"Clammy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the consideration of this question she continued in a tone of suppressed indignation: "Until Americans get used to the fact that France is under water for half the year they're perpetually risking their lives by not being properly protected. I suppose you've been tramping through all this nasty clammy mud as if you'd been taking a ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... his departure, and whilst yet the beat of his horse's hoofs was to be distinguished above the driving storm of rain and wind without, Joseph hastened across the hall to the servants' quarters. There he found his four grooms slumbering deeply, their faces white and clammy, and their limbs twisted into odd, helpless attitudes. Vainly did he rain down upon them kicks and curses; arouse them he could not from the stupor ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... would! Only if I should have an accident and catch anything, whatever would I do! They—they are always cold and clammy, aren't they?" ...
— Four Girls and a Compact • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... every patch or crack will appear distinctly when baked. Notch the rim handsomely with a very sharp knife. Fill the dish with the mixture of the pudding, and bake it in a moderate oven. The paste should be of a light brown colour. If the oven is too slow, it will be soft and clammy; if too quick, it will not have time to rise as high ...
— Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry Cakes, and Sweetmeats • Miss Leslie
... parcel?" I interposed. He fell upon it, exposed its contents of bread, chocolate, and sardine tins, and called for a can opener. He shook the tins one by one beside his ear, and then, selecting that which gave out no "flop" of oil, stripped it open, plunged his fingers inside, and pulled forth a clammy mess of putty and sawdust. In a moment he had come upon a paper which after reading he handed to me. It bore the words in English, "Informant arrested: dare not ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... many cases of severe pain where the extremities were cold and clammy and the entire body was in a hysterical contraction that were immediately relieved by a hot vaginal douche. The muscles relaxed, the patient warmed up and ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... physician, M. Boujou, endeavored to restore circulation by sucking the wound. "What are you doing?" exclaimed the duke. "For God's sake stop! Perhaps the poniard was poisoned." Respiration was now very difficult, and the hand of the duke was clammy with the damp of death. As a last resort, the surgeon, with his knife, opened and enlarged the wound. The duke, grasping the hand of the duchess, patiently bore the painful operation, and then said, "Spare me ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... minutes the grey curtain of mist dropped slowly down again over the magnificent picture, and it faded gradually from sight, leaving us almost in doubt whether it had been a reality, or only a bright deceptive vision. We are enveloped now, as we have been nearly all day, in a thick clammy fog. ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... a hot flush mounting to his temples. The blood there seemed to sting him. Then, as suddenly, he went white, clammy perspiration beading ...
— Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point - Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps • H. Irving Hancock
... birds show their whiteness Up against the lightness Of the clammy clouds; By the random river Pushing to the sea, Under bents that quiver There ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... jolliest part of our voyage; for, although the weather was nice and warm, it had not that disagreeable, clammy heat we experienced at the Line, on account of the fresh south-east breeze tempering the effect of the sun, which, however, still shone down on us at noon with tropical force, its rays being as potent almost ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... my hands were yet clammy with the skull, thinking that this accusation of Philistinism was aimed at me. But Hohenfels thought of nothing less than of a personality, being in his cloudiest mood of generalization. So I only concealed the handkerchief, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... to eight or nine inches. A great quantity are likewise manufactured at Masulapatam, but they are considered as much inferior to those of Bengal. At Masulapatam there is a very extensive manufactory of a black clammy snuff, which is sent all ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XVII. No. 473., Saturday, January 29, 1831 • Various
... the immediate approach of the dead. Lesbia listened, her head raised, her face, turned to open window, felt over by the clammy, impalpable ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... interesting inclosure. The practised geologist knows well the thrilling interest attending the breaking up of the nodule: the uninitiated cannot sympathize with it. There is no time when a fossil looks so well as when first exposed. There is a clammy moisture on the surface of the scales or plates, which brings out the beautiful coloring, and adds brilliancy to the enamel. Exposure to the weather soon dims the lustre; and even in a cabinet an old specimen is easily known by ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... said, for I had laid my hand against his heart, and it was still, and his flesh was clammy cold, and when we found him he was lying face down ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... he moved to the fireplace. His joy was gone. There was a cold clammy sensation about his heart. Slowly, very slowly, the consciousness stole upon him that he was a liar. He had not thought it a lie when he had ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... Nature's, but man's, handiwork into a dreary sadness of blackened desolation. The men, having won, went back to the Rest, with their throats parched and aching, their eyes smarting from the smoke and the dust, and their skins grimed and clammy. ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... black eyes accompanied Bergstein's first words, his clammy hand gripping the rim of the derby lined with ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... his life was trembling on its frailest chords, and its delicate machinery almost wound up, Charles Romaine returned, sober enough to take in the situation. He strode up to the dying child, took the clammy hands in his, and said in a tone of bitter anguish, "Charlie, don't you know papa? Wouldn't you speak one little word to papa?" But it was too late, the shadows that never deceive flitted over the pale beauty of the marble brow, the waxen lid ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... dampness of the hands of some people is caused by the deficient absorption of perspirable matter; the clammy or viscid feel of it is owing to the mucous part being left upon the skin. The coldness is produced both by the decreased action of the absorbent system, and by the evaporation of a greater quantity ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... down on the bedside for a moment, in the darkness, so that he could scarcely hear any other sound, as he sat erect and still, like some night animal, wary of danger, attentively alert. Then he rose from the bed, threw off his coat, which was clammy with dew, and lit a ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... hung seemed to be on the wet, uneven ceiling, ready to drop upon the men's bare necks. Under their hands the clammy floor seemed alive and writhing. When the little man endeavored to stand erect the ceiling forced him down. Knobs and points came out and punched him. His clothes were wet and mud-covered, and his eyes, nearly blinded by smoke, tried ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... Nemea's howling forests wave, He drives the Lion to his dusky cave; 315 Seized by the throat the growling fiend disarms, And tears his gaping jaws with sinewy arms; Lifts proud ANTEUS from his mother-plains, And with strong grasp the struggling Giant strains; Back falls his fainting head, and clammy hair, 320 Writhe his weak limbs, and flits his life in air;— By steps reverted o'er the blood-dropp'd fen He tracks huge CACUS to his murderous den; Where breathing flames through brazen lips he fled, And shakes the rock-roof'd ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... door-post, clasped her hands behind her head and looked up at the sky. "Things keep coming to me faster than I can say them to-night," she proceeded, paying no heed to his remark; "not things about you, though, because nothing goes with Sammy but jammy, clammy, mammy, and those aren't nice. I want things to come about you, but they won't. I tried last night in bed, and what do you think came again ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... have shrunk back into his clothes until he was but a little, wizened man. His face was ghastly and clammy perspiration glittered on his forehead ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... for mercy's sake," cried the prince, pressing his icy hands upon his clammy brow, "do not play with me! I have no need to be a king to be ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... Simon. He went down to Hoxton one evening, after dinner. It had been the good old English dinner of Simpson's, preceded by two vermuths, accompanied by a pint of claret, and covered in the retreat by four maraschinos. It was a picturesque night. A clammy fog blanketed the whole world. It swirled and swirled. Hoxton Street was a glorious dream, as enticingly indefinite as an opium-sleep. Simple Simon had an appointment here. The boys were to be out that night. Jimmie Flanagan, their leader, had passed the word to Simon that ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... nothing but eggs can serve as a substitute for it, except it be treacle; which, in fact, is a kind of molasses; or perhaps coarse brown sugar, which has nearly the same properties.— It prevents the pudding from being heavy, and clammy; and without communicating to it any disagreeable sweet taste, or any thing of that flavour peculiar to molasses, gives it a richness uncommonly pleasing to the palate. And to this we may add, that it is nutritive in a very extraordinary degree.—This ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... its last rays would glint on the miserable 'pan' by whose side we were to halt for the night. And then what bitter feelings of depression and disgust when sometimes the fiat would go forth 'Water for cooking purposes only,' and one had to turn into one's blankets grimy, dusty, clammy, ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... passage six feet in height and about three feet broad, which seemed to lead on indefinitely into clammy darkness. The dewy stone walls sparkled in fantastic and ghostly iridescence under the rays from the lantern. The dank air lay ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... force me to go through the form, but never would they make me the wife of this man. My heart throbbed with rebellion, my mind hardened into revolt. I knew all that occurred, realized the significance of every word and act, yet it was as if they appertained to someone else. I felt the clammy touch of Cassion's hand on my nerveless fingers, and I must have answered the interrogatories of the priest, for his voice droned on, meaningless to the end. It was only in the silence which followed that I seemed to regain consciousness, and a new grip ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... hand, as if he feared it might electrify him. Mr Dombey tool: it as if it were a fish, or seaweed, or some such clammy substance, and immediately returned it to him with ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... The wind was in the east, and the sunrise watery and streaked with slate-colored bands. The water was clammy and opaque, repellent to touch and sight. The way looked dreary, and the woman carried her head high, as if in challenge to her courage. She had risen early, and had gone through her trifling share in the preparations, and though she ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... evaded the fight. He wanted harmony. He was suave and clammy but non-committal. He did not wish to come out for silver. He did not wish to oppose the silver people. Once or twice he threatened to fight and then he threw up his hands. Missouri declared for silver at 16 to 1, without a dissenting ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... bitterness of life. I warmed soup in a little apparatus I have for such occasions, which helped to take the chilliness off the sandwiches,—this is the only unpleasant part of a winter picnic, the clammy quality of the provisions just when you most long for something very hot. Minora let her nose very carefully out of its wrappings, took a mouthful, and covered it up quickly again. She was nervous lest it should be frost-nipped, and truth compels me to add that her nose is not a bad nose, and might ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... a heavy, clammy day. The houses were ghosts and the people were ghosts, and grey shadows, soon perhaps to be a yellow fog, floated about the windows and the doors ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... be create Flesh with the power incorporate, I know not; yet, if from the earth 'tis rent, Shrieks and groans from the root are sent; Shrieks and groans, and a sweat like gore Oozes and drops from the clammy core. Maranatha—Anathema! Dread is the curse of ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the edge of the birch woods. Presently would come a rending of the ice on the firth, and patches of inky water would show between the floes. The snow would slip from the fell-side, and leave dripping rock and clammy bent, and the river would break its frosty silence and pour a mighty grey-green flood to the sea. The swans and geese began to fly northward, and the pipits woke among the birches. And at last one day ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... what it meant? Barnabas raised a hand to his brow and, though he still shivered, felt it suddenly moist and clammy. Then, clenching his teeth, he crept forward, guiding himself by the wall; yet as he went, above the shuffle of his feet, above the rustle of his cloak against the panelling, he could hear the tick of the ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... the truth of what Farwell was saying dashed Glenn's temper with fear. Hard and cruel as he was, he was not devoid of affection of a clammy sort, and for an instant Priscilla as a helpless girl wandering among strangers replaced Priscilla, the rebellious daughter, and ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... stinks! Clammy ones!" McTurk gasped as he regained his place. "And"—the exquisite humor of it brought them sliding down together in a tangle—"it's all for the honor of ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... position with Uncle Mo, and settle whether she and Dave and Dolly could return next week with safety. They had decided in the negative, and Mr. Bartlett had said it was open to them to soote themselves. Uncle Mo's sleeping-room had, of course, been spared by the accident, so he only suffered from a clammy and depressing flavour that wouldn't hang about above a day or two. At least, Mr. ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... know that the pilgrim track Along the belting zodiac Swept by the sun in his seeming rounds Is traced by now to the Fishes' bounds And into the Ram, when weeks of cloud Have wrapt the sky in a clammy shroud, And never as yet a tinct of spring Has shown in the Earth's apparelling; O vespering bird, how do you know, How ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy
... had not advanced two miles, because the stiff clay so clogged the wheels that it could not be easily removed. Seeing the cattle so distressed I was compelled to encamp, and await the effect of the sunshine and the breeze on the clammy surface. ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... sick, and shortly died, though he might have been cured by letting blood before the disease had settled. Before leaving this place we procured some thousand weight of pitch, or rather a grey and white gum, like frankincense, as clammy as turpentine, which grows black when melted, and very brittle; but we mixed it with oil, of which we had 300 jars from the prize taken to the north of the equator, not far from Guinea. Six days before leaving Zanzibar, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... the bright midday. Cold damp air, which wets more than rain, made their clothes clammy. The stinging flies from the swamps flew in big swarms through the door and windows of the inn; a smouldering peat-fire was burning within, fanned to a bright flame by means of dry fir twigs, and the flies clung to ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... the worst of the twenty-four. The rousing from sleep, the turning out from warm or even from wet blankets, the standing still in a water-logged trench, with everything—fingers and clothes and rifle and trench-sides—cold and wet and clammy to the touch, and smeared with sticky mud and clay, all combine to make the morning 'stand to arms' an experience that no amount of repetition ever accustoms one to or ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... where the great sword of the hurricane cleaveth The forested fells that the dark never leaveth— By fierce-featured crags, in whose evil abysses The clammy snake coils, and the flat adder hisses— Past lordly rock temples, where Silence is riven By the anthems supreme of the four winds of heaven— It speeds, with the cry of the streams of the fountains It chained to its sides, and dragged ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... question. This is the root of the alarming conviction that Phillis is changing into Biddy, whose fit epithet is not neat-handed. This is the meaning of the cry for bread—light, sweet, well-baked bread; not the clammy dough which is served to a despairing land. This is the reason of the wondering question, What has become of roast meat? and of the melancholy conviction that henceforth baked beef is to replace the juicy sirloin of tradition, ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... her promise not to lose hold of the rock. The poor child was dreadfully frightened, and stopped every now and then, crying out in horror that she was falling into the water, but I held her fast and coaxed her to go on again; and all the time the clammy dews of terror stood on my forehead. Never to my dying day shall I forget ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... school because he wishes to (no one ever "sent" a Grind to college). He has a sallow skin, a watery eye, a shambling gait, but he has the facts. His clothes are outgrown, his coat shiny, his linen a dull ecru, his hands clammy. He reads a book as he walks, and when he bumps into you, he always exculpates himself ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... morning his body lay stretched in a muddy ditch, his lips pressed to clammy moss. Stumbling to his feet, he looked around for the door of the wine vault, for the flight of steps leading down to that realm of delight, but though he searched long and carefully, yet never again could he find it, nor did his eyes see the little cooper with his wine-stained leathern ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... searchers, shouting as they went, had picked their way down the steps in the sloping floor of the cavern, down through the winding galleries and clammy grottoes, their voices booming ever and anon against the silent walls with the roar of foghorns. Now they had come to what was known as "the Cathedral." This was a wide, lofty chamber, hung with dripping stalactites, far below the level at which ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... a slow pace. Dull reports and a vague clangor were audible. These sounds were so deadened by the clammy mist that they might have proceeded from some gnome's workshop deep in the bowels of the earth. The blows of a pile-driver at work on the Surrey shore suggested to Kerry's mind the phantom crew of Hendrick Hudson at their game of ninepins ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... entered the shop, where in future she was to live, it seemed to her that she was descending into the clammy soil of a grave. She felt quite disheartened, and shivered with fear. She looked at the dirty, damp gallery, visited the shop, and ascending to the first floor, walked round each room. These bare apartments, ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... Gehennam are upon me," she answered in her hoarse whisper, and at the same time she trembled violently, while the perspiration broke out in a clammy ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... made me lie back, until I could feel the blood returning to my clammy face; and the room steadied, and the clanging of the gongs in my ears ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... they felt to be the most terrible in life; thus originated the fable of the subterranean dwelling of Hela, of the terrors of the shore of corpses—in one word, the "Hell of the North, with its infinite, treeless wildernesses; with cold, darkness, mist, clammy rivers, chill, distilling poison, cities resembling clouds filled with rain, ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... that he did not raise his head, or he would have noticed how deathly pale her face was and how very light her breathing had become. Suddenly his grief ceased; a great fear had entered his heart—What caused the hand that his face was hid in to be so clammy and cold? It had not been so when he first pressed it to his face. "She is dead," whispered his heart brutally. "It is a lie, a wicked lie! she is not dead," he muttered. "Raise your head and see, raise your head and see," reiterated his heart monotonously. He had no reply ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... in my will, or whether I shall leave it my malediction. I hate it so much, and yet I am always so very glad to see it, that I am in a state of constant indecision on this subject. When I first made acquaintance with Calais, it was as a maundering young wretch in a clammy perspiration and dripping saline particles, who was conscious of no extremities but the one great extremity, sea-sickness—who was a mere bilious torso, with a mislaid headache somewhere in its stomach—who had been put into a horrible swing in Dover Harbour, and had tumbled giddily out of it ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... landing, and as she did so, the clock in the hall below struck half-past three. I had stood, then, thirty minutes in the corridor below. "You've been such a long time." she said simply. "I feared for you," and she took my hand in her own that was cold and clammy. ...
— The Damned • Algernon Blackwood
... single drop of it is fatal to the smaller animals, a cat or Even as it is, the first smoke usually produces characteristic results. There is generally pallor of the face, nausea, and vomiting. Usually a cold, clammy sweat breaks out, and the heart seems as if it were about to stop. The system, however, gradually becomes habituated to its action, and these symptoms do not reappear. Seeing that this somewhat unpleasant apprenticeship ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... Efficient Baxter crawled on; and as he crawled his hand, advancing cautiously, fell on something—something that was not alive; something clammy and ice-cold, the touch of which filled him with a ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... that night: no lusty downpour—a mean, sad drizzle o' cold mist. The road t' Gull Island Cove was dark as death—sodden underfoot an' clammy with wet alder-leaves. Skipper Davy come with fair courage, laggin' a bit by the way, in the way o' lovers, thinks I, at such times. An' I'd my hand fair on the knob o' Mary Land's door—an' was jus' about t' push in—when Skipper Davy all at once cotched ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... the Broomilaw together. A boat and two watermen were in waiting at the bridge-stair, and though the evening was wet and chilly they all embarked. No one spoke. The black waters washed and heaved beneath them, the myriad lights shone vaguely through the clammy mist and steady drizzle, and the roar of the city blended with the stroke of the oars and the patter of the rain. Only when they lay under the hull of a large ship was the silence broken. But it was broken ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... up the appetite like gentian, nux vomica or quinine may be given. The patient should wear flannel night-dresses, as the cotton night-shirt, when soaked with perspiration, has a cold, clammy feeling. Bathe the patient in the morning with tepid water and afterwards rub gently with alcohol diluted one-half with water. Night sweating occurs in rickets but mainly around the head. They also occur ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... thread, She feels it instantly; so doth myself, Casting my slender nerves and sundry nets O'er every particle of all the body, By proper skill perceive the difference Of several qualities, hot, cold, moist, and dry; Hard, soft, rough, smooth, clammy, and slippery: Sweet pleasure and sharp pain profitable, That makes us (wounded) seek for remedy. By these means do I teach the body fly From such bad things as may endanger it. A wall of brass ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... none, save for a faint blue glow from the steel eye of Tharagavverug that peered restlessly about it from the hilt of Sacnoth. Heavily in the chamber hung the clammy odour of a large and ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... libraries in the country a curious pamphlet. It fell into my hands like a bit of old age and darkness itself. The pages were coffee-colored, and worn thin and ragged at the edges, like rotting leaves in fall; they had grown clammy to the touch, too, from the grasp of so many dead years. There was a peculiar smell about the book which it had carried down from the days when young William Penn went up and down the clay-paths of his village of Philadelphia, stopping to ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various
... said Pierre. "Father Marquette hath not the strength of the Sieur Jolliet for such rude wanderings. These southern mists, and torturing insects, and clammy heats, and the bad food have worked a great change ...
— Heroes of the Middle West - The French • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... considerable show of interest, because, as well known among his friends, the tall runner had always felt a decided antipathy for all crawling things, and would never handle even an inoffensive garter-snake; indeed, slimy greenbacked frogs he abominated, claiming that they had the same clammy feeling as snakes. ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... liquid, with which his long tongue is lubricated when he puts it into the ants' nests. These glands are of the same substance as those found in the lower jaw of the woodpecker. The secretion from them, when wet, is very clammy and adhesive, but on being dried it loses these qualities, and you can pulverise it betwixt your finger and thumb; so that in dissection, if any of it has got upon the fur of the animal or the feathers of the bird, allow it to dry there, ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... they have never felt the force of temptation. What power could tempt them? The tree may be parched and blistered in the heat of noonday, but the parasitical fungus draining its sap remains cool—and poisonous. So in the glow of sociability the Pharisee remains cold and clammy; the fever of love leaves his blood at zero. How can such anomalies understand a man of Burns's wild and passionate nature, or, indeed, human nature at all? The broad fact remains, however much we may ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... came from him in a strangled bleat. His whole being was paralysed by a clammy horror. This was beyond the uttermost limit of his fears. And, to complete the terror of the moment, he knew, even while he rebelled against the insane lawlessness of her scheme, that he was going to agree ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... steadily more misty even down near the water, and now as the released balloon shot up into an altitude of five, ten, and presently twelve thousand feet, everything in Heaven and earth disappeared except that white and clammy fog. By a simultaneous impulse he lit a cigarette and I a pipe, and I remember very plainly wondering whether he felt any touch of that self-conscious defiance of fate and deliberate intention to do the ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... the last post stuttered out in the clammy stillness he summoned the "boy" and bade him fetch Sergeant Schultz. At the sound of the sergeant's steps on the verandah zu Pfeiffer stiffened up and patted his lips as if desiring to erase the lines that were graven thereon; and with one foot pushed the chair from ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... he who, standing there, Seemed as an image of Despair, Which agony's convulsive strife, Had quickened into breathing life. The writhing lip, the brow all wet With Pain's cold, clammy, deathlike sweat; The hand, that with unconscious clasp, Strained his keen dagger in its grasp; The eye, that lightened with the blaze Of frenzied Passion's maniac gaze; The nervous, shuddering thrill, which came At intervals ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... suspected it never would arrive. And yet, despite those leaden-footed oxen, the minutes, arrive it did, in very fact. The eve of that day was a happy bed-time; but over his ardent reveries, over the vista of future achievements, there suddenly, darkly loomed another thought, a foretoken and clammy shroud, which smote the young prince with trembling. For would not the day of his death, however far away also, sometime be the present, passing moment, as surely, just as surely, as this anniversary of his birth? Here was ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... trees; but the lad wound in and out and up and down without a check, for these paths are to the natives as marked as the king's highway is to us; insomuch that, in the days of the man-hunt, it was their labour rather to block and deface than to improve them. In the crypt of the wood the air was clammy and hot and cold; overhead, upon the leaves, the tropical rain uproariously poured, but only here and there, as through holes in a leaky roof, a single drop would fall, and make a spot upon my mackintosh. Presently the huge trunk of a banyan hove ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... visited several huts, and found the inhabitants at dinner, their food consisting, at this time of the year, of fish and the root of a large fern. The roots were prepared by scorching them over a fire, and then beating them till the charred bark fell off. The remainder was a clammy, soft substance, not unpleasant to the taste, but mixed with three times its bulk of fibres, which could not be swallowed. This part was spat out into baskets ready at hand for its reception. No animals were seen, except some ugly little dogs. Carefully cultivated and closely fenced ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... field headquarters, Major Nichols, who in the thick of the battle has arrived to relieve Major Young, orders every man at once to be made as comfortable as possible. Men build fires and warm and dry their clammy water-soaked feet, picture of which is shown in this volume. Bully and tea and hard tack revive a good many. It is well they do, for the fight is going against us and two detachments of volunteers from these ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... not yet been fixed. George, standing opposite his uncle, twisted one leg about the other; twined his clammy hands; put the awful question: "By how much will the allowance be increased or ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... gun. In his madness he tried to move, to reach her, but he could not; he was sinking. His legs sagged under him, let him down to his knees, and but for the wall he would have fallen. Then a change transformed him. The black, turgid, convulsed face grew white and ghastly, with beads of clammy sweat and lines of torture. His strange eyes showed swiftly ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... Antediluvians mention'd Gen. 1. 29—the whole Fifth and Ninth Chapters, ver. 3. confining them to Fruit and wholesom Sallets: I deny not that both the Air and Earth might then be less humid and clammy, and consequently Plants, and Herbs better fermented, concocted, and less Rheumatick, than since, and presently after; to say nothing of the infinite Numbers of putrid Carcasses of Dead Animals, perishing in the Flood, ...
— Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets • John Evelyn
... while he bound a black cloth over her eyes. He drew it very close and knotted it behind. In the act his—fingers touched her face, and she felt them cold and clammy. ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... naturally a sociable man, and loved the company of his fellows, but here he was living a hermit's existence, shut up in the bowels of the earth, with no better associates than the clammy stalactites which constantly dripped water ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... longer conceal his agitation. He tried to keep his eyes off the fatal bottle; but a sort of fascination drew him back to it, and each time with increased anxiety. That dreadful word 'Chateau-margaux' rang in his ears. His face blushed and grew pale, and a cold, clammy sweat stood in big beads on his forehead. Yet he felt that he had not entirely exhausted his resources, and resolved to fight the battle of humiliation to the end. He wiped his brow and cheeks, coughed, and turned aside as if about to sneeze. By dint of these manoeuvres he continued ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience
... he knew not what he said. Does the crater know that it throws forth burning lava? He told her his love. She stood there, surprised, insulted, proud, yes, scornful; with an expression on her face as though a damp, clammy frog had suddenly touched her. Her cheeks coloured, her lips grew pale, her eyes were on fire, and still black as ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen
... gently in his, and found it cold and clammy. "It is nearly all over now, Sir Henry," said ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... Death, with hollow tone, And soundless step, and clammy hand— Lo, I am now no less alone Than in ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... dug into the flesh of his palms. If he had killed the human viper at his feet, if his own hands had meted out his punishment, he would not have felt the clammy terror that wrapped itself about him in the darkness. But he had come too late. It was Nada who had killed Jed Hawkins. Nada, with her woman's soul just born in all its glory, had taken the life of her foster-father. And Canadian law knew no excuse ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... the weather changed. There was a chill in the night air; it was no longer pleasant to sleep on deck. The stars were as bright, the sky as clear, the sea as smooth; but when the sun had gone, damp vapours came and left the deck chill and clammy to the touch.... ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... change in his voice falling clammy on her). You'll see me often enough, Daddy, like this, so you don't need to look your fill. You are looking as long as if this were to be ...
— Dear Brutus • J. M. Barrie
... the men went there to 'do it up' they found the interior of the house in a state of indescribable filth: the ceilings discoloured with smoke and hung with cobwebs, the wallpapers smeared and black with grease, the handrails and the newel posts of the staircase were clammy with filth, and the edges of the doors near the handles were blackened with greasy dirt and finger-marks. The tops of the skirtings, the mouldings of the doors, the sashes of the windows and the corners of the floors ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... leaves, those of the latter variety being shorter and broader than the other. They are annual herbaceous plants, rising with strong erect stems to the height of from six to nine feet, with fine handsome foliage. The stalk near the root is often an inch or more in diameter, and surrounded by a hairy clammy substance, of a greenish yellow color. The leaves are of a light green; they grow alternately, at intervals of two or three inches on the stalk; they are oblong and spear-shaped; those lowest on the stalk are about twenty inches in length, and they ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... down and a red light was glowing in the west, high up in the tender blue. The air had turned cooler and a cold, clammy damp was falling over the fields, which now lay steaming deadly still in the rising mist that already shrouded the trees in blue and ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... the northeast—when it broke, swift and vicious, from the sullen waste of water beyond, whipping up the grey sea, driving in the vagrant ice, spreading clammy mist over the reefs and rocky headlands of the long coast—our harbour lay unruffled in the lee of God's Warning. Skull Island and a shoulder of God's Warning broke the winds from the north: the froth of the breakers, to be sure, came creeping through ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... 'ud be cold and clammy," concluded the Duke of Chatham Street, who had not yet spoken, "sure. But what did yer mammy say about it? Is she gettin' married agin? Did ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... carriage at the minutest crevice like fine dust, and, melting, became cold, clammy and uncomfortable. To be set down in a glass case on a moor without shelter in the height of a snowstorm has only one recommendation: it is an uncommon situation, a novel experience. The ladies—at least Lady Arthur—must, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... the body of a dog; the form beneath my hand was cylindrical, apparently about a foot in diameter. As my hand moved on the diameter diminished, and the skin of the creature became cold and clammy. I was feeling the body of ...
— The Stories of the Three Burglars • Frank Richard Stockton
... The bright hours of the past mock his agony, and in his dreams, fiends, with eyes of fire and tongues of flame, circle about him with joined hands, to dance and sing their orgies with hellish chorus, chanting—"Hail! brother!" kissing his clammy forehead until their loathsome locks, flowing with serpents, crawl into his bosom and sink their sharp fangs and suck up his life's blood, and coiling around his heart pinch it with ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... falling down Is not so musical, the clammy gold Close hoarded in the tiny waxen town Has less of sweetness in it, and the old Half-withered reeds that waved in Arcady Touched by his lips break forth again to ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... approached the poor sufferer, and took her hand. It was cold and clammy: her lips moved, but no sound met the ears of the attentive listeners Mrs. Bernard then enquired of the child, what food her ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux
... he was kind, and loved to sit In the low hut or garnish'd cottage, And praise the farmer's homely wit, And share the widow's homelier pottage: At his approach complaint grew mild; And when his hand unbarr'd the shutter, The clammy lips of fever smiled The welcome, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 362, Saturday, March 21, 1829 • Various
... laid on my poor trembling shoulder His fingers, cold, clammy and long; And fixing his red eyes upon me, He roared forth ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... out her hand again. He took it in his for the briefest possible instant, painfully conscious the while that his own hand was clammy from the emotion through which ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... the lichen became reduced to a soft gummy pulp, and Norman thickened the mess to his taste by putting in more snow, or more of the "tripe," as it seemed to require it. The pot was then taken from the fire, and all four greedily ate of its contents. It was far from being palatable, and had a clammy "feel" in the mouth, something like sago; but none of the party was in any way either dainty or fastidious just at that time, and they soon consumed all that had been cooked. It did not satisfy the appetite, though it filled the stomach, and made ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... disconnected and alone. It is occasionally caused by calculous concretions in the bladder,—which should be removed,—causing very acute abdominal pain to the animal. She makes frequent efforts to stale, passing but a few drops of urine at a time. The pulse is full and rapid; mouth clammy; nose dry; eyes bloodshot; appetite lost; moaning, and walking with a ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... theological scholar—always got the prize for theology. Well, he was a confirmed sneak. I've taken him into a corner and described the torments of dying to him, and his look was disgusting—he broke out in a clammy sweat. "Don't, don't!" he'd cry. "You're just the fellow to suffer intensely," I told him. And what was his idea of escaping it? Why, by learning the whole of Deuteronomy and the Acts of the Apostles by heart! His idea of Judgement Day was old Rippenger's half-yearly examination. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... rose and turned into his damp little hut, where the light was dim on the crucifix hanging opposite the door against the clay-daubed wall. It was a bare, unsightly, clammy room; a rude bed on one side, a shelf for table and two or three wooden stools constituting the furniture, while the uneven puncheons of the floor wabbled and clattered under the ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... felt The Spider's slackened muscles grow tense as he endeavored to get closer to the cot. They helped him a step forward. He pulled his arm free and thrust out his hand. Pete's hand closed on those limp, clammy fingers. ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... nest, Stirless, they laid her there as cold as lead, All in her stainless bridal garments drest, With fragrant blossoms circled round her head. They laid their hands upon her dewy breast, And trembled back as those who touch the dead; They wiped the dew from off her clammy brow, And shudder'd, 'twas so ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... and gloom of the place became almost painful: our voices waked dull echoes as we conversed, and the noise made by fishes occasionally whipping the surface of the water was quite startling. A cool, moist, clammy air pervaded ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... by whose life and strength I held my own, began to show signs of distress: a thick, clammy, and glutinous kind of foam gathered about her lips, and piteous sobs burst from her bosom in the tones of human misery. I doubted for a moment whether I would give her a little rest, a relaxation of pace, but I decided that I would not, and continued ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... aching head, and that dull pain which, dozing or waking, lay in it all the past night like a log, or palpable substance of pain, not to be removed without opening the very scull, as it seemed, to take it thence. Or he pities his long, clammy, attenuated fingers. He compassionates himself all over; and his bed is a very discipline of humanity, and ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... not aware of the fact that extreme coldness and a clammy perspiration would be among the results of such a ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... Camilli Mean what we say." Stone after stone still flies, But aimed to knock chips from the pine-boles now; For she is busy gathering sticks, increasing Her distance as she may. The noon is sultry, Heated and clammy, I, Towards the live waves turning, slip my tunic, Then run in naked. Cooled and soothed by swimming, Both mind and heart from their late tumult tuned To placid acquiescent health, I float, suspended in the limpid water, Passive, rhythmically governed; So ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... sickening hope to find Joe through all. No more warm rooms and comfortable evenings beside the fire with mother, no more suppers made ready for the boys, and jokes and laughing when they came home; there was no more a house to call home, no mother nor boys, only something cold and clammy under ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... you as fond of frogs as you used to be? Last week, some people were dining with us. I had just helped the soup, and, letting my hand fall upon my lap, picked up one of your friends who had settled himself there. Not knowing at first what the cold clammy thing was, I jumped up, and everybody else jumped up too, to see what was the matter; for it might have been a ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... the Rougons' house was an individual with clammy hands and equivocal look, one Monsieur Vuillet, a bookseller, who supplied all the devout ladies of the town with holy images and rosaries. Vuillet dealt in both classical and religious works; he was a strict Catholic, ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... attributes of humanity, with its virtues, its faults, its weaknesses. He feels not the soft breath of woman fanning his cheek, nor the throb of her little heart bounding against his own. There comes a cold, clammy air to his brow, like that of water in a cold morning, and the pulsation of his heart is checked instead of quickened. She is gone. He finds he has no more power to retain her in his arms, or to awaken in her a knowledge of his existence, than he has to arrest the march of the summer ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... lowlands, seek a sandy or gravelly soil; and avoid those built over clay beds, or even where clay bottom is found under the sand or loam. In the last case, if drainage is understood, pipes may be so arranged as to secure against any standing water; but, unless this is done, the clammy moisture on walls, and the chill in every closed room, are sufficient indication that the conditions for disease are ripe or ripening. The only course in such case, after seeking proper drainage, is, first, abundant ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... his eyes were shut. The color of his face struck Gentleman Mike as being peculiar. But everything in that place was peculiar; like a great tomb—a blooming mausoleum—the whole place was. Though he had the reputation of being an esprit fort, Mike felt uncomfortable. Cold and clammy too, the beastly ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... though as an outside member of the firm he cannot be considered to count, he had long ago made up his mind about her. Some time before, when he had found it impossible for him to be in her presence, still less to converse with her, without experiencing a warm, clammy, shooting sensation and a feeling of general weakness similar to that which follows a well-directed blow at the solar plexus, he had come to the conclusion that he must be in love. The furious jealousy which assailed him on seeing her embraced by and embracing a ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... a spasm of fear brought him to a halt. Could it be himself the wolves were trailing! The old horror of the night came back with all its reality and force. A clammy sweat broke out upon his body. He looked wildly about him for a retreat, but there was none. The wolves were gaining upon him rapidly and were very close now. There was no longer any doubt that he ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... spotless mantle of ice the rigid polar regions slept the profound sleep of death from the earliest dawn of time. Wrapped in his white shroud, the mighty giant stretched his clammy ice-limbs abroad, ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... upon him by eager, sympathetic hands, and glanced slowly about as though in search of some familiar face; and so they fell on those of Billy Gray, who, forgetful for the moment of his own hurt, threw himself by the stranger's side and seized his clammy hand. A half smile flitted over the pale face, the other hand groped at the breast of his blue shirt and slowly drew forth a packet, stained and dripping with the blood that welled slowly from a shothole in the broad white breast. "Give to—General ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... hawsers (ropes) ever since they had gone afloat as boys. These North Sea fishermen, in whom the Viking blood runs strong, had always put in eleven months sea time every year of their lives. So storm and fog and clammy numbing cold had no terrors for them as they worked their "sweepers" to and fro, fishing for the deadly mines. Sometimes, for all their skill and care, a mine would foul their tackle and blow them to pieces. But usually they could "gentle" a mine to the surface and set it off ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... clammy silence. A mouse, emboldened by the quiet, scuttled across the hearth. One mighty paw lightly moved; a lightning tap, and the ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... gang had all assembled save one, a little shrimp of a good-for-nothing, nearly hairless, toothless, cunning-eyed, and given to drink when he could lay lips on any. He had a wide loose mouth with a tendency to droop crookedly, and his hands were always clammy and limp. He ordinarily sat tilted back against the wall to the right of the engine, sucking an old clay pipe. He had a way of often turning the conversation to imply some deep mystery known only to himself behind the life of almost any one discussed. He often added choice embellishments to ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... the value of Sunday to the crew, they are allowed on that day a pudding, or, as it is called, a "duff.'' This is nothing more than flour boiled with water, and eaten with molasses. It is very heavy, dark, and clammy, yet it is looked upon as a luxury, and really forms an agreeable variety with salt beef and pork. Many a rascally captain has made up with his crew, for hard usage, by allowing them duff twice a week ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... efforts to dislodge the clammy kelp, she drew him along until the streamer broke. Then still talking their happy nonsense, they trotted side by ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... cowardly—a plaything, a toy, a mockery, a sport for the wilful zephyrs. Now it lifts a bully head as it creeps unimpeded across the sea and spreads, infinitely soft, all-encompassing. As if by magic the mainland is blotted out. The sea is dark and death-like, the air clammy, turgid, and steamy. Heavy vapour settles upon the hills of the Island, descending slowly and with the passivity of fate, until there is but a thin stratum of clear air between the gloomy ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... thick coating of fine sand, deposited from the eddying winds that could never reach the silent depths. The place was gruesome, horribly depressing. Jenks broke out into a clammy perspiration. He seemed to be looking at the secrets of ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... my eyes; every artery in my body seemed strained to bursting; the pent-up agony and fury of my soul were such that I thought I should go mad or drop down dead ere I gained the end of my long desire. As I descended I felt her clinging to me; her hands were cold and clammy on my neck, as though she were chilled to the blood with terror. At last I reached the lowest step—I touched the floor of the vault. I set my precious burden down. Releasing my clasp of her, I remained for a moment inactive, breathing heavily. She caught my arm—she spoke ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... slid up to the long docks, made fast and drew their fires, till it seemed that the works, like a great octopus, was withdrawing every arm and filament it ever had radiated, and was coiling them endlessly at its cold and clammy side. Yet, for all of this, it did not seem possible that the whole structure was tumbling, the structure on which so many years of labor—so much genius and enthusiasm—so many millions—had been lavished, until one afternoon a drunken ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... coming nearer? how clammy grows my brow; Yes, I'm going home for promotion, the battle's over now. Comrades, I often fancy, how upon yon blessed shore, In that land of recognition, we may yet all meet once more. Colonel, we'll gather round you then, as in the days of old; Why do whisper, comrades, are my fingers ...
— Victor Roy, A Masonic Poem • Harriet Annie Wilkins
... hangs on the briars, And from the clammy ground suspires A sweet frail sick autumnal scent Of stale frost furring weeds long spent; And wafted on, like one who sleeps, A feeble vapour hangs or creeps, Exhaling on the fungus mould A breath of age, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... confided his savings to de Barral but if so, judging from his appearance, they must have been the proceeds of some successful burglary. The pressman by my side said 'No,' to my question. He was glad because it was all over. He had suffered greatly from the heat and the bad air of the court. The clammy, raw, chill of the streets seemed to affect his liver instantly. He became contemptuous and irritable and plied his elbows viciously making way for ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... up the gloomy canyon, which was filled with the river's clammy, drifting mist. "Winter," she said, "will be terrible here. Then you are not going back to the coast or Victoria for ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... ne'er so vile, In wit, in judgment, manners, or what else; If he can purchase but a silken cover, He shall not only pass, but pass regarded: Whereas, let him be poor, and meanly clad, Though ne'er so richly parted, you shall have A fellow that knows nothing but his beef, Or how to rince his clammy guts in beer, Will take him by the shoulders, or the throat, And kick him down the stairs. Such is the state Of virtue in bad clothes! — ha, ha, ha, ha! That raiment should be in such high request! How long ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson
... idea of that kitchen was savory in the wards; for out of it came, at the right moment, arrowroot, hot and of the pleasantest consistence; rice puddings, neither hard on the one hand or clammy on the other; cool lemonade for the feverish; cans full of hot tea for the weary, and good coffee for the faint. When the sinking sufferer was lying with closed eyes, too feeble to make moan or sigh, the hospital spoon was put between his lips, with the mouthful ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett |
