"Wrench" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... has been discarded is used in making this vise. The wrench is supported by two L-shaped pieces of iron ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... ministering priests till 1090 (William Rufus), when, in a tremendous storm that sent the monks to their knees, and shook the very saints from their niches over portal and arch, the roof of Bow Church was, by one great wrench of the wind, lifted off, and wafted down like a mere dead leaf into the street. It does not say much for the state of the highway that four of the huge rafters, twenty-six feet long, were driven (so the chroniclers say) twenty-two feet into ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... himself the surer about the flight of the days that were carrying him homeward, he stuck twenty-one sticks deep in a corner of the garden, when he was three weeks from the holidays, and pulled one up every day with a great wrench, throwing it ...
— Tom and Maggie Tulliver • Anonymous
... sank into a hole. Perhaps with a little calmness and patience he could have released it. But in his wild hurry he tried to wrench it out. A sudden, sharp pain rewarded this insane effort. He lost his balance and went sprawling to the ground, another quick, excruciating twinge accompanying his fall, and lay there on the soggy ground like a woodchuck ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... minutes slight tappings came from within, as if a wrench or a screwdriver were being used. Then the tappings stopped, and ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... monkey wrench in de cotton-gin of de carpet bag party. I's here to tell you. If a nigger git hungry, all he have to do is go to de white folk's house, beg for a red shirt, and explain hisself a democrat. He might not git de shirt right then but he git his belly full of everything de white ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 1 • Various
... Elfride, by a wrench of thought, forced away from her mind the sensation that Knight was in bodily danger. But attempt to help him she must. She ventured upon the treacherous incline, propped herself with the closed telescope, and gave him her hand before he saw ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... little f'r women, he liked to play ca-ards, but not f'r money. He did nawthin' that was bad; an' yet he was no good at all, at all,—just a slow, tired, aisy-goin', shamblin' la-ad,—th' sort that'd wrench th' heart iv a father like Ahearn. I dinnaw what he did fin'lly, but wan night he come into my place an' said he'd been turned out be his father an' wanted a place f'r to sleep. 'Ye'll sleep at home,' says I. 'Ye'er father sh'd take shame to himsilf,—him ...
— Mr. Dooley in Peace and in War • Finley Peter Dunne
... his sensations painful enough in the mingled tumult of suspense, hope, and fear. There was no bell, only an old-fashioned brass knocker, which, with a kind of surly stiffness, resisted his attempt to use it. He managed to wrench one knock out of it, and left it suspended in ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... Thus Robert Stephenson used it to hoist the gigantic tubes of the Britannia Bridge into their bed,[2] and Brunel to launch the Great Eastern steamship from her cradles. It has also been used to cut bars of iron, to draw the piles driven in forming coffer dams, and to wrench up trees by the roots, all of which feats ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... is that it is "dangerous." No doubt in exceptional instances this is true; exactly as it is true that in exceptional instances it is "dangerous" for a butcher to knock over a steer in the slaughter-house. A bear caught only by the toes may wrench itself free as the hunter comes near, and attack him with pain-maddened fury; or if followed at once, and if the trap and bar are light, it may be found in some thicket, still free, and in a frenzy of rage. But even in such cases the beast has been crippled, and though ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... Wordsworth, Here we are, transplanted from our native soil. I thought we never could have been torn up from the Temple. Indeed it was an ugly wrench, but like a tooth, now 'tis out and I am easy. We never can strike root so deep in any other ground. This, where we are, is a light bit of gardener's mold, and if they take us up from it, it will cost no blood and groans like mandrakes pull'd up. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... dimly defined notion of what we were aiming at, I gave the pole a good wrench round in the hole, feeling it strike against something, and almost simultaneously feeling something strike ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... friends, Eve Dawkins and Alma Richardson, were the loudest in her disfavour, and it was chiefly owing to their eloquence that she was requested to resign. She had been proud of her captaincy, and to give it up was a wrench. There seemed nothing at all in her new Form to compensate for the loss, and sometimes she wished heartily that she had never ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... fellow in a grey shirt had attracted general attention by his dexterity. He was resolved to have Nero's rosette. He managed to wrench it from between the bull's horns, but not completely to disengage it. The bull drove after him so close that it was impossible for another man to run between, the grey shirt reached the barrier and swung over, but the horns caught his nether garment and rent it, fortunately ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... he did, he put his hand against Sir John Malyoe's breast and thrust him violently back, crying out upon him in a great, loud, hoarse voice for threatening a young lady, and saying that for a farthing he would wrench the stick out of his hand and ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... zeal, you will, I trust, unite with me in prayer, for I have much to fear from a powerful enemy." I answered him, "Have compassion on your own weak subjects, that you may not see disquiet from a strong foe. With a mighty arm and heavy hand it is dastardly to wrench the wrists of poor and helpless. Is he not afraid who is hardhearted with the fallen that if he slip his foot nobody will take him by the hand?—Whoever sowed the seed of vice and expected a virtuous produce, pampered a vain brain and encouraged an idle whim. Take the cotton from ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... was kneeling beside the dog and trying to discover what its trouble was, the swinging white light approached so closely that he saw it to be a lantern, borne by a man who, in his other hand, carried a long-handled iron wrench. He was the track-walker of that section, who was obliged to inspect every foot of the eight miles of track under his charge, at least twice a day; and the wrench was for the tightening of any loose rail ...
— Cab and Caboose - The Story of a Railroad Boy • Kirk Munroe
... thinking himself back to Beaulieu; then, seating himself on a step, leaning against the wall, he tried to think out whether to give himself up to the leadings of the new light that had broken on him, or whether to wrench himself from it. Was this, which seemed to him truth and deliverance, verily the heresy respecting which rumours had come to horrify the country convents? If he had only heard of it from Tibble Wrymouth, he would have doubted, in spite of its power over him, but he had heard it from a man, wise, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... bows. It was a very rough-looking machine, but still was likely to answer its purpose. We also found several pieces of iron about the boat which could be removed without impairing its strength; and these we managed to wrench off, with the help of a sharp ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... and he understood in a flash. He too knew the vital nature of his errand, but his instant decision gave a wrench to his whole being. He saw the Uhlans breaking through the woods and John before them. He was standing beside the Arrow, and giving the machine a sharp push he sprang in and rose at a ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... prostrate law to find their essence and purpose in reconstruction. At the time of which I write, there seemed nothing left for the friends of law, bereft as they were of all statutary means for its enforcement, but making a virtue of this necessity by organizing a "vigilance committee" to wrench by physical strength that unobtainable by moral right. There had been no flourish of trumpets, no herald of the impending storm, but the pent up forces of revolution in inertion, now fierce for action, discarded restraint. Stern, but quiet had been the preparation for a revolution ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... I did was in the matter of repairing guns, of which, by the way, the Swazis possessed but very few. I had a knife, the handle of which contained a screwdriver and various other tools; the condition of my own gun necessitated the carrying of a nipple wrench. The latter was a very old instrument; it had sockets graded to fit nipples of various sizes. The trouble with the Swazi guns was almost invariably dirt or rust. Some I put right without much difficulty; others were quite ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... The wrench to the fisherman's knee proved more serious than he had anticipated. The doctor pronounced it out of the question that he should be moved ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... loosened shutter and passed through the dimness of long rooms, bare and chilly, his steps loud on the uncarpeted floors. The place was damp and had the musty smell of a house long unaired and unoccupied. The double doors into the dining room were jammed and he had to wrench them open; in the pantry a windowpane was broken and the rain had seeped in. Here, on a three-legged table, he found a calendar and remembered hearing that the hotel had been opened during the previous summer, but that, business ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... Sieglinde, whom now he can rescue. As the fire and the song die away together, Sieglinde reappears. She has drugged Hunding into a deep sleep, and in an exultant song tells Siegmund the story of the sword. They can be saved if he is strong enough to wrench it from the trunk of the ash. He recognizes his sister and folds her passionately in his arms. The storm has passed, and as the moonlight floods the room he breaks out in one of the loveliest melodies ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... my hold on Mary; I whispered to her, "I won't leave you!" She seemed not to hear me. She trembled from head to foot in my arms. A faint cry of terror fluttered from her lips. Dermody instantly stepped forward. Before my father could wrench me away from her, he had said in my ear, "You can give her to me, Master George," and had released his child from my embrace. She stretched her little frail hands out yearningly to me, as she lay in Dermody's arms. "Good-by, dear," she said, faintly. I saw her head sink on her father's ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... late one Sunday evening. The plumbing had frozen in our absence; when I lit the furnace again, pipes began to thaw and for an hour or so we had a lively time. In the course of a battle with a pipe and a monkey wrench I sprained a thumb, and the next morning I stopped at the drugstore on my way to the train ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... A "monkey wrench" is not so named because it is a handy thing to monkey with, or for any kindred reason. "Monkey" is not its name at all, but "Moncky." Charles Moncky, the inventor of it, sold his patent for $2,000, and invested the money in a house in Williamsburg, King's County, ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... suddenly you find a heavy dragging weight upon your hands, and again you hear the moans of a dying man close to you—almost in your arms. A republican soldier has fallen on your bayonet. The struggles of the wounded man nearly overpower you; you twist and turn and wrench, and drag your musket to and fro, but it is no use; the weapon is jammed between his ribs; you have not space nor time to extricate it; you are obliged to leave it, and on you go unarmed, stumbling ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... helped her to bear her lot quite as much as, if not more than, the evangelicalism of Sir Thomas and Lady Royden. Moreover, she was too much in love with life to give her mind very seriously to the difficulties of theology. Even with a body which had to wrench itself along, one could swim and row, read and ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... rise up, an' wrench off them bars!" suggested Heman Blaisdell, pointing out one cage where a great creature, gaudy in stripes, paced back and forth, throwing us an occasional look of scorn and great despite. "I wouldn't give much for my chances! Nor ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... that it fixed itself deep in the stump of a wild olive tree that stood in the field. The tree had been sacred to the deity Faunus, but the Trojans had cut it down to make a clear ground for their military movements. When AEneas attempted to wrench the spear out, Turnus prayed to Faunus ...
— Story of Aeneas • Michael Clarke
... misadventure had occurred in midwinter when the range was gripped by bitter frost. The cold had numbed the pain and congealed the flesh to solid ice. He had cut through the meat with his keen-pointed teeth, and one desperate wrench had snapped the frozen bone and freed him. There were many of his kind so maimed, and the wolfers, abbreviating the term peg-legs, ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... knew perfectly well where he was about to take me, and no significant gestures of mine hastened him forward in the very least. Presently, without any warning, we did turn into a side opening, but so suddenly that the whole vehicle had a wrench, and the two hind wheels jolted over a high kerbstone. Meanwhile the group of damsels were still in close confab, and I could see took note that the stranger had descended at the Krone. We were all in a heap in the ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... left me hanging half-insensible over the side of the fuselage. But I am always capable of a supreme effort—it is my one great merit as an aviator. I was conscious that the descent was slower. The whirlpool was a cone rather than a funnel, and I had come to the apex. With a terrific wrench, throwing my weight all to one side, I levelled my planes and brought her head away from the wind. In an instant I had shot out of the eddies and was skimming down the sky. Then, shaken but victorious, I turned her nose up and began once more my steady grind on the upward spiral. I took ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... closed her eyes, however, before she heard a curious noise in the vicinity of her ear, and something unmistakably gave her plait a violent wrench. She started up with a yell, in time to see an enormous head withdraw itself from the tent door. A clatter of ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... compelled your father's decision, think it just possible that they were the highest. Put yourself out of the question for the moment and face facts. Your parents were not willing to part with you; believe me, it was a bitter wrench to both to leave you behind. But settling up country in the colony was not an easy matter for my brother with his delicate wife and four children. Marjory was older than you, so of course more able to help with the boys, and knowing that his expenses would be very heavy and his means ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... the distance was so short, and I feared that he might wrench one of his hands loose. Moreover, I thought that you might prefer his being searched ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... have many a heart wrench, I'll bet you! You'll have to run across the results of the harm you do to Mrs. Sterling and Richard day in and day out, year after year! I don't believe you realize what it means! Why, I know you can't bear ...
— The Climbers - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... face gathered intelligence as he listened. He knew her secret now. For a moment he felt a wrench of pity for her. But love, with the captain, had been a sentimental fever ending in a cold ague: he had experienced light heats and chills of it many a time since. This wild fancy of the girl's would speedily burn itself out if judiciously damped. He ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... the stillness that followed, a voice cried, "Are you mad?" and there was the grating of chairs thrust hastily back. But, after a great wrench, her heart stood still within her as through the madness she perceived the purpose. As well as Edric of Mercia she knew that the young Viking's vulnerable point was his longing for his own self-esteem, a craving so unreckoning in its fervor that—should he have the guilty consciousness ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... and as usual some of my partners did not fail to accompany me to the steamer and bade me good-bye. But, oh! the difference to me! Say what we would, do what we would, the solemn change had come. This I could not fail to realize. The wrench was indeed severe and there was pain in the good-bye which was also ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... came to a stop close to the girl, who was standing there staring, as though hardly understanding what it all meant. Andy hopped out the first thing even though he happened to be holding the monkey wrench in his hand at the time, having snatched it up in his excitement when he first discovered the threatening peril ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... the dummy, and after a few minute's work managed to wrench the dagger loose out of the armor. I brought the old weapon and placed its hilt in a hole near the top of the post where it fitted loosely, the point upward. After that I went again to the lever and gave another strong heave, and the post descended about a foot, to the bottom of the ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... made a solemn compact that if any one of them was ever "scared," he should step boldly out and "wrench forth the serpent's fang." Should he be too great a coward so to do, he should wear a huge letter C pinned on his jacket for a fortnight, and be subject to all the taunts which could be imagined ...
— Harper's Young People, August 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... cost you many a sacrifice, and wrench many a heart-string to choose aright, but I plead with you to take the decisive step now. The salvation of your soul outweighs all other considerations. Will you imperil your eternity for the sake of some present gain ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Dwight Moody
... After working all day on a bulletin paper whose city editor is constantly shouting: 'Boil it now, fellows! Keep it down! We're crowded!' it is too much of a wrench to find myself seated calmly before my own typewriter at night, privileged to write one hundred thousand words if I choose. I can't get over the habit of crowding the story all into the first paragraph. Whenever I flower into a descriptive passage I ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... difficulty Ducie managed to wrench open the smashed door. Then he called the Russian by name; but there was no answer. He could discern nothing inside save a confused heap of rugs and minor articles of luggage. Under these, enough in themselves to smother him, ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... typewriter had been a wrench. He had not dared to admit to himself how bitter had been his disappointment at giving it up. It would be a long time before he could ever again earn enough money to buy a machine. And he needed it so much—needed it right away. Suppose he did buy a typewriter next year? A dozen ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett
... that felt hat slouched over his eyes. He seemed to be gazing into distance as if alone, and then, after a while, he turned and looked at me, and his eyes were full of pain like a tortured animal, and I felt a wrench at my heart. Then he clasped his hands tight together as though he were afraid he should take mine, and he said the dearest things a man could say to a woman—how the stress of the situation last night had forced from him an avowal of his love for me. "I ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... only just fail to leap aboard, on roaring water which drowns the human voice so completely that the bowman can only make use of signals, past rocks and snags on which a single graze would mean a wreck, and, often the worst of all, from one wild 'throw' to another with quite a different set and a wrench of two fierce ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... but he himself was beginning to believe Toby's guess might not be far wrong. It gave him a fresh wrench about the region of his heart to believe this. It would mean another source of trouble for poor Fred, and might in the end eliminate him ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton
... hand to touch it, and fell back on the narrow floor with a scream of anguish. An inch farther, and these lines had not been written. As it was, the fall caught me by the fingers with the suck of a cat-fish, and it was only a gigantic wrench that saved me from slipping off the ledge. The jerk brought my head against the rock with a stunning blow, and for some moments I lay dizzy and confused, daring hardly to breathe, and conscious only of a burning and blistering agony ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... swiftly returned to their allotted task, and his reeking pipe did its duty with hearty goodwill. There was the sound of strident voices in the outer room, and the rattle of the door handle turning with a wrench. ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... in sooth, That "whispering tongues can poison Truth,"— Yea, like a dose of oxalic acid, Wrench and convulse poor Peace, the placid, And rack dear Love with internal fuel, Like arsenic pastry, or what is as cruel, Sugar of lead, that sweetens gruel,— At least such torments began to wring 'em From the very morn When that mischievous ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... right to it," answered Dru, "but certain as I am that I am doing the only thing I could do, under the circumstances, it's a hard wrench to leave the Army, even though I had come to think that I can find my place in the world ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... the bar and with a great effort pushed the bottom from him. It moved through the groove without much difficulty, but it needed a great wrench to free the upper end. However, it was done, and laying it quietly down he pulled himself up and thrust himself through the loophole. It was a desperate struggle to get through, for it was only just wide enough for his head to pass, and he was so squarely built that his body ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... commented to herself. "I should have been a leading lady by now, drawing my thirty to forty pounds a week. I had the root of the matter in me. Have it still, worse luck; for it's the sort of root which asserts its continued existence by aching at times like that of a broken tooth. It was a wrench to give it all up. But then those rotten plays of his, inflated impossible stuff, which would never act— couldn't act!—and I carrying them round to manager after manager and using all the gentle arts I knew to get them accepted. ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... and so vehement was the fall from glory into meanness, that it dislocated the machinery of clairvoyant vision. The inner perception clouded and grew dark. Outer and inner mingled in violent, inextricable confusion. The wrench seemed almost physical. It happened all at once, retreat and continuation for a moment somehow combined. And, if he did not definitely see the awful thing, at least he was aware that it had come to pass. He knew it as positively as though his eye were glued ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... a glance at the gun-rack. The rifle was gone. The patent-clasp which held the weapon in place had been wrenched free. Her eyes traveled to the empty provision-locker, which stood open. Close by it lay a small monkey-wrench with which some one ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... and cramping her, all her life probably, to give way to her now. Can it ever be too early to acquire self-reliance, and is it not one of the most necessary lessons for a responsible human being to learn? Besides, 'ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute.' It is only the first wrench which will hurt her. She will find plenty of fresh interests and congenial occupations at St. Ambrose's. In a week, a fortnight, she will not ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... cried Captain Jimmie in dismay. He gave a wrench to the wheel, shouting orders to the Ancient Mariner to gee her around and go back, but he was too late. Before the gang-plank had been thrown out, or rope hitched, the Old Boys had leaped ashore. Captain Jimmie yelled at them to come back, but they paid ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... to keep him in the boat, and the man pulling stroke smashed a stout oar with the next wrench. ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... Carmelo in tow, we instantly called out to the people on board her, who threw him over several ends of ropes, one of which he fortunately caught hold of, and twisting it round his arm, was hauled into the ship, without having received any other injury than a wrench in his arm, of which he ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... Jim leaped to wrench his spear from the conquered giant's head. And side by side he and Denny started again the charge against the ruler's guards, which, while still mighty in defense, were by their very ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... whom he encountered were quick witted. One day while touring in the south he came down grade around a bend squarely upon a car ascending. Chuck's car was going too fast to be stopped. He tried desperately to wrench it from the road, but perceived at once that this was impossible without a fatal skid. Fortunately the only turnout for a half mile happened to be just at that spot. The other man managed to jump his car out on this little side ledge and to jam on his brakes at the very ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... that our form of government must ultimately prevail upon earth; but what guaranty have we that it shall be maintained here? What proof that some unlineal hand, some barbarism, without or within, shall not wrench the sceptre of democracy from our grasp? The rule of princes, the privilege of birth, has come down through the ages; the rule of the people has not yet marked a century and a half. There is no absolute proof, no positive guaranty, but there ...
— Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. - A Collection of Speeches and Messages • Calvin Coolidge
... place the secret of which the villainous old Arab, Samory, endeavoured to wrench from you by torture," I exclaimed, gazing round the ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... how hard it would be to you in either case. On the one hand, what a cruel wrench it will give your heart to tear ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... is a small, square apartment at the end of a long and dark passage. The day filters dimly into it through a barred window no larger than a pocket-handkerchief. Juanita stood on tiptoe and looked into a narrow alley. On the sill of this window Marcos had stood to wrench apart the bars of the window immediately overhead, through which he had lifted her one cold night—years and years ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... and passed into the mysterious house; when the swinging door disclosed a black passage into which the figure seemed to lose itself and become a part of the mysterious gloom; when the night grew boisterous and the fierce wind made furious charges at the knocker, as if to wrench it off and carry it away in triumph. Such a ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... connection with the use of elevators, and which no doubt is common, is the habit many parties have of keeping a key or wrench to turn on and off the water at the curb. This we have sought to remedy by embracing in our plumbers' rules the following: "All elevator connections in addition to the curb stop for the use of the Water Company must be provided with another valve where the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various
... will keep Still on the watch till you are laid asleep.' Thus too the Christian's progress he'll retard: - 'The gates of mercy are for ever barr'd; And that with bolts so driven and so stout, Ten thousand workmen cannot wrench them out.' To this deceit you have but one reply, - Give to the Father of all Lies the lie. "A Sister's weakness he'll by fits surprise, His her wild laughter, his her piteous cries; And should a pastor at her side attend, He'll use her ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... begged Tom to let his brother alone. "I was only fooling her," snarled Rafe, rubbing his injured shoulder, for Tom had the grip of a pipe wrench. ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... Oh, the wrench to the mother's heart at the thought of what she could foresee! But the warmth of the mother-love lent life to the mother-wit. Having sent her little ones out of sight, and by a sign conveyed to Saddleback her alarm, she swiftly came back to the man, then ...
— Johnny Bear - And Other Stories From Lives of the Hunted • E. T. Seton
... first time she felt free to make the long journey, for her mother and Mary had sold the farm on the outskirts of Rochester and had moved into the city, buying a large red brick house shaded by maples and a beautiful horse chestnut. It had been a wrench for Susan to give up the farm with its memories of her father, but there were compensations in the new home on Madison Street, for Guelma, her husband, Aaron McLean, and their family lived with them there. Hannah and her family had also settled in Rochester, ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... thoughts, and for a moment even my faith seemed at a low ebb. I could hear my children's stifled sobs, and my darling wife shed silent tears. The thought of parting from them gave me the bitterest wrench. With my fleeting breath I gasped these words, 'That mercy I showed others, that show thou me.' The darkened room grew darker, and after that I died. In my sleep I seemed to dream. All about were refined and heavenly flowers, ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... he answered, "and her heart; yes, and my own would be none the better for the wrench; yet how can we turn ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... hold of his tough hair again, and gave it such a wrench that he pulled out several prongs of it. After looking at these with an eye of wild hatred, he put them in ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... Mexican was parading the street the other night carrying in his hand a monkey wrench. It was dark, and Mr. Daniel Boggs, a leading citizen of Wolfville, who met him, mistaking the wrench for a pistol which the Mexican was carrying for some vile purpose, very properly shot him. Mexicans are far too ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... forenoon, my man come up to the house—he's down to shore, you know, along o' Cap'n Sartell and George Olver and Lute Cradlebow and all the rest, down there a mendin' up the old schooner, 'cause Cap'n wanted Lute to see to it afore he went away. My man come up for a wrench, and 'Who do you think's a scootin' around down on the Bay?' says he. 'Wall, it's Dave Rollin,' says he; 'in the purtiest little craft, that runs jest like a picter,' and he said they couldn't see but two men aboard of her then; he guessed they wan't many. It was jest like Dave Rollin ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... for the prize. Twice the great strength of the outlaw had Aylward nearly down, and twice with his greater youth and skill the archer restored his grip and his balance. Then at last his turn came. He slipped his leg behind the other's knee, and, giving a mighty wrench, tore him across it. With a hoarse shout the outlaw toppled backward and had hardly reached the ground before Aylward had his knee upon his chest and his short sword deep in his beard and pointed ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... family or political "pull." Let that be put down honestly, because nothing matters save the truth. But the manhood of Paris as a whole, after the first shudder of dismay, the first agonies of this wrench from the safe, familiar ways of life, rose superbly to the call of la Patrie en danger! The middle-aged fathers of families and the younger sons marched away singing and hiding their sadness under a mask of careless ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... unarmed, and kill him like a beast; or capture and cast him under ground? But after a moment he thought that if it were to be so, they would have sent more men. But should they throw themselves on him, they would not destroy his armor at once, and then he could wrench a weapon from the nearest and kill them all before assistance could arrive. They ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... don't know how to think it," said Charles; "the hold our Church has on the mind is so powerful; it is such a wrench to leave it, I cannot fancy any party-tie standing against it. Humanly speaking, there is far, far more to keep them fast ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... gazed on one another—these two, who had parted, eight years before, with clinging lips and straining arms, a deep, pure passion of love surging within them; a union of heart, made closer by the wrench of ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... to have something to laugh at by the means. Poor Joy was between Scylla and Charybdis. (If you don't know what that means, go and ask your big brothers; make them leave their chess and their newspapers on the spot, and read you what Mr. Virgil has to say about it.) If she hung on she would wrench her arms; if she jumped, she should break them. She hung, screaming, as long as she could, and dropped when she could hang no longer, looking about in an astonishment that was irresistibly funny, at finding herself alive and unhurt ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... that Satan can make any of God's ordinances a PEST and plague to his people, even baptism, the Lord's table, and the holy scriptures; yea, the ministers also of Jesus Christ may be suffered to abuse them, and wrench them out of their place.' Wherefore I pray, if you write again, either consent to, or deny this position, before you proceed ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... face as he toiled up the hill to his hut. It was gone in a moment, however. How could it stay there with his thought gilded with such high hopes? It was not yet, but it would come—must come. His purpose was invincible. He must conquer and wrench this wealth which he demanded from the bosom of the hard old ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... possible that I might find some spar which might serve cut in two as a mast and yard. I would then, I thought, try to steer this boat to land, with the help of one of the thwarts, which I would wrench out to make a rudder, using my clothes tacked together as ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... we meet with actual personal interruption, which I am inclined to think is very far from likely. All we shall require will be a screwdriver, with which to remove the screws, and then something with which to wrench open the coffin." ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... attention. They rushed past Oliver without noticing him, and, hurrying on through the gate, crossed the park, in the direction of the railroad station and the docks. One of the mob, lacking a club, stopped long enough to wrench a paling from the rickety fence enclosing the Square, trampling the pretty crocuses and the yellow tulips under foot. Each new arrival, seeing the gap, followed the first man's example, throwing the branches and tendrils to the ground as they worked, until the whole panel was wrecked and ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... see Nicodemus climb the ladder leaned against the back of the cross. He takes off first the crown of thorns. It is laid silently at Mary's feet. He pulls out the nails one by one. We hear them fall upon the ground. With the last one falls the wrench with which he has drawn it. Passing a long roll of white cloth over each arm of the cross, he lets the Saviour down into the strong arms of Joseph of Arimathea, and, at last, into the loving embrace of John and Mary. No description can give an idea of the all-compelling force of this scene. ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan
... came to her and not to him; the wrench came from her and not from him. It was she and not he who watched through the night and found no motive for the day, save a dull, miserable sense that it was her duty ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... eye had a look which even a very little experience understands. His air was haggard, spiritless, hopeless; so unlike the alert, self-sufficient, confident manner of old, that Dolly's heart got a great wrench. And something in the whole image was so inexpressibly pitiful to her, that she did the very last thing it had been in her purpose to do; she fled to him with one bound, threw herself on his breast, and burst ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... feeling of fear and horror, that I would have leaped into a furnace to avoid or free myself from my situation. Their threats and blows were vain. I reiterated my cries more intensely; for I saw both the bodies become apparently animated, and turn their dull, stupid gaze on me, as I struggled to wrench myself from the grasp of the ruffians. Our struggle was short; for one of them set down the lanthorn, forced down my arms behind me, and held me fast, while the other dropped the cudgel with which he had been beating me, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... better part of a week with such tools as he could find or make—he had to forge a wrench for the largest nuts—"taking down" the dynamo, oiling, filing, polishing and repairing ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... must break down if he met that smile a moment longer, and, with a sudden wrench, he turned himself away; but he could not have spoken a word, if his reputation for strength had depended on ...
— Shenac's Work at Home • Margaret Murray Robertson
... wrench, and for a time he heard nothing; but he was too intent following the flight of the ball to mind whether the report of the gun died on the heights of Galata or across the Bosphorus at Scutari. He saw the blackened sphere pass between the towers flanking the gate, and speed on into the city—how ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... necessary stores—a green flag, a red flag, lanterns, a horn, hammer, screw-wrench for the nuts, a crow-bar, spade, broom, bolts, and nails; they gave him two books of regulations and a time-table of the train. At first Semyon could not sleep at night, and learnt the whole time-table by heart. Two hours before a train was due he would go over his section, ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... thrust, she shoved it in under the bank, beneath the water. The trout! The precious trout! Ah, she could not leave them. Hastily she snatched them up, and thrust all three inside her gingham waist, dropping them in with a wrench at the neck-band. ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... rise the dead. All are naked, and a few are seen like skeletons. With painful effort they struggle from the soil that clasps them round, as if obeying an irresistible command. Some have their heads alone above the ground. Others wrench their limbs from the clinging earth; and as each man rises, it closes under him. One would think that they were being born again from solid clay, and growing into form with labour. The fully risen spirits stand and ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... A violent wrench tore the thing loose and broke away a section of the thin plastered wall. There, in the cleverly concealed cavity behind, was revealed the mechanism of the radio "eye." Somewhere, someone bad been watching their every move. And abruptly the thrashings of the robot ceased and its ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... of this character is entirely modern. "Les Miserables" is a story of the city and of poverty, and can not be dissociated from them by any wrench of thought, however violent. Not that urban life or poverty are new elements in the school of suffering. They are not new, as pain is not new. This is the difference. In the old ages, the city and poverty were taken as matters of course. Comfort was not a classic consideration. The ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... Gilbert, jumping out; "I think the cosmopolitan has buckled with the trapezoid," and then, with a monkey wrench, he crawled under the hood to see if the trouble ...
— You Should Worry Says John Henry • George V. Hobart
... pretty furniture, the luxurious idleness, the very silk dress on her back, being torn from them, and distributed among a crowd of Irish-speaking, pig-keeping peasants. She could see that some new and important point was being argued; and it was with a wrench she detached her thoughts from the pantomime that was being enacted within her view, and, turning to Captain ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... seemed to wrench himself round, holding on to the lower part of the bough with his legs; and the next moment he was climbing steadily up, with the bough swinging to and fro ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... all swim. This question excited great laughter; but the giant coolly placed his hands on each of the gunwales of the boat, set his knees in position, called out, "then sink or swim, you B——," and with one mighty wrench he severed both sides of planking from the stem. Willie swam ashore, and how many of the men were said to be drowned I do not remember, though I have given the main facts as I heard them scores of times in my boyhood days. This story is told by Mr Soulsby in his excellent ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... deeply, then struggled to a sitting posture, his face whitening beneath its tan at the sudden wrench of pain which twisted the ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant
... one thing, and, to tell the truth, he was beginning to enjoy it. Even with the weight of the stuff, it was going to be a wrench to go back to single-breasted suits and plain white shirts. But he did feel that he should have ...
— Brain Twister • Gordon Randall Garrett
... hauled, and being then abeam had given her a list to starboard. This, while not wholly satisfactory to the more experienced, allayed the fears of the women—there were two or three on board beside the widow—who welcomed the respite from the wrench and stagger ...
— A List To Starboard - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... saw it quicker than I, and springing forward seized him by the belt just when he turned over. The parapet wall was very low, and caught the turnkey behind the knee as he staggered, tripping him over into the well-mouth. He gave a bitter cry, and there was a wrench on his face when he knew where he was come, and 'twas then Elzevir caught him by the belt. For a moment I thought he was saved, seeing Elzevir setting his body low back with heels pressed firm against the ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... in.—For ordinary slight injuries, complete rest, and rubbing with spirit lotion, should be sufficient. But where there is previous weakness, or constitutional tendency, even slight pain and stiffness, caused by wet or some blow or wrench, the joint must be treated thoroughly. Careless and wrong treatment may be given, and result in severe lameness. We wish, however, to point out that the treatment here recommended has cured many cases where this lameness appeared hopeless, and even restored walking power in limbs ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk
... With a violent wrench, Lightbody twisted himself free, while one hand flung appealingly back, begged for time to master the emotion which ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... an attempt, even should I fail, to wrench her, who is dearer to me than either, from that demon's grasp. I will ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... jolt would wrench his arms from their sockets. Yet Tad held on desperately. And the result, though wholly unexpected by the mountaineer, was not entirely so to Tad. He had figured—had hoped—that a certain thing ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin
... whisper from beneath the hideous mask. Then, as Cleek's fingers clamped tight again, and the battle began anew, one long, thin arm shot out from amongst the writhing tentacles, one clutching hand gripped the leg of the table and, with a wrench and a twist, brought it crashing to the floor with a sound that a ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... last dread agony, I felt, as I had never felt before, that there was peace and forgiveness for him in Heaven. All his errors—to speak plainly, all his vices—seemed nothing to me in that moment: every wrong he had done, every pain he had caused, vanished; his sufferings only were remembered; the wrench to the natural affections only was left. If man can thus experience total oblivion of his fellow's imperfections, how much more can the Eternal Being, who made man, ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... Grauitie Wherein (let no man heare me) I take pride, Could I, with boote, change for an idle plume Which the ayre beats for vaine: oh place, oh forme, How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit Wrench awe from fooles, and tye the wiser soules To thy false seeming? Blood, thou art blood, Let's write good Angell on the Deuills horne 'Tis not the Deuills ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... light upon it when the wind swept the clouds apart. His volatile speech was chilled, and his buoyant spirits were checked. That Cecil was justly outlawed he would have thought it the foulest treason to believe for one instant; yet he felt that he might as soon seek to wrench up the great stones above him from their base as seek to change the resolution of this man, whom he had once known pliant as a reed ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... some moxey left in him as he has two of his hands around Wurpz's throat, the third around Zahooli's leg and is reaching for a ray Betsy with his fourth. He grabs the disintegrator just as I belt him over his ugly noggin with a wrench about two feet long and which was certainly not made of aluminum or ...
— Operation Earthworm • Joe Archibald
... my head they placed a fruitless crown, And put a barren sceptre in my gripe, Thence to be wrench'd by an unlineal hand, No son of ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... of the captain. I, F, is a speculum oris. The dotted lines represent it when shut; the black lines when open. It opens at G, H, by a screw below with a knob at the end of it. This instrument was used by surgeons to wrench open the mouth in case of lock-jaw. It is used in slave-ships to compel the negroes to take food; because a loss to the owners would follow their persevering attempts to die. K represents the manner of stowing in ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... courage, strength, and energy have neither method nor guidance; for the Pole displays a variability resembling that of the winds which blow across that vast plain broken with swamps; and though he has the impetuosity of the snow squalls that wrench and sweep away buildings, like those aerial avalanches he is lost in the first pool and melts into water. Man always assimilates something from the surroundings in which he lives. Perpetually at strife with the Turk, the Pole has imbibed a taste for Oriental ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... frequently necessitate a stoppage and readjustment of the traces. There are no reins, the dogs being fastened two abreast on either side of a long rope. To start off you seize the sled with both hands, give it a violent wrench to one side, and cry "Petak!" when the team starts off (or should start off) at full gallop, and you jump up and gain your seat as best you may. To stop, you jab an iron brake into the snow or ice and call out "Tar!" But the management of this ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... normal. The perfectly balanced man or woman is so rare as to be a marked person. The average intelligent individual only in general approximates this standard. He goes beyond it in spurts of untrammeled genius, to wrench lightning from the heavens, and to send his trains through the air; or he allows his feelings to dictate to his reason, and much of the time so exaggerates or depreciates the simple facts of life that the results of his reasoning no longer conform ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter
... get the Atlantic and the Rocky Mountains, would you not? for bracing. And so much less sea! And then you could actually see Vailima, which I would like you to, for it's beautiful and my home and tomb that is to be; though it's a wrench not to be planted in Scotland—that I can never deny—if I could only be buried in the hills, under the heather and a table tombstone like the martyrs, where the whaups and plovers are crying! Did you see a man who wrote the Stickit Minister,[68] and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... unexpectedly that for the instant Jack did not know what to do. Then, however, he tried to wrench himself free from ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer
... another, until it came the turn of the mightiest giant of all the guard that day. With a sudden wrench he sought to lift the bar. He tugged and strained. He bent his back and his legs; his shoulders heaved with the terrific effort he made—but the bar still held to the floor of the hut as though a part ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton
... he heard a stamping of feet in the hall outside and the sound of voices, of heavy bodies crashing against the door. Maruffi heard it, too, for with a bellow of fury he redoubled his exertions. A sweep of his arm flung the girl aside; with a mighty wrench of his body he carried Blake half across the room, loosening his hold. Then he seized him by the throat and forced ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... lower sank the heart of the widowed father as the moment approached that was to separate him from his only child. There were times when he so dreaded that moment as to wish for death instead. There were times when he felt that the wrench which should finally tear his daughter from him must certainly prove his death-blow. Yet, for her sake, he bore himself with composure and dignity. He would not let her see the anguish that was oppressing ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... course, for in the matter of legends he could not seem to restrain himself; but I do not repeat his tale because there was nothing plausible about it except that the Hero wrenched this column into its present screw-shape with his hands —just one single wrench. All the rest of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... said Jim; "these fish are fierce." They were, in the wilder parts. They would bite like mad, and then wriggle and wrench themselves off the hook before you could get them up the bank. I never saw or heard of such ferocity, except in the celebrated scaly warrior which chased an equally famous fisherman all over an Adirondack lake, jumped ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... blind. He could think only of Miriam—the woman whom he loved with all his passionate nature and whose life he had preserved at the risk of his own—fallen at last into the arms of his rival. He would wrench her thence, yes, even at the price of his own honour and of her life-long agony, and, if it might be, leave those arms cold in death, as often already he had striven to do. When Marcus was dead perhaps she ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... mud; Saints at the stake gave up agonised life That superstitions be drown'd in hot blood! Theirs was the battle—the conquest is ours— Free souls and bodies the death-wrestled prize Won from bad kingcraft, despoiled of its powers, Wrench'd from false priestcraft ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... "Kill him." "Hang him up by the heels and stone him." "Twist off his tongue," and so forth. Out shot a hand, a long, skinny, female hand, and a harsh voice cried, "Give us a keepsake, my pretty boy!" Then there was a sharp wrench at his head, and he knew that from it a lock of hair was missing. This was too much. He ought to have stopped there and let them kill him if they would, but a terror of these human wolves entered his soul and mastered him. To be trodden beneath those mire-stained feet, to ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... the combined efforts of Jarvis and Max, working with one tool after another, to effect an entrance. Clearly this was not an ordinary closet lock which barred the way. But at last, with a vigorous wrench, Jarvis held the yielding door under his hand. From the top step he waved his free arm at ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... station, and as I come near I see the train is moving. I make a rush for the rear platform. Voices behind scream reproof and warning, but I never look back; I grasp the iron railing and am whisked off my feet by the motion. With a desperate wrench I pull myself up the steps and steady my trembling body against the door of the baggage car. I look in. It's locked, and no one is there. "Stupid idiot!" I mutter. "That mooning Baron hasn't the smallest grain of sense—saying we had ...
— Under the Southern Cross • Elizabeth Robins
... shyness she was smiling at? S'death! what a simpleton—Ho! what do I hear? A woman's voice—a cry?—of terror? There again!—a scream! the words, "Help, oh! help!" Is it she who is calling? Yes—yes it is she! By such strange sounds were my reflections interrupted. Turning my horse with a wrench, I urged him back along the path. I was yet scarcely a dozen lengths from the log—for the reflections above detailed were but the thoughts of a moment. Half-a-dozen bounds of my steed brought me back to the edge of a standing timber—where I pulled up, to ascertain the purport ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid |
