current stories. After ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... a screech and a massing of angry water. The boats had been under sail, and in a flash two of them were over-turned. Shavings saw all this with terror in his eyes and a cold clutch at his heart. He knew the men in those boats would ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... back," he cried. "He's gone to New Haven." He stooped and threw in the clutch. The ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis
... second-hand bookseller's in New Oxford Street. One dealing with the secret societies of China struck me as being likely to prove instructive, and I was about to call the shopman when I was startled to feel a hand clutch my arm. ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... and, slipping her clutch to the lapel of his old coat, spoke. She looked into his eyes with a smile that was sweeter—oh, much sweeter!—for tears that dimmed it, and she choked most awfully between words. "Jim"—and a choke. "Jim, I'm terrified to think I nearly ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... often the food-offenders. Any number not only let small children eat continuously so that the car is filled with food odors, but occasional mothers have been known to let a child with smeary fingers clutch a nearby passenger by the dress or coat and seemingly think it cunning! Those who can afford it, usually take the drawing-room and keep the children in it. Those who are to travel in seats should ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... in the perfect male, the spurs appear but remain short and blunt, and the hackle feathers of the neck and saddle instead of being long and narrow are short and broadly webbed. The capon will take to a clutch of chickens, attend them in their search for food, and brood them under his wings ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham
... informed Morgan. She had been in the neighbourhood two or three times in company with her husband, who had been interested in a sort of mission and dispensary combined, his idea being not only to make wicked people religious, but to irritate the devil by keeping their souls out of his clutch as long ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... in answer, she felt a mighty clutch on the oar, a clutch that strained her arms to the breaking-point as she tried to brace her knees against the runners of ...
— The Choice - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... slope it stood still for what seemed an age. They saw the two in bow and stern struggle desperately again and again to wrest their craft from the clutch of the current. Then, almost with a leap, freed from the fierce resistance of the rapids, the canoe slid over the brink of the incline, into the deeper ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... spontaneously, like a little wind. Under her arm she held a distaff of dark, ripe wood, just a straight stick with a clutch at the end, like a grasp of brown fingers full of a fluff of blackish, rusty fleece, held up near her shoulder. And her fingers were plucking spontaneously at the strands of wool drawn down from it. And hanging near ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... coming and the keen winds piling it in drifts. It's odd, isn't it? those memories we have that are not memories. The metempsychosis idea must have some substance. We have all been somebody else sometime, and we clutch at the shadows of our old selves, hardly believing they ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... suddenly, with a queer, rasping catch, as she seized his arm in a frantic clutch and as quickly went limp. He stared at her sharply, and understood instantly the message written in her eyes—eyes now enlarged, staring hard, brilliant, and full of soul-searing terror as she slumped down, helpless but for his support. In the act of exhaling as he was, lungs almost entirely ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... crank-shaft is a large reversing friction clutch, which drives, through miter gear, a vertical shaft placed just in front of the post; from the latter the slewing, racking, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 312, December 24, 1881 • Various
... out, but he dropped the ornament and seized her fiercely, lifting her from the chair to her feet; then, with one swift, downward clutch, he laid hold of her dress at the left shoulder and ripped it half to her waist. A hoarse sound came from his throat, a cry half of amazement, half ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... many more opportunities of seeing us, and one must clutch what few chances one can of seeing the Bishop," ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... part, I was badly "rattled"; I knew by the clutch of Sylvia's hand that she was too. But here I got a lesson in the nature of "social training." Some of the bright colour had faded from her face, but she spoke with the utmost coolness, the words coming naturally and simply: "We ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... anguish—"I can't bear it! Mother, do you hear?" She threw her beautiful head back entreatingly, and the pulses in her white throat throbbed under Saxham's eyes, and her slight hands were desperate in their clutch upon the arms that held her. "I want my share of the risk, whatever it is. I will have it! It is my right. I have tried to be good and patient, but I can't, I can't, I can't ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... Mistress Mary's bright eyes will weigh somewhat in the balance with her arguments, Master Wenlock," said his father, with a laugh. "However, we will pay our visit to the duke, and if he throws fortune in our way, I see not why we should refuse to clutch it." ...
— A True Hero - A Story of the Days of William Penn • W.H.G. Kingston
... of those chances came to Lousteau which such bohemians ought to clutch by every hair. In the middle of December, Madame Schontz, who took a real interest in Etienne, sent to beg him to call on her one morning ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... speak with Omar, had unfortunately loosened his hold of one of the handles, and the sudden jolt at such a high speed was so violent that our faithful guide and friend was shot off backwards, and ere Omar could clutch him he had disappeared with a shriek of ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... keep her head straight. But I hadn't the chance of doing even that very long, for just then a big tree came driving along, and hitting my boat full on the quarter, smashed her like an egg-shell. I had just time to clutch the projecting roots, and whisk myself up on to them, and then tree and I went away down stream together, at I don't know ...
— Harper's Young People, March 30, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... guidance of the boat. Indeed, I have seldom witnessed a more interesting sight than that of eighty or a hundred persons stationed aloft, straining their eyes to keep sight of a poor fellow who is struggling for his life, and all eagerly extending their hands towards him, as if they could clutch him from the waves. To see these hands drop again is inexpressibly painful, from its indicating that the unfortunate man is no longer distinguishable. One by one the arms fall down, reluctantly, as if it were a signal that all hope was over. Presently the boat is observed to range about ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... thighs thrust down into the cabin, through the open skylight. The little vessel happened to carry a weather helm, so that his long sinewy arms, with their large veins and leaders strained to cracking, covered but a small way below the elbow by his jacket, were stretched as far as they could clutch the tiller to windward, and his enormous head, supported on his very short trunk, that seemed to be countersunk into the deck, gave him a most extraordinary appearance. But this was not all; his ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... me in the first week. "I am in the clutch of a madman! Each morning I am awakened at six, that I may plunge with him in the lake of cold water attached to the mansion, he having first made la boxe noisily with a fist ball on the floor directly above. To-day in his machine he has described figures of eight in the space ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... seizing the ropes, began slowly and carefully to mount the flimsy, shaking ladder. Those below held it as tight as they were able, but nevertheless he swung backward and forward and round and round as he climbed steadily upward. Once he stopped upon the way, and those below saw him clutch the ladder close to him as though dizzied by the height and the motion but he soon began again, up, up, up like some great black spider. Presently he came out from the black shadow below and into the white moonlight, and then his shadow followed him ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle
... surrendered. Besides those who had straggled and scattered through the country, or willfully deserted, Lee had lost in battle, since March 29th, 25,750 men. Both armies were much exhausted, and if Lee could have shaken off the clutch of Sheridan, and continued his retreat to Lynchburg, Grant would have been compelled to abandon the pursuit within three days, from lack of food ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... will listen; you must accompany yourself. There are certain songs that cannot be accompanied by any one but the singer. This is one of them! You feel yourself, don't you, that it is absolutely necessary for you to clutch something when singing this? A weak chord or a too powerful one struck in a wrong place would spoil entirely the effect, and even the best accompanist cannot foresee when that effect is going to be produced." I think this is so clever! "'Voi che ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... observe them. As the Emperor turned to leave the room she gathered courage, stood in the doorway through which he must pass, and tried to fall on her knees before him. This was a difficult effort to her old joints and Doris was forced to clutch at the door-post in order not ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... that my father was a Revolutionary soldier; that he served under Lafayette, and fought through the whole war, and that he fought for my freedom as much as for his own; and he would sneer at me, and clutch me with his bloody fingers, and say he has a right to make me a slave! and when I appeal to Congress, they say he has a right to make me a slave, and when I appeal to your Honor, your Honor says he has a right to make me a slave. And if any ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... discoveries might be reconciled with Scripture. On a hint from the Inquisition at Rome, the archbishop sought to get hold of these letters and exhibit them as proofs that Galileo had uttered heretical views of theology and of Scripture, and thus to bring him into the clutch of the Inquisition. The archbishop begs Castelli, therefore, to let him see the original letter in the handwriting of Galileo. Castelli declines. The archbishop then, while, as is now revealed, writing constantly and bitterly to the Inquisition against Galileo, professes to Castelli the greatest ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... here! You'll come upstairs and let them alone; that's what you'll do!" And with such passionate determination did she clutch and tug, never losing a grip of him somewhere, though George tried as much as he could, without hurting her, to wrench away—with such utter forgetfulness of her maiden dignity did she assault him, that she forced him, stumbling upward, ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... vaguely penitent; and in spite of the scenery, began to think about Grandfather, and therefore poetry, again—so firm a clutch has habit. There in the wonderful tingling air, with the late sunset glimmering a little through the trees, an old poem began to sing itself through her head. For, though she didn't think so, Joy did ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... 1. To get that medal you've got to swim under water for over thirty-five feet, you've got to know all the 'breaks,' and you've got to show a 'break' to be made by a third party if you're rescuing a rescuer who has got into the clutch of a drowning man in any way that he can't shake loose. Besides that, you've got to swim back-stroke sixty feet with the hands clear out of water, and sixty feet side, using one arm only. Then, just to show that it isn't exhibition ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... it began to grow lighter, and we began to go slower, and I picked up my wits and looked about me again. I had only time to notice that the young gentleman and lady looked very much relieved, and to shake my shawl from the clutch of the woman beside me, when we stopped at ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... it seemed, had a clutch arrangement, so that the motor could be allowed to run without the propeller revolving. Cora's boat was ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... canivet—but fortunately I had practised crossing it when out one day trying a Napier, and we manoeuvred it pretty fairly. My relief on getting to hospital was tremendous. My back was aching, so was my knee (from constant clutch-slipping over the bumps and cobbles), and my eyes felt as if they were popping out of my head. In fact I had a pretty complete "stretcher face!" I had often ragged the others about their "stretcher faces," which was a special sort of strained expression I had noticed as I skimmed past ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... band of burning iron, that some man's arm was sure to be about her waist, her face upturned to his, her floating golden hair across his shoulder as they danced,—while, I say, such fancies held a firm clutch over my brain and senses, devouring me with the throes of an insane jealousy, my mother came in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... to Him they are unconsciously united. The sailor was right when he saw the little boy fall overboard and waited a minute before he plunged to his rescue. When the distracted mother asked him in agony why he had waited so long, he sensibly replied: "I knew that if I went in before he would clutch and drag me down. I waited until his struggles were over, and then I was able to help him when he did not ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... eye can reach Around me lies a wild and watery waste, With every billow sentinel to keep Its prisoner fetter'd to his ocean cell— What were it but a plunge—an instant strife— Then liberty snatch'd from the clutch of Death The Tyrant, who with mystic terror grinds Men into slaves—But he who thinks is free, And fineless as the unresting winds of heaven, Now rushing with wild joy around the belt Of whirling Saturn, then away through space ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... but a minute ere they were thundering over the Myannis bridge. A little further on Maitland slowed down and, jumping out, lighted the lamps. In the seat again,—no words had passed,—he threw in the high-speed clutch, and the world flung behind them, roaring. Thereafter, breathless, stunned by the frenzy of speed, perforce silent, they bored on through the ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... ever beene my profession to fang[175] and clutch and to squeeze: I was first a Varlet[176], then a Bumbaily, now an under Iailor. ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... fowl, Like Sindbad's monstrous Roc, A bird of prey some say, a-prowl Like that Stymphalian flock, With iron claws and brazen beak, Intent to clutch and collar, Fired with devotion strong, yet weak, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 19, 1892 • Various
... the rumble of guns and started in a hurry after the column. Sergeant Merchant's bicycle—our spare, a Rudge—burnt out its clutch, and we left it in exchange for some pears at a cottage with a delicious garden in Champbreton. Doue was a couple ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... lips, whose kisses pout to leave their nest, Bid man be valiant ere he merit such: Her glance how wildly beautiful! how much Hath Phoebus wooed in vain to spoil her cheek, Which glows yet smoother from his amorous clutch! Who round the North for paler dames would seek? How poor their forms appear! how languid, wan, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... E, provided with the roller, D, upon which the cloth is wound, in connection with the gearing, k u, clutch, o, driving pulley, m, and shaft, l, all arranged ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... chain; caliga, calga; chause, chausse, French, hose; extinguo, stand, squench, quench, stint; foras, forth; species, spice; recito, read; adjuvo, aid; [Greek: aion], aevum, ay, age, ever; floccus, lock; excerpo, scrape, scrabble, scrawl; extravagus, stray, straggle; collectum, clot, clutch; colligo, coil: recolligo, recoil; severo, swear; stridulus, shrill; procurator, proxy; pulso, to push; calamus, a quill; impetere, to impeach; augeo, auxi, wax; and vanesco, vanui, wane; syllabare, to spell; puteus, pit; granum, corn; comprimo, cramp, ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... dazzle the senses of his poverty-stricken entertainers was on his head, and they knew it; over hill-side and valley swarmed the host of spies, detectives, and policemen placed on his track; but no hand was raised to clutch the tempting bribe, no voice whispered the information for which the government preferred its gold. Amongst those too who took part in the affray at Ballingarry, and who subsequently were cast in shoals into prison, there were many from whom the government sought to extract information. ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... in his footsteps, Perry caught up behind him, and made an impulsive, nerveless clutch at the unfolded paper. "I knew you'd see it; so I wanted to be along with you," he said in a voice like that of a ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... grasp, overtake, snatch, capture, discover, grip, secure, take, clasp, ensnare, gripe, seize, take hold of. clutch, entrap, lay ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... eyes were fixed on him, save only the weary and wandering eyes of the listless Meriamun. But when she chanced to lift her face, and gaze on him, they who watch the looks of kings and queens saw her turn grey as the dead, and clutch with her hand at her side. Pharaoh himself saw this though he was not quick to mark what passed, and he asked her if anything ailed her, but ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... out of my way, Fairfield, or I'll run you down!" snapped Sam, as he threw in the gear and released the clutch, and, had our hero not leaped back, he would have been struck by the ...
— Tom Fairfield's Pluck and Luck • Allen Chapman
... Mysy left him, and by and by the story went abroad that he was saving money. At first no one believed this except the man who told it, but there seemed after all to be something in it. You had only to hit Cree's trouser pocket to hear the money chinking, for he was afraid to let it out of his clutch. Those who sat on dykes with him when his day's labor was over said that the wearer kept his hand all the time in his pocket, and that they saw his lips move as he counted his hoard by letting it slip ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... baling tin. There was a saucepan away at the back of the cave under the other things but he could not see it. He could see the tin but he dreaded going in to get it lest he should wake the woman and she should clutch ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... in his place, and held the pocket-book aloft in his hand with a triumphant gesture. Cyril tried in vain to clutch at it. The witness turned round sharply, disturbed by this incident. "What's that?" the judge exclaimed, puckering his brows in disapprobation, and looking angrily ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... dust upon his yellow hair, And, but that Paris leap'd and held his hand, His hunter's knife would he have clutch'd, and there Had slain himself, to follow to that land Where flit the ghosts of men, a shadowy band That have no more delight, no more desire, When once the flesh hath burn'd down like a brand, Drench'd by the dark wine on the ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... and the murmurings Of umber shades and leafy wings; Through all the courts of sense applying, With sights, and sounds, and odorous sighing, To the world-wearied soul of man, The gentle universal Pan— As now we must: the roots around, Of forests clutch a certain sound Of weary feet; go, sisters, out: ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... Throughout the whole of life Step after step, it leads our sick desire E'en to the grave. So rarely do men find What yet seem'd destined them—so rarely hold What once the hand had fortunately clasp'd; What has been giv'n us, rends itself away, And what we clutch'd, we let it loose again; There is a happiness—we know it not, We know it—and we know ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... With a clutch at her throat and a pathetic turn of her eyes to the speaker, the little lieutenant shakes her head at him and is dumb. He seats her deftly on a camp stool by the drummer, pats her shoulder, sends a friendly gutter-rat ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... air which he had. He was perpetually half glancing behind him; the muscles of his back and shoulders seemed to be hunched in a continual nervous contraction, as if he were expecting every moment to find himself in the clutch of an enemy. The Englishman hardly knew whether to put him down as a man haunted by a fixed delusion, or as one oppressed by a guilty conscience, or as an unbearably henpecked husband. The probabilities, ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James
... hill with the second speed clutch on when a grating sound came to my alert ears, and with it an unnatural shudder of the machinery. I threw off power and applied the brakes. As the car stopped the deep rolling bass of the ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... that not long could elapse before wall and man would come down with a hideous, shattering run. A slip, a wilder clutch at his frail support, might in ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... but it was only as she actually felt the hot breath of the flames upon her cheek, and saw that the whole house had suddenly become involved in the universal destruction, that she knew what had befallen her, and that death was striving hard to clutch her and make ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... it were clutched in a vast white owl's claw; and generally there is a wispy cloud caught on it like a white shirt on a poor man's Monday washpole. Or, huddled together in a nest formation like so many speckled eggs, you see the clutch of little mottled mountains for which nobody seems to have a name. If these mountains were in Scotland, Sir Walter Scott and Bobby Burns would have written about them and they would be world-famous, and ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... Always I'd think him after me. There would be no sleep for me. I'd think him after me—you know how it is in a dream, when you are like a ghost—all limp in the limbs, but trying to run! It would be like that, if I fled from him—always expecting him to clutch me from behind!... My God, if he would only make me ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... Betty's nervous clutch on the reins as she made this dire discovery and remembered Lady's antics on the ferry-boat, or whether the saucy little breeze which chose that moment to stir the elm branches and set the shadows dancing on the white road, was responsible, is a matter of doubt. At any rate Lady jerked back ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... physical warnings of old age had not been absent. Some day he would feel, perhaps suddenly—the thought of it sent through him a shiver of impotent revolt against the human destiny—the clutch of the master whom ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and rigid, his set face staring up into the starry night. It was his hour of trial. A rising tide was sweeping him away. He had to clutch at every straw to hold his footing. But something in the man—his lifetime habit of facing the duty that ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... to this dear, misguided one that, even as those rollicking words were spoken, I felt the clutch of a cold foreboding that ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... it? The Koh-i-Noor' in his clutch (and a knowledge of its value) could not have given him more thrilling rapture. He was speechless with amazement; Maisie, thrilled too, realized that a word spoken would have rung false. The boy gloated over his ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... Hercules!" roared the mighty stranger. "And you will never get out of my clutch, until you tell me the nearest way to the ...
— The Three Golden Apples - (From: "A Wonder-Book For Girls and Boys") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... felt a tight clutch upon his arm, and Ralph pulled him around. Casting eyes outward, the captain saw that it was ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... wonder-shock had passed. Without a word Doctor John was on his knees beside the bed, and Doctor George, glancing up, saw that it was Clary's Father who had entered. Then he stood up straight, and would have retreated hastily, but his forefinger was tight in the clutch of a weak, small hand. Doctor George was chained to the ...
— A Big Temptation • L. T. Meade
... body rushed back to my heart—a deadly thrill ran through every limb—from shame and indignation, no doubt; my vision became obscure; it seemed as if my soul was leaving my body, and I fell forward fainting, and dragged her down to the bottom of the water in a mortal clutch. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... of up-towndom to the ill-spelled, pencil-scrawled, uncovered notes of Greenwich and Hudson streets. It matters not that he has indicated any definite locality; sanguine householders in remote Brooklyn districts clutch at him, Hoboken residents yearn toward him, and the writer of a stray Williamsburg epistle is 'confident that an arrangement can be made,' if he will favor her with a visit. After laying aside as ineligible as many letters as there are Smiths in a ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... several snorts, everybody climbed aboard. The driver let in the clutch, there was a tearing sound from underneath, but the motor did not go. One of the drivers clambered down, and after examination said that it could not go on that day, and they immediately began to take it ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... Until the manacled, slim wrists of babes Are loosed to toss in childish sport and glee; Until the Mother bears no burden save The precious one beneath her heart; until God's soil is rescued from the clutch of greed And given back to labour, let no man Call this ...
— Poems of Purpose • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... he growled. "I have waited long enough, and too long, and you must choose between us now. You know we will soon be at 'Five Fingers,' and you must be good or they may get you," with a wicked leer and clutch at her arm calculated to startle her as she carelessly ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... that the aid she had given was not hidden from her father, and that quickly she would fill up the cup of woe. And she dreaded the guilty knowledge of her handmaids; her eyes were filled with fire and her ears rung with a terrible cry. Often did she clutch at her throat, and often did she drag out her hair by the roots and groan in wretched despair. There on that very day the maiden would have tasted the drugs and perished and so have made void the purposes of Hera, had not the goddess driven her, all bewildered, ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... All this time the propeller had been spinning from the rush of air alone. Now John threw in the clutch; the revolving propeller shaft grabbed the crankshaft of the engine, and once more it began its rhythmic purr. Just a little upthrust of the tail-elevators and ailerons brought them again into the horizontal in a huge swoop. Nothing could have been prettier. They had escaped the terrible tornado, ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... it expedient to employ differential gear, as illustrated at D, Fig. 1, which is a sketch plan showing the mechanism employed. M is a Siemens electric motor running at 650 revolutions per minute; E is a combination of box gearing, frictional clutch, and chain pinion, and from this pinion a steel chain passes around the chain-wheel, H, which is free to revolve upon the axle, and carries within it the differential pinion, gearing with the bevel-wheel, B squared, keyed upon the sleeve of the loose tram-wheel, T squared, and with ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884 • Various
... instant, he derived even hope and consolation from another and altogether opposite view of things. A thought suddenly occurred to him, as thoughts will occur to the tossed and working mind—how, why, or whence we know not; and the drowning man, catching sight of the straw, did not fail to clutch it. What if, after all, Mr. Bellamy proposed to sell his property in favour of the bank!! Very likely, certainly; and yet Allcraft, sinking, could believe it possible—yes possible, and (by a course of happy reasoning and self-persuasion) ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... Augustine says, 'They slew Him that they might possess, and, because they slew, they lost.' So is it always. Whoever tries to secure any desired end by putting away his responsibility to render to God the fruit of his thankful service, loses the good which he would fain clutch at for his own. All sin ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... fled; I had brought back the body; I had handed over the property. But how did that help me? It would only suggest that I had yielded to a sudden funk after killing my man, and had no nerve left to clutch at the fruits of the crime; it would suggest, perhaps, that I had not set out to kill but only to threaten, and that, when I found that I had done murder, the heart went out of me. Turn it which way I would, I could see no hope of escape by ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... had thrown her accepted views of life into an entirely different angle, kaleidoscopically. And always that supernatural likeness to the other man. Elsa began to experience a sensation like that which attends the imagination of one in the clutch of a nightmare: she hung in mid-air: she could neither retreat nor go forward. Just before she retired she leaned over the rail, watching the reflection of the stars twist and shiver on the smooth water. Suddenly she listened. She might ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... of the urgency of the peril from which it seeks deliverance. A fugitive with the hot breath of the avenger of blood panting behind him, and almost feeling the spear-point in his back, would not let the grass grow under his feet. They speak of the energetic clutch of faith, as that of the man gripping the horns of the altar. They suggest that faith is something much more vital than intellectual assent or credence, namely, an act of the whole man realising his need and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... the butcher, To the cook could he clutch her, What his choler had done there's no saying - 'T is verily said He smote low the cock's head, And took other ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... as much As either hand may rightly clutch. In the taking of it breathe Prayer for all who lie beneath. Not the great nor well-bespoke, But the mere uncounted folk Of whose life and death is none Report or lamentation. Lay that earth upon thy heart, And ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... and almost scared, as if her young friend really expected more of her than she had to give. The photograph was a possession that, direly denuded, she clung to, and there was a momentary struggle between her fond clutch of it and her capability of every sacrifice for her precarious pupil. With the acuteness of her years, however, Maisie saw that her own avidity would triumph, and she held out the picture to Miss Overmore ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... said, "I am selfish about you, you think. Selfish! Good God! do you call it selfishness in a man who is drowning, to try to swim, in a man who is starving, to clutch a morsel of bread? What else have I that one could call life except you? Tell me, Mercy! You are my life: that is the whole of it. All that a man has he will give for his life. Is it selfishness?" Stephen locked his hands tight together, and looked at Mercy almost angrily. She was ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... turned and smiled at Maryette, made her a friendly gesture, threw in the clutch, and, twisting the steering wheel with both sun-browned hands, guided the machine out onto the road and sped away swiftly after ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... said the prisoner, extending his arm as if to clutch at a still vague inspiration—"wait a moment. When I arrived in Paris I had with me a trunk containing my clothes. The linen is all marked with the first letter of my name, and besides some ordinary coats and trousers, there were a couple of costumes I used to ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... sit down in the chair she offered me, the miracle happened; one of those quiet moments that clutch the heart, and take more courage than the noisy, excited passages in life. Antonia came in and stood before me; a stalwart, brown woman, flat-chested, her curly brown hair a little grizzled. It was a shock, of course. It always is, to meet people after long years, especially if they have lived ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... bevel wheels, one a stud, one loose on the driving shaft, and another on a socket, with a pinion on the opposite end of the driving shaft running on the socket. The other end was the place for the driving pulley. A clutch box was placed between the two opposite wheels, which was made to slide on a feather, so that by means of another shaft containing levers and a tumbling ball, the box on reversing was carried from one bevel wheel to the opposite one." The same James Fox is also said at a very early period ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... their evening repose. Hildegarde shivered again, and held her lantern tighter, remembering how Bubble had said that the glen was "a tormentin' spooky place after dark." She looked fearfully about her as a low wind rustled the branches. They bent towards her as if to clutch her; an angry whisper seemed to pass from one to the other; and an utterly unreasoning terror fell upon the girl. She stood for a moment as if paralyzed with fear, when suddenly the little dog gave a sharp yelp, and leaped up on her impatiently. The sound startled her into new terror; ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... as well have hoped to catch the wind in a sixty-mile gale as overtake that speedy runner. It was as though Jack had reserved his best powers for this special occasion. He saw just where he meant to hurl himself over the line, and clutch that envied touchdown. Had a dozen followed he would have distanced them every one, such was his mettle just then. He seemed endowed with supernatural speed, many who stared and ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... climbing a long hill. The road wound in and out among the trees, and at one place the grade was so steep that Dave had to throw the clutch into low gear. He and his uncle listened intently, and from a distance heard the chug-chug of the other ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... to end groundless," I repeated calmly; although every muscle of mine was trembling from excitement. But you should have seen, how mother and grandmother rushed into my arms: how they grasped one my right, the other my left hand, as drowning men clutch at the rescuer's hands, and how that proud angry man stood before me with flashing eyes. All sobriety had left the three, together they cried to me in voices of impetuousity, of anger, of madness, of hope, of joy: "speak! tell us ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... round she was again on the alert, and again resolved that she would not even yet give way. What was there in a letter more than in a spoken word? She would tell Larry to disregard the letter. But first she made a futile attempt to clutch the letter from the guardianship of the Post Office, and she went to the Postmaster assuring him that there had been a mistake in the family, that a wrong letter had been put into a wrong envelope, and begging that the letter addressed to Mr. Twentyman might ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... Without a sign, without a sound, someone sprang upon him from behind, flung a cord over his head, and seized him in a strangling grip. Jack was as strong as a young bull, but in this awful, noiseless clutch he was helpless. He fought madly to throw off his unseen assailant, but he fought in vain. He felt a noose close upon his throat, and his eyeballs began to start out and his head to swim. In front of him stood the mysterious stranger, who had moved neither hand nor foot, ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... cabin, through the open skylight. The little vessel happened to carry a weather helm, so that his long sinewy arms, with their large veins and leaders strained to cracking, covered but a small way below the elbow by his jacket, were stretched as far as they could clutch the tiller to windward, and his enormous head, supported on his very short trunk, that seemed to be countersunk into the deck, gave him a most extraordinary appearance. But this was not all; his complexion, usually ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... apples, honey of wild bees And after them of eggs a clutch, Haws, berries of the juniper; Who, King, could cast a slur ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... snatch, capture, discover, grip, secure, take, clasp, ensnare, gripe, seize, take hold of. clutch, entrap, lay ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... chances came to Lousteau which such bohemians ought to clutch by every hair. In the middle of December, Madame Schontz, who took a real interest in Etienne, sent to beg him to call on ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... farther side and swarmed up it like a monkey. He reached the fork and swung himself out on the branch with not a second to spare. The grizzly, frothing with rage and hate, had hurled himself against the tree and his up-reaching claw had torn the bark in a vain attempt to clutch the leg that he only ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... before any one could have interfered if they had wanted to, he had jumped into the driver's seat and had thrown in the clutch. Teddy was young, but he knew all ...
— Billie Bradley at Three Towers Hall - or, Leading a Needed Rebellion • Janet D. Wheeler
... bag, telescoped and hung on a frame above the window. The burglar steps in, the bag is released, drops over him, these circular steel ribs contract and clutch his arms like a vise—and there you are! How's that for ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin
... being? Another man, strong and capable, any vital, deep-chested fellow that was passing along Southampton Row at that moment, would have known how to take her cares on his broad shoulders and ordain, with kind imperiousness, a course of action. But he—he could only clutch his fingers nervously and shuffle with his feet, which of itself must irritate a woman with nerves on edge. He could do nothing. He could suggest nothing save that he should follow her about like ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... last clutch at my resolution. "People who do that kind of thing always get into trouble. She might miss her train. She's almost certain ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... nothing to care about; only she could not help shuddering at the thought of braving the morning light, there in the street—she was frightened at the thought of spending long hours in the cold. Life might mean anguish, might mean despair; but oh, she must clutch it, though with bleeding fingers; her feet must cling to the firm earth that the sunlight would revisit, not slip into the untried abyss, where she might ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... fear lest that fate be ours which, the proverb tells us, falls on those mariners who cannot forgo their voyages in the pursuit of wealth, and one day the deep sea swallows them. Thus has many a warrior achieved one victory only to clutch at another and lose the first. [16] If indeed, our enemies who have fled were weaker than we, it might be safe enough to pursue them. But now, bethink you, how small a portion of them we have fought and conquered; the mass have had no part in the battle, and they, if we do not force them to ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... your admiration, pardieu," says the Pretender, with a rueful grin down at the shabby clothes which were so tight upon him, and a clutch at ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... but she is of colossal stature, like the gods; and sometimes, while her sword is not yet unsheathed, she stretches out her huge left arm and grasps her victim. The mighty hand is invisible, but the victim totters under the dire clutch.—George Eliot. ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... the chauffeur threw in the clutch and the big machine whizzed away through the crowded traffic bearing ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... for just then a strange knight with drawn sword rushed upon the giant. The maid watched the contest with breathless fear, and many times she thought that the tyrant would slay her protector. At last in one such moment the giant stooped to clutch a huge boulder with which he meant to overwhelm his adversary, when, overreaching himself, he slipped and fell ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... the glass she gave him, and yet another. She began to feel half afraid of him, and moved away. The hot stimulant ran through his veins. Suddenly he felt his head whirling from the effects of it, but that horrible clutch of despair was no longer on him. He raised himself defiantly and turned to go, staggering along the floor. He was near the entrance when an inner door opened, and the carter, who had been gossiping in a room behind with the landlord, emerged. He started with astonishment ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... feet, and to my excited imagination felt like the fingers of death trying to clutch me. But I am not one to give up without a big struggle, and I made up my mind to attempt to swim round and round the opening, like a rat in a pail, if it came to the worst; but although I am a good swimmer, I doubted my ability to keep afloat for three or ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... Age coming slowly after him, to claw him in his clutch, as the old song says. "Please God," he thought, "by the time he comes up, I'll be ready to try a fall with him! O Thou eternally young, the years have no hold on thee; let them have none on thy child. I too shall have ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... hears the hoofs following closely in the rear, someone is nearly upon him gaining inch by inch. His courage sinks—dies—he is white, perspiring, terrified, limp! His senses reel, he drops the reins, falling forward on his horse's neck. His fingers clutch the mane, while ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... in the stock business thirty years and never had a good year yet. Nothing left of his cattle but the running gear; and his land so poor you couldn't even raise a row on it unless you went there mad; and why he keeps on struggling in the bitter clutch of misfortune he don't know. But I always know why he keeps on struggling. Money! Nothing but money. So when he got through mourning over his ruined fortunes, and feebly said something about taking some mules off my hands at a ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... the earth. They reel back into their seats, or clutch the nearest support. They hear the falling of the shattered glass from ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... Blimber, Mrs Blimber, and Miss Blimber all pressed forward to attend him to the hall; and thus Mrs Pipchin got into a state of entanglement with Miss Blimber and the Doctor, and was crowded out of the study before she could clutch Florence. To which happy accident Paul stood afterwards indebted for the dear remembrance, that Florence ran back to throw her arms round his neck, and that hers was the last face in the doorway: turned towards him with a ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... kneeling servant of Her Majesty's noblest monopoly by the throat, as he paused smiling with the door of the pillar-box open and the light of the street-lamp falling on the single letter which lay within. The clutch was no light one, and the man's life gurgled ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... badly "rattled"; I knew by the clutch of Sylvia's hand that she was too. But here I got a lesson in the nature of "social training." Some of the bright colour had faded from her face, but she spoke with the utmost coolness, the words coming naturally and simply: "We can't get through the ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... we note the altered demeanor of bellboys and janitors as the Date flows quietly toward us; we pass through the haggard perplexity of "Only Four Days More" when we suddenly realize it is too late to make our shopping the display of lucid affectionate reasoning we had contemplated, and clutch wildly at grotesque tokens—and then (sweetest of all) comes the quiet calmness of Christmas Eve. Then, while we decorate the tree or carry parcels of tissue paper and red ribbon to a carefully prepared list of aunts and godmothers, ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... crash, the part on which she rested broke off, and precipitated her into the river. Her cry of terror as she struck the water echoed through the wood. As she rose to the surface she managed to clutch hold of some of the branches and support herself, but she was in a position of great danger, for the stump was hardly holding to the edge of the bank, and in another moment or two would probably be whirled away by ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... unemotionally, seeing herself a divinely appointed instrument of vengeance. Something outside her obsession had its clutch upon her also, but it was new, and she did not guess that it was ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... minutes of the time that he had got his clutch on Crosby's money the bandit was choking to death at the end of his own rope, hung from the limb of an apple-tree, and, having secured the gold, the Cowboys went their way into the darkness. Crosby soon made his appearance in the ranks of the Continentals, and, though they looked askant at him for ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... frail scaffolding—you can call it no more—that spans the torrent, it is clearly Dandy Jack's intention to hurl the coach, trusting to the impetus to get it over. We shut our eyes in utter despair of a safe issue, and hold on to our seats with the clutch of drowning men. It is all ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... and compassionate. Often she had listened, with a patient heart of charity, to the tedious, morbid, self-centred confessions of kneeling nuns, who watched with anxious eyes for the sign which would mean that they might clutch at the hem of her robe and press it to their lips in ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... is that element of character which enables a man to clutch his aim with an iron grip, and keep the needle of his purpose pointing to the star of his hope. Through sunshine and storm, through hurricane and tempest, through sleet and rain, with a leaky ship, with a crew in mutiny, ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... marking off the Ocumpaugh grounds on this side, she ran down the bank in the direction of the railway, but fainted before she had more than cleared the thicket. When they lifted her up, they all saw the reason for this. She had come upon a little shoe which she held with frantic clutch against her breast—her child's shoe, which, as she afterward acknowledged, she had loosened with her own hand on ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... it I, too, recalled that friendly remark of Mr. Black's. A man who is drowning will catch at a straw. A man who has bought a house with nothing to pay for it is also predisposed to clutch. Our old friend Mr. Black now loomed up as my only ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... deliverance. A fugitive with the hot breath of the avenger of blood panting behind him, and almost feeling the spear-point in his back, would not let the grass grow under his feet. They speak of the energetic clutch of faith, as that of the man gripping the horns of the altar. They suggest that faith is something much more vital than intellectual assent or credence, namely, an act of the whole man realising his need and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... easy, you!" yelled Andy, as he saw the man clutch hold of the framework of the hydroplane, and struggle desperately to work his way along to where the others were. "If you give us half a chance we'll save you, all right; but upset us and well all like as not go down together. Slower, I tell ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... a million pin-points of red, the world swam around me. Millions of dead souls or souls unborn seemed to gaze at me and my unhesitating rage. I caught up the scroll which bore England's signature, and with one clutch cast it in two pieces on the floor. As it lay, we gazed at it in silence. Slowly, I saw a great, soft radiance come upon her face. The red pin-points cleared ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... evening repose. Hildegarde shivered again, and held her lantern tighter, remembering how Bubble had said that the glen was "a tormentin' spooky place after dark." She looked fearfully about her as a low wind rustled the branches. They bent towards her as if to clutch her; an angry whisper seemed to pass from one to the other; and an utterly unreasoning terror fell upon the girl. She stood for a moment as if paralyzed with fear, when suddenly the little dog gave a sharp yelp, and leaped up on her impatiently. ...
— Queen Hildegarde • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... we want for him is Disgrace, not Death! Death is far too easy! An innocent child may die; do not give to a false-hearted knave the simple exit common to the brave and true! Disgrace!—disgrace! Shame, confusion, and the curse of the country,—let these be your vengeance on the man who seeks to clutch the reins of government!—the man who would drive the people like ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... cat though it was, the cowpony found the steep pass with its loose rubble hard going. Melissy took the climb much easier. In the way she sped through the mesquit, evading the clutch of the cholla by supple dips to right and left, there was a kind ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... to throw in his speed clutch, as we must be in sight of the Germans. I knew the signs; that battery was ranging for us, and the quicker we got out of its zone of fire the better. The driver was trembling like a leaf, and every minute I expected him to pile us up in the ditch. ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... And what avails reviling? Such pitch without defiling Can "Prince" or "Patriot" touch? This quicksand unromantic Closes on him, the Antic, Whose hands with gestures frantic Contiguous coat-tails clutch. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... hiding his misery in laughter, and Lavretsky ("A House of Gentlefolk"), hiding his misery in silence. It is not necessary to search for further examples. Turgenev put his hand upon the dark things. He perceived character, struggling in the "clutch of circumstances," the tragic moments, the horrible conflicts of personality. His figures have that capability of suffering which (as someone has said) is the true sign of life. They seem like real people, ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... having felt a touch Of Cockram's greedy clutch, Which though it was not much, Yet their ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... and fight to slip the clutch of the ship's suction, in the middle of a heavy sea he managed to get off his clothes, and set to swimming, whither he did not know, a toy on mountains ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... had thrown so much energy into his action that as Phil's ankle glided through his hand, he failed to clutch the ratline beneath, swung round, and unable to get a fresh hold, began to fall from rope to yard, to rope again, and then came heavily on the fore yard, which partially broke his fall, but after a moment or two he came down heavily upon the deck, ...
— The Powder Monkey • George Manville Fenn
... frame, E, provided with the roller, D, upon which the cloth is wound, in connection with the gearing, k u, clutch, o, driving pulley, m, and shaft, l, all arranged ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various
... dreamily. "But now—now the only trouble is that I don't know how to let him know." She gave his arm to which she clung a little convulsive clutch, and pressed her ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... mobile features were suddenly contracted under the lash of violent despair; and tears, genuine tears which he did not even think of concealing behind his hand as they do on the stage, filled his eyes but did not flow, so tightly did his agony clutch him by the throat. The poor devil began ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Bad indeed it may be to chase bear with hounds, but that is a hard, dangerous method of hunting which gives it some semblance of fairness. Most of my bear hunts proved to me that I ran more risks than the bears. To set traps, however, to hide big iron-springed, spike-toothed traps to catch and clutch wild animals alive, and hold them till they died or starved or gnawed off their feet, or until the trapper chose to come with his gun or club to end the miserable business—what indeed shall ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... he halted the third time. "A man must decide for himself, o' course, when it comes to the point. Still, in certain cases there's others to be considered. . . . If I knew how far she meant it! . . . She must ha' meant something." Yes, he felt the clutch on his biceps again and the small hand trembling under his large enfolding one. "She must ha' meant something. Not, to be sure, that it would seriously influence his decisions! But it seemed hardly fair not to consult her. . ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... had Leonora felt so helpless in the sudden clutch of fate. She knew she was a willing prey. She wished to remain, and politeness to Arthur Twemlow demanded that this wish should not be disguised. Yet what would she not have given even to have felt herself able to ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... himself. But, as many know, the dying are haunted by an hallucination that leads them to snatch at things about them, like men eager to save their most precious possessions from a fire. Presently Pons released Schmucke to clutch at the bed-clothes, dragging them and huddling them about himself with a hasty, covetous movement significant and ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... I had clung to firmly all the time I was in the water. Indeed it was with difficulty that Jack got it out of my grasp when I was lying insensible on the shore. I cannot understand why I kept such a firm hold of this telescope. They say that a drowning man will clutch at a straw. Perhaps it may have been some such feeling in me, for I did not know that it was in my hand at the time we were wrecked. However, we felt some pleasure in having it with us now, although we did not see that ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... was so full of Grandfather Frog and Longlegs that he forgot to look around, as he usually does. Just skimming the tops of the bulrushes he sailed swiftly out over the Smiling Pool and reached down with his great, cruel claws to clutch Grandfather Frog, who sat there pretending to be asleep, but all the time watching Longlegs and deep down inside chuckling to think how he was ...
— The Adventures of Grandfather Frog • Thornton W. Burgess
... the Continental, and not the Morse, code, and it was not quite the same as stooping over and listening to the crisp, incisive pulsations of a "sounder." But Frank heard and saw and pieced together enough of the message to clutch, in turn, at Durkin's arm, and wait with quickened breath ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... that the eyes "are altering—altered!" She knows not why, she never has understood this sudden, wondrous happening of her marriage, but the eyes to which she trusts are altering—altered—and what can she do? . . . With heartrending pathos, what she does is to clutch at his words to her, the music which had lifted her, and now perhaps will lift him too by its mere sound. "I love you, love" . . . but what does love mean? She knows not, and her "music" is but ignorant echo; if she did know, she could prevent this change, but the change ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... barnacle which you asked for: I was certain I should get one or two, if I could have a look at the pools this week. Jolly little dog! he was paddling and spinning about last night, and enjoying himself, 'ere age with creeping'—What is it?—'hath clawed him in his clutch.' That fellow's destiny is not a hopeful analogy for you, sir, who believe that we shall rise after we die into some ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... forgotten, made a skyward running jump and clasped the arm frantically to her bosom with both her own. With vast relief, I loosed my cramped fingers—only to feel her silken garments begin to slide skyward against my cheek. It was more instinct than sense which made me clutch at her legs. God, had I not done that! As it was, I held both forms anchored with only a slight pull, waiting dumbly for the next move—quite non compos by ...
— Disowned • Victor Endersby
... dove like a base-runner, and his hands closed around the dog's neck. Over they went with the shock of the onset, and before they were still, the hands had finished their work. A clutch, and a snap, and ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips
... promises were endorsed by the respectable name of Mr. Southey but surely with no authority from Apollo. They have the merit of a traditional piety, which, to our mind, if uttered at all, had been less objectionable in the retired closet of a diary, and in the sober raiment of prose. They do not clutch hold of the memory with the drowning pertinacity of Watts; neither have they the interest of his occasional simple, lucky beauty. Burns, having fortunately been rescued by his humble station from the contaminating society of the "best models" ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... duty; hardly heroic. She knew it. Yet, if there lay in this coming labour any pain, any wearing effort, she clung to it desperately, as if this should banish, it might be, worse loss. She tried desperately, I say, to clutch the far, uncertain hope at the end, to make happiness out of it, to give it to her silent gnawing heart to feed on. She thrust out of sight all possible life that might have called her true self into being, ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... small parcels of land, such as must have been assigned in these distributions, should have been so coveted. [Sidenote: Why small portions of land were so coveted.] The explanation is probably fourfold. Those who clamoured for them were wretched enough to clutch at any change; or did not realise to themselves the dangers and drawbacks of what they desired; or intended at once to sell their land to some richer neighbour; or, lastly, longed to keep a slave or two, just as the primary object of the 'mean white' in America used to be to ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... willow-grown all-but-island were made a sanctuary for birds, and therefore from Dockett only, of all his homes, cats were kept away. Nests were counted and cherished; it was a great year when a cuckoo's egg was discovered among the linnet's clutch, and its development was watched in breathless interest. Owls were welcome visitors; and the swans had no better nesting-place on the Thames than the lower end of Dockett. They and their annual progeny of cygnets ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... their lore and cult have traversed the whole world in the wake of the great emigrations. Whether they failed or succeeded in wresting the independence and ideals of Ireland for a while from the fell clutch of circumstance, they live ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... to-day that some petty success for which he once struggled, melted into thin air as his hand sought to clutch it. Failure is often the rock-bottom foundation of real success. If man, in a few instances of his life can say, "Those failures were the best things in the world that could have happened to me," should he not face new failures with undaunted courage and trust that the miraculous ministry of Nature ...
— The Majesty of Calmness • William George Jordan
... Oystercatcher breeds also in both the small Islands, Jethou and Herm, on almost all the rocky islands to the north of Herm, in Sark and Alderney, and on Burhou, near Alderney, where I found one clutch of three of the most richly marked Oystercatcher's eggs I ever saw: these, as well as another clutch, also of three eggs, were placed on rather curious nests; they were on the smooth rock, but in both cases the birds had collected a number of small stones and made ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith
... words would echo meaninglessly in my ears. Or I would remember Alice's face, that face I had once loved so inextinguishably, and I would weep and clutch my forehead, and clench ...
— The Coming of the Ice • G. Peyton Wertenbaker
... he go too, gonter git up arly, at tree o'clock to-morrer, with guns; make no noise go roun creepy, creepy, creepy." Here she expressed by pantomime the way a cat stealthily approaches its prey, culminating by a sudden clutch on Perez' arm that startled him, as she added explosively, "Catch you so, all abed, an Abe an Abner an heap more! Then when mornin come they whip all on yer to the whippin-post. When Jake go home I wait till mammy go sleep, slip out winder an go tell Abe so he no git whip. Then I tink come here ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... wretched victim from my savage uncle's power — even at the risk of mine own life — I would do it. I have warned men away from here. I have done a little, times and again, to save them from a snare laid for them. But never once have I had power to rescue from his relentless clutch the victim he had once enclosed in his net, for never have I had help from without. But when I heard them speak of Raymond de Brocas — when I knew that it was he, thy brother, of whom some such things were spoken — then I ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... thy mistress, when my drink is ready, She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed!— Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come! let me clutch thee! —I have thee not; and yet I ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... tense and rigid, his set face staring up into the starry night. It was his hour of trial. A rising tide was sweeping him away. He had to clutch at every straw to hold his footing. But something in the man—his lifetime habit of facing the duty ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... broke from the boys; and George, leaning over the side of his stalled Wireless, in the vain hope of being able to clutch the boy who was in the dangerous waters of the inlet, came near upsetting ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... seemed bursting, the blood was beating in her ears like the deafening roar of waves, and the room was darkening with the film that was creeping over her eyes. Her hands fell powerless to her sides and her knees gave way limply. He was holding her upright only by the clutch on her throat. The drumming in her ears grew louder, the tent was fading away into blackness. Dimly, with no kind of emotion, she realised that he was squeezing the life out of her and she heard his voice coming, as it were, from a great ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... paper to the doctor, who read it carefully, and nodded. Mr. Scraper made an attempt to clutch it in passing, but ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards
... in her chair before the little window, automatically scanned the faces of those passing through the barrier, ready to release the clutch with a "Good evening" if the person were known to her, or to say in a dull monotone, "Six-pence, please," to a stranger. Every now and then she glanced at the darkening sky towards the North where clouds were gathering up, and after a while, single drops of rain began ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... ever-present desire to please, in the shape of a story or a song. On that day Buddy was more exacting than usual. Sylvia told the story of Cinderella and sang, "A Frog He Would a-Wooing Go," twice through, before the little boy's eyes began to droop. Even then, the clutch of his warm, moist fingers about her hand did not relax. When she tried to slip her fingers out of his, his eyelids fluttered open and he tightened his grasp with a wilful frown. So she sat still on the edge of his bed, waiting till ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... visitation—soon regained his composure, it was far otherwise with his friend, who immediately gave the alarm. Mr. Hudson rushed in and boldly attacked the monkey, grasping him by the throat. The book-editor next came in, obtaining a clutch upon the brute by the ears; the musical critic followed and seized the tail with both hands, and a number of reporters, armed with inkstands and sharpened pencils, came next, followed by a dozen ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... across the heaps of papers and miscellaneous objects tossed aside in that hurried search and clearing up, into the inner room. And Spargo, looking about him, suddenly caught sight of something lying on the floor at which he made a sharp clutch. He had just secured it and hurried it into his ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... I'll tell you about the elephant," said Alfred, letting his clutch in again, and taking up the story to the accompaniment of the rhythmic throb ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... of some inlet now Come lapping to the fringe of yonder wood, The storm-bent firs, and oaks along the cliff. The yellow leaves are glistening in the grass, The grassy slope I climb this autumn day. Ensnaring me, the brambles clutch my feet, As if constraining me to be a guest To the wild, silent populace they shield. It cannot say, nor I, why we are here. What is my recompense upon this soil, For other paths are mine if I go hence, Still ...
— Poems • Elizabeth Stoddard
... woman in a dress of brown, fell in richly with the surrounding colours. Her arms were filled with the yellow plumes and her dress was tinselled with the dried pollen that floated in the air. As Nicholas reached her she was seeking to free herself from the clutch of a crimson briar that crawled along the ground, and in the effort some of the broken stalks slipped ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... around the corner there in their boss trade, eh?' What say?" He was flushed and red, and he did not know exactly where to stop, but it was out—and after a few sparring sentences, he broke away from the clutch of his bungling intrusion and was gone. But as the Captain left the couple at the table, the spell was broken. Life had intruded, and Ahab rose hastily and ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... and Magog and the Kings of Bashan; of the sons of Anak; of Hercules, with his lion-skin and club; of Beowulf, who, dragging the sea-monster from her lair, plunged beneath the drift of sea-foam and the flame of dragon-breath, and met the clutch of dragon-teeth. We read of Turpin, Oliver, and Roland,—the sweepers-off of twenty heads at a single blow; of Arthur, who slew Ritho, whose mantle was furred with the beards of kings; of Theodoric and Charlemagne, and of Richard ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... ears were deaf to any voice but that of her heart, crying almost audibly:—"Save him! Never give that murderous right hand its freedom! In spite of the brutal clutch that is dragging the hair it has captured from the living scalp—in spite of the brutal foot below kicking hard to reach and break a bone—cling hard to it! And if, power failing you against its wicked ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... smile to-morrow; and when she lavishes her gifts upon you, cherish an humble heart, and so fortify yourself against her caprice. Keep a rein upon all your passions—upon covetousness, above all; for once that has you within its clutch, farewell for ever to the light heart and the sleep that comes unbidden, to the open eye that drinks in delight from the beauty and freshness and infinite variety of nature, to the unclouded mind that judges justly and serenely of men and things. Enjoy wisely, for then ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... will be father and mother, father and mother and playmate to all little children." The words of the Japanese poet describe Him: "He was caressing them kindly, folding His shining robes round them; lifting the smallest and frailest into His bosom, and holding His staff for the tumblers to clutch. To His long gown clung the infants, smiling in response to His smile, glad ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... a madhouse would be far better. He tried to get hold of his courage. But what was there to inspire it? Nothing! He laughed harshly as he ran, welcoming that bitter, killing cold. Nostalgia had him in its clutch, and there was no answer in his hell-world, lost beyond the barrier ...
— The Eternal Wall • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... worked admirably, and if it happened to catch, there was always the banister to clutch at. Its popularity eclipsed even that of the soap-slide and the roller skates. The fun waxed fast and furious, not to say noisy. Bumpings and bursts of laughter began to echo downstairs on to the lower stories. Miss Hampson, coming to unlock the jam-cupboard in preparation for tea, ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... law don't cover everything, however. There's lots of good jobs outside its clutch, and the men that get them are grateful every time. I'm not speakin' of Tammany Hall alone, remember! It's the same with the Republican Federal and State officeholders, and every organization that has or has had jobs to give out—except, ...
— Plunkitt of Tammany Hall • George Washington Plunkitt
... mane of thick yellow hair swept over his forehead and shaded his small, twinkling eyes. At times, with a vague, nearly automatic gesture, he reached his hand forward, the fingers prehensile, and directed towards the horizon, as if he would clutch it and draw it nearer; and at intervals he muttered, "Hurry, hurry, hurry on, hurry on." For now at last McTeague ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... pliers, vice. paw, hand, finger, wrist, fist, neaf^, neif^. bird in hand; captive &c 754. V. retain, keep; hold fast one's own, hold tight one's own, hold fast one's ground, hold tight one's ground; clinch, clench, clutch, grasp, gripe, hug, have a firm hold of. secure, withhold, detain; hold back, keep back; keep close; husband &c (store) 636; reserve; have in stock, have on hand, keep in stock &c (possess) 777; entail, tie up, settle. Adj. retaining &c v.; retentive, tenacious. unforfeited^, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... something else; the "something else," of course, to be the conception of an ingenious mind. And it was while he was in the midst of an anecdote proving the existence of this quality in his friend that he felt a sudden clutch on ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... (one-half of the lady passengers in public conveyances along the route gave, as their instruction and appeal to conductors, "Set me down as near as you can to Brown and Hodgkinson's!"), and there was purchased a blouse of white lace—costing so much that Gertie, on hearing the amount, had to clutch at one of the high chairs; and as Clarence paid readily with gold, the polite young woman on the other side of the counter assured him it was well worth the money. Gertie, at another establishment, bought a pair of slippers, ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... should fall to his share, says his biographer, he made haste to vow the raising of a force of five thousand horse and fifty thousand foot for the expulsion of the Saracens from Jerusalem. Nor is this the only instance in which even the noble among men have sought to clutch the grand opening futures, and wreathe the beauty of their promise about the consecrated graves of the past. "Servants of Sepulchres" is a title which even now, not individuals alone, but ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... that must have been asleep. He did not see it till it shot up in his face from its rocky nook. He made a clutch as startled as was the rise of the ptarmigan, and there remained in his hand three tail-feathers. As he watched its flight he hated it, as though it had done him some terrible wrong. Then he returned and shouldered ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... raised his rifle. But it was too late for the eagle to stop. The heavy figure with the tearing beak and claws swooped downward, and there was silence and terror among the green leaves. But before the eagle could clutch or rend, Henry's rifle spoke with unerring aim, and the body fell ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... and I shook like a leaf with the pain of it. Again and again I faced it, again and again I failed. It was physical pain, it was a thing that I could feel like a clutch at my heart. Was it not tearing ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... "motes," or wants to, and likewise a knowledge of many things mechanical, which had heretofore been between closed covers, is in the daily litany of many who had previously never known a clutch from a cam-shaft, or a sparking ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... rose as they poured in; the dancers ceased to dance; the music ceased to play; and Margot, shutting a tight clutch on the loosened part of her half-unfastened bodice, swung away from Cleek's side, and flew in a ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... more danger, I think, from many of the family papers, published once a week, in those stories of vice and shame, full of infamous suggestions, going as far as they can without exposing themselves to the clutch of the law. I name none of them; but say that on some fashionable tables there lie 'family newspapers' that are the ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... be reversing engines and trying to stop her. They would put out a boat. But what hope, what chance of rescue by night, in such a wild waste of waves as that? And Muriel Ellis was clinging to him for dear life all the while, with the despairing clutch ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... accompanied its course. Down, down went the poor wretches, now utterly overwhelmed by the torrent, now regaining their feet only to utter a scream, and then be swept off. Here a miserable struggler, whirled onward, would clutch at the banks and try to scramble forth, but the soft turf giving way beneath him, he ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Dwight made another clutch at the creature, which evaded him and, with a rapid movement, wound the rope around his neck so tightly that he choked, and began to turn black in the face. Mr. Lawrence, who, though mortified by the sensation they were creating, could not restrain his laughter, now sprang to his nephew's aid, and ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... a dinner of herbs—in the liquid form of absinthe," said my master with a clutch at Paragot. "How does it go? Better a dinner of ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... the jagged rock with a force that cut a gash across the boy's head. The blood splashed on both men's faces as they renewed the strife. Then with a quick twist Burleigh threw the outlaw to the floor and held him in a clutch that weighed him down like a ledge of rock; and it was pound for ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... peacemen, also; crying for Peace, peace at any price—though it be war! We must live free, at peace, or each man dies With death-clutch fast for ever on ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... but his eyes were eloquent; the clutch of his arms was eloquent. He was the playground of unspeakable emotions. These, ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... been holding on tight to an upright stake, or to the nearest piece of furniture, during some impression of a sharp earthquake-shock or of an attack of dyspeptic dizziness; albeit indeed that he wasn't conscious of this absurd, this instinctive nervous clutch till the thing that was to be more wonderful than any yet suddenly flared up for him—the sight of the Princess again on the threshold of the room, poised there an instant, in her exquisite grace, for recovery of some ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... it better to be banged on the knob by a gun-butt by a good American than batted in the eye by this color on a Bullshevist!" asserted Lanigan, waving the red necktie that he still retained in his clutch. He gave the owner of it another push. "Along with you, ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... choice of the names that with them shall be household words. Never, at any period of their history, have they been lightly moved; but, when moved, their meaning was not to be mistaken; tenacious their living grasp as the clutch of death; though force may wrench the weapon from their hands, no force can wrench the worship from their hearts. They may not be conversant with our written annals; but in our oral traditions they ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... better get hold of something, lad, and clutch it tight. It will begin with a heavy squall and, like enough, lay her pretty well over on her beam ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... with a dull thud against the ribs—once, twice. The burly, black-bearded wretch gave a shrill, terrible cry and fell staggering back. Then, in an instant, with another cry, he was up and clutched Levi with a clutch of despair by the throat and by the arm. Then followed a struggle, short, terrible, silent. Not a sound was heard but the deep, panting breath and the scuffling of feet in the sand, upon which there now poured and dabbled a dark-purple ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... They did not yet even know that he was married. To tell them he was married might jeopardise his every chance; yet, if he did not definitely make them understand that he wished for Annette's hand, it would be dropping into some other clutch before he was free to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
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