"Wrest" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... recognized a common Redeemer, from all the sufferings and perils of human life, in a culprit who had been ignominiously executed in the obscure Roman province of Judea; nor would Europe have ever gone up in arms to Palestine, to wrest from the unbelieving Turk the tomb where that culprit had slept for only three days and nights after his descent from the cross,—much less would his traditionary instructions, preserved by fishermen and publicans, ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... which he resolved, in the present helpless situation of the young Queen, to wrest from the house of Austria. He revived some antiquated claims on parts of that duchy. The ancestors of Maria Theresa had not behaved handsomely to the ancestors of Frederick, and the young Queen was now to become a lesson to all princes and states of the real wisdom that always belongs ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... brother than I," reasoned the Friar Francis softly; "and, firm though thy resolution may be now, thou art more like than I to be wheedled and bedazzled by these diabolical wiles and artifices. So let me know where this devil abideth with the booke; I burn to meet him and to wrest his treasure from his ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... some time from the vessel's deck at the strong fortress which has been held securely in the grasp of Great Britain for two hundred years, we thought of the many unsuccessful attempts that have been made during those two centuries to wrest it from British control; most noted of all, the long siege by the French and Spanish forces that continued for four years when Napoleon was supreme in France. What might have been the result, if England's grasp on the rock had been broken by Napoleon; or what the outcome, if Napoleon's fleet had ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... the front door, and was fumbling with the lock, the third man flung himself upon me, determined that I should not escape. With great good fortune, however, I managed to unbolt the door, and after a desperate struggle, in which he endeavoured to wrest the weapon from my hand, I succeeded at last in gripping him by the throat, and after nearly strangling him flung him to the ground and escaped into the street, just as his associates, hearing his cries of distress, dashed ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... themselves; but how can they be certain that his descendants will have the same virtues; and when once an absolute power is granted to a good prince, it will be in vain that the people will endeavour to wrest it from the hands of a bad one.—Never can any point be redeemed from the crown without a vast effusion of blood, and the endangering such calamities on the country, that the relief would be as bad as the disease. ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... pray you to proceed And justly and religiously unfold Why the law Salique that they have in France Or should, or should not bar us in our claim; And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord, That you should fashion, wrest, or ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... to tell, with much shuddering, how a Jesuit priest had been mixed up with this wretched business, and there had been a scheme at once religious and political to wrest the estate and the lovely lady from the fortunate heir; and how this grim Italian priest had instigated them to use a certain kind of torture with the poor heir, and how he had suffered from this; but one night, when they left him senseless, he contrived to make his escape from that ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... letter of Ariosto's nephew, who wrote him a letter of congratulation, he said, "The crown you would honour me with already adorns the head of the poet to whom you are related, from whence it would be as easy to snatch it as to wrest the club from the hand of Hercules. I would no more receive it from your hand than I would ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... war which it knew to be crushing and merciless, a war which each of those who called for it knew to be a war which he himself must wage, with his own hands, with his own body, a war which would wrest him from the pleasant ways of peace, from his labours and his comforts, which would weigh terribly upon all those whom he loved, which would expose him for weeks, perhaps for months, to incredible sufferings and which meant almost ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... certainly did not look like an ordinary labourer. He had an air of command that his rough clothes could not hide. There was nothing of the clod-hopper about him albeit he followed the plough. He was obviously a son of the soil, and he would wrest his living therefrom, but he would do it with brain as well as hands. He had a wide forehead ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... honoured, Chief, by me. For Visvamitra's sake beside Shall reverence due be ne'er denied. Though mine the power, I would not send A dart at thee thy life to end. But thy great power to wander free, Which penance-rites have won for thee, Or glorious worlds from thee to wrest, Is the firm purpose of my breast, And Vishnu's dart which now I strain Can ne'er be shot to fall in vain: It strikes the mighty, and it stuns The madness ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... of strong drink! Where shall we begin, where end, or how, in the clear and truthful sentences that wrest conviction from doubt, make plain the allegations we shall bring against an enemy that is sowing disease, poverty, crime and sorrow throughout ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur
... vpon thee, art not asham'd? Marg. Of what Lady? of speaking honourably? is not marriage honourable in a beggar? is not your Lord honourable without marriage? I thinke you would haue me say, sauing your reuerence a husband: and bad thinking doe not wrest true speaking, Ile offend no body, is there any harme in the heauier for a husband? none I thinke, and it be the right husband, and the right wife, otherwise 'tis light and not heauy, aske my Lady Beatrice else, here she ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... succeeded, now stood over the body of the Georgian, with uplifted hand, about to complete the deed already begun. There was not a moment for delay, and the youth sprung forward in time to seize and wrest the weapon from his grasp. With a feeling of undisguised indignation, he exclaimed, as the ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... pretext that Antigonus, by keeping his garrisons in the Greek cities of Asia and the islands, had not respected that article of the treaty which guaranteed Grecian freedom. After the war had lasted three years Antigonus resolved to make a vigorous effort to wrest Greece from the hands of Cassander and Ptolemy, who held all the principal towns in it. Accordingly, in the summer of 307 B.C. he despatched his son Demetrius from Ephesus to Athens, with a fleet of 250 sail, and 5000 talents ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... up to fight for Liberty, And called him from Ravenna: never knight Rode forth more nobly to wild scenes of fight! None fell more bravely on ensanguined field, Borne like a Spartan back upon his shield! O Hellas! Hellas! in thine hour of pride, Thy day of might, remember him who died To wrest from off thy limbs the trammelling chain: O Salamis! O lone Plataean plain! O tossing waves of wild Euboean sea! O wind-swept heights of lone Thermopylae! He loved you well—ay, not alone in word, Who freely ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... his spine erect, uttering low growls and baring his fighting fangs, for who might say whether Zu-tag came in peace or otherwise? The old king had seen other young apes come thus in his day filled with a sudden resolution to wrest the kingship from their chief. He had seen bulls about to run amuck burst thus suddenly from the jungle upon the members of the tribe, and ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... into their hearts, in reward of that virtuous diligence, that through such actual meditation he shall confirm them in such a sure habit of spiritual faithful strength, that all the devils in hell, with all the wrestling that they can make, shall never be able to wrest it out ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... which Jean was attached, floated off and formed a tolerably secure raft. His life was safe for a time; but he would have been exposed to a still more ghastly fate from the swooping sea-birds had he not been able by a supreme effort to wrest one of his arms from its bands. In speechless wonderment he was carried seaward by the slowly receding tide. Suddenly his raft was hailed by a well-known voice. Friendly hands cut the ropes that bound him, and he was lifted into a boat. The occupant was Haco who, ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... instruments. There was a rumpus; neither earthquake nor cyclone would have caused a greater commotion in the community. What, then, did this lying gringo mean by resorting to the trickery of the United States law courts and the power and services of the county sheriff? Why did he wrest their property from them? Had this gringo not always accepted their signatures as a legal tender for the payment of their debts? Had he not told them time and again that their handwriting was better than gold? If uncle had fallen ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... languish in the desert sands on the way to Cairo, they approach the Nile to give battle to the Egyptian army, and at the foot of the pyramids the East is defeated by the West. The march is continued eastwards to Syria. Five centuries have passed since the crusaders attempted to wrest the Holy Sepulchre from the hands of unbelievers. Now again the weapons of Western lands clash in the valley of the Jordan and at the foot of Mount Tabor, and now the French General obtains a victory over the Turks outside Nazareth. In ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... which might, in time, reach Wenceslas. On the other hand, if success attended his efforts, it was more than probable that Cartagena would remain quiet, as long as her itching palm was brightened with the yellow metal which he hoped to wrest from the sands of Guamoco. "It is only a chance, Padre," Rosendo said dubiously. "In the days of the Spaniards the river sands of Guamoco produced from two to ten reales a day to each slave. But the rivers have ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... money, sacrificing his soldiers, and despoiling his land by wars, prosecuted to no good end. He has conquered large territory, but he has paid for it with the blood of his people. Neither they nor he are the better because of those accessions, and the duke has made enemies who will one day surely wrest them from him. A brave prince should not fear to be called a coward because of an act that will bring peace and happiness to his subjects and save their lives, their liberties, and their estates. That great end will ennoble any means. The subjects of Burgundy are frugal and peace-loving. ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... antarctic regions, with their fortifications of eternal ice and snow, intrepid explorers have made known nearly every part of the world. There Giant Frost guards his frozen secrets and defies man to wrest them from him. Many a hero has perished in endeavoring to solve the Sphinx-like riddle of northern lands and seas. Many a gallant ship has found its grave in northern ice-clad waters. Yet there has never ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... light of the camp-fire the stripling heard, with kindling eye and throbbing pulse, the tales of the heroic dead; and he early formed the ambition to become a leader of his race. Some sachem would sadly sketch the smiling scenes of health and happiness in the days before the pale-face came to wrest from the Indians their land, the gift of the Great Spirit. And as the boy listened to these stories of encroachment and oppression, a fierce impulse fired his blood and bade him check the advance of the whites and win back the land of which his people had been robbed. Thus was moulded his life's ...
— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond
... hast encompassed the dominion of the heaven and the earth and the firmament by the might of thy own arms, but even thus how could Vritra (of old) wrest from thee the sovereignty of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... tombed in pallor, with no epitaph But silence! What mighty spell with power rife Can wake thee into Being's passion strife? Yet if there be such, let it rest unsought; For every boon thou couldst from breath derive I would not wrest from thee that higher lot, The need of deathlessness, thou ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... insistent and strong. What he was saying to himself was that, with a woman of Marcella's type, one must "bear it out." This moment of wreck was also with him the first moment of all-absorbing and desperate desire. To win her—to wrest her from the Cravens' influence—that had been the cry in his mind throughout his dazed drive from the House of Commons. Her hand in his—her strength, her beauty, the romantic reputation that had begun to attach to her, at his command—and he would have ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... him, and grasped at the keys in his hands, as if she would wrest them from him. "Unlock the door and let me in, and let Burr Gordon out!" ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... that account the day may come when that country may claim to possess the commercial primacy of the world, I gave sad offence to many. I at present will say this, that as long as America adheres to the protective system your commercial primacy is secure. Nothing in the world can wrest it from you while America continues to fetter her own strong hands and arms, and with these fettered arms is content to compete with you, who are free, in neutral markets. And as long as America follows the doctrine ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... to tell you what it was precisely she wanted to wrest from me. Obviously it would be something very simple—the simplest impossibility in the world; as, for instance, the exact description of the form of a cloud. She wanted an assurance, a statement, a promise, an explanation—I ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... struggled fiercely to wrest out the spears that pinned them down, and the watching warriors made ready to throw again. One of the four lay still, and the warriors paid no heed to him; but under the shelter of his blanket, ignoring the anguish of the two ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... the Cross, had roused Europe from a state of most distressful bondage. Ignorance and barbarism were shot with gleams of spiritual light even after the vast armies were sent forth to wrest the possession of Jerusalem from the infidels. Shameful stories of the treatment of pilgrims to the Holy Sepulchre had moved the hearts of kings and princes to a passionate indignation. Valour became the highest, and all men were eager to be ranked ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... at Dowdall's "was the most commanding one in the vicinity. In the possession of the enemy it would enable him with his artillery to enfilade the lines held by the Twelfth and Second Corps." "To wrest this position from the enemy after his batteries were established upon it, would have required slender columns of infantry, which he could destroy as fast as they were thrown upon it." Slender columns of infantry were at this time among Hooker's ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... for Moonbeams has to be drawn over this ninety miles of desert by waggons or mule carts, and every drop of water comes in six miles from the camp. What splendid pluck and daring to wrest gold from the earth under such circumstances! What general would fight an enemy so ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... set on foot to prove my death, and all the investigations he instituted, when he found that the boy who was with me had been set on shore again. I have given him full scope and licence to act as he chose; but I have come at length, to wrest from him that which is not his, and to strip him of a rank to which he has no claim.—Have you anything to say, Harry Sherbrooke?" he continued, fixing his eye upon him. "Have you anything to say against ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... sudden driving sheets, blotting out all but the nearest cars or vehicles, while the wind seemed to lie in wait at every corner ready to spring forth and wrest umbrellas out of the hands of pedestrians at the most critical points ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston
... only be construed as a gratuitous affront; yet these men who constituted the Executive Committee were not those who would lightly do this. He could quite understand their resentment of both his attitude and his words at the last meeting—he had expected them to make an effort to wrest from him, but in such a way as not to jeopardize their own interests, the supreme authority which he had forced from them; yet they all knew him too well even to suggest any transaction on his part so at variance with the standards which ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... was successful; but at last he received so numbing a blow across the arm that he quivered with pain and anger as he sprang forward, and, in place of retreating, seized the stick, and tried to wrest it away. ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... impulse which proceeds from their sympathy with the energies of the living system. Could we recover the hand from the Cross, or from the custody of the Black Douglas, I would be pleased to observe this wonderful operation of occult sympathies. But, I fear me, one might as safely go to wrest the joint from the talons of an ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... Gower in a strangely similar fashion. He too was old, a tired, disappointed man. He had reached for material success with one hand and happiness with the other. One had always eluded him. The other Jack MacRae had helped wrest from him. MacRae could see Gower's life in detached pictures, life that consisted of making money and spending it, life with a woman who whined and sniffled and complained. These things had been a slow torture. MacRae could no longer regard this man as a squat ogre, merciless, implacable, ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... back, reveals the arts: Music, Painting, Poetry, and Sculpture. A winged figure bears the torch of inspiration. The second of the California golds, the Wheat panel, follows, and then "The Birth of Oriental Art." The allegory here is the ancient Ming legend of the forces of earth trying to wrest inspiration from the powers of air. A Chinese warrior mounted on a dragon ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... returning from a long journey, after a prolonged absence, you step up in the morning to the bulwarks of the vessel and see on the distant horizon the lofty blue mountains of your country; you will feel it then in the impetuous flood of tenderness which will fill your eyes with tears and will wrest a cry from your heart. You will feel it in some great and distant city, in that impulse of the soul which will impel you from the strange throng towards a workingman from whom you have heard in ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... with this generally intelligible example—what noble-minded man does not wish and aspire to repeat his own life in better wise in his children and, again, in their children, and still to continue to live upon this earth, ennobled and perfected in their lives, long after he is dead; to wrest from mortality the spirit, the mind, and the character with which in his day he perchance put perversity and corruption to flight, established uprightness, aroused sluggishness, and uplifted dejection, and to deposit these, as his best legacy to posterity, in the spirits of his ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... have been drunker. I did not notice a single masquerader unduly excited by liquor: there was not a word or motion from the lighter sex that could have been construed into an impropriety. There was something almost pathetic to me in this attempt to wrest gayety and excitement out of these dull materials; to fight against the blackness of that wintry sky, and the stubborn hardness of the frozen soil, with these painted sticks of wood; to mock the dreariness of their poverty ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... bitter experience was needed ere the masses discovered that their ancient rulers were like the suits of armour in the Tower of London—empty iron astride of wooden steeds, and armed with lances which every ploughboy could wrest out of their hands, and ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley
... career it would seem that Macullagh was the only man with whom Hamilton had ever even an approach to a dispute about priority. The incident referred to took place in connection with the discovery of conical refraction, the fame of which Macullagh made a preposterous attempt to wrest from Hamilton. This is evidently alluded to in Hamilton's letter to the Marquis of Northampton, dated June 28th, 1838, in ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... that moved me then. Yet, though I can not feel it again, I know dimly what it was, that high, strange, noble, ludicrous ideal of my office which so laid hold on me as to scatter passion's forces and wrest me from the arms of her I loved. I can not now so think of my kingship, so magnify its claim, or conceive that it matters so greatly to the world how I hold it or what manner of man I show myself. I come to the conclusion (though it may seem to border on paradox) that in a like case I could ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... point in platonic friendship when words are discarded for more direct communing of soul with soul. Theo could read every look in her eyes, every tone of her voice, like an open book, and she knew it; though she had never acknowledged it till now. All unconsciously he would wrest her secret from her by force of sympathetic insight; and she, who implicitly believed in God, who held suicide to be the most dastardly sin a human being can commit, knew that she would take her own life without hesitation rather than ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... the Armada was followed by an expedition to Lisbon, to wrest Portugal from Spain; owing to inadequate equipment it failed, after a promising beginning, the Portuguese lending no help. Essex managed to escape from court and join the expedition, messengers ordering him to return being too late. For this he was forgiven; but when he secretly married the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... has achieved triumphs more brilliant than those of most other sciences. But if it has done much in the direction of satisfying man's straining and thirsting mind and his noble aspirations for knowledge, physical as to its most important particulars, it has ever laughed at man's puny efforts to wrest the great secrets of Infinitude by the help of only mechanical apparatus. While the spectroscope has shown the probable similarity of terrestrial and sidereal substance, the chemical actions peculiar to the variously progressed orbs of space have not been detected, ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... field 300,000 horsemen, though all the time he was liegeman to his nephew, the Great Kaan Cublay, as was right and reason. Seeing then what great power he had, he took it into his head that he would be the Great Kaan's vassal no longer; nay more, he would fain wrest his empire from him if he could. So this Nayan sent envoys to another Tartar Prince called CAIDU, also a great and potent Lord, who was a kinsman of his, and who was a nephew of the Great Kaan and his lawful liegeman also, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... born in a clay cottage at Alloway, Scotland, in the bleak winter of 1759. His father was an excellent type of the Scotch peasant of those days,—a poor, honest, God-fearing man, who toiled from dawn till dark to wrest a living for his family from the stubborn soil. His tall figure was bent with unceasing labor; his hair was thin and gray, and in his eyes was the careworn, hunted look of a peasant driven by poverty and unpaid rents from one poor farm to another. The family ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... accuse Margaret Howth of harshness and a lack of winsomeness, have neither understood the people whom it describes nor the degree of stern strength requisite to wrest from life and nature fresh truth. The pioneers of every great natural school (and every indication shows that one is now dawning) have quite other than lute-sounding tasks in hand, however they may hunger ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... he threw himself upon the officer, and attempted to wrest the tin case from his hands. Christy, who was standing behind him, seized him by the collar with both hands, and hurled him to the deck. A moment later two seamen, by order of Mr. Carlin, took him each by his two arms, and held him ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... roots, sure that the support would hold his head above the surface. The chill of the stream struck at his hands and head, but the protection of the alien clothing was still effective, and the rest of his body was not cold. He was simply too tired to wrest himself free and trust again to the haphazard chance of making shore through ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... the thousand feathers that swept after the bird had caused Herbert Courtland, the first white man who had seen this glory of glories, to call it the meteor-bird. But those crimson drops: were they not the blood of the men who had perished miserably while endeavoring to wrest its marvels from the tropical forests ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... professor, and illumine him with electric lamps, and make his ignorance memorable." Then Edison went away to begin a series of experiments that drove sleep from his eyes and slumber from his eyelids through five successive days and nights, until love and enthusiasm helped reason to wrest ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... party disembarked, safe from constable and bailiff in the brave, blue grass country. Only one mishap occurred, and that to Adonis, who, in his haste, fell into the shallow water. He was as disconsolate as the young hero Minerva threw into the sea to wrest him from the love of Eucharis. But in this case, Eucharis (Kate) laughed ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... more than one man's brain, whether reasonable or lunatic. The strangest wishes—yet most incident to men who had gone deep into scientific pursuits, and attained a high intellectual stage, though not the loftiest—were, to contend with Nature, and wrest from her some secret, or some power, which she had seen fit to withhold from mortal grasp. She loves to delude her aspiring students, and mock them with mysteries that seem but just beyond their utmost reach. To concoct new ...
— The Intelligence Office (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... where Dorothy met her importunate lover, was the seat of Anthony Grey, Earl of Kent. There is said to be a picture there of Sir William Temple,—a copy of Lely's picture. Wrest Park is only a ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... fed and sheltered her mother, who sat all day slowly making beautiful baby linen for one of the big shops, and cemented Henrietta's friendship with the lachrymose Mrs. Banks. To be faced with a mutton bone and a few vegetables, to have to wrest from these poor materials an appetizing meal, was like an exciting game, and she played it with zest and with success. She had the dubious pleasure of hearing Mr. Jenkins smack his lips and seeing him distend his nostrils with ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... look he clapped hand to his pocket but as he freed the weapon I was upon him, grasping his pistol-hand. For a moment we swayed together, he striving frantically to break my hold, I to wrest the weapon from him, then it exploded, and uttering a sudden, long-drawn gasp he sank to the grass at my feet and lay very mute and still. Whilst I yet stared from his pallid face to the pistol where ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... declined the invitation until his master was apparently a little off his guard, when he darted in and seizing the weapon tried to wrest it from his grasp. Quilp, who was as strong as a lion, easily kept his hold until the boy was tugging at it with his utmost power, when he suddenly let it go and sent him reeling backwards, so that he fell violently upon his head. The success of this manoeuvre tickled Mr Quilp beyond description, ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... face, animated now into stern beauty by the spirit within which spoke, "and think of it with shame. Listening to your words, I blinded myself into the belief that it was right, that it was a brave and a gallant act to wrest that Crown jewel from King Henry's hand; but I see more clearly now that my mad enterprise has met with its merited fate, and go back I will as a chivalrous knight, ask my brother King's forgiveness, and save that brave boy ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... I never can convince myself that he is a mere fortune-hunter. Perhaps the very fact that I didn't make the smallest effort to wrest him from Mademoiselle Croesus when he tried to make me jealous seemed proof to him that he was no more to me than a caprice. So, when we made each other an atrocious scene and I told him to go off to her, he simply took me at ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... be trusted to maintain the same position over night, shifting as expediency demanded until most of his colleagues, particularly the irreconcilables, were exasperated beyond endurance. At one of the most critical periods Senator Borah appealed to Senator Knox to wrest the leadership from the Massachusetts Senator, with intimations that he would have the support of the "bitter enders" at the forthcoming convention at Chicago. Mr. Knox does not love Mr. Lodge but he refused to consider the proposal. ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... of the Count's character, of his errors, follies, and numerous passions, far from alienating, rendered him still dearer to me. It seemed that his lofty, generous disposition, full of courage and honor, had wanted nothing but a guide, or rather an angel, to wrest him from the torment of the life he had prepared ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... it may, the fact remained that Nan had to work her hardest to wrest a set from him after that, and felt very lucky if she managed to win one ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... conception of existence which regards each individual as fighting for his own hand, striving for dear life against every other individual, was ingrained in their minds by the inveterate bitterness of their own experience; when Emily had become a woman, and was gone forth to wrest from the adverse world her own subsistence, her right to what she earned was indefeasible, and affection itself protested against her being mulcted for their advantage. As for the slight additional expense of her presence at home during the holidays, she must not be above paying ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... "golden censer," (ch. viii. 5.) The effects of the first woe may be supposed to reach from the early part of the seventh century to the latter part of the thirteenth,—the period of Arabian locusts. During the latter part of this time, the Turks were held in check by the Crusaders, who strove to wrest the Holy Land from the infidels. The "four angels" are the four Turkish Sultanies. The river Euphrates is to be taken in this place literally, as designating the geographical locality of these combined powers, which were the instruments employed by the enthroned Mediator, to demolish the ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... Switzerland and the Upper Rhine in 1814, and Flanders and the Lower Rhine in 1815, and concluded that a similar result would have attended a like bold invasion under Marlborough and Eugene. There never was a greater mistake. The great object of the war was to wrest Flanders from France; when the lilied standard floated on Brussels and Antwerp, the United Provinces were constantly in danger of being swallowed up, and there was no security for the independence either of England, Holland, or any of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... as the dead, is the person of Age; Not a joint, not a nerve—so prostrate their verve— In the contest shall serve, or the feat to engage. To leap with the best, or the billow to breast, Or the race prize to wrest, were but effort in vain; On the message of death pours an Egypt of wrath,[127] The fever's hot breath, the dart-shot of pain. Ah, desolate eld! the wretch that is held By thy grapple, must yield thee his dearest supplies; The friends of our love at thy call must remove,— What ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... frames. Yet, practically, none of this is inherited in the true sense; it is the victory of evil human devices in their endeavor to cheat Nature of her own. If ever there was a mission in the world worthy of the most strenuous service, it is to wrest back this victory, be it out of pity for suffering children or for the very welfare and existence of ...
— Euthenics, the science of controllable environment • Ellen H. Richards
... which the Virginian marveled. For him ambition blazed like an oriflamme and he had dared to gamble everything on his belief in himself. With scant savings out of a reporter's salary in the West he had come to wrest success from the town where all is possible, but now a shadow of disappointment was stealing into his eyes. A fear was lurking there that, after all, he might have mistaken the message of the Bow Bells which had rung to him the Dick Whittington ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... to dishonor his daughter. The story of the old man touched the Virey, who had a manly heart wrapped up in a forbidding exterior. But it was a delicate undertaking even for a vice-king to attempt to wrest a rich estate out of the clutches of the "Holy Office" without himself being suspected of heresy, or of disloyalty to the Church. Yet Ravillagigedo was never at a loss for expedients when justice was to be done or the oppressed relieved. The best advice, however, that he could give the old man was ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... clasped both her hands; but, with the quickness of thought, the latter were again clenched round the naked blade, and without any other evident motive than what originated in the obstinacy of her madness, the unfortunate woman fiercely attempted to wrest it away. In the act of doing so, her hands were dreadfully cut; and Clara, shocked at the sight of the blood she had been the means of shedding, lost all the energy she had summoned, and sunk senseless at the feet of the maniac, who now began to ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... could only be opened by a formal declaration of war. Spain was generally considered by the other European powers to have a double right to South America, namely, that of discovery and conquest; and after an ineffectual struggle to wrest the golden prize from the grasp of its legitimate possessor, England, and the rest of the "high contracting powers," acquiesced in her possessing it, the more readily because they wished the same kind ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... the King was not placated by what he said. He thought that the sons of Chalciope had returned to Aea bringing these warriors with them so that they might wrest the kingship from him, or, failing that, plunder the city. AEetes's heart was filled with wrath as he looked upon them, and his eyes ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum
... to wrest himself from the frantic clutches of a blackberry vine, raised his head and viewed ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... Is it therefore probable, that he acted so silly a farce as to make his brother's mistress do penance? Most of the charges on Richard are so idle, that instead of being an able and artful usurper, as his antagonists allow, he must have been a weaker hypocrite than ever attempted to wrest a sceptre out of the ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole
... it was at first of wood, and became, by degrees, of wood and iron; in the present day the iron very much preponderating. It will be at once evident that the object of the framing is to keep the ends of the strings apart. The near ends are wound round the wrest-pins, which are inserted in the wooden bed, called the wrest-plank, the strength and efficiency of which are most important for the tone and durability of the instrument. It is composed of layers of wainscot oak and beech, the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... shall, according to our mood, humbly congratulate ourselves that ... we are permitted to stand on the giant's shoulders, and enjoy an outlook that would be quite hidden to us, if we had to trust to our own short legs; or we may resentfully chafe at our bonds and, like Prometheus, vainly strive to wrest ourselves from the rock of the past, in our eagerness to bring relief to the suffering ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... of Jerusalem; but it is also something more than a mere poetical description of a departed age of chivalry. For there can be little doubt that the poet aspired to be the singer of a new movement which should wrest back the Holy City from the clutches of the Saracens, and set a second Godfrey upon the vacant throne of Palestine. To this important end the experiences of his infancy and his training by the Jesuits had undoubtedly tended to urge the precocious young poet. The servants of his father's ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... understand. The man I love is up there, perhaps surrounded by savages. Let me go, I tell you! If he is dying I shall die by his side. Let me go! Would you have me strike you?" She turned on him like an angry goddess, and strove to wrest herself from his grip. At that instant Tollemache and Frascuelo, the only survivors of the deadly struggle forward, were driven back by a rush of Indians. They caught sight of others leaping ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... of Charles V (or from the thirteenth century to the sixteenth), Spain was flooded by romantic chronicles. The most celebrated is that of Don Roderick, or an account of the reign of King Roderick in the eighth century, the conquest of the country by the Moors, and the efforts to wrest it from them. On this chronicle Robert Southey has founded most of his poem of Roderic the Last of the Goths. Whether resting on truth or fable, these old records struck their roots deep down in the hearts ...
— The Interdependence of Literature • Georgina Pell Curtis
... enchantress learned how the Lady of the Lake had given the King a sword and scabbard of strange might, she was filled with ill-will; and all her thought was only how she might wrest the weapon from him and have it for her own, to bestow as she would. Even while she pondered thereon, the King himself sent her the scabbard to keep for him; for Merlin never ceased to warn the King to have in safe keeping the scabbard that had power to keep him from mortal ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... had seized the Indian woman, and endeavoured to force her away from him, but not succeeding in this, he tried to get possession of three different guns, and at last succeeded in geting hold of one, which he tried to wrest from the man who held it; not being able to accomplish this, the Indian seized the Englishman by the throat, and the danger being imminent, three shots were fired, all so simultaneously that it appeared as if only one gun had been discharged. ...
— Lecture On The Aborigines Of Newfoundland • Joseph Noad
... "The fools will make him king if we do not act and act quickly. Get into the city, Pan-sat—let your feet fly and raise the cry that Ja-don has killed the king and is seeking to wrest the throne from O-lo-a. Spread the word as you know best how to spread it that Ja-don has threatened to destroy the priests and hurl the altars of the temple into Jad-ben-lul. Rouse the warriors of the city and urge them to attack ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Jane was still safe and with Rokoff. If this was the case, it would be but a matter of an hour or more before he should be able to wrest ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Lucien, hoping to break thick heads with his golden sceptre, "but ordinary people have neither your intellect nor your charity. No one heeds our sorrows, our toil is unrecognized. The gold-digger working in the mine does not labor as we to wrest metaphors from the heart of the most ungrateful of all languages. If this is poetry—to give ideas such definite and clear expressions that all the world can see and understand—the poet must continually range through the entire scale of human intellects, so ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... thy voice, Lord Moranzone. Madam, it were a precedent most evil To wrest the law from its appointed course, For, though the cause be just, yet anarchy Might on this licence touch these golden scales And unjust causes unjust ...
— The Duchess of Padua • Oscar Wilde
... principle is applicable to the interpretation of all passages containing "things hard to be understood." The "unlearned and unstable" wrest them, by taking them out of their connection and in contradiction to the general tenor of God's word. But the candid student of Scripture never uses that which is difficult in revelation to obscure that which is plain. He seeks, on ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... less than to save Kentucky to the Union. A border State, with an interest in slavery, public opinion was divided, and it was uncertain to which side it would incline. The Confederates understood the value of the prize, and they had taken measures, which promised to be successful, to wrest it from the Union. The task had been committed to Gen. Humphrey Marshall, who had invaded Eastern Kentucky from the Virginia border, and had already advanced ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... prince, whom Jove deprives Of sense and justice, run where frenzy drives; His gifts are hateful: kings of such a kind Stand but as slaves before a noble mind, Not though he proffer'd all himself possess'd, And all his rapine could from others wrest: Not all the golden tides of wealth that crown The many-peopled Orchomenian town;(209) Not all proud Thebes' unrivall'd walls contain, The world's great empress on the Egyptian plain (That spreads her conquests o'er a thousand states, And pours her heroes ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... give him a fair chance, as there was no enemy in the vicinity who could possibly intend to capture the battalion. But while he was waiting, the fellow suddenly grasped his musket, and attempted to wrest it from his hands. But this was a game at which two could play as well as one; and Richard, instead of giving the alarm, as he should have done, threw himself upon his muscle, and attempted to beat ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... she continued to importune him with her questions, Pierre frowned, thinking that she wanted to wrest his secret from him. "We've talked enough," he said, abruptly. "It's late, let us go to sleep. It will bring us bad luck to count our chickens beforehand. I haven't got the place yet. Above all things, ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... to wrest the initiative from their opponents, without, however, succeeding to any extent. On the Posina front on the evening of June 12, 1916, after violent artillery preparation, they attacked Monte Forni ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... on the knees of the gods it surely lies, what man is to be king over the Achaeans in seagirt Ithaca. But mayest thou keep thine own possessions and be lord in thine own house! Never may that man come, who shall wrest from thee thy substance violently in thine own despite while Ithaca yet stands. But I would ask thee, friend, concerning the stranger—whence he is, and of what land he avows him to be? Where are his kin and his native fields? ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... Dardanelles to Constantinople. And Constantinople is a sacred city. It's the only ancient city purely Christian in its origin, having been built by the first Christian Emperor in honour of the Blessed Virgin. Which brings us to the noblest idea of all. In their fight to wrest this city from the Turk, the three great divisions of the Church are united once more. The great Roman branch is represented by the soldiers and ships of France: the great Eastern Orthodox branch by the Russians, who are behind the fight: the great Anglican branch by the British, who can be proud ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... to do in his new duties seemed a mere trifle to him after his hard toil as a peasant; in half an hour all his work was done, and he would once more stand stock-still in the middle of the courtyard, staring open-mouthed at all the passers-by, as though trying to wrest from them the explanation of his perplexing position; or he would suddenly go off into some corner, and flinging a long way off the broom or the spade, throw himself on his face on the ground, and lie for hours ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... against two hundred thousand pounds a year, and raised them himself to above two millions." It is true. Cromwell spent the money honestly and efficiently, and chiefly on a navy that enabled him to wrest the command of the sea from the Dutch, to secure the carrying trade, and to challenge the world for supremacy in the Indies, both East and West. In doing this, he had the instinct of the whole nation behind him. ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... was not at all averse to fighting, if a good excuse were offered. So his first move was not to look up, but to wrest him self out of that grip, haul away and put up ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... of how different it might all have been if she had not met Kathleen. The busy, endless streets terrified her and the more she saw of the great metropolis the less confidence she felt in her own power to wrest a living from ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... gaining her own way with Betty by a system of affectionate coaxing hard to resist, turned impulsively to begin the siege to wrest the secret from her, but another reference to the maid of honor by Grace made her pause. Then she said suddenly, with the well-known princess-like lifting of the head ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... Hellenic allies against the Aetolians (534-537). It was only now, after the battle of Cannae, that Demetrius of Pharos found Philip disposed to listen to his proposal to cede to Macedonia his Illyrian possessions—which it was necessary, no doubt, to wrest in the first place from the Romans—and it was only now that the court of Pella came to terms with Carthage. Macedonia undertook to land an invading army on the east coast of Italy, in return for which she received an assurance that the Roman possessions in Epirus should be ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... there setting free seasoned troops for operations in South Italy. The hardihood of Pitt in sending forth this expedition has often provoked criticism. But it was worth while to run serious risks to save Sicily from the grip of Napoleon, and to wrest from him the initiative which he had hitherto enjoyed unchallenged. Besides, the Czar insisted on that effort, and made it almost a sine qua non of his alliance. In a military sense the results were contemptible; in the diplomatic ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... force we wrest from ourselves against reason, against the grain. To be trust at all it must be loving and spontaneous. It cannot be loving and spontaneous unless there is a natural impulse behind it. And there can be no natural impulse behind it unless we have something in our own experience ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... lore's forbidden— What destined term may be Within the future hidden For us, Leuconoe. Both thou and I Must quickly die! Content thee, then, nor madly hope To wrest a false assurance from ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... intelligible to all? Far from it; it is full of obscurities and difficulties not only for the illiterate, but even for the learned. St. Peter himself informs us that in the Epistles of St. Paul there are "certain things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and the unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, to their own destruction."(146) And consequently he tells us elsewhere "that no prophecy of Scripture is ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... give thee the Latin!" exclaimed he. "I forbid thee to read or learn the same, for I well know thou wouldst wrest ...
— Mistress Margery • Emily Sarah Holt
... and Man should still have had the ingenuity that is peculiarly his own. Jupiter in heaven laughs to himself, no doubt, he who, in his mighty plan, denied these {qualities} to men, lest our audacity should wrest {from him} the sceptre of the world. Contented, therefore, with the gifts of unconquered Jove, let us pass the years of our time allotted by fate, nor ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... IV. came to the throne at the early age of thirteen; and thus the kingdom came under the regency of Raymund II. of Tripoli. Happily for the kingdom whose king was a child and a leper, the attention of Saladin was distracted for several years by an attempt to wrest from the sons of Nureddin the inheritance of their father—an attempt partially successful in 1174, but only finally realized in 1183. The problems of the reign of Baldwin IV. may be said to have been two—his sister Sibylla and the fiery ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... of Nezahualcoyotl, a former prince of Tezcuco, foretelling the arrival of white and bearded men from the east, who would wrest the power from the hands of the rightful rulers and destroy in a day the edifice of centuries, were ringing in his ears. But they were not so gloomy to the minds of his down-trodden subjects, for that day was to liberate them from the ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... Guy the new Count of Ponthieu, to be often heard of again. If not Geoffrey of Anjou himself, his subjects from Tours were also there. Normandy was to be invaded on two sides, on both banks of the Seine. The King and his allies sought to wrest from William the western part of Normandy, the older and the more thoroughly French part. No attack seems to have been designed on the Bessin or the Cotentin. William was to be allowed to keep those parts of his duchy, against which he had ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman
... simplest, straightforward sense; and that St. Paul meant by them what working-men mean by them in the affairs of daily life. No doubt St. Peter says that there are many things in St. Paul's writings difficult to be understood, which those who are unlearned and unstable wrest to their own destruction; and, most true it is, so they do daily. But what does "wresting" a thing mean? It means twisting it, bending it, turning it out of its original straightforward, natural meaning, into some new crooked meaning ...
— Twenty-Five Village Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... your letters with the signet of your office as patriarch of Jerusalem. As a penance for my sins, I will travel over Europe, I will describe everywhere the desolate condition of the Holy City, and exhort princes and people to wrest it from the profane ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... A Malay, the only hunter in Sampit, told me that some are so old that they can no longer climb trees. When wounded an orang-utan cries like a child in quite an uncanny manner, as a Dutch friend informed me. According to the Dayaks, it will wrest the spear from its attacker and use it on him. They also maintain, as stated elsewhere, that orang-utans, contrary to the generally accepted belief, are able to swim. Mr. B. Brouers, of Bandjermasin, has seen ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... Yea, twice the sum: if that will not suffice, I will be bound to pay it ten times o'er, On forfeit of my hands, my head, my heart: If this will not suffice, it must appear That malice bears down truth. And I beseech you, Wrest once the law to your authority: To do a great right do a little wrong: And curb this cruel devil of ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... the following declaration in his treaty: De Paenitantia, Dis 5. "This institution of penance began rather of some tradition of the Old or New Testament. But our divines, not advisedly considering what the old doctors do say, are deceived: that which they say of general and open confession, they wrest by and by to this secret and ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy
... opening of the tenth century we find in the chronicles of the time an account of a certain ambitious count of Troyes, Robert by name, who died in 923 while trying to wrest the crown of France from Charles the Simple. His county passed to his son-in-law, who already held, among other possessions, the counties of Chteau-Thierry and Meaux. His son, in turn, inherited all three ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... Davis's character in its best light. Nevertheless, so rooted was Davis's faith in his own abilities that he was capable of saying, at a moment of acutest anxiety, "If I could take one wing and Lee the other, I think we could between us wrest a victory from those people." And yet, his military experience embraced only the minor actions of a young officer on the Indian frontier and the gallant conduct of a subordinate in the Mexican War. He had never executed a great military ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... enough here to blow the whole crew to fragments," he muttered. "And what is more, I'll do it too, in order to wrest my friends ...
— Jack Wright and His Electric Stage; - or, Leagued Against the James Boys • "Noname"
... all about that, M. Joyeuse. But, to leave it with honour, money is needed, much money, a fresh sacrifice of two or three millions, and we have not got them. That is exactly the reason why I am going to Tunis to try to wrest from the rapacity of the Bey a slice of that great fortune which he is retaining in his possession so unjustly. At present I have still some chance of succeeding, while ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... scientific theory framed for the use of Scriptural texts, which has been made to stand. This fact alone shows that our wonderful volume of sacred literature was not given for any such purpose as that to which so many earnest men have endeavored to wrest it. The power of that volume has been mighty indeed. It has inspired the best deeds our world has known. Despite the crusts which men have formed about it—despite the fetters which they have placed upon it—Christianity has blessed age after age of the ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... to divert them," said the pious Princess. "Thou knowest it has been the occupation of my life to wrest a blessing for my Lord and my harmless children.—One alas! is taken from me! would heaven but hear me for my poor Matilda! ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole
... maintain them against all men, either by open force or by supporting them in their quarrels in the law courts; and this maintenance, as it was called, was seldom limited to the mere payment of expenses. The lord, by the help of his retainers, could bully witnesses and jurors, and wrest justice to the profit of the wrongdoer. As yet, indeed, the practice had not attained the proportions which it afterwards assumed, but it was sufficiently developed to draw down upon it in 1390 a statute prohibiting maintenance and the granting of liveries. Such a statute ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... floated up from below stairs as a soothing accompaniment to his reading. Subconsciously, as he turned the pages, he felt a pity for the poor fellows on top of freight-trains who must endure the pitiless buffeting of the storm. He could see them bracing themselves against the blasts that tried to wrest them from their moorings. He felt a pity for the belated traveller who tries, well-nigh in vain, to urge his horses against the driving rain onward toward food and shelter. But the leaves of the book continued to turn at intervals; for the story was an engaging ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... crack of the pistol the long line of young athletes surged forward, amid loud cries from the crowd that had gathered to witness the start. Many eyed Fred hopefully; for the word had gone around that upon him Riverport must depend to wrest victory from the grasp of that tall runner, Boggs, who was said to be a tremendous "stayer," and as speedy almost as ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... in this inferno of fire a captured German officer told with his dying breath of a fresh division of Germans that was about to be thrown into the battle to attempt to wrest from the marines that part of the wood they had gained. The marines, who for days had been fighting only on their sheer nerve, who had been worn out from nights of sleeplessness, from lack of rations, from terrific shell and machine-gun ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... fact. From the mingling of these doubts and fears grew a feeling of resentment against Dic—a conviction before the fact. She wished him to know her regard for him, but she did not want him to learn it from any act of hers. She desired him to wrest it from her by main force, and as little awkwardness as a man may use. Had Dic by the smallest word or act shown a disposition to profit by what Rita feared had been excessive frankness in her letter, or had he, in any degree, assumed the attitude of a confident ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, he pressed upon Colonel Napier, the father of THE Napiers, the comptrollership of army accounts. "I want," said his Lordship, "AN HONEST MAN, and this is the only thing I have been able to wrest from the ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... by Indian slaves into red wine! And did gold vein those velvet hills? How all fruits, all grains, would thrive! what superb beasts would fatten on the thick spring grass! Ay! it was a magnificent discovery for the Church, and great would be the power that could wrest it from her. ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... later in the night Makrisi brought Mahi de Vernoil, disguised as a mendicant friar. This outlaw pleaded with Sire Raimbaut to head the tatters of Lovain's army, and showed Raimbaut how easy it would be to wrest Venaissin from Prince Guillaume. "We cannot save Lovain," de Vemoil said, "for Guillaume has him fast. But Venaissin is very proud of you, my tres beau sire. Ho, maker of world-famous songs! stout ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... this doctrine as false; but such, perhaps, are ignorant of some things else as well as of this. However, they object against the wisdom of God, whose truth it is, and against Christ our Advocate, whose argument, as he is such, it is; yea, they labour, what in them lieth, to wrest that weapon out of his hand, with which he so cudgelleth the enemy when, as Advocate, he pleadeth so effectually against him for the rescuing of us from the danger of judgment, saying, "The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan, even the Lord that hath chosen ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... darted forward and tried to wrest it from his grasp. Finding his strength too great, she straightened swiftly and lifting one foot, brought her riding boot down fiercely with all her strength on Lynch's hand. With a smothered grunt his fingers laxed, and she caught up the weapon and stepped quickly back, ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... But small and secondary streams beside the mighty Rhine. There are certain rivers which represent nations, and ideas, and periods of history—the Scamander for instance, bringing to our thoughts the days of Grecian heroism; when men fought with gods, and in so doing seemed to wrest from them a portion of their supernatural strength and beauty—the Nile, the priestly Nile, mysterious as a dogma, but rich in blessings as the agency of a divine spirit; concealed in its source, but manifest in its operation—then the Jordan, the stream ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various |
