"Clench" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... got blue with rage. I saw him clench his fists as I swept out of the room, making as much noise with my train ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... in a wrestling bout with the strong and wiry girl he sometimes came out second best. It spoke well of him that he seemed to be careful not to hurt Bo. He never bit or scratched, though he sometimes gave her sounding slaps with his paws. Whereupon, Bo would clench her gauntleted fists and sail ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... space. And—Ulana was gone! She had slipped from his grasp in the coughing fit and he could not find her with his wildly searching hands. Another betraying cough over there. The green-bronze ones were between them. He saw one of them draw back in amazement, then clench ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... fasten itself upon him. In a general way it had been clear to him a few moments before; now, detail by detail, it closed in upon him, and his muscles tightened, and Father Layonne saw his jaw set hard and his hands clench. Death was gone. But the mockery of it, the grim exultation of the thing over the colossal trick it had played, seemed to din an infernal laughter in his ears. But—he was going to live! That was the one fact that rose above all others. No matter what happened ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... with your heart in it, You to the Mother Country proffer. Beshrew the cynic would-be wit. Who coldly chuckles at the offer! BRITANNIA takes it, with a grip That on the sword, at need, can clench too, too! She will not that warm grasp let slip, Health, boys of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., August 23, 1890. • Various
... arms straight out on each side, clench your fists, and then smartly bend your elbows so that you almost strike yourself on both shoulders, and repeat ...
— The Child's Day • Woods Hutchinson
... again she became convinced that he had ceased to love her, that he was more concerned over his burnt printery. She twisted his letters against him. She would sit in her room trying to work at her school papers, and suddenly she would clench her fists, turn pale, and stare despairingly at ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... excitedly. Then another thought made her clench her fists. "Is it possible you told Professor Schillingschen your secret to-day? Did one of you tell him? Is that why ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... muscles of any member, each opposed set exerting the same degree of strength? No motion of the member results, but the member is brought on tension and stiffened. This is well illustrated in the case of the arm. Extend the arm and clench the fist; then contract all the muscles of the arm, about as the athlete does to display his muscular development. You will notice that the arm ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... i' summer, I nussed him on my knees; An' Mike browt home at lowsin'-time Wild rasps an' strawberries. We used to sit on t' door-sill I' t' leet o' t' harvist-moon, While our lile Doad would clench his fists An' ...
— Songs of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... at Joseph's humble bench Thy hands did handle saw and plane, Thy hammer nails did drive and clench, ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... know about it? Jack Corey, the bandit, is treed up at the lookout station! He told me all the inside dope—" The thought of her animated chatter to Fred on the subject of his one real tragedy, made him clench his hands. ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... To clench the matter by chapter and verse, I should like to recall what, I have said of these theories and principles in their most perfect and most important literary version. How have I described Rousseau's Social Contract? It placed, I said, the centre ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... were sustained, but we vied with one another in bringing all our grit and patience to bear; scarcely a complaint was heard, although one or other of us would be driven almost sick with pain as the sledge cannoned into this or that man's heel with a thud that made the victim clench his teeth to avoid ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... how tears came. You almost never cried; and what a good baby you were—oh, a blessed baby!—and I tried to repay you by not worrying you with too many kisses, with too much loving, which I'm sure is not good for a child. Sometimes I had to clench my hands, so strong was my desire to take you up and clasp you tight. Then how quickly you began to grow; and before long my letters and intimate conversation began to be filled with what "Rob said this morning;" and you did say such delightful things! I never knew so naively ...
— The Smart Set - Correspondence & Conversations • Clyde Fitch
... in morals, turns out to be nothing but a verbal antithesis. What was paraded, as a kind of transcendental analogy between things not before suspected of resemblance, discovered by the "spiritual insight" of the moral seer, is in fact no more than a grave clench,—a solemn quibble,—a conceit; arising not from the perfection of mind, but the imperfection of language. Those conceptions, fabricated by Fancy out of the materials that Fancy deals in, and colored by the rays of a poetic sentiment, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... Plank to be fastened with good well seasoned Treenails, and one 1/2 inch Copper Bolt in every Butt from the Keel up to the Wales, to go through and clench on a Ring on the Ceiling, and the Treenails drove through the Ceiling, wedged on ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... continuous political changes, the constant "saving of the country," which to his wife seemed a puerile and bloodthirsty game of murder and rapine played with terrible earnestness by depraved children. In the early days of her Costaguana life, the little lady used to clench her hands with exasperation at not being able to take the public affairs of the country as seriously as the incidental atrocity of methods deserved. She saw in them a comedy of naive pretences, but hardly anything genuine except ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... groans, and tears, in direct struggles with it, and is thereby far sooner overthrown by the inflexible enemy with whom he is engaged. Once overthrown, his struggles cease. Louis could not hold out more than a few minutes, at the end of which he had ceased to clench his hands, and to burn up with his looks the invisible objects of his hatred; he soon ceased to attack with his violent imprecations not M. Fouquet alone, but even La Valliere herself: from fury he subsided ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... the miserable second mate; recalled the fact that the wretched man had been doomed to a speedy and degrading death by the same individuals who were now sitting in judgment upon him; and a shameful panic took possession of him. An uncontrollable shivering fit seized his frame, he was obliged to clench his teeth together, to prevent them from chattering audibly; he glanced wildly round him as if seeking for some means of escape; and, after two or three ineffectual efforts to speak, he managed to gasp out brokenly through his clenched teeth ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... near now, so near they could have touched, and the cowman tried to brace himself, tried to prepare for that which he knew was coming, which he read on the page of that other face. But he was too late. Watching, almost doubting their own eyes, the six saw the end. They saw a dark hand of a sudden clench, shoot out like a brown light. They heard an impact, and a second later the thud of a great body as it met the floor. They saw the latter lift, stumble clumsily to its feet, heard a muffled, choking oath. Then for a second ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... of bliss across her memory fled, Like lights that haunt the chambers of the dead, She saw the bower, and read the image there Of joys that had been, and of woes that were; She clench'd her hand in agony, and cast A glance of tears upon it as she past, A look of weeping sorrow—'twas the last! She check'd the gush of feeling, turned her face, And faster sped along her hurried ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake
... the flying train, with their hair unbraided and their garters ungyved,—not a negro left to till the fields, nor a son or brother who had not travelled to the wars. They must be now hewers of wood, and drawers of water, and the fingers whereon diamonds used to sparkle, must clench the axe and ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... damnation' (iii. 200). And indeed we cannot deny that when reading some of the sermons to which poor Phebe Bartlet must have listened, and remembering the nature of the audience, the fingers of an unregenerate person clench themselves involuntarily as grasping an imaginary horsewhip. The answer given by Edwards does not diminish the impression. Innocent as children may seem to be, he replies, 'yet if they are out of Christ, they are not so in God's sight, ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... scene of such terrific grandeur lay That reeled the brain at what the eyes beheld; The hands would clench involuntarily And clutch from intuition for support; The eyes by instinct closed, nor dared to gaze On such an awful and ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... instinct how to shield myself from the blow I saw descending: if I had nothing else, I had my two fists, and used them with all my force against my foe: no one taught me how to do it, on the contrary they beat me if they saw me clench my fists. And a knife, I remember, I never could resist: I clutched the thing whenever I caught sight of it: not a soul showed me how to hold it, only nature herself, I do aver. I did it, not because I was taught to do it, but in spite of being forbidden, ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... enemy and wipe out all other thoughts, and he would wrestle in his heart with the desire to kill Wainwright—yes, and the captain, too. As some poor wretch near him would writhe and groan in agony his rage would boil up anew, his fists would clench, and he would half rise to go to the door and overpower that guard! If only he could get up to where the officers were enjoying themselves! Oh, to bring them down here and bind them in this loathsome atmosphere, feed them with this food, stifle them in the ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... flash. I could see the muscles of his hand clench against his knee. I had scored a point, and his anger ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Majesty for an early opportunity," quoth Rupert airily; and he strode past Sapt with such jeering scorn on his face that I saw the old fellow clench his fist and scowl black ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... too kindly. Why didst thou let so many Norsemen hence? Thy fierce forekings had clench'd their pirate hides To the bleak church doors, like kites ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... "I saw her clench her teeth, and the flame of revolt rise in her face. He drew back his gnarled fist to strike, and I was afraid, and sick at heart. I could do nothing to prevail against him. So I got up to go, and not be witness to such indignity. ...
— The Scarlet Plague • Jack London
... grew dark, and the hand which he held to his injured face twitched as if the fingers were trying to clench themselves and form a fist for their owner's defence; but the boy did not stir, only sat looking at his cousin, who now struck an attitude, made two or three feints, and then dashed forward hitting out sharply, catching Tom in the chest, and knocking him backward so heavily that it was his ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... very frequently, and I could not but be struck by the effect of this blow upon his temperament. After the first shock of sorrow, I observed in him the determination not to allow himself to be crushed. His dominant vitality asserted itself almost with violence, and he seemed to clench his tooth in defiance of the assault on his individuality. It required on the part of so old a man no little fortitude, for it is easier to bear a great and heroic bereavement than to resist the wearing vexation of ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... care that the rosy little homunculus seemed to require, so strenuously did he clench his fists, and bawl as though he were minded to challenge the ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... is childish nonsense!" In doing so he tilted the chair over, so that it balanced for an instant on its hind legs, and then fell with an awful crash, which caused him to leap at least three feet forward, clench his fists, and wheel round with a look of fury that would certainly have put to flight ...
— Fort Desolation - Red Indians and Fur Traders of Rupert's Land • R.M. Ballantyne
... and he looked a little foolish, but Clench, the boatswain, coming aft to say something to him in confidence, just at that moment, he was enabled to avoid the awkwardness of attempting to explain. This man Clench, or Clinch, as the name was pronounced, was deep in the captain's secrets; ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... thought we should have this year?" Emma's eyes turned to me, to know what in the world I could have to say; and she burst into a violent fit of laughter, maugre her pale, serious cheeks, when, with the greatest gravity, I replied, that "it depended, I believed, upon boiled legs of mutton." This clench'd our conversation; and my Gentleman, with a face half wise, half in scorn, troubled us with no more conversation, scientific or philosophical, for the remainder of the journey. Ayrton was here yesterday, and ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... given way, sir," cried Mr Tobin, the first-lieutenant. Out ran the cable to the clench, carrying away the stoppers, and passing through both compressors. At length the messenger was again shackled, and the anchor hove up, when it was found that both ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... you. Dona Isolda Montijo is universally admitted to be, beyond all question, the most lovely woman in Cuba; and for once the popular estimate is correct, as no man knows so well as I do." ("Steady, old man, steady!" said Jack to himself. "Hold tight, and clench your teeth! The blackguard is talking now with the express intention of provoking you into the commission of some overt act for which you would be sorry afterwards, and you must not allow yourself to be provoked. The infernal fool, in his anxiety to hurt you, has made ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... to me, but he was never harsh to me. I suppose we were company to each other, without talking. I forgot to mention that he would talk to himself sometimes, and grin, and clench his fist, and grind his teeth, and pull his hair in an unaccountable manner. But he had these peculiarities: and at first they frightened me, though I soon got used ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... clench'd his pamphlets in his fist, He quoted and he hinted, 'Till in a declamation-mist His argument he tint it: He gaped for't, he grap'd for't, He fand it was awa, man; But what his common sense came short He eked out wi' ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... oratory, but when he got it wound up he surely could pull the feathers out of the bird of freedom to beat scandalous. But as a stump speaker you weren't always sure he'd fill the engagement. He could make a jury blubber and clench its fists at the prosecuting attorney, yet he didn't claim to know much law, and he did turn over all the work in the Supreme Court to his partner, Charley Hedrick. Then, when Charley was practising before the Supreme Court and wasn't here to hold him down, Samp would get out and whoop it ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... all nourishment, employing her remaining strength to clench her teeth or to eject anything that Therese succeeded in introducing into her mouth. Therese was in despair. She was asking herself at the foot of which post she should go to weep and repent, when her aunt would be no longer there. She kept ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... weel, and I was at the place where he had rested yestreen; for I saw the leaves the limmers had lain on, and the ashes of them; by the same token, there was a pit greeshoch purning yet. I am thinking they got some word oat o' the island what was intended—I sought every glen and clench, as if I had been deer-stalking, but teil a want of his coat-tail could I ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Rafel ma-ee amech zabee almee!— 'Dull wretch!' my leader cried, 'keep to thine horn, And so vent better whatsoever rage Or other passion stuff thee. Feel thy throat And find the chain upon thee, thou confusion! Lo! what a hoop is clench'd about thy gorge.' Then turning to myself, he said, 'His howl Is its own mockery. This is Nimrod, he Through whose ill thought it was that humankind Were tongue-confounded. Pass him, and say nought: For as he speaketh ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... own flesh and blood, Will silence envious tongues, and prove you wise For the next world as for this; will clear your name From calumnies which argue worldliness; Buy of itself the joys of paradise; And clench your lordship's ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... are, Baltimore!" says his wife, turning to him with a sudden breaking out of all the pent-up passion within her. Involuntarily her hands clench themselves. She is pale no longer. A swift, hot flush has dyed her cheeks. Like an outraged, insulted queen, she holds him a moment with her eyes, then sweeps out of ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... to get out of the window, said it was a door and that she wanted to get out and take a walk. Above all, she had, in these two days, repeated peculiar seizures which the aunt and the husband described as follows: When sitting on a chair she would close her eyes, clench her fists, pound the side of the chair, get stiff, slide on the floor, then thrash her arms and legs about and move the head to and fro. She frothed at the mouth. After the attack, which lasted a few minutes, she breathed heavily for a while. Once she wiped off the froth with ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... railway from Danville to Bualbec." His voice almost sank to a whisper. "Griffinberg, Wirsch, and the rest are with me—or nearly so—I have got them down to clench the matter. There are millions in it—if I can bring it off; there is what is worth more ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... love and mortal's agony, With an immortal's patience blending:—vain The struggle; vain, against the coiling strain And gripe, and deepening of the dragon's grasp, The old man's clench; the long envenom'd chain Rivets the living links,—the enormous asp Enforces pang on pang, ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... accordance with the ancient law in the famous case of Southcote v. Bennet. /8/ This was detinue of goods delivered to the defendant to [179] keep safely. The defendant confessed the delivery, and set up he was robbed of the goods by J.S. "And, after argument at the bar, Gawdy and Clench, ceteris absentibus, held that the plaintiff ought to recover, because it was not a special bailment; that the defendant accepted them to keep as his proper goods, and not otherwise; but it is ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... were singularly irritating, and they grew in depth and intensity as the afternoon wore on. They were painful at first, but their constant resurgence at last altogether upset my balance. I flung aside a crib of Horace I had been reading, and began to clench my fists, to bite my lips, and to pace the room. Presently I got to stopping ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... forty-eight throws is tried in turn. From left to right, and from right to left, the umpire hovers about, watching for the victory to declare itself. Some of the spectators back the east, others back the west. The patrons of the ring are so excited that they feel the strength tingling within them; they clench their fists, and watch their men, without so much as blinking their eyes. At last one man, east or west, gains the advantage, and the umpire lifts his fan in token of victory. The plaudits of the bystanders shake ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... hands slowly clench until they looked like steel. She glanced at her own slim white hands. They were quite as strong if more ornamental. ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... biscuit, with a full allowance of water, and then set to work at the boat. The thorns answered their purpose as nails admirably, and the planks soon were securely fastened into their places against the stem; but without nails to clench the planks together, it was evident to them all that the boat would not float five minutes. They stood ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... behind the window curtains to avoid scandal—is discovered, and his sovereign's reputation is only saved by the declaration of Felicia, that the Captain is there on her account. Ollivarez asserts that they are married, to clench the fib—the Queen sees her folly—the Duchess is disgraced—all the characters stand in the well-defined semicircle which is the stage method of writing the word "finis"—Mrs. Yates speaks a very neat and pointed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 30, 1841 • Various
... imitated his action, and, as long as those triple stars shone in the murk, made themselves one with him and the heedless dead. Two lay so close beside him that the man could have touched either by moving a hand a mere six inches; he was at pains to do nothing of the sort; he was sedulous to clench his teeth against their chattering, even to hold his breath, and regretted that he might not mute the thumping of his heart. Nor dared he stir until, the lights fading out, the ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... recollection of what he had seen near the Outwood station. 'Miserably disturbed!' that is not strong enough. He was haunted by the remembrance of the handsome young man, with whom she stood in an attitude of such familiar confidence; and the remembrance shot through him like an agony, till it made him clench his hands tight in order to subdue the pain. At that late hour, so far from home! It took a great moral effort to galvanise his trust—erewhile so perfect—in Margaret's pure and exquisite maidenliness, into life; as soon as the effort ceased, his trust dropped down dead and powerless: ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... man is lying to you, don't watch his face. Any poker-player can make his face a mask. Watch his hands. Ten to one, if he is lying, he'll clench them." ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... 1859-60 we find him a volunteer, commenting not too happily on "the hideous English toadyism which invests lords and great people with commands," a remark which seems to clench the inference that he had not appreciated the effect of the Revolution upon France. For nearly three parts of 1860 we have not a single letter, except one in January pleasantly referring to his youngest child "in black velvet and red-and-white tartan, looking such a duck that it was hard ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... to the deep gulf that gapes a hideous welcome! You sigh at your weakness of heart, or of endeavor, and your sighs float out into the breeze, that rises ever from the shock of the waves, and whirl, empty-handed, to Heaven. You avow high purposes, and clench them with round utterance; and your voice, like a sparrow's, is caught up in the roar of the fall, and thrown at you from the cliffs, and dies away in the solemn thunders of nature. Great thoughts of life come over you—of its work and destiny—of its affections and duties, ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... he groaned aloud, throwing up his arms in despair. Then an arrow hit his shoulder, another pierced his neck, and he, too, fell gasping for breath. Karnis saw him drop, and painfully raised himself a little to help him; but it was too much for him; he could only clench his fist in helpless fury and chant, half-singing, half-speaking, as loud he ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... being carried some distance, left on the road. The very shoes were taken off my wife's feet, and "ye'll no be a refuse to gi'e me that," said a red-haired reprobate as he took hold of Sarah Lochrig's hand and robbed her of her wedding-ring. I was present and saw the deed; I felt my hands clench, but in my spirit I discovered that it was then the hour of outrage, and that the Avenger's ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... charged with the burden of new thoughts and observations, slowly perfecting his life work, had neither time nor inclination for controversy. He set himself to publish facts, which by their accumulation tended to clench his arguments. Soon after the "Origin of Species" he had in course of publication several important botanical papers, on the two forms of flower in the Primrose genus (1862), and in the genus Linum (flax), 1863, on the forms of Loosestrife, 1864, all published ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... cold, measured voice as ever, with only a slight sarcastic inflection to vary the deep, grave tones; but a very close observer might have seen his fingers clench the handle of a knife while he was speaking, as if their gripe would have ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... rascal for a father, he should pension him and cut him; to tell the truth, no objection against me existed in his family except on the score of the sort of father I owned to, and I had better make up my mind to shake him off before I grew a man; he spoke as a friend. I might frown at him and clench my fists, but he did speak as ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... flogging himself with his own contempt. He had given way to panic before a girl who had been brought up to despise a quitter. She herself had nerves as steady as chilled steel. He had seen her clench her strong white little teeth without a murmur through a long afternoon of pain. Gameness was one of the fundamentals of her creed, and he had showed the white feather. It added to his punishment, too, that he worshiped pluck with all the fervor of one who ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... come to learn in time!" says I, beside myself. At this I saw the white hand clench itself, but her voice was tender ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... so frank, seemed to clench up, as if he were riding at a fence. 'He'll tell a lie,' she thought bitterly. But ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... would clench her hands and determine more fiercely than ever to banish such memories. But with all her will, hardly for ten minutes at a time could she keep Gritzko from her thoughts. His influence over her was growing ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... image of the love which exists in the divine nature, tarnished and darkened by earthly—I may say by hellish—passions. Even then, and from that very night, she altered much: as one passed her, she muttered indistinctly; often she would lift up her hands in the air, clench them, and shake them as if at some figure that she saw in the clouds; and at times she slunk into corners, refused all comfort or society, and sank ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... the frowns and winks with which Mrs Nickleby intimated that she was going to say something which would clench the business at once, Kate maintained her point by an expressive look, and for once Mrs Nickleby was stopped upon the ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... I ween, Till time hath run his course. One is that dame The false accuser of the Hebrew youth; Sinon the other, that false Greek from Troy. Sharp fever drains the reeky moistness out, In such a cloud upsteam'd." When that he heard, One, gall'd perchance to be so darkly nam'd, With clench'd hand smote him on the braced paunch, That like a drum resounded: but forthwith Adamo smote him on the face, the blow Returning with his ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... words, a terrible jar ran fiercely through the ship from stem to stern—a jar that made one clench one's teeth and hold one's jaws tight—the jar of a prow that shattered against a rock. I took it all in at a glance. We had forgotten Ushant, but Ushant had not forgotten us. It had revenged itself upon us by revealing ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... that fell in the action. Though we defended ourselves, and repulsed the enemy, yet this unhappy affair scattered our cattle, brought us into extreme difficulty, and so discouraged the whole company, that we retreated forty miles, to the settlement on Clench river. We had passed over two mountains, viz. Powel's and Walden's, and were approaching Cumberland mountain when this adverse fortune overtook us. These mountains are in the wilderness, as we pass from the old settlements in ...
— The Adventures of Colonel Daniel Boone • John Filson
... conduct of the war. 'Conquer them first,' has been the glorious war-cry from millions of the freest men on earth. But when we are driving a nail it is well to know that it will be possible to eventually clench it. And when the country shall fully understand the ease with which this Union nail may be clenched, there will be, let us hope, a greatly revived spirit in all now interested in forwarding ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... best bid to clench the matter. She offered her bargain. "Now don't you worry," she said, sunnily, "about this setting Edith against you. She'll get over it after a while, anyway, but if she tried to be spiteful and make it uncomfortable for you when ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... of his shriek; and I flung myself forward to lick the splash of moisture on the sill. I did not think of Castro, I had forgotten him. I raged at the deception of my thirst, exploring with my tongue the rough surface of the stone till I tasted my own blood. Only then, raising my head to gasp, and clench my fists with a baffled and exasperated desire, I noticed how profound was the silence, in which the words, "Take away his sting," seemed to pronounce themselves over the ravine in the impersonal austerity of the rock, and with the tone of ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... clench together feebly here, and then there was no more motion. Presently I looked into his face, and I knew that no sound of my voice, nor any sound of the world, could ever reach him again; for the story of his unspeakable sorrow, like the ruin of Troy, had been told to the end. He ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... to please his patron, the republican Hollis, who supplied him with books, and every friendly aid. "It is possible for an ingenious man to be of a party without being partial" says Rushworth; an airy clench on the lips of a sober matter-of-fact man looks suspicions, and betrays the weak pang ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... now— Walk with uncovered feet upon the coals, Until thou reach the ghostly Land of Souls, And, with thy Mohawk death-song please our ear? Or wilt thou with the women rest thee here?" His eyes flash like an eagle's, and his hands Clench at the insult. Like a god he stands. "Prepare the ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... on a bench And stoop your curls to dusty laws; Your petal fingers curve and clench In slavery to parchment saws; You suit your hearts to sallow faces In sullen places: But no pen Nor pedantry can make you men. Yours are the morning and the day: You should be taught of wind and light; Your learning should ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... never know. And they would never reach Thoreau's. Billy knew that. He looked at the man hunter as he broke trail ahead of him—at the pugnacious hunch of his shoulders, his long stride, the determined clench of his hands, and wondered what the soul and the heart of a man like this must be, who in such an hour would not trade life for life. For almost three-quarters of an hour Brokaw did not utter a word. The storm had broke. Above the spruce tops the sky began to clear. Day came slowly. ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... about harder than you, and have got along further than you. I have had, all my sea-going life long, to keep my wits polished bright with acid and friction, like the brass cases of the ship's instruments. I'll keep you company on this expedition. Now you don't live by talking any more than I do. Clench that hand of yours in this hand of mine, and that's a speech ...
— A Message from the Sea • Charles Dickens
... to go to bed yet!" in a strange, choked voice, and the next moment Aimee saw her hands clench themselves and her whole frame begin to shake. "Shut the door and lock it," she said, wildly. "I can't stop myself. Give me some sal volatile. I can't breathe." And such a fit of suffocating sobbing came upon her that she ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... sunset and of sunrise mix'd In that brief night; the summer night, that paused Among her stars to hear us; stars that hung Love-charm'd to listen: all the wheels of Time Spun round in station, but the end had come. O then like those, who clench [4] their nerves to rush Upon their dissolution, we two rose, There-closing like an individual life— In one blind cry of passion and of pain, Like bitter accusation ev'n to death, Caught up the whole of love and utter'd it, And bade adieu for ever. Live—yet live— ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... parted), until I was quite gone altogether, and did nothing but think of her all day and dream of her all night. Well, the last time that I was in the transport to Portsmouth, I had made up my mind to clench the business, and as soon as the sails were furled, I dressed myself in my best toggery, and made all sail for the old house. When I came in I found Peggy in the bar, and a very fancy sort of young chap alongside of her. I did not think so much of that, and ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... her seat, and longs To cheer the fallen hero's fate; Her fingers clench upon the bench As if it were the Trundler's pate! Because this rascal's on the spot Her passion fails to be concealed; She asks me why the wretch is not Immediately turned ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... could no longer continue the pretence he had been making—for it was all pretence. The effort to be loving and affectionate was torture, so that all his nerves seemed to vibrate with exasperation. Sometimes he had to clench his hands in order to keep himself under restraint. He was acting all the time. James asked himself what madness blinded Mary that she did not see? He remembered how easily speech had come in the old days when they were boy and girl ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... John Simpson. This was quite enough. He seized the paper with an oath, crumpled it up, and thrust it into the fire, and gave Owen such a violent blow on the back with his fist, that the young man's first impulse was to start up and clench his in return; however, his flush of passion cooled in a moment, and ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... them. Alive with comicality, they move us, almost unconsciously, to fondle them. And yet we know not why we would fondle the sable "rascals." One knot is larking on the grass, running, toddling, yelling, and hooting; another, ankle-deep in mud, clench together and roll among the ducks, work their clawy fingers through the tufts of each other's crispy hair, and enjoy their childish sports with an air of genial happiness; while a third sit in a circle beside an oak tree, playing with "Dash," ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... words on his tongue, among the simple islanders - singing a serenade under the window of his Shetland mistress - is conceived in the very highest manner of romantic invention. The words of his song, "Through groves of palm," sung in such a scene and by such a lover, clench, as in a nutshell, the emphatic contrast upon which the tale is built. IN GUY MANNERING, again, every incident is delightful to the imagination; and the scene when Harry Bertram lands at Ellangowan is a model ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... shrieks—leaped up within her now. She became a young Fury, to whom a mad fight with monstrous death was nothing. She told herself that she was strong for a girl—that she could tear with her nails, she could clench her teeth in a flesh, she could shriek, she could battle like a young madwoman so that they would be FORCED to kill her. This was one of the images which rose op before her again yet again, A hideous-hideous thing, which would not ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... 'd fain be gaddin', A wink to the girls sets her soul a-maddin', She 's a shame and sorrow to me. If I stop at the hostel to buy me a gill, Or with a good fellow a moment sit still, Her fist it is clench'd, and is ready to kill, And the talk of the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... was closed and to his narrow cell Bearing his supper, every prisoner went, The night-lock firmly clench'd, beside some grate While the large lamp thro' the long corridors Threw flickering light, the Chaplain often stood Conversing. Of the criminal's past life He made inquiry, and receiv'd replies Foreign from truth, or vague and taciturn: And added ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... a silence between them that took on the roar of a simoon and Miss Samstag jumped then from her mother's embrace, her little face stiff with the clench of her mouth. ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... had forgot his appointment in his swinish vices, I turned my mind another way. I resolved to leave Sturk to nature, and clench the case against Nutter, by evidence I would have compelled Irons to swear. As it turned out, that would have been the better way. Had Sturk died without speaking, and Nutter hanged for his death, the question ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... schoolroom was separated into two grand divisions, "the boys on teacher's side," and those "on the Cody side." The teacher would send his pets out to get switches, and part of our division—we girls, of course—would begin to weep; while those who had spunk would spit on their hands, clench their fists, and "dare 'em to bring them switches in!" Those were hot times in old ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... a faithless age! Yet happier, in that death-dew drench'd, In each rude hand the claymore clench'd, Than who, to soothe a nation's craven rage, To the red scaffold went with steady eye, And the red martyr-grave, For one, who could not save! Who only lives to weep the weight ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... easing of the strain were the wheels of Chiawassee Consolidated oiled to their new whirlings on the road to fortune. If Caleb Gordon remembered how the miracle had been wrought, he said no word to clench his disapproval; and as for Tom—ah, well; it was not the first time in the history of the race that the end has served to justify the means—to make them clean and white and spotless, ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... eyes blinking independently, my uncle is superb. Or when he raises his hat with a large, outward gesture of his arm, bowing slightly from the shoulders, in affable salutation. Or most of all, when his fists clench, his jaws display big nervous knots, his eyes gleam with hard blue light in wrath over some palpable iniquity, some base cowardice, some outrageous act of cruelty ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... haven't the least sense of the 'fist'. It's funny. With most men there's the instinct to clench the fist and hit. It's not so with me. I should want a knife or a pistol ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... supposed, when so employed, to be a cant term of modern origin. It is singular how many of these terms, supposed to be quite ephemeral, are met with in old documents. 'Bilking a coachman' occurs in a trial of the reign of Charles II.—that of Coal for the murder of Dr Clench. In an important part of the trial of Somerset there occurs another cant word: it is in the speech of Sir Randal Crew, one of the king's sergeants, against the accused. He represents the ghost of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... round, half inclined to retreat; but, as he turned, his eyes chanced to travel to the sea, where he could still discern the fishing-boats riding at their nets; and the idea of 'Miah out there thinking of Dorcas made him clench his teeth grimly, as if he ...
— Drolls From Shadowland • J. H. Pearce |
