"Wrest" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... brother, and doubtless would have killed him on the spot, had he not been prevented. I now saw the advantage of George and his party being present. He and three of his subjects seized upon Atoi, and tried to wrest the weapon from his hands, which if they had been able to effect, a mortal combat could not take place, such being the custom here. Atoi was a very powerful man of about thirty, and those who attacked him had a most difficult task; twice he broke from them; and I then watched ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... remained until his visit to Italy, in 1773. Meanwhile his friends were loud in their laudation of the prodigy who, in historical works, they declared, promised to rival the great masters, and in portraiture threatened to wrest the palm from Reynolds himself. He now raised his prices again, charging twelve guineas for a three-quarter portrait, and found no lack of sitters at the increased rate. Whether or not he sought for academic honours is not clear; certain it is they were not conferred upon him: and he invariably ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... on paper, and forced them to wring votes from their men. He drafted a catalogue of names for the electoral Legislature, calculated to impose the hesitant, who were not permitted to observe that he smarted and snarled under many a kick. Strong names were essential if the Republicans were to wrest New York from the Federals after twelve years of unbroken rule, but strong men had long since ceased to have aught to do with Burr; although Jefferson, as Hamilton suspected, had recently extended his politic paw. But in spite of ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... consented. He saw the shadow of the reconstruction and dreaded it; and there were no ties of blood to hold him in the States. Italy itself was in turmoil. Il Re Galantuomo, that Piedmontese hunter, Vittorio Emanuele, wished to liberate Venice from the grasp of Austria, to wrest temporal power from the Vatican, and to send the French troops back to France. Well, he accomplished all these things, and both my father and the prince were with him up to the time he entered the Quirinal. After victory, peace. My father ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... I struck out with my clenched fists, throwing all the power I possessed into my blows, and fortunately for me—a mere boy in the grasp of a heavily-built man—he was comparatively, powerless from loss of blood consequent upon his wounds, so that I was able to wrest myself free, ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... Hesshusius, published, in 1560 a number of Calvinistic theses. As a result Hesshusius most emphatically forbade him henceforth to assist at the distribution of the Holy Supper. When Klebitz nevertheless appeared at the altar, Hesshusius endeavored to wrest the cup from his hands. Elector Frederick ordered both Hesshusius and Klebitz to settle their trouble in accordance with the Augustana (Variata). Failing to comply with this unionistic demand, Hesshusius was deposed, September 16, 1559, and Klebitz, ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... seat, and had just secured the letter when the dining-room door was pushed open, and Mrs. Dinneford came in, white and frightened. She saw the letter in Edith's hand, and with a cry like some animal in pain leaped upon her and tried to wrest it from her grasp. But Edith held it in her closed hand with a desperate grip, defying all her mother's efforts to get possession of it. In her wild fear and anger Mrs. ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... time, except for the war with the Creeks and the bloodless capture of Mobile, the Southwest had taken little part in the contest. On land, the war had been mainly an affair of the North, where the Americans had been trying to wrest Canada from the mother country, and of the Northwest, where the British and the Indians had taken the offensive. The death of Tecumseh at the battle of the Thames, in November, 1813, had made an end of that combination, and General ...
— Andrew Jackson • William Garrott Brown
... whither his father sent him to rule (1228) with some guardian boyars. In 1239 he married Alexandra, daughter of Prince Bryachislav of Polotsk. At an early age he distinguished himself in constant warfare with the Germans, Swedes and Lithuanians, who tried to wrest Novgorod and Pskov from Russia while she was still suffering from the effects of the terrible Tatar invasion. The most notable of these battles, whereby he won his honorific epithet of Nevsky (i.e. of the Neva), was fought on the banks of the Neva (July 15 1240) against ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... their orders; yet so eager were the buyers to get hold of his tungsten that they almost took it out of the bins. He was storing up the ore, preparatory to milling it and shipping only the concentrates; but if they could have their way they would wrest it from his hands and rush it to the railroad post haste. One mysterious buyer had even offered him a contract at seventy dollars a unit—three dollars and a half ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... very fine, but you can not prove one word of it—not one! It is a plot to wrest a fortune from me, but it will not succeed. It was your falsity in forsaking Love at his wedding-hour that caused all his trouble, and the sight of you is hateful to me. You must leave here at once, and return to your mother ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... Bible a book intelligible to all? Far from it; it is full of obscurities and difficulties not only for the illiterate, but even for the learned. St. Peter himself informs us that in the Epistles of St. Paul there are "certain things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and the unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, to their own destruction."(146) And consequently he tells us elsewhere "that no prophecy of Scripture is made ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... met no violent resistance either from insurgents or from the States. In the Virginia convention of 1788 Patrick Henry had said: "I never will give up that darling word 'requisitions;' my country may give it up, the majority may wrest it from me, but I never will give it up till my grave." Nevertheless, when the requisitions on the States were given up, the chief cause of dispute in the Union was removed. Up to this time the only distinctly ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... journals took pains to tell us that a number of them had just been hung in that State; and, without even speaking of these noble victims, whose death completes the dishonor of the Southern cause, are there any bolder deeds in the history of mankind than those of the citizens of New England who, to wrest Kansas from slavery, went thither to build their cabins, thus braving a fearful struggle, not only with the slaveholders, but with the President, his illegal measures, and the ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... Macullagh was the only man with whom Hamilton had ever even an approach to a dispute about priority. The incident referred to took place in connection with the discovery of conical refraction, the fame of which Macullagh made a preposterous attempt to wrest from Hamilton. This is evidently alluded to in Hamilton's letter to the Marquis of Northampton, dated June 28th, 1838, in ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... the drawings, that she cared and knew nothing about, and while making believe to examine them, addressing herself to Mr. Huntingdon, with one of her coldest and most repellent aspects, and beginning a series of the most common-place and formidably formal questions and observations, on purpose to wrest his attention from me—on purpose to vex me, as I thought: and having now looked through the portfolio, I left them to their tete-a-tete, and seated myself on a sofa, quite apart from the company—never thinking how strange such ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... referr'd To the Gods' will, Telemachus! meantime Thou hast unquestionable right to keep Thy own, and to command in thy own house. 510 May never that man on her shores arrive, While an inhabitant shall yet be left In Ithaca, who shall by violence wrest Thine from thee. But permit me, noble Sir! To ask thee of thy guest. Whence came the man? What country claims him? Where are to be found His kindred and his patrimonial fields? Brings he glad tidings of thy Sire's approach Homeward? ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... Take the following as an Instance—Cole's Sovereignty of God, Page 41, 2d Edit. "To this also might be added the strict Injunctions that God hath laid upon the subordinate Dispensers of his Law; as namely, to judge the People with just Judgment, not to wrest Judgment, nor respect Persons; yea, he curseth them that pervert Judgment, and will surely reprove them that accept Persons; and shall mortal Man be more just than God? will he, under such Penalties, command Men to do thus, and not do ...
— Free and Impartial Thoughts, on the Sovereignty of God, The Doctrines of Election, Reprobation, and Original Sin: Humbly Addressed To all who Believe and Profess those DOCTRINES. • Richard Finch
... emotions, we must evidently infer that Moses held this doctrine himself, or at any rate, that he wished to teach it, nor must we refrain because such a belief seems contrary to reason: for as we have shown, we cannot wrest the meaning of texts to suit the dictates of our reason, or our preconceived opinions. (40) The whole knowledge of the Bible must be sought solely ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part II] • Benedict de Spinoza
... in every case, the effects have been directly opposite to what short-sighted mortals had anticipated. It was in 1756, scarcely forty years ago, that the French, being in possession of the provinces, attempted to wrest from us those portions of America which we occupied. What was the result? After a war which, for cruelty and atrocity, is perhaps unequaled in history, both parties employing savages, by whom the ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... remarkable that Morse in later years held himself to be but an instrument in the hands of God to carry out His will? He never ceased to marvel at the amazing fact that he, poor, scoffed at or pitied, surrounded by difficulties of every sort, should have been chosen to wrest the palm from the hands of trained scientists of two continents. To us the wonder is not so great, for we, if we have read his character aright as revealed by his correspondence, can see that in him, more than in any other man of his time, were combined the qualities necessary to a great ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... mist, the faces of the girls. Another vivid glare of lightning was followed by a long, loud rattling peal ending in a terrific crash that seemed fairly to rend the heavens, while the wind shook the tents as if giant hands were trying to wrest them from their fastenings. Then from all over the camp arose frightened shrieks and wails and cries, but Annie Pearson now was too terrified to utter a word. The next moment there was a loud, ripping tearing sound, and as fresh cries broke ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Camp Fire Girls' Story • I. T. Thurston
... effort to recover her by a similar method. Gerrard wrote to Carleton[20] that Lady Elizabeth, having heard that Frances was to be taken to London, determined to meet her with an armed band and to wrest her ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville
... recalling to the king the memory of the many ills that she had brought upon France. "But," said the Bearnais, "I should like to ask you, what could a poor woman do who had, by the death of her husband, been left with five small children on her hands and two families who were endeavoring to wrest the crown from them, ours and that of the Guises? Was she not obliged to make use of strange personages to outwit both of them, and yet to preserve, as she did, her children, who reigned successively, thanks to the discreet ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... soldier, each armed with the rifle and musket peculiar to their service. By a sudden effort, he seized the rifle of one and the musket of the other, and turned their muzzles from him; and so firm was his grasp, that, although unable to wrest the weapon from either of them, they could not change ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... Washington on the Father's first historic expedition into the wilds of Virginia. His great-grandfather had accompanied Boone when that hunter first penetrated the "Dark and Bloody Ground," had gone back to Virginia and come again with a surveyor's chain and compass to help wrest it from the red men, among whom there had been an immemorial conflict for possession and a never-recognized claim of ownership. That compass and that chain his grandfather had fallen heir to and with that compass and chain his father had earned his livelihood ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... I did not notice a single masquerader unduly excited by liquor: there was not a word or motion from the lighter sex that could have been construed into an impropriety. There was something almost pathetic to me in this attempt to wrest gayety and excitement out of these dull materials; to fight against the blackness of that wintry sky, and the stubborn hardness of the frozen soil, with these painted sticks of wood; to mock the dreariness of their poverty with these flaunting raiments. It did not seem like them, ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... deemed invincible, they had been beaten by a handful of foreigners. Was not this a sure sign that their divine commission had been withdrawn by the Court of Heaven? If so, might it not be possible to wrest the sceptre from their feeble grasp, ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... the dark?" broke in the President, "when the men are so apt to lose touch with their leaders, when they're shooting at random, when a mere chance may wrest away the victory and give it ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... tell you," he cried, starting to wrest himself loose from the officer's grasp, and then suddenly remaining passive as he reflected ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... groups of farmers; bevies of solid rustics; sharp-faced townsmen; loud-voiced bookmakers; giggling girls; amorous boys,—thrown together like toys in a sawdust bath; whilst here and there, on the outskirts of the crowd, a lonely man and wise-faced dog, come from afar to wrest his proud title from the best sheep-dog in ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... natural prey in their fellow-men, and find their gain in the loss of others. No doubt it seems to you that no necessity, however dire, would have tempted you to subsist on what superior skill or strength enabled you to wrest from others equally needy. But suppose it were not merely your own life that you were responsible for. I know well that there must have been many a man among our ancestors who, if it had been merely a question of his ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... window, he noticed that their legs contracted. "If dead muscles contract, it must mean that some external force has penetrated them." This was the simple argument of the "genius," the "great discoverer." And seeking this force, Volta, by means of his piles, was able to wrest from the earth electricity, which is, literally as well as figuratively, the "gleam" of an immense progress. Laying due weight upon a little fact, such as that of a dead being having moved, considering it soberly without any fanciful additions, and fixing the mind upon the resulting ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... more. My first impulse was to wrest the cowskin from the negro's hand, and revenge the poor bleeding child as she lay motionless on the ground; but a moment's reflection convinced me that such a step would only have brought down a double weight of punishment on the victims when ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... that Mr. Booth has settled all your accounts. Never mind, my dear Emma, a few hundred pounds; which is all the rigid gripe of the law, not justice, can wrest from you. ...
— The Letters of Lord Nelson to Lady Hamilton, Vol. I. - With A Supplement Of Interesting Letters By Distinguished Characters • Horatio Nelson
... doctor, exultingly, "it must be Varney; and now I have but to watch him, and not to resist him; for what good on earth is it to stop him in what he wishes to do, and, by such means, never wrest his secret from him. The only way is to let him go on, and that will ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... opened by a formal declaration of war. Spain was generally considered by the other European powers to have a double right to South America, namely, that of discovery and conquest; and after an ineffectual struggle to wrest the golden prize from the grasp of its legitimate possessor, England, and the rest of the "high contracting powers," acquiesced in her possessing it, the more readily because they wished the same kind of title should be acknowledged in their own case. Accordingly discovery and conquest have, ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... thou life of life, How worldlings, that profane thee rife, Can wrest thee to their appetites! How princes, who thy power deny, Pretend thee for their tyranny, And people for their ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... power seems to be coming to his relief. For nearly half a century he has been holding in his hand the keys of the great pathway from southern Russia to the East, despite the utmost efforts of the czar to wrest them from him. In vain did the emperor Nicholas visit the Caucasus to cheer on his troops; in vain did the grand-duke Alexander, the present emperor, take part in the campaign of 1850; or Prince Baratinksky in 1852 ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... chronicle every heedless word—to draw dark deductions from the unsuspecting confidence of my father's friend—to lie in wait—to hang with a foe's malignity upon the unbendings of familiar intercourse—to extort anger from gentleness itself, that you might wrest the anger into crime! Shame, shame upon you, for the meanness! And must you also suppose that I, to whose trust he has given his noble heart, will receive it only to play the eavesdropper to its ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... carrying about a rope (funem) for sale, he resisted the attempt of five soldiers who laboured with all their might to take it from him: thus rivalling Milo of Crotona, from whom no amount of strength could ever wrest an apple, whether he held it in his ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... as it had been a creature of volition, and stood upright upon a smooth-faced bowlder. It needed all the man's strength to wrest it thence, and, grasping it securely, he carefully descended, for the last time, the precipitous wall. Always the staff tugged at his grasp, seeking the earth, but he carried it still toward a clump ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... of the pistol the long line of young athletes surged forward, amid loud cries from the crowd that had gathered to witness the start. Many eyed Fred hopefully; for the word had gone around that upon him Riverport must depend to wrest victory from the grasp of that tall runner, Boggs, who was said to be a tremendous "stayer," and as ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... about to make the disagreeable confession, when the thoughts of the whole party were suddenly diverted to another channel, by the opening of the door and the entrance of one of those gaunt sons of the forest who were wont to hang on the skirts of civilisation, as it advanced to wrest from them their ...
— Wrecked but not Ruined • R.M. Ballantyne
... new aeroplane, and that the secret of it is at present locked in the inventor's breast. Last Tuesday a man with his moustache brushed up the wrong way alighted at Basingstoke station and enquired for the refreshment-room. This leads me to believe that a dastardly attempt is about to be made to wrest the supremacy of the air from ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... always drew her nearer and nearer to him; and the forest and its strange voices seemed a dark, opposing influence, which strove to take possession of her heart and to wrest her away from him forever; she helplessly clung to him; every thought and emotion of her soul clustered about him, and every hope of life and happiness ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... the Jew the payment of the three thousand ducats as many times over as he should desire; which Shylock refusing, and still insisting upon having a pound of Antonio's flesh, Bassanio begged the learned young counselor would endeavor to wrest the law a little, to save Antonio's life. But Portia gravely answered that laws once established never be altered. Shylock, hearing Portia say that the law might not be altered, it seemed to him that she was pleading in ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... to-night, of the inter-relation between spirit and matter, between soul and soul? To me it seems hopelessly inscrutable, and all effort to elucidate it, like the language of the Son of Maia, 'by night bringeth darkness before the eyes, and in the daytime nought clearer.' I shall as soon expect to wrest her buried secrets from the Sphinx, or to revive the lost mysteries of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... He did not want to relinquish Joseph's coat, and he threatened to hew down any one that should attempt to wrest it from him by force. The reason for his vehemence was that he was very much enraged against his brethren for not having slain Joseph. But they threatened him in turn, saying, "If thou wilt not give up the coat, we shall say ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... prophets were in certain respects ignorant, such persons would rather say that they do not understand the passages than admit that there was anything which the prophets did not know; or else they try to wrest the Scriptural words away from their ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part I] • Benedict de Spinoza
... follow a multitude to do evil, neither shalt them speak in a cause to decline after many, to wrest judgment." ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... to wrest from the senate the control of the public land and, with the aid of the Latini and the plebeians, to put an end to the system of occupation.[4] The lands which he proposed to divide were solely those which the state had acquired through conquest since ...
— Public Lands and Agrarian Laws of the Roman Republic • Andrew Stephenson
... Eirik said so loud that sundry heard him: 'E'en had King Olaf no larger ship than this, King Svein would with the Danish host alone never wrest it from him.' Then went the men to their ships and took the tilts from off them; whilst the chiefs were talking among themselves of that which is writ above saw they sailing along three very large ships, and a fourth ship last of all, and that was the ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... She must have education. She must have a chance to face life and wrest its lessons from it in her own way. It did not promise happiness for her. But she could go no other way. For hers was the high, stony way of those who demand more than jealous ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... him from Ravenna: never knight Rode forth more nobly to wild scenes of fight! None fell more bravely on ensanguined field, Borne like a Spartan back upon his shield! O Hellas! Hellas! in thine hour of pride, Thy day of might, remember him who died To wrest from off thy limbs the trammelling chain: O Salamis! O lone Plataean plain! O tossing waves of wild Euboean sea! O wind-swept heights of lone Thermopylae! He loved you well—ay, not alone in word, Who freely ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... of the sceptic may be neutralized by opposing to it the hypothesis of the theist. But we are not satisfied to stop at this point. We intend, not merely to neutralize, but to explode, the theory of the sceptic. We intend to wrest from it the element of its strength, and grind it to atoms. We intend to lay our finger precisely upon the fallacy which lies so deeply concealed in its bosom, and from which it derives all its ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... to wrest the reins of government from the officials in charge, they take him out and stand him up against a stone wall, with a firing squad in front. This manner of preventing revolutions is believed to be ...
— Boy Scouts in an Airship • G. Harvey Ralphson
... of archeologists set to work to explore the site of the first permanent English settlement at Jamestown Island, Va. For the next 22 years the National Park Service strove—with time out for wars and intervals between financial allotments—to wrest from the soil of Jamestown the physical evidence of 17th-century life. The job is not yet complete. Only 24 out of 60 acres estimated to comprise "James Citty" have been explored; yet a significant amount of information has ...
— New Discoveries at Jamestown - Site of the First Successful English Settlement in America • John L. Cotter
... when we first began to wrest with compelling hands the natural riches from the soil of this our adoptive State, political trickery in high places, backed by the puissant might of alien corporations, has ground us ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... loved fun and adventure, though he had early learned to carry upon his broad shoulders a full portion of the responsibilities of the household. In the bleak land where he lived there is no shifting of these responsibilities. Everyman, and every boy, too, must do his share to wrest a living from the sea and rocks, and Bobby had no thought but to do his part. If a boy cannot do one thing in Labrador, he can do another. He can cut wood, hunt small game, attend the fish nets, jig cod—there are a thousand things that he can do, and make sport of ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... bruiser, was hired by the surveyors to carry the instrument, with a view to its protection against all assailants; but one day an equally powerful fellow, a St. Helen's collier, cock of the walk in his neighbourhood, made up to the theodolite bearer to wrest it from him by sheer force. A battle took place, the collier was soundly pummelled, but the natives poured in volleys of stones upon the surveyors and their instruments, and the theodolite was ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... the tales that reached Europe that men came to think that it would be a good deed truly, to wrest the sepulchre of the Lord from the hands of these heathens. Pope Urban was the first to give authority and strength to the movement, and at a vast meeting at Claremont of 30,000 clergy and 4000 barons, it ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... demonstration was most decisive. Seeing that the height on which the Austrians had planted their heavy batteries, and which commanded the entire ground, was the key of the battle, Napoleon had determined to wrest it from them, together with the batteries which crowned it. Accordingly, the evening before, he had dispatched a body of light infantry by a very circuitous route, to turn the position and attack the batteries in rear. He had accurately calculated the time the detachment would require ...
— A Treatise on the Tactical Use of the Three Arms: Infantry, Artillery, and Cavalry • Francis J. Lippitt
... not fancied. Reeling, feet slipping, knees and hands locking, eyes staring, no word spoken and breathing hard, the two struggled in the middle of the cooped-up room—Hawk striving to free and kill himself; Laramie determined to wrest ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... rabble." Whether there is anything sweet in the rabble for Mr. Bamberger I do not know. But we are filled with satisfaction at the thought that we may be able to do something in the legislature for the less fortunate classes—whom he designates as rabble—and to wrest them, if you will grant the money, from the evil influences of place-hunters whose eloquence is ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... response to this salutation was to shift her position in such a manner as to appear again absorbed in the Calais boat. Peter Baron, however, kept hold of the child, whom Miss Teagle artfully endeavoured to wrest from him—a policy in which he was aided by Sidney's own rough but instinctive loyalty; and he was thankful for the happy effect of being dragged by his jubilant friend in the very direction in which he had tended for so many hours. Mrs. Ryves turned once more as he ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... expected attack did not come. An hour they waited, and a hour after that. Still no crowd of burly men came surging toward them from the Blackburn camp, still no attempt was made to wrest from their possession the waterway which they had taken ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... said the duke, "you'll eat your fingers off after the government, so sweet a thing is it to command and be obeyed. Depend upon it when your master comes to be emperor (as he will beyond a doubt from the course his affairs are taking), it will be no easy matter to wrest the dignity from him, and he will be sore and sorry at heart to have been so ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... at home and respected abroad; and that as He was graciously pleased heretofore to smile on our struggles against the attempts of the Government of the Empire of which these States then made a part to wrest from them the rights and privileges to which they were entitled in common with every other part and to raise them to the station of an independent and sovereign people, so He would now be pleased in like manner to bestow His blessing on our arms in resisting ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 1: James Madison • Edited by James D. Richardson
... Ay, but he held his own, the monk—more man Than any laurelled cripple of the wars, Charles's spent shafts; for what he willed he willed, As those do that forerun the wheels of fate, Not take their dust—that force the virgin hours, Hew life into the likeness of themselves And wrest the stars from their concurrences. So firm his mould; but mine the ductile soul That wears the livery of circumstance And hangs obsequious on its suzerain's eye. For who rules now? The twilight-flitting monk, Or I, that took the morning like an Alp? He held ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... jealousy and enchantments of Circe. The mother of Romulus: Silvia, daughter and only living child of Numitor, whom her uncle Amulius made a vestal virgin, to preclude the possibility that his brother's descendants could wrest from him the kingdom of Alba Longa. But the maiden was violated by Mars as she went to bring water from a fountain; she bore Romulus and Remus; and she was drowned in the Anio, while the cradle with the children was carried down the stream in safety to the ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... Rome, too, will run the course of other nations, and that some day, far distant maybe, she will sink beneath the weight of her power and her luxury, and that some younger and more vigorous people will, bit by bit, wrest her dominions from her and ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... paid tribute to the Raja of Bilaspur, and followed the standard of that chief in war; but these duties were now transferred to the chief of Sirmaur. This vigorous youth then attacked Garhawal, and endeavoured to wrest from its chief the fertile territory of Dun; but he died at Kalsi, after several fruitless battles had taken place between his brother Iswari Singha, and Lalit Sa, the chief of Garhawal. This young chief, ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... example—what noble-minded man does not wish and aspire to repeat his own life in better wise in his children and, again, in their children, and still to continue to live upon this earth, ennobled and perfected in their lives, long after he is dead; to wrest from mortality the spirit, the mind, and the character with which in his day he perchance put perversity and corruption to flight, established uprightness, aroused sluggishness, and uplifted dejection, and to deposit ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... the high priest. "The fools will make him king if we do not act and act quickly. Get into the city, Pan-sat—let your feet fly and raise the cry that Ja-don has killed the king and is seeking to wrest the throne from O-lo-a. Spread the word as you know best how to spread it that Ja-don has threatened to destroy the priests and hurl the altars of the temple into Jad-ben-lul. Rouse the warriors of the city and urge them to attack ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... nothingness; the tough, hard work of years was scattered—like a potent lever it lifted away the demoniac weight of darkness and pride from his soul, as it rung down into its frozen depths. And the strong angel of God, who had been contending with the powers of evil, to wrest it from eternal loss, bore up the glad news to heaven, that the hoary sinner repented at the eleventh hour; and there was great joy among the angels of His ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... it is not the negro per se who distracts and threatens to destroy our country—far from it! Negroes did not wrest Texas from Mexico, nor force her into the Union, nor threaten rebellion because California was admitted as a Free State, nor pass the Nebraska bill, nor stuff the ballot-boxes and burn the habitations of Kansas, nor fire on Fort ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... thick fog fell low upon the ground. The night was drawing on dark and dreary, and everything seemed full of gloom. Chester walked on; he took no heed of the way, but turned corner after corner with reckless haste, one hand working in his bosom as if he could thus wrest away the pain that seemed strangling him, and the other grasping his walking-stick upon which he paused and leaned heavily ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... the sovereignty of the earth then, upon the conclusion of peace, be given to king Yudhishthira the Just. Before the shafts of Phalguna, resembling snakes freed from their sloughs, enter thy body, make peace with the Pandavas. Before the high-souled Parthas, slaying thy hundred brothers in battle, wrest the earth by force, make peace with the Pandavas. Before king Yudhishthira is enraged, and Krishna also, that delighter in battle, makes peace with the Pandavas. Before the mighty-armed Bhima, penetrating ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Swann's love, had so far multiplied, was so closely interwoven with all his habits, with all his actions, with his thoughts, his health, his sleep, his life, even with what he hoped for after his death, was so entirely one with him that it would have been impossible to wrest it away without almost entirely destroying him; as surgeons say, his case was ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... century to the sixteenth), Spain was flooded by romantic chronicles. The most celebrated is that of Don Roderick, or an account of the reign of King Roderick in the eighth century, the conquest of the country by the Moors, and the efforts to wrest it from them. On this chronicle Robert Southey has founded most of his poem of Roderic the Last of the Goths. Whether resting on truth or fable, these old records struck their roots deep down in the hearts of the people; and their romance, their ...
— The Interdependence of Literature • Georgina Pell Curtis
... knows the secret of a mysterious marriage which is destined in time to take place, and by the offspring of which Zeus in his turn is to be dethroned. Strong in his consciousness of this, he defies Zeus, who by the agency of Hermes tries in vain to wrest the secret from him. The persons of the drama, besides Prometheus, are Hephaestus, better known by his Latin name of Vulcan, Might and Force personified, Hermes the messenger of Heaven, and the wandering Io. The chorus ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... would be upon his temper: that it would present itself to him as a wall deliberately built by the entire nation as a means of concealing a deep duplicity the sole object of which was the baffling, thwarting, and undoing of Englishmen, from whom it wished to wrest their honest rights. Apoplexy becoming imminent, as a result of his impotent rage during their first few days in Paris, she paid a private visit to a traveler's agency, and after careful inquiry discovered ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... it is a pitiable misnomer to call such exhibitions reading. But the more subtle forms of insincerity in this art are even more prevalent. To exaggerate some form of emphasis, to exaggerate a gesture or facial expression, to wrest a passage from its meaning, these, and many other devices for forcing immediate approval from an audience, are grossly insincere. There is still a broader plan on which our sincerity must be judged. To present this effectively I quote at length from Bliss Carmen's recent book, "The ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... generous, full of gentle qualities, Incapable of base compliances, No prodigal in his nature, but affecting This shew of bravery for ambitious ends. He drinks, for 'tis the humour of the court, And drink may one day wrest the secret from him, And pluck you from your ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... tone of tenderness in her voice seemed to restore Cardo to life. He crossed the velvet path, and, laying hold of her hands, which she in vain tried to wrest from his grasp. ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... hazy idea of what I was doing, except that I sought to wrest from his hand a knife. We clutched each other savagely, and wrestled there on the edge of the pond. Weights seemed to hang upon my limbs, but I felt the stronger of the two. Gradually I knew I was mastering him—then all ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... thou I fear this bloody God of Israel, or all the gibbering, incense-sniffing, pedestal-cumbering gods of earth? I will show thee, thou ranting rabble spawn! See which of us hath the yellow-haired wanton when I return. For I go to wrest spoil and fighting men from Israel. Then, by all the demons of Amenti! then, I say! look to thy crown, ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... Northwest the Americans made a stroke destined to have astounding results. Virginia had long coveted lands in the valleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi. It was in this region that Washington had first seen active service, helping to wrest that land from France. The country was wild. There was almost no settlement; but over a few forts on the upper Mississippi and in the regions lying eastward to the Detroit River there was that flicker of a red flag which meant that the Northwest was under British rule. ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... to the dignity and perfection of the human form, it was given to him and to his company to plan and initiate,—he declines to be held any longer responsible for the blind, demoniacal, irrational spirit, that would seize on his great instrument of science, and wrest it from its nobler object and intent, and debase it into the mere tool of the senses; the tool of a materialism more base and sordid than any that the world has ever known; more sordid, a thousand-fold, than the materialism of ages, when there was yet a god ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... the stair, and threw himself upon Donal in a fierce attempt after the key in his hand. The sudden assault staggered him, and he fell on the floor with Forgue above him, who sought to wrest the key from him. But Donal was much the stronger; he threw his assailant off him; and for a moment was tempted to give him a good thrashing. From this the thought of Eppy helped to restrain him, and he contented himself with holding ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... been the means of the damnation of millions of souls? Not because it is in itself a bad book, but because it is a theological work, prepared only for the priests and ministers of our holy religion. Therefore, it is always a very dangerous book in the hands of women or laymen, who wrest the Scriptures ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... by wars, prosecuted to no good end. He has conquered large territory, but he has paid for it with the blood of his people. Neither they nor he are the better because of those accessions, and the duke has made enemies who will one day surely wrest them from him. A brave prince should not fear to be called a coward because of an act that will bring peace and happiness to his subjects and save their lives, their liberties, and their estates. That great end will ennoble any means. The subjects ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... defeat. The same is true of a nation. The test of defeat is the test of its national worth. Defeat shows whether it deserves success. We may well be grateful and glad for our defeat of the 21st of July, if we wrest from it the secrets of our weakness, and are thrown back by it to the true sources of strength. If it has done its work thoroughly, if we profit sufficiently by the advantages it has afforded us, we may be well content that so slight a harm has brought us so great a good. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... that "great men come in clusters." That is true, but it is equally true that once in a great while, we are vouchsafed a royal guest, a man who mingles freely with the ordinary throng, yet stands far above them; a man who can wrest the primal secrets from nature's closed hand, who makes astounding discoveries, only to gladly disclose them ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... our valleys so fat with soil, that our living is easy and therefore our wits are dull, and we are still voting for Jackson. [Great laughter.] The reason the Yankees are smart is because they have to wrest a precarious subsistence from a reluctant soil. "What shall I do to make my son get forward in the world?" asked an English lord of a bishop. "I know of only one way," replied the bishop; "give him poverty and parts." Well, that's the reason the sons of the Pilgrims have ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... was the man who had brought death to Henry Wilton, and had twice sought my life in the effort to wrest from me a packet of information I did not have. This was the man whose face had gleamed fierce and hateful in the lantern's flash in the alley. This was the man I had sworn to bring to the gallows for a brutal ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... fell, To have parallel'd him with great Alexander: For both were of best feature, of high race, Year'd but to thirty, and, in foreign lands, By their own people alike made away. Sab, I know not, for his death, how you might wrest it: But, for his life, it did as much disdain Comparison, with that voluptuous, rash, Giddy, and drunken Macedon's, as mine Doth with my bondman's. All the good in him, His valour and his fortune, he made his; But he had other touches ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... of their psychic development they were often obliged to snatch from us the things which seemed necessary to them for the purpose. They had to move contrary to our laws, or sometimes to struggle with other children to wrest from them ...
— Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook • Maria Montessori
... bow; then he would put on his gloves and his top-hat, and go off to give his private lessons. Or if it was a holiday he would stay at home and paint, or play the harmonium, which wheezed and growled; he would try to wrest from it pure harmonious sounds and would sing to it; or would ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... generations engaged in it cannot keep, still less add to, the stores of garnered wisdom which once were theirs, and which are still in the hands of their brethren who dwell in the old land. To conquer the wilderness means to wrest victory from the same hostile forces with which mankind struggled in the immemorial infancy of our race. The primeval conditions must be met by primeval qualities which are incompatible with the retention of much that has been painfully acquired by humanity as through the ages ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... wrest his sceptre and kingdom from him, in that he hath endeavoured to thrust himself into his throne, which is the heart and conscience of his people. The heart and conscience is that which Christ claimeth for his own proper and peculiar seat: 'My son, give me thy heart.' 'That Christ ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... wounding him in the knee, but not so badly as to prevent him from standing. Moore advanced toward him, and the Indian threw his tomahawk, but missed him. Moore sprung at him with his large butcher-knife drawn, which the Indian caught by the blade and attempted to wrest from the hand of his antagonist. Holding on with desperate tenacity to the knife, both clinched with their left hands. A scuffle ensued, in which the Indian was thrown to the ground, his right hand being nearly dissevered, and bleeding profusely. Moore, still holding the handle of his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... days when Tunku Ali III. ruled over Maur, from Malacca to the confines of Johore, the Portuguese came, and Albuquerque with his ships of war and soldiers in iron armor sought to wrest from our people their cities and their riches. My ancestor was a dato,—our laksamana, high admiral, of his Highness's fleet. His galley was built of burnished teak, the lining of its cabin was of sandalwood,—algum wood your Koran calls it,—and the turret in its ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... treat in a healing ceremony. It requires a particularly capable Indian to attain the position of head medicine-man, for to do so he must not only make the people subservient to his will, but must wrest the leadership from some other and usually older medicine-man who is himself an influential character. Unfortunately it is apt to be the most crafty, scheming man who gains such ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... he was a believer in Lecoq's theory; and he was impressed by the strangeness of this conflict between a prisoner, determined to preserve the secret of his identity, and the agent for the prosecution, equally determined to wrest it from him. "Upon my word, my boy, you are not wanting in courage and ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... the wounds which he received in the mine, or on the breach. The French now discover, that they are not yet lords of the continent; and that Britain has other armies ready to force, once more, the passes of Schellembourg, or break down the intrenchments of Blenheim; to wrest from them the sceptre of universal monarchy, and confine them again to their ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... count, for my part I take this Bonaparte to be a very long- headed man, and I am sure we must be greatly on our guard to be able to wrest a ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... should get it? I have no proof that my father ever left me a dollar. Sir William has every paper in his own possession. I have not a scrap even that would enable me to wrest so much as a pound from him as ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... now answer for myself and thousands more. You are too young a man to have known the cause of the insurrection, or, rather, opposition, to the unfortunate King Charles. He attempted to make himself absolute, and to wrest the liberties from the people of England: that his warmest adherents will admit. When I joined the party which opposed him, I little thought that matters would have been carried so far as they have been; I always considered it lawful to take up arms in defense of ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... that lay near his hand, and turned to the Gospel by Luke. "I hope none of you will think I wrest the Book's words to lesser meanings," he said, "but there is only one place in it that can speak what is in my heart to-day." And he read the song of Simeon in the temple: "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... threatening British aid against German ambitions[1170]. A distinct crisis was thus gradually created, coming to a head when Prussia, under Bismarck's guiding hand, dragging Austria in with her, thrust the Federal Diet of the Confederation to one side, and assumed command of the movement to wrest Schleswig-Holstein ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... executors of my last will. By the Feruer of my dead father, and in the name of all good and pure spirits, I conjure you not to suffer the government to fall into the hands of the unfaithful Magi. If they have obtained possession thereof by artifice, wrest it from their hands in like manner; if by force, use force to win it back. Obey this my last will, and the earth will yield you its fruits abundantly; your wives, your flocks and herds shall be blessed and freedom shall be your portion. Refuse to obey it, and ye ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... dark in his eyes, and drops of sweat covered his forehead. In that case Lygia was lost to him forever. It was possible to wrest her from the hands of any one else, but not from the hands of Caesar. Now, with greater truth than ever, could he exclaim, "Vae misero mihi!" His imagination represented Lygia in Nero's arms, and, for the ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... pleasing Mr. Getz, was only an added offense to both him and Absalom. They had thirsted for vengeance; they had longed to humiliate this "high-minded dude"; and now not only was the opportunity lost to them, but the "job" they had determined to wrest from him was indifferently hurled back in their faces—he DIDN'T WANT IT! Absalom and Getz ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... cynical, and a trifle sleepy he looks. He also looks, for a man who has just been indulging in a fit of severe self-depreciation, exceedingly confident and full of faith in himself. And why not? Let that man despair who has lost confidence in his own ability to wrest favors from the fingers of Fate or Fortune. Despair is ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... for some measure of franchise reform. This Progressive Raad was also the one which passed the Bills curtailing the liberty of the press, and prohibiting the holding of public meetings and the organization of election committees, and which distinguished itself by an attempt to wrest from the High Court the decision of a matter still sub ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... the two partners as they looked on this scene. To wrest from reluctant earth her richest treasures, to add to the wealth of the ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... sought to wrest it from him. Roddy joined the scuffle, trying to retain the horn; but Penrod managed to secure it. With one free hand he fended the others off while he ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... the dominant caste utilised the Ulster volunteer movement to wrest from Great Britain, then in the last throes of the war against France, Spain, and America, the independence of the Irish Parliament. Theoretically co-equal with the British Parliament, Grattan's Parliament was, in practice, ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... Protestants, by Romanistic controversialists, as the book of devotions received by their communion, it would undoubtedly raise a prejudice in their favour, if he were ignorant of the case and but ordinarily candid and unprejudiced.... In a word, it will be attempted to wrest a weapon out of our adversaries' hands, who have in this, as in many other instances, appropriated to themselves a treasure" (Newman, Tracts for the Times, No. 275, The Roman Breviary). This tract raised a storm amongst Newman's fellow Protestants. All the old Protestant objections against ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... soon rises, Dungeness-like, right ahead, and we call to mind that this was the scene of one of England's great naval victories. These rocks, so still and peaceful now, have resounded to the din of deadly strife, when, in the year 1797, a Spanish fleet, of twenty-seven sail, tried to wrest the dominion of the seas from its lawful holders, the English fleet, under Sir John Jervis, numbering only ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... Crow, the majestic port of the fierce Bull, the gentle tractableness of the fleet Horse; and Man should still have had the ingenuity that is peculiarly his own. Jupiter in heaven laughs to himself, no doubt, he who, in his mighty plan, denied these {qualities} to men, lest our audacity should wrest {from him} the sceptre of the world. Contented, therefore, with the gifts of unconquered Jove, let us pass the years of our time allotted by fate, nor ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... since his death," continued Rotherby. "I was but in time to wrest it from the hands of that spy of the Pretender's, who was in the act of destroying it when I caught him. My devotion to his majesty made my course clear, sir—and I desired Mr. Green to procure a ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... villain's swords, and ran with her arm lifted up to take away the life of her wretched husband: but little accustomed to such actions, the blow fell on the cords which bound him, and gave him liberty to wrest the weapon from her hands.—-He discovered immediately her thoughts, and made use of the most moving softness to calm the tempest of her soul: "If," said he, "you could read my heart, you would find grief and pity only there—-with what alas! can I accuse you!—-What ...
— The Princess of Ponthieu - (in) The New-York Weekly Magazine or Miscellaneous Repository • Unknown
... father suspects our love, it must be sanctified before the altar of God. Our faith once plighted there, no hand of mortal can wrest thee from my side. Art ready to speak the irrevocable words that bind us together ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... life, to-day chains and stifles all that lives youthfully within her, to-day seeks to prop all that is tottering and aged within her, To us these things mean death, distant, but inevitable death. The Catholic Church, claiming to wish to renew all things through Christ, is hostile to us, who strive to wrest the direction of social progress from the enemies of Christ. This fact, with many others, signifies to us, that she has Christ on her lips but not in her heart. Such is the Catholic Church to-day. ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... for such judges to interpret, wrest, and pervert the laws so as to prepare for prospective Acts ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... beloved brother Paul according to the wisdom given to him wrote to you, [3:16]as also in all his epistles speaking of these things, in which are some things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest as they also do the other Scriptures to their destruction. [3:17]Do you therefore, beloved, knowing [these things] before, be on your guard not to be carried away with the error of the wicked and fall from your steadfastness, ...
— The New Testament • Various
... inquiries he has set on foot to prove my death, and all the investigations he instituted, when he found that the boy who was with me had been set on shore again. I have given him full scope and licence to act as he chose; but I have come at length, to wrest from him that which is not his, and to strip him of a rank to which he has no claim.—Have you anything to say, Harry Sherbrooke?" he continued, fixing his eye upon him. "Have you anything to say against that which ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... became nearly frantic, and made at the Jew to wrest the instrument from his hands. But Benoni was agile, and eluded him, still playing vigorously the one chord, till Nino cried aloud, and sank in a chair, entirely overcome by the torture, that seemed boring its way into his brain ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... helpless Europe. The Seljuk Turks who, in 1291, had conquered Acre, the last European stronghold in the Holy Land, had lost their power; but a new family of the Turkish race, the one that dwells in Europe to-day, the Osmanlis, had built up an empire by conquest over their fellows, and had begun to wrest province after province from the feeble Empire of the East. In 1354 their advance brought them across the Bosporus and they seized their first European territory.[23] Soon they had spread over most of modern Turkey. Only the strong-walled Constantinople held out, while its people cried frantically ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... stream flooded as always between the flickering, starry street-lamps of the Tiergartenstrasse. Each man and woman sought to wrest a last hour of ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... "Can we wrest from the angel of this hour any blessing so priceless as the common resolution that we shall not have come to this consecrated spot only to declare our joy and gratitude, nor only to cherish proud and tender memories, but also to pledge ourselves ...
— American Missionary, August, 1888, (Vol. XLII, No. 8) • Various
... hate myself," said the young man in a low voice; "but even now, what can I do? What power have I to wrest her from ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... that made Holland the lenient host to political and religious refugees from every land in that restive age characterized her colony and laid the foundations of the great city of today. England had to wrest from the Dutch their ascendancy in New Netherland, where they split in twain the great English colonies of New England and of the South and controlled the magnificent harbor at the mouth of the Hudson, which has since become the water gate of ...
— Our Foreigners - A Chronicle of Americans in the Making • Samuel P. Orth
... strife and anarchy ensued. Ernest, a very determined and violent man, succeeded in compelling his brother to give him a share of the government, and in the midst of incessant quarrels, which often led to bloody conflicts, each of the two brothers strove to wrest as much as possible from Austria before young Albert should be of age. The nobles availed themselves of this anarchy to renew their expeditions of plunder. Unhappy Austria for several years was a scene of devastation and misery. In the year 1411, Leopold II. died without ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... Gower in a strangely similar fashion. He too was old, a tired, disappointed man. He had reached for material success with one hand and happiness with the other. One had always eluded him. The other Jack MacRae had helped wrest from him. MacRae could see Gower's life in detached pictures, life that consisted of making money and spending it, life with a woman who whined and sniffled and complained. These things had been a slow torture. MacRae could no longer regard ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... any that should be determined upon. Up to the last moment it was thought that Fernandina would be selected. But finally, with the advice of Gen. Sherman, it was determined to make the attempt to wrest Port ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... fair trial, in case he is accused of crime, or what assurance of justice in a civil cause? Now we know that in Eastern countries everything depends on bribery. This Moses forbade in his law. "Thou shalt take no gift, for the gift blindeth the eyes; thou shalt not wrest the judgment of the poor, but in righteousness shalt thou judge ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... or that of his nation or city, or whether he was bond or free, he only replied in the Roman tongue, to all questions, 'I am a Christian.' Therein was, for him, his name, his country, his condition, his whole being; and never could the Gentiles wrest from him another word. The fury of the governor and the executioners was redoubled against him; and, not knowing how to torment him further, they applied to his most tender members bars of red-hot iron. His members burned; but he, upright and immovable, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... described by Pliny: according to him, it yielded 300 pounds of silver in a day. There are other circumstances which point out the extreme value of Spain to whoever possessed it, and lead us to the motives which induced the Romans to use all their efforts to wrest it from the Carthaginians. It cannot be doubted that the Carthaginians drew from it all the wealth, in various shapes, which it could possibly supply; and yet we know that in the short space of nine years, 111,542 pounds weight ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... he lifted his eyes to the national flag, floating above the Speaker's chair, and said, in an almost exhausted voice, "If, Mr. Speaker, in obedience to the necessities and corrupt behest of party, you are determined to wrest from Mississippi her rights as a sister, and coequal in this union of States, and turn from their seats her representatives constitutionally chosen, and place in their stead the repudiated of her ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... elder. Through the powerful protection of the Marshal de DURAS,[8] her lover, she prevailed over her formidable rival, who, however, had on her side the public, and the sublimity of her talent. This quarrel arose from Madame VESTRIS wishing to wrest from Mademoiselle SAINVAL the parts for which she was engaged. A memoir, written by an indiscreet friend, in favour of the latter, which she scorned to disavow, and in which the court was not spared, caused her to be banished from the capital by a lettre de cachet. The ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... proceed to do what she has done to all other countries; that is, duplicate her rival's fortification plans, her total military and naval strength; and so forth, and so on. The United States is not an enemy, but there are possibilities of her becoming so. Some day she must wrest Cuba from Spain, and then she may become a ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... as it may, the fact remained that Nan had to work her hardest to wrest a set from him after that, and felt very lucky if she managed to win one out ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... new duties seemed a mere trifle to him after his hard toil as a peasant; in half an hour all his work was done, and he would once more stand stock-still in the middle of the courtyard, staring open-mouthed at all the passers-by, as though trying to wrest from them the explanation of his perplexing position; or he would suddenly go off into some corner, and flinging a long way off the broom or the spade, throw himself on his face on the ground, and lie for hours together without stirring, like ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... trying to wrest himself from my grasp and measuring the distance across the ledge with his eye. "I will not go away. This is my home. I want to live here in peace. I want my wheel! Monsieur, give me my wheel. I have perfected a system. Listen!" He took me by the arm and spoke in ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... even look behind her as she walked to the bed-room door, pushed it open, entered, and closed it, and turned the key in the old-fashioned lock. She had said all that she meant to say: no power, human or divine, should wrest another word from her just then. But in her heart she was crying over and over again the words that had been upon her lips a ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... and glory in the struggle," he said. "Did not the people, old and young, pour out to the Crusades to wrest Jerusalem from the hands of the infidels? This is a more glorious task. It is to save God's followers from destruction; to succour the oppressed; to fight for women and children as well as for men. It is a holier and ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... disconcert the gallant Colonel Newcomes who throw an air of restraint over our victorious front, there can be no doubt that they are an important as well as a novel development of the modern offensive. Of course neither the Tanks nor their very obvious next developments going to wrest the decisive pre-eminence from the aeroplane. The aeroplane remains now more than ever the instrument of victory upon the western front. Aerial ascendancy, properly utilised, is victory. But the mobile armoured big ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... left the place: on this, a serjeant with a party were sent after him; they came up with several natives, who joined them in a friendly manner, and, whilst they were talking to the serjeant, one of them attempted to wrest a firelock from a soldier, and immediately afterwards a spear was thrown, supposed to be by Ballederry. Two musquets were then fired, by which a native was wounded in the leg; but unfortunately it was neither the man who attempted ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... that this full absolution was granted because it had been brought to the knowledge of His Holiness that this noble lady had entered the cloistered life owing to a wicked and malicious plot designed to wrest her castle and estates from her, and also to part her from a valiant Knight, at that time fighting in the Holy Wars, to whom she ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... Bassano proposed to Lord Castlereagh an arrangement relative to the Peninsula, and the kingdom of the Two Sicilies; and in other respects offered to negotiate on the basis, that each of the two powers should keep all that war could not wrest from it. But Castlereagh replied, that the engagements of good faith would not permit England to treat without making the recognition of Ferdinand VII. as king of Spain a preliminary ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... effrontery she declared that she had forgotten to call at the grocer's, and marched off. In an hour the new and complete version of the affair was all over the town. Mrs Trumbler had got first to Fairholme, but she did not wrest the laurels from Miss S.'s brow. The mere departure from Fillingford shrank to nothing in comparison with the attendant ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... took her hand in his. She glanced about wildly. She was in a whirl of terror of everything under heaven. Too dignified to wrest herself away and run, she gave him a swift glance of appeal, then bent her head. He dropped ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... unto us, or, to be more exact, has permitted us to wrest from the Indian and from creeping snake and prowling beast, a goodly land. Here we raise a product that supplies a need of the world that cannot be so acceptably filled up to the present time by any other ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... by two of the strongest boys in the school, who were devoted to me; their business was to join me in dragging the tyrant to a bench, over which he was to be laid, and his bare posteriors heartily flogged, with his own birch, which we proposed to wrest from him in his struggle; but if we should find him too many for us all three, we were to demand the assistance of our competitors, who should be ready to enforce us, or oppose anything that might be undertaken for the master's relief. One of my principal assistants was called ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... been charged with pursuing a suicidal policy in safeguarding the natives against plague and smallpox and in preventing human sacrifice. Their numbers will increase, food supplies will give out, or, worst of all, they may become so powerful as to wrest the supremacy from the European. Charity, however, demands that these measures shall be taken, and the terrors of the future are at best hypothetical. This is but another case in which consideration for the unknown future is apt to hinder us ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... to be poor and work, John," he exclaimed one day. "It gets tiresome having everything laid ready to your hand, with nothing to do but take it. Life must be full of snap when you have to dash your will up against old Dame Fortune and wrest what you want out of her ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... and insipid writers would wrest into meaning that poets were to be thrust out of ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... the victory would be his. He therefore told his colleague that although he saw the force of his arguments, public opinion in Rome was already so excited at Hannibal having been allowed, without a battle, to wrest so wide a territory from Rome, that it was absolutely necessary that an action should be fought. The two armies were now united on the Trebia, and opinion was among the officers and troops, as between the consuls, widely divided as ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... invasions of France from Switzerland and the Upper Rhine in 1814, and Flanders and the Lower Rhine in 1815, and concluded that a similar result would have attended a like bold invasion under Marlborough and Eugene. There never was a greater mistake. The great object of the war was to wrest Flanders from France; when the lilied standard floated on Brussels and Antwerp, the United Provinces were constantly in danger of being swallowed up, and there was no security for the independence either of England, Holland, or any of the German States. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... Finally Amy, pausing to wrest himself from the frantic clutches of a blackberry vine, raised his head and viewed ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour |
