"Clap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was exceedingly gratified at her daughter's engagement; of course she was very quiet about it, she did n't clap her hands or drag in Mr. Tester's name; but it was easy to see that she felt a kind of maternal peace, an abiding satisfaction. The young man behaved as well as possible, was constantly seen with Joscelind, and smiled down at her in the kindest, most protecting way. They looked beautiful ...
— The Path Of Duty • Henry James
... rough has become smooth, the crooked has been made straight, the forests have been converted into fruitful fields, the rude log cabin of the woodsman has been replaced by the handsome, well-appointed homestead, and large populous cities have pushed the small clap-boarded village into ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... as to the impossibility of getting our great army into existence. All those people who write and talk so glibly in favour of conscription seem to forget that to take a common man, and more particularly a townsman, clap him into a uniform and put a rifle in his hand does not make a soldier. He has to be taught not only the use of his weapons, but the methods of a strange and unfamiliar life out of doors; he has to be not simply drilled, but accustomed ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... thy coronet, or that heaven, Which now with a clear [arch] lends us this light, Shall not be curtain'd with the veil of night, Ere on thy head I clap a burning crown Of red-hot iron, that shall ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... notice it. So absorbed was she in trying to appear unconcerned that she did not see the approach of the storm; in fact, there was a supercharge of restraint on all three of them, and it startlingly broke upon them in a clap of thunder that sounded as if it had smashed a tree not ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... of six inches, five hundred feet above the level of the sea, without ever so much as once tumbling down; or hanging at the same height from a bush by the tail, to dry, or air, or sun himself, as if he were flower or fruit. There he is, a monkey indeed; but you catch him young, clap a pair of breeches on him, and an old red jacket, and oblige him to dance a saraband on the stones of a street, or perch upon the shoulder of Bruin, equally out of his natural element, which is a cave among the woods. Here he is but the ape of a monkey. Now if we were to catch you young, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII. F, No. 325, August 2, 1828. • Various
... be said here that the "horse play"—for it is nothing else—sometimes indulged in as "an after clap" to a wedding, in which practical jokes are played on the pair, is not only unkind and ill-bred, but in most execrable taste. To placard the luggage "Just married;" to tie white ribbons on it and the carriage in which ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... Waiver knew he was dead asleep, by the snorin' of him—and every snore he get out of him was like a clap o' thunder—that minit the Waiver began to creep down the three as cautious as a fox, and he was very nigh hand the bottom, whin bad cess to it, a thievin' branch he was dipindin' an bruk, and down he fell right a top of the dhraggin: but if he did good luck was an his side, ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... fell into a kind sleep, from which I was aroused by a terrific clap of thunder and such a deluge of rain as I had never witnessed. Heretofore I had always disliked lightning, but nature's present "pyrotechnical display" challenged naught but my most enthusiastic admiration. When it was over supper was announced, and soon afterward we retired for ...
— Six Days on the Hurricane Deck of a Mule - An account of a journey made on mule back in Honduras, - C.A. in August, 1891 • Almira Stillwell Cole
... trump cards for to know them by. He said a great deal more to me, which is not worth relating, and ended by telling me that he intended to let me out of confinement next day, but that if ever I misconducted myself any more, he would clap me in again for the rest of my life. I had a good mind to call him an ould thaif, but the hope of getting out made me hold my tongue, and the next day I was let out; and need enough I had to be let out, for what with being alone, and living on the ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... and the Senechal's father's "dunderbush" in his right—his eyes pinching spooks out of every inch of the black wall about him, and every string at its tightest—had reached the crumbly bit of path near the Little Sark side, when, like a clap of thunder out of a blue sky, the black silence of the cutting vomited uproar—the wild clang and beat of what sounded, in that hollow space, like the trampling of a thousand dancing hoofs—shrill neighings and whinnyings ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... sweeps his lyre, all nature gives signs of her Maker's presence. The heavens rejoice before him, the earth is glad, the sea roars, the mountains and hills break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field clap their hands. He looks on the earth, and it trembles; he touches the hills, and they smoke. Nor less conspicuous is his presence in providence and in the human soul. He is seen in awful majesty high above the tumult ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... side street leading toward the Boulevard de Leopold, I was greeted by a clap of thunder overhead. A shell demolished a house across the street and about thirty yards down. The concussion knocked over a couple of babies. I picked them up, put them back in the doorway of the house where they seemed to belong, saying over and over again mechanically, "There, ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... crucified in the faith that God cares for you, and yet somehow wishes you to endure crucifixion. How far will men commit themselves to God? Jesus means them to commit themselves to God right up to the hilt—as Bunyan put it, "to hazard all for God at a clap." Decision for God, obedience to God, that is the prime thing—action on the basis of God and of God's ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... had backs as well as fronts; music was heard from shuttered windows, lights burned in upper rooms. There were a thousand pretty secrets in the ways of people to each other. Then, too, there were ideas, as thick as sparrows in an ivied wall. One had but to clap one's hands and cry out, and there was a fluttering {195} of innumerable wings; life was as full of bubbles, forming, rising into amber foam, as ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... thou prevail on him to come down to us: he never was more welcome in his life than he shall be now. If he will not, let him find me some other service; and I will clap a pair of wings to my shoulders, and he shall see me come flying in at his windows ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... which, by the way, is a melancholy thought. For we ought to be doing better work than our forefathers; whereas what we actually do is to pull down the old buildings, clap the doorways, porticoes, panelling, and mantels in our museums, and then run up something inexpensive and useful and deadly ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... as we went along, and sometimes stopped to clap me on the shoulder. One would have supposed that it was I who was in danger, not he, and that he was reassuring me. We spoke very little. As we approached the point, I begged him to remain in a sheltered place, while ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... hope or thought beyond the present moment and its perpetuation to the end of time. Till the end of time she would have had nothing altered, but still continue delightedly to serve her idol, and be repaid (say twice in the month) with a clap ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of the leader, an' hit him flat On his steamin' flank with a lightsome stroke Of the end of my limber lariat; He never swerv'd, an' we thunder'd on, Black in the blackness, red in the red Of the lightnin' blazin' with ev'ry clap That bust from the black ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... on to him all yer can. It ain't no ust ter hurry matters, with your father flat on his back. Powell will remain here and Vorlange will be with the cavalry, so yer will know whar ter clap eyes on ter both of ...
— The Boy Land Boomer - Dick Arbuckle's Adventures in Oklahoma • Ralph Bonehill
... sunlight, she became herself again. The outburst had cleared her soul like a thunder-clap. She felt as free as air. The secret that had weighed her down for years was off her mind. What she had whispered to her own heart she could now proclaim from the housetops. Even ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... grunted. He hardly knew whether to fly into a rage with this extraordinary young man or to clap him on the back and tell him he liked him better and better every minute. He contented himself by repeating a remark he had made earlier in ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... to the instruments it contained; the first were a little rusty, and I handed them to Ernest, who, after examining them, placed them on a table inside the window. I was searching for a lancet in good condition, when a clap of thunder, such as I had never heard in my life, terrified us all so much, that we nearly fell down. This burst of thunder had not been preceded by any lightning, but was accompanied by two immense ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... and looked out of the window. He could see but little excepting a stretch of snow. The cell-like room was almost without heat, and he had to clap his hands together, and stamp his feet, ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield
... last. The place could not be better for my birdlets; shallow, tepid water, interspersed with muddy knolls and green eyots. The diversions of the bath begin forthwith. The ducklings clap their beaks and rummage here, there and everywhere; they sift each mouthful, rejecting the clear water and retaining the good bits. In the deeper parts, they point their sterns into the air and stick their heads under water. They are happy; and it is a blessed thing to see them ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... about it. When she's wanted, your wife is elsewhere. When she ain't, she's all over the shop. I'll clap down the pail inside. You go on and ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... follows: they sow it on beds well worked with the hoe or spade in the months of December, January, or February; and because the seed is very small, they mix it with ashes, that it may be thinner sowed: then they rake the beds, and trample them with their feet, or clap them with a plank, that the seed may take sooner in the ground. The tobacco does not come up till a month afterwards, or even for a longer time; and then they ought to take great care to cover the beds ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... that word, at the very door, behind the cloud of black garments, was heard a loud hand-clap. That was Darvid, who, with a movement most unexpected for him, had in this manner wrung his hands, intertwining them with a strength which almost broke his fingers, and then raised ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... He is a short, small, dark man with mountaineer legs, a frightful psora, and an inveterate habit of drink. He saluted his superior, Nelongo, with immense ceremony, dating probably from the palmy times of the Mwani-Congo. Equals squat before one another, and shaking hands crosswise clap palms. Chico Furano kneels, places both "ferients" upon the earth and touches his nose-tip; he then traces three ground-crosses with the Jovian finger; again touches his nose; beats his "volae" on the dust, and draws them along the cheeks; then ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... quarter of an hour after the officer and the escort had departed, we, who were all assembled in the portico of the house, heard a report like a loud clap of thunder. The doors and windows shook with some violent concussion; a few minutes afterwards the officer galloped into the yard, and threw himself off his horse into my father's arms almost senseless. The ammunition cart had blown up, one of the officers had been severely wounded, ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... so these rushing over his ample limbs.......... them with frequent wounds; by which, the giant being roused and feeling himself almost covered by the multitude, he suddenly perceives the smarting of the stabs, and sent forth a roar which sounded like a terrific clap of thunder; and placing his hands on the ground he raised his terrible face: and having lifted one hand to his head he found it full of men and rabble sticking to it like the minute creatures which not unfrequently are ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... hundred feet is cut out of it, through which is rushing over seven hundred acres of water, and you can have only a faint conception of the terrible force of the blow that came upon the people of this vicinity like a clap of thunder out of a clear sky. It was irresistible in its power and carried everything before it. After seeing the lake and the opening through the dam it can be readily understood how that outbreak came to be so ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... of the December sun penetrated the window of the attic and lay upon the ceiling in long threads of light and shade. All at once a heavily laden carrier's cart, which was passing along the boulevard, shook the frail bed, like a clap of thunder, and made it quiver ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... applied. A clap of thunder, a sheet of flame, a hissing sound of grape, shrieks and groans, and Fernando saw whole ranks mowed down, as the white smoke arose for a moment hiding the prospect from view. When the veil of battle blew aside, he saw such a scene ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... for a moment; he was looking straight up into the harsh face above his own. Then, "I know you," he said. "I know that you'll get the whip hand of me if you can, and you'll clap blinkers on me and drive me according to your own judgment. I never had much faith in your judgment, Boney. And it is not my intention to be driven ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... will be all gone before you finish with me," replied his companion with a grin. "Clap it in the bill, my boy. 'For total loss of reputation, six and eightpence.' But," continued Mr. Wickham with more seriousness, "could I be bowled out of the Commission for this little jest? I know it's small, but I like to be a J.P. Speaking as a professional ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... must remember that there are no limits to human greed, and hardly any to the height of tenement houses. When the man who owned that seven-story tenement found that he could rent another floor, he found no difficulty in persuading the guardians of our building laws to let him clap another story on the roof, like a cabin on the deck of a ship; and in the southeasterly of the four apartments on this floor the little seamstress lived. You could just see the top of her window from the street—the huge cornice that had capped the original front, and ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... I was distressed by the recollection that I had so recently been subordinate to this ruddy, well-fed man, and that he had been mercilessly rude to me. True he would put his arm round my waist and clap me kindly on the shoulder and approve of my way of living, but I felt that he despised my nullity just as much as before and only suffered me to please his daughter, but I could no longer laugh and talk easily, and I thought myself ill-mannered, ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... fearless in many ways, and accustomed to rough games with his numerous brothers and sisters, Charles as a small boy hated the roar of cannon. Unlike queen Christina of Sweden, who at four years old used to clap her hands when a gun was discharged near her, and cry 'Again!' Charles shrank away and put his fingers in his ears to shut out the noise. It was not lack of courage, for he showed plenty of that about other things, but ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... succeeding in the general tide of success, established with a family and three young children, all seemed well. Now the Four Corners was rarely visited. The verandas broke down; grass and hardy roses grew into the cracks where the clap-boards had started. The Ellwells, father and son, were fashionable ...
— The Man Who Wins • Robert Herrick
... dismiss John Bull and return to Mrs. Stowe and her abolition coadjutors in general—one and all. I am heartily sick and tired of this whole abolition clap-trap, catch-penny business. I cannot express my views on the subject better than in the language of Graham's Magazine. Alluding to Uncle Tom's Cabin, and other kindred publications, he very justly remarks, "that they ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... Joe!" called his teammates, who crowded around him to clap him on the back and say all sorts of nice things. Joe stood it, blushingly, for a moment, and then he made his way over to the box. As he walked along, a certain quiet man who had been intently watching the game ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... does that prove?" returned Teresa. "Only that Indians clap a nickname on any stranger, white or red, who may camp with them. Why, even his own father, a white man, the wretch who begot him and abandoned him,—he had an ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... the razor had passed; with a marked jaw-bone and a salient square chin; with a high-bridged determined nose, and a white forehead rising vertical over thick black eyebrows, and rather deep-set grey eyes,—well, clap a steeple-crowned hat upon it, and you could have posed him for one of his own Puritan ancestors. The very clothes of the men carried on their unlikeness,—John's loose blue flannels and red sailor's knot, careless-seeming, but smart in their effect, and showing him careful in a fashion of ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... father the Bantam was not such a fool as he was thought and my father said one must be in a state of great personal exaltation to apply that epithet to any man and Rady shut his mouth and I gave my pony a clap of the heel for joy. I think my father suspects what Rady did and does not approve of it. And he need not have done it after all and might have spoilt it. I have been obliged to order him not to call me Ricky for he stops short ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... without an upper story, and have very deep verandahs, through which I caught glimpses of cool, shady rooms, with matted floors. Some look as if they had been transported from the old-fashioned villages of the Connecticut Valley, with their clap-board fronts painted white and jalousies painted green; but then the deep verandah in which families lead an open-air life has been added, and the chimneys have been omitted, and the New England severity and angularity are toned down and draped out of sight by these ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... fountain where a silver cup hung by a silver chain, he filled the cup with water, as the troll had bidden him, and threw it over a pillar of stone that was set beside the fountain. And instantly there came a clap of thunder as if the earth would dash asunder, and after the thunder came the shower, and so fierce and heavy were the hailstones that they would surely have slain horse and rider, but that Sir Owen, as the troll had ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... rooms are gay with flowers. Almost always a phonograph is going, "Carmen," or "Onegin," or "Pagliacci." Sometimes, Peter and I one-step to the music on the pavement outside, and the officers and nurses crowd to the windows and clap and cry, "Encore!" Often, after sundown, when the children have gone indoors, and we go out for a walk before dinner, we see a patient with a bandage around his head, perhaps, but both arms well enough ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... there ain't; and why clap on the blinkers, my dear? You that has a face like a rose, and with a cove like Jerry Hunt, that might be your born father? (But all this don't tell me ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... not one of the servants; it was a portly policeman, with a newspaper and an empty plate on the floor on one side, and a champagne bottle on the other. He had slid down in his chair, with his chin on his brass buttons, and his helmet had rolled a dozen feet away. Bella had to clap her hand ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... and told me that her sister was going to deceive me; and that she was to be married to another man the next day. This was as sudden to me as a clap of thunder of a bright sunshiny day. It was the capstone of all the afflictions I had ever met with; and it seemed to me that it was more than any human creature could endure. It struck me perfectly speechless for some time, and made me feel so weak that I thought I should sink down. I however ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... out yourself,' added his mother, 'you are flooding the whole room.... The Word was made Flesh,' she added under her breath, as a terrific clap of thunder shook the house. Magda crossed herself; Jendrek laughed and cried, 'What a din! there's another.... The Lord Jesus is enjoying Himself, ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... either to my order or my poverty (and you see I am not very poor), the shame doth not lie at my door, and I heartily pray that the sin may be averted from yours." He thus finished, and received a general clap from the whole company. Then the gentleman of the house told him, "He was sorry for what had happened; that he could not accuse him of any share in it; that the verses were, as himself had well observed, so bad, that he might ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... the Duke would have said, "without cheating its disabilities," had not his mouth been stopped by a loud and prolonged thunder-clap. ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... old cock, do your damnedest. I ain't responsible to you. Attack, suppress, and all the rest of it. We're goin' to do what we say, all the same!' And then I'd do it. And what'd come of it? Either the U.P. would go beyond the limits of the Law—and then I'd jump on it, suppress its papers, and clap it into quod—or it'd take it lyin' down. Whichever 'appened it'd be all up with the U. P. I'd a broke its chain off my neck for good. But I ain't the Gover'ment, an Gover'ment's got tender feet. I ask you, sir, wot's the good of havin' a Constitooshion, and a the bother of electing ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... she was more flattered by his bondage than she showed. Every night he planted himself in the prompt-entrance to watch her dance and clap his powerful hands in adulation. She could not be insensible to the compliment, though her smiles were oftenest for Flouflou, who planted himself, adulating, on the opposite side. Adagio! Allegretto! Vivace! Unperceived by the audience, the gaze of the two men would meet across ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... is lost when ease is consulted; he lamented the unmanly impatience that prompted him to seek shelter in the grove, and despised the petty curiosity that led him on from trifle to trifle. While he was thus reflecting, the air grew blacker and a clap of ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... of small bitter sorrows, small glorious triumphs, of laughter and uproarious fun, of sentimental passages at balls, picnics, garden parties, too, with charmingly pretty maidens who, in all probability, he would never clap eyes on again—all these, and impressions even more illusive and fugitive, playing hide-and-seek among the mazelike convolutions of his ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... for children like to hear about it. When I say this time, on that day we get pine-tree and dress him up with many gifts, Tke Chan clap his hands and say: "Banzai! We make offering of tree ...
— Mr. Bamboo and the Honorable Little God - A Christmas Story • Fannie C. Macaulay
... warning,' she wailed. At breakfast Cocklewhite phoned that his leech was dead, and he had strong suspicions it had died from atmospheric pressure. Almost at the same moment Lysander sent word that his seaweed had gone clammy during the night. Half-an-hour later came a clap of thunder and the drops of rain I mentioned. I needn't go on. You can guess ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 14th, 1920 • Various
... are so ready to fly at the throat of helplessness. The reinstatement, which I had been unable to win as a mendicant ex-convict, I could buy with gold in the open market; and when it should be bought and paid for, all the world would clap and ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... entrance of his humble booth, with the foot of some holy man in his lap, he would speak words of kindness and wisdom as he reduced the inflammation. One of his quaintest sayings was, "If the Pope has bid thee wear hair next thy bare skin, my son, why, clap a wig over thy shaven scalp." So the monks in proper pity and kindness, when they had shut the great gates as night came down, made their pilgrim guests welcome to bide at Oyster-le-Main as long as they pleased. The solemn bell for ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister
... of lightning quivered along the horizon, a clap of thunder nearer than the first one was heard, a light foam appeared on the surface of the water, and the boat trembled like a living thing. Murat began to understand that danger was approaching, then he got up smiling, threw his hat behind him, shook back his long hair, and breathed in ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MURAT—1815 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... asked the other wounded man, with a faint voice, "I wish as how he'd waited a bit before he slipped his cable, so that we could have borne each other company; maybe, if I clap on more canvas, I shall get up with him. Howsomdever, I shan't be long after him, ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... wishes to see him. It is Polyneices who has come to crave his father's forgiveness and blessing, knowing by an oracle that victory will fall to the side that Oedipus espouses. But Oedipus spurns the hypocrite, and invokes a dire curse on both his unnatural sons. A sudden clap of thunder is heard, and as peal follows peal, Oedipus is aware that his hour is come and bids Antigone summon Theseus. Self-guided he leads the way to the spot where death should overtake him, attended by Theseus and his daughters. ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... except in the kitchen, in the midst of the family, and Tamoszius would sit there with his hat between his knees, never saying more than half a dozen words at a time, and turning red in the face before he managed to say those; until finally Jurgis would clap him upon the back, in his hearty way, crying, "Come now, brother, give us a tune." And then Tamoszius' face would light up and he would get out his fiddle, tuck it under his chin, and play. And forthwith the soul of him would ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... passed, with gathering rumours of the iniquities of the third Mrs. Elkman, and then at last came the thunder-clap—Henry had disappeared without leaving a trace. The wicked wife and the innocent brats had the four-roomed home to themselves. The Clothing Emporium knew him no more. Some whispered suicide, others America. Benjamin Beckenstein, ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... was nothing to her, yet she could praise him for it. So, little by little, he gave her a peep into his affairs and found she was one of them rare people who can feel quite a bit of honest interest in their neighbour's good luck, with no after-clap of sourness, because their own ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... Felicie? Tell me! Doesn't it flatter your vanity to possess a little woman who makes people cheer and clap her, who is written about in the newspapers? Mamma pastes all my notices in her album. ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... Vicar. "Come, Tom, my boy, give him some applause. Clap your hands and stamp your feet;" and the visitor led off by thumping his umbrella upon ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... written quaere, seek, and plaudit is for plaudite, clap your hands, the appeal of the Roman actors to the audience at the ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... every effort was made to keep me in the dark while the slavers of Ujiji made all smooth for themselves to get canoes. All chiefs claim the privilege of shaking hands, that is, they touch the hand held out with their palm, then clap two hands together, then touch again, and clap again, and the ceremony concludes: this frequency of shaking hands misled me when the ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... however, had not quite lost the remembrance of having formerly stood erect. When he approached the sty, two and twenty enormous swine separated themselves from the herd, and scampered towards him, with such a chorus of horrible squealing as made him clap both hands to his ears. And yet they did not seem to know what they wanted, nor whether they were merely hungry or miserable from some other cause. It was curious, in the midst of their distress, to observe them thrusting their noses into the mire, in quest of something ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... was to clap her hands—at that time the usual method of summoning a servant. When Levina tapped at the door, instead of bidding her enter, her mistress spoke ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... of you," cried she, "and quit this foolish quarreling. For my part, I shall be glad of a little thick darkness. Take it quickly, however, or I must clap it ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... soul. Why? If my scheme gets wind, do you suppose some one will not clap on sail to be before me? You frighten me out of my senses. Promise me faithfully to be ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... out "Walk-ER!"—Bob Cratchit's trying to overtake nine o'clock with his pen on his arriving nearly twenty minutes afterwards; his trembling and getting a little nearer the ruler when regenerated Scrooge talks about raising his salary, prior to calling him Bob, and, with a clap on the back, wishing him a merry Christmas!—brought, hilariously, the whole radiant Reading of this wonderful story to its conclusion. It was a feast of humour and a flow of fun, better than all the yule-tide fare that ever was provided—fuller of good things than any Christmas ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... dust of Samaria shall suffice for handfuls for all the people that follow me.' And then Ahab replied in the words of our text. They have a dash of contempt and sarcasm, all the more galling because of their unanswerable common-sense. 'The time to crow and clap your wings is after you have fought. Samaria is not a heap of dust just yet. Threatened men live long.' The battle began, and the bully was beaten; and for once Ahab ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... has bothered all heads, from those of the humble wearer up to the field-marshal, who is content under the shadow—not of his laurels—but his plumes—to design any kind of uncomfortable and ugly thing that strikes his imagination, and to clap it on the cranium of steady veteran and raw recruit. Truly we have been most unfortunate, aesthetically speaking, in our military caps; and, to go no further back than Peninsular recollections,—from the conico-cylindrical cap of Vimiera to the funny little thing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... I'll turn into a fairy godfather, clap you on to my back, give you the lungs of a mermaid, to prevent your choking in the water, and then, come on! Or, rather, I ...
— Lord Dolphin • Harriet A. Cheever
... Tom—an' that's the bottle; pour your dram, lad, an' take it like a man! God save us! but a bottle's the b'y t' make a fair wind of a head wind. Tom," says he, laying a hand on my head—which was the ultimate expression of his affection—"you jus' ought t' clap eyes on this here little ol' Dannie when he've donned his Highland kilts. He's a little divil of a dandy then, I'm tellin' you. Never a lad o' the city can match un, by the Lord! Not match my little Dannie! Clap ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... condescend to give That honour'd piece to distant times must live; When noble Sheffield strikes the trembling strings, The little loves rejoice and clap their wings. Anacreon lives, they cry, th' harmonious swain } Retunes the lyre, and tries his wonted strain, } 'Tis he,—our lost Anacreon lives again. } But when th' illustrious poet soars above The sportive revels of the god of love, Like Maro's muse he takes a loftier flight, And towers beyond ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... leape and dance, and clap their hands. Beastes we could see none that they had, but two goates, small dogges, and small hennes: other beastes we saw none. After that we had well marked all things we departed and went aboord our ships: which thing the Captaine of the other towne perceiuing, sent two of his ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... when at length it fell to pieces; and he would place it on the head of the Queen of May with such a gentle, sweet little speech, that she would blush up to the tips of her ears, and all her subjects would clap their hands and laugh ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... vaulting joy-bells, shout In spirit-gladdening notes, Whilst mimic thunders bellow out From cannons' brazen throats: "Tyrant! awake ye, tremblingly; The advent has begun: Hark! to the mighty jubilant cry— "Sebastopol is won!" Ring out, rejoice, and clap your hands, Shout, patriots, everyone! A burst of joy let rend the sky: Sebastopol ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... me, one evening, from my own box at the opera, fifty or a hundred low shopkeepers' wives dispersed about the pit at the theatre, dressed in men's clothes (per disempegno, as they call it), that they might be more at liberty, forsooth, to clap and hiss and quarrel and jostle! I felt shocked." Venice was, as it had ever been, a city of pleasure. The women, generally married at fifteen, were old at thirty, and such was the intensity of life in this "water-logged town"—as F. Hopkinson Smith somewhat irreverently called it upon one ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... upon the ears of the berry-pickers like a thunder clap. They looked up, and saw a neat waggonette, drawn by a team of well-kept bay horses, in which, on a back seat, sat Mr. Rawdon and a little girl with long fair hair. On the front seat were two well-dressed women, one of whom was driving; the other wore a widow's ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... blind. Their tongues were drawn down their throats, and then pulled out upon their chins to a prodigious length. Their mouths were forced open to such a wideness, that their jaws went out of joint, only to clap again together, with a force like that of a spring lock. Shoulder-blades, elbows, wrists, and knees were similarly affected. Sometimes the sufferer was benumbed, or drawn violently together, and immediately afterwards stretched ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... rat memory does its burrows make, Close-seal them as I may, and my stolen tread Starts populace, a gens lucifuga; That too strait seems my mind my mind to hold, And I myself incontinent of me. Then go I, my foul-venting ignorance With scabby sapience plastered, aye forsooth! Clap my wise foot-rule to the walls o' the world, And vow—A goodly house, but something ancient, And I can find no Master? Rather, nay, By baffled seeing, something I divine Which baffles, and a seeing set beyond; And so with strenuous gazes sounding down, ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... as manly (through being sunburnt from knocking a little ball over the links) as if he habitually went tiger-shooting; but, though not without charm, he had much less distinction than his wife. Most people smiled when Bruce's name was mentioned, and it was usual for his intimates to clap him on the back and call him a silly ass, which proves he was not unpopular. On the other hand, Edith was described as a very pretty woman, or a nice little thing, and by the more discriminating, jolly clever when you know her, ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... Pattie would be dismissed without a character, with a multitude of blame upon her head, if indeed she escaped so easily. They might think Pattie had stolen the child, and clap her into prison ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh
... saw him suddenly clap his hands, and speak to the rowers. These did not look up, but continued to row on in the same leisurely way as before; nor did Pierre again glance ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... evening ... a very heavy thunder storm came on. It lasted for several hours, till after 10 o'clock; an uncommon lightning; one hard clap after the other; heavy rain mixed at times with a storm like a hurricane. The inhabitants can hardly remember such a tempest, even when it struck into Trinity church twenty years ago; they say it was but one very hard clap, and together did not last so ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... on him!" cried one who had been vainly essaying to clap a battered hat on to the head of the form that lay unconscious in the mud. A hard task it was presently, when his senses began to return, to get the wounded sailor unsteadily on his legs; a harder to get him home. The captain ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... encourage him in his dreadful ways. We have studied him very carefully, and we know that the only way to live with him is to keep him in a sort of "pint pot" where we can hold the lid open just a little, and clap it down suddenly whenever he ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... HENRY. Except I clap thee into prison here, Lest thou shouldst play the wanton there again. Ha, you of Aquitaine! O you of Aquitaine! You were but Aquitaine to Louis—no wife; You are only Aquitaine to ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... all religious strength of sacred vows; The latest breath that gave the sound of words Was deep-sworn faith, peace, amity, true love, Between our kingdoms and our royal selves; And even before this truce, but new before,— No longer than we well could wash our hands, To clap this royal bargain up of peace,— Heaven knows, they were besmear'd and overstain'd With slaughter's pencil, where revenge did paint The fearful difference of incensed kings: And shall these hands, so lately purg'd ...
— King John • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... was on the subject of Childers's Budget proposals. Chamberlain, writing to me about it, said: "We are likely to want four millions less money. Therefore, says Childers, let us have a new Budget and clap an additional tax of L300,000 on wine." Chamberlain also wrote to me, after his interview with Mr. Gladstone, on the Monday afternoon, telling me that Randolph Churchill was going to give notice of a ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... appropriate a tuft of bunch-grass; their white horns rising and falling in the brilliant sunlight, with the swaying motion of their bodies as they walked, shimmered like waves of a lake at noonday before a gentle breeze: quickly as a clap of the hands, every loose beast in the band, in the wildest fashion of terror, started, straight in the course of the moving line—pell-mell, they went, veering for nothing that they could run over; sweeping on, with a roaring tramp, like muffled thunder, they passed along both sides of ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell
... be 'just heavenly,' as Phebe says, for it is the wish of her life to 'get lots of schooling,' and she will be too happy when I tell her. May I, please? it will be so lovely to see the dear thing open her big eyes and clap her ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... danger was past and gone, there were plenty to come running to help our hero at the wheel. As for Captain Morgan, having come down upon the main deck, he fetches the young helmsman a clap upon the back. "Well, Master Harry," says he, "and did I not tell you I would make a man of you?" Whereat our poor Harry fell a-laughing, but with a sad catch in his voice, for his hands trembled as with an ague, and were as cold as ice. As for his emotions, God knows he was ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... imaginations in the world. In the height of his fits (as it is usual with those who run mad out of pride) he would call himself God Almighty, and sometimes monarch of the universe. I have seen him (says my author) take three old high-crowned hats, and clap them all on his head, three storey high, with a huge bunch of keys at his girdle, and an angling rod in his hand. In which guise, whoever went to take him by the hand in the way of salutation, Peter with much grace, like a well-educated spaniel, would ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... one moment. He might last two or three days, or even a week—what did it signify?—what was he better than a corpse already? He could never hear, see, speak, or think again; and for any difference it could possibly make to poor Sturk, they might clap him in his grave ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... his hat with a clap of violence. She might have just seen him! Then he got up and marched down the steps. There was no more use in camping on that veranda. There was no more use in guarding that entrance. When a girl went whirling off in a limousine, ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... their favourite orators. Then in this Pagan temple may be seen a living specimen of a Brummagem Jupiter, with a cross of Vulcan, lion-faced, hairy, bearded, deep-mouthed swaggering, fluent in frank nonsense and bullying clap-trap, loved by the mob for his strength, and by the middle classes for his money. The lofty ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... person in mourning food and music were without flavour and charm; and whenever he saw anyone approaching who was in mourning dress, even though younger than himself, he would immediately rise from his seat. He believed in destiny; he was superstitious, changing colour at a squall or at a clap of thunder; and he even countenanced the ceremonies performed by villagers when driving out evil spirits from their dwellings. He protested against any attempt to impose on God. He said that "he who offends ...
— Religions of Ancient China • Herbert A. Giles
... Martin Luther, a Catholic priest, against the faith and financial exactions of the Pope of Rome, cracked from the Catholic sky like a clap of thunder from the noonday sun, and reverberated over the globe ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... the old lodge was reached there came a flash of lightning, followed by a clap of thunder that made Ned jump. Then followed more thunder and lightning, and the rain ...
— Joe The Hotel Boy • Horatio Alger Jr.
... by this event, one cannot forbear some pain at the some who clap their hands do not sufficiently understand the condition they are leaving or that which ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... nature are never without colour, and this will lower the tone; neither are the deepest darks colourless, and this will raise their tone. But perhaps this is dogmatising, and it may be that beautiful work is to be done with all the extremes you can "clap on," though I ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... achievement of the Romantic School was the least valuable part of their work. Hernani, the first performance of which marked the turning-point of the movement, is a piece of bombastic melodrama, full of the stagiest clap-trap and the most turgid declamation. Victor Hugo imagined when he wrote it that he was inspired by Shakespeare; if he was inspired by anyone it was by Voltaire. His drama is the old drama of the ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey |
