"Claw" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... claw," Stane quoted lightly, "only up here her teeth are white, and her claws also. And when she bares them a man has little chance. But I understand your feeling, one has the sense of a besetting menace. I felt it often last winter when I was new to the country, and ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... sickening as they are human, which can take place only between two people who love each other; who love each other so well that each knows with cruel certainty the surest way to wound the other; and who stab, and tear, and claw at these vulnerable spots in exact proportion to ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... wide granite steps descends towards the street. Over the entrance hovers an enormous specimen of the American eagle, with outspread wings, a shield before her breast, and, if I recollect aright, a bunch of intermingled thunderbolts and barbed arrows in each claw. With the customary infirmity of temper that characterizes this unhappy fowl, she appears by the fierceness of her beak and eye, and the general truculency of her attitude, to threaten mischief to the inoffensive community; and especially to warn all citizens careful of their ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... for the earth burns my feet Till I have changed my house to such a refuge That the old and ailing, and all weak of heart, May escape from beak and claw; all, all, shall come Till the walls burst and the roof fall on us. From this day out I ...
— The Countess Cathleen • William Butler Yeats
... sweet one," remarked Matty. "You see, Elmer has signed it with what I make out to be the paw of a wolf. That's the totem of his patrol, while mine is a beaver tail, and the third one would be the claw ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas
... with sparkling black eyes that seemed to see right through one; her small head was covered with a thick mop of curls of a blackness that, in some lights, had blue and green shades like the plumage of a bird; her wasted cheeks and brown, claw-like hands told pathetically of weary months on a sick-bed, which indeed she had only recently quitted, as ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... of which our engraving is a good representation, comprises a screw wrench, a pipe wrench, a hammer, a nail claw, a screw-driver, and a ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various
... mountainous Japanese junks; butter-box galliots, and what not; but take my word for it, you never saw such a rare old craft as this same rare old Pequod. She was a ship of the old school, rather small if anything; with an old-fashioned claw-footed look about her. Long seasoned and weather-stained in the typhoons and calms of all four oceans, her old hull's complexion was darkened like a French grenadier's, who has alike fought in Egypt and Siberia. Her venerable bows looked bearded. Her masts—cut ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... scout staffs had tigers' heads on them. Even when they dived from the spring-board they had a certain kind of a way of jumping, they called it the tiger spring, and nobody could get the hang of it. Some organization they had, that's what Mr. Ellsworth said. Every one of those fellows had a tiger claw hung around his neck. Oh, boy, that was some ...
— Roy Blakeley's Adventures in Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... kine hung on for seven long year,— But when't was done, we didn't count it dear. Why, law an' order, honor, civil right, Ef they ain't wuth it, wut is wuth a fight? I'm older 'n you: the plough, the axe, the mill, All kinds o' labor an' all kinds o' skill, Would be a rabbit in a wile-cat's claw, Ef't warn't for thet slow critter, 'stablished law; Onsettle thet, an' all the world goes whiz, A screw is loose in everythin' there is: Good buttresses once settled, don't you fret An' stir 'em: take a bridge's word for thet! Young folks are smart, but all ain't good thet's ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... of the Northern forests are huge beasts, capable of smothering a strong man by falling on him and lying there—a death which has come to more than one daring hunter. The beast's favorite method of dealing with his foe is to claw him to death, or else hug him till his ribs are snapped and crushed into ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... a mile from the shore a small brigantine, stripped to a lower topsail, storm-jib, and balance-reefed mainsail, was trying to claw off shore. She had small chance, unless the gale shifted or moderated, for she evidently could not carry enough sail to make any way against the huge sea, and to heave to would be sure destruction within ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... and the one God knows. That was the one you saw for a minute and, not to disappoint you, I've had to live up to it. It hasn't been easy. As you will see from his letter, even Louis doesn't need me now. And as for my boy—I know now, that though beasts claw at his life and colds and hungers and desolations come to him, they cannot put out the shine of him. But for me it has been very lonely. I wanted to be the thing of soft corners and seduction that you were sickened of. I had to ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... had come along and, catching hold of the chunk of meat in one claw, had tried to swim away with it to eat it in some hole on the bottom ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandpa Ford's • Laura Lee Hope
... not justified in what I ask," said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit's robe, "but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw?" ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... gilded bed, decorated with down sacks in chintz covers to keep her warm, high pillows set up as a background for her, and a little pillow for every bone which might make a dint in the feather bed. Another such piece of furniture was not to be found in the Territory. It and her ebony chairs, her claw-footed tables, her harp and dower chest, had come with her from France. The harp alone she had already given to Angelique, who was to inherit all ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... barking vigorously behind a low fence at a cat, who sat serenely on the other side, meeting his Bombastes Furioso plunges at the intervening pickets with a contemptuous hiss and an occasional buffet with her claw upon his muzzle. I have yet to see a dog that dares attack my goat of a year old, except when he is harnessed to his wagon. They are not, however, afraid of sheep. And they are much more clear in their minds about attacking ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... was this 'ero's genius—and, I may say—er—I may say genius—that, unaided, 'it upon the only way for removing the cruel conqueror from our beloved 'earths and 'omes. It was this 'ero who, 'aving first allowed the invaders to claw each other to 'ash (if I may be permitted the expression) after the well-known precedent of the Kilkenny cats, thereupon firmly and without flinching, stepped bravely in with his fellow-'eros—need I say I allude to our gallant Boy Scouts?—and dexterously gave what-for in no uncertain manner ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... upon him wildly, her fingers stuck out as if she would claw him. "You mean to tell me if you hadn't 'a married a woman off the street, you'd 'a gone chasin' a fluffy-haired girl? If you'd 'a had a decent wife, that you knowed had ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... Don't take her back. She'll claw you like a wild eagle in a cage—out there. She belongs to the world. In the fall she sings for Auchinloss. It may lead to anything! Albert—you ask why I sent for you. Let her be. Let her stay here with Mrs. Blair—a ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... beggar-woman and two little beggar-children, stragglers from some far-off region, who, as the carriage rolled onward, held out their hands and lifted up their doleful voices, most piteously beseeching charity. A yellow claw—the very same that had clawed together so much wealth—poked itself out of the coach-window, and dropt some copper coins upon the ground; so that, though the great man's name seems to have been Gathergold, ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... got to be learned.... A clear starlight night throws such heavy shadows that if you didn't know the shape of a shore perfectly you would claw away from every bunch of timber because you would take the black shadow of it for a solid cape; and you see you would be getting scared to death every fifteen minutes by the watch. You would be fifty yards from shore all the time when you ought to be within fifty feet of it. You can't see a snag ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... but he refused them all, and shook them off, and went to the door. But as he put his foot over the threshold, the strange old man stood up and put his hand that was thin and withered like a bird's claw on Hanrahan's hand, and said: 'It is not Hanrahan, the learned man and the great songmaker, that should go out from a gathering like this, on a Samhain night. And stop here, now,' he said, 'and play a hand with me; and here is an ...
— Stories of Red Hanrahan • W. B. Yeats
... present at the country dance in all his glory. He was attired in his master's old claw-hammer coat, a very buff vest, a high standing collar the corners of which stood out six inches from his face, striped pantaloons that fitted as tightly as a kid glove, and he wore number fourteen shoes. He looked as though he were born ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... claw of the hammer underneath the edge of the board top and wrenched with all his might. The boards had been clamped together by a transverse bar and the whole top of the box came away in one piece. A layer of excelsior was disclosed, ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... charity, kind gentlemen, charity!" and the old crone stretches forth a long, bony claw. Should you pass on she calls down curses on your head. If you are wise, you go back and fling her a copper to stop the cold streaks that are shooting up your spine. And these old women were the most trying sights I saw ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... not love to pluck the quills, With which I make pens, out of a lion's claw. The King! Should I be bitter 'gainst the King, I shall have scurvy ballads made of me, Sung to the hanging tune. I dare ...
— The Noble Spanish Soldier • Thomas Dekker
... says I, "the first heavy sea she sticks her nose into'll claw off half that scroll-work, and the next will finish it. If she's meant for a pleasure-ship give me my draft again, and I'll porture you a pretty, light piece of scroll-work, good cheap. If she's meant for the ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... draw a nail with a claw hammer when you could not possibly pull it with your hand even if you could get hold ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... the port-hole were the head and shoulders of Tsang Foo. Not a muscle of the yellow face moved, not a tremor of the slanting eyelids showed surprise. The right hand, holding a bit of tow, mechanically continued polishing the brass around the port-hole, but the left—long, thin, and with claw-like nails, shot stealthily forward ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... a curious sensation of shrinking from the weird-looking old man, which increased as he suddenly beckoned him to approach with his thin, claw-like hand, after sinking back in ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... with the crowd—surged along the passage-ways, the blue and other rooms, and through the great east room. Crowds of country people, some very funny. Fine music from the Marine band, off in a side place. I saw Mr. Lincoln, drest all in black, with white kid gloves and a claw-hammer coat, receiving, as in duty bound, shaking hands, looking very disconsolate, and as if he would give anything to be ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... "A stable? Straw? This to me, thou filthy clapper-claw, Thou fly-blown cod's-head, thou pestiferous thing!" And, roaring, on the brawny ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... very still, exultation and anxiety fighting for a grip on her heart. Anthony had told his love, raved of her, called her by name. (Anxiety's claw-like fingers began to yield.) The very intensity of his utterance declared his conviction that he must give her up. The exceeding bitterness of his tone rang too true to be ill-founded. (Exultation's clutch weakened, and Anxiety took a fresh hold.) Of ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... quick, rasping footsteps, then, that were not those of the dog. And something seemed to catch the dog in mid-air, as it leaped. It was hurled howling to the deck. For a moment it struggled furiously, as if an invisible claw had pinned it down. Then it escaped, and fled whimpering to ...
— Salvage in Space • John Stewart Williamson
... beggar woman and two little beggar-children, stragglers from some far-off region, who, as the carriage rolled onward, held out their hands and lifted up their doleful voices, most piteously beseeching charity. A yellow claw the very same that had dawed together so much wealth—poked itself out of the coach-window, and dropt some copper coins upon the ground; so that, though the great man's name seems to have been Gathergold, he might just as suitably have been nicknamed Scattercopper. Still, ...
— The Great Stone Face - And Other Tales Of The White Mountains • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and yanked a single hair out of her head. She screamed and tried to claw him, then fought for the hair. Bork was immovable. He held her off easily with one hand while the fingers of the other danced in the air. He spoke what seemed to be a name, though it bore no resemblance to ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... on!" we shouted, and the faithful dog strained all of his energies to overtake the chase, and when he again got within a few yards of it, up went a claw, and we could hear the powerful blow that descended upon the dog's head, and sent him rolling over and over again, and this time a slight yelp told that ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... there was a claw-footed table, which also had the look of an old friend; and on it a dainty porringer, filled with cuttings of fragrant sweetbriar. This was some womanly conceit, I said to myself; and then I laughed, though ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... camp of plotting enemies, who, while they work, grumble, and who, while they receive their wages, scheme for the overthrow of the entire concern! His mills, instead of being shelters for his brothers and sisters, are nests of scratching eagles—ready to rend and claw! ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... and moves around in a circle, snapping his whip at each flourish, and calling the name of some animal. The players in the circle immediately imitate the animal, both as to its movements and cries. For instance, for a bear they claw or run on "all fours," or climb and at the same time growl; for a frog they may hop or swim and croak. The list may include the hopping kangaroo, the snarling and springing tiger, the humped and swaying camel, the balking and braying ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... inexhaustible Whole, from sun to grub, there is no scorn: all need each other. Light does not carry terrestrial perfumes into the azure depths, without knowing what it does with them; night distributes the stellar essence to the sleeping plants. Every bird which flies has the thread of the Infinite in its claw. Germination includes the hatching of a meteor, and the tap of a swallow's bill, breaking the egg; and it leads forward the birth of an earth-worm and the advent of a Socrates. Where the telescope ends the microscope begins. Which of them the grander view? A bit ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... eloquently denounced by the old Republicans as the peculiar blood guilt of dynastic ambitions is by no means over yet. They will be fought out differently, with lesser frequency, with an increased bitterness and the savage tooth- and-claw obstinacy of a struggle for existence. They will make us regret the time of dynastic ambitions, with their human absurdity moderated by prudence and even by shame, by the fear of personal responsibility and the regard paid to ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... degrees. It is found widely scattered among the barefoot mountain tribes of northern Luzon. The people say it is due to mountain climbing, and their explanation is probably correct, as the great toe is used much as is a claw in securing a footing on the slippery, steep trails during the rainy reason. Fa'-wing occurs quite as commonly with women as with men, and in Ambuklao, Benguet Province, I saw a boy of 8 or 9 years whose great toes were spread half ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... stand in awe, Pull in his hornes, his hoof, his claw; But having none, they did in ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... The muzzle is sharp, the ears are short and erect, and the animal is covered, particularly about the neck, with thick and shaggy hair. He has usually two dew claws on each of the hind legs; not, however, as in the one claw of other dogs, having a jointed attachment to the limb, but merely connected by the skin and some slight cellular substance. These excrescences should be cut off when the dog is young. The tail is slightly turned upwards and long, and almost as bushy as that of a ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... the rest away. As Dick sculled easily with one hand, he kept an eye upon Pedro, and obeyed the signals of his hand, to go to the right, the left, or stop, as sponges were seen. Then from time to time the long pole with the claw at the end was lowered to the bottom and a ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... Theodora gasped, as the little creature shook himself with a vehemence which fairly hoisted him off his hind legs, then flew at the nearest claw of the tiger skin ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... from Marl's height, And cried, astonished at the sight, "Whose fine estate is that there here?" "State! Je vous n'entends pas, Monsieur." "His? What the land and houses too? The fellow's richer than a Jew: On everything he lays his claw! I should like ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... a sign-post in front, displaying an object very common in art, but rarely met with in nature—to wit, a blue lion, with three bow legs in the air, balancing himself on the extreme point of the centre claw of his fourth foot. There were, within sight, an auctioneer's and fire-agency office, a corn-factor's, a linen-draper's, a saddler's, a distiller's, a grocer's, and a shoe-shop—the last-mentioned warehouse ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... is waking out of a long deep sleep. The old ignorance is still defended with tooth and claw, but we have kings and nobles ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... attention, Jonathan. The first consists of a part of a very beautiful word-picture, in which the splendid old Hebrew prophet described his vision of a perfect social state. In his Utopia it would no longer be true to speak of Nature as being red of tooth and claw. Even the lion would eat straw like the ox, so that there might not be suffering caused by one animal preying upon another. Whenever I read that chapter, Jonathan, I sit watching the smoke-wreaths curl out of my pipe ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo
... his outfit of sea-clothing had long since been confiscated; and he was now fain to go about in whatever he could pick up. His upper garment—an unsailor-like article of dress which he persisted in wearing, though torn from his back twenty times in the day—was an old "claw-hammer jacket," or swallow-tail coat, formerly belonging to Captain Guy, and which had formed one ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... of course considered what she would do to make them habitable. She had a neat fancy for furniture, and distributed her tones and half tones and bits of colour freely about the walls and ceilings, with a high-backed chair here, a spindle-legged sofa there, and a claw-footed table in the centre, until her eye was caught by a very dirty deal desk, on which stood an open book, with an inkstand and some pens. On the leaf she read the last entry: "Eli M. Grow and lady, ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... "Hello!" "Commander Reynolds's compliments. You are invited on board H.M.S. Collingwood, 'at home' at 4:30 P.M. Not later than 5:30 P.M." I had already hinted at the limited amount of my wardrobe, and that I could never succeed as a dude. "You are expected, sir, in a stovepipe hat and a claw-hammer coat!" "Then I can't come." "Dash it! come in what you have on; that is what we mean." "Aye, aye, sir!" The Collingwood's cheer was good, and had I worn a silk hat as high as the moon I could not have had a better time or been made more at home. An Englishman, even on his great battle-ship, ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... have give us a chancst to claw the hair outen that damned Corrigan feller!" complained Weaver. "In some ways, though, I'm sorta glad the damned mine was blew up. 'Firebrand' would have sure got a-hold of her some day, an' then we'd be clawin' ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... conditions and address ourselves with wonder, with awe, with love, as we well may, to that being in whom we move. I abate no jot of those vaster hopes, yet I would pursue that ardent aspiration, content as to here and today. I do not believe in a nature red with tooth and claw. If indeed she appears so terrible to any it is because they themselves have armed her. Again, behind the anger of the Gods there is a love. Are the rocks barren? Lay thy brow against them and learn what memories they keep. Is the brown earth unbeautiful? Yet lie on the breast of ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... battle was reached; the engagement, in which his command met with a great loss, commenced and ended, and, when the particulars of the disaster were inventoried, it was ascertained that a Confederate bullet had taken the rudimentary claw from Carlo's left fore-leg. This was his first wound, and he bore it like a hero without a whine or even a limp. A private of Co. G, who first noticed the wound, exclaimed: "Ah, Carlo, what a pity ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... masquerades as the lifeward tendency, and the lifeward tendency, before fruition, looks like the deathward one. In nature, as Romans viii. tells us, "We know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now." Nature is cruel, "red in tooth and claw." The deathward tendency is what I may call the self-ward tendency in the upward struggle of all organic forms, that is, one organism only exists at the expense of other organisms. Yet at a certain stage in evolution ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... lyin' there, so cool and still, and the sun shinin' on it. I got to thinkin' 'bout it, days when I was sailin', and wondering if mebbe the Lord wa'n't gettin' folks ready jest the way he did the rocks—rollin' 'em over and havin' 'em pound each other and claw and fight and cool off, slow-like, till byme-by they'd be good sweet earth and grass and little ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee
... the lobster, possesses one very convenient peculiarity. He can cast off a claw if it is hurt in any way, and he sometimes throws one or two away if he is frightened by thunder, for he is a great coward in a thunder-storm. But, no matter in what way the claw is lost, Mr. Crab can grow another one, although it ...
— How Sammy Went to Coral-Land • Emily Paret Atwater
... Nine long years, while your work is done for you gratuitously, you feign to sleep, and the tenth you wake from your deceitful slumber; like the roused lion, you look round where grazes the fattest prey, stretch your ample claw, crush your devoted victim, and make every drop of his blood, so long withheld from your appetite, at last flow into the capacious bowels of your ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... Perhaps it is because, in the old days, his calling was a hard one and only those of a singular recklessness were willing to engage in it. The Snow's cook was no exception. He was a big, brawny, black Yankee with a claw foot look in his eyes. Profanity whizzed through the open door like buckshot from a musket. He had been engaged for the voyage and would not give up ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... the sponges open and take in, And shut again! look, look! is not he blest That gets a seat in eye-reach of him? more, That comes in ear, or tongue-reach? O but most, Can claw his subtle elbow, or with a ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... knew if ever I slipped I was a goner, but I hit only the high places till you couldn't a-seen my trail for smoke. And the old devil snortin' along hot after me. Midway across, he reached for me, jest strikin' the heel of my moccasin with his claw. Tell you I was doin' some tall thinkin' jest then. I knew he had the wind of me and I could never make the brush, so I pulled my little lunch out of my pocket and ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... which were kept the linen and wearing apparel, low beds inlaid with ivory and metal and provided with coverings and a thin mattress, copper or wooden stands to support lamps or vases, square stools on four legs united by crossbars, armchairs with lions' claw feet, resembling the Egyptian armchairs in outline, and making us ask if they were brought into Chaldaea by caravans, or made from models which had come from some other country. A few rare objects of artistic character might be found, which bore witness ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... pursuers, I saw him dash into the thick chapparal, there to encounter the red panther or the fierce prowling bear—there to encounter the sharp thorns of the acacias, the barbed spines of the cactus, and the recurving claw-like armature of the wild aloes. I could see the red blood streaming adown his white flanks—not his blood, but that of the helpless victim stretched prostrate along his back. I could see the lacerated limbs— ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... is, and how much to his disadvantage will his very greediness be! For since he holds a dove in each claw, he will not be able to enjoy either of them; because he has no claw at liberty with which to tear them. Soon as he wishes to enjoy the one, the other will escape; when he grabs after that, the other flies away; and so at last he will have nothing at all, because ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... Roman power was in the sureness of its conquests. It did not fly onward without touching the earth, like the great eastern conquerors; but let it set one claw on a nation, and the doom of that nation was fixed. First the help of the Romans was asked and readily given; then in return a tribute was demanded and paid; then the Romans would meddle with the government, ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... gravely, sitting down on a large flower-pot nearby, "I think, as we have been wanting to fight this out for some time,—indeed, I may say, almost since time began,—we had better allow every one to have a tooth and a claw in it. Then, perhaps, this matter ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... the rod out and was spraying on tight beam straight at the Throg's head before the first stone struck his shoulder and his weapon fell from a numbed hand. But a second stone tumbled out of the Throg's claw. The alien tried to reach for it, his movements ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... dream all but fulfilled, found the taste of awakening bitter on his lips. He counted his years of toil and cursed as he viewed his shrunken hands, claw-like, ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... claw-like upon it. "Whist now, Miss Dinah!" she said. "If Sir Eustace was to hear me, sure, he'd wring the neck on me like as if I was an old fowl. But ye've asked me what's happened, mavourneen, and sure, I'll tell ye. For it's the pretty young lady that ye are and a cruel shame that ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... through some chance opening in the leaves, quivered along the path, and scared the wolf in his midnight wanderings. Out again upon the open track through the soft grass, and winding around the wild maguey, or under the claw-shaped thorns of the musquit. A deer sprung from his lair among the soft flowers—looked back for a moment at the strange intruders, and frightened at the gleaming steel, dashed off into the thicket. The woods ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... claw-like little hand for Nan to shake, and the unexpectedly tense and energetic grip of it was somewhat surprising. She was a small, dark creature with bright, restless brown eyes set in a somewhat sallow face—its sallowness the result of several husband-hunting ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... he, proudly, "a lobster! A lobster, Ernest! Where is Fritz! Take care it does not bite you, Francis!" They all crowded round in astonishment. "Yes," added he, triumphantly, "here is the impertinent claw that seized me; ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... old, was born with hair two inches long all over the body; his features were fiendish and his eyes shone like beads beneath his shaggy brows. He had a tail 18 inches long, horns from the skull, a full set of teeth, and claw-like hands; he snapped like a dog and crawled on all fours, and refused the natural sustenance of a normal child. The mother almost became an imbecile after the birth of the monster. The country people about Bomballa considered this devil-child a punishment for a rebuff that the mother gave to ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... enjoyed frolicking with the four-footed babies. When they grew bigger, she romped and sported with them, as if she and they were equal members of the same family. The older brother watched carefully, so that the little brutes, as they increased in size, should not bite or claw his sister, for he knew the fierce nature that was in wild creatures. Yet the maiden had wonderful power over these beasts of the forest, whether little or big. She was not very much afraid of them and often made them run, by looking at them hard in ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... and so now we have need of another. All these things must they of necessity say, unless perchance they had rather say thus, that "all law and right is locked up in the treasury of the Pope's breast," and that, as once one of his soothing pages and claw-backs did not stick to say, "The Pope is able to dispense against the Apostles;" against a council, and against the canons and rules of the Apostles: and that he is not bound to stand neither to the examples, nor to the ordinances, ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel
... hapless Nymph with wonder saw; A whisker first, and then a claw With many an ardent wish She stretch'd, in vain, to reach the prize— What female heart can gold despise? ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... childish eyes grew a very little brighter, and the claw-like hand went up in shaky salute to the limp plume of fair hair, not glistening and silky now, but dull and unkempt, that fell over the broad, darkly-veined waxen forehead.—"It is Mister Colonel.... And I haven't seen you for ever an' ever so long. An' Berta's deaded, ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... parrot with a bit of cake, and as I spoke, she turned toward me and waved one of her wiry little hands, which reminded me of a bird's claw, under its ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... figures, and stern commands, while down in the engine and boiler rooms the sixteen furnaces were belching out fire and smoke, and the firemen standing in front of them, like so many gladiators, tugged away with devil's-claw and slice-bar, inducing by their exertions more and more intense combustion and heat. The noise of the cracking, roaring fires, escaping steam, and the loud and labored pulsations of the engines, together with the roar of ...
— The Monitor and the Merrimac - Both sides of the story • J. L. Worden et al.
... one without a claw-wound in leg or back or shoulder, but none were serious, and we were all feeling fairly cheerful when ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... now the back, And now the chambers of the nose; The pigmy fly no mercy shows. The lion's rage was at its height; His viewless foe now laugh'd outright, When on his battle-ground he saw, That every savage tooth and claw Had got its proper beauty By doing bloody duty; Himself, the hapless lion, tore his hide, And lash'd with sounding tail from side to side. Ah! bootless blow, and bite, and curse! He beat the harmless air, and worse; For, though so fierce and stout, ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... thin and cunning, with slanted rat's eyes. Ornate head-dress and stiffly inlaid robes denoted him to be the High Priest. He held a claw-like ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... upstanding creature laying about it like a fiend with great furry arms. She saw her dog, crippled, but dauntless, ever dodging, wheeling, leaping, circling and attacking from behind the moment the bear's back was toward him. She saw Kobuk catch glancing blows from the mighty claw-barbed paws and roll five feet, ten feet. She saw him battered, bleeding, panting, struggling to his feet again and again to renew his losing fight. Backward and forward over the tundra they fought, swiftly, ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... cold, implacable features as her gaze met that of her son Omar; no enthusiastic or maternal greeting passed her lips. Her maids of honour and courtiers grouped about her murmured approbation and welcome as the heavy curtains fell aside, but frowning slightly she raised her bejewelled claw-like hand impatiently with a gesture commanding silence, darting hasty glances of displeasure upon those who had, by applauding, lowered her regal dignity. On either side black female slaves in garments of crimson silk and wearing golden girdles, ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... closely together, their wings held in place by a strip of thin paper. They must all be mounted—the insects quivering upon brass wire, the humming-birds with their feathers ruffled; they must be cleansed and polished, the beak in a bright red, claw repaired with a silk thread, dead eyes replaced with sparkling pearls, and the insect or the bird restored to an appearance of life and grace. The mother prepared the work under her daughter's direction; for Desiree, though she was still a mere girl, was endowed with exquisite ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... other by shouting at the top of our lungs. It was a difficult task to get our little ships safely below this half-mile, but it was finally accomplished, and on we went in search of the next dragon's claw. At our camp the fire in some way got into a pine grove and soon was crackling enough to rival the noise of the rapid. The lower region seemed now to be sending its flames up through the bottom of the gorge ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... to ascertain whether the deposit has fallen and the wine become perfectly clear. Sometimes it happens that, twist these men never so wisely, the deposit refuses to stir, and takes the shape of a bunch of thread technically called a "claw," or an adherent mass styled a "mask." When this is the case an attempt is made to start it by tapping the part to which it adheres with a piece of iron, the result being frequently the sudden explosion ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... her back as she went to her "tasses" (tasks) in the field. She named him Calvary Baker, and now he has become her dependence and support, although the light in her shadowed cabin comes from the ministrations of the teachers in Dorchester Academy; and as she put her old, gaunt, claw-like black fingers on the face of the delicate, refined academy teacher, Aunt Peggy said: "Oh, you're my Jesus mudder;" and then, turning to me, she said, while a smile lit up the old black face, "Oh, missus, I bress de Lord for the Jesus school, for if it had not been ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 54, No. 3, July, 1900 • Various
... least east and west stand face to face across Nantucket harbor, the cactus holding the sandspit to the north, the heather on the main island to the south. In April the prickly pear is as ugly as sin to the eye with its lobster-claw growth, uglier still to the hand with its steel-pointed thorns, but later it will put forth wonderful yellow, wild-rose like blooms in rich profusion, making up for all its dourness. Professor Asa Gray, the distinguished botanist of a half century ago, used to say ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... the boat swept round into a sort of cross-current among the waves, where an object resembling a man was observed spinning slowly round like a lazy teetotum. They were soon alongside. A dozen claw-like hands made a simultaneous grasp, and hauled the object on board with a mighty cheer, for it was, indeed, the coxswain—alive, though much exhausted—with his precious little ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... cat jumped into Duval's lap, and he stroked it and talked to it. Then the animal began to claw at him. ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes
... the floor, and the black, who had apparently slipped from the vice of the teeth or parted with some ear—the scientific manager wondered which at the time—tried to throttle him. The scientific manager was making some ineffectual efforts to claw something with his hands and to kick, when the welcome sound of quick footsteps sounded on the floor. The next moment Azuma-zi had left him and darted towards the big dynamo. There was a ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... dead. England's vast war, our weakness, and the eagle Whetting his beak at Sandwich, with one claw Already in our side, put thought to steep In cold conjecture for a time, and gave A text to alien tongues. But, since you came, Depression turns to smiling, and men see That dangers well-opposed may be subdued ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... a hammer is used: it is used to drive nails with, and also to take them out. The hammer used to take out nails, is called a claw-hammer, from its having a claw at one part. The claw is placed under the head of the nail, when the handle of the hammer becomes a lever, and the head the fulcrum; and, placed in this position, the hand acquires great power,—sometimes amounting ...
— The Book of Sports: - Containing Out-door Sports, Amusements and Recreations, - Including Gymnastics, Gardening & Carpentering • William Martin
... a shock it must be to the colonial ghosts when they stumble in the dark over great claw feet, cold even as their own; the feet of monstrous hollow things, white and awesome as themselves—the things that ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... No, I say again, there is no such thing as chance. He who rules the world ordered each event which has occurred, and directed your steps hither. It is a happy and comforting creed to know that One more powerful than ourselves takes care of us. Till the moment the jaguar's sharp claw touched my shoulder, I had doubted this. The author whose book I hold doubts it also, and I was arguing the point with him. Your ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... paper, and so we stand there and grumble. Now and then one of us stumps up the narrow hallway to the second story where the Democrat makes its lair, and looks on with an abused air while two young lady compositors claw around the bottom of the boxes for enough type to set the last items, and the foreman stuffs the forms of the last two pages with old boiler plate, medicine ads and anything that will fill. There isn't any reason for the Democrat being late any more than there is for the branch accommodation ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... Honourable Hilary, "we must have Ham Tooting hurry 'round and fix it up with him as soon as he can talk, before one of these cormorant lawyers gets his claw ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... I didn't mean it that way at all," said the man. "I beg your pardon, I'm sure. But a bobcat won't hardly ever attack a grown person, unless it's cornered. I reckon this one must have been riled about suthin' and thought to claw up the tots a bit. I happened to be around, so I jest natcherally plunked him—beggin' your pardon for mentionin' ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms - Or Lost in the Wilds of Florida • Laura Lee Hope
... may be restored. Audubon or Wilson, I forgot which, tells a pair of fish-hawks, or ospreys, that built their nest in an ancient oak. The male was so zealous in the defence of the young that it actually attacked with beak and claw a person who attempted to climb into his nest, putting his face and eyes in great jeopardy. Arming himself with a heavy club, the climber felled the gallant bird to the ground and killed him. In the course of ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... tooth and nail, beating him with sticks and stones and tearing at him with claw-like hands. Every vestige of clothing was torn from him, and the merciless blows fell upon his bare and quivering flesh. But not once did the Frenchman cry out in pain. He breathed a silent prayer that he be quickly delivered ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... without and within. Outwardly, it was a mere tent of skins and curious pictography, under the shadows of gigantic trees, looking down on the glistening waters of the Columbia; inwardly, it was a museum of relics of the supposed era of the giant-killers, and of the deep regions of the tooth and claw; of Potlatches, masques and charms of medas and wabenoes; of curious pipes; of odd, curious feathers, and beautiful shells and feather-work and pearls. But, though all things here were rude and primitive, the old chief had a strong poetic sense, ...
— The Log School-House on the Columbia • Hezekiah Butterworth
... yuh needn't go t' work an' git mad about it," remonstrated the Countess, dropping her thread in her perturbation at his excitement. The spool rolled under the bed and she was obliged to get down upon her knees and claw it back, and she jarred the bed and set Chip's foot to hurting ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... see. That is—in the girls' eyes. Men see differently. And he's rich, or he will be, though, for me, I would not care what money a man had if the devil had his claw in it, mon Gyu, no! But there you are, mon gars. There is he with all that, and here are you with nothing but just your honest face and your good heart and your two strong arms. And what I want to know is—what are you ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... shoulders, where it curled up at the ends. His sunken eyes gleamed like a hawk's, and his dry, parchment skin was stretched tightly over the prominent bones. His nose was hooked, and his lips sunken over toothless gums—for he would not afford false teeth. His hands were as small as a woman's, but claw-like. ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... shape of a baseball club, but made of straw {294} tied around two or three switches and tightly sewn up in burlap.—One big fellow is selected for the bear. He has a school bag tightly strapped on his back, and in that a toy balloon fully blown up. This is his heart. On his neck is a bear-claw necklace of wooden beads and ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... court-house, one church, warehouses, stores, and hotels were converted into hospitals. Row after row of beds filled every ward. Upon them lay wrecks of humanity, pale as the dead, with sunken eyes, hollow cheeks and temples, long, claw-like hands. Oh, those poor, weak, nerveless hands used to seem to me more pitiful than all; and when I remembered all they had achieved and how they had lost their firm, sinewy proportions, their strong ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... to the top of the Sun Rock he stopped. In that trail was the warm scent of strange feet. The rabbit fell from his jaws. Every hair in his body was suddenly electrified into life. What he scented was not the scent of a rabbit, a marten or a porcupine. Fang and claw had climbed the path ahead of him. And then, coming faintly to him from the top of the rock, he heard sounds which sent him up with a terrible whining cry. When he reached the summit he saw in the white moonlight a scene that stopped him for ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... seeking Love's last law, Finds "Nature red in tooth and claw With ravin"; fierce and ruthless. But Woman? Bard who so should sing Of her, the sweet soft-bosomed thing, Would ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 14, 1892 • Various
... at a formal dinner: their concealed harness hampers them, they are laced tightly, and they are in the presence of women whose eyes and whose tongues are equally to be dreaded. They prefer fancy eating to good eating, then: they will suck a lobster's claw, swallow a quail or two, punish a woodcock's wing, beginning with a bit of fresh fish, flavored by one of those sauces which are the glory of French cooking. France is everywhere sovereign in matters of taste: in painting, fashions, and the like. Gravy is the triumph of ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... carnivorous form of tooth necessitating a certain action of the jaw, implies a particular form in its condyles; implies also limbs fit for seizing and holding prey; therefore implies claws, a certain structure of the leg-bones, a certain form of shoulder-blade. Summing up he says, that "the claw, the scapula, the condyle, the femur, and all the other bones, taken separately, will give the tooth or one another; and by commencing with any one, he who had a rational conception of the laws of the organic economy, could reconstruct the ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... (in German Barlappen-mehl), vulgarly known as the Devil's Puff-ball or Witchmeal, is used on the stage, as well in England as on the continent, to produce flashes of fire. It is made of the pollen of common club moss, or wolf's claw (Lycopodium clavatum), the capsules of which contain a highly inflammable powder. Translators have uniformly failed ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... curves of her figure to charming advantage. Uncle Zeb, with characteristic leisure, was in no hurry to begin. He twisted the screws and thrummed the strings in a very wise manner. At length the instrument was tuned to his satisfaction, and then his claw-like fingers began to move with astonishing rapidity. I looked at Salome. She was standing perfectly still. Then, as the music quickened, I saw her supple body begin to sway, like a lily's stem when a zephyr breathes upon it. Her hands dropped ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... is attired in a splendour before which the lilies of the field wilt with envy. Rainbow effects predominate, and much gilt and silver embroidery, the ravishing impression being further enhanced by a pair of white cotton mitts drawn over her bird-claw hands. On these occasions of state the Sultana rides into town on the back of a slave, with another slave holding a parasol over her august head, and accompanied by several outriders, or rather outwalkers, attired in few clothes ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... the dumfounded warrior attempted to leap to his feet, something fastened itself like the claw of a panther in his long hair, with a grip that not only could not be shaken off, but which threatened to create a general loosening at ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... wings he had a paw, suh, An', when Brer Buzzard try fer ter drap 'im. He'd scratch an' tickle 'im wid his claw, suh; An' when Brer Buzzard try fer ter flap 'im, He'd scratch an' wink ...
— Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit • Joel Chandler Harris
... little square gorgeous staff officers came and went, afoot, on horseback and in automobiles; and through an open window we caught a glimpse of a splendid-looking general, sitting booted and sword-belted at a table in the Prince de Caraman-Chimay's library, with hunting trophies—skin and horn and claw—looking down at him from the high-paneled oak wainscotings, and spick-and-span aides waiting to take his ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... his way with great perseverance and success. But the puzzle was, how he got there; for there was no chair within reach of the table, and he was much too small to have jumped up on it; while the theory of the servant, who propounded that he must have climbed up by the table-cloth, tooth over claw, was wild, and simply entitled to the contempt of any person aware of the difference between dog and cat. There is but one acceptable theory on the subject,—that he was down in the caverns of the beef, tail and all, before ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... everybody asks. She hasn't any huge wealth—or birth, either, for that matter. It's just the custom. We defer to her here precisely as we wear claw-hammer coats and low-neck dresses. Nobody thinks of changing ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... turned his eyes downward, and in a moment dropped upon a big grasshopper, which he carried in his beak to a wire near the ground to dispose of. Evidently, however, he was not quite ready to eat, for he deliberately lifted one foot, took the grasshopper in his claw, and instantly ejected upon the ground a dark-colored bolus, I should judge half an inch in diameter, and more than twice as long. Then he returned to his grasshopper and ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... place in the household superior to his own. At sight of Mr. Fopling, Ajax would bottle-brush his tail, arch his back, and explode into that ejaculation peculiar to cats. Mr. Fopling feared Ajax, holding him to be rabid and not knowing when he would do those rending deeds of tooth and claw upon him, of which the ejaculation, the arched back, and the ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... by Iff's elbow, then turned away to get a siphon of charged water from the icebox. But by the time he was back a staggering amount of whiskey had disappeared from the decanter, a moist but empty glass stood beside it, and Mr. Iff was stroking smiling lips with his delicate, claw-like fingers. He discontinued this occupation long enough ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... he comes. Look—he's going to bump that waiter. (He lifts his finger as a signal—lifts it as though it were a soft and friendly claw.) Here y'are, Caramel. ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... Church, for which Rousseau had pined. He saw it result in the return of a portion of mankind to what we now believe to have been their primitive state, a state in which they were 'red in tooth and claw.' It was not that paradisaic state of love and innocence, which, curiously enough, both Rousseau and the theologians seem to have ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... living rooms above the rich man's garage—rooms warm, clean, and brightly lighted, with pictures, and crisp curtains, and a thick, rose-patterned rug in the parlor. In her kitchen was a great cookstove called "The Black Diamond," which seemed like some live thing, for it had four claw-shaped feet, and seven isinglass eyes ranged in a blazing row upon a flat face. Under the eyes were toothlike bars forming a grate. These seemed always to be grinning hotly. Often when the stove was fed with the ebony lumps that Aunt Sophie said it loved, its burning breath was delicious. Then Johnnie's ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... Hopkinson thought you were setting your cap at him," retorted Alma. She relished the dignity of her married state, and enjoyed giving her spinster sister little claws when occasion called. However, Amanda had a temper of her own, and she could claw back. ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... this period deserve a passing notice as a step in the development of that important member of our "Lares and Penates." What was and is still called the "pillar and claw" table, came into fashion towards the end of last century. It consisted of a round or square top supported by an upright cylinder, which rested on a plinth having three, or sometimes four, feet carved as claws. In order to extend ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... was standing across the channel between Jamaica and Cuba. The night came on very dark. The wind, though blowing fresh from the north-west, did not increase as much as had been expected, and it was hoped that the ship would claw off the shore and obtain a good offing before the morning. The topgallantsails had been handed, and as much canvas was set as she could carry. The master turned many an anxious glance over the quarter, where he could still dimly discern the outline ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... God!" answered the boy, and turning within Arden's clasp, began to babble of London streets and the Triple Tun. The claw-like hands had dragged themselves from Nevil's hold, and the spirit could be no longer caught by the voice of authority, but ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... like one single thing; she hates the damp cave, the rats running over her bare legs, the stiff skin garments, the eating of half-raw meat, her husband's bushy face, the constant battles, and the worship of the spirits who will hoodoo her unless she gives the priests her best claw necklace. Her man protests, 'But it can't all be wrong!' and he thinks he has reduced her to absurdity. Now you assume that a world which produces a Percy Bresnahan and a Velvet Motor Company must be civilized. It is? ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... cage, but did exactly what it liked. Its name was Lorrito. It was a very human bird; I saw it eat some bread and milk from its tin one day and then sidle along a pole to a place where there was a towel hanging. It took a corner of the towel in its claw, wiped its beak with it, and then sidled back again. It would sometimes come and see me at breakfast; it got from a chair-back on to the table by dropping its head and putting its round beak on to the table first, making a third leg as it were of its head; it would then ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... and the arm had become shrivelled and withered. It now resembled a mass of dried leather, twisted into a deformity, without the slightest shape of an arm; this was about fourteen inches in length from the shoulder; the stiff and crippled hand, with contracted fingers, resembled the claw ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... few days the men were well and it was almost time to go hunting again. Straightshaft feared the angry god. He talked with the men and they wondered why it was that Scarface escaped. They looked at his deep scar which a tiger's claw had made. And then they looked at the trophies of Scarface which he ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... at ye like toads; but if ye sleep wid ye'r mouth open, they crawl, just crawl down ye'r throat into ye'r stommick and kill ye. For they've schales on their bodies, and can't get back; and they just scratch, and bite, and claw at your innards till ye die." There was nothing to be done with these terrible lizards but to drink an unmentionable potion, which, I am assured, is strong enough to rout the most determined lizard of them all, and bring him to nought. ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... the chambrata, worthy don: Where if you please the fates, in your bathada, You shall be soked, and stroked, and tubb'd and rubb'd, And scrubb'd, and fubb'd, dear don, before you go. You shall in faith, my scurvy baboon don, Be curried, claw'd, and flaw'd, and taw'd, indeed. I will the heartlier go about it now, And make the widow a punk so much the sooner, To be revenged on this impetuous Face: The quickly doing of it ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson
... old man Clark, young Joe Clark's uncle, said the ancient, smacking his lips delicately over the ale and extending a tremulous claw to the tobacco-pouch pushed towards him; and he was never tired of showing it off to people. He used to call it 'is blue-eyed darling, and the fuss 'e made ...
— Captains All and Others • W.W. Jacobs
... long, claw-like hand upon the top of the first gate, was bending over the trap, but his brilliant green eyes were turned in the same direction as ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... creeping up, drawn, I suppose, by the smell of the food, from between the round stones and out of holes in the precipice. Some were already quite close to us. I stared quite fascinated by the unusual sight, and as I did so I saw one of the beasts stretch out its huge claw and give the unsuspecting Good such a nip behind that he jumped up with a howl, and set the 'wild echoes flying' in sober earnest. Just then, too, another, a very large one, got hold of Alphonse's ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... busy with a pleasanter task was correspondingly cheerful. She altered father's "Prince Albert" into a stately full-dress coat, ripping up its waist-seams, and pinned back the skirts of the coat into the proper claw-hammer shape. ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... very much resemble Staten Land. When I had got so near as to discover the low land, I was quite embayed, and if it had blown hard at S.W. so great a sea must have rolled in here as would have rendered it almost impossible to claw off the shore; all ships, therefore, that may hereafter navigate these parts, should avoid falling in with it. The seals and birds here are innumerable; we saw also many whales spouting about us, several of which were of an enormous size. Our latitude now was 51 deg. 27' S. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... gae but the house and mind your wark. Ye thought and they thought; but if it wasna mair for ae thing than anither, I hae a thought that wad gar baith you and them claw where it's ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... fifteen or twenty house-rats among them: these were very thin though large, and seemed to be caught as they were migrating; for sometimes several were trapped the same day, and then none (of this kind) for a week or more. Three moorhens were also caught; a fourth was only held by its claw in the gin; this one, not being in the least injured, he let ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... our place," hissed the cat, "I will claw her eyes out if I get the chance. Why, we've been fairly starving for want of that beetle. She stole it from us just after she had been an invited guest! What do you think of that for honour, Sir Rat? Were your mistress's ancestors followers ...
— A Chinese Wonder Book • Norman Hinsdale Pitman
... CLAW, OR CLAW OFF, TO. To beat, or turn to windward from a lee-shore, so as to be at sufficient distance from it to avoid shipwreck. It is generally used when getting to ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... was not a bit like the smart housekeepers at other houses. To be sure, on Sundays she came out in a black silk gown with a little flounce at the bottom, a scarlet China crape shawl with a blue dragon upon it—his wings over her back, and a claw over each shoulder, so that whoever sat behind her in church was terribly distracted by trying to see the rest of him—and a very big yellow Tuscan bonnet, trimmed with sailor's blue ribbon; but in the week and about the house she wore a green stuff, with a brown holland apron and bib ...
— Little Lucy's Wonderful Globe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... number, employed at the iron works of Messrs. Hawks, Crawshay, and Co., at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. These works were founded in 1754 by William Hawks, a blacksmith, whose principal trade consisted in making claw-hammers for joiners. He became a thriving man, and eventually a large manufacturer of bar-iron. Partners joined him, and in the course of the changes wrought by time, one of the Crawshays, in 1842, became a principal ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... shoulders were stooped and his chest sunken. The high linen collar he'd always been so particular about, no longer set close to a shapely neck, but sagged away from the taut cords below his bony jaw and chin. She lifted one of his hands and stared, through the tears that welled into her eyes, at the claw-like fingers resting in hers. Her husband's pitiful plight completely softened her heart and wiped away the memory of her jealousy and dissatisfaction with him. He needed her, now, and everything that love could do for ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... tree-pipit (Anthus arboreus), the meadow-pipit (Anthus pratensis), and the rock-pipit or sea-lark (Anthus obscurus) have each occupied a distinct place in nature to which they have become specially adapted, as indicated by the different form and size of the hind toe and claw in each species. So, the stone-chat (Saxicola rubicola), the whin-chat (S. rubetra), and the wheat-ear (S. oenanthe) are more or less divergent forms of one type, with modifications in the shape of the wing, feet, and bill adapting them to slightly different ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... Star Chief invited all his people to a feast, and, when they had assembled, he proclaimed aloud, that each one might take of the earthly gifts such as he liked best. A very strange confusion immediately arose. Some chose a foot, some a wing, some a tail, and some a claw. Those who selected tails or claws were changed into animals, and ran off; the others assumed the form of birds, and flew away. Waupee chose a white hawk's feather. His wife and son followed his example, when each one became a white hawk. Pleased with his transformation, and ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... consulting p. 11 of the "Magia Adamica" of Eugenius Philalethes, his learned compatriot, he would find therein the difference between a visible and an invisible planet is clearly hinted at as it was safe to do at a time when the iron claw of orthodoxy had the power as well as disposition to tear the flesh from heretic bones. "The earth is invisible," says he, .... "and which is more, the eye of man never saw the earth, nor can it be ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... over Roldan. They were of huge size, even for so big a man, lean and knotted, with square-tipped fingers. The skin on them was fine and brown; it looked as soft as a woman's. He used them a good deal when talking, and not ungracefully; but they seemed to claw and grasp the air, to be independent of the arms hidden in the voluminous sleeves of the smart brown cassock. Other people watched those hands too—they seemed to possess a magnetism of their own; and every one showed this priest great deference: he was one ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... of little lighthouses, and survey the field of battle in a fashion utterly ludicrous. Moreover, as if he were not ridiculous enough even thus, he is (as Mr. Wood well puts it) like a small man gifted with one arm of Hercules, and another of Tom Thumb. One of his claw arms, generally the left, has dwindled to a mere nothing, and is not seen; while along the whole front of his shell lies folded one mighty right arm, on which he trusts; and with that arm, when danger appears, ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... sat in a wheel chair in the center of the room. Her skin was almost as yellow as the paint on the house and considerably more wrinkled. She had bright black eyes that reminded Rosemary of a bird and little, eager claw-like hands that were strangely bird-like, too. She beamed at the girls, plainly ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... the nest of the osprey; but were they inclined to despoil it of its three or four eggs (which are about the size of a duck's, and blotched with Spanish brown), they would find that a less easy task, for the owners would be very likely to claw their eyes out, or else scratch the tender skin from their beardless cheeks: so that boys do not often trouble the ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid |
