"Clench" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... poison plants that grow, And flourish in the human breast, No other plant, perhaps, hath so Deep clench'd a ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young
... voice he turned. His eyes looked at her out of such a depth of misery as pierced her to the heart. She saw his hands clench against his sides. "O my God!" he said under ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... purpose? Many is the man who has thought he was valiant till danger stared him in the face; I've known them, too, that consaited they were kind and ready to give away all they had to the poor, when they've been listening to other people's hard heartedness; but whose fists have clench'd as tight as the riven hickory when it came to downright offerings of their own. Besides, Judith, you're handsome—uncommon in that way, one might observe and do no harm to the truth—and they that have beauty, like to have ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... angry as I am, I cannot endure to have him abused?" "Abused!" said Mrs. Holt, kindling in her wrath. "I cannot hold myself without abusing him." But it very soon did come to pass that Mr. Western's name was not mentioned between them. Mrs. Holt would now and again clench her fist and shake her head, and Cecilia knew that in her thoughts she was executing some vengeance against Mr. Western; but there was a truce to spoken words. Cecilia indeed often executed her vengeance against her husband after some fashion ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... glues it to the stem, and wraps its rings of fresh wood around the trunk every year, and pushes out its boughs and clothes its twigs with breathing leaves and sucks up nutriment from the soil continually, and makes the roots clench the ground with their fibrous fingers as a purchase against the storm, and at last holds aloft its tons of matter against the constant tug and wrath of gravitation, and swings its Briarean arms in triumph, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... children with talk of hell-fire and eternal damnation' (iii. 200). And indeed we cannot deny that when reading some of the sermons to which poor Phebe Bartlet must have listened, and remembering the nature of the audience, the fingers of an unregenerate person clench themselves involuntarily as grasping an imaginary horsewhip. The answer given by Edwards does not diminish the impression. Innocent as children may seem to be, he replies, 'yet if they are out of Christ, they are not so in God's sight, but are young vipers, and are infinitely ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... road. The very shoes were taken off my wife's feet, and "ye'll no be a refuse to gi'e me that," said a red-haired reprobate as he took hold of Sarah Lochrig's hand and robbed her of her wedding-ring. I was present and saw the deed; I felt my hands clench, but in my spirit I discovered that it was then the hour of outrage, and that the Avenger's time ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... a little foolish, but Clench, the boatswain, coming aft to say something to him in confidence, just at that moment, he was enabled to avoid the awkwardness of attempting to explain. This man Clench, or Clinch, as the name was pronounced, was deep in the captain's secrets; far ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... of her breasts against his side. He would close his eyes and think of her lips on his, and her heart beating quickly while his thumped so loudly that it seemed that every one must hear it ... and thinking thus, he would clench his fists with futile force and swear to himself that he would go to her and make her marry him. Once, when he had spent an afternoon at the Zoo in the Phoenix Park, he had lingered for a long while in the house where the tigers are caged because, suddenly, ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... have seasoned brain and limb, You'll drop your corks, and like a Triton swim." 'Twas thus he formed my boyhood: if he sought To make me do some action that I ought, "You see your warrant there," he'd say, and clench His word with some grave member of the bench: So too with things forbidden: "can you doubt The deed's a deed an honest man should scout, When, just for this same matter, these and those, Like open drains, are stinking 'neath your nose?" Sick gluttons of a next-door funeral ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... ballads the refinement of the wits who in the "Easy" and "Johnstone" clubs talked over their cups of Prior and Pope, Addison and Gay. Burns inspires them with a fervour that thrills the most wooden of his race. We may clench the contrast by a representative example. This is from Ramsay's version of perhaps the best-known of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... to Michael that his mother made some violent effort towards self-control. He saw one of her hands that were lying on her knee clench itself, so that ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... contraction of all the muscles of any member, each opposed set exerting the same degree of strength? No motion of the member results, but the member is brought on tension and stiffened. This is well illustrated in the case of the arm. Extend the arm and clench the fist; then contract all the muscles of the arm, about as the athlete does to display his muscular development. You will notice that the arm becomes ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... him all doors and all ears? Was it not in her marvellous marble music-room—one of the boasts of Chicago—that he had mentally seen himself enthroned as the lord of the feast? And instead of these Olympian visions, lo! a typewritten note to clench his fist over—a note from a secretary regretting that the state of Mrs. Wilhammer's health forbade the pleasure of receiving a maestro ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... him clench his dagger tightly and with slow steps advance to the side of the helpless girl. Glaring down at her, he swung the blade high. It poised directly over her heart. It would not torture her, Taia knew: it was death ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... in words. The strong muscular fingers of his left hand closed on the right arm of Verinder just below the shoulder with a pressure excruciatingly painful. Dobyans found himself moving automatically toward the end of the porch. He had to clench his teeth to keep from ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... situation. It had taken time for it to fasten itself upon him. In a general way it had been clear to him a few moments before; now, detail by detail, it closed in upon him, and his muscles tightened, and Father Layonne saw his jaw set hard and his hands clench. Death was gone. But the mockery of it, the grim exultation of the thing over the colossal trick it had played, seemed to din an infernal laughter in his ears. But—he was going to live! That was the one fact that rose above all others. No matter what happened ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... my fingers off the weak, and to clench my fist against the strong—to carry no tales out of school—to stand forth like a true man—obey the stern order of a PANDE MANUM, and endure my pawmies without wincing, like one that is determined not to be the better for them. ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... quake; And oft the bands of iron break, Or bursts one lock, that still amain, 195 Fast as 'tis open'd, shuts again. That magic strife within the tomb May last until the day of doom, Unless the Adept shall learn to tell The very word that clench'd the spell, 200 When Franch'mont lock'd the treasure cell. An hundred years are pass'd and gone, And scarce ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... faithless age! Yet happier, in that death-dew drench'd, In each rude hand the claymore clench'd, Than who, to soothe a nation's craven rage, To the red scaffold went with steady eye, And the red martyr-grave, For one, who could not save! Who only lives to weep the weight ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... A. (Clench the three first fingers of the right hand over the thumb, and join hands ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... young friend learned at gymnasium was to direct her mind only on to the muscles that were needed. Did you ever try to clench your fist so tight that it could not be opened? If not, try it, and relax all over your body while you are keeping your fist tight closed. You will see that the more limp your body becomes the tighter ...
— Nerves and Common Sense • Annie Payson Call
... his arm, clenches his fist, and moves his whole arm violently downwards, is a virtue or excellence which is conceived as proper to the structure of the human body. If, then, a man, moved by anger or hatred, is led to clench his fist or to move his arm, this result takes place (as we showed in Pt. II.), because one and the same action can be associated with various mental images of things; therefore we may be determined to the performance of ...
— The Ethics • Benedict de Spinoza
... the innermost wall of granite, there was a quick rustle all across its face as though the screen of shrubs and flowers had been fluttered by a draught of wind. Norris drew himself erect with a distinct appearance of relief, loosened the clench of his fingers upon his rifle, and began once more to search the bushes for ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... Rafel ma-ee amech zabee almee!— 'Dull wretch!' my leader cried, 'keep to thine horn, And so vent better whatsoever rage Or other passion stuff thee. Feel thy throat And find the chain upon thee, thou confusion! Lo! what a hoop is clench'd about thy gorge.' Then turning to myself, he said, 'His howl Is its own mockery. This is Nimrod, he Through whose ill thought it was that humankind Were tongue-confounded. Pass him, and say nought: For as he speaketh language ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... is much more likely to be a true index of character. A man may clench his teeth firmly or smile disdainfully or sneer, or do a hundred things which will be reflected in his mouth rather than in his nose or chin. It is through the mouth and eyes that all emotions are expressed, and ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... drinking, and helping to fill the tills of alien parasites in Soho. That has been your part. And now, now that the fatal crisis has arrived, you, whose qualification is that you can wield the pen of a begging letter-writer, who is also scurrilous and insolent—you lie in bed and clench your useless hands, and ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... No emotion after all, when the very traditional test of our enjoyment of a play is the amount of feeling it arouses!—when hearts beat, hands clench, tears flow! Emotion there is, it may not be denied; but not the sympathetic emotions of ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... answer yours immediately; as one pays a shilling to clench a bargain, when one suspects the seller. I accept your visit in the last week of this month, and will prosecute you if you do not execute. I have nothing to say about elections, but that I congratulate myself ,every time I feel I have nothing to do with them. By my ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... and winks with which Mrs Nickleby intimated that she was going to say something which would clench the business at once, Kate maintained her point by an expressive look, and for once Mrs Nickleby was stopped upon the very ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... Kentucky rose as he spoke and, adroit in managing men, reached out his hand as though to take the other's and so to clench the matter. Yet his heart leaped in surprise—a surprise which did not leave him wholly clear as to the other's motives—when the latter met his hand with so hearty a grasp ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... going away. When the door shut upon her he would cry and sob—whereupon Hester's face and manner, which was always exceedingly bland and gentle while her lady was present, would change at once, and she would make faces at him and clench her fist and scream out "Hold your tongue, you stoopid old fool," and twirl away his chair from the fire which he loved to look at—at which he would cry more. For this was all that was left after more than seventy years of cunning, and struggling, and drinking, and scheming, and sin and selfishness—a ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... bothered by this pettifogger? Are you to sit tamely down and be undermined? Is that your custom? Then, sir, you are a base coward. Who said coward? Did you, sir? Let this right hand, which I now raise in air, and clench in awful menace, warn you not to repeat the damning accusation. Sevenoaks howls, and it is well. Let every man who stands in my path take warning. I button my coat; I raise my arms; I straighten my form, and they flee away—flee like the mists of the morning, and ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... fellows. It took a big slug of whisky to set off his oratory, but when he got it wound up he surely could pull the feathers out of the bird of freedom to beat scandalous. But as a stump speaker you weren't always sure he'd fill the engagement. He could make a jury blubber and clench its fists at the prosecuting attorney, yet he didn't claim to know much law, and he did turn over all the work in the Supreme Court to his partner, Charley Hedrick. Then, when Charley was practising before the Supreme Court and wasn't here to hold him down, Samp would get out and whoop it up ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... men about the base of the framework that still partly veiled the Platform. They tended to face outward, angrily, and to clench their fists. ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... they hands that clench in anger? Are they hands that crush heartlessly? Are they hands that drag downward? Are they hands that pull backward? Are they hands that strike in cruelty? Are they hands that slap insultingly? Are they hands that tear ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... Sir John Simpson. This was quite enough. He seized the paper with an oath, crumpled it up, and thrust it into the fire, and gave Owen such a violent blow on the back with his fist, that the young man's first impulse was to start up and clench his in return; however, his flush of passion cooled in a moment, and ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... this moment did she realize what she had done; not until now did the teeth of remorse clench upon her. To marry her—because he loved her—this boy at her side must suffer THIS. It was her doing....She had cheated him into it. She had cost him this and was giving nothing to pay for it. He had foreseen it. Last night he had cut adrift from his parents because of her— willingly. ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... of her hurrying to tell Fred: "What do you know about it? Jack Corey, the bandit, is treed up at the lookout station! He told me all the inside dope—" The thought of her animated chatter to Fred on the subject of his one real tragedy, made him clench ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... as of his daughter that I intended to tell you. Dona Isolda Montijo is universally admitted to be, beyond all question, the most lovely woman in Cuba; and for once the popular estimate is correct, as no man knows so well as I do." ("Steady, old man, steady!" said Jack to himself. "Hold tight, and clench your teeth! The blackguard is talking now with the express intention of provoking you into the commission of some overt act for which you would be sorry afterwards, and you must not allow yourself to be provoked. The infernal fool, in his ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... sergeant-major had to clench his teeth; he passed silently along, shaking the hands that were stretched out ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... as some of us go on shore, there is a drunken fight. Knives are drawn, great gashes given, blood runs like rain; the combatants tumble together into a shallow dock, stab in the mud and water, creep out and clench and roll over and over in the ooze, stabbing still, with beast-like, unintelligible yells, and half-intelligible curses. A great, nasty mob huddles round,—doing what, think you? Roaring with laughter, and hooting their fish-gurry happiness up to the welkin! ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... man is lying to you, don't watch his face. Any poker-player can make his face a mask. Watch his hands. Ten to one, if he is lying, he'll clench them." ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... between herself and her sole treasure, whom she had bought so dear, and who was all her world, Hester sometimes burst into passionate tears. Then, perhaps—for there was no foreseeing how it might affect her—Pearl would frown, and clench her little fist, and harden her small features into a stern, unsympathising look of discontent. Not seldom she would laugh anew, and louder than before, like a thing incapable and unintelligent of human sorrow. Or—but this more rarely happened—she would be convulsed with rage of grief and ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... mortal's agony, With an immortal's patience blending:—vain The struggle; vain, against the coiling strain And gripe, and deepening of the dragon's grasp, The old man's clench; the long envenom'd chain Rivets the living links,—the enormous asp Enforces pang on pang, and stifles gasp ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... of such terrific grandeur lay That reeled the brain at what the eyes beheld; The hands would clench involuntarily And clutch from intuition for support; The eyes by instinct closed, nor dared to gaze On such an ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... held the cards thus so as to look the more like a grownup. Yet the next moment, looking at his face, I could see that he had not a thought in his mind beyond the game. Dubkoff's hands, on the contrary, were small, puffy, and inclined to clench themselves, as well as extremely neat and small-fingered. They were just the kind of hands which generally display rings, and which are most to be seen on persons who are both inclined to use them and ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... for him at length we saw In cart convey'd and laid supine on straw. His feeble voice now spoke a sinking heart; His groans now told the motions of the cart: And when it stopp'd, he tried in vain to stand; Closed was his eye, and clench'd his clammy hand: Life ebb'd apace, and our best aid no more Could his weak sense or dying heart restore: But now he fell, a victim to the snare That vile attorneys for the weak prepare; They who when profit or resentment call, Heed not the groaning victim they enthrall. ...
— The Parish Register • George Crabbe
... whom we entertain a particular aversion; a big, burly parson, with the face of a lion, the voice of a buffalo, and a fist like a sledge-hammer. The last time I was there, I observed that his eye was upon me, and I did not like the glance he gave me at all; I observed him clench his fist, and I took my departure as fast as I conveniently could. Whether he suspected who I was, I know not; but I did not like his look at all, and do not intend to ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... what is in my mind when I tell you that we have to gather ourselves together much more than we think. We have to clench ourselves upon a chosen end. We have to gather ourselves together out of the swill ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... earth's bound and limitary land, The Scythian steppe, the waste untrod of men! Look to it now, Hephaestus—thine it is, Thy Sire obeying, this arch-thief to clench Against the steep-down precipice of rock, With stubborn links of adamantine chain. Look thou: thy flower, the gleaming plastic fire, He stole and lent to mortal man—a sin That gods immortal make him rue to-day, Lessoned hereby to own th' ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... Joseph's humble bench Thy hands did handle saw and plane; Thy hammer nails did drive and clench, ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... as the difficulties of the trail increased, I saw more and more instances of suffering and privation, and to many the name of the White Pass was the death-knell of hope. I could see their faces blanch as they gazed upward at that white immensity; I could see them tighten their pack-straps, clench their teeth and begin the ascent; could see them straining every muscle as they climbed, the grim lines harden round their mouths, their eyes full of hopeless misery and despair; I could see them panting at every step, ghastly with fatigue, lurching and stumbling ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... my friend, "thou takest me wrong; I did not suggest," says she, "that the person thou inquirest after is gone thither, neither do I believe she is, I assure thee." Well, the girl smiled, and let her know that she believed it for all that; so, to clench it fast, "Verily," says she, with great seriousness, "thou dost not do well, for thou suspectest everything and believest nothing. I speak solemnly to thee that I do not believe they are gone that way; so if thou givest thyself the trouble to go that way, and art disappointed, do not say that ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... his fingers clench the arm of his chair as if in an effort of self-control. Then he said: "Perhaps I shall tell you that, too. But not now." He rose abruptly. "It is warmer inside, and we can have some music. I am sure you must be tired of hearing me talk ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... stern countenance; but when they saw that he knelt also, and smiled, and returned the sword, their hearts became re-assured, and Charles took the sword like his liege lord, though trembling with wonder and affection: and in truth he could hardly clench ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... pass to the crumbling trench Must go in the spirit that games with fate, With feet that stumble and teeth that clench Over the valley of hell and hate. Over the knees in water and mud, Up to the waist if you miss the track, You shall know your path by the trail of blood, And silent figures shall ...
— The Story of the "9th King's" in France • Enos Herbert Glynne Roberts
... spiteful Duchess; the lover escapes behind the window curtains to avoid scandal—is discovered, and his sovereign's reputation is only saved by the declaration of Felicia, that the Captain is there on her account. Ollivarez asserts that they are married, to clench the fib—the Queen sees her folly—the Duchess is disgraced—all the characters stand in the well-defined semicircle which is the stage method of writing the word "finis"—Mrs. Yates speaks a very neat and pointed "tag"—and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 30, 1841 • Various
... self-restraint—perhaps, something like an unfair humiliation as well. Others have detected the selfish motives which suggested it: the mean distrust of my honour, integrity, and firmness of purpose which it implied; and the equally mean anxiety on Sherwin's part to clench his profitable bargain at once, for fear it might be repented of. I discerned nothing of this. As soon as I had recovered from the natural astonishment of the first few moments, I only saw in the strange plan proposed to me, a certainty of assuring—no matter with what sacrifice, ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... was thinking. She was once again in a room in a private hospital, lying weak and helpless from the ordeal through which she had passed. It all came back to her now with a stinging intensity, causing her white hands to clench hard, and her eyes to widen with a ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... One is that dame The false accuser of the Hebrew youth; Sinon the other, that false Greek from Troy. Sharp fever drains the reeky moistness out, In such a cloud upsteam'd." When that he heard, One, gall'd perchance to be so darkly nam'd, With clench'd hand smote him on the braced paunch, That like a drum resounded: but forthwith Adamo smote him on the face, the blow Returning with his arm, that seem'd as hard. "Though my o'erweighty limbs have ta'en from me The power to move," said he, "I have an ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... within himself he held, 510 A huge wave heav'd him on the rugged coast, Where flay'd his flesh had been, and all his bones Broken together, but for the infused Good counsel of Minerva azure-eyed. With both hands suddenly he seized the rock, And, groaning, clench'd it till the billow pass'd. So baffled he that wave; but yet again The refluent flood rush'd on him, and with force Resistless dash'd him far into the sea. As pebbles to the hollow polypus 520 Extracted from his stony bed, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... worn, and overhead The lights of sunset and of sunrise mix'd In that brief night; the summer night, that paused Among her stars to hear us; stars that hung Love-charm'd to listen: all the wheels of Time Spun round in station, but the end had come. O then like those, who clench [4] their nerves to rush Upon their dissolution, we two rose, There-closing like an individual life— In one blind cry of passion and of pain, Like bitter accusation ev'n to death, Caught up the whole of love and utter'd it, And bade adieu for ever. Live—yet live— Shall ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... reconciled and say, "This is not murder; only passion bent On pouring out its poison"—one could pray That the day's end might see the madness done And saner souls rise with the morrow's sun. But this incarnate hell that yawns before Your bright, brave soul keyed to the fighter's clench— This purgatory that men call the "trench"— This modern "Black Hole" of a modern war! Yea, Love! yet naught I say can save you, so I lay my heart in yours and ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... felt the girl's left hand clench tighter on his arm, and this spurred him on in his guilty purpose. Katharina herself had suggested to his mind the course he must pursue to attain his end. He went on to influence her jealousy by praising Paula's charm and loftiness, excusing himself in ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... amazement. Indignation flashed from her eyes. She dropped her hands and Jane saw the fingers clench. ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead
... mostly of his dull uneventful days in Scotland, and ever and anon of Cynthia, his beloved. Would she hear of his end? Would she weep for him?—as though it mattered! And every train of thought that he embarked upon brought him to the same issue—to-morrow! Shuddering he would clench his hands still tighter, and the perspiration would stand' out in beads upon his ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... my senses for a moment, it occurs to me I might wake Falkenberg with my tossing about, and perhaps say things in my delirium. That would never do. I clench my teeth and jump up, get into my clothes again, scramble down the stairs, and set out over the fields at a run. After a little my clothes begin to warm me; I make towards the woods, towards the spot where we had been working; sweat and rain pour down my face. If only I can find the saw and work ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... her, covering her with dust and causing her to clench her hands in anger. "Beastly ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... crone's in the sulks, for she 'd fain be gaddin', A wink to the girls sets her soul a-maddin', She 's a shame and sorrow to me. If I stop at the hostel to buy me a gill, Or with a good fellow a moment sit still, Her fist it is clench'd, and is ready to kill, And the talk of ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Niag'ry was licked by a passul of knittin'-work old-maids, led by an elephant and a peep-show man? Be ye goin' to let 'em outsquirt ye? Why, the wimmen-folks of Vienny will put p'isen in your biscuits if you go home beat by anything that Smyrna can turn out. Git a-holt them bars! Clench your chaws! Now, damye, ye toggle-j'inted, dough-fingered, wall-eyed sons ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... his lip, and the man noticed his hand clench hard. Then there started a low-voiced conversation, a conversation to which he listened attentively—his ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... firm reply. Aurelius saw his son's face pale, saw him straighten up as though he expected a blow on those broad shoulders, saw his hand clench as if he were in pain. And Aurelius was sorrowful. He loved Martius for himself and for his mother, whom he resembled. The lawyer was also, only too well aware of the danger run by all those who called themselves followers of Christus. The worst had not yet come. There were only threats ...
— Virgilia - or, Out of the Lion's Mouth • Felicia Buttz Clark
... himself in sighs, and groans, and tears, in direct struggles with it, and is thereby far sooner overthrown by the inflexible enemy with whom he is engaged. Once overthrown, his struggles cease. Louis could not hold out more than a few minutes, at the end of which he had ceased to clench his hands, and to burn up with his looks the invisible objects of his hatred; he soon ceased to attack with his violent imprecations not M. Fouquet alone, but even La Valliere herself: from fury he subsided into despair, and from despair to prostration. After he had thrown himself for a ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... this best part of mankind should have gratefully caught at such a straw as "cogito ergo sum," is intelligible enough. They felt the futility of the whole question, and were thankful to one who seemed to clench the matter with a cant catchword, especially with a catchword in a foreign language; but how one, who was so far gone as to recognise that he could not prove his own existence, should be able to comfort himself with such a begging of the question, would seem ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... to the King of the land he goes, And straight to make his plaint began; Then murmured loud the assembled crowd, And clench'd his ...
— A Bibliography of the writings in Prose and Verse of George Henry Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... nation. If our home propaganda, instead of continually awakening vain hopes, had insisted on telling the real truth, the German people would have faced danger to the last. We ought to have repeated constantly that our situation was very serious, but that we must clench our teeth, and our Government must be ready to seize the first opportunity to end the defensive war by ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... with rage. I saw him clench his fists as I swept out of the room, making as much noise with my train as ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... person saved, that we might have lived together, conversed with, and comforted one another! and so much were my desires moved, that when I repeated these words, Oh! that there had been but one! my hands would clench together, and my fingers press the palms of my hands to close, that, had any soft thing been between, it would have crushed it involuntarily, while my teeth would strike together, and set against each other so strong that it required some time for ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... came to him: he began to put on gloves, fine, white kid gloves. Then he tried to clench his fist in them ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... eyes blinking independently, my uncle is superb. Or when he raises his hat with a large, outward gesture of his arm, bowing slightly from the shoulders, in affable salutation. Or most of all, when his fists clench, his jaws display big nervous knots, his eyes gleam with hard blue light in wrath over some palpable iniquity, some base cowardice, some outrageous act ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... myself, I cannot be bothered with bare figures and vague abuse nowadays; abstractions are nothing, and neat arguments are less than nothing, because the dullest quack that ever quacked can always clench an argument in a fashion. Every turn that talk can take on the drink question brings the image of some man or woman, or company of men and women, before me, and that image is alive to my mind. If you pelt me with tabular ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... clench the business, Don Antolin; you may reckon on me, I am always ready to earn a day's ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... with your heart in it, You to the Mother Country proffer. Beshrew the cynic would-be wit. Who coldly chuckles at the offer! BRITANNIA takes it, with a grip That on the sword, at need, can clench too, too! She will not that warm grasp let slip, Health, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., August 23, 1890. • Various
... a knotted rope rein in his hand, and his arm, brown and bare to the elbow, and hard as an oak branch, rose, and I saw his teeth clench till the muscles on his jaws ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... I let my hand clench on hers. "Take me to husband then, and I will be a good man to you. But, as I am bidden speak to Phorenice the woman now, and not to the Empress, I offer fair warning that ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... muffled and mean no more than the scraping of a dead twig against a rusty wire? Are flowers to lose their scent, and grass and trees and birds to be blurred and turned drab in my eyes? How do you think I live, man? How do you think I can go before juries and audiences and make them thrill and clench their fists and cry like children and breathe with my emotions, if I am to be stone dead? Do you think a wooden man can do that? Try Joe Calvin with a jury—what does he accomplish with all his virtue? He hasn't had an ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... stands his single peer: Fag on at flesh, you'll never make the third!" Flower o' the pine, You keep your mist ... manners, and I'll stick to mine! I'm not the third, then: bless us, they must know! 240 Don't you think they're the likeliest to know, They with their Latin? So, I swallow my rage, Clench my teeth, suck my lips in tight, and paint To please them—sometimes do and sometimes don't; For, doing most, there's pretty sure to come 245 A turn, some warm eve finds me at my saints— A laugh, a cry, the business of the world— (Flower o' the peach, Death ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... best bid to clench the matter. She offered her bargain. "Now don't you worry," she said, sunnily, "about this setting Edith against you. She'll get over it after a while, anyway, but if she tried to be spiteful and make it uncomfortable for you when you drop in over there, or managed so as to sort of leave ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... cruise, except for practice runs at the Academy! Yet his rating called him an experienced man on the Polaris run. He'd had the Lhari training tape, which was supposed to condition his responses, but would it? He tried to clench his fists, drove a claw into his palm, winced, and commanded himself to stay calm and keep his mind on what he ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... sent out a flash. I could see the muscles of his hand clench against his knee. I had scored a point, and his anger ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... has given way, sir," cried Mr Tobin, the first-lieutenant. Out ran the cable to the clench, carrying away the stoppers, and passing through both compressors. At length the messenger was again shackled, and the anchor hove up, when it was found that both flukes had been ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... changes, the constant "saving of the country," which to his wife seemed a puerile and bloodthirsty game of murder and rapine played with terrible earnestness by depraved children. In the early days of her Costaguana life, the little lady used to clench her hands with exasperation at not being able to take the public affairs of the country as seriously as the incidental atrocity of methods deserved. She saw in them a comedy of naive pretences, but hardly anything genuine except her own appalled indignation. Charles, ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... a silence between them that took on the roar of a simoon and Miss Samstag jumped then from her mother's embrace, her little face stiff with the clench of her mouth. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... porch of a church, that the proverb might be verified, that to lucky men good fortune will come even when they are asleep! Our Henry VII. made a viceroy of Ireland if not for the sake of, at least with a clench. When the king was told that all Ireland could not rule the Earl of Kildare, he said, then shall ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... friends and benefactors, as they occasionally went off for the East or West Indies, was often to me a sore affliction; but I was soon called to more serious evils. My father's generous master died, the farm proved a ruinous bargain; and to clench the misfortune, we fell into the hands of a factor, who sat for the picture I have drawn of one in my tale of "Twa Dogs." My father was advanced in life when he married; I was the eldest of seven children, and he, worn out by early hardships, ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... out all other thoughts, and he would wrestle in his heart with the desire to kill Wainwright—yes, and the captain, too. As some poor wretch near him would writhe and groan in agony his rage would boil up anew, his fists would clench, and he would half rise to go to the door and overpower that guard! If only he could get up to where the officers were enjoying themselves! Oh, to bring them down here and bind them in this loathsome atmosphere, feed them with this ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... which served to clench Hahmed's fingers, the wretched Achmed vowed he had music of a kind and dancers of sorts, and that at that moment his first wife was preparing a brew surpassed only by that drunk in the Gardens of Delight by the chosen of Allah, who had passed to ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... his daughter, and am come in his place, as he is detained by company. He bade me deliver a message to you alone and then hasten back." With this the girl almost whispered in the ear of the old soldier a few words that caused his teeth to clench and his heartstrings to tighten. She had hardly concluded, when an approaching step from the direction of the fort caused her to spring aside and fly with ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... boy, flushing, and his fists began to clench. "But I say, Serge, I should like to, but I'm a bit tired, and they're ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... frightened looks at each other, and then at the children, some of whom had begun to whimper, when in an instant all were struck again into stone. The young man had turned and was facing them all, with his hands held out in a clench which in ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... Satanic looks Of eagerness, that I have wonder'd oft How he from theft and murder could refrain. 'Twas cowardice alone withheld his hands, For they would grasp and grapple at the air, When his grey eye had fixed on heaps of gold, While his clench'd teeth, and grinning, yearning face, Were dreadful to behold. The merchants oft Would mark his eye, then start and look again, As at the eye of basilisk or snake. His eye of greyish green ne'er shed one ray Of kind benignity or holy light On aught beneath the sun. Childhood, youth, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various
... lay in the thickest of the smoke, and over it Lossing was just about to bend when I halted, seeing a sudden movement on Voisin's part which made me clench my hands. ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... and the hand which he held to his injured face twitched as if the fingers were trying to clench themselves and form a fist for their owner's defence; but the boy did not stir, only sat looking at his cousin, who now struck an attitude, made two or three feints, and then dashed forward hitting out sharply, catching Tom in the chest, and knocking him backward ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... the Hudson, they had felt some contact with the past; but here, Stern's eye looked out over a world as virgin as on the primal morn. And a vast loneliness assailed him, a yearning almost insupportable. that made him clench his fists and raise them to the impassive, empty sky that mocked him with its ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... devil's fist Still clench'd in malice impotent Dost the creative power resist, The active, the beneficent! Henceforth some other task essay, Of Chaos ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... reading, that he jumped violently off his chair, exclaiming, "This is childish nonsense!" In doing so he tilted the chair over, so that it balanced for an instant on its hind legs, and then fell with an awful crash, which caused him to leap at least three feet forward, clench his fists, and wheel round with a look of fury that would certainly have put to flight ...
— Fort Desolation - Red Indians and Fur Traders of Rupert's Land • R.M. Ballantyne
... little one, he tires your arm, He's such a kicking, crowing, wakeful rogue, He almost wears our lives out with his noise Just at day-dawning, when we wish to sleep. What! you young villain, would you clench your fist In father's curls? a dusty father, sure, And you're as clean as wax. Ay, you may laugh; But if you live a seven years more or so, These hands of yours will all be brown and scratched With climbing ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... dispense, That tolls the knell for their departed sense. Dulness might thrive in any trade but this: 'Twould recommend to some fat benefice. Dulness, that in a playhouse meets disgrace, Might meet with reverence, in its proper place. The fulsome clench, that nauseates the town, Would from a judge or alderman go down, Such virtue is there in a robe and gown! And that insipid stuff which here you hate, Might somewhere else be called a grave debate; Dulness ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... she refused all nourishment, employing her remaining strength to clench her teeth or to eject anything that Therese succeeded in introducing into her mouth. Therese was in despair. She was asking herself at the foot of which post she should go to weep and repent, when her aunt would be no longer there. She kept ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... angry, Aileen. Faith, 'tis worth being the object of your rage to see you stamp that pretty foot and clench those little hands I love to kiss. But Ecod! Montagu, the hour grows late. The lady will lose her beauty sleep. Shall you and I go down-stairs ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... fists clench, and into his eyes there flashed a queer light. I knew what it was. Before he knew I was married he had told me of his long secret love for me. That he was fighting the temptation to let the breach between Dicky and me widen, I knew as well as if he ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... and made their way toward the parked vehicles of The Barbarian's captured supply train. The ground was rough and covered by underbrush. More than once, The Barbarian stumbled into Geoffrey, making him clench his jaw against the pain in his chest. But he saw no point ...
— The Barbarians • John Sentry
... scientific interest, I invited in mid-ocean the most thorough investigation concerning the crew-list of the Spray. Very few had challenged it, and perhaps few ever will do so henceforth; but for the benefit of the few that may, I wished to clench beyond doubt the fact that it was not at all necessary in the expedition of a sloop around the world to have more than one man for the crew, all told, and that the Spray sailed with only one person on board. And so, by appointment, ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... comes! It was rather as a meditation in contrasts, though, that Sally thought thus to herself; for detached musical jerks of diabolical rapidity, that have to be snapped at with the punctuality of the mosquito slayer, don't show your rounded lines to advantage, and make you clench your teeth and ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... my elbow. "Starling! Starling!" I cried. He made no sound. His head drooped, and I saw him clench his hand. I stared. He threw his head back, but when he tried to meet my look he failed. Yet I looked again. "My God!" I heard my voice say, and my teeth bit into my lip. I could smell the flowers in my hand, but they seemed a long distance away. "My God!" I cried again, and ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... the coughing fit and he could not find her with his wildly searching hands. Another betraying cough over there. The green-bronze ones were between them. He saw one of them draw back in amazement, then clench his ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... least sense of the 'fist'. It's funny. With most men there's the instinct to clench the fist and hit. It's not so with me. I should want a knife or a pistol or something ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... Harvey's mind lay at the bottom of all others. At my uncle's approach he would retire into his shell like an oyster, nor could he be got to utter more than a monosyllable in his presence. Harvey's face would twitch, and his fingers clench of themselves as he touched his cap. And with my Aunt Caroline he was the same. He vouchsafed but a curt reply to all her questions, nor did her raptures over the stud soften him in the least. She would come tripping into the stable ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... and he will not love me the littlest bit ever any more—only hate me! ... O yes, I have lost him now—again because of—you!" In writhing, with her head on the chair, she turned her face towards the door, and Mrs Brooks could see the pain upon it, and that her lips were bleeding from the clench of her teeth upon them, and that the long lashes of her closed eyes stuck in wet tags to her cheeks. She continued: "And he is dying—he looks as if he is dying! ... And my sin will kill him and not kill me! ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... and in minute detail. You lie in bed for half an hour and enthusiastically concentrate on this beautiful new scheme of the right tone. You rise, and because you don't achieve a proper elegance of necktie at the first knotting, you frown and swear and clench your teeth! There is a symptom of the wrong attitude towards your environment. You are awake, but your brain isn't. It is in such a symptom that you may judge yourself. And not a trifling symptom either! If you will frown at a necktie, if you will use language to ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... The buyer makes an offer. The seller refuses. The buyer increases it. The seller either refuses or accepts. In accepting, or drawing near acceptance, he extends his hand, which the buyer strikes once, and then pausing, strikes again. Apparently two such movements clench the bargain; but I must confess to being a bad guide here, for I could find no absolute rule to follow. The whole process of Alkmaar chaffering is exceedingly perplexing and elusive. Otherwise the ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... biscuit, with a full allowance of water, and then set to work at the boat. The thorns answered their purpose as nails admirably, and the planks soon were securely fastened into their places against the stem; but without nails to clench the planks together, it was evident to them all that the boat would not float five minutes. They stood looking at ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... point, unfortunately, the humour of the situation became too much for Miss Gertrude Hansombody, another of the students. She began to titter, went on to laugh uncontrollably, then to clench her hands ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Billy explained. "He was a regular devil at it. 'Most every clench, like clock work, down he'd chop one on me. It got so sore I was wincin'... until I got groggy an' didn't know much of anything. It ain't a knockout blow, you know, but it's awful wearin' in a long fight. It takes ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... thus, her eyes would become moist; and on the long eyelashes were tears, but she concealed them and watched the black bread baking in the ashes. Then I would clench my fist, and cry, "We will kill these Turks!" But she repeated the words of the song, "I will drive them across the islands to the deep sea; but before evening came the roebuck was slain, and before the night the hunted ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... sailing overhead. There, there thou liest now, my hapless child! Stretch'd among briars and stones, the slow, black gore Oozing through thy soak'd hunting-shirt, with limbs Yet stark from the death-struggle, tight-clench'd hands, And eyeballs staring for revenge in vain. Ah miserable! And thou, thou fair-skinn'd Serpent! thou art laid In a rich chamber, on a happy bed, In a king's house, thy victim's heritage; And drink'st untroubled slumber, to sleep off The ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... cannot prevail to appease great Zeus in Olympos, Though she with words very many and wiles close-woven entreat him. But I will tell thee this more, and will clench it with steel adamantine: Then when all else shall be taken, whatever the boundary 128 of Kecrops Holdeth within, and the dark ravines of divinest Kithairon, A bulwark of wood at the last Zeus grants to the Trito-born goddess Sole to remain unwasted, which thee and thy children shall profit. ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... was a lot of title for twopence. Day after day, as I fumbled among the old books in the Twopenny Bin of the little secondhand bookseller's shop, that volume would wriggle itself forward and worm its way into my hands; and I would clench my teeth and thrust it to the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various
... kindly. Why didst thou let so many Norsemen hence? Thy fierce forekings had clench'd their pirate hides To the bleak church doors, like kites ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... see Dancers tangled beautifully; For the girls i' tumbled ranks Alang Eurotas' banks Like wanton fillies thrang, Frolicking there An' like Bacchantes shaking the wild air To comb a giddy laughter through the hair, Bacchantes that clench thyrsi as they sweep To the ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes
... ache With the red drain of her own mouth, and make A monochord of colour. Like an asp, One lithe lock wriggles in his rutilant grasp. Her bosom is an oven of myrrh, to bake Love's white warm shewbread to a browner cake. The lock his fingers clench has burst its hasp. The legs are absolutely abominable. Ah! what keen overgust of wild-eyed woes Flags in that bosom, flushes in that nose? Nay! Death sets riddles for desire to spell, Responsive. What red hem earth's passion sews, But may be ...
— The Heptalogia • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... philanderer, who had insulted Rose Mattel, and been responsible for the dismissal of more than one nurse from the hospital. The mere thought of such a man in connection with Eleanor Bartlett made Quin's strong fingers clench around an imaginary neck and brought beads of ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... if needs must—but should your mere kindness and forethought, as I half suspect, have induced you to take such a step, you will now smile with me, at this new and very unnecessary addition to the 'fears of me' I have got so triumphantly over in your case! Wise man, was I not, to clench my first favourable impression so adroitly ... like a recent Cambridge worthy, my sister heard of; who, being on his theological (or rather, scripture-historical) examination, was asked by the Tutor, who wished to let him off easily, 'who was the first King of Israel?'—'Saul' ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... lift a keg of pork, a-bitin' on the chine, And he'd clench a rope and hang there like a puppy to a root; And a feller he could pull and twitch and yank up on the line, But he couldn't do no business with that ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... fall three paces back? Why paces three return to the attack? 1010 Why is the right leg, too, forbid to stir, Unless in motion semicircular? Why must the hero with the Nailor[79] vie, And hurl the close-clench'd fist at nose or eye? In Royal John, with Philip angry grown, I thought he would have knock'd poor Davies down. Inhuman tyrant! was it not a shame To fright a king so harmless and so tame? But, spite of all defects, his glories rise, And art, by judgment form'd, with nature ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... midshipman was about to withdraw his, but it was held tightly, and somehow or another his own fingers began to respond in a tight clench. ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... dust; Love in a palace is perhaps at last More grievous torment than a hermit's fast:— That is a doubtful tale from faery land, Hard for the non-elect to understand. Had Lycius liv'd to hand his story down, He might have given the moral a fresh frown, Or clench'd it quite: but too short was their bliss To breed distrust and hate, that make the soft voice hiss. 10 Besides, there, nightly, with terrific glare Love, jealous grown of so complete a pair, Hover'd and buzz'd his wings, with fearful roar, Above the lintel of their chamber ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... seek to explain the meaning of my new word. There was no occasion for it to mean either God or the Tivoli; [Footnote: Theatre of Varieties, etc., and Garden in Christiania.] and who said that it was to signify cattle show? I clench my hands fiercely, and repeat once again, "Who said that it was to signify cattle show?" No; on second thoughts, it was not absolutely necessary that it should mean padlock, or sunrise. It was not difficult to find a meaning for such a word as this. I would wait and see. In the ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... hypothesis is strongly supported by the outward expressions of fear and of anger. When the business man is conducting a struggle for existence against his rivals, and when the contest is at its height, he may clench his fists, pound the table, perhaps show his teeth, and exhibit every expression of physical combat. Fixing the jaw and showing the teeth in anger merely emphasize the remarkable tenacity of phylogeny. Although ...
— The Origin and Nature of Emotions • George W. Crile
... genial balm: When casting far behind his streaming eye, He saw the Grove,—in fancy saw her lie, His Margaret, lull'd in Germain's[3] arms to rest, And all the demon rose within his breast. Convulsive now, he clench'd his trembling hand, Cast his dark eye once more upon the land, Then, at one spring he spurn'd the yielding bank, And in the ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... further than you. I have had, all my sea-going life long, to keep my wits polished bright with acid and friction, like the brass cases of the ship's instruments. I'll keep you company on this expedition. Now you don't live by talking any more than I do. Clench that hand of yours in this hand of mine, and that's a ...
— A Message from the Sea • Charles Dickens
... you mah name, rank an' serial number, suh." Wims saw the colonel's face harden and his fist clench. Just then a burst of angry shouting and scuffling erupted in the corridor. Suddenly the door was flung open and half a dozen Chinese stormed into the room trailing a couple of protesting Russian guards. Two of the Chinese were civilian attaches from the embassy ...
— I Was a Teen-Age Secret Weapon • Richard Sabia
... longer continue the pretence he had been making—for it was all pretence. The effort to be loving and affectionate was torture, so that all his nerves seemed to vibrate with exasperation. Sometimes he had to clench his hands in order to keep himself under restraint. He was acting all the time. James asked himself what madness blinded Mary that she did not see? He remembered how easily speech had come in the old days when they were boy and girl ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... the next morning, the current being slack, we hove short on the small bower, which soon after parted at a third from the clench. We immediately took in the cable, and perceived that, although we had sounded with great care, before we anchored, and found the bottom clear, it had been cut through by the rocks. After some time, the current becoming strong, a fresh gale springing up, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... there were interesting, even exciting moments—when you hardly felt the ache. But other times—evenings and Sundays—it came back sharper than ever. And in the course of those weeks he had learnt a number of things not included in the school curriculum. He had learnt that it was better to clench your teeth and not cry out when your ears were tweaked or your arm twisted, or an unexpected pin stuck into the soft part of your leg. But, inside him, there burned a fire of rage and hate unsuspected by his tormentors. ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... to bed yet!" in a strange, choked voice, and the next moment Aimee saw her hands clench themselves and her whole frame begin to shake. "Shut the door and lock it," she said, wildly. "I can't stop myself. Give me some sal volatile. I can't breathe." And such a fit of suffocating sobbing came upon her that she writhed ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... morals, turns out to be nothing but a verbal antithesis. What was paraded, as a kind of transcendental analogy between things not before suspected of resemblance, discovered by the "spiritual insight" of the moral seer, is in fact no more than a grave clench,—a solemn quibble,—a conceit; arising not from the perfection of mind, but the imperfection of language. Those conceptions, fabricated by Fancy out of the materials that Fancy deals in, and colored by the rays of a poetic sentiment, wear ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... of the first basin the man had risen to serenity; at the second he was jovial; at the third, argumentative, at the fourth, the qualities signified by the shape of his face, the occasional clench of his mouth, and the fiery spark of his dark eye, began to tell in his conduct; he was ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... all the same," wails Tirloir. Then suddenly a fit of rage seizes him, his face crumples, his little fists clench in fury, he tightens them like knots in string and waves them about. "Alors quoi? Ah, if I had hold of the mongrel that did it! Talk about breaking his jaw—I'd stave in his bread-pan, I'd—there was a whole Camembert in there, I'll go and look for it." He massages his stomach ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... took made me clench my teeth to keep from sinking in a faint to the ground; I expected always that the next would be my last—but somehow I struggled onward. It was the thought of Desiree, I think, that ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... in. Its grand feature is a plastic immobility by which the subject maintains all the attitudes given to his body and limbs, but with this peculiarity, that the limbs and features act in unison. Join the hands of the patient as if in devout prayer, and his countenance assumes a devout expression; clench his fist, and anger is depicted in ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens
... Donkin and Clench, Ltd., and Assistant Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering at the ...
— A Textbook of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. • Cornelius Beringer and John Jacob Beringer
... unresponsive. She was not writing when I came in, but sitting doing nothing. She said nothing to me about Mr. Gideon's call, till I mentioned him myself. Then she seemed to stiffen a little; I saw her hands clench over the arms ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... yet our heart bounds with sympathy for them. Alive with comicality, they move us, almost unconsciously, to fondle them. And yet we know not why we would fondle the sable "rascals." One knot is larking on the grass, running, toddling, yelling, and hooting; another, ankle-deep in mud, clench together and roll among the ducks, work their clawy fingers through the tufts of each other's crispy hair, and enjoy their childish sports with an air of genial happiness; while a third sit in a circle beside an oak tree, playing with "Dash," whose tail they pull without stint. "Dash" is the faithful ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams |
