"Clutch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shouldering long guns and one hand on their pistols, stalk untamed past a dozen Turkish soldiers, who look sheepish and brutal in worn cloth jacket and cotton trousers. A headless, wingless lion of St. Mark still stands upon a gate, and has left the mark of his strong clutch. Of ancient times when Crete was Crete, not a trace remains; save perhaps in the full, well-cut nostril and firm tread of that mountaineer, and I suspect that even his sires were Albanians, mere ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... nature of the case—from the laws of mind, such power, so intensely desired, griped with such a death-clutch, and with such fierce spurnings of all curtailment or restraint, cannot but be abused. Privations and inflictions must be its natural, habitual products, with ever and anon, terror, torture, and despair let loose to do their ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... demeanor of bellboys and janitors as the Date flows quietly toward us; we pass through the haggard perplexity of "Only Four Days More" when we suddenly realize it is too late to make our shopping the display of lucid affectionate reasoning we had contemplated, and clutch wildly at grotesque tokens—and then (sweetest of all) comes the quiet calmness of Christmas Eve. Then, while we decorate the tree or carry parcels of tissue paper and red ribbon to a carefully prepared list of aunts and godmothers, or reckon up a little pile of bright quarters on the dining-room ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... put your hands this way, right up under your hair,"—Polly spread out her fingers,—"and clutch at the scalp hard, as if you were going to pull it off. Go all over the head, again and again for five minutes—two or three times a day. Aunt Susie says it will make the hair grow ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... will not a drowning man clutch the raft that floats by? And the lawless ones do not take his all—merely ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... held Dan's wrist in the cold clutch of her trembling little ungloved hand, on which her wedding ring shone. "O dearest! let us be good!" she said. "I will try my best. I will try not to be exacting and unreasonable, and I know I can. I won't ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... blood was beating in her ears like the deafening roar of waves, and the room was darkening with the film that was creeping over her eyes. Her hands fell powerless to her sides and her knees gave way limply. He was holding her upright only by the clutch on her throat. The drumming in her ears grew louder, the tent was fading away into blackness. Dimly, with no kind of emotion, she realised that he was squeezing the life out of her and she heard his voice coming, as it were, from ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... going first he was rather hurt, but I did not wait for his protests. I swung my feet over the sill and dropped. I made a clutch at the window-frame with my good hand when I found no floor under my feet, but I was too late. I dropped probably ten feet and landed with a crash that seemed to split my ear-drums. I was thoroughly shaken, but in some miraculous way the bandaged ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Catholicism, wrapped in robes red with the innocent blood of millions, holding in her frantic clutch crowns and scepters, honors and gold, the keys of heaven and hell, tramping beneath her feet the liberties of nations, in the proud movement of almost universal dominion, felt within her heartless breast ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... brethren. His visionary edifice was Hollingsworth's one castle in the air; it was the material type in which his philanthropic dream strove to embody itself; and he made the scheme more definite, and caught hold of it the more strongly, and kept his clutch the more pertinaciously, by rendering it visible to the bodily eye. I have seen him, a hundred times, with a pencil and sheet of paper, sketching the facade, the side-view, or the rear of the structure, or planning the internal arrangements, ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... wicked Daihachiro[u] can be understood. But why such hatred toward this Kichitaro[u]? Surely the boy is not to be held guilty of the father's offence!"—"That is a man's way of reasoning," answered O'Iwa. "A woman, ignorant and foolish, has but her feelings to consult. To seven births this Iwa will clutch and chew the wicked son of a wicked father. Against Kichitaro[u] is the vow made." She raised her head. Iemon turned away shuddering. She had aged into a hag. The shining face, the marks like black spots in pumice standing out, the mere dots of eyes in their puffy bed, the spreading ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... Aunt Mary exclaimed, as the thing began to whiz and she felt suddenly impelled to clutch wildly at her flanking escorts. "Suppose we ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... at him wonderingly. John Redpath threw in his clutch. "So long," he said. "I've a brother in Tucson, and I'm going to his place until this ...
— The Seed of the Toc-Toc Birds • Francis Flagg
... of war that was all the more ghastly for its soundlessness. The hunted jerked spasmodically to get away from the hunter. So wild were its efforts that several times it raised the monster clear of the bottom for a foot or so. But the grim clutch could ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... felt the necessity of growing strong so that she could work early and late, for baby must have everything, even if mother went without. Sometimes a fleeting likeness to Sanderson would flit across the child's face, and a spasm of pain would clutch at Anna's heart, but she would forget it next moment in one of ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer
... honorable house with them. One day go by, and 'nother night come. Sick boy's mama have look of ivory lady as she rest her tired, and maid girl make tea. I watch by side of bed on floor. Big ache in heart clutch' me when I look round room and see blue soldier's suit hang' near. It have look of empty and lonely, dragon-fly kite in corner have broken wing. But when I bring gaze back Tke Chan, loveliest sight of all visit me. That little child reach out and find hand of foreign doll. He hold very ...
— Mr. Bamboo and the Honorable Little God - A Christmas Story • Fannie C. Macaulay
... intercourse. God knoweth what I suffered—but I acquiesced. Neither is it to renew my suit that I now come hither, and have, I do acknowledge, sought speech of her—not for her own sake only, but for yours also. Destruction hovers over you, ready to close her pinions to stoop, and her talons to clutch—Yes, sir, look contemptuous as you will, such is the case; and it is to protect both you and her that ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... current runnin'," the captain returned, "and it's likely to hold us in its clutch fer some time. The tide won't change fer over an hour, and it's hard to tell where we'll be by that time. Hello, what ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... black shapes in the darkness under the gas-works. A shoal of coal barges lay indistinctly on the darkly shining mud and water below, and a colossal crane was perpetually hauling up coal into mysterious blacknesses above, and dropping the empty clutch back to the barges. Just one or two minute black featureless figures of men toiled amidst these monster shapes. They did not seem to be controlling them but only moving about among them. These gas-works have a big chimney that belches a lurid flame into the night, a livid shivering ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... up and peered through the aperture of the doorway. Then he rang the bell. Twice he raised his hand and clenched it in the now familiar clutch. ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... spade was driven hard and quick, deeper and deeper, and at last rang upon metal. There were seventy chassepots, complete with bayonets and ammunition. Fifty-one were handed out, the remaining nineteen were hastily covered in again. Fevrier was immeasurably cheered to notice his men clutch at their weapons and fondle them, hold them to their shoulders taking ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... sooner did the inhabitants perceive the 'War Sprite' and the 'Dreadnought,' than they began to throw up defences and remove their valuables into the interior. It was in the highest degree irksome to Raleigh to wait thus inactive, while this handsome Spanish colony was slipping from his clutch, but he had been forbidden to move without orders. After three days' waiting for Essex, a council of war was held on board the 'War Sprite.' On the fourth Raleigh leaped into his barge at the head of a landing company, refusing the help of the Flemings who were with ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... The unemployed's one o'clock on Saturday! Nothing more can be done this week, so you drag yourself wearily and despairingly "home," with the cheerful prospect of a penniless Saturday afternoon and evening and the long horrible Australian-city Sunday to drag through. One of the landlady's clutch—and she is an old hen—opens ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... a special shawl, though old. It was red, and the bright color seemed to take the child's fancy; he was never so good as when playing upon the gay old rag. His black eyes would sparkle, and his tiny fingers clutch at it, when the mother put it about him as he swayed in Abel's courageous grasp. And then Abel would spread it for him, like an eastern prayer carpet, under the shadow of the ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... more opportunities of seeing us, and one must clutch what few chances one can of ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... tree right away over there with horrid twisted arms that look as if they are trying to clutch ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... peacemen, also; crying for Peace, peace at any price—though it be war! We must live free, at peace, or each man dies With death-clutch fast for ever on the ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... is thankful to-day that some petty success for which he once struggled, melted into thin air as his hand sought to clutch it. Failure is often the rock-bottom foundation of real success. If man, in a few instances of his life can say, "Those failures were the best things in the world that could have happened to me," should he not face new failures with undaunted courage and trust that the miraculous ...
— The Majesty of Calmness • William George Jordan
... interior of the laboratory displayed no gruesome scene. It was a huge, high-ceilinged room with a concrete floor. A monster dynamo was over in one corner, coupled to a matter-of-fact four-cylinder crude-oil engine, to which was also coupled by a clutch an inexplicable windlass-drum with several hundred feet of chain wrapped around it. There were ammeters and voltmeters on a control panel, and one of the most delicate of dynamometers on its own stand, and there were work benches and a motor-driven lathe and a very complete equipment ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... his presence; for being the president of an academy of which he, Voltaire, was only a simple member. Above all this, the king loved him, and praised his extraordinary talent and scholarship. Voltaire only watched for an opportunity to clutch this dangerous enemy, and the ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... frightful imprecation in his native tongue Jacques Valette staggered to his feet. He made a clutch for Dave's right ear, but the youth eluded him. Then, in turning, he went sprawling over the puncheon bench, and his head struck the floor, while his feet ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer
... the giant, reached out a hand and sought to clutch the bag of gold Ivan held in his ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes
... contrives to keep contorted, and assuming a supercilious expression and a languid manner, struts leisurely towards us, with his hands in his pockets, thereby giving what I am forced to admit is an imitation of myself perfect in its burlesque. Ben Flint roars with laughter. I clutch the imp and throw him across knee and pretend to spank him. We struggle ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... the street, and the handsomely equipped cars on it clipped past mud-encrusted mule teams from distant hill farms, prairie schooners, and dilapidated carryalls. The scene was tremendously, occidentally irregular, setting forth that merciless clutch of the future upon the past that makes the present mere transition. The town was hard pushed to catch up with its own vast possibilities. A small place, set suddenly forward as one of the world's great ore markets, it ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... was blocked upright on the ground, Solomon backed his Moreland out of the way, carried a tray of tools to the engine and squatted in the dirt to work. First, the intake manifold came off and was bolted to the clutch housing so the carburetor mounting flange faced skyward. Solomon stopped for a minute to worry. "If it works," he thought, "when I get them nearer each other, it'll go up in my face." Scanning the yard he thought ...
— Solomon's Orbit • William Carroll
... lithe as an eel in my hands, and made the most desperate efforts to stab me with his long, murderous-looking knife; but I had him fast in so powerful a grip that, after a furious struggle of a few seconds, he dropped both his weapons with a gasp of pain, my clutch having, as it presently appeared, forced both his wrists from their sockets. To snatch the remaining pistol from his belt with my right hand, while I shifted the grip of my left to his throat, was the work of but a single instant; and I then turned to ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... urg'd him to repent. "Say, Lord have mercy on my soul. Look up Unto the Lamb of God, for He can save Even to the uttermost." Slight heed obtain'd This adjuration, wild the glazing eye Fix'd on the wall,—and ever and anon The stiffening fingers clutch'd at things unseen, While from those spent lungs came a shuddering sound, "That's he! That's he! The old man! His grey hairs Dabbled with blood!" Then in a loud, long cry, Wrung out by torturing pain, "I struck the blow! I tell ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... symptoms with reluctance; that they are looking at you suspiciously, whispering.... Ah! it's horrid! There must be a remedy, you think, for this disease, if one could find it. Isn't this it? You try—no, that's not it! You don't allow the medicine the necessary time to do good.... You clutch at one thing, then at another. Sometimes you take up a book of medical prescriptions—here it is, you think! Sometimes, by Jove, you pick one out by chance, thinking to leave it to fate.... But meantime a fellow-creature's dying, and another doctor would have saved him. "We ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... should call poverty worth while!" said Richard, manfully kissing Dorothy all over again, since she had come within his clutch. Then, replacing her in her chair, the more readily because he reflected that he might easily repossess himself of her, he continued: "And the prospect of being a poor man's wife does ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... to sleep, and Gerald shortly after followed his example. They ought properly to have kept the morning watch, but they were not called till the hammocks were piped up. They had then to turn out, feeling utterly unable to do anything but sit on their chests and languidly clutch their wet clothes. The two marines acting as their servants at length came aft, looking as pale and miserable as they were, and suggested that it would be wiser to get out some dry things. Dressing, after several pauses, was accomplished, and washing having ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... comedy on the subject of the garden had presented me irresistibly in the light of a victim. Like all persons who achieve the miracle of changing their point of view when they are old she had been intensely converted; she had seized my hint with a desperate, tremulous clutch. ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... observe your team is tiring, And wish the call of Time were blown, To Mr. WILSON, where he stands umpiring Gratuitously on his own, You'll look (as drowning men will clutch a straw) To ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 31, 1917 • Various
... Olimpia threw up her hands to clutch at this plank in the sea-swirl. Free! O God! The word ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... music in some neighboring street, Nor rustling hear in every breeze The laurels of Miltiades. Honor and blessings on his head While living, good report when dead, Who, not too eager for renown, Accepts, but does not clutch, the crown." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... the arm she held a renewed clutch and sharper shake, "there's our chance. We must ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... replied Krag sternly. "His world is no joke. He has a strong clutch—but I have a stronger... Maskull was his, but ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... splashes of colour over the waters, as the squat craft heaves and rolls with rhythmic regularity. From somewhere below comes the monotonous throb of the protesting engines. A red light gleams suddenly on our starboard, and I catch my breath. AEons pass, it seems, before a panther-like clutch at the wheel carries us aside in time to let the offender plunge drunkenly past. We were near enough to throw a biscuit on her deck. A swift exchange of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 16, 1916 • Various
... I see the garden of the castle. It is full of big, gay-colored, gorgeous flowers. They trail along the ground, they cluster upon the terraces, they climb upon the walls of the castle and of the garden, and they clutch at the ramparts and twine and twist about them. I suppose I must say that they are beautiful flowers, but they are not of the sort that I like. Anybody can see that there is magic about them. The earth and the water, the air and the sunshine, never would make such flowers. ...
— The Wagner Story Book • Henry Frost
... his side at night her arm stole about his, as if to clutch him, fearful lest in the empty reaches of sleep he might escape, lest his errant man's thoughts and desires might abandon her for the usual avenues of life. Long after he had fallen into the regular sleep of night, she lay awake by his side, ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... moment," said the prisoner, extending his arm as if to clutch at a still vague inspiration—"wait a moment. When I arrived in Paris I had with me a trunk containing my clothes. The linen is all marked with the first letter of my name, and besides some ordinary coats and trousers, there ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... Cicely, and she made her way less willingly than usual to the apartments of the Queen, who was being made ready for her bed. "Here comes our truant," she exclaimed as the maiden entered. "I sent to rescue thee from the western seafarer who had clawed thee in his tarry clutch. Thou didst act the sister's part passing well. I hear my Lord and all his meine have been sitting, open-mouthed, hearkening to his ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... gear, as illustrated at D, Fig. 1, which is a sketch plan showing the mechanism employed. M is a Siemens electric motor running at 650 revolutions per minute; E is a combination of box gearing, frictional clutch, and chain pinion, and from this pinion a steel chain passes around the chain-wheel, H, which is free to revolve upon the axle, and carries within it the differential pinion, gearing with the bevel-wheel, B squared, keyed upon the sleeve of the loose tram-wheel, T squared, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 460, October 25, 1884 • Various
... alleged shrewd calculation of the weight of the victim and the length of slack, then why do they manacle the arms of the victim? Society, as a whole, is unable to answer this question. But I know why; so does any amateur who ever engaged in a lynching bee and saw the victim throw up his hands, clutch the rope, and ease the throttle of the noose about his neck ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... exclaimed Fanny, weakly. "Mizzi and Otti. It sounds like the first act of the 'Merry Widow.'" She turned to Theodore. "I wish you'd sit back, and relax, and if you must clutch that violin case, do it more comfortably. I don't want you to tell me a thing, now. New York is ghastly in August. We'll get a train out of here to-morrow. My apartment in Chicago is cool, and high, and quiet, and the lake is in the front yard, practically. To-night, ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... As Augustine says, 'They slew Him that they might possess, and, because they slew, they lost.' So is it always. Whoever tries to secure any desired end by putting away his responsibility to render to God the fruit of his thankful service, loses the good which he would fain clutch at for his own. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... their sockets, he found himself once more at the surface, breathing in great gulps of the blessed air, and alone. For a moment he could not believe it, but gazed wildly about him, expecting each instant to feel the awful clutch that should again drag him under. He was nearly exhausted, and so weak that had not a floating oar come within his reach he must quickly have sunk, ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... shouted, and before I could gather my wits and clutch the sides we were adrift in the night, reeling from hollow to hollow of the steep curling waves. Davies nursed our walnut-shell tenderly over their crests, edging her slantwise across their course. He used very little exertion, ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... his heels in wrath are digging Trenches in the grassy soil, And his fingers clutch and loosen, ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... for once acted quickly, and into Taylor's mind there came on the moment the memory of that night a score of years ago, when he saw his wife clutch the nameless babe and clasp it to her bosom, and the same fling of memory brought back also the building of the slim rail fence round the little mound in the corner of the paddock—the fence that was never without a trailing, flowering vine growing over it—and the dull, prosaic ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... the gripe and clutch of poverty upon her face, upon her figure, and not least of all upon her voice. Her sharp and high- pitched words were squeezed out of her, as by the compression of bony fingers on a leathern bag; and she had a way of rolling her eyes about and about the cellar, as she ...
— George Silverman's Explanation • Charles Dickens
... clutch at one of the stays for support, dazzled as I was by the light after my forty-eight hours' ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... hour you will see that it will take a pretty big supply to keep such a lot of machinery moving. There is a separate hopper for each gin and if the supply fed into it comes too fast it can be stopped and switched to other gins. Once in the clutch of the relentless knives the cotton is shredded apart and the seeds drop out and fall into a traveling basket. From this basket they are forced through a tube to an oil mill which usually stands in another part ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... with terror. He gave vent to a shrill, bleating bellow—an absurdly inadequate utterance to issue from this mountainous frame—writhed his neck in snaky folds, and lashed out convulsively with the stupendous coils of his tail. But he could not loosen that deep grip, or the clutch of ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... of the motor, a grinding and shrieking as the clutch was thrown in, a trembling to the car as Fritsch advanced the spark and opened the gasolene throttle still wider and the automobile, bearing the German reporter, Larry and Grace, ...
— Larry Dexter's Great Search - or, The Hunt for the Missing Millionaire • Howard R. Garis
... and Rebby could swim; their father had taught them when they were very little girls, and Anna knew that if she would leave the rabbit to drown that she could reach the shore safely; but this seemed hardly to be thought of. She now resolved to clutch at the first branch within reach, hoping in that way to scramble to safety with Trit. But the boat was being carried steadily along by the current, although the water came in ...
— A Little Maid of Old Maine • Alice Turner Curtis
... might be reconciled with Scripture. On a hint from the Inquisition at Rome, the archbishop sought to get hold of these letters and exhibit them as proofs that Galileo had uttered heretical views of theology and of Scripture, and thus to bring him into the clutch of the Inquisition. The archbishop begs Castelli, therefore, to let him see the original letter in the handwriting of Galileo. Castelli declines. The archbishop then, while, as is now revealed, writing constantly and bitterly to the Inquisition ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... and furnished with deep-napped rugs and luxurious chairs and divans. Through this room the intangible threads of the alien will directed them—on into a wide-vaulted alcove about one-third its size. There, the strange clutch on them relaxed, and they looked about, at first apprehensively, then with ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... Tito Melema who felt the clutch. He turned, and saw the face of his adoptive father, Baldassarre Calvo, close to his own. The two men looked at each other silent as death; Tito with cheeks and lips all bloodless, fascinated by terror. The next instant the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... lap, with her face a little lifted and her eyes wistfully bent on the great wall opposite, she seemed so young and small to be dwelling at such a place, so helpless, so solitary, that her presence appeared a cruel irony of fate. Her homesteading was a desperate clutch at security; and her situation was utterly different from that of her friend, Imogene Martin, who viewed the matter as in the nature of a health-seeking holiday, and who was sustained by the knowledge that she had wealthy relations at Kennard to whom she could return. Far different, ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... when sitting alone sometimes in your room, at midnight, in the month of November, how, after a lull in the blast, the bleak wind will all at once seem to clutch at the windows, with a demoniac howl that makes the house rock? Do you remember the half-whistles and half-groans through the key-holes and crevices,—the cries and shrieks that rise and fall,—the roaring in the chimney,—the slamming of distant doors and shutters? Well, all ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... found Castle Craneycrow wrapped in the stillness of death. Its inmates were awake, but they were petrified, paralyzed by the discovery that Dorothy Garrison was gone. Scared eyes looked upon white faces, and there was upon the heart of each the clutch of an icy hand. So appalling was the sensation that the five conspirators breathed not nor spoke, but listened for the heartbeats that had stopped when fears finally gave way to complete conviction. They were as if recovering from the fright of ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... threw his arms round him, and, though the smaller boy of the two, extricated himself from the clutch of the bully, and sent him in turn staggering back. Livid with rage, Tom rushed at him; but Charlie eluded him, and left him to overbalance himself and fall sprawling on the paved floor. At this instant ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... shook and swayed as bodies of frantic Germans, slaughtered by the defenders, fell heavily against it; while one huge Brandenburger who had leapt in advance of his friends, and who had been caught by a bullet fired from one of the loopholes, fixed a dying clutch on the summit of the wall, and held on convulsively for a few moments. Then, with a piercing scream, he fell backwards, carrying with him some two feet of the top of the slender defence which Henri and his friends ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... calling to mind a more famous type, we see that Wagner is not at all unlike Demosthenes: in him also we have the terrible earnestness of purpose and that strong prehensile mind which always obtains a complete grasp of a thing; in him, too, we have the hand's quick clutch and the grip as of iron. Like Demosthenes, he conceals his art or compels one to forget it by the peremptory way he calls attention to the subject he treats; and yet, like his great predecessor, he is the last and greatest of a whole line of artist-minds, ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... no shelter from his brutish thoughts. In the depths of his soul he felt that he was slipping down and down; there was no stay to clutch at; no barrier to keep back chaos. All his defenses, all his citadels, with the quadruple rampart that hemmed him in so proudly—his God, his art, his pride, his moral faith, all was crumbling away, falling piece by piece from him. He saw himself naked, bound, lying unable to move, ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... shingle and water into water alone, while as Aleck thrust with all his might, knee-deep now, he felt the boat give way, and then it seemed to him that the smuggler sank down beside him, making a feeble clutch at his clothes and uttering ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... terms. It was a Hungarian gentleman who said: "When I hear the 'Rakoczy' I feel as if I must go to war to conquer the whole world. My fingers convulsively twitch to seize a pistol, a sword, or bludgeon, or whatever weapon may be at hand; I must clutch it, and march forward." It is because of this spirit, scarcely overstated in this story, that the Austrian Government, fearful of the influence of the "Rakoczy" during periods of political excitement, has several times ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... high latitude had rendered all objects visible, and the boys had also joined Jack and the Indian, who was circling cautiously around the huge brute, trying to ascertain the fate of the dog, which was still clasped in the death clutch of the now ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Yukon • Ralph Victor
... distance! Lunge! Now the thrust ends in the merest harmless touch; But ere the beaten man throws up the sponge, As the boxers say, relaxing his hilt-clutch, There'll be lunges and ripostes of other sort. Firm foot and steady hand must be their friend; The encounter will be struggle, not ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 February 15, 1890 • Various
... day had the boys traveled in the company of these muleteers, merry, careless fellows, singing and talking to their mules, apparently the best-natured of men, until something would be said which would recall the hated foe, and then their black eyes would flash, their fingers clutch their knife-handles, and they would pour out long strings of deep Spanish oaths. Great was the surprise of these men on receiving the password from two boys, but they never hesitated an instant in taking them in, in giving them ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... another man steadied Billy, and on recognising him Mr. Blee forgot all about his former emotions and gasped in the clutch of a new one. It was Mr. Lezzard, evidently under some impulse of genial exhilaration. There hung an air of aggression about him, but, though he moved like a conqueror, his gait was unsteady and his progress slow. He had wit to guess Billy's errand, however, for he grinned, and leaning ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... death; like the footsteps of death are the moments. "Arise!"—At the word, with a bound, to their feet spring the vigilant Frenchmen; And the depths of the forest resound to the crack and the roar of their rifles; And seven writhing forms on the ground clutch the earth. From the pine-tops the screech-owl Screams and flaps his wide wings in affright, and plunges away through the shadows; And swift on the wings of the night flee the dim, phantom-forms through the darkness. Like cabris[80] ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... tendency in these ignoble birds that exasperated poor Jacky, whose chief delight was to tempt the unfortunate hens to place unlimited confidence in him, and then clutch them by the beaks or heads, and hold them wriggling in his cruel grasp; and it was this tendency that induced him, in the heat of disappointment, and without any reference whatever to sex, to ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... sitting right in plain sight. He had failed because his mind was so full of Grandfather Frog and Longlegs that he forgot to look around, as he usually does. Just skimming the tops of the bulrushes he sailed swiftly out over the Smiling Pool and reached down with his great, cruel claws to clutch Grandfather Frog, who sat there pretending to be asleep, but all the time watching Longlegs and deep down inside chuckling to think ...
— The Adventures of Grandfather Frog • Thornton W. Burgess
... of Beaudry the fog lifted. In the savage, malignant eyes glaring at him he read that he was lost. The clutch of fear so overwhelmed him that suspense was unbearable. He wanted to shriek aloud, to call on this man-killer to end the agony. It was the same impulse, magnified a hundred times, that leads a man to bite on an ulcerated tooth in a weak impotence ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... valley, that the big brown owl did not get one or the other of them. He was asleep on a big dead branch as brown as himself, and looking so like a part of it that they were just going to alight, either upon him or within reach of his deadly clutch, when a red squirrel saw them and shrieked at them. Two great, round, glaring orange eyes opened upon them from that brown prong of the branch, so suddenly that they gave two startled squawks and nearly fell to the ground. How the red squirrel tittered, ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... unkempt and haggard waif, I drifted to Great Orme's Head and back again. Senile dementia had already laid its spectral clutch upon my wizened cerebellum when I was rescued by some kindly people, who tell me that they found me scorching down Hays Hill on a cushion-tired ordinary. They have since told me that I was singing "My name is John Wellington Wells, ...
— The War of the Wenuses • C. L. Graves and E. V. Lucas
... ez he said dat, he felt hisse'f slippin', an' dat made him clutch on ter Po' Nancy Jane O, an' down dey bof' went tergedder ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... in and out, and pass, and penetrate, but still the music dreams, and still the dim gold blinks above their heads. A muffled God walks the aisles, and you, in the bristling wilderness of chairs, can clutch at His skirts and never see His eyes. Nothing comes forward from that altar to meet you. It is as if He walked talking to Himself, and as if even His speech were lost in those ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... it. It slipped a wee bit more. Blacky started down towards the ground. But he wasn't quick enough. Striped Chipmunk, watching Blacky from the old stone wall, saw something white drop from Blacky's claws. He saw Blacky dash after it and clutch at it only to miss it. Then the white thing struck a branch of an old apple tree, bounced off and fell to the ...
— Blacky the Crow • Thornton W. Burgess
... every impartial and honest man. That cannot be helped. Impossible or not impossible; true or false, it is necessary for their very existence, so that, just as a drowning man catches at a straw, though it cannot possibly support him, so do these most unfortunate and hardly-pressed men clutch at and cling to the hollow theory of continuity. Sometimes, when off their guard, and in a less cautious mood, they will confess as much themselves. And what is more, we can provide our readers with an instance of such a confession. Many will well remember a ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan
... her right if she fell and broke her leg," he thought severely; and the idea of such merited punishment was still in his mind when he heard a sharp gasp of surprise, and saw the girl slip, with a frantic clutch at the air, and fall at full length on the shining ground. When he sprang forward and bent over her, she rose quickly to her knees and held out what he thought at first was some queer ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... offices he had held, the extravagant eulogiums he had received from colleagues and the press, deceived him as to the real nature of his position before the country, and blinded him to the superior chances of other men. Five times in his life he made a distinct clutch at the bawble, but never with such prospect of success that any man could discern it but himself and those who used his eyes. It is a satisfaction to know that, of the Presidency seekers,—Clay, Webster, Calhoun, ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... and we began to go slower, and I picked up my wits and looked about me again. I had only time to notice that the young gentleman and lady looked very much relieved, and to shake my shawl from the clutch of the woman beside me, when we stopped at Salem, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... on this commodity? But for because he hath not woo'd me yet; Not that I have the power to clutch my hand, When his fair angels would salute my palm; But for my hand, as unattempted yet, Like a poor beggar, raileth on the rich. Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail And say there is no sin but to be rich; And being rich, my virtue then shall be To say there is no ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... the police?" roared the object of Roderick's persecution, at the same time giving an instinctive clutch to his breast. "Why is this lunatic allowed ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... barnacle which you asked for: I was certain I should get one or two, if I could have a look at the pools this week. Jolly little dog! he was paddling and spinning about last night, and enjoying himself, 'ere age with creeping'—What is it?—'hath clawed him in his clutch.' That fellow's destiny is not a hopeful analogy for you, sir, who believe that we shall rise after we die into some ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... like the shares in a swindling speculation. You begin by what you call trusting a friend, that is, aiding him to self-destruction—buying him arsenic to clear his complexion—you end by dragging all near you into your own abyss, as a drowning man would clutch at his own brother. Lionel Haughton, the saddest expression I ever saw in your father's face was when—when—but you ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... his parting gift to his people; the peace that is not as the world giveth. How the world gives, Mr. Rhys briefly set forth; with one hand, to take away with the other—as a handful of gold, what proves but a clutch of ashes—as the will-o'-the-wisp gives, promise but never possession. Eleanor would not have much regarded these words from any other lips; they accorded with her old theory of disgust with the world. From Mr. Rhys she did regard ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... nor Pillerault, nor his uncle the judge. He allowed himself but two hours' sleep, poor lad! he had only two clerks, but at the rate things were now going, he would soon need four. In business, opportunity is everything. He who does not spring upon the back of success and clutch it by the mane, lets fortune escape. Popinot felt that his suit would prosper if six months hence he could say to his uncle and aunt, "I am secure; my fortune is made," and carry to Birotteau thirty or forty thousand francs as his share of the profits. ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... him—let her—go out first through the bright hall door. Kendall was not in sight, but in a dim half-light a few yards off we saw Oliver. He was afoot, bending low, and gliding toward us with his revolver in his left hand. He fired as I did; her clutch spoiled my aim; with eager eyes she straightened to her finest height, cried "Richard! tell Lieutenant Ferry he—" and with a long sigh sank into my arms. A rush of hoofs sounded behind Oliver, he glanced up, and Ferry's blade fell across ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... in clutch, Mr. Kantor regarded his wife, the lower half of his face, well covered with reddish bristles, undershot, his free hand and even his eyes violently lifted. To those who see in a man a perpetual kinship ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... Some hold that the drowned never journey to the Meido. They quiver for ever in the currents; they billow in the swaying of tides; they toil in the wake of the junks; they shout in the plunging of breakers. 'Tis their white hands that toss in the leap of the surf; their clutch that clatters the shingle, or seizes the swimmer's feet in the pull of the undertow. And the seamen speak euphemistically of the O-'bake, the honourable ghosts, and fear them with a ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... like these the clutch of the usurer was relaxed and the general well-being promoted, measures were taken to crown the work by a stable system of finance. It will be recalled that two years before the Emperor had saved the public credit by the direct expenditure of the Austrian war indemnity. It was his ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... has saved his majesty the trouble," answered I, looking back and seeing one of our friends in the clutch ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... still confused by it; still frightened by it. For a moment he had felt himself caught in the clutch of some power over which he had no control. That was the startling truth that stood out most prominently. He had been like one intoxicated—he who never before in his life had lost a grip upon himself. That fact struck at the very heart of his whole philosophy of life. ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... something pretty for Mamma and the baby!" The little fellow's lips quivered, but even at three some of the lessons of poverty had been learned. He surrendered the horse obediently, but Susan saw the little rough head go down tight against the man's collar, and saw the clutch of ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... probability the horse which bore that title had never carried such a feather-weight as little Diana before. Uncle Ben began to lead him round and round the circus. Diana sat perfectly upright; she did not attempt even to clutch a hair of his mane. Uncle ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... you'd left me. Don't go," he begged, stretching out his hand until it grasped the other's. With the hot, nerveless clutch upon him, Christopher was conscious of a quick repulsion, and he remembered the sensation he had felt as a boy when he had once suddenly brought his palm down on a little green snake that was basking in the sunshine on an old log. Yet he did not shake the hand off, and ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... greatness! See how he greedily seizes upon every little chunk of "taffy" and rolls it as a sweet morsel under his tongue; how he places in his cap every foolish feather which the idle wind of puffery wafts within his clutch, and then struts in the face of Heaven, a sight to provoke the contempt of men, the pity of the gods! Let the Boomerville Broadaxe but intimate that the Bungtown Boomer knows a thing or two, and forthwith the latter transfers the saccharine slug to its own columns, and perchance, "points to ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... knows not why, she never has understood this sudden, wondrous happening of her marriage, but the eyes to which she trusts are altering—altered—and what can she do? . . . With heartrending pathos, what she does is to clutch at his words to her, the music which had lifted her, and now perhaps will lift him too by its mere sound. "I love you, love" . . . but what does love mean? She knows not, and her "music" is but ignorant echo; if she did know, she could prevent this change, but the change is not prevented, so it ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... hurried back into the rear compartment, knocked to pieces the bearings and valves of the Deisel engine, tangled up the wiring of the storage batteries and the dynamo, beat off her brushes, disrupted the clutch on the crank shaft. ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... should they think of swimming back? No; the raft was the only thing upon the whole face of that wide sea upon which human foot might now find a resting-place. Though it would be but a straw among so many, at that straw had they determined to clutch, so long as ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... not thinking of his own danger, Francesco gave him a push, and losing his balance the captain fell over the edge, a distance of sixty feet, upon the jagged rocks beneath. But not alone! Still retaining his fierce clutch upon the Italian's throat, the murderer, too, fell with him, and both were stretched in an instant, mangled and lifeless, at ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger
... sent up by the swamped burning mountains stopped all accurate view, though the blaze from the fires lit it like gold. But I had a last sight of a horde of soldiery rushing up the slopes of the Mountain, with a scum of surge billowing at their heels, and licking many of them back in its clutch. And then my eye fell on old Zaemon waving to me with the Symbol to shut down the door in the roof of ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... and rushed on, chokingly; "it is coming just so; for I have just force enough left to win—just force enough to save you,—and then it will rend this frame of mine in two! It comes like a clutch at my heart—it blinds me, and the sky seems to turn ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... alms for some poor unfortunate of my tribe, run back upon the line of years, and speak of the wars of Valerian, of the day when she parted from her great husband, and her two sons, and of that dark day too when the news came that they were all fast in the clutch of that foul barbarian, Sapor—-and stood a silent and astonished witness of a love, such as I never saw in any other, and which seemed so great as to be a necessary seed of death to her frail and shattered frame? Of thee especially have I heard her ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... scholars—scholars who shall shape The doubtful destinies of dubious years, And land the ark that bears our country's good Safe on some peaceful Ararat at last. The age wants heroes—heroes who shall dare To struggle in the solid ranks of truth; To clutch the monster error by the throat; To bear opinion to a loftier seat; To blot the era of oppression out, And lead a universal freedom on. And heaven wants souls—fresh and capacious souls; To taste its raptures, and ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... spinning, spontaneously, like a little wind. Under her arm she held a distaff of dark, ripe wood, just a straight stick with a clutch at the end, like a grasp of brown fingers full of a fluff of blackish, rusty fleece, held up near her shoulder. And her fingers were plucking spontaneously at the strands of wool drawn down from it. And hanging near her feet, spinning round upon a black thread, spinning busily, ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... when a blast fell on the town, I felt his lean claws clutch me down. It seemed as if the hands of death Were beating at my breast for breath; His arms were like a twisted rope Of rotten strands that tugged at hope. 'Listen, my father, listen well!' The wind went tolling ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... formidable from its narrow track and deep drop on either side. Dahlia, it seemed, jibbed sometimes, she must—Bluebell was paying no attention. Good Heavens! what was happening?—the leader backing and sliding! Jack's stinging whip and clutch at the reins could not arrest the catastrophe. Dahlia rears and falls over the edge, pulling sleigh and wheeler after her into a trough ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... was mighty spry in goin' up, but when it came to goin' down he'd just do the drop-an'-clutch, drop-an'-clutch act. That's just where me an' me pardner had the advantage on the brute; for we just swung our arms an' legs roun' that birch an' did the drop act, too; but, somehow, we hadn't time to do the clutch, so our coat-tails ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... Dean," shouted the boy, and without a moment's hesitation he made a rush at the grinning black who was holding up the edge of the bag for his companions to clutch out its contents as ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... I felt her hands clutch my cheeks. She gazed at me as never man's face was scanned yet. And I, silent again, saw wonder born, and doubt grow, and terror spring to life as she looked. And very gradually the grasp of her hands slackened; she turned to Sapt, ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... mine—if I killed her, I have saved her from him—she is mine in death. Let me in, I say,—I will come in,—I will, I will see her, and strangle him at her feet." With that, by a tremendous effort, he tore himself from the clutch of his holders, and with a sudden and exultant bound sprang across the room, and stood face to face with Maltravers. The proud brave than turned pale, and recoiled a step—"It is he! it is he!" shrieked the maniac, and he leaped like a tiger at the throat of his rival. Maltravers quickly seized ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... praising you, but I give you a good mark for the whole affair. If you had excused yourself, or asked to be let off, or told a lie, it would have been ugly. What you did was in the best taste: and that is what I mean. The ugly thing is to clutch and hold on. You did more for yourself by being polite and honest than even George Meredith could have done for you. What I mean by the sense of beauty, as applied to morality, is that a man must be a gentleman first, and a moralist ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... he felt blind for a moment and put his hand to his head. The wold of vivid green grew gray, and life rceded from him into illimitable distance. He had one dim fading glimpse of a shaggy-bearded face looking down at him, and felt the clutch of an iron-hard strong arm under him, and then he lost hold even ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... Mary's bright eyes will weigh somewhat in the balance with her arguments, Master Wenlock," said his father, with a laugh. "However, we will pay our visit to the duke, and if he throws fortune in our way, I see not why we should refuse to clutch it." ...
— A True Hero - A Story of the Days of William Penn • W.H.G. Kingston
... modern life raft, consisting of two steel cylinders stoutly braced and connected by a wooden platform, would have been drawn under by the deadly clutch of that swirling vortex. No open boat could have lived in it for a minute; and even the raft, spinning round and round with dizzy velocity, was sucked downward until it was actually below the level ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... Wilkins, while pretending to be absent-mindedly fussing about a correspondence-file that morning, had forgotten that he was much married and had peered at the V. Una knew it, and the sordidness of that curiosity so embarrassed her that she stopped typing to clutch at the throat of her own high-necked blouse, her heart throbbing. She wanted to run away. She had a vague desire to "help" Bessie, who purred at poor, good Mr. Wilkins and winked at Una and chewed gum enjoyably, who was brave and hardy and perfectly ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... end. Another sea poured in; we hastily gathered in the slack of the rope, and when the water retreated, we found both Bramble and Bessy clinging to the rope. In a moment the men rushed down and hauled up the bodies. Bramble had hold of the rope by both hands—it was the clutch of death; Bessy had her arms round her father's neck; both were senseless. The boatmen carried them up to the cottage, and the usual methods of recovery were resorted to with success. Still we had to lament the death of two of our best pilots, whose loss their wives and children ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... had dropped her bag and bundles to clutch at the tattered umbrella. "I bought it only yesterday at the Stores; and—yes—it's utterly done for!" ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... Susini glanced uneasily over his shoulder. These still, stony valleys were peopled by the noiseless, predatory Ishmaels of the macquis. They were, it is true, not numerous at this time, but those who had escaped the clutch of the imperial law were necessarily the most cunning ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... flower-soft fists of conquering clutch, Two creased and dimpled wrists, That match, if mottled overmuch, ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... halfback two Marshall players came dashing; but they might as well have hoped to catch the wind in a sixty-mile gale as overtake that speedy runner. It was as though Jack had reserved his best powers for this special occasion. He saw just where he meant to hurl himself over the line, and clutch that envied touchdown. Had a dozen followed he would have distanced them every one, such was his mettle just then. He seemed endowed with supernatural speed, many who stared ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... his clutch at opportunity. Here was a god out of a machine, proffering cool liquor to dry gullets. Master Franois gave back the salutation with a mien of splendid condescension, while the rest of the company ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... need not be afraid. In your heart you don't want me to desert a friend, and, besides, leave the best part of my artistic life in Reginald's clutch." ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck
... the home of his former master, has I think more than sixty acres of land, and his master is in the poor-house. I heard of another such case not long since: A woman was cruelly treated once, or more than once. She escaped and ran naked into town. The villain in whose clutch she found herself was trying to drag her downward to his own low level of impurity, and at last she fell. She was poorly fed, so that she was tempted to sell her person. Even scraps thrown to the dog she was hunger-bitten enough to aim for. Poor thing, was there anything in the future ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... her, and he was forced to fling it away and trust in the powerful grip of his arms as he had done with Grendel. Seizing the witch, he shook her till she sank down on the ground; but she quickly rose again and requited him with a terrible hand-clutch, which caused Beowulf to stagger and then fall. Throwing herself upon him, she seized a dagger to strike him; but he wrenched himself free ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... make out, despite the failing light, that it was no island, but a crab larger than a hundred buffalo. Its goggling eyes were dreadful to see, its mouth was opening fiercely, its claws working as if eager to clutch its prey. The moon arose at the full, making a track of light across the heaving waters, and the crab, facing east, prepared to spring and drag it to its den beneath the ocean. Half a mile away the people ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... shin-guards and nose masks, and so he found a seat out of the way, and, searching the room with his gaze, at length found Prince. That gentleman was having a nice, new pink elastic bandage put about his ankle. He was grinning sturdily, but at every clutch of the web his lips twitched and his brow puckered. Joel watching him wondered how much more he would stand, and whether his (Joel's) chance would come ere the fatal whistle piped the end of ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... in the top of the tree For all your crying and grief? Not a star would you clutch of all you see— You could only ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... undefined, but still vehement prompting of conscience. It did not make it any the less probable that the girl would die on or before Midsummer Day; but, supposing her story were true, it absolved him from any charge of assistance to the designs of those grisly powers in whose clutch she was. ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... an instant, then opened his clenched fists to clutch the lean neck of an enemy before him. He whirled the man's body and held it as a shield while he reached vainly to grip at the thrusting spear. Dimly he saw the flash of white and gold where the girl, Luhra, threw her own body upon the armed figure and clung in desperation ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... see once again the settlement at Sydney, whence had radiated the series of his valuable and unsparing researches; but on the next and final occasion he was "caught in the clutch of circumstance." His leave-taking in August, 1803, was essentially his farewell; and his general observations on the country he had served, and which does not forget the service, are, though brief, ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... were working our way cautiously along the causeway again, making for the next sharp corner where the Mahatma had been standing to give us the direction. But he never waited for us to catch up with him. I think he suspected that in panic we might clutch him and offer violence, and he always moved on as we approached, leaving us to grope our ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... came with all the bitterness of being outstripped by a clumsy gelding whom she had beaten time and again. As she caught the latter's slowed pace, as her wicked nose drew alongside of the other's withers, Garrison shot out a hand, clamped an iron clutch on the spume-smeared bit, swung the gelding across the filly's right of way; then, with his right hand, choked the fight ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... dream-consciousness, where he has loosened in sleep his clutch on the egoistic limitations that daily hem him round, the omnipotence of his mind has a nightly demonstration. Lo! there in the dream stand the long-dead friends, the remotest continents, the resurrected scenes of his childhood. With that ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda |
