"Fist" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have read the letter which had been under that cursed bust of old Voltaire all those months ago. The poison had been working ever since! And in sudden fury at that miserable mischance, he drove his fist into the bronze face. The bust fell over, and Summerhay looked stupidly at his bruised hand. A silly thing to do! But it had quenched his anger. He only saw Gyp's face now—so pitifully unhappy. Poor darling! What could he do? If only she would ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... when she held out her little hand for mine; I felt kinder delicate like that she should see my big jints. But howsomever, "here goes," said I, and I stuck out my bony fist, and, by Jupiter, it was kivered with flesh, jest as soft and delicate as ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... brought his fist down upon the table with a clatter that made everybody start. "By Jove! young man," he exclaimed, "you shall try your scheme; and if you are successful—of which, however, I have very grave doubts, let me tell you—I believe I can promise ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... George clenched his fist. "If you're turned out, people will talk. I'll engage to stop the men, but the women are dangerous and I can't get after them. For my ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... you," cried Oscar, "what did you tell Ralph about the blackboard for! I 'll learn you to mind your own business, next time, you mean, sneaking meddler. Take that—and that," he continued, giving Whistler several hard blows with his fist. The latter attempted to dodge the blows, but did not return them, for this he knew would only increase the anger of Oscar, who was so much his superior in size and strength, as well as in the art ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... me," shouted the Rat, thumping with his little fist upon the table, "that you've heard nothing about the ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... confirmed by a thud as of a fist striking the kitchen table. In the normal evolution of his sympathy Stevie had become angry on discovering that he had no shilling in his pocket. In his inability to relieve at once Mrs Neale's "little 'uns'," privations he ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... fool me," Harry said. "My mother warned me that the boys of London were wickedly disposed, and given to mock at strangers. But I tell thee, Master Jacob, that I have a heavy fist, and was considered a fighter in the village. Therefore, mind how thou triest to fool me. Mother always said I was not such ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... from which all stones as large as a doubled fist are thrown out. For this purpose the miner uses a sluice-fork, which is like a large manure-fork or garden-fork, but has tines which are blunt and of equal width all the way down; the bluntness being intended to ...
— Hittel on Gold Mines and Mining • John S. Hittell
... were being hunted as men hunt rats. He saw that he was unnoted, and apprehension gave place to rage. His thoughts turned back hissing hot to the thing that had happened, and in a paroxysm of shame he shook his fist at the gaping casement and the sneering face of his rival, dimly seen in the background. If a look would have killed Tavannes—and her—it had not ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... charge, I knew; and like something mad I shook my fist in my poor man's face, and shrieked at him, fierce and wild, "How can you dare to rob us so?"—and I seized the little lad; "How can you dare to rob your wife ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... What Cannoneere begot this lustie blood, He speakes plaine Cannon fire, and smoake, and bounce, He giues the bastinado with his tongue: Our eares are cudgel'd, not a word of his But buffets better then a fist of France: Zounds, I was neuer so bethumpt with words, Since I first ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... too, aroused dubious memories, for there he had stolen many an apple in the days when Adolf Schmitt had his "cash grocery" on the premises, and used to stand in the doorway with his white apron on, shaking his fist as Tom scurried down the street and calling, "I'll strafe you, you ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... Gabriel, dryly; and he pocketed the five shillings. Then, having first secured his escape by gaining the threshold, he suddenly seized one of the rickety chairs by its leg, and regardless of the gallantries due to the sex, sent it right against the model, who was shaking her fist at him. A scream and a fall and a sharp twit from the cage, which was hurled nearly into the fireplace, told that the missive had taken effect. Gabriel did not wait for the probable reaction; he was in the streets ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... peeps in, and watches there till Bill should go to bed, thinking the best way to catch them 'ere sort of animals is to catch them asleep. Well, he kept Nabb a-waiting outside so long, with his talking and singing, that he well nigh fell asleep fist himself; at last Bill began to strip for bed. First he takes out a long pocket pistol, examines the priming, and lays it down on the table, near ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... pockets, I am favored with a free exhibition of what a physical misunderstanding is like among the Persian ryots. Two companies of katir-jees happen to get into an altercation about something, and from words it gradually develops into blows; not blows of the fist, for they know nothing of fisticuffs, but they belabor each other vigorously with their long, thick donkey persuaders, sticks that are anything but small and willowy; it is an amusing spectacle, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... trouble about it is that it's likely to leave out some of us old chaps, who'd like to have a fist in it." ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... unequal, as every one knows. Witness the simple expedient of remembering the long and short months, by closing the left hand and counting the knobs and hollows of the fist, the former corresponding to the long months, the latter to the short: first knob January; first hollow, February; second knob, March; and ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion
... to open the door, believing it the better way to admit the lady and conciliate her. But Toby shook his head—and his fist with grim defiance. ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... venomousness of which he was capable, Clutching Hand rushed at the armor suit, drew back his gloved fist, and let it shoot out squarely in a vicious ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... carried too far; it was at the time of swarming when they all came and fixed themselves on the neighbouring trees, from whence they catched those that returned loaded from the fields. This made me resolve to kill as many as I could, and I was just ready to fire, when a bunch of bees as big as my fist, issued from one of the hives, rushed on one of the birds, and probably stung him, for he instantly screamed, and flew, not as before, in an irregular manner, but in a direct line. He was followed by ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... races done by mortals tied in sacks; of human competitors, high aspirants, climbing heavenward on the soaped pole; seizing the soaped pig; and clutching with cleft fist, at full gallop, the fated goose tied aloft by its foot;—which feats do prove agility, toughness and other useful faculties in man: but this of dexterous talk is probably as strange a competition as any. And the question rises, Whether certain of these other feats, or perhaps ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... of love with him. I tell you, Louis"—here he struck his fist on the table—"that I mean to make her marry me. And she'll be glad to marry me before we get to Ponape. And if you stick to me and help to pull me through, it's a ...
— Tessa - 1901 • Louis Becke
... his forehead with his fist, clenched his teeth, closed his eyes and leaned heavily with his elbow on the table. But a minute later his face suddenly changed and with a certain assumed slyness and affectation of bravado, he glanced ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Bugeaud has been invested with the general command of the National Guard and of the army. Odilon Barrot means reform, but Bugeaud means repression. The King is holding out his right hand and clenching his left fist. ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... these bad men (who called himself "Ben Ali, The Dragon") shook his fist at the Doctor and shouted across ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... the ground, her fur reddened. Kellogg stood over her, one foot raised. He was wearing white shoes, and they were both spotted with blood. He stamped the foot down on the little bleeding body, and then Jack was within reach of him, and something crunched under the fist he drove into Kellogg's face. Kellogg staggered and tried to raise his hands; he made a strangled noise, and for an instant the idiotic thought crossed Jack's mind that he was trying to say, "Now, please don't misunderstand me." He caught Kellogg's shirt front in his left hand, and punched ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper
... said George: "I went into the corn-field and got some corn. This made my master and mistress very mad, and about it Dr. Franklin Rodgers, my young mistress' husband, struck me some pretty heavy blows, and knocked me with his fist, etc." Thus, George's blood was raised, and he at once felt that it was high time to be getting away from such patriarchs. It was only necessary to form a strong resolution and ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... need. Of course you realise that I was absolutely unrecognisable, a low blackguard with a blackened face. 'I don't know what you mean,' says he, 'and I'm damned if I care.' 'Das halsband, says I, which means the necklace. 'Go to hell,' says he. But I struck myself and shook my head and then my fist at him and nodded. He laughed in my face; and upon my soul we were at a deadlock. So I pointed to the clock and held up one finger. 'I've one minute to live, old girl,' says he through the doors, 'if ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... hundred thousand pounds in specie aboard; they fire a shot across my bows, and when I signal that I'll see them in hell before I bate a knot, why—you watched it yourselves—they struck me in the fo'castle, and there's two of my dead men below now; but they shall swing"—and he brought his fist upon the table with a mighty thud—"they shall swing, if there's only one ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... light green leaves are borne on very broad, pale green or almost whitish stalks, which overlap at their bases, somewhat like celery, but much more swelled at edible maturity, to form a sort of head or irregular ball, the "apple," as it is called, sometimes as large as a man's fist. The seeds are a peculiar oblong, much broader than long, convex on one side and flat on the other, with five ...
— Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation Harvesting Curing and Uses • M. G. Kains
... a great thing to play the game of football as hard as you can. I never deliberately went to do a man up. If he played a rough game, I simply played him the harder. I never struck a man with my fist in the game. I do not remember ever losing my temper. Perhaps I ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... he. With a sudden movement he cleared himself of the blow; and as Jan's arm went past him, the point of the knife ripping his coat-sleeve, he shot out a powerful fist and sent the boy reeling ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... his fist to show what he would do, and hugging the baby to him, continued, "Dis my 'ittle chile till its fader comes; doan' you worry. I'se strong an' kin work, an' Mandy Ann's done got to stir de stumps ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... thumped his fist on the workbench in his excitement. "I'll bet that's the answer, all right!" He grinned. "Brand my boot heels, it's partly due to good ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... half-filled glass and drained it, the servant watching him with the same quiet scrutiny. He longed to plant his fist in the middle of that unrevealing mask, but instead tried to laugh, muttered an explanation about feeling ill, and slid a five-dollar gold piece ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... them to the door of the Hotel du Nord, and Lepine applied to it a vigorous fist. There was no response, and he pounded again. At last there came the sound of a window being raised, and a night-capped head was thrust ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... strange little face with a tinge of redness in it, a round broad forehead with a mistiness of golden fuzz, a pretty dimpled chin and a mouth almost as round as a cherry. Just at that instant he opened the bluest of eyes, stared at Hanny with a grave aspect, tried to put his fist into his mouth and with a soft little sound ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... He shook his fist at himself in the glass, and sat down on the edge of the bed to dream for a space with wide eyes. Then he got out note-book and algebra and lost himself in quadratic equations, while the hours slipped by, and the stars dimmed, and the gray of ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... as substantial an idea of Cobbett as they have of Cribb. His blows are as hard, and he himself is as impenetrable. One has no notion of him as making use of a fine pen, but a great mutton-fist; his style stuns his readers, and he 'fillips the ear of the public with a three-man beetle.' He is too much for any single newspaper antagonist; 'lays waste' a city orator or Member of Parliament, and bears ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... went into the passage, hung up his hat and coat. Then they heard him go down three steps to the pantry. He returned with a piece of pork-pie in his fist. It was what Mrs. Morel ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... a stand in the lowest pit in hell!—Du Croisier! What will come of it? What is to be done?—If you had killed a man, there might be some help for it. But forgery—forgery! And time—the time is flying," he went on, shaking his fist towards the old clock. "You will want a sham passport now. One crime leads to another. First," he added, after a pause, "first of all we must save the ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... make but a lubberly fist at turning off a delicate turtle-soup out of pig's-head; such as we puts on our table at sea, so often," muttered Galleygo in ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... raised her dainty head with an air as if to say that she held him to be beneath contempt. The fellow, however, was not inclined to put up with that kind of treatment. With a volley of oaths he sprang up and would have struck the mare in the mouth with his clinched fist, if Erik had not darted forward ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... huge hands. As he leaned there, it was plain that he longed for trouble. "I might not!" he mocked, disgusted. "Sure, y' might! For the reason that you ain't the kind that's got a wallop in your fist!" ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... are all docile dough-faces, They knead us with the fist, They, the dashing southern lords, We labor as they list; For them we speak—or hold our tongues, For ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... a stanchion to hold his lean black frame in place and beat one fist softly into the palm of another. "Yes, it is an emotional issue," he said, the words carving the thoughts to shape. "Logic has nothing to do with it. There are some who want so badly to go to Rustum and ...
— The Burning Bridge • Poul William Anderson
... girl; it's you that's crazy!" and slamming his fist on the table, and jumping to his feet, he demanded an ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... table with his fist. "That's what I call noble! But before we do it, just think what a fine thing the fleet would be. ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... himself would have been the first, in all good faith, to deny it and to affirm that all his motives were altruistic. Once he looked back through the cedars. He could still see the boy hunched over, chin in fist, staring ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... doorway of the library, faced the group there. Esther was seated on a low chair, her face crumpled and red, as if she had just wiped it free of tears. The handkerchief, clutched into a ball in her angry fist, gave further evidence. Madame Beattie, enormously amused, sat in the handsome straight-backed chair that became her most, and unaffectedly and broadly smiled. And Alston Choate, rather pale in a sternness ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... he hated mankind in general; the burn of the cheap whisky within served to set the color of that hatred in a fixed dye. He did not lift his chaser, but his hand closed around it hard. If some one had given him an excuse for a fist-fight or an outburst of cursing it would have washed his mind as clean as a new slate, and five minutes later he might have been with Betty Neal, riotously happy. Instead, everyone overflowed with good ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... harridan struck her straight in the face, with hard, grimy fist, and a long shout of exultation ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... obtained by such a powerful man as Nicolas, was indeed a thing to be feared. Ivan leaped quickly backward, carrying Nicolas with him, but the latter retained his hold; and then he brought his right fist up under Ivan's chin. It was a hard ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes
... deliver his judgment upon the whole: which in brief was this:—That it is all windy foppery from the beginning to the end, written, to the elevation of that rabble and meant to cheat the ignorant; that you fight always with the flat of your hand like a rhetorician, and never contract the logical fist; that you trade altogether in universals, the region of deceits and fallacy, but never come so near particulars as to let us know which among divers things of the same kind you would be at ... Besides this, as all your politics ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... softly on the ash in front of him, the door snapped open and Douglas dropped to the ground, Burkholtz jutting from his pudgy fist. ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... it—that, if they wanted to prevent an explosion, the first thing to do was to put out the fire. The god of all these powers was force; no matter what they were called, empires, or republics, it was the mailed fist, disguised, gloved but hard and sure of itself. It became also, like a rising tide, the law of the oppressed, a dark struggle between two contrary pressures. Where the metal had worn thin—in Russia ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... Sora Nanna. "Your father sleeps with one eye open. He sees you, and he sees also the Englishman every day. He says nothing, because he is good. But he has a fist like a paving-stone. ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... tenderness. "You know perfectly well I didn't mean that. You're only proving that in the human problem you're raised to— Stop looking darning-needles at that coffee-pot and listen here!" Billy Louise leaned over the table and caught at his nearest hand, which was a closed fist. With her own little fingers digging persistently into the tensed muscles, she pried the fist open. "Ward, behave yourself, or I'll go straight home!" She held his straightened fingers in her own and drew a sharp breath because they lay inert—dead things so far as any response ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... the kitchen. On an easel was a painting, to be called The King of the Campagna; all that was apparent was the head and horns of the king. Wardor had thus actually spent three mouths painting on a space not so large as your fist, while the canvas was at least three feet by two feet and a half. But the king, a buffalo, would be a regal figure, for ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... "Money don't come in hand-over-fist, as it ought to come," remarked Grasp, of the flourishing firm of Grasp & Co., Merchant Tailors, of Boston, to the junior partner of the establishment. "The nimble sixpence is better than the slow shilling, you know. We must make our shears ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... roared the other boy, and made a quick pass at Giant's head. But the small boy dodged and the fist struck ...
— Guns And Snowshoes • Captain Ralph Bonehill
... thee," and the weaver struck his fist on the table with unusual vehemence. "A wilful man mun have his way, fowks say; an' I reckon Sam Learoyd has had it; but he'll noan have it twice ower, if I ...
— More Tales of the Ridings • Frederic Moorman
... however, at that time in Dublin, a certain woman, Biddy Moriarty, who had a huckster's stall on one of the quays nearly opposite the Four Courts. She was a virago of the first order, very able with her fist, and still more formidable with her tongue. From one end of Dublin to the other she was notorious for her powers of abuse, and even in the provinces Mrs. Moriarty's language had passed into currency. The dictionary of Dublin slang ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... hand over fist, by this time, sir. He has twenty good men at his back, and we'll have the ladies safe ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... heavy fist over me—I believe the clerks thought he was going to strike me, for they came hurrying toward us. But I saw Jacqueline approaching, and, without another ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... man was within reach, the Wanderer sprang out, the loosened bonds falling at his feet, and smote the sailor beneath the ear with his clenched fist. The blow was so fierce, for all his anger went into it, that it crushed the bone, and drove the man against the mast of the ship so that the strong mast shook. Where he fell, there he lay, his feet kicking the floor of the hold ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... fatigue!" screamed a voice near him. It was old James Burdock, who, with his white hair streaming and his eye gleaming with fire, shook his fist in his master's face—"no, it is not the fatigue, you villain! It is you who have killed her, with your jezebels and harlots, ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... level, or to draw her down to its own. I loved her; I was sorry not to have had the time and the inspiration to insult her, to do her some injury, to force her to keep some memory of me. I knew her to be so beautiful that I should have liked to be able to retrace my steps so as to shake my fist at her and shout, "I think you are hideous, grotesque; you are utterly disgusting!" However, I walked away, carrying with me, then and for ever afterwards, as the first illustration of a type of happiness rendered inaccessible to a little boy of my kind by certain laws ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... he said softly. "You are what all men would be if we followed Nature's plan that only the fit shall survive. But modern science is permitting the unfit to live and to mix their defective beings with the developing race!" His huge fist gesticulated madly. "Fools! Fools! They need me ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... crone's in the sulks, for she 'd fain be gaddin', A wink to the girls sets her soul a-maddin', She 's a shame and sorrow to me. If I stop at the hostel to buy me a gill, Or with a good fellow a moment sit still, Her fist it is clench'd, and is ready to kill, And the talk of the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Robin gloomily. Suddenly his face lightened. A wild, reckless gleam shot into his eyes and, to their amazement, he banged the table with his fist. "By Jove, I know what I shall do. ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... little doggedly. "I have spent too many of my years on the treadmill. A man was born to be either an egoist and parcel out the earth according to his tastes, or to develop like Dartrey into a dreamer.—Curse you!" he added, suddenly shaking his fist at the tall towers of the Houses of Parliament. "You're like an infernal boarding-school, with your detentions and impositions and castigations. There must ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Wintermill family is going to receive a far from exclusive thrashing. That's the only way I can think of to stop him, if I can't raise the money to pay him up. Some day I'm going to refrain from dodging and he is going to run right square into this." He held up a brawny fist. "I'm going to hold it just so, and it won't be too high for his nose, either. Then I'm going to pick him up and turn him around, with his face toward the Battery, and kick just as hard as I know how. I'll bet my head ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... kill them, were to shew I feared them; The court, disarmed, disheartened and besieged, Are all as much within my power, as if I griped them in my fist. ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... did a reckless thing, showing herself at the window, and shaking her fist defiantly as the car, with rapidly gathering speed, passed the disconsolate group on the station platform. Holmes was the first to see her, and his face darkened with a swift scowl. Then he caught sight of Bessie, and, seizing Brack's arm, pointed the two ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the March - Bessie King's Test of Friendship • Jane L. Stewart
... requirement is that he must be able to lick any man in the company. A drunken private may damn a captain upside down and wrong-side out, and the captain is not allowed to reply. He can neither strike with his fist, nor engage in a cussing match, but your able sergeant is an adept in both of these polite accomplishments. Even if a private strike an officer, the officer is not allowed to strike back. Perhaps the man who abuses him could easily beat him in a rough-and-tumble ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... his companions and show them what he could do, Milo once carried an ox for several miles, and then, feeling hungry, killed it with one blow of his fist, cooked it, and ate it all at a single meal. On another occasion, Milo was sitting with several companions in a rather tumble-down house. All at once he noticed that the roof was falling in. He stretched up his great arms, spread out his hands, and held the ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber
... the head with his fist. He was dragged into the house, howling at the top of his voice. Soon the garden was empty. By degrees the lights were extinguished and the noise was stilled, except for the distant artillery fire. The patrol which had helped to take the ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... votes hand over fist if he'd called my bluff; but. I knew he wouldn't, soon as I seen his face. He ain't ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... before the chest, and once more pressed his finger along its interior, following regular lines. Then he shook the pillars, and inserted his penknife in each most minute interstice of the carving; he prodded the ribs of the arches, and brought his fist down violently on the separate floors of the mosque. At the end of an hour he sprang to his feet with a smothered oath, and cutting a slit in the cover of the chest with his penknife, tore it off and examined the top and sides as carefully as his strained eyes and ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... the torches upon either side of the entrance gate, the folk who were passing stopped in wonder to gaze. There were to be no performances to-night, Cleofonte explained, the company was weary; but to-morrow—! He pause and the magnificence with which his huge fist tapped his deep chest were ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... "Dawn with its childish colors Stipples the solemn vault of night; Behind the horizon the sun shakes a bloody fist; Mysteries stand naked by the lakes of mist; Spirits take flight, The medicine man, The voodoo doctor— Witches mount brooms. The day looms. Faster it comes, Bringing young giants Who hate solitude, And march with drums— Beat—beat—beat, Down every ancient street, ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... you I'm sick of it, Velasquez," cried the Mochuelo, striking the table impatiently with his fist. "Why are we idling in towns instead of following up our late victory? When there's work to be done, do it at once, say I. If there's no sign of a move to-morrow, I shall venture something by ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... insult shattered Bud Ellis's self-control. Prompted by blind fury, the great fist of the man shot out, hammer-like, and Clayton crumpled at his feet. It was a blow that would have felled the proverbial ox; it was the counterpart of many other blows, plus berserker rage, that had split pine boards for sheer joy in the ability to do so. These thoughts came sluggishly ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... scourgcrs preceding the king as his regular attendants, with their whips passed through their girdles; we behold the operation of flaying performed either upon living or dead men; we observe those who are about to be executed first struck on the face by the executioner's fist. Altogether we seem to have evidence, not of mere severity, which may sometimes be a necessary or even a merciful policy, but of a barbarous cruelty, such as could not fail to harden and brutalize alike those who witnessed and those who inflicted it. ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... from the cock by the violence of the shock I had just received. There was no time to be lost. I presently remembered the effect it had on my eyes, therefore opened the pan, levelled my piece against the wild fowls, and my fist against one of my eyes. [The Baron's eyes have retained fire ever since, and appear particularly illuminated when he relates this anecdote.] A hearty blow drew sparks again; the shot went off, and I killed fifty brace of ducks, ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... and fast, and some were hard and personal, and some were barbed with truth, and one, at length, ended in the word "deserter." The victim grew instantly fierce and red, leaped up crying "Liar," and was knocked backward to the ground by the long-reaching fist of 'Thanase. He rose again and dashed at his assailant. The rest of the company hastily made way to right and left, chairs were overturned, over went the table, the cards were underfoot. Men ran in from outside and from over ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... the Fist.—It is through the live force acquired, or inertia at rest, that stones are broken by a blow of the fist. This experiment is performed as follow: The right hand being properly bandaged with a handkerchief, the stone to be broken is taken with ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1082, September 26, 1896 • Various
... elegant Reynolds himself became so jealous of WILSON, that he took every opportunity of depreciating his singular excellence. Stung by the madness of jealousy, BARRY one day addressing Sir Joshua on his lectures, burst out, "Such poor flimsy stuff as your discourses!" clenching his fist in the agony of the convulsion. After the death of the great artist, BARRY bestowed on him the most ardent eulogium, and deeply grieved over the past. But the race of genius born too "near the sun" have ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... the painter to become taut. It had not slackened however, so there was no chance for another such accident as that which knocked him overboard before. He watched the painter for a moment, and then shook his fist at it. ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... slipped nearer, with his razor in the palm of his hand, and stealthily tried to cut the thongs by which the wallet was fastened. So the Saxon turned quickly and smote him between the eyes with his fist, and it was an hour before the Greek came to himself and crawled away, for nobody would lift him. But Alric laughed often as he sucked the trickling blood from his knuckles, and though he was a little man and young, the soldiers ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... robbed of blue and stars; leading a life plainly, wholly exceptional, and out of work in a winter when he was a trifle past twenty-six; hears his sister's children crying, "Bread, bread, give bread;" rises in sullen acerbity; smites his huge fist through a baker's window, and steals a loaf; is arrested, convicted, sent to the galleys, and herded with galley slaves; attempts repeated escapes, is retaken, and at the age of forty-six shambles out of his galley slavery ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... advanced with a clenched fist towards a carter who was ill-treating a horse. And when taken for the first time, by his father, to Rouen, having the towers of the cathedral pointed out to him, he exclaimed, "My God! how high they fly." ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... owing to the timely arrival of a red-faced, though rather handsome Irish lady of twenty-five or thirty, who, in the broadest Celtic, commanded the peace, and threatened the combatants with a hot flat-iron, which she brandished in her stalwart fist. ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... off, for, to the accompaniment of a shout of approval from the two spectators, Arthur had swung his right fist, and it had taken him smartly on the ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... toward him with morose looks, and, without advancing from the embrasure of the window in which he was standing, waited for Cranmer to advance to him. As he looked into that noble, smiling countenance, he had a feeling as if he must raise his fist and dash it into the face of this man, who had the boldness to wish to be his equal, and to contend with him for fame ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... are bigger than a man's fist, and each separate bulb thicker than a walnut. To grow them well they must have time; so plant early, on rich ground, in rows one foot apart and the bulbs about nine inches asunder. Press them into the earth ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... and showed a set of yellow teeth, as he held out the palm of his left hand to give it a severe punch with his right fist; after which ebullition he seemed to feel much better, and went and leaned ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... Older Man hotly. "You've just confessed that it hasn't!" In an amazing impulse of protest he reached out and shook his freckled fist right under the Younger Man's nose. "Twenty, I tell you, hasn't got any individuality ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... it was redoubled by the Southern intensity of his thought and expression. Disdaining all forms of rhetoric, he poured forth a torrent of ideas, clothing them in the first words that came to his facile tongue, enforcing them by blows of the fist or the most violent gestures, and yet, again, modulating the roar of passion to the falsetto of satire or the whisper of emotion. His short, thick-set frame, vibrating with strength, doubled the force of all his ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... were attracted to the place. Festus Clasby, the dispute stirring something in his own blood, shook his fist in the long narrow face of Mac-an-Ward. As he did so he got a tip on the heels and a pressure upon the chest sent him staggering a few steps back. One of the old women held him up in her arms and another old woman stood before him, striking her breast. Festus Clasby saw the wisps of hair ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... quoth he, "Thou shalt be slain by heaven's dignity, Who rudely dar'st disparage with foul lie My daughter that is come of lineage high!" And by the throat he Allen grasped amain; And caught him, yet more furiously, again, And on his nose he smote him with his fist! Down ran the bloody stream upon his breast, And on the floor they tumble, heel and crown, And shake the house—it seemed all coming down. And up they rise, and down again they roll; Till that the Miller, stumbling o'er a coal, ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... the folly of the course he had adopted, she would soon forget him altogether, perhaps find another more patient and gentle, who could make her happier than he would have done, such thoughts as these were madness—perhaps she might marry another, no, he clinched his fist and vowed she should not. How had his so called revenge recoiled upon himself, he had not been aware how madly he loved her, until she was lost to him forever, and he almost cursed the filthy lucre that had lured him on until it had been his ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... home in the evening, he seemed to sense trouble at once, for suddenly coming down on the table with his fist, he demanded: 'What in hell is the matter? Here you both are going around with faces as if you were at a funeral. I'm working hard all day, and when I come home at night, by God, I don't want to see such faces around me. What in hell is ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... excellency and against her. In a revulsion of feeling he leaned on his shovel, whereupon a besooted giant of the lower regions tapped his shoulder. This person—foreman of the gang—pointed significantly to the inactive implement. His brow was low, brutish, and he had a fist like a hammer. Mr. Heatherbloom lifted the shovel and looked at the low brow but, fortunately, he did not act on the impulse. It was as if some detaining angel reached down into those realms of Pluto and, at the critical moment, laid ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... started and clenched his fist, his teeth grated together, he glared upon his son with his fiery eyes, ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... emaciated, fanatical, dirty, ignorant Hindu, who either sits in a fixed posture until his body becomes ossified, or else holds his arm up in the air until it becomes stiff and withered and forever after remains in that position, or perhaps clenches his fist and holds it tight until his fingernails grow through the palms of his hands. That these people exist is true, but their claim to the title "Yogi" seems as absurd to the true Yogi as does the claim to the title "Doctor" on the part of the man who pares one's corns seem to the eminent surgeon, ...
— The Hindu-Yogi Science Of Breath • Yogi Ramacharaka
... done?" Malone had seen Gamble speaking before, and had wondered if it would be possible for the man to talk with his hands tied behind his back. Apparently it wouldn't be. "We feel that we are approaching a critical stage in Project Isle," the scientist said, enclosing one fist within the other hand. "If anything more gets out to the Soviets, we might as well publish our findings"—a wide, outflung gesture of both ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)
... his fist down on his knees: "I don't care a hang where he goes. It's you we are talking about. You've got to promise me not to go with ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... irascible Professor shook his fist in Quincy's face, to which a red flush mounted, ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... purpose and ready to function at the right moment, his eyes betraying no vestige of his intentions. Suddenly his left foot shot out and upward with incredible swiftness. The captain's knife hand flew up to save itself, and ere it came down Roger, moving forward with the kick, had swung his right fist like a thunderbolt to its mark beneath the ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... temple, and he is then laid alive on a number of spears and borne on men's shoulders along the ranks, the priest of the god of war walking alongside and watching the writhings of the dying man. If a tear falls from his eye it is said he is weeping for his land. If he should clench his fist it is supposed to be a sign that his party will resist to ...
— The Cannibal Islands - Captain Cook's Adventure in the South Seas • R.M. Ballantyne
... see each other for the thick dust. The basket lay trampled in the dirt; salted fish were scattered all over the road. Andrew kicked the ruined basket into the ditch. "May God soon burn Rome and all her soldiers! This land belongs to us!" He ran a few steps as if to overtake the riders and shook his fist. "God will strike you!" he shouted. The stranger was helping John put what was left of the fish in the other three baskets. Andrew ...
— Men Called Him Master • Elwyn Allen Smith
... finding himself thus outwitted, flew into a violent rage. He seized Zeke by the collar, and began to threaten and abuse him. But the colored man shook his fist at him, and said, "If you don't let me go, Mr. Godwin, I'll knock you down. I'm a free citizen of these United States; and I won't be insulted in ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... words by bringing his fist down heavily on the frail table before him, and replacing his meerschaum between his lips, he glared defiantly ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... headway. Dave and Phil ran down by the side of the tracks. They saw Nat shove back the door about a foot and peer out. He did not dare to jump, and, seeing them, shook his fist wildly. ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer
... We were ready to help her to a place in the sun there and elsewhere in the world, and to give up something for this end, if only we could secure peace and contentment on her part. But she would not have it so, and she chose to follow the principle of relying on the "Mailed Fist." Of this policy, when pursued recklessly, Bismarck well understood the danger. "Prestige politics," as he called them, he hated. In February, 1888, he laid down in a well-known speech what he held to be the true principle. "Every Great Power ...
— Before the War • Viscount Richard Burton Haldane
... 'im. An' little Joe Crutch, as used ter come 'ere beggin' a spoonful of drippin' fer 'is mother, come 'ome drunk the other night so natural, that 'is mother mistook 'im fer 'is father, an' landed 'im on the ear with 'er fist. An' 'im the apple of 'er eye, as the sayin' is. It's 'ard ter be a mother in Cardigan Street. Yer girls are mothers before their bones are set, an' yer sons are dodgin' the p'liceman round the corner before they're in ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... through-space-hurling machinery. We applied this new power to a pea-shooter, and, at the first shot, was sufficiently fortunate to hit a Marsian policeman on the nose. He first arrested an innocent person for the assault, but, on our repeating the signal, he looked up, and shook his fist at the Earth. Eventually he traced the source of the pea-shooting. They then began to watch our signals. They were just about to reply when we started off for another ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 20, 1892 • Various
... actively eternal Creative force, in cold disdain You now oppose the fist infernal, Whose wicked clench is all in vain! Some other labor seek thou rather, Queer ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... sovereign," answered the Hermit, (well known to the curious in penny-histories of Robin Hood, by the name of Friar Tuck,) "it is not the crosier I fear, but the sceptre.—Alas! that my sacrilegious fist should ever have been applied to the ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... a fool!" And Buckrow struck him square in the face with his fist, hurling him back on my shoulders, so that I fell forward on ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... his impulse was to wait till I had finished my sentence. This momentary delay so enraged the first mate, that he flew at the poor little fellow, knocked him down with his fist, and then began to kick him along the deck as if he ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... to God I was present," said Murty; "I would settle bread on some of them; that I would, and no mistake," said he, bringing his clenched fist down on the table, "if I heard them insult the minister of Christ in any shape or form. Oh, America! America!" said he, in an undervoice, "I am deceived in you. I thought you were a second paradise, where all was peace, and comfort, and justice, ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... disfavor. There were frequent confirmatory emphatic nods of great disheveled heads, the scarlet flushing of angry faces, already florid, and now and again a violent descriptive gesture of a long brawny arm with a clenched fist at its extremity. Richard Mivane's well-rounded periods and gentlemanly phrasings were like the educated thrusts and feints of an expert fencer who opposes his single rapier to the bludgeons and missiles of a furious mob. He saw in less than five minutes that the scheme of extenuation ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... Carmichael upon the scene. He was witness to the second kiss. He saw the vintner run forward and dash his fist into the soldier's face. Wallenstein, to whom such an assault was unexpected, fell back, hurt and blinded. The vintner, active as a cat, saw Carmichael coming on a run. He darted toward him, and before Carmichael could prevent him, dragged the sword-cane away. The blade, thin and ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... apartment, in which the breezes blowing through the lattice sounded like the andante of the sea, and sighed for the forbidden fruit of a half-finished novel. But the sigh perished with the breath that gave it birth. The next moment she sternly doubled a very diminutive fist, and demanded of herself whether that was the best use that could be made of her time and opportunities. Then she looked about for some missionary work. It was not far to seek, for the children, weary of purposeless drifting on the still ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... hunchback was running on him with drawn sword. M. de la Pailletine, in a trice, interposing, knocked the blade up and out of his hand. But he rushed on, and, dealing the traitor a sound blow on the face with his fist, began to kick and cuff and ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... down on the table with his fist; "we are merely intellectuals. We cling to a mummified world. But they have the power and ...
— One Man's Initiation—1917 • John Dos Passos
... somewhat cumbrous way of saying that God, and God only, can adjust the difference between the mighty and the weak; can redress the balance, and by the laying of His hand upon the feeble hand can make it strong as the mailed fist to which it is opposed. If we know ourselves to be hopelessly outnumbered, and send to God for reinforcements, He will clash His sword into the scale, and make it go down. Asa turns to God and says, 'Thou only canst ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... 22nd, the day when the Sussex Ultimatum was made known through the Press. The news was headlined in the afternoon editions. The eager crowds snapped them up, stood still in their tracks, and then one and all expressed their amazement to anybody near them, "President Wilson began by shaking his fist at Germany, and ended by shaking his finger," was the way one of the President's political opponents summarised his Notes. That was the opinion in Germany. And now he had "pulled a gun." The Germans could not understand it. When ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... stick when cooked becomes a fish, and though it is repeatedly broken and served it always appears ready for service at meal time (p. 33); a small jar containing a single grain of rice supplies an abundance of food; another jar no larger than a fist furnishes drink for a company and still remains a third full; while a single earring fills a pot with gold [37] (pp. ...
— Traditions of the Tinguian: A Study in Philippine Folk-Lore • Fay-Cooper Cole
... lances they should have them. She knew only a few words of French, not enough to express the question which she made understood by gestures. Her eyes were burning with appeal to us and flashing with hate as she shook her fist toward ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... application of the verb reflex we must confess, though we remember a similar transfer of the agent to the patient in a manuscript tragedy, in which the Bertram of the piece, prostrating a man with a single blow of his fist, exclaims—"Knock me thee down, then ask thee if thou liv'st." Well; the stranger obeys, and whatever his sleep might have been, his waking was perfectly natural; for lethargy itself could not withstand ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... trap as I swung; I prided myself on my correct eye; you see I was a most complete ass: I have seen only a few completer. I thought I could jump down astride of the trap, so to speak, and get no harm. I came down the rope, hand over fist, till I got to the end of it; only about six feet between me and safety: then ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... several times its bulk without cracking or breaking, but excellent results can be obtained from good flour with less labor. Bread has been kneaded all that is necessary when it will work clean of the board, and when, after a smart blow with the fist in the center of the mass, it will spring back to its original shape like an India rubber ball. Its elasticity is the surest test of its goodness; and when dough has been thus perfectly kneaded, it can be molded ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... experienced diplomatists of Europe, was difficult to gainsay. Speaking as one having authority, the president told the States-General in full assembly, that there was no law in Christendom, as between nations, but the good old fist-law, the code ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... competition with man. How can a person who is constantly losing a year of the best part of her life compete with a young man who never loses any time at all? He has the brute force, and his last word on any subject could always be his fist." ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... one another and panted. They scarcely dared do it before. Then Rose, with one hand on her heaving bosom, shook her little white fist viciously at where the figure must be, and perhaps a comical desire of vengeance stimulated her curiosity. She now glided through the fissure like a cautious panther from her den; and noiseless and supple as a serpent began to wind slowly ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... of that again I will strike you," she said, raising up her little fist and bringing it down with gentle pressure on his shoulder. "Between you and me there must be nothing more about that. It must be an even partnership. There must be ever so much about money, and you'll have to go into dreadful details, and ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... information. He climbed the steep stairway (the house stood on piles twelve feet above the sand), and entered the living room to report. The trader demanded the chicken. Mauki opened his mouth to explain the missionary's absence. But Bunster did not care for explanations. He struck out with his fist. The blow caught Mauki on the mouth and lifted him into the air. Clear through the doorway he flew, across the narrow veranda, breaking the top railing, and ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... very well that I am an Appin Stewart, and the Campbells have long harried and wasted those of my name; ay, and got lands of us by treachery—but never with the sword," he cried loudly, and with the word brought down his fist upon the table. But I paid the less attention to this, for I knew it was usually said by those who have the underhand. "There's more than that," he continued, "and all in the same story: lying words, lying papers, tricks fit for a peddler, and ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... forward and banged his big fist down on the table. "Right ye are!" he shouted, until loitering men in the open "street" outside stared curiously. "Divils they are, but they're the kind of divils we know how to handle. And now I'll tell ye somethin' else, sir: I know ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... me fist! He smashed me fist! Oh! Oh!" whined Scootsy, hopping about with the pain, sucking the injured hand and shaking its mate at Archie, who was still brandishing the sapling and yelling ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... men cry out, 'The Red Lad! the Red Lad!' in no faltering voice, and even therewith the foeman's ranks quaver, as the trees of the wood when the wind comes up from the ground amongst them; and then I ride forward with Boardcleaver in my fist, and the arrows fly away about me for fear, and the array opens before me, and we plunge in and find nought there, and the rout goes down the green meadows. Yea, so it is, and many deem it fair. But then comes ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris |
