"Claw" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that, to the beholders, should be a profound and an everlasting lesson. "Just look at 'im, 'ee knows what's what—never fear!" he exclaimed now and then, flourishing a hand hard and fleshless like the claw of a snipe. Jimmy, on his back, smiled with reserve and without moving a limb. He affected the languor of extreme weakness, so as to make it manifest to us that our delay in hauling him out from his horrible confinement, and then that night spent on the poop among our selfish neglect ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... with a lead bullet of three-ounce weight attached to one end, and carefully wound upon a wooden cone seven inches high and seven inches broad at the base, turned with a spiral groove, to prevent the cord slipping when wound upon it, also a small pulley with a claw attached to it, and a cord reeved through it of sufficient strength to bear the weight ...
— Fire Prevention and Fire Extinction • James Braidwood
... a better position than she is, sir," he observed; "but we are doing all that men can do to claw off shore, and if we had had our topmasts, there would have been no difficulty about the matter. She makes fearful leeway, and there is an ugly reef ahead, which I do not altogether like; but I have been in as bad a case ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... Waupac is a kind of a summer resort, and the people that use' t' come in summers looked down on us cusses in the fields an' shops. I couldn't stand it. By God!" he said with a sudden im pulse of rage quite unlike him, "I'd rather live on an ice-berg and claw crabs f'r a livin' than have some feller passin' me on the road an' ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... then. I'll go and get it changed;" and the man reached out a claw-like hand and took the bill from Jack's fingers, without waiting for his consent. "I'll be right back. You stand right there where you are till ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard
... Villon sprang to his feet, draped his tattered cloak closely about him, struck a commanding attitude, and began to recite with great solemnity. Louis scooped his claw-like fingers behind his ear, that he might hear the better the words that fell from ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... an apple.' I took the wheel, and my heart-beat fluttered up into the hundreds; for it seemed to me that we were about to scrape the side off every ship in the line, we were so close. I held my breath and began to claw the boat away from the danger; and I had my own opinion of the pilot who had known no better than to get us into such peril, but I was too wise to express it. In half a minute I had a wide margin ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... "Don't claw the pages like that, Becky. You make me nervous. Mr. Gerrard has not time to dot his i's and cross his t's. That is what we keep copyists for. I will correct these sheets for you,—it would be terrible if Mr. O'Mally saw them,—and ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... there's no need to claw 'old of the bloody doors every time you goes in and out,' snarled Crass, 'and you could 'ave put yer tools on the floor instead of makin' a bench of ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... hurricane, and right in upon the shore, rendered our endeavours (for we were now only twelve hands fit for duty) entirely fruitless. The night came on, dreadful beyond description, in which, attempting to throw out our topsails to claw off the shore, they were immediately ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... the one adjoining the arms and fastened to the table—be divided into five parts. Of these let two parts be given to the member which the Greeks call the [Greek: chelonion], its breadth being one and one sixth, its thickness one quarter, and its length eleven holes and one half; the claw projects half a hole and the "winging" three sixteenths of a hole. What is at the axis which is termed the... face... the crosspieces ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... address ourselves with wonder, with awe, with love, as we well may, to that being in whom we move. I abate no jot of those vaster hopes, yet I would pursue that ardent aspiration, content as to here and today. I do not believe in a nature red with tooth and claw. If indeed she appears so terrible to any it is because they themselves have armed her. Again, behind the anger of the Gods there is a love. Are the rocks barren? Lay thy brow against them and learn what memories they keep. Is the brown earth ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... reply, but nodded again—once, then two or three times together, then once alone, just as before. Griselda did not know what to do, when suddenly she felt something poking her head. It was the cuckoo—he had lifted his claw, and was tapping her head to make her nod. So she nodded—once, twice together, then once—that appeared to be enough. The king nodded once again; an invisible band suddenly struck up the loveliest music, and off they set to ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... I could be sentimental, if Leonard were not tete-a-tete with me, and on the verge of that predicament. "Never so happy in his life," quoth he, "and never will be again—wonders when he shall gee this white cliff again." But, happily, in tumbles Aubrey with the big claw of a crab, which he insists on Leonard's wearing next his heart as a souvenir of Mrs. Gisborne; he is requited with an attempt to ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... remarked to me, "There isn't much of that in the Infantry Manual. But the corporal knows his job. When you're in a scrap you haven't time to think about the rules of the game; the automatic movements come all right, but in a clinch you've got to fight like a cat with tooth and claw, use your boots, your knee, or anything that comes handy. Perhaps that's why your lithe little Cockney is such a useful man with the bayonet. Now the Hun is a hefty beggar, and he isn't hampered by any ideas of playing the game, but he's as mechanical ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... disguised in imitation of the heraldic beasts that typified his armourial cognizance; [Hence the origin of Supporters] and horrible and laidly looked they in the guise of griffins, with artful scales of thin steel painted green, red forked tongues, and griping the banner in one huge claw, while, much to the marvel of the bystanders, they contrived to walk very statelily on the other. "Oh, the brave monsters!" exclaimed the butcher. "Cogs bones, this beats all ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... it should die with him.—"How is it," said the Keeper, "that when you feed them, the tigers, wolves, eagles, and ospreys all are tame and tractable? That they roam at large in the park, yet never claw and bite one another? That they propagate their species freely, as if they were wild? His Majesty bids you reveal to ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... torture while they were only gaming with plumpits? They followed him about, eager to do his bidding, each trying to outdo his comrades in sports when his eye was on them. And all the elders had good words to say about Claw-of-the-Eagle, and Wansutis was so proud that she now often forgot to speak ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... me on my legs once more, Uncle Wiggily," said the mud turtle. "I would like to do you a favor for helping me, but all I have to give you are these," and in one claw he picked some green stalks growing near him, and handed them to the ...
— Uncle Wiggily in the Woods • Howard R. Garis
... knees, her calico dress sleeves, patched and darned, but absolutely clean, rolled back, uncovering a pair of plump, strong arms, a saucer of tacks before her, and a tack hammer with a claw head in her hand. She was taking up the carpet. Grace Van Horne, Captain Eben Hammond's ward, who had called to see if there was anything she might do to help, was removing towels, tablecloths, and the like from the drawers in a tall "high-boy," folding ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... saw a shrike pursue a chickadee, when the latter escaped by taking refuge in a small hole in a tree. One day in early spring he saw two hen-hawks that were circling and screaming high in air, approach each other, extend a claw, and grasping them together, fall toward the earth flapping and struggling as if they were tied together; on nearing the ground they separated and soared aloft again. He supposed that it was not a passage of war but of love, and that the hawks were toying ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... which the Soldier or Hermit Crab takes possession of and lives in the shells of Whelks and Snails. Poorly protected behind by Nature, the homeless crab wanders about seeking a lodging. Presently he meets with an empty shell, and, after probing it carefully with his claw to be sure it is not tenanted, he pops into it back foremost in a twinkling, and settles himself in his new house. Often, too, he may be seen balancing the conveniences of the one he is in and of another vacant lodging he has found in his travels; and he even ventures out of his own, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... down to us from our prehistoric ancestors who lived by the chase, got their daily food by it, wooed and won by it, and fought their battles by it in that dim dawn of time when might was right and the law of tooth and claw was the only rede. ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... of this period deserve a passing notice as a step in the development of that important member of our "Lares and Penates." What was and is still called the "pillar and claw" table, came into fashion towards the end of last century. It consisted of a round or square top supported by an upright cylinder, which rested on a plinth having three, or sometimes four, feet carved as claws. In order to extend ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... have a conception which is altogether genialisch, of your great-aunt or second grandmother as a subject for a picture; therefore, the universe is straining towards that picture through that particular hook or claw which it puts forth in ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... amenable to discipline; he stood in some slight awe of the man who tried to teach him, but still continued to sally out at Miss Lucinda's feet, to spring at her caressing hand when he felt ill-humored, and to claw Fun's patient nose and his approaching paws when his misplaced sentimentality led him to caress the cat; but after a while a few well-timed slaps administered with vigor cured Toby of his worst tricks, though every blow made Miss Lucinda wince, and almost shook her good opinion of Monsieur ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... dark leather chairs and rows of dark leather bindings. A dozen guests could sit about the long oak table in the dining-room; the great sideboard with its black oak cupids and satyrs, and its enormous claw feet, struck perhaps the only pretentious note in the house. A wide-lipped bowl, in clear yellow glass, held rosy pippins or sprawling purple grapes on the table in the window, the sideboard carried old jugs and flagons in ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... fact—I think it was in London. The program was heavy with the etudes and ballades, and Huneker sat in the front row of fanatics. After a storm of applause de Pachmann rose from the piano stool, levelled a bony claw at Huneker, and pronounced his dictum: "He knows more than all of you." Joseffy seems to have had the same opinion, for he sought the aid of his old pupil in preparing his new edition of Chopin, the first volume ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... any light you please, I do not see a variety of objects reconciled in one consistent whole, but several contradictory principles reluctantly and irreconcilably brought and held together by your philosophers, like wild beasts shut up in a cage, to claw and bite each ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... he had a paw, suh, An', when Brer Buzzard try fer ter drap 'im. He'd scratch an' tickle 'im wid his claw, suh; An' when Brer Buzzard try fer ter flap 'im, He'd scratch an' wink ...
— Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit • Joel Chandler Harris
... hem him round on every side: On his thigh the leech has fixed his hold, The quad's long arms are round him rolled, The prickly prong has pierced his skin, And the squab has thrown his javelin, The gritty star has rubbed him raw, And the crab has struck with his giant claw. He howls with rage, and he shrieks with pain; He strikes around, but his blows are vain; Hopeless is the unequal fight Fairy, naught ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... unsatisfied yearnings. Even to the cats I feel friendly. When I came in at eleven o'clock to-night they followed me to the door in a stream, and I stooped down to stroke the one nearest to me. Bah! The brute hissed and spat, and struck at me with her paws. The claw caught my hand and drew blood in a thin line. The others danced sideways into the darkness, screeching, as though I had done them an injury. I believe these cats really hate me. Perhaps they are only waiting to be reinforced. ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... all, sir. I know a place, down in the Eastern States, that was called Scratch and Claw, and a ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... half-way up, which at once distinguishes them from any romanesque predecessors; the capitals are round with a projecting moulding half-way up and another one at the top with a curious projection or claw to unite the round cap and the square moulded abacus. Of the different orders of the arch, all well moulded, the outer has a hood with billet-mould; the second a well-developed chevron or zigzag; and the innermost a series of small ...
— Portuguese Architecture • Walter Crum Watson
... lilies of the field wilt with envy. Rainbow effects predominate, and much gilt and silver embroidery, the ravishing impression being further enhanced by a pair of white cotton mitts drawn over her bird-claw hands. On these occasions of state the Sultana rides into town on the back of a slave, with another slave holding a parasol over her august head, and accompanied by several outriders, or rather outwalkers, attired in few clothes ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... go on, Mr. Smith!" says the Hen, laughing pleasant. "Have you so soon forgotten our hunt together last winter—when I came up and shot the grizzly in the ear just as he had you down and was beginning to claw you? And are you not ashamed of yourself, after that, to say that any lion is too ...
— Santa Fe's Partner - Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town • Thomas A. Janvier
... them for his breakfast as he drove the rest away. As Dick sculled easily with one hand, he kept an eye upon Pedro, and obeyed the signals of his hand, to go to the right, the left, or stop, as sponges were seen. Then from time to time the long pole with the claw at the end was lowered to the bottom and ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... to-morrow. In the first and best place, I am very near recovered; that is, though still a mummy, I have no pain left, nor scarce any sensation of gout except in my right hand, which is still in complexion and shape a lobster's claw. Now, unless any body can prove to me that three weeks are longer than five months and a half, they will hardly convince me that the bootikins are not a cure for fits of the gout and a Very short cure, though they cannot prevent it: nor perhaps is it to ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... deal o' shoutin', and old Sammy Strother, as were almost clemmed to death and doubled up with the rheumatics, would sing out, "Joyful! Joyful!" and 'at it were better to go up to heaven in a coal-basket than down to hell i' a coach an' six. And he would put his poor old claw on my shoulder, sayin', "Doesn't tha feel it, tha great lump? Doesn't tha feel it?" An' sometimes I thought I did, and then again I thought I ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... almost on their backs, for the purpose of adhering to the under side of rocks), is very remarkable from the structure of its hind pair of legs. The penultimate joint, instead of terminating in a simple claw, ends in three bristle-like appendages of dissimilar lengths — the longest equalling that of the entire leg. These claws are very thin, and are serrated with the finest teeth, directed backwards: their curved extremities are flattened, and on this part five most minute cups are placed which ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... were quietly bringing down arms to their menfolk on the beach, he thought it better to return to the ship, and sail was made for the Friendly Islands, the Discovery being sent on about a league ahead, as she was better able "to claw off a lee shore than mine." At this time Cook was getting rather short of water, so he set the still to work, and obtained from "13 to 16 gallons of fresh water" between 6 A.M. and 4 P.M. "There has lately been made some IMPROVEMENT, as they are pleased to ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... complement to the survival of the fittest, else had there been no fittest to survive; but the exigencies of proving his theory of the origin of species necessitated his dwelling on the destructive and weeding-out elements of Nature—"Nature red in tooth and claw," rather than the equally pervasive Nature of the brooding wing and the flowing breast. Had not Professor Drummond unfortunately mixed it up with a good deal of extraneous sentiment, his main thesis would ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... mask on her head, and made such an excellent representation of a gigantic specimen of the feline race that the effect was quite appalling. The younger children squealed when she appeared on the field, especially as, to keep up her character, she made an occasional claw at one of them as she passed, or gave vent to a tremendous "Miau!" or "Fuff!" She had decorated her bicycle with chocolate mice, and halted now and then to eat one with great apparent gusto, hugely to the delight ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... begun to claw at him; blearing the wondrous deep-set dark eyes and silvering the classic muzzle and broadening the shapely skull and stiffening the sweepingly free gait; dulling the sharp ears or doing any of the other pitiably tragic things that nature does to the dog who is ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... having mothered him from his birth, worked with him through the long night of agony; and who, when the end came, cut the faded cotton flowers from her hat to put in the tiny claw-like hand that had never touched a real blossom; and it was Nance's heart that broke ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... towards the bird and tried to seize him. She managed to grip one of his feet, as they trailed behind him while he dived, but the grebe escaped, leaving in the assailant's mouth only a morsel of flesh torn from a claw. ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... ears, nor tread on her paw, Lest I should provoke her to use her sharp claw; I never will vex her, nor make her displeased, For Pussy can't bear ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... why his own race was weak and hopeless and helpless. The males of his people were devoid of any such sentiment or self-repression. They were men of the jungle, creatures of tusk and claw and loin. This very act of violence against his person condemned his ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... great numbers in the Nieuw Nederlandts, taking advantage of his mysterious exit, have fabled that, like Romulus, he was translated to the skies, and forms a very fiery little star, somewhere on the left claw of the crab; while others, equally fanciful, declare that he had experienced a fate similar to that of the good King Arthur, who, we are assured by ancient bards, was carried away to the delicious abodes of fairyland, where he still exists in pristine worth ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... sitting-room, Rachel preceding me with my traps, I caught a glimpse of traces of better times. There was a plain wooden mantelpiece, a wide fireplace with big brass andirons, a sideboard with and without brass handles and a limited number of claw feet,—which if brought under the spell of the scraper and varnish-pot might once more regain its lost estate,—a corner-cupboard built into the wall, half full of fragments of old china, and, to do justice to the major's former statement, there was also ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... voice again changing to a tone of intense horror, while he looked the picture of abject terror, his eyeballs rolling and his teeth chattering as before. "Duppy come catchee me, for suah! Dere he am comin' up wid him long claw—dere ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... face suddenly reddened with passion. She raised her claw-like hand and struck the bold girl ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... worrying him as a dog worries a cat. Bruce, even in the desperation driving him, and with a gun in his hand, was little more than a stripling in the hard hands at his wrist and throat. A sudden heave and mighty jerk came close to breaking his arm and freed the pistol from his claw-like fingers. Kendric hurled him back so that Bruce staggered half across the room and crashed to the floor. Before he could come to his feet the pistol had been dropped into ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... him one of her most vicious looks, and clinched her small claw-like hands as though they longed to be at him; but Tony ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... beneath the ruthless 'eel of the alien oppressor. It was this 'ero's genius—and, I may say—er—I may say genius—that, unaided, 'it upon the only way for removing the cruel conqueror from our beloved 'earths and 'omes. It was this 'ero who, 'aving first allowed the invaders to claw each other to 'ash (if I may be permitted the expression) after the well-known precedent of the Kilkenny cats, thereupon firmly and without flinching, stepped bravely in with his fellow-'eros—need I say I allude to our gallant Boy Scouts?—and ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... pain. In Trenholme there was little vestige of that low type of will which we see in lobsters and in many wilful men, who go on clutching whatever they have clutched, whether it be useful or useless, till the claw is cut off. He had not realised that he had fallen from the height of his endeavours before he began to look about eagerly for something that he might sacrifice. But here he was met by the difficulty that proves that in the higher stages of human development honest effort after ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... on horseback threw, Scarce to the Abbot bade adieu; Far less would listen to his prayer, To leave behind the helpless Clare. Down to the Tweed his band he drew, And muttered, as the flood they view, "The pheasant in the falcon's claw, He scarce will yield to please a daw: Lord Angus may the Abbot awe, So Clare shall bide with me." Then on that dangerous ford, and deep, Where to the Tweed Leat's eddies creep, He ventured desperately: And not a moment will he bide, ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... ni[n]-bosh-i-na-na. With the bear's claws I almost hit him. [The Mid[-e] used the bear's claw to work a charm, or exorcism, and would seem to indicate that he claimed the powers of a Wb[)e]n[-o]. The one spoken of is an evil manid[-o], referred to in the preceding line, in which he ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... tuft of black fur in the teeth of the trap," he pointed out. "An' look at them claw marks! Guess that critter's some bigger'n a lynx. May's well stay another night in this camp an' try ter ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... ventures to attack him. In case of danger, he curls himself up into a ball, and defies any one to come near. Not only does he possess the coat of prickles with which he defends himself, but he also has a large perforated claw or spur on each hind foot through which pours an ill-smelling liquid, and these also aid in protecting him. There are several varieties of porcupines which inhabit Asia, Africa, Southern Europe ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... and you are delivering an oration on the human hand, which in the early processes of evolution was only a claw. If you are not careful ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... A Kirghiz will give a good horse for an eagle in which he recognises capacity for training. Mr. Atkinson gives vivid descriptions and illustrations of this eagle (which he calls "Bear coote"), attacking both deer and wolves. He represents the bird as striking one claw into the neck, and the other into the back of its large prey, and then tearing out the liver with its beak. In justice both to Marco Polo and to Mr. Atkinson, I have pleasure in adding a vivid account of the exploits of this bird, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... and half a hundred of the lesser tribes. Sometimes the foreground is rounded masses of kinnikinnik in snowy flower, or again a far-strung growth of the needle bloom, richest and reddest of its tribe—the Athabaska rose. At times it is skirted by tall poplar woods where the claw-marks on the trunks are witness of the many Blackbears, or some tamarack swamp showing signs and proofs that hereabouts a family of Moose had fed to-day, or by a broad and broken trail that told of a Buffalo band passing ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Ambrose, "I should feel only as if he," pointing to the phantom, "were at hand, clutching me with his deadly claw," and he looked over his ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... cocoa-nut—that would be an unnecessary trouble, but only enough off the end where the three eyelets are, to enable it to get at the inside. Having pierced the proper eye with one of its legs it rotates the nut round it until the hole is large enough to admit the point of its great claw, with which it continues the work. This remarkable creature also climbs the palm-trees, but not to gather nuts; that is certain, for its habits have been closely watched and it has been ascertained that it ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... filled with tears, and drawing a penknife from his pocket, he began to stab it into the stuffing of his chair. Scruff, who sat watching the chink of light under the door, turned his head, blinked at him, and began feebly tapping with a claw. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... enough, he would rise in his wrath, chase the cat out into the kitchen, around the back-yard, into the kitchen again, and then, perhaps, have it out with the cat under the sink—without the loss of a hair, the use of a claw, or an angry spit or snarl. Punch and the cat slept together, and dined together, in utter harmony; and the master has often gone up to his own bed, after a solitary cigar, and left them purring and snoring in each other's arms. They assisted at each other's toilets, washed ...
— A Boy I Knew and Four Dogs • Laurence Hutton
... pause, and then the low snarl and growl and clash of tooth and claw! Again the hunter's gnarled hands ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... affinity, of whom I keep a calendar. And look you, sir, thus I go over them. First o'er my uncles: after, o'er mine aunts: then up to my nephews: straight down to my nieces: to this cousin Thomas and that cousin Jeffrey, leaving the courteous claw given to none of their elbows, even unto the third and fourth remove of any that hath interest in our blood. All which do, upon their summons made by me, duly and faithfully provide for appearance. And so, as they are, I hope we shall be, more entirely endeared, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... cannot hide what I am: I must be sad when I have cause, and smile at no man's jests; eat when I have stomach, and wait for no man's leisure; sleep when I am drowsy, and tend on no man's business; laugh when I am merry, and claw ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... so, lad—is that so?" Captain Danny put out a hand like a bird's claw and hooked me by the cuff. "Wasn' there nothing in it about Execution Dock; nothing about ripe medlars—'medlars a-rottin' on the tree'? No?"—for I shook my head. "Well, then, I could be sworn I heard him singin' them ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... rattle, no death agony, properly speaking. He did not claw the bedclothes with his fingers, nor speak, nor cry. No ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse
... the Marmosets, a family peculiar to tropical America, and differing in many essential points of structure and habits from all other apes. They are small in size, and more like squirrels than true monkeys in their manner of climbing. The nails, except those of the hind thumbs, are long and claw-shaped like those of squirrels, and the thumbs of the fore extremities, or hands, are not opposable to the other fingers. I do not mean to imply that they have a near relationship to squirrels, which belong to the Rodents, an inferior order of mammals; their resemblance to those animals ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... sentimental exaggerations of sympathy, which do some injustice to the great Artificer whom we are for the moment assuming to be responsible for sentient life. Many of us are much concerned about "nature, red in tooth and claw." It is a sort of nightmare to us to think of the tremendous fecundity of swamp and jungle, warren and pond, and of the ruthless struggle for existence which has made earth, air, and sea one mighty battle-ground. ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... of practical religion. It is also doubtful whether he is intentionally humorous in his most fantastic prose, such, for instance, as his likening the Rev. Mr. Partridge to the bird of that name, who, because he "had no defence neither of beak nor claw," took "a flight over the ocean" to escape his ecclesiastical hunters, and finally "took wing to become a bird of paradise, along with the winged seraphim ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... with peril of my life, And blind you with my exhortations, Cyclops. Hasten and thrust, 660 And parch up to dust, The eye of the beast Who feeds on his guest. Burn and blind The Aetnean hind! 665 Scoop and draw, But beware lest he claw Your ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... manners. bot and] and also. scho wynnit] she dwelt. bigly] well-built. fold] earth. paramour] lovingly. our allquhair] all the world over. a lyt besyde] a little, (i.e. close) beside. of ane] as any. kest] cast. dungering] dungeon. into hir waine] in her lodging. hellis cruk] hell-claw. quhill] until. dungin doun] beaten down. his awin persoun] himself. withouten feir] without companion. the bricht] the fair one. likame] body. lowsit hir of bandoun] loosed her from thraldom. quert] prison. coft] bought. straitly ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... eager hound, and called us "uncle." His father came the summer's end to take him away, but the boy had no lust to go, because of the otter-hunting, and he stayed on till the fox-hunting. I gave him a bittern's claw to bring him good luck at shooting. An imp, ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... called out to them that I could hear very well where I was. The skipper started swearing, as hoarse as a crow. He wasn't going to talk at the top of his voice for my accommodation. 'Are you afraid they will hear you on shore?' I asked. He glared as if he would have liked to claw me to pieces. The chief engineer advised him to humour me. He said I wasn't right in my head yet. The other rose astern, like a thick pillar of ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... which the major portion of its length is hidden and hence is not here shown. The bipartite structure coming from the animal's head doubtless represents the mouthparts, and at its base on either side arise antennae. The first pair only of legs is shown with a pinching claw, possibly intended as a conventionalized hand, while the rest are simple. The plumes decorating the posterior extremity are of course extraneous and represent the tail ...
— Animal Figures in the Maya Codices • Alfred M. Tozzer and Glover M. Allen
... strange reflections must that spectacle inspire him! The outstretched arms lying helpless along the earth—the claw-like fingers now stiff and nerveless—he may be thinking how they once clutched a cowhide, vigorously laying it on his own ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... of the powerful claw and one side of the lad's clothes was literally stripped from him, though he had managed to shrink back just far enough to save himself from the needle ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... road from Venice, and carved with fantastic hunting scenes by Hainault craftsmen. Its hangings were stiff brocaded silver, and above the pillows a great unicorn's horn, to protect against poisoning, stood out like the beak of a ship. The horn cast an odd shadow athwart the bed, so that a big claw seemed to lie on the coverlet curving towards the throat of her who lay there. The parish priest had noticed this at his first coming that evening, and had muttered ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... claw of the hammer underneath the edge of the board top and wrenched with all his might. The boards had been clamped together by a transverse bar and the whole top of the box came away in one piece. A layer of excelsior was disclosed, and on it a letter addressed by typewriter to Annixter. It ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... pretence: then after a while the other went to fetch her back, and neither returning, I clapped hand to purse and found it empty: the ungrateful creatures, I was letting them win it in a gallop: but loaded dice were not quick enough; they must claw it all ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... dreams of tenderest bud; Gaze on the heart Of its fetidity, This wreck of me, And sing. O God, what death, in eyes so bound, They see Life's beauty in her draining wound! Lay thou the blind thing down With saurian tusk and bone, With dust of sworded maw And peril's fossil claw, Lest sexton Earth even Man inter, nor trover Of after-law untomb for ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan
... the grip and had felt it before; no claw of desert beast was firmer or more unrelenting. Young Hortensius felt his whole body give way, his very bones crack beneath that mighty grip. His head, overheated with wine, fell back against the cushions of his couch, and ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... head and chirp to him as if he were a feathered brother. There was nothing about the building of nests with which he was not familiar. He could have taken hold and helped if the birds had not been so shy, and if he had had beak and claw instead of clumsy fingers. He would sit near a beehive for hours without moving, or lie prone in the sandy road, under the full glare of the sun, watching the ants acting out their human comedy; sometimes surrounding a favorite hill with stones, that the ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... old dumb-duck!" shrieked his little daughter. "What did you come here and spoil everything for? He'd have had to marry me tomorrow if you'd minded your own business. I'll claw your eyes out." But her hands were imprisoned in her father's hard fists, and she turned and spat at the petrified Clavering. "I hate you! I hate you! But I'm going to marry you all the same. One ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... on the jail man, an' hit'll claw 'im," announced Beezy, reckless of distance and likelihood. "My old rooster can claw dest awful, ef he ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... That is—in the girls' eyes. Men see differently. And he's rich, or he will be, though, for me, I would not care what money a man had if the devil had his claw in it, mon Gyu, no! But there you are, mon gars. There is he with all that, and here are you with nothing but just your honest face and your good heart and your two strong arms. And what I want to know is—what are you going to ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... hapless Nymph with wonder saw; A whisker first, and then a claw With many an ardent wish She stretch'd, in vain, to reach the prize— What female heart can gold despise? What ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... hands of mine that the unnumbered years Evolved from hoof and wing and claw and fin, 'T is ours to bring from out the stress and tears, A ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... the moon from sight. Now a bright beam escaping through some chance opening in the leaves, quivered along the path, and scared the wolf in his midnight wanderings. Out again upon the open track through the soft grass, and winding around the wild maguey, or under the claw-shaped thorns of the musquit. A deer sprung from his lair among the soft flowers—looked back for a moment at the strange intruders, and frightened at the gleaming steel, dashed off into the thicket. The woods are not silent by night, as in the colder regions of the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... foot diverge still more from those of the Gorilla, than they do in the Orang. The thumb ceases to be opposable in the American monkeys; is reduced to a mere rudiment covered by the skin in the Spider Monkey; and is directed forwards and armed with a curved claw like the other digits, in the Marmosets—so that, in all these cases, there can be no doubt but that the hand is more different from that of the Gorilla than the Gorilla's hand ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... toward the man she was addressing, for the first time during all those weary, hideous hours removing her glance from the old hag. It was enough. Silently, but with the quickness of a tigress the old woman was upon her back, one claw-like paw grasping the wrist which ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... thee," said Leh Shin, scratching his loose sleeves with his long, claw-like fingers. "But thy friend, the Burman, who spoke beforehand of thy coming, and who still recalls the mixture of his opium pipe, I cannot remember." He hunched his shoulders. "Yet even that is not strange. My house by the river is a house of many faces, yet ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... the business was difficult enough. He had to work one of his arms out after his shoulders and then, twisting round, strain and claw at the smooth overhang of the stern until able to catch the outer ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... him but the old man's nose, Quite unabashed. The Bear, provoked, no means would leave untried; At last, a vigorous, certain mode, he chose: Extending wide his heavy paw, And thrusting hard each crooked claw, The fly was smashed: But his poor patron's face, so roughly patted, All streamed with blood, and smooth his nose ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... was delighted to have them return, and at once set to work to hunt and kill one of every kind of bird and animal. It took him many days to do this, but at last all were gathered. He took a claw of some birds, a wing of others, a tail of some animals, and the feet of others. Then they all stepped into the basket and it took them ...
— Thirty Indian Legends • Margaret Bemister
... some time. Then he got up stiffly and shuffled out on his tottering legs, scraping his feet for purchase on the floor, like some old claw-footed animal. ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... saints du paradis, peut-etre?" And Marianne and Lizette would slink away to the waiting beds. Nothing escaped this eye. If the poule sultane was gone lame, limping in the inner quadrangle, madame's eye saw the trouble—a thorn in the left claw, before the feathered cripple had had time to reach her objective point, her mistress's capacious lap, and the healing touch of her skilful surgeon's fingers. Neither were the cockatoes nor the white parrots given license to make all the noise in the court-yard. When madame had an unusually loquacious ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... his tongue, Achmet Zek loosened the tie strings which closed the mouth of the pouch, and cupping one claw-like hand poured forth a portion of the contents ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... kangarooing. Killed an immense fellow: when standing on his hind legs fighting with me and the dogs, he was a foot higher than myself. He ran at me, and nearly gave me a desperate dig with his claw, which tore my only good hunting-shirt miserably. Smashed ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... it must be to the colonial ghosts when they stumble in the dark over great claw feet, cold even as their own; the feet of monstrous hollow things, white and awesome as themselves—the things that moderns ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... Our modern repugnance to the vulture as feeding on carcasses was probably not felt by the singer of this song. What he brings into view are the characteristics common to the eagle and the vulture; superb strength in beak and claw, keenness of vision almost incredible, magnificent sweep of pinion and power of rapid, unwearied flight. And these characteristics, we may say, have their analogues in the divine nature, and the emblem not unfitly shadows forth ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... yuh needn't go t' work an' git mad about it," remonstrated the Countess, dropping her thread in her perturbation at his excitement. The spool rolled under the bed and she was obliged to get down upon her knees and claw it back, and she jarred the bed and set Chip's foot to ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... Captain Brent's senior pilot. His skin hung on his face in folds, like that of a rhinoceros It was very much the same color. His grizzled hair was all lengths, like a worn-out mop; his hand reminded one of an eagle's claw, and his teeth were a pine yellow. He greeted only such people as he deemed worthy of notice, but he had held Virginia in ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... by bringing Cocky along. Thus, when a waiter did not fetch the right number of glasses, Michael would remain quite still, until Cocky, at a privy signal from Steward, standing on one leg, with the free claw would clutch Michael's neck and apparently talk into Michael's ear. Whereupon Michael would look about the glasses on the table and begin his usual expostulation with ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... Nancy Almar, the two beautiful American Society dames whose duel for the affections of the eligible hero form the plot, the whole plot and nothing but the plot of Miss ALICE DUER MILLER's latest book. Nature red in tooth and claw has not mothered them—they are too well-bred for that; they simply bite with their tongues. Mrs. Almar, who is married and purely piratical, comes off worst in the encounter, and the more artful Christine, ultimately falling in love with the object of her artifices, becomes ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various
... went first, and was safely lodged before I arrived. She did not disturb you, I dare say, as I did; for she sails along like a swan: but I have got the gout in my left claw, and that's the reason I puff and groan so ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... dimity frock which showed the perfect curves of her figure to charming advantage. Uncle Zeb, with characteristic leisure, was in no hurry to begin. He twisted the screws and thrummed the strings in a very wise manner. At length the instrument was tuned to his satisfaction, and then his claw-like fingers began to move with astonishing rapidity. I looked at Salome. She was standing perfectly still. Then, as the music quickened, I saw her supple body begin to sway, like a lily's stem when a zephyr breathes upon ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... the cougar skin that afternoon. The gristle at the base of the neck, where it met the shoulders, was so tough and thick we could not scrape it thin. Jones said this particular spot was so well protected because in fighting, cougars were most likely to bite and claw there. For that matter, the whole skin was tough, tougher than leather; and when it dried, it pulled all the horseshoe nails out of the pine tree upon ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... feeding the parrot with a bit of cake, and as I spoke, she turned toward me and waved one of her wiry little hands, which reminded me of a bird's claw, under its ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... the men, about 1300 in number, employed at the iron works of Messrs. Hawks, Crawshay, and Co., at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. These works were founded in 1754 by William Hawks, a blacksmith, whose principal trade consisted in making claw-hammers for joiners. He became a thriving man, and eventually a large manufacturer of bar-iron. Partners joined him, and in the course of the changes wrought by time, one of the Crawshays, in 1842, became a principal partner in ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... his claw-like hand—so dirty that Pollie almost shrank from touching it as she gave him the violets. He took them without a word of thanks, but as she was moving away he ...
— Little Pollie - A Bunch of Violets • Gertrude P. Dyer
... and no longer am: I know not for what reason the Vineyard has lost its season." Her husband, who heard this, replied: "Vineyard thou wast and Vineyard thou art, loved thou wast and no longer art: the Vineyard has lost its season for the lion's claw." The king, who understood what he meant, answered: "I entered the Vineyard, I touched the leaves, but I swear by my crown that I have not tasted the fruit." Then the steward understood that his wife was innocent, and the two made peace and ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... of the good services of Mr. Calvert during our expedition, and which I feel much pleasure in recording. We saw two emus, and Brown killed one of them, with the assistance of the dog, which received a severe cut in the neck from the sharp claw of the bird. ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... more left for another season. The ship is in a category, and he will be an impudent scoundrel who denies it; but worse categories than this have been reasoned out of countenance. All head-sail is not a convenient show of cloth to claw off a lee-shore with; but I still hope to escape the misfortune of laying eyes on the coast ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... individual and transforms him first and foremost. The power is 'to every one that believeth.' It is power in its most universal sweep. Rome's Empire was wellnigh ubiquitous, but, blessed be God, the dove of Christ flies farther than the Roman eagle with beak and claw ready for rapine, and wherever there are men here is a Gospel for them. The limitation is no limitation of its universality. It is no limitation of the claim of a medicine to be a panacea that it will only do good to the man who swallows it. And that is the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... packed closely together, their wings held in place by a strip of thin paper. They must all be mounted—the insects quivering upon brass wire, the humming-birds with their feathers ruffled; they must be cleansed and polished, the beak in a bright red, claw repaired with a silk thread, dead eyes replaced with sparkling pearls, and the insect or the bird restored to an appearance of life and grace. The mother prepared the work under her daughter's direction; for Desiree, though she was still a mere girl, was endowed ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... to see," explained the young woodsman. "When a gopher goes down his hole, he simply draws in his flippers and slides, but when he wants to get out he has to claw his way up. You'll see the first hole has the sand pressed smooth at the entrance, while the sand in the other hole shows the mark of the flippers. That third hole is easy, too; you can see the coon tracks if you look close, and you will notice that the claws point outward. The ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... beast his kindness understood, Fix'd on his robe a claw, And gently to the neighb'ring wood, Appear'd her ...
— Ballads - Founded On Anecdotes Relating To Animals • William Hayley
... Sep! Mind he don't nip you!" they shouted; and after a minute's hesitation I plunged my hand into the hole again, knowing that I must feel for a safe place to get hold of the claw-armed creature, so that I should not have to suffer a severe pinch or ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... a weird creature, which looked as if nature had begun an insect and then changed her mind and finished it off like a crab. This thing, with the ferocious claw-like nose and chin, was a female Rhinoceros beetle, so the owner explained. The male beetle appeared to be a harmless, mild concern of much smaller size, and with no warlike appendages whatever. I never saw any insect of the sterner sex labour under such crushing disadvantages. ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... he, proudly, "a lobster! A lobster, Ernest! Where is Fritz! Take care it does not bite you, Francis!" They all crowded round in astonishment. "Yes," added he, triumphantly, "here is the impertinent claw that seized me; but I repaid ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... has sunk from high to low and is branded with the convict's mark, Vautrin is yet capable of affection of a certain kind; but, in the mind and heart of the youth he would fain advantage, he is capable only of inculcating the law of tooth and claw. "A rapid fortune is the problem that fifty thousand young men are at present trying to solve who find themselves in your position," he says to Rastignac. "You are a single one among this number. Judge of the efforts you ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... hastily laid the coat across the alien's knees. "Keep 'em out of the dirt for me, will you, brother? I'm notional about good cloth!" He pushed his silk hat into the man's hand and then he stripped off the claw-hammer and white waistcoat, piled them upon the overcoat; and whirled ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... bits of offal, and making occasional fruitless dashes at the nimble little silver arrows which played round them. And at last his whole soul, too tired to think of anything else, became absorbed in a mighty struggle between two great crabs, who held on stoutly, each by a claw, to his respective bunch of seaweed, while with the others they tugged, one at the head and the other at the tail of a dead fish. Which would conquer?.... Ay, which? And for five minutes Philammon was alone in the world with the two struggling heroes.... Might ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... her knees and burst into tears. La Bougival closed the old man's eyes and straightened him on the bed; then she ran to call Savinien; but the heirs, who stood at the corner of the street, like crows watching till a horse is buried before they scratch at the ground and turn it over with beak and claw, flocked in with the celerity of birds ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... kept her word and never tried to get away. Jack put a little handle on her cage door so that she could open and shut it herself, and it was very amusing to hear her say in the morning, "Clear the track, children! Bella's going to take a walk," and see her turn the handle with her claw and come out into the room. She was a very clever bird, and I have never seen any creature but a human being that could reason as she did. She was so petted and talked to that she got to know a great many words, and on one occasion she saved ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... your brother, who must remain in that stall and get fat; when he is fat enough I shall eat him." Grethel began to cry, but it was all useless, for the old witch made her do as she wished. So a nice meal was cooked for Hansel, but Grethel got nothing but a crab's claw. ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... ni[n]-bosh/-i-na/-na. With the bear's claws I almost hit him. [The Mid[-e]/ used the bear's claw to work a charm, or exorcism, and would seem to indicate that he claimed the powers of a W[^a]b[)e]n[-o]/. The one spoken of is an evil man/id[-o], referred to in the preceding line, in which he ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman
... a neighbouring bush. 'I thought I should only be in the way if I kept close to you. But I longed to lend a claw in such good work. Can I ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... A genius she certainly was, for besides her surprising agility, she had other talents equally extraordinary. There was no fence that she could not take down; nowhere that she could not go. She took the pickets off the garden fence at her pleasure, using her horns as handily as I could use a claw hammer. Whatever she had a mind to, whether it were a bite in the cabbage garden, or a run in the corn patch, or a foraging expedition into the flower borders, she made herself equally welcome and at home. Such a scampering ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... secures a few other fish, and once in a while a turtle, which enlarges the mesh to suit, and gives sweet liberty to the shad. To focus exclusively on dollars is to secure jealousy, fear, vanity, and a vaulting ambition that may claw its way through the mesh and let your dollars slip ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... of the West and East. Even in this century Hedenstroem, the otherwise sagacious traveller on the Siberian Polar Sea, believed that the fossil rhinoceros' horns were actual, "grip-claws." For he mentions in his oft-quoted work, that he had seen such a claw 20 verschoks (0.9 metre) in length, and when he visited St. Petersburg in 1830, the scientific men there did not succeed in convincing him that his ideas ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... if astonishment were a new sensation to him, and he was determined to have the most of it. Meanwhile, little parrot taking advantage of his absence of mind, clambers up his breast and nips off a shirt-button, which he holds in his claw, pretending it is immensely good to eat. Hut-keeper clatters pots and pans, while yellow hair lies down whistling insolently. These last two seem inclined to constitute themselves his Majesty's Opposition in the present matter, while Black-hair and the neat man are evidently inclined towards Frank. ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... and the faithful dog strained all of his energies to overtake the chase, and when he again got within a few yards of it, up went a claw, and we could hear the powerful blow that descended upon the dog's head, and sent him rolling over and over again, and this time a slight yelp told that he was ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... his niece of my adventure of the afternoon, and suddenly I observed that Mr. Cazalette, on the other side of the round table at which we sat, had stopped eating, and that, knife and fork still in his queer, claw-like hands, he was peering at me under the shaded lamps, his black, burning eyes full of a strange, absorbed interest. ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... untoward attachment to Marionetta. He condoled on the occasion with Mr Toobad; who said, that he had been too long accustomed to the intermeddling of the devil in all his affairs, to be astonished at this new trace of his cloven claw; but that he hoped to outwit him yet, for he was sure there could be no comparison between his daughter and Marionetta in the mind of any one who had a proper perception of the fact, that, the world being a great theatre of evil, seriousness and solemnity are the characteristics ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... God sends in middle of that dance, And I behold the countenance Of Michael, and can feel no more The bitter east wind biting sore My naked feet; can see no more The crayfish on the leaden floor, That mock with feeler and grim claw. ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... France that dissolution of all authority, whether of State or Church, for which Rousseau had pined. He saw it result in the return of a portion of mankind to what we now believe to have been their primitive state, a state in which they were 'red in tooth and claw.' It was not that paradisaic state of love and innocence, which, curiously enough, both Rousseau and the theologians seem to have ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... crimes in detail, but he loses his sense of their relative places in the whole social economy. When science collects facts to illustrate the struggle for existence that is going on in the kingdom of life, it raises a picture in our minds of "nature red in tooth and claw." But in these mental pictures we give a fixity to colours and forms which are really evanescent. It is like calculating the weight of the air on each square inch of our body to prove that it must be crushingly heavy for us. With every weight, however, there is an adjustment, ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore
... up and sleeping a watchful sleep; Spain, with Portugal as a pennant, like an unfurled banner, floated from the extremity of the continent; Turkey, like an insolent cock, appeared to clutch the shores of Asia with the one claw, and the land of Greece with the other; Italy, as it were a foot and leg encased in a tight-fitting boot, was juggling deftly with the islands of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica; Prussia, a formidable hatchet imbedded in the heart of Germany, ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... completed, with many heavy articles made in London from a rare wood just then come into fashion, not so rare now, and commonly known as mahogany. Time had turned it very dark, and the stately bedsteads and tall cabinets and claw-footed chairs and tables were in keeping with the sober dignity of the ancient mansion. The old "hangings" were yet preserved in the chambers, faded, but still showing their rich patterns,—properly entitled to their name, for they were literally hung upon flat wooden ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... them with delight and wonder, When they brought home some 'special plunder; Call'd them her darlings, and her white boys, Her ducks, her dildings—all was right boys— "Only," she said, "my lads, have care Ye fall not into BLACK BACK'S snare; For, if he catch, he'll maul your corpus, And clapper-claw you to some purpose." She was in truth a kind of witch, Had grown by fortune-telling rich; To spells and conjurings did tackle her, And read folks' dooms by light oracular; In which she saw, as clear as daylight, What mischief on her bairns would a-light; Therefore she had a special ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... high, craggy, barren rocks, which in appearance very much resemble Staten Land. When I had got so near as to discover the low land, I was quite embayed, and if it had blown hard at S.W. so great a sea must have rolled in here as would have rendered it almost impossible to claw off the shore; all ships, therefore, that may hereafter navigate these parts, should avoid falling in with it. The seals and birds here are innumerable; we saw also many whales spouting about us, several of which were of an enormous size. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... carnivorous form of tooth necessitating a certain action of the jaw, implies a particular form in its condyles; implies also limbs fit for seizing and holding prey; therefore implies claws, a certain structure of the leg-bones, a certain form of shoulder-blade. Summing up he says, that "the claw, the scapula, the condyle, the femur, and all the other bones, taken separately, will give the tooth or one another; and by commencing with any one, he who had a rational conception of the laws of the organic economy, ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... gaed up, like spur an' whip, Till Fraser brave did fa', man; Then lost his way, ae misty day, In Saratoga shaw, man. Cornwallis fought as lang's he dought, An' did the Buckskins claw, man; But Clinton's glaive frae rust to save, He hung it to the ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... both sexes, within a given range, and through these the broken links may be restored. Audubon or Wilson, I forgot which, tells a pair of fish-hawks, or ospreys, that built their nest in an ancient oak. The male was so zealous in the defence of the young that it actually attacked with beak and claw a person who attempted to climb into his nest, putting his face and eyes in great jeopardy. Arming himself with a heavy club, the climber felled the gallant bird to the ground and killed him. In the course of a few days, the female had procured another ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... part which infused blood into a school dying of the anaemia of conventional art. Whoever beholds a work of Manet's, even without knowing the conditions of his life, will feel that there is something great, the lion's claw which Delacroix had recognised as far back as 1861, and to which, it is said, even the great Ingres had paid homage on the jury which ...
— The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair
... testy when indigestion had him in its claw, and his tone gave warning that this was a bad moment Still Petro was bursting with his subject. He could not bear to postpone the fight. Instead of putting it off, he resolved to be exceedingly careful ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... hand holds an instrument which deserves a passing comment. It is a trephine, a surgical implement for cutting round pieces out of broken skulls, so as to get at the fragments which have been driven in, and lift them up. It has a handle like that of a gimlet, with a claw like a hammer, to lift with, I suppose, which last contrivance I do not see figured in my books. But the point I refer to is this: the old instrument, the trepan, had a handle like a wimble, what we call a brace or bit-stock. The trephine is not mentioned at all ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... lying upon his back in the red dust, swinging flail-like blows into empty air, and upon him, in leopard-like crouch, pressing him to the earth, the man whom he had so wantonly attacked. And his throat was compressed in those brown, lean, muscular fingers, as in a claw of steel. It was horrible. His eyes were starting from his head; his face grew blue, then black; his swollen tongue protruded hideously. His struggles were terrific, yet, powerful of frame as he was, he seemed like a child in the ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... heart. As you handed them food and saw their little claw-like hands clutch at it, and as you saw them devour it like starved animals, the while clutching at a dirty but much-loved doll, somehow you could not see for the mists in your eyes as you walked up and down the ...
— Soldier Silhouettes on our Front • William L. Stidger
... erecting in the camp a stage of planks, and performing thereon a rude mystery-play. The play thus improvised by a handful of troopers before this motley invading army: before the feudal cavalry of Burgundy, strange steel monsters, half bird, half reptile, with steel beaked and winged helmets and claw-like steel shoes, and jointed steel corselet and rustling steel mail coat; before the infantry of Gascony, rapid and rapacious with their tattered doublets and rag-bound feet; before the over-fed, immensely plumed, and slashed and furbelowed giants of Switzerland, and the ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... nimble shanks, Nor once turned back to give her thanks: A hue and cry the thief pursued, Who, to his cost, soon understood That he was not beyond the claw Of that same ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... red handkerchief, tied under the wrinkled chin and framing a face seamed and crisscrossed with a million wrinkles. An old, tattered shawl covered her bent shoulders, and the hand that grasped the knotted stick was claw-like and emaciated. Her eyes were the only part of her that seemed to retain some semblance of youth. They were little and beady and exceedingly keen, so that when she raised them to Betty's young ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope
... slightest spreading to that approximating forty-five degrees. It is found widely scattered among the barefoot mountain tribes of northern Luzon. The people say it is due to mountain climbing, and their explanation is probably correct, as the great toe is used much as is a claw in securing a footing on the slippery, steep trails during the rainy reason. Fa'-wing occurs quite as commonly with women as with men, and in Ambuklao, Benguet Province, I saw a boy of 8 or 9 years whose great toes were spread half as ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... have found it too often in mine without better cause. With this unrest I was, however, better pleased than if comfortable self-contentment had been their prominent feature. I compare it to the claw by which I recognize the lion; but now I call out to you, Show us the complete lion: in other words, write or finish soon ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... a trill of laughter. "Here is one that talketh very loud and fool-like and flourisheth iron claw to no purpose, since I heed one no more ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... as brown as a bun, And the sands are baking, it's very nice To feel as cool as a strawberry ice In one's own particular damp sea-cave, Dipping one's feelers in each green wave. It is good, for a very rapacious maw, When storm-tossed morsels come to the claw; And 'the better to see with' down below, To wash one's eyes in the ebb and flow Of the tides that come and the tides that go." So sang the Lobsters, thankful for their mercies, All but the hero of these ...
— Verses for Children - and Songs for Music • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... invisible, but the bird advances with so much precaution that he is often able to seize the crab before he has time to hide himself. If the raven fails he turns the shell over and over until the impatient crustacean allows a claw to emerge; he is then seized and ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... affection next I strove To coll an ash I saw, And he in trust received my love; Till with my soft green claw I cramped and bound him as I wove . . . Such ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... opening a corner of the brown shawl, he displayed a child of three so pale, so thin and tiny that she looked like a small scared bird just fallen from the nest as she shrank away from the light with great frightened eyes and a hand like a little claw tightly clutched a button ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... Gianbattista would come back to his old ways, to his old scorn of priests in general, of churches, of oppression, of everything that Marzio hated. He might marry Lucia then, and be welcome. After all, he was a finer fellow for the pretty girl than Gasparo Carnesecchi, with his claw fingers and his vinegar salad. That was only a farce, that proposal about the lawyer—the real thing was to get rid of Paolo. There could be no healthy liberty of thought in the house while this fellow ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... May before the leaves, in lateral, 2-3-flowered, slender-stemmed umbels; flowers about an inch broad, white when expanding, turning to pink; calyx 5-lobed, glandular; petals 5, obovate-oblong, contracting to a claw; stamens numerous; style 1, ...
— Handbook of the Trees of New England • Lorin Low Dame |
