"By inches" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her heels, and she could not find a leisure moment even to iron a cap, so constant were the demands they made upon her. They wanted her to do this and do that, to cook little dishes for them and wait upon them by inches. ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... know that it is barely enough to keep one body and soul together; the two of us would only starve by inches. No use, Nanna, we must take things as we find them. But isn't it strange—" She stopped abruptly and let her glance wander over the luxurious table-service, the gleaming surface of the silver reflecting her troubled ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... was safely on the great boat that was to transfer it across the river. There the turbulent stream of humanity was permitted to burst forth, and in another moment a stalwart young soldier, who seemed to have broadened by inches since she last saw him, had flung his arms about Mrs. Norris's neck. Then he shook hands with his father and kissed both the girls, at which Spence Cuthbert blushed ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... could ha' gone down in deep water, with colours flying and all hands on deck, and heard the broadsides roaring over me to the last! That's the death for a British tar, my fine fellow, in action gallantly, and not to lie on the mud and rot away by inches like I'm fair ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... to consciousness through the agonized dream that fiends were staking him down under water and torturing him by letting the water rise higher and higher, until finally he would be drowned by inches. ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... object is more sorrowful and has higher claims upon our pity? We think it sad when a woman is thus crushed by neglect or abuse, by the hand of poverty, by hard toil, or the harder fate of a consuming death at the hands of a false or brutal companion. But really, why is it sadder than to die by inches on the guillotine of Fashion? The results are the same in either case. Abused women generally outlive fashionable ones. Crushed and care-worn women see the pampered daughters of Fashion wither and die around them, and wonder ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... dive, I twist in figures of eight, I fight my way by inches against the wind, and, turning, I shoot back upon its current with the speed of a projectile. I am shaken and buffeted until I gasp for breath. I swerve, I dance, I caracole—I pirouette on a wing tip, catching my side slips ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... McTee, you and all the rest. You're bound to starve, and when you're weak, we'll come and carry you forward, and you'll die by inches as the other three are going to die; but if you want to live—you and the girl and all of you, give us White Henshaw to treat as he ought to be treated. Give us him, an' the rest of you'll be saved. If you won't trust us, we'll bring you ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... innocent child. How much better a part she was acting in life—what an influence she was exerting,—as pure, as sweet-breathed, and as unobtrusive, as the very rose in his hand. And he—doing no good to an earthly creature and losing himself by inches. ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... contrived to take poison. He took such a quantity of arsenic that his stomach rejected it. He did not die at once, but lingered several days, and was carried to prison at the Luxembourg, where the poison killed him by inches. He died untried, ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... cart was slanting and slippery. Polly was continually sliding forward, now by inches, now with a great jerk. At last Mahony noticed it. "You are not sitting very comfortably, Polly, I fear?" ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... should have deserved to be shut out of heaven for it. Thinking twice about it! I'm ashamed of myself. Why,—why,—he looks like a ghost. But he won't look that way long! We aren't here to browbeat a man, and kill him by inches, I take it." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... who had a stake in that region's future, and would share its prosperity, and, had it been otherwise, they were human still. Toiling long with stubborn patience, often in imminent peril of life and limb; winning ground as it were by inches, and sometimes barely holding what they had won; fulfilling their race's destiny to subdue and people the waste places of the earth with the faith which, when aided by modern science, is greater than the mountains' immobility, they too rejoiced fervently ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... growl, nor roar, that cry, but a sheer scream, as if something had broken inside of him. He missed Mulcachy by inches, as another blank cartridge exploded up his other nostril and as the men with the rope snapped him back so abruptly as almost ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... while Mr. Pierpont struck out boldly for a far-off perilous and rocky shore, with a lighthouse, in the shape of a pulpit, before him, and achieved the "Airs of Palestine" while undergoing the process of regeneration, and starving by inches upon what there were left of his wife's teaspoons, which were sold one by one to pay the rent of a cheap room in Howard Street. So poor indeed were we at one time, that we could hardly muster enough between us ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... that we all run away from him. Why, after all, Belford, it is no pleasant thing to see a poor fellow one loves, dying by inches, yet unable to do him good. There are friendships which are only bottle-deep: I should be loth to have it thought that mine for any of my vassals is such a one. Yet, with gay hearts, which become intimate because they were gay, the reason for their first intimacy ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... "Now look at it Here you are in hell! Caged up with two old crows picking the life out of you. They'll kill you-I can see it; you're being killed by inches. You can't go anywhere, you can't have anything. Life ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... yearning, not the result of ignorance or accident, its children will become the foundation of a new race. There will be no killing of babies in the womb by abortion, nor through neglect in foundling homes, nor will there be infanticide. Neither will children die by inches in mills and factories. No man will dare to break a child's life upon ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger
... the seashore know well those familiar ripples that mark the sands when the tide is out. On the Goodwins those ripples are gigantic banks, to be measured by feet, not by inches. I can speak from personal experience, having once visited the Goodwins and walked among the sand-banks at low water. From one to another of these banks this splendid boat was thrown. Each roaring surf caught it by the bow or stern, ...
— Battles with the Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... a monkey. He reached the fork and swung himself out on the branch with not a second to spare. The grizzly, frothing with rage and hate, had hurled himself against the tree and his up-reaching claw had torn the bark in a vain attempt to clutch the leg that he only missed by inches. ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... in learning their lesson. Then parent and child keep growing together, in the same house. Let them blunder as we blundered. God is patient for us; why should not we be for them? Aspiration teaches always, and God leads, by inches. A perfect being would hurt a child no less ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... his life had been nasty and savage. Most small creatures were afraid of that snarl, but it had no deterrent effect on Jerry, who continued his steady stalking. When the wild-dog sprang for the hole under the boxes, Jerry sprang after, missing his enemy by inches. Tossing overboard bits of wood, bottles and empty tins, Captain Van Horn ordered the eight eager boat's crew with rifles to turn loose. Jerry was excited and delighted with the fusillade, and added his puppy yelpings to the noise. As the empty brass cartridges were ejected, the return ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... declaring that he was unable, Brahim beat him with a stick, to compel him to go; but as he still did not obey, Brahim threatened that he would kill him; and upon Dolbie's replying, that he had better do so at once than kill him by inches, Brahim stabbed him in the side with his dagger, and he died in a few minutes. As soon as he was dead, he was taken by some slaves a short distance from the town, where a hole was dug, into which he was thrown without ceremony. ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... smoke and made a power dive. Forrester dodged and the fangs of the monster missed him by inches. Mars sank claw-deep into the ground, and Forrester slammed the War God on the side of his head with one mighty forepaw. Mars blew out a cloud of evil-smelling smoke and managed to jerk himself free. He leaped to all four feet, glaring at Forrester with great, ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... clouds!" cried Media, "but away with them all! Why not leap your graves, while ye may? Time to die, when death comes, without dying by inches. 'Tis no death, to die; the only death is the fear of it. I, a demi-god, fear ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... lion, forcing his way through the furious crowd, attacked in the most brutal way on every side, yet ever struggling on if only by inches. Never once did his steadfastness waver, never for a single instant did his spirit sink. His unfailing presence of mind enabled him to get through what would have been impossible to most men, his great height and strength ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... yuh by inches, if I hear any remarks out of yuh that ain't respectful," Andy promised, thawing to his normal tone, which was pleasant to the ear. "I didn't find out much about 'em. The fellow I licked told me that Whittaker and Oleson owned ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... destroying its pear- shape, and the whole mass swerved violently towards the wall of the station, the car swinging under it like a toy, and an anchor under the car. There was a cry of alarm. Then the great ball leaped again, and swept over the high glass roof, escaping by inches the spouting. The cheers expired instantly. ... The balloon was gone. It was spirited away as if by some furious and mighty power that had grown impatient in waiting for it. There remained for a few seconds on the collective ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... you mean to free him. As for my part, take my life and spare John's. Kill me by torture, burn me at the stake, stretch me upon the rack till my joints are severed and my flesh is torn asunder. Let me die by inches, my queen; but spare him, oh, spare him, and do with me as you will. Ask from me what you wish. Gladly will I do all that you may demand; gladly will I welcome death and call it sweet, if I can thereby save him. The faint hope your Majesty's ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... watched those coffins with the most painful and serious apprehension. Every moment I expected the fearful catastrophe, and even wondered which part they would devour first—whether one would come alone and thus kill me by inches, or whether they would all rise at once, and quickly make an end of me. I even imagined I could see the coffins move—that I heard the dead groan and sigh and even the sound of my own chattering teeth, I fancied to be a movement among the dry bones that lay at my feet. ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... let him instantly be bound, master overseer, hand and foot in the heaviest chains you can get, and then have the dog flogged till he is cut to pieces, that his life and his infernal soul may crawl out of him by inches." ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... answer'd, No, sir. I thought, sir, you promised me you would: However, I have his answer from Mr Bulkeley; I am to be carried a prisoner to England. Gentlemen, I shall never live to see England, but die by inches in the voyage; and it is surprising to me to think what you can expect by going to the southward, where there are ten thousand difficulties to be encounter'd with: I am sorry so many brave fellows should be led to go where ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... the jumping-off place. So I'm leaving in a day or two with Rachel. My husband says he can't leave his business, but I'm not such a fool as he thinks. I won't say anything more about him, except that he hasn't the courage to watch me go down by inches. ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... stimulant, when her strength began to fail, nothing more. After her grim decision she had forced large quantities down her throat by sheer strength of will. But she had found the result all that she had expected, she had alternated between exhilaration and oblivion, and was sure that it was killing her by inches. Now, she could indulge in neither wild imaginings nor forget. And if he cured her!—but her will when she chose to exert it was as strong as his, and her resource ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... sides but one, that it was not possible to remain beyond a few moments without retreating for recovery to the outward air. Irritation of body, produced by utter filth and exposure, incited her to the horrid process of tearing off her skin by inches; her neck and person were thus disfigured to hideousness.... And who protects her," Miss Dix suggestively asks, "who protects her,—that worse than Pariah outcast,—from other wrongs and blacker outrages!" ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... as he took his share; but he ate it notwithstanding, owning that, although the taste was not pleasant, it seemed to go much further than dry biscuit itself. The mate being of opinion that there was no use in dying by inches, gave Walter rather more of the meat and cheese than perhaps was prudent—he taking ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... poor boy! Pacheco has threatened to murder him by inches—to cut him up and send him to me in pieces! Is it not ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... zealous and most immaculate of its legislators. Again his eyes could see the head racked with fever, garlanded with the civic crown, the features instinct with virtuous pride and pitiless love, the worn, ravaged, powerful face, the close-pressed lips, the broad chest, the strong man dying by inches who, raised aloft in the living chariot of his triumph, seemed to exhort his fellow-citizens: "Be ye ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... by inches is bitter indeed! I believed that you would marry Murray—at least I knew any other woman would—and I felt that to refuse his affection would be a terrible trial, through which you could not pass with impunity. Why you rejected ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... resulted, and Russell missed it by inches. The batter had still another chance. But it availed him little, for Joe fooled him on ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... lads,' said the mate, 'it is better to be killed outright by the blacks, than die by inches from hunger and thirst. I am ready to step on shore first, and you may shove off, and wait till you ...
— Norman Vallery - How to Overcome Evil with Good • W.H.G. Kingston
... to stay in like this week after week, and month after month. He—he said you were killing yourself by inches, Monsieur Maurice." ...
— Monsieur Maurice • Amelia B. Edwards
... literally by inches. More than once Willie collapsed, groaning, under his burden. Macgregor, racked as he was, shed tears for his friend's sake. Time had no significance except as a measure of suspense and torture. But Willie held on, directed by some instinct, it seemed, over ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... of ground, the head rent of which is L1, 2s. 6d. a year. The worst enemy of Father M'Fadden will hardly suspect him, I hope, of taking such a sum as this from a tenant farmer for the right to starve to death by inches.[13] ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... it till we saw it fall on the shore of Castle Island, and, thinking that it would linger there for days, dying by inches, I started off with the intention of saving it from a lingering death, but a shot had done that. One pellet would have been enough, for the bird was but a heap of skin and feathers, not to be wondered at, its legs being tied ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... chevrons were still upon the cuffs,—and a stout sergeant he must have been,—one of the stoutest in the army. The coat was a large one, yet, withal, it was a tight fit for its present wearer, and did not come within a foot of buttoning upon him. The sleeves, moreover, were too short by inches, and the huge black wrists of the negro appeared in strange contrast with the bright sheen of the scarlet. Behind, the skirts forked widely apart, showing the huge buttocks of the wearer, that were covered ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... "You're killing me by inches! To tell us all this and then ask us to settle on going up there into the woods for a two-weeks' spin! It's a ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... us, that a boy of ten or eleven years of age was bitten by a vampire, and a poor ass, belonging to the young gentleman's father, was dying by inches from the bites of the larger kinds, while most of his fowls were ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... way along the dry channels, and the heavily-ticking nerves, and the sullen heart—the struggle of life and death in him—grim death relaxing his gripe; such pain it is, he cries out no thanks to them that pull him by inches from the depths of the dead river. And he who has thought a love extinct, and is surprised by the old fires, and the old tyranny, he rebels, and strives to fight clear of the cloud of forgotten sensations that settle on him; such pain it is, the old sweet music reviving through his frame, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... am no angel, but only the daughter of the Chief; and I want to help you, because I have heard of you before, and I cannot bear that they should kill you by inches, as I know they will do if you stay here. See, they are all fast asleep now, and there is no chance of my father's return tonight. I have brought you your clothes, and Madge has given me some rag steeped in a concoction of herbs of her own making, which will wonderfully ease ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... a hill as a lookout place, do not make the common mistake of showing yourself on the skyline. Reach the top of the hill slowly and gradually by crouching down and crawling, and raise your head above the crest by inches. In leaving, lower your head gradually and crawl away by degrees, as any quick or sudden movement on the skyline is likely to attract attention. And, remember, just because you don't happen to see the enemy that is no sign that he is not about. At maneuvers and in exercises soldiers continually ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... allowed to stand where it was about an inch deep, and he was nearly wild with impatience when he found that this process was to be repeated every day in spite of all he could say or do, the water rising higher and higher by inches, so that for sixty days he had to live in perpetual silence, ceremoniously conducted to and fro, supping all his meals through the long reed, and looking on at innumerable games of chess, the game of all others ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... isn't there?" Hazel observed reflectively. "But still the law of life is awfully harsh, don't you think, Bill? Isolation is a terrible thing when it is so absolutely complete. Suppose something went wrong? There's no help, and no mercy—absolutely none. You could die here by inches and the woods and mountains would look calmly on, just as they have looked on everything for thousands of years. It's like prison regulations. You must do this, and you must do that, and there's no excuse for mistakes. Nature, when you get close ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... death in any form, she now all at once found herself panting with fear of it, gasping with a deadly fear of a ghastly fate, of being crushed and mangled, of dying by inches beneath some horrible weight, but this ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... engagement will appear when the reader is informed that I was owing the Doctor for a month's board, and saw no way of paying it, and that my one suit was distressingly threadbare. There are other and more interesting ways of getting famous but alas! I rose only by inches and incredible effort. My reader must be ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... length I determined it could be done, and my heart beat nervously as the yawl neared the centre arch—not as to danger, but the dishonour of breaking a goodly spar at the end of a cruise, and in so trumpery a feat. It passed clear, however, by inches. ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... of natural affinity. How well one can realise the extraordinary comfort that Amelia Opie must have found in the kind friends and neighbours with whom she was now thrown! Her father was a very old man, dying slowly by inches. Her own life of struggle, animation, intelligence, was over, as she imagined, for ever. No wonder if for a time she was carried away, if she forgot her own nature, her own imperative necessities, in sympathy with this new revelation. ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)
... far from Portsmouth, where my dear love dwelt, as I could go; I fled to Greenock, that dreadful sodden corner of earth where the rain never ceases to fall, and the sun never shines. At Greenock one measures the rainfall not by inches, but by yards. Sometimes, not often, a pale orb struggles through the clouds and glimmers faintly upon the grimy town—some poor relation of the sun, maybe, but not the godlike creature himself. For six months, in this cold desolate spot, among a people strangely unlike the ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... treated, though I suppose he is sometimes right side upward in his natural condition—graced the sign-board. The sign-board chafed its rusty hooks outside the bow-window of my room, and was a shabby work. No visitor could have denied that the Dolphin was dying by inches, but he showed no bright colours. He had once served another master; there was a newer streak of paint below him, displaying with inconsistent freshness ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... deal's happened in that time. Jack Belton's gone in for stores, and to report. We've shifted camp where the flies, and bugs, and things'll let you folks forget the darn river, and the nightmare I guess you dreamt on it. You're all beating the game, some of you by yards, and others by inches. But you're beating it. And I'm still guessing at those things you all know like you were born to 'em. When are you going to hand me the yarn, Steve? When are you going to feel like thinking about the things that two weeks ago looked like leaving ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... instead of fearing God; and thought they'd made men and sailors of them by private subscription. I tricked these thieves into believing I'd sold myself to the devil. It saved my soul from the kicking and swearing that was damning me by inches. ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... jealous eyes fixed on the Rulan maiden. She extended a white arm with jeweled fingers, pointing. Blaine swung quickly, brushing the arm aside just as that intangible something flashed from her hand. The energy of the black disks! It had missed Ulana by inches, but crashed ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... him that I had had a conversation with Cojuelo, and that the brigand had told me he meant to kill him by inches and make him die a hundred deaths for having attempted to murder him," resumed Don Carlos at length. "I told him I could ransom him and get him away scot free, but only if he agreed to hand you over to Cojuelo as part of ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... earnestly upon the sailor's shoulder, "it is useless for you to try to lessen the services you have rendered us. Think of what I was but an hour since — a captive with the most horrible of all fates before me, and with the belief that my father was dying by inches in the hands of some cruel taskmaster, and now he is beside me and I am free. This has been done by two strangers, men of a nation which I have been taught to regard as an enemy. It seems to me that no words that I can speak ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... the arms of her chair, thrilled and wide-eyed. She could imagine all the horror of the happening through the old lawyer's precise and unemotional story. The boy-lover, pinioned, helpless, condemned to watch his sweetheart dying by inches, and unable to help her by so much as lifting a hand—could anything be more awful not only ...
— The Rose Garden Husband • Margaret Widdemer
... horses both; at least I didn't know what either of them could do. I heard Ainger tell Violet he thought we'd pull it off, so I perked up. They started at 4 foot 10. Wake muffed his first jump, and we gave ourselves up for gone 'coons. However, he hopped over second try. They went up by inches to five feet. My word! you should have seen the way Violet clapped! They'd have been cads if they hadn't gone over, with her backing them up like that. Wake's got the rummiest jump you ever saw. He runs sideways at the bar, and sort ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... farther than you do, where would you be? Are you mad as well as reckless, to rise against your own captain because he has two strings to his bow? Go my way, I say, or, as I live, I'll blow up the ship and every soul on board, and save you the pain of rotting here by inches." ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... which means, "O be joyful." He was a big man, almost gigantic, and generally slow in his movements, except when on the trail. When he arose to address an assembly, either in council, or church, he got up by inches, and seemed to rest between. But when he was up, and began to talk, he had something to say that was worthy ...
— On the Indian Trail - Stories of Missionary Work among Cree and Salteaux Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young
... by, and felt a bullet miss him by inches. Then his legs were under him, and he was sliding into the big luggage compartment, where ...
— Police Your Planet • Lester del Rey
... He is just one of those brainless fellows like myself, who would rather be out here, suffering, choking, dying by inches, than be at home surrounded by all the comforts that a home gives a man. Didn't say what ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... even the little scullion who attended him shuddered with horror as he glanced into the place and muttered, "Everything is alive in that room." "Yes," says Beauchesne, "everything was alive except the boy they were killing by inches, and murdering in detail. This beautiful child, so admired at Versailles and at the Tuileries, would not recognise himself, his form is scarcely human—it is something that vegetates—a moving mass of bones and skin. Never ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... severely on the forehead, that the wound bled freely on the following morning. The fowls also suffered so terribly that they died fast; and an unfortunate jackass on whom they had set their fancy was almost killed by inches. ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... Noir entered the city of Mexico with the victorious army, but on the subsequent day, being engaged in a street skirmish with the leperos, or liberated convicts, he fell mortally wounded by a copper bullet, and he was now dying by inches at his quarters near ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... competitors for the rewards of merit; but as the slaves are inferior in the qualities which give success among competitors in our country, extreme poverty would be their lot; and for the want of means to rear families, they would multiply slowly, and die out by inches, degraded by vice and crime, unpitied by honest and virtuous men, and heart-broken by sufferings ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... son wants to murder me, I would rather have him kill me outright than to take five years to do it. A young man who goes home late night after night, and when his mother remonstrates, curses her gray hairs, and kills her by inches, is the ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Dwight Moody
... no longer, but setting his teeth hard and moving by inches, and battling with the hindrances offered by the weapons he carried, he wrenched himself round till he lay flat upon his back, gazing upward calmly enough in spite of one terrible half-minute he had passed, when ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... they put his feet in irons fastened to a stake, tied his neck to another, while two men held his hands; and in this position they put fire to his feet. 9. Every now and then, the tyrant entered and told him, that they would kill him by inches with tortures if he did not give the gold. And thus they did, and killed this lord with tortures. While they were tormenting him, God gave a sign of destestation of that cruelty, by causing all that town, where it was committed to be burnt. 10. The other ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... cigarettes? Why, each one contains enough poison to kill a cat; if it was fixed right, I mean." He passed a thin, shaking hand over his face, and went on: "Do you want to fool with such things?—Not if you are wise. You see, the cigarette habit will kill you sometime, by inches, if not right away, or else drive you crazy; and no sane person wants to kill himself or spoil his health. That is what I am doing, though," he admitted, with a bitter smile and a sad shake of his head. "But I cannot stop it now. I have gone too far, and I cannot help myself. I am a wreck, a blot ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... a pessimist and an optimist, with ample opportunities to quarrel. Johnson is a jackass, but honest. He is a pessimist and has a pea-green liver. Listen to him and the business will die painlessly, by inches. Applerod is also a jackass, and I presume him to be honest; but I never tested it. He suffers from too much health, and the surplus goes into optimism. Listen to him and the business will die in horrible agony, quickly. But keep both of them. Let them fight things out until they come almost ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... lord. I couldn't help it; I've outstepped my duty, my lord, but I could not stand quiet and see your lordship dying by inches." Here Mr. S. put a cambric handkerchief artistically to his eyes, and glided out, ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... soothed him, and waited upon him by inches. The sister-of-charity spirit, that lies in the depths of every womanly nature, made her love her poet the more because he was suffering. How tenderly she protected his nerves! She laid a woollen cloth on ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... the city seemed to Gallegher to drag itself by inches. It stopped and backed at purposeless intervals, waited for an express to precede it, and dallied at stations, and when, at last, it reached the terminus, Gallegher was out before it had stopped and was in ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis
... the midst of her terror, and made a frantic grab at the side of the boat, only to miss by inches and go down again with an ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... neighbourhood looking on, and anyhow not worse than this Saturday-to-Tuesday business of dying by inches; and then I should go on into something else. If I had been a moderately good otter I suppose I should get back into human shape of some sort; probably something rather primitive—a little brown, unclothed Nubian boy, I ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... missed it by inches, Harkness knew; but he knew, too, that the impact he felt was no shattering of metal upon metal. The heavy windows of the control room went black with the masses of fibrous flesh that crashed upon them; then cleared in an instant as the ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... man. That's what makes me sick. Right on top of all his bad luck he comes here and sees that everybody is getting a big roll. He thinks of that white-faced wife of his dragging herself round among the kids and dying by inches for lack of what money can buy her. I tell you I don't blame him. It's the fellows putting the temptation up to him that ought to ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... by inches, dry, fevered, and faint, Having drunk all the cream you so civilly laid, off, He dies of as charming a liver complaint As ever sleek person could wish ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... you have to say, is it? You—a man of God, so-called—killing your wife by inches and not caring a damn what suffering you cause! I tell you, she has been at death's door all day, thanks to your infernal behaviour. She may die yet, and you will be directly responsible. You've crushed her systematically, body and soul. As to the children, if you touch that little ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... evening, turning to me with the troubled look I had seen so often on his face of late, "what be wrong wi' you, my chap? You be growing paler everyday. Oh, Peter! you be like a man as is dyin' by inches—if 'tis any ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... They may live at home for years, always ailing, always sick. They may develop epilepsy, St. Vitus' dance, skin disease, or mental vagaries, and they may have to be put into institutions for the feeble-minded, or they may die by inches ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... not well secured, slid forward and pushed me off my seat, so that I fell right under the mules just as they stepped on the ferry. The frightened mules trampled and kicked fearfully. I lay still, thinking that if I moved they would step on me, as their hoofs missed my head by inches only. I thought of my mother and how sorry she would be if she could see me now, but I was thinking, ever thinking and lay very still. Then my guardian angel, in the person of a Mexican, crawled under the wagon from the rear end and pulled me by my heels, back to safety ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... you want to kill the men, and I know the rascals deserve it, do it at once. Hanging is the best way. But don't keep them there to die by inches, for it will disgrace us all ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... advanced, not by steps, but by inches. I felt more poised and pinnacled in the void than when I had stood on the spike of rock, for I had a substantial hold neither for foot nor hand. It seemed weeks before I made any progress away from the lip of the waterhole. I dared not look down, but kept my eyes on the slope before me, searching ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... frying-pan over a good hot stove for the same length of time, any day in the week. The reason Bost is a great coach is because his men don't dare play poorly. When they do he talks to them. If he would only hit them, or skin them by inches, or shoot at them, they wouldn't mind it so much; but when you get on the field with him and realize that if you miss a tackle he is going to get you out before the whole gang and tell you what a great mistake the Creator made when He put joints in your ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... them all, he had but to reach out his hand, and take them—and, though the illusion was reality itself, he knew that he was sitting alone in the deserted street, watching the rain-drops as they pattered on the stones; that death was coming upon him by inches—and that there were none to care for or ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... that galling chain, she thought to herself, she might escape, for now death, however strong her faith, was very near and unlovely; also she suffered in many ways. To die and pass quick to Heaven—that would be well, but to perish by inches of starvation, heat, cold, and cramped limbs, with pains within and without and a swimming sickness of the head, ah! it was hard to bear. She knew that even were she free she could not hope to descend the gateway by its staircase, since the doors were locked and barred, and if she passed ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... can't force you to speak, and I can." Jose sneered. "Oh yes, I can! I intend to know all that you know, and it will be better for you to tell me voluntarily. I must learn where Senora Austin is, and I must learn quickly, if I have to kill you by inches ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... remembering himself, comes to the fireplace and slumps down in a chair—agitatedly.] God, Dad, I can't stand her moaning and screaming! It's got my nerves shot to pieces. I thought I was hardened. I've heard them out in No Man's Land—dying by inches—when you couldn't get to them or help—but this is worse—a million times! After all, that ...
— The First Man • Eugene O'Neill
... chest and addressing the empty air, "C'est moi, c'est moi, qui n'a pas d'argent!"—it was he who had no money and nothing to cover him, and what did they want him to do? If he had come down to be shot at, well and good, but if he was to be frozen and starved by inches... ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... the scent, and he saw the shadowy figure coming through the starlight. He tried to drag himself back, but he could move only by inches. The man came rapidly nearer. Kazan caught the glisten of the rifle in his hand. He heard his hollow cough, and the tread of his feet in the snow. Gray Wolf crouched shoulder to shoulder with him, trembling ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... Mafuta, and let's see what we have left. I'm resolved to make some change in myself for better or worse, if I should have to eat up the whole affair. Better be poisoned at once than die by inches in ...
— Hunting the Lions • R.M. Ballantyne
... knowledge, that they are going to be compelled to submit to the lust of an overseer! and no redress. "How long," says he, "is this frightful system, which tears my body in pieces and excruciates my soul, which kills me by inches, and which involves my family in unspeakable misery and unmerited disgrace, to continue?"—"For ever," replies a voice Suddenly: "for ever, as relates to your own life, and the life of your wife and daughters, and that of all their posterity," Now would ...
— Thoughts On The Necessity Of Improving The Condition Of The Slaves • Thomas Clarkson
... the drummer-boy of their company, Bastian, a fat, good-natured little fellow, who had had the ill-luck to receive a spent ball in the groin about five o'clock the day before, when the battle was ended. He had been dying by inches for ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... included in them, and they in the mind, both having a distinctness and individuality of their own. To reduce our conception of mind to a succession of feelings and sensations is like the attempt to view a wide prospect by inches through a microscope, or to calculate a period of chronology by minutes. The mind ceases to exist when it loses its continuity, which though far from being its highest determination, is yet necessary to any conception of it. Even an inanimate nature cannot ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... listened, his head thrust half in at the door, Obadiah's voice became lower and lower, until at last it ceased entirely. Not a step, not a deep breath, not the movement of a hand disturbed the stillness of the little room. By inches Nathaniel drew himself inside the door. His heavy boot caught in a sliver on the step but the rending of wood brought no response. It was the quiet of death that pervaded the cabin, it was a strange, growing fear of death that ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood
... tell me not of stormy graves— Though winds be high, there let them roar; I 'd rather perish on the waves Than pine by inches on the shore. I ask no willow where I lie, My mourner let the mermaid be, My only knell the sea-bird's cry, My winding-sheet ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... alcohol, because its grip is more speedy and more deadly. It is more deadly than arsenic, because by arsenic the suicide dies at once, while the opium victim suffers untold agonies and horrors and dies by inches. It is all very well for the men who know nothing about the effect of opium to do all the talking about the harmlessness of this pernicious drug; but they should come through this once fair land of Yuen-nan ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... usual good sense, answers a good many questions which are bruited to-day. Dr. Albert Shaw, in the Review of Reviews, once brought some of these questions forward. "How far is it right for the people of a free state to kill their magistrates by inches?" This is the question reduced to its simplest terms. It was generally understood, when the late Governor Greenhalge died in Massachusetts, that his career, invaluable to the people of that State and of the country, had been cut off untimely by a ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... snaked after him. It missed by inches, and went pitching into the gulf. In his haste he caught his foot on the interlaced thongs, stumbled and almost fell—which saved his life, for another spear streaked through the very spot he had been a second before. Then ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... possible speed. A sharp blow or two on the snout will deprive the fish of life. Always kill your fish,—big or small,—as nothing ought to be more repulsive to a true sportsman than to see or hear any animal he has captured dying by inches. ...
— Scotch Loch-Fishing • AKA Black Palmer, William Senior
... he said to Arthur. "This is November, baby's five months old. Send your wife away. Put her out! Something's killing her by inches, and I believe it's just care o' the nest. We must drive her off it, as I drove Leonard Byington off,—which, you remember, you, quietly, were the first to suggest to me to do.... Coming back, you say,—Byington? Yes, but only for a day or ...
— Bylow Hill • George Washington Cable
... bride he robbed me of—the young—the beautiful!—whom I loved to madness; whose memory is a barbed shaft, yet rankling keen as ever at my heart. God of Justice! how is it that I have thus long survived? But some men die by inches. My dying lips shall name him once again, and then 'twill be but to ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... everything I did was wrong; I was cold-hearted, hard, insensate; my sour, pale face was perfectly repulsive; my voice made him shudder; he knew not how he could live through the winter with me; I should kill him by inches. Again I proposed a separation, but it would not do: he was not going to be the talk of all the old gossips in the neighbourhood: he would not have it said that he was such a brute his wife could not live with him. No; he must ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... who hears me," replied Terence desperately; "I can't stand dying by inches this way. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... scrambled up the rough trunk easily, finding plenty of hand and footholds. They came to rest on one of the shelflike circumvoluting rings, some twenty-five feet above the ground. Soon the blunt brown tentacles slithered in search of them, but failed to reach their refuge by inches. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... the suffering away over there in France was real to you," he continued. "Well, less than a mile from this spot, I called this afternoon on a man who is dying by inches of consumption, contracted while working in our office. For eight years he was absent from his desk scarcely a day. The force nicknamed him 'Old Faithful.' When he dropped in his tracks at last they carried him out and stopped his pay. He has no care—nothing to eat, even, except the ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright |
