"Gripping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... much help. With one knee on the ice, lifting himself with all his might, a strong, quick pull would assist him over the edge. But Rowl was not ready. When Tommy Lark landed on the pan, Sandy was deep in the water, his hands gripping the ice, his face upturned, his shoulders submerged. Tommy did not even pause. He ran on to the other side of the lane. When he turned, Rowl had an elbow and foot on the pan and was waiting for help; but Tommy Lark hesitated, disheartened—the ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... Drew felt the gripping of life. It hurt, but it stimulated him. He was suffering with his people—his people! Joyce's lovely face, as he remembered it, pleaded with him for sympathy. It was her face that had first given him assurance. She should not call ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... without another word. He watched the tall, black figure until it turned in at the gate and was lost to view, a sort of stupefaction gripping him. Presently he aroused himself and walked slowly homeward. As he passed through his own gate he looked over at the window of the room in which Viola had sought seclusion. The curtains hung limp and motionless. He wondered what was taking place inside the four walls ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... one spoke. There was no sound but the rattle of the wheels. It was too dark to see the expression on the faces of the twins. Rex was leaning partly forward, one hand gripping Roy's knee. He could think of nothing save the night Mr. Keeler had spent with them and the horror they had had of him before they found out that it was his brother whose picture was ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... sat up in terror. A hand was on his shoulder, gripping him like a metal instrument, not a thing of flesh and blood. The face of his father was staring at him through the lingering vapours ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... strong grip of the other's hand, and looked straight into his dark eyes. They were like a mask. While, indeed, they seemed to smile in friendly greeting, they yet remained expressionless, and I was glad when the gripping fingers released mine. The face into which I looked was long, firm-jawed, slightly swarthy, a tightly-clipped black moustache shadowing the upper lip. It was a reckless face, yet ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... may be, he has the right literary method, his work is absolutely realistic, his style is fluent and distinctive, and he has the rare faculty of gripping the reader's attention at the outset and retaining it to the very last.... 'The Hypocrite' is something more than a remarkable novel—it is, in effect, a sermon, conveying a definite message to those who have the wit ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... deafen one's ears against that note of human agony. It pierced into one's soul. One could only stand gripping one's hands in this torture chamber, with darkness between high walls, and with shadows making awful noises out of the ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... a half-roar, gripping my arm. I had steeled myself to brazen it out, though I was trembling inwardly; but the enormous strength of the man was too much for my fortitude. He had gripped me by the biceps with his single hand, and when that grip tightened I wilted and ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... good cabbage from the cabbage-trees, and seasoned his meat with the fruit of the pimento trees, which is the same as Jamaica pepper, and smells deliciously: He found also a black pepper, called Ma'azeta, which was very good to expel wind, and against gripping in the guts. ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... still gripping the man's throat and threatening him with his dagger, makes him lie down, and I bind his arms ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... the side of a fire, gripping a rifle and kicking the embers into a blaze. He saw the man struggling with the horse and fired. The colt with one unearthly scream of terror leaped and plunged head down towards the water, shot dead through his ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... Parsons tried to disengage his hand. Mr. Garvace joined his effort to Morrison's. Then the heart of Polly leapt and the world blazed up to wonder and splendour. Parsons disappeared behind the partition for a moment and reappeared instantly, gripping a thin cylinder of rolled huckaback. With this he smote at Morrison's head. Morrison's head ducked under the resounding impact, but he clung on and so did Mr. Garvace. The door came open, and then Mr. Garvace was staggering ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... Lacy marked the old Knight's fall; then as for an instant his opponent's eye wandered thither, he sprang up inside his stroke, and gripping him with both hands about the ankles threw him over his head and clean to the ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... bridge he was nearing suggested a plan, and the ominous grating of the overheated motor warned him that whatever he was to do he must do at once. As he neared the bridge he reduced the speed of the car to fifteen miles an hour, and set the hand throttle to hold it there. Still gripping the steering wheel with one hand, he climbed over the left-hand door to the running board. As the front wheels of the car ran up onto the bridge Barney gave the steering wheel a sudden turn ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Hal, gripping my shoulder with his strong hand, "but it'll be by herself that she'll go, lad. My wonder is," he continued, "that she has held out so long. If anything, it is you that have kept her alive. Now that you are off her mind to a certain extent, she ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... from cot to cot with a piece of chocolate for each, gripping the hands of some and looking into the eyes of others too far gone even to speak, we knew he had spoken the truth. No complaint escaped their lips. The light of a great new dawn kindled in the eyes of many, ...
— The Fight for the Argonne - Personal Experiences of a 'Y' Man • William Benjamin West
... conditions simply gushed forth, so to speak, during fits of fever. When the mood came over him, he would scribble the notes on whatever lay nearest him; his haste seemed to betray a sense of guilt. He stole from himself; tones appealed to him as so many crimes. When the gripping melody of the twenty-second Psalm arose in his mind, he trembled from head to foot, and left the house as if lashed by Furies, though it was in the dead of night. The recurring bass figure of the presto sounded ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... of men in trapeze-like seats hurling athwart the space. He heard voices behind him, a number of people descending the steps through the archway; he suddenly perceived that his guardian Howard was back again and gripping his arm painfully, and shouting ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... expert;" one who drives it through hard woods without bending and brittle, without splitting. This skill is however always more quickly acquired, when a rule like the following is given the apprentice at the beginning of his training. "Gripping the hammer near the end of the handle and setting the nail slightly slanting from the edges toward the solid center, strike the top of it fairly with the center of the hammer, starting and finishing ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... that dense female, Mounted and tense, spread-eagle, out-reaching out of the shell In tortoise-nakedness, Long neck, and long vulnerable limbs extruded, spread-eagle over her house-roof, And the deep, secret, all-penetrating tail curved beneath her walls, Reaching and gripping tense, more reaching anguish in uttermost tension Till suddenly, in the spasm of coition, tupping like a jerking leap, and oh! Opening its clenched face from his outstretched neck And giving that fragile ...
— Tortoises • D. H. Lawrence
... sink behind the dim grey forest. The Nestor, in the evening mist, was a golden shadow under the hill. This beauty made him melancholy. He was wishing passionately, as he stood there, for work, hard, dangerous, gripping work. He did not know that that was to be the last idle minute of his life. Hearing a step on the path he turned round to find Semyonov ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... Gripping Bronner's hand, Boynton left the room. Lindsey accompanied the Major to the door and into the reading room, pointing to the placard tacked up under the ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... derby hat pulled low over his eyes and gripping his suit case, Henkel slunk through the corridors of Bancroft Hall. Now he faced the hardest ordeal of all in going out through the entrance of the great white building, beyond which ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... confused series of sounds following their disappearance. Then they came crawling out again, each one gripping some sort ...
— In Camp on the Big Sunflower • Lawrence J. Leslie
... a trumpeter choked, soon," said O'Grady, gripping him by the neck-handkerchief, with his knuckles ready to twist into his throat. "By this and that I'll strangle you, if you don't play this ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... Then I made haste to look up my brother Billy, who was in the hospital 200 miles away. On my way to the camp I happened to meet a pal of Billy's, and was delighted to learn that he was well and out of hospital, fully recovered from his wound in the thigh, and in a few minutes' time we were gripping hands. ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... to feel people around me,—even sick people's better than nobody. It's sort o' comfortin' to have comp'ny," and she stayed in the ward, sharing with less fortunate ones the fruit and flowers Vandervelde had sent to her. Once the gripping fear that had obsessed her had been dispelled, once she was sure of a protecting kindness that might be relied upon, she proved a gay little body. As the blonde person said, Gracie wasn't a bad sort ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... to see you!" he began, gripping my hand in his hearty, undergraduate fashion. "I hear of you every day and I have long intended to go and see you to have a heart-to-heart, as they say. Things are awfully boring in the town; there is ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... challenged by the Doctor to a game of shuffleboard. Da Souza remained in his chair, his eyes blinking as though with the sun, and his hands gripping nervously the sides ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... gaze shifted. It turned half vaguely upon the little man Peters. Then it seemed to drift unmeaningly toward the rancher. A moment later it fell upon the papers he was so tightly gripping. It was then that realization seemed to come upon him. He reached out and handed the deeds to their owner. A moment later he was on his feet, and had moved across to the front of the veranda, where he stood, slim, erect, and with his back ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... if I wanted to go down on my knees to every boy in uniform," cried Betty, gripping the arms of her chair till the knuckles showed white. "No matter how hard we try we can't make up to them for what they're giving up—and giving up so cheerfully. And they're so dear and appreciative and thankful for ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope
... FERROVIUS (gripping his shoulders) Oh, do not harden your heart, young man. Come: try for yourself whether our way is not better than yours. I will now strike you on one cheek; and you will turn the other and learn how much ...
— Androcles and the Lion • George Bernard Shaw
... partial stricture or contraction occurs in the sore muscles (circular and longitudinal) of the anus and rectum. The length and the bore of the canal are diminished, and thus the circulation of the blood arrested by the pressure or gripping of the contracted muscles. This congestion of the blood brings about an anatomical change in the structure of the mucous membrane, which we call piles: a mere ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... his own little bag packed—indeed it had been packed for three whole days—and now he stood gripping it tightly in one hand, and a small yellow cane which was the pride of his heart in the other. Willy had a little harmless, childish dandyism about him which his mother rather encouraged. "I'd rather he'd be this way than the other," she said ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... or two later his limbs were at liberty, and his captors, each gripping him by an arm, were hurrying him with all speed ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... carried down the long ramp to the ground floor, the arms of his captors gripping him with painful tightness. Heading the procession was the immensely tall, gangling Rogan leader, clutching Greca by the wrist and dragging her indifferently along to be ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... Gripping the receiver hard, she held her breath, straining her ears for the reply. It followed without hesitation, distinct ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... stretched out his hand, and, as he trusted to do, he found the feet of that man who had gone before and died in the place. Then Umslopogaas the way did this: he put his head beneath the dead man's legs and thrust himself onward till all the body was on his back, and there he held it with one hand, gripping its two wrists in his hand. Then he crawled forward a little space and saw that he was coming to the inner mouth of the burrow, but that the shadow was deep there because of a great mass of rock which lay before the ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard
... his soft suction pads gripping the floor as though preparatory to a spring. Gone was the sanctimonious unction of his former behavior; the ruthless savage glared out of the red eyes, the flattened fingers were ...
— Pirates of the Gorm • Nat Schachner
... its full extent her strong, indomitable, devoted character, till he saw her hour after hour seated beside him in the pulkha, her hands tightly gripping the reins of the horned animals, whose ways she understood and perfectly controlled,—her bright, bird-like eyes fixed with watchful eagerness on the bewildering white landscape that opened out incessantly before her. Her common sense was ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... warm blood of perfect health could have endured the temperature of that shaded mountain pool so long, and soon even she felt its chill gripping her young muscles, and, as unconscious of her wholly revealed loveliness as any nymph of old mythology, scrambled from the water to the bank and stood there where a shaft of comfortable sunshine found its welcome way ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... had risen, his cheek flushed high, and was gripping his father's hand. "You, too, Dad," he begged. "I'm only Red this morning—going back ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... big God—just such a God as you and I have knelt to when we were bits of kiddies." Frontispiece He sat glaring at the table, the smoke of his pipe clouding the still air of the neat kitchen. 156 Also he was gripping a heavy revolver in his hand. 288 "We've just come over to say that we, too, are going to ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... historical records of American stamina goes The End of the Trail by James Earle Fraser. No single work of art at the Exposition has attracted more popular applause than this. It has a gripping, manly pathos that makes a direct appeal. The physical vigor of the rider, over-tried but sound, saves it from mere sentiment. An Indian brave, utterly exhausted, his strong endurance worn through by the long, hard ride, storm-spent, bowed in the abandon of helpless exhaustion, upon a horse as weary ...
— The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition • Stella G. S. Perry
... release the captives from the stocks, but Hib had taken the precaution to place on the formidable athlete a pair of leg irons joined by a shackle. Not merely were Glaucon's arms pinioned by a stout cord, but the great Libyan was gripping them tightly. Lars and Adherbal conducted the other prisoners, whose feet, however, were not bound. For a moment the three captives stood blinking at the unfamiliar light, unconscious of the situation and their extremity, whilst Hasdrubal ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... this time, old girl," he told the ship, "though you've taken me there twice. But we're going up just the same, and I told the Commander he hasn't Patrol Ships enough to hold us back." His fingers were gripping the little ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin
... remarked, ignoring the unnatural calm with which they greeted his entrance. He shook hands with them in turn, striding from one to another and gripping their hands so heartily that Nathaniel Letton could not forbear to wince. Daylight flung himself into a massive chair and sprawled lazily, with an appearance of fatigue. The leather grip he had brought into the room he dropped carelessly beside ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... Through the foul blood that flowed from her and that mingled with the black water of the mere, Beowulf saw a very terrible horror—the body of the Grendel, lying moaning out the last of his life. Again his strong arm descended, and, his left hand gripping the coiled locks of the Evil Thing, he sprang upwards through the water, that lost its blackness and its clouded crimson as he went ever higher and more high. In his hand he still bore the sword that had saved him, but the poisonous blood of the dying monsters had made the water of ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... now to recover his pistol, but he would make it difficult for Nicholas to get the knife. The struggle in that way was equalized. He turned in the gripping arms about him and the men were chest to chest. Neither spoke; each fought solely to get the other prostrate, while Nicholas developed a secondary pressure toward the blade buried in the wall. This Woolfolk successfully blocked. In the supreme effort ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... been woman-shy, that he had cherished his own thought of womanhood as something so rare a thought might tarnish it. First love, shorn of boy fallacies, strong, irresistible, protective, passionate. He closed his eyes and, for the first time in his life, touched leather, gripping the horn of his saddle as if he would squeeze it ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... Kinmarten's guards looked out questioningly. Quillan shot him through the head, slammed on into the room across the collapsing body, saw the second guard wheeling toward him, shot again, and slid the gun back into the holster. Kinmarten, standing beside a table six feet away, right hand gripping a heavy marble ashtray, was staring at him ...
— Lion Loose • James H. Schmitz
... for that end, that you may be more serious; and therefore you ought so much the more to awake, to lay hold on him. This is the way the Lord useth with his secure and wandering children, Psalm cxix. 67. For the Lord findeth us often gripping too strongly to a present world, and taking it in our arms, as if we were never to part with it. Men's souls cleave to outward accommodations; therefore the Lord useth to part us and our idol, that we may take hold of him the faster. ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... cad was there, and his ease forever Shone with the smooth and slippery polish That tells the snake. That night he drifted Into an up-town haunt and ordered — Whatever it was — with a soft assurance That made me mad as I stood behind him, Gripping his death, and waited. Coward, I think, is the name the world has given To men like me; but I'll swear I never Thought of my own disgrace when I shot him — Yes, in the back, — I know it, I know ...
— The Children of the Night • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... all easy of accomplishment, if only that streak of light were all she was likely to see or think of. If the horror which was gripping her throat should not take shape! If things would remain shrouded in impenetrable darkness, and not force themselves in shadowy suggestion upon her excited fancy! But the blackness of the passageway through which she had just struggled, was not ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... struggle between Scaife and himself for the soul of his friend; gave them with a clearness of expression which proved beyond all else how his thoughts had crystallized in his mind. Warde listened, holding John's hand, gripping it with sympathy and affection. The romance of this friendship stirred him profoundly; the romance of the struggle for good and evil; a struggle of which the issues remained still in doubt; a romance which Death had cruelly left unfinished—this ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... bowed respectfully and withdrew into the tower. The king then beckoned to the mighty figure in the palmer's weed, and Thibaut advanced slowly until he was within touch of his prey, when he suddenly flung out his great hand and caught his enemy by the throat, gripping him into silence while his right hand bared and brandished a dagger. The figure in black dropped under his grasp, trembled and gasped, but the hand of Thibaut was too strong upon him and he could not speak or cry ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... in response, and the French captain clapped them both on the shoulders, gripping them firmly and ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... rash suggestion, but it was too late now to turn back, and some desperate expedient was necessary. I found myself on deck, gripping a backstay and looking giddily down and then up at the dinghy, as it bobbed like a cork in the trough of the sea alongside, while Davies ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... horribly. But the thing had to be done. The reader will perhaps forgive me for touching shyly on the next two or three minutes, which still recur on the smallest provocation and play bogey with my dreams. To balance on the edge of night, quaking, gripping a frozen rope; to climb, and feel the pit of one's stomach slipping like a bucket in a fathomless well—I suppose the intolerable pains in my head spurred me to the attempt—these and the urgent shortness of my breathing—much as toothache will drive a man up to the dentist's ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... over-intellectuality, but there is such a thing as a one-sided intellectuality. A person "takes it out" as we say in considering the consequences of proposed lines of action. A certain flabbiness of fiber prevents the contemplated object from gripping him and engaging him in action. And most persons are naturally diverted from a proposed course of action by unusual, unforeseen obstacles, or by presentation of inducements to an action that is ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... stranger had tried to thrust him off; and a struggle followed, which ended in Zeb's getting by and gripping the mast again between ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... caught a glimpse of Monna Vittoria beneath the arcade, and saw amusement on her face and wonder, and some scorn of Simone and much admiration of Dante. But I had no time to concern myself with Vittoria, for now Messer Simone's fingers were gripping at the hilt of his weapon, but he did no more than grip the hilt of it. Indeed, I do not think that he would have drawn on an unarmed man, and very likely he meant no more than to frighten the scholar. If this were Messer Simone's purpose, it was frankly baffled by the fact that Dante did ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... The Governor rose, gripping his chair-back sternly. "You will be kind enough to leave my wife's name out of the discussion. I supposed you knew me well enough to know that I don't buy newspaper secrets at any price, least of all at that of ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... and I put the last hand to," said Le Balafre, "a good fellow that I dispatched yonder and who prayed me to throw his head into the Maes.—Men have queer fancies when old Small Back [a cant expression in Scotland for Death, usually delineated as a skeleton. S.] is gripping them, but Small Back must lead down the dance with ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... stood tensely in the doorway, her fingers whitely gripping the woodwork, her face growing whiter every minute, suddenly relaxed with relief in every line of her body, ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... gripping him by the shoulder; "you're your father's own boy, Frank. I like that, but I can't have it. You accepted the invitation, and I want you, my lad. Never mind Andrew Forbes; he only requires time to cool down. He'll be ready to shake hands in the morning. Come, or we shall get in ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... Ingmar sat gripping the edge of the plain deal table. Suddenly a noise was heard as of something cracking. Ingmar had broken off a corner of the table. "If you become a school-teacher, he'll never let you have the farm," the old ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... of the Ring looked like a black crack in a greenish-gray desert of rock and moss, the landing stage like a tiny bird's nest. The floor of the car moved slightly from side to side. Burke's face had gone gray, and he crouched unsteadily, one hand gripping a steel bracket on ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... by their fathers and their mothers and their Uncle Johns before their eyes. Appeals have been made to them on filial, not to say religious, grounds. Threats would have availed nothing; but appeals—downright tearful appeals from mamma, husky, hand-gripping appeals from papa—that is what has made escape impossible. A huge act of unselfishness has been compelled; a lifetime of reactionary egotism is inevitable and legitimate. I was wrong when I said Malim was typical. He has to the good an ingenuity which assists naturally in the solution of ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... "smart" atmosphere, the suspension points and the seasonal epidemics of such words as "gripping," "virile," "intrigue," ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... Then when I marked how he was distraught with the grievous torment, or ever he could turn and gain breath again, I fell on him, and seized him by the column of his stubborn neck. To earth I cast my bow, and woven quiver, and strangled him with all my force, gripping him with stubborn clasp from the rear, lest he should rend my flesh with his claws, and I sprang on him and kept firmly treading his hind feet into the soil with my heels, while I used his sides to guard my thighs, till I had strained his shoulders utterly, then lifted ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... and help him to the fife-rail. Out of the wash, Tony, the Greek, crawled on hands and knees and sank down helplessly at the fife-rail. There was nothing suicidal now in his mood. Struggle as he would, he could not lift himself until the mate, gripping his oilskin at the collar, with one hand flung him through the air into the ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... little Doctor, who knew everything about altruism that social science would ever formulate, and had stopped right there. All at once, his look altered; from objective it became subjective. The question seemed suddenly to hook onto something inside, like a still street-car gripping hold of a cable and beginning to move; the mind's eye of the young man appeared to be seized and swept inward. Presently without a word he resumed ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... of disturbing their slumbering shipmates; when this sort of steady quietude would begin to prevail, habitually, the silent steersman would watch the cabin-scuttle; and ere long the old man would emerge, gripping at the iron banister, to help his crippled way. Some considering touch of humanity was in him; for at times like these, he usually abstained from patrolling the quarter-deck; because to his wearied mates, seeking repose within six inches ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... springing forward. "Let be, here's a friend!" Saying nothing, Penfeather thrust away the weapon, and gripping the little man in both hands, with prodigious strength jerked him bodily in through the window; which done, he clapped to the lattice and drawing the curtain stood fronting ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... her skirts to her slender body as she leaned against the gale, gripping her hat tightly with one hand and straining under the weight of the bag in the other. The ends of a veil whipped furiously about her head, and, even in the gathering darkness, he could see a strand or two of hair keeping ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... of day and date," said Flagg, with his grim humor. He drove his cant-dog point into the floor of the porch and left the tool waggling slowly to and fro. He leaped down among the men. He did not waste time with words. He went among them, gripping their arms to estimate the biceps, holding them off at arm's length to judge their height and weight. He also looked at their teeth, rolling up their lips, horse-trader fashion. The drive provender did not consist of tender tidbits; a river jack must be able to chew tough ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... hand gripping the mantel, rested his forehead on it and dark thoughts came upon him. They quickened his breath and brought the blood to his face and his aching eyes. It was all trouble, it seemed to him, trouble from the first minute of his finding her in the woods. She might draw some temporary ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... dollar. Yes, you did, for delivering a note given you by Captain Jack Maitland," hissed Vic, gripping ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... they went swiftly up the Tube, carried by anti-grav beams from below. Taylor glanced down from time to time. It was a long way back, and getting longer each moment. He sweated nervously inside his suit, gripping his Bender ...
— The Defenders • Philip K. Dick
... the teacher's desk, still gripping the dipper in one grimy fist, and wondering what was to befall her now. This was the first time Miss Brooks had ever punished her, and in spite of her anger, sorrowful tears gathered in her eyes. She didn't mind being hurt, but to have Miss Brooks punish her seemed more than she could ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... struck something in the passageway. The something shrank at the touch. She heard a quick drawn breath that was not Baskinelli's. She tried to run. The tiny passageway chocked her flight. She plunged helplessly between invisible, but gripping walls. ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... existence—the universities and the field of mental-disease speculation and hospital experiment. The one, the universities, with rare if wonderful exceptions, are fairly hopeless; the other is not only rich in promise, but few realize how full in performance. Most of the literature which is gripping that great intellectual no-man's land of the silent readers, is basing its appeal, and its story, on the rather uncolored and bald facts which come from Freud, Trotter, Robinson, Dewey, E.B. Holt, Lippmann, ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... embark in the service which had been alluded to; which remark, however, only seemed to add fuel to the fire. For Hardy now rose from his chair, and began striding up and down the room, his right arm behind his back, the hand gripping his left elbow, his left hand brought round in front close to his body, and holding the bowl of his pipe, from which he was blowing off clouds in puffs like an engine just starting with a heavy train. The attitude was one of a man painfully ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... "'Pooh!' said he, gripping hard at his courage. 'We are in a civilised land here, and we can't have tomfoolery of this kind. Where ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... suddenly heard the King's voice, and even his words. Lennox said to Mar, 'The King calls, be he where he will.' They all glanced up at the house, and saw, says Lennox, 'his Majesty looking out at the window, hatless, his face red, and a hand gripping his face and mouth.' The King called: 'I am murdered. Treason! My Lord of Mar, help, help!' Mar corroborated: Inchaffray saw the King vanish from the window, 'and in his judgment, his Majesty was pulled, perforce, in ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang
... side who were not at the point directly menaced peered anxiously across the space between the lines to watch the next move, while the men in the divisions which it was certain were about to be assaulted, lay hugging the ground and gripping their muskets, excited, but confident and resolute. They saw the smoke clouds rise slowly from the opposite crest, where the Confederate army lay, and the sunlight glinted again on the long line of brass and ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... music. In his great agony the outlaw rolled his eyes in appeal to the crowd which surrounded the struggling two. Every man seemed about to spring forward, yet they could not move. Some had their fingers stiffly extended, as if in the act of gripping with hands too stiff ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... late August and early September, 10.14, were gripping days to the memory. Eager armies were pressing forward to a cataclysm no longer of dread imagination but of reality. That ever- deepening and spreading stain from Switzerland to the North Sea was as yet only a splash of fresh blood. You still wondered if you might not wake up in the ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... talkin'," shrieked the boy. He raised himself to the tips of his toes, bared his teeth to the gum, and with clutching talons, gripping at the air, yelled: "Aggh! If I had me growth! I'd bite his heart out! I'd ...
— The Mascot of Sweet Briar Gulch • Henry Wallace Phillips
... I take it, is never a very tidy proceeding; but in battle it acquires an added unkemptness. Men suddenly and sorely stricken have a way of shrinking up inside their clothes; unless they die on the instant they have a way of tearing their coats open and gripping with their hands at their vitals, as though to hold the life in; they have a way of sprawling their legs in grotesque postures; they have a way of putting their arms up before their faces as though at the very last they would shut out a dreadful vision. Those contorted, twisted arms with the ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... party was sneezing, coughing and gasping for breath as the faint white mist, blown by the wind, enveloped them. It caused a terrible, gripping sensation, a constriction of the throat muscles so that ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Death Valley - or Diamond X and the Poison Mystery • Willard F. Baker
... seemed to be reflecting; then leaning back in his chair and gripping its arms while he stared out of the bow-window before him, he ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... thermos bottle or two filled and ready. At the first hint from him I would pour out a glass and another, and sometimes the relief came quickly; but there were times, and alas! they came oftener, when that deadly gripping did not soon release him. Yet there would come a week or a fortnight when he was apparently perfectly well, and at such times we dismissed the thought of any heart malady, and attributed the ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... and let's forget." That very night at the end of a vaudeville performance the orchestra played "Dixie" and Sally Carrol felt something stronger and more enduring than her tears and smiles of the day brim up inside her. She leaned forward gripping the arms of her chair until her ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... digging out ant-hills; but the beast has courage, and in a grapple is a rather unpleasant enemy, in spite of its toothless mouth, for it can strike a formidable blow with these claws. It sometimes hugs a foe, gripping him tight; but its ordinary method of defending itself is to strike with its long, stout, curved claws, which, driven by its muscular forearm, can rip open man or beast. Several of our companions had had dogs killed by these ant-eaters; ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... danger of their life on railway construction, experienced a new sensation of fear. Never had she seen her father use a firearm; his ready fists were more to his liking. With a breathless rush she stood by his side, one hand gripping the wrist of the hand that held the ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... gripping the gamekeeper's arm, "go back to Saint-Elophe, Gridoux, and send the soldiers to me, eh? Let them defend me, hang it all! The Uhlans will burn down ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... interpretation of the religious significance of human experience he stood forth like a pine tree towering above scraggly growth. No one can ever forget that tall, dynamic figure in the spacious pulpit of Christ Church preaching the Word of God with gripping power. It was not merely the power of virility and eloquence, but the power of grasp, of comprehension, the ability to communicate truth and make it come alive, and cry out for expression in the hearts and lives of his hearers. We felt the majesty of the ...
— Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati • Warren C. Herrick
... Mikhalitch," sighed Khlobuev, gripping the other's hand. "I am no longer serviceable—I am grown old before my time, and find that liver and rheumatism are paying me for the sins of my youth. Why should the Government be put to a loss on my account?—not to speak of the fact that for every salaried post there are countless numbers ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... course, and which, like everything else at a greater distance than some fifty or sixty fathoms, I could only see when on the summit of a wave. But the fragment of plank still seemed to be a terribly long way off, my strength was beginning to flag, and despair was again gripping at my heart when, as I rose upon the next sea, I was cheered by the quite unexpected sight of a considerable quantity of wreckage not more than a hundred fathoms distant. The sight renewed my courage, my composure returned; I ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... pick a finnicking way to the stern of the boat; saw the solemn faces of his rowmen as they bent their naked backs, gripping their clumsy oars. And to think that they and Hamilton were going back to the familiar life, to the dear full days he knew! Sanders coughed and swore ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... having spread, Miss Sally Wooster was among the astonished spectators who beheld the tiny, half-naked, frightened little chieftain-to-be, gazing timidly about him as he sat on the planks, gripping his own little shirt as his one and ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... feudalism—beginning, let us assume, with the invention of power machinery—the "Age of Steam". It is apparent that from that time to our own day, man's acquisitive tendency has so expanded, that if we were capable of an unbiased opinion it might be said to be a form of megalomania gripping the entire white race, where highly-developed commerce and industry are found in their ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow
... her household has progressed to dairy farming, as many of them have, finding the sale of milk to the city creameries more profitable than raising vegetables, she has only to attach the electric devices and the cows are milked mechanically. She sits no more at the churn, one hand gripping the dasher, the other holding a fretful babe to her breast. Now that unseen juice, or 'lectric, comes along the wire and into the new churn and there! Almost before you know it there is a ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... began to talk as though big notions might be gripping them. If other towns no larger than the one in which they lived had gymnasiums, and regularly organized field clubs, with splendid grounds for athletic meets, what was to hinder them from doing ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton
... before. He reached the edge of the people and crossed the open space beyond, passing the leaping blaze of the fagots, and so drew near the iron door of the pit. The key went slowly into the lock. All shrank with dismay at the roar which rent the air. Geoffrey paused with his hand gripping the key, and there came a sound of solemn singing over ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister
... his mouth and flecked his soft, golden beard, and he rumbled and snarled, beast-like, in his throat. He made no attempt to strike or to avoid the blows which beat against his face; but with one arm around his enemy's neck, the hand gripping the nearer side of the jaw, and the other hand pushing at it, he strove to break his neck. Little by little he twisted it. Gradually the chin pointed to the shoulder, almost past it. It seemed that with the fraction of an inch more the ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... took a firmer hold, in one hand seizing my arm above the elbow, and gripping my shoulder with the other so tightly that, through my flimsy covering, his strong fingers bruised me so severely that in a calmer moment I would have squirmed ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... returned from Chicago. He and Madam Bartlett sat facing each other in the sepulchral library, where the green reading-light cast its sickly light on Lincoln and his Cabinet, on Andrew Jackson dying in the bosom of his family, on Madam savagely gripping the lions' heads on the ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... Dan took a trembling breath, and sat down, visibly, gripping himself. "All right, all right, I heard what you said—you must mean something, but I don't know what. Let's be reasonable. Let's forget philosophy and semantics and concepts and all the frills for just a minute and talk about facts, ...
— Martyr • Alan Edward Nourse
... intention of futilely provoking a repetition of such punishment. She accompanied her captors submissively and was assisted into the machine. Then something happened which might almost be said to have delighted her if it were not for the strain of benumbing fear that was gripping her. ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... the constant waggings of the terrier's rough tail. And he walked somewhat abstractedly through the old paved court, past the unsympathetic sun-dial, and out through the great gates, which were guarded on either side by stone griffins, gripping in their paws worn shields decorated with defaced tracings of the old Vaignecourt emblems. Clematis clasped these fabulous beasts in a dainty embrace, winding little tendrils of delicate green over their curved claws, and festooning their savage-looking ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... little white teeth gripping one end of the grassy cord whilst she wound the other about the stems of the water-lilies, 'I can see you know what I mean. Using bad language in the very face of death and danger! I wonder you ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... well out into the barrack-yard, and called quietly to Jan. Instantly the long, silky ears lifted. Snatching up his dandy-brush and gripping it firmly between his jaws, Jan rushed out into the yard, there to be rewarded with the assurance of Dick's affectionate approval and the enthusiastic plaudits ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... piece of iron somewhat narrowly triangular in shape for driving the work closely together; a stout pair of shears and a "dog" or "commander" for straightening sticks. The employer supplies a screw block or vice for gripping the bottom and cover sticks of square work, and a lapboard on which the workman fixes the upsetted bottom while siding up the basket. This is the full kit. A common round or oval basket may, however, be made with no other tools than a shop-knife ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... lilies floated on the sprinkled surface of the fountain pool. Orchids, dangling from the metal lattice, hung their sensuous blossoms in vapour-laden air. Luxurious vines, climatized to this unreal world, clambered over cosy arbours, or clung with gripping fingers to the ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... at top speed, circling and recircling, flashing in and out among the other horses, the fragment of humanity on its back meanwhile clinging to his place like a monkey. For a minute, then another, the youngster kept his seat, pulling upon the reins at intervals, gripping together his small knees until the muscles ached. Then suddenly the colt, changing its tactics, planted its front feet firmly into the ground, stopped short, and the small Benjamin shot overhead, to strike the turf beyond with an impact which fairly drove the breath ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... by side with his; her soft dark hair half hid his pale cheek, and he was whispering feebly his words of gratitude, as Lydia slowly advanced into the room, and, unnoticed by either, she laid her soft, white hand upon Katrine's shoulder, gripping it with a nervous force of ...
— The Dark House - A Knot Unravelled • George Manville Fenn
... on the surface of the partition top as an additional balance, the other gripping his stunner. For some reason his captors had not disarmed him. Perhaps they believed they had no necessity to fear ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... shilling for a bit of bread! What is the good of Christianity? So the dusky hands are withdrawn, and the poor Zulu with untutored maw goes starving on. But if any still doubt our primitive ancestry, let them hear that Zulu's outcries of pain, or watch the fortunate man who has really got a loaf, and gripping it with both hands, gnaws it in his corner, turning his suspicious eyes to right and ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... writhed in sharp discomfort. Then, he did the one thing possible, by way of reprisal. Before Brice could dodge out of his close-quarters position, the other clasped him tight in his bulgingly powerful arms, gripping the lighter man to his chest in a hug which had the gruesome force of a boa-constrictor's, and increasing the pressure with all his ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... sentences with an energy almost fierce, gripping my knee meanwhile. Then, as suddenly, his grasp relaxed, and he fell ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... chap!" Braith would say when they parted, gripping Rex's hand and smiling at him. But Rex did not see Braith's face as ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... not see, for his back was resolutely toward it and he was gripping the cover of the book hard to steady his hands; but he felt a breath of colder air from the outer hall; he felt above all a new presence peering in upon him, like a winter-starved lynx that might flatten its round face against the window and peer in at the lazy warmth and comfort ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... made no reply. His conscience was oppressed; he had a touch of imagination. He thought of the soft fingers which had bound up his head that morning: the handkerchief—her handkerchief!—was still around it. Now those fingers would be gripping at the slippery stones of the Vaal in a struggle for life, or more probably they were already limp in death, with little grains of gravel sticking beneath the nails. It was a painful thought, but he consoled himself by remembering the warrant, also by the reflection that ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... cold, and hunger, in a land of enemies. It may sound monotonous to the reader at times, but I assure you, we never, for one minute, got accustomed to the pangs of hunger, the beat of the rain, or the ache of our tired legs, and the gripping, choking fear that through some mishap we ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung
... rose to his feet, gripping a bag in each hand, but together they were all that he could carry. "Here, Trent, you take one of these," he ordered. "I'll take the other and, armed with proof like this, we ought to be able to ...
— The Outdoor Girls on Pine Island - Or, A Cave and What It Contained • Laura Lee Hope
... the host to earth Winding their garments tight, and with clenched hands Gripping the earth: for not their weight alone Withstood the tempest which upon their frames Piled mighty heaps, and their recumbent limbs Buried in sand. At length they struggling rose Back to their feet, when lo! around them stood, Forced by the storm, a growing bank of earth Which ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... and moved by a swift impulse, I stooped and kissed the firm hand that rested so near me, gripping the edge of the port-hole. He looked up with a sudden ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... her astonished companion, she drew her hastily through a doorway near, walked quickly, still gripping her, through two connected rooms beyond, and finally landed her and herself on a sofa in Lord Maxwell's library, pursued meanwhile through all her hurried course by the curious looks of ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... terrifying in that swift, cat-like movement. In vain the Frenchman backed and dodged and tried to guard. Once, twice, Macdonald's fists fell. LeNoir's right arm hung limp by his side and he staggered back to the wall helpless. Without an instant's delay, Macdonald had him by the throat, and gripping him fiercely, began to slowly bend him backward over his knee. Then for the first time ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... as his eyes were lowered to her face, and he saw once more the trembling lips, her unsoiled womanliness, her whole vivid, lonely, gripping charm, a look of suffering crossed his face. He realised the hopelessness of it all, but the admission was like tearing out a thread which had been woven into the whole scheme ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... gripping story of a doctor who failed in a crucial operation—and had only himself to blame. Could the ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... he burst out suddenly, starting up in his chair. "When they set upon me, five of them, from behind and beat me! There in public with the lights and the singing." He caught her hand, gripping it. "There's a conspiracy, Joan. I know it. I've seen it a long time. And I know who started it and who paid them to follow me. Everywhere I go, there ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... him. Instead of that he was being inundated by a recklessness of desire that reached Savina's desperate indifference to what, however threatening, might overtake her. He couldn't, he hadn't the inclination to, do less. Reaching up, she drew her fingers down his sleeves until they rested in his gripping hands. Her palms clung to his, and then she broke ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... black and erect, stood in front of her suddenly, and beyond appeared a group of black, straight antagonists. She staggered on toward them, gripping her rifle with some muddled idea of defense, and in another moment she was brushing against the branches of a stunted fir, which shed thick lumps of snow upon her feet. What trees were these? Had she ever passed any trees? No! There were no trees ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... midnight visitor? Softly Howland went back to his heavy coat and slipped his small revolver into his hip pocket. The knock came again. Then he walked to the door, shot back the bolt, and, with his right hand gripping the butt of his pistol, flung ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... had fairly recovered from this, and while I was only automatically keeping myself afloat, I saw the wet, rotting piles of a wooden pier quite close to me, and swimming like a madman, touched the surface, and tried to get a grip of it. I failed, and was swept along, gripping and slipping in a most desperate endeavor, until at last the finger-nails of my right hand stuck somewhere in a crack of the water-soaked and slimy wood, and I held on, feeling that I was safe. I had not the faintest sensation ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... overhang, tending the sheet, and bracing muscular legs against the swirling seas that, leaping over the low freeboard, tried to swirl him off among them. Kathryn Blair, leaned lithely against the weather rail, little, white—canvas-shod feet braced, skirts whipping about her slender body, rounded arms gripping the wet edge of the cockpit rail. The gold-brown hair, in loosened strands, whipped across her tanned cheek; her gown, open at the throat, revealed a glimpse of straight, perfectly-poised throat; her lips were parted and her breath came fast in the ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... quickly raised his rifle and fired; and the horse, spilling its rider out of the saddle, floated away tail first. The fugitive, gripping his rifle, bobbed and whirled at the whim of the greedy water as shots struck near him. Making a desperate effort, he staggered up the bank and fell ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... Once gripping the rounds he pulled himself up, reflecting that it was well it was night and that no lady was sitting within her shelter to be affrighted at this intrusion of fingers ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... biplane quivered as from a heavy blow; something that resembled a handful of black crumbs sprayed out into the air ahead and vanished: and where the instrument had been, nothing remained but an iron clamp gripping the strut. ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... did not die unavenged; for that winter a man, skating far down the fiord, noticed a curious object embedded in the ice; and when, stooping, he looked closer, he saw two corpses, one gripping the other by the throat, and the bodies were the bodies of Hund ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... He was gripping the stable-wall with his trembling fingers, and struggling for composure. Pete scraped the paving-stones at his feet, and mumbled again in a voice that was near to breaking. "Spake for me, Phil. ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... bodies lay the silver light Of the bright moon. The great night seemed to pause Chin upon hand to watch the struggle, air Hushed to retain the hoarse and laboring sobs Such strain brought forth. Their shining bodies, oiled In honor of the feast, granted no hold To the fierce gripping arms. ...
— The Rose of Dawn - A Tale of the South Sea • Helen Hay
... usually the result of a sudden, and often involuntary, movement. As examples may be cited the rupture of the quadriceps extensor in attempting to regain the balance when falling backwards; of the gastrocnemius, plantaris, or tendo-calcaneus in jumping or dancing; of the adductors of the thigh in gripping a horse when it swerves—"rider's sprain"; of the abdominal muscles in vomiting, and of the biceps in sudden movements of the arm. Sometimes the effort is one that would scarcely be thought likely ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... gripping us angrily now; there was no chance to draw back. At his post stood the Jam-wagon with the keen, alert look of the man who loves danger. A thrill of excitement ran through us all. With set faces ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service |
