"Clenched" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... over this black bargain, Jacques arose and said he must go, and wishing old Pierre "Good night," he left the mill. Turning round when he had gone a few steps from the door, he clenched his hand and said, "Thou tempt'st me to commit murder, but I'll take care that thou doest the deed thyself; bad as I am I could not take Marguerite's hand in mine after ...
— Legend of Moulin Huet • Lizzie A. Freeth
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... same the rest; Such impious avarice their souls possessed. "Nay, heaven forbid that I should bear away Within my vessel so divine a prey," Said I; and stood to hinder their intent: When Lycabas, a wretch for murder sent From Tuscany, to suffer banishment, With his clenched fist had struck me overboard, 60 Had not my hands, in falling, grasped a cord. 'His base confederates the fact approve; When Bacchus (for 'twas he) began to move, Waked by the noise and clamours which they ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
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... intensely stupid you are?" she hissed through her clenched teeth, as she looked straight into ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
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... "read it! Ah!" and she clenched her little hand, and in her passion struck the oak table beside her, so that a stain of blood sprang out on her knuckles. "Why did you not kill him? Why did you not do it when you had the chance? You were three to one," she hissed. "You had him in your power! You could have killed him, and you ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
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... that they were mixed. Though the prospect of settling down at Seaton filled her with dismay, Percy's gibe at her probable failure touched her pride. Winona had always been counted as the clever member of the family. It would be too ignominious to be sent home labeled unfit. She set her teeth and clenched her fists at ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil
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... thrusting his brawny arm forth, with the fist clenched, indicating the necessary point of the compass by the thumb; "the coast of Guinea might have lain hereaway, and the wind you see, was dead off shore, blowing in squalls, as a cat spits, all the same as if the old fellow, who keeps it bagged for the use of us seamen, ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
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... He clenched his teeth, the big drops of perspiration gathered thick and fast upon his brow, and tossing his hands frantically aloft, he cursed his brother, and swore to pursue him with his vengeance to the grave. Yes, that twin brother, who had been fed at the same breast—had ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
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... kind to fill the fife could all be light-hearted on occasion. I remember Scott by Highland streams trying to rouse me by maintaining that haggis is boiled bagpipes; Henley in dispute as to whether, say, Turgenieff or Tolstoi could hang the other on his watch-chain; he sometimes clenched the argument by casting his crutch at you; Stevenson responded in the same gay spirit by giving that crutch to John Silver; you remember with what adequate results. You must cultivate this light-heartedness if you are to hang your ...
— Courage • J. M. Barrie
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... she said, and her voice sounded very far off; although I was lifting her ungloved hand to my lips. She clenched my fingers tightly, I remember that; and also that my hand shook violently and that my ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
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... as Aramis saw Porthos, he turned as pale as death, while Fouquet clenched his hands under his ruffles. D'Artagnan smiled at both of them, while Porthos bowed, visibly overcome ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
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... gasp, and gasping, strove to curse, Whereat he, gasping, did but gasp the worse, Till, finding he could gasp, but nothing say, He shook clenched fist and, gasping, strode away. Then Joc'lyn turned and thus beheld Yolande, Who trembling all and pale of ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
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... She stared down at him in revulsion, her hands clenched. Her voice was hostile as ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
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... answered Jack shortly, nodding with his fists still clenched, in the direction of Fosberton, who was in the act of emerging from the depths of the laurel ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
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... clenched fist, but his son had flung out of the room. It was not the Deemster only who feared he might lay hands on ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
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... lifted his head all the way up and let it sink all the way down, and you still don't know who he is. For The Woman the beginning is done like this: "The Woman clenched her white hands till the diamonds that glittered upon her fingers were buried in the soft flesh. 'The shame of it,' she murmured. Then she took from the table the telegram that lay crumpled upon it and tore it into a hundred ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
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... was enough to scare any timid creature. Not that he raved or ranted or screamed. Those were not his ways. He still sat beside his desk as he had done before, and his slender hand, so like the talons of a vulture, was clenched upon the arm of his chair. But there was such a look of inward fury and of triumph in his pale, deep-set eyes, such lines of cruelty around his thin, closed lips, that Jeannette Marechal, even with the picture before her mind of Jean Paul Marat in his maddest moods, ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
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... wife of Henri III., with sundry dames of high degree, and women of the people violently squabbling together over a pair of trunk-hose, the property of the king, who lies prostrate in one corner of the canvas, struck down by the clenched fist of a man in the robes of a member of the ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
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... was the bugle call of "Forward, charge!" She had been, for the last few weeks, a little paler than usual. Now her powerful old face flushed to an angry red. She dashed her trowel to the garden path and clenched her fists. "What's coming to Greenford!" she shouted. It was no longer a wail of despair. It ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
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... knew there was nothing to follow except death—his or hers—realized she made an awful mistake—divined in one dreadful instant the unsuspected counter-mine beneath her very feet—cried out as she struck him full in the face with clenched fist, sprang back, whipping the revolver from her ragged bodice, ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
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... them dared to laugh he flung him out of doors like a puppy dog; you may imagine what a pretty figure a headsman cuts who is always preaching about the other world, and proclaiming the word of the Lord with his clenched fists." ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
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... coal to the girl addressed. Nothing would stop him, apparently. He even made the most stupid repetitions. Nora finally stamped her foot formidably. "Will you stop? Will you stop ? " she said through her clenched teeth. " Do you think I want to listen to your everlasting twaddle about her? Why, she's-she's no better than other people, you ignorant little mamma's boy. She's no better than other ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
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... eye. This patch I had hitherto studiously endeavored to hide with the ample skirts of my shooting-jacket; but now I stretched out my leg boldly, and thrust the patch under their noses, and looked at them so, that they soon looked away, boy though I was. Perhaps the gun that I clenched frightened them into respect; or there might have been something ugly in my eye; or my teeth were white, and my jaws were set. For several hours, I sat gazing at a jovial party seated round a mahogany table, ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
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... me. Sitting there on his desk, his clenched fist on his knee, he looked for a moment as though he was about to fly at me. Then all of a sudden he slipped into his ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
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... Lenox clenched his teeth upon an inarticulate sound; and his amber mouthpiece snapped like a stick of sealing-wax. He took the pipe from his mouth; eyed it ruefully, and ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
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... escape that way, so thickly were the sleeping savages dispersed about the entrance to the tunnel. In this predicament, and with the intensity of his thinking, great beads of perspiration started to his forehead, and he clenched his hands until ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
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... woman, her countenance pale as death, tried to speak. Her lips moved, but no sound came from them. Next moment, by dint of supreme effort, she struggled to her feet and rose stiffly. Then, a moment later, her hands clenched and despair in her splendid eyes, ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
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... ultimate success of submarine telegraphy was assured, and we might as well pack up our trunks and go home. But there was worse news to come. A few minutes later, Lewis, who was reading an old copy of the San Francisco Bulletin, struck his knee violently with his clenched fist and exclaimed; ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
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... in horror, but Max Wyndham made no sound of any sort. The cigarette remained between his lips, and not a muscle of his face moved. His hand with the broken needle in it was not withdrawn. It clenched slowly, ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
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... you believe it, Captain Burnett?—mamma had heard every word. When I left Cyril, I found her crouching on the stairs in a dark corner. Oh, I shall never forget the turn it gave me! She had got her arms over her head, and they seemed quite stiff, and her fingers were clenched. Biddy was crying over her; but she did not move or speak, and it was quite an hour before we could get her into ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
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... those damned doctors—pardon, but they are such imbeciles!" He made an angry gesture with his clenched hand. His face was tense and excited. "They say so. And there is another sick ... Dieu, what a misfortune! Truly, there was illness about us, ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
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... which that child's father had refused to do at her instance. He also, when he told of this, spoke of Rebekah and her son; and Mrs. Orme when she heard him did not dare to raise her eyes from the table. Lucius Mason, when he had listened to this, lifted his clenched hand on high, and brought it down with loud violence on the raised desk in front of him. "I know the merits of that young man," said Sir Richard, looking at him; "I am told that he is a gentleman, good, industrious, and high spirited. I wish he were not here; I wish with all my ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
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... scarcely worthy of further notice; but not so with Harlequin. The Irishman was outrageous—like the war-horse, his mettle was put in motion, he whooped and bellowed, and was all kicking for a row; threw off his jacket, displaying the upper part of his body in a state of nudity, and with his clenched hand slapped his breast, which sounded like a board; then striking out, right and left, two sunburnt arms of bone, like Ossian's heroes of old, cleaving the air with their arms for the coming fight swore that he had got one black ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
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... turned his back such threatening gestures were made to those who faced him, that they, one and all, rolled their eyes with wrath and gave the most ridiculous answers. They all were so eager for the battle, that they could no longer distinguish between friend and foe, and each shook his clenched ...
— Erick and Sally • Johanna Spyri
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... sat down before his writing-table and let his clenched fist fall in helpless anger upon the desk. He had not even the satisfaction of being able to direct his wrath against anybody or anything. The fault lay in something uncalled-for and apparently unavoidable, an evil, and at the same time necessary, ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
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... lip from which he was suffering when in England last year, and that he had just finished the "wonderful poetical text" of the prologue to his "Mystery." When Scriabin was suffering terrible pain just before his death he clenched his hands and his last words were: "I must be self-possessed, ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
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... that there is such a despicable wretch as that in Rally Hall," said Doctor Rally, bringing his clenched ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
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... see it all, with its difficulties and its possibilities. He rested his clenched hand on the table and the artist in him had the run of his pulses. He could see it all and he knew in all humbleness that he could construct the town as no other man of his generation would be able to do; the ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
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... in white nightcaps; and its cabriolet head on the roof, nodding and shaking, like an idiot's head; and its Young-France passengers staring out of window, with beards down to their waists, and blue spectacles awfully shading their warlike eyes, and very big sticks clenched in their National grasp. Also the Malle Poste, with only a couple of passengers, tearing along at a real good dare-devil pace, and out of sight in no time. Steady old Cures come jolting past, now and then, ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
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... colonnades of stone balconies. There is some one, however, whom this spectacle rejoices, a poor, ill, disheartened creature, who, stretched out at full length on the embroidered silk covering of a divan, her head resting on her clenched fists, gazes gleefully out through the streaming window-panes and gloats ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
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... scene and that sound, so calculated to soothe and harmonise the thought, seemed to arouse Almamen into agony and passion. He smote his breast with his clenched hand; and, shrieking, rather than exclaiming, "God of my fathers! have I come too late?" buried his spurs to the rowels in the sides of his panting steed. Along the sward, through the fragrant shrubs, athwart the pebbly ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
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... the island was close ahead, wrapped in the roar and the mist-volleys. A cross-current seized the racing ice-cake, dragging it aside,—and the man clenched his fists in a fury of disappointment as he saw that he would miss the refuge after all. He made ready to plunge in and at least die battling. Then fate took yet another whim, and a whirling mass of logs and ice, colliding with the floe, forced it back to its original course. Another moment ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
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... it was a stirring thought that when democratic government was finally vindicated and restored by the victory of the Union, "then there will be some black men who can remember that with silent tongue and clenched teeth and steady eye and well-poised bayonet they have helped mankind on to this great consummation." There was, however, prejudice at first among many Northern officers against negro enlistment. The greatest of the few great American ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
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... of England at the hands of Austria elicited great acclamations from the crowd. Cuthbert clenched his teeth and grasped his sword angrily, but had the sense to see the folly of taking any notice of the insult. Not so with Cnut. Furious at the insult offered to the standard of his royal master, Cnut, with a bound, burst through the ranks of the crowd, leaped on ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
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... to make another choice; but the bishops carried him up to the bedside, and actually forced open his clenched hand to receive the pastoral staff which William held out to him. Then, half fainting, he was carried away to the Cathedral, where they chanted the Te Deum, and might well have also sung, "The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, as ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
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... minutes later they heard the silvery jingle of his cutter's bells gradually dying away in the distance. Slavin aroused himself from a scowling, brooding reverie. "G——d d——n!" he spat out to Yorke, from between clenched teeth, "ther' goes another forlorn hope. 'Tis no manner av use worryin' tho'—let's go get that jury empannelled!" He uttered a snorting chuckle as a thought seemed to strike him. "H-mm! Gully must be getthin' tindher-hearthed! Th' last vag we had up ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
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... the tribes gradually driven back into the mountains, his voice rages with indignation or wails in the plaintive tones of unaffected sorrow. His eye flashes beneath the shaggy, contracted brows; the clenched fist is relaxed only to grasp shaska or poniard; the blood rushes and returns from the cheek; and the chest heaves with violently struggling emotions. Mean-while in reply is heard the low, half-stifled sob; the irrepressible tears trickle down the sunburnt cheeks of those who weep for their country, ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
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... a storm-chafed sea,—not in the wiry hair, gray and half rising in haggard locks, like adders that in vain try to escape the foot that treads them down,—nor in the mouth, for that was hid behind the impotent guard of the upraised arm and clenched fist,—but in those painted eyes, into which, all-fascinated, we ever gazed, reading in them all that crouching terror, all the punishment of that spectral presence, all the poignant consciousness ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
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... in torment. What was Murat saying in that low, guarded voice, while his hand clenched and crushed the roses that swarmed over the balustrade and scattered their petals to the wind? Why did the Princess's colour come and go as she listened, her cheek much too near ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
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... being taxed to support the church, forgetting that women were taxed also not only to support the church, in which they had no voice, but the State, too, with its army and navy. Mr. Fawcett was not an orator, but a simple, straightforward speaker. He made but one gesture, striking his right clenched fist into the palm of the left hand at the close of all his strongest assertions; but being sound and liberal, he was a ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
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... felt instinctively that a part, at least, of the man's nature was nakedly revealed to him then. It seemed scarcely fair to read the lust of him and the utter abandonment to the hazard of the game. Pitiless he looked, with clenched teeth just showing between the loose lips drawn back in a grin that was half-snarl, half-involuntary contraction ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
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... Ruth discovered him. She was about to rush to his side, when she saw his clenched hands rise and fall upon the sand repeatedly. Her heart swelled to suffocation. To go to him, to console him! But she stirred not from her hiding place. Instinctively she knew—some human recollection she had inherited—that she must not disturb him in this man-agony. She could not ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
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... sight that met their eyes. The young girl lay motionless in her berth, her face tinged with a livid bluish hue, her eyes closed, and her small hands clenched as if in agony. ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
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... up, as when a hound yelps to the sky: laughter ensued, barking laughter—not mirth, not grief disguised, but mockery, the worst of all. One on the gallery nudged his fellow; that other shrugged him off. Richard stretched his long arms, his clenched fists to the dumb sky. 'Have I bent the knee to good issues or not? Have I abased my head? O clement prince! O judge in Israel! O father of kings! Hear now a parable of the Prodigal: Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and thou art no ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
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... no answer. She had turned her head away and stood as though poised for flight, one little clenched hand hanging at her side and gleaming like marble. He went toward her slowly across the few yards of turf. She heard him coming and began to tremble again. She wanted to run, but felt powerless to move. Then he was speaking to her and she felt ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
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... touched a tender chord. For a moment Ben Zoof stood with clenched teeth and contracted muscles; then, in a voice of real concern, he inquired whether anything could be done ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
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... the polished edge of the glass and oak door. The same chill little hand clenched the unfinished pages to Hugo, and Vivian's only too fatally finished note. She perceived who this girl must be, and even in this moment her thought was riveted by the wild suspicion that her secret ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
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... light up the piteous, underlying expression of the features. They were all saturated with brine; they were soaked with sea-water to the very marrow of the bones. Shivering, and with a stupefied rolling of the eyes, their teeth clenched, their chilled fingers pressed into the palms of their hands, they passed out of sight. As the last man came I held my breath; he was alive when taken from the wreck, but had died in the boat. Four men bore him on their shoulders, and a flag ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
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... clenched her hands under her patched apron when the man shoved her beloved furniture around and glanced contemptuously at the clean old sewing machine that had made them so many nice clothes. "One dollar for ...
— Across the Fruited Plain • Florence Crannell Means
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... Maurice clenched his hand. The very simplicity of her words stirred his anger more deeply against his successful rival. For her he had still nothing but ...
— A Canadian Heroine - A Novel, Volume 3 (of 3) • Mrs. Harry Coghill
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... image floated again before him, with eyes, swimming in tears, fixed upon him, with clenched hands ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
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... females opened the shawl, which was held firmly in the clenched hands of Mrs. Garie—and there in her lap partially covered by her scanty nightdress, was discovered a new-born babe, who with its mother had journeyed in the darkness, cold, and night, to the better land, that they might pour out their ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
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... [U]rdhvab[a]hus, 'Up-arms,' raise their arms till they are unable to lower them again. The [A]k[a]camukhas, 'Sky-facers,' hold their faces toward the sky till the muscles stiffen, and they live thus always. The Nakhls, 'Nail' ascetics, allow their nails to grow through their clenched hands, which unfits them for work (but they are all too religiously lazy to work), and makes it necessary for the credulous faithful to support them. Some of these, like the K[a]naph[a]ts, 'Ear-splitters,' who pierce the ear with heavy rings, have been respectable ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
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... these accumulated provocations. An enemy forever aiming his blows with the deadliest effect; forever stabbing in the dark, yet charmed and consecrated from all retaliation; always met with, never to be found! The Landgrave ground his teeth, clenched his fists, with spasms of fury. lie quarrelled with his ministers; swore at the officers; cursed the sentinels; and the story went through Klosterheim that ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
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... Emmy doggedly said, with her teeth almost clenched. "I'm not worrying about it." She tried then to keep silent; but the words were forced from her wounded heart. With uncontrollable sarcasm she said: "It's very good ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
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... darkness was violent but brief; she managed to fire again as he caught her right arm and felt along it until he touched the desperately clenched pistol. Then, still clutching her closed fingers, he pulled the flash light from his side pocket and threw its full radiance straight into ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
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... picture of himself leaping unexpectedly through the window, striding to the noisy barytone, striking him down, and after stamping on him several times, explaining: "There! That's for your insolence to our hostess!" But he did not actually permit himself these solaces; he only clenched and unclenched his fingers several times, ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
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... passed on, Till he reached the altar stone, And with body white and prone Sunk his forehead to the floor; And I saw in my despair, Standing like a spirit there, How his head was bruised and bare, And his hands were clenched before, ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
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... poor little hand clenched itself under her shawl; and then, as a half reproach, she heard in fancy the steady loving voice—which could have calmed her wildest paroxysm of passion and ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
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... was fighting it, didn't you? They wanted to prevent children under fourteen from working in the cotton mills. Wygant sent Jack Pemberton up to the Capital for nothing at all but to beat that law." Samuel sat with his hands clenched tightly. Before him there had come the vision of little Sophie Stedman with her wan and haggard face! "But why does he want the children in his mill?" ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
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... like the clenched fist—pugnacious, disputatious, quarrelsome, always spoiling for a fight; a verbal fisticuff, if not a physical one, is their delight. Others are more conciliatory and peace-loving, not forgetting that a soft ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
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... with head up-flung and fists tight-clenched; Mr. Ravenslee lounged in his chair with levelled pistol. So they fronted each other—but, all at once, with a sound between a choke and a groan, the lad ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
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... shouted someone. I edged towards the gangway and stooped; and then, peering between the legs of my superior officers, I saw the boat glide away from the frigate's side. Our friends lay piled on the bottom-boards and under the thwarts like a catch of fish. One or two lifted clenched fists: and the boatmen, eyeing them nervously, fell to ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
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... of a confounded millionaire soap-boiler," commented Mr. Blunt through his clenched teeth. "A man absolutely without parentage. Without a single relation in the world. Just ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
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... And face to face his foe opposed. To him whose eyes with fury shone, In charge impetuous rushing on, Skilled in each warlike art and plan, Bali with hasty words began: "My ponderous hand, to fight addressed With fingers clenched and arm compressed Shall on thy death doomed brow descend And, crashing down, thy life shall end." He spoke; and wild with rage and pride, The fierce Sugriva thus replied: "Thus let my arm begin the strife And from thy body ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
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... her lips till they glowed again, and with her hand clenched in impatient fury. As she closed the door, General Harrington laid down his book with an ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
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... curl, the lightest paleness thrown Along the governed aspect, speak alone Of deeper passions; and to judge their mien, He, who would see, must be himself unseen. Then—with the hurried tread, the upward eye, The clenched hand, the pause of agony, That listens, starting, lest the step too near Approach intrusive on that mood of fear: Then—with each feature working from the heart, With feelings, loosed to strengthen—not depart, ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
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... dear," she said, simply. "And, then, while you look after your business during the evening, I'll do—my knitting!" Her hands clenched tightly as she went forth from the study, but the master of the house was unobservant when it came to such insignificant details. He was already poring over the documents on the table; but he called out amiably as ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
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... memory of her low condition of life through such childhood as she had known, over and above it all was quickly rising the conviction that for this unpardonable misdemeanor she would be sent back to the city and—awful thought!—perhaps to Gran. She set her teeth together hard, and clenched her thin hands as ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
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... woman he must have screamed under the nervous tension which he was now undergoing. But that relief being denied to his virility, he clenched his teeth in misery, bringing lines about his mouth like those in the Laocoon, and corrugations ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
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... was uncontrollable; he turned white with anger; he could not speak; he stammered and clenched his fists, and at last burst into tears ...
— Conscience • Eliza Lee Follen
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... a loud cry. I felt her arms interlace my neck, her clenched fingers sink deep into my flesh, and all was ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
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... black metal sheathe of the monster out there, the shapeless crouching and malevolent winking lights, and he felt himself going to pieces inside with a sudden shaking crumble; he hated himself for it but he couldn't stop it; his hands clenched until the ...
— We're Friends, Now • Henry Hasse
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... overheard. He listened with clenched teeth and trembling white lips; then burst into a forced laugh. 'What a fool I am! Distrust her! I will not. There is some explanation! ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
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... these gentlemen were great noblemen, who were traveling to the capital that they might speak with the government, and that it would cost the head of every man who presumed to pull a hair out of one of their horses' tails. This speech provoked several animated replies, during which some clenched their fists, and some took off their caps. Upon that the driver began a still more powerful oration, setting before the patriots a prospective quartering if they even ventured to look askance at the heads of the horses. This had the effect of diminishing the number of clenched fists, and increasing ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
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... drifting cloud. I saw one come, Like the fierce passion of that vacant place, His face turned glittering to the evening sky; His eyes, like grey despair, fixed satelessly On the still, rainy turrets of the storm; And all his armour in a haze of blue. He held no sword, bare was his hand and clenched, As if to hide the inextinguishable blood Murder had painted there. And his wild mouth Seemed spouting echoes of deluded thoughts. Around his head, like vipers all distort, His locks shook, heavy-laden, ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare
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... ecclesiastical learning, interspersed with peasant expressions, not even in decent Russian, but in some outlandish dialect, but he took one by storm with his enthusiasm—went straight to the heart. There he stood with flashing eyes, the voice deep and firm, with clenched fist—as though he were made of iron! No one understood what he was saying, but everyone bowed down before him and followed him. But when I begin to speak, I seem like a culprit begging for forgiveness. I ought ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
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... of death the house of the sick man is filled by anxious relatives and friends, who sit around watching for the end. When it comes, there is a tremendous outburst of grief. The men beat their faces with their clenched fists; the women tear their cheeks with their nails till the blood streams down. They usually bury their dead in graves, which among the inland tribes are commonly dug near the houses of the deceased. The maritime tribes, who live in houses built on piles ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
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... clenched, his brow lowered, and his mouth was set so savagely, that the passing policeman looked in wonder from the dangerous face ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
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... state that it was a blow between the eyes from his clenched fist which had felled George Fairfax—a blow sent straight out ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
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... murmur went up and the King struck the charioteer on the head with his clenched fist, crying out that he had suffered the horses to move and should be scourged for ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
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... been hunted and driven until she was exhausted. She had fallen asleep among her pillows, lying on her back, her hands clenched, breathing heavily. A dream seemed to oppress her. I slowly withdrew my hand, and let the red light fall ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
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... With teeth still clenched he set himself to build up his house again. Clare was very quiet and submissive during those first weeks. Her little figure looked helpless and appealing in its deep black; she was prettier than she had ever been in her ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
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... struck out with clenched fist, but "the Beau" not knowing the trick, was promptly bowled over on the grass—the shock making quick tears start in his forget-me-not ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
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... dark night—particularly if he has a touch of superstition. There have been fierce conflicts on this spot—sieges, and battles, and fearful massacres. Here have the Briton, and the Gaul, and the painted savage, mingled in the dread fight,—steed rushing upon steed, hands clenched in hands with grappling vigor, while the climbing fire, and the clashing steel, and eyes flashing with maddened fury, and the appalling war-whoop of the Indian, have all combined in adding terror to "the rough ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
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... seen her, running with a white face and with one hand held over her heart, and seeing her, as I immediately afterwards saw her, lying upon her bed with the so familiar little brown flask clenched in her fingers, it was natural enough for my mind to frame the idea. As happened now and again, I thought, she had gone out without her remedy and, having felt an attack coming on whilst she was in the gardens, she had run in to get the nitrate in order, as quickly as possible, ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
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... when he drew back uttering a shriek of horror and distress. By the light of a candle that burned upon the mantel, Amedee had caught sight of his father extended upon the floor, his shirt disordered and covered with blood, holding in his clenched right hand the razor with which ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
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... such news—such bad news—Mister Charley—.' Up jumped Katie from her sofa and stood erect upon the floor. She stood there, with her mouth slightly open, with her eyes intently fixed on Mrs. Richards, with her little hands each firmly clenched, drawing her breath with hard, short, palpitating efforts. There ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
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... sickness returned stronger, more horrible and wearying than ever. For a moment it was so bad that he was afraid of losing consciousness. He recovered slightly, pulled himself up, and went upstairs. His fists were tightly clenched, his fingers closed over his thumbs, which were pressed bloodless. He lay down ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
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... fought off panic, realizing that some of those noises he could identify with confidence, while others remained mysteries. He bit down hard on the knuckles of his clenched fist, attempting to bend that discovery into evidence. Why did he know at once that that thin, eerie wailing was the flock call of a leather-winged, feathered tree dweller, and that a coughing grunt from downstream was just ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
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... smiling lips, burned and blackened, falling away from the strong, white teeth. She saw the shock of black hair tousled upon Tarzan's well-shaped head disappear in a spurt of flame. She saw these and many other frightful pictures as she stood with closed eyes and clenched fists above the object of her hate—ah! was it hate ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
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... elder girl still kept on the alert. A nervousness born of loneliness had taken possession of her. If the doorlatch rattled, she raised herself, listening. If Simon rubbed himself against the warm outer stones of the fireplace, she sprang up, a startled sentinel, with wide eyes and clenched hands. ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
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... two or three years. His figure is not so bad for a man of thirty as for a man of twenty-two. He dresses better, and his manners, from seeing a great deal of society, are very much improved. When silent and occupied in thought, walking up and down the room as he always does, his hands clenched and muscles working with the intense exertion of his mind, strangers would think his countenance stern; but I remember a writing-master of ours, when Tom had come into the room and left it again, saying, 'Ladies, your brother looks ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
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... of the sailor flashed fire; and he pressed his lips, and clenched his teeth together as one strongly attempting to restrain his indignation. It was but a momentary flashing of the chafed ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
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... reply, M. de Valorsay struck the desk such a formidable blow with his clenched fist that several bundles of papers fell to the floor. His anger was not feigned now. "What are you plotting, then?" he exclaimed; "and what do you intend to do? What is your object in betraying me? Take care! It is my life that I am going to defend, and as truly as ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
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... stared beyond her. His fists clenched and unclenched. The noise of his breathing filled the room. Chung looked around in bewilderment; Ellen watched with ...
— Industrial Revolution • Poul William Anderson
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... propensities of a nation than the impulsive actions of the children, I will give a striking instance, as it occurred to me to-day. On seeing a child approach me, I offered him a handful of beads, upon which the greedy little urchin snatched them from my hand with all the excited eagerness of a monkey. He clenched tight hold of them in his little fists, and, without the slightest show of any emotions of gratitude, retired, carrying his well-earned prize away with a self-satisfied and perfectly contented air, not even showing the beads to his parents or playmates. I called Bombay's ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
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... back to her to learn what was the matter. "What has occurred now?" he asked of Mr Blight, the boatswain. "The kroomen let go the anchor without orders," he replied. "Then slip your cable, and get out of this," exclaimed Captain Lyster. "It's a chain cable, clenched to the bottom, and we can't unshackle it," replied Mr Blight. On hearing this disheartening intelligence, Captain Lyster jumped on board to see what assistance he could render. Just then Lieutenant Corbett staggered ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
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... stand confronting each other for a moment with fists clenched. They are on the very verge of a personal encounter. Both seem to realize that ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter
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... better than to beat up them quarters. I thought every minit' you'd be calling me, and was ready to go in." And he clenched his fist in a way that showed unmistakably how he would have "gone in" had he been summoned. By this time we were driving on briskly toward the river-road. "You wa'n't smart, I reckon, to leave that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
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... if nae mair: my son disna sit on ony o' yer stools o' repentance," said Eppie Mowdiewort, demonstrating the truth of her position with her hand clenched at the dominie, who, like all clerks of ecclesiastical assemblies, was exceedingly industrious in taking notes to very small purpose. "Mair nor that, I'm maybe an unlearned woman, but I've been through the Testaments mair nor yince—the New Testament mair nor twice—an' ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
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... them in the beginning to the quest? What perilous enterprise clenched them with strong ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
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... through her clenched teeth. "If you have any kindness, any pity, any love for the man of your blood, who will be shot there like a dog, do not waste a second—answer me, ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
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... ma chere mere took me by the hand, and led me, together with Bear, into another room. Here she ordered punch and glasses to be brought in. In the interim she thrust her two elbows on the table, placed her clenched hands under her chin, and gazed steadfastly at me, but with a look which was rather gloomy than friendly. Bear, perceiving that ma chere mere's review embarrassed me, broached the subject of the harvest or rural affairs. Ma chere mere vented a few sighs, so deep that they rather ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
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... was his face. She lit the lamp. But as the daylight came through the window only half was lit up by the lamp. And though he looked terrible and magnificent and would chuck the Forest, he said, and come to the Slade, and be a Turkish knight or a Roman emperor (and he let her blacken his lips and clenched his teeth and scowled in the glass), ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
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... that our hour was come. Captain Goss was in the middle of us. 'Hold your baby screeches,' says he. 'You'll be none the worse; it's me and the smack she has to do with.' Even, as he spoke, she was on us. Some fell on their knees, and others clenched their fists and their teeth; but instead of the crash of meeting timber, we heard but a rustle, and the shadow of her sails flitted, as it were, across us; and as they passed, the wind was cold, cold, and struck us like frost; and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 426 - Volume 17, New Series, February 28, 1852 • Various
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... street were interminable; each howler in turn heard faintly in the distance, then in crescendo until he had passed and another succeeded him, and all the while Cora lay tossing and whispering between clenched teeth. Having ample reason, that morning, to prefer sleep to thinking, sleep was impossible. But she fought for it: she did not easily surrender what she wanted; and she struggled on, with closed eyes, long after she had heard the others go down ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
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... beauty of ideals that for centuries have coursed through the blood of Italy.... Luigi, the black-haired, black-eyed lad who brought the morning coffee and newspapers, was telling me of the horrid crime. With his outstretched fist clenched and shaking with rage he said the words, then, dropping the paper with its heavy headlines, cursed it as if it too symbolically represented the hideous thing that Germany had become. "Now," he cried, "there'll be war! We shall ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
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... see you understand me,' said Louis, interrupting himself, as he glanced towards his wife. 'My heart knocked loud enough, believe me, and there the dear little thing stood, her hand, as I was telling you, clenched fast in my moustache—ha! ha! ha!—and looking so full into my eyes, with her own clear bright blue gazers. "Mon Dieu—mon Dieu! Agathe we must help these pauvres enfans." "You are a Frenchman—I thought so," cried the little one, letting go my moustache ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
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... Miss Gordon sighed deeply and hunted in her basket for her spool. "It is quite out of the question for you to undertake nursing her. I could not allow it in any case, but it would be unfair to Mrs. Jarvis. She must expect your return any day?" She looked up inquiringly, and Elizabeth's clasped hands clenched each other again. She made a desperate attempt to be brave, and turned squarely towards her aunt. The very necessity of the case drove her to ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
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... wounded man had partly raised himself on his elbow, but the exertion was too much; there was a rush of blood from his lips and he sank back on his couch in a dead faint. In a second Charley was by his side forcing down more brandy between the clenched teeth. The powerful stimulant acted quickly. In a moment the sufferer again opened his eyes to consciousness. Charley beckoned to his chum. "Go relieve his boy," he whispered, "and send him here. I want ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
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... between his clenched teeth. "I'm stuck on you! I want you so I hate you, if you can understand that—and always have. I'd like to take you off like a dog packs a bone away for himself. I've dealt you and your sheep all the misery I could, because every step you took up was just so far from ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
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... comrades, they rivaled the rocky wall itself in the unflinching obstinacy of their resistance. It was then the battle reached its deadliest stage, more falling in those terrible minutes than during the whole previous course of the action. There was no shouting, no cheering, but with clenched teeth each man held his place and panted for the supreme moment that should spell either victory or rout. That moment came with the bugle call to charge, when the whites, rising for the last time, flung themselves forward with bayonets fixed. ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
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... ran up one of the passageways, returning in a few moments with a bottle which contained a purplish mixture. At another sign from the Automaton the emissary took a drinking-glass and poured out a portion of the purple fluid. Then he forced the draught between Flint's clenched teeth. ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
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... word of answer from the crew; they waited, hushed, ominous. A whisper sounded in the ear of Harrigan, who stood with gritting teeth and clenched hands. ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
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... ends of the clamping-nail to rest in, and brings them flush with the outer surface of the wall. The nail is then driven carefully home through the crack, and the pointed end grasped by the farrier's pincers. The edges of the crack are then drawn tightly together, and the nail firmly clenched. ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
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... Bull would neither acknowledge nor deny the signature, but in dumb show made signs of innocence. No art or persuasion could make him speak; he kept his fingers on his lips. One of the bailiffs offered to open Sir John's mouth. Sir John clenched his hand, in token that if they used violence he knew his remedy. To the magistrate he was all bows and respect: but the law, in spite of civility, must ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
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... the sea, the thing he knew and loved. The sight screwed up his courage. He remembered that he was Lemnian and a seafarer. He would be conquered neither by rock, nor by Hellene, nor by the Great King. Least of all by the last, who was a barbarian. Slowly, with clenched teeth and narrowed eyes, he began to clamber down a ridge which flanked the great cliffs of Kallidromos. His plan was to reach the shore and take the road to the east before the Persians completed their circuit. Some instinct told him that a great army would not take the track he had mounted ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
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... appointment, and she lay on her couch by the window with clenched hands and closed eyelids. She had no sensations to speak of; but thought came to her—confused, overwhelming thought—an agony of ideas. She loved him. Ah, the shame of it! And that hidden hope of hers became a terror. ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
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... 'You have deserved a better fate. But it is the lot of goodness and truth ever to meet with misappreciation and disdain. Here, here, only,' and she struck her breast with her clenched right hand, 'lie the rewards for honesty, long-suffering, and tenderness. In the world without there ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
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... with wondrous brightness, staring wide With gazing; and he sighed with many sighs That moved me, and his cheeks were wan and white Like pallid lilies, and his lips were red Like poppies, and his hands he clenched tight, And yet again unclenched, and his head Was wreathed with moon-flowers pale as lips of death. A purple robe he wore, o'erwrought in gold With the device of a great snake, whose breath Was fiery flame: which when I did behold ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
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... larger. They begin to move nervously on their chairs. Their brows lower and eyes flash, until now they who win and they who lose, fired alike with passion, sit with set jaws, and compressed lips, and clenched fists, and eyes like fire-balls that seem starting from their sockets, to see the final turn before it comes; if losing, pale with envy and tremulous with unuttered oaths cast back red-hot upon the heart—or, ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
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... The SATURDAY REVIEW says:—"'Clenched Antagonisms' is a powerful and ghastly narrative of the triumph of force over virtue. The book gives a striking illustration of the barbarous incongruities that still exist in the midst of ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
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... cried in agony, "Peter! Don't you know what you have done? 'Forgive me, mother,' it says here, and she has taken four ore of the thirteen to buy sugar-candy. Look here, her hand is still quite sticky." She opened the clenched hand, which was closed upon a scrap of sticky paper. "Ah, the poor persecuted child! She wanted to sweeten her existence with four ore worth of sugar-candy, and then into the water! A child has so much pleasure at home here! 'Forgive me, mother!' she says, as though she had done something ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
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... will you, you hussy!' howled her father in a rage. And he proceeded to revile her in the coarsest terms, which made her laugh silently behind her clenched fists. ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
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... that no alteration be made on laws which concern private right, excepting for the evident utility of the subjects within Scotland.' When the old gentleman came to the passage, which you will mark in italics, he always clenched his fist, and exclaimed, 'Nemo me impune lacessit!' which, I presume, are words belonging to the black art, since there is no one in the Modern Athens conjuror enough to understand their meaning, or at least to comprehend the spirit of the sentiment which my grandfather ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
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... off!" said the man, and clenched his fists. Hal took 'em off, and they proceeded to go through the pockets, producing a purse with the amount stated, also a cheap watch, a strong pocket knife, the tooth-brush, comb and mirror, and two white handkerchiefs, which they ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
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... his face to the east, with his face to the enemy; and, clutching his hips with his clenched hands, in an attitude of defiance, he seemed to be awaiting ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
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... the evening with the girls, and leave in the morning. I'll be down as soon as I can travel, to watch the fight from the side-lines." O'Neil's voice was level, but his teeth were shut and his fingers were clenched ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
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... of the handle. His index finger is placed on the shank so that it points to the prongs, and is supported at the side by his thumb. His other fingers close underneath and hold the handle tight. He must never be allowed to hold his fork emigrant fashion, perpendicularly clutched in the clenched fist, and to saw across the food at its ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
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... first,' has been the glorious war-cry from millions of the freest men on earth. But when we are driving a nail it is well to know that it will be possible to eventually clench it. And when the country shall fully understand the ease with which this Union nail may be clenched, there will be, let us hope, a greatly revived spirit in all now interested ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
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... that if you said a word against him, I would never speak a word to you again—never!" cried Miss Fanny; and clenched her little hand, and paced up and down the room. Bows noted, watched, and followed the ardent little creature with admiration and gloomy sympathy. Her cheeks flushed, her frame trembled; her eyes beamed love, anger, ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
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... cried I, "for the power to rupture this bed, that the schooner might slip into the sea! Think of her running north before such a gale as this, steadily bearing me towards a more temperate clime, and into the road of ships!" I clenched my hands with a wild yearning in my heart. Should I ever behold my country again? should I ever meet a living man? The white and frozen steeps glared a bald reply; and I heard nothing but menace in the ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
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... their heads, and children absolutely naked, watched us very silently from the sidewalks and from balconies. The houses were of adobe, painted pale blue and pink, and roofed with rugged lichen-blackened tiles. The windows reached from sidewalk to roof and were grated heavily, the doors oak and clenched with great nail heads. Santiago, Santiago at last, after so many days of sailing, of marching, of countermarching, and ...
— The Surrender of Santiago - An Account of the Historic Surrender of Santiago to General - Shafter, July 17, 1898 • Frank Norris
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... fell from Susy's hands, and she crept out onto the balcony and cowered there, her forehead pressed against the balustrade, the dawn wind stirring in her thin laces. Through her closed eyelids and the tightly-clenched fingers pressed against them, she felt the penetration of the growing light, the relentless advance of another day—a day without purpose and without meaning—a day without Nick. At length she dropped her hands, and staring from dry lids saw a rim of fire above the roofs across the Grand ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
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... began to groan, faintly at first. Her shoulders were shaken by a strong shuddering, and she was growing paler than the sheets in which her clenched fingers buried themselves. Her unequal ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
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... soldiers parading; Forty years as a pageant—till unawares, the Lady of this teeming and turbulent city, Sleepless, amid her ships, her houses, her incalculable wealth, With her million children around her—suddenly, At dead of night, at news from the South, Incensed, struck with clenched hand the pavement. ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
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... asleep. Before him stood the screen. The moonlight flooded the room. Through the crack of the screen, the portrait was visible, covered with the sheet, as it should be, just as he had covered it. And so that, too, was a dream? But his clenched fist still felt as though something had been held in it. The throbbing of his heart was violent, almost terrible; the weight upon his breast intolerable. He fixed his eyes upon the crack, and stared steadfastly at the ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
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... that he had used the term "simply in a Parliamentary sense." We learn by special Zadkiel telegram that, on emerging from the Hall after the meeting, the Rev. HERCULES EBENEZER (Omaha), bringing down his clenched fist on the crown of the hat of Mr. FARMER-ATKINSON, M.P., altered its situation in a direction that temporarily obscured the vision of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 14th, 1891 • Various
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... The colonel clenched his teeth, - four out in front, and a piece of another, and he had been twice dragged to the door of a dentist- despot, but had escaped from his guards. 'How educate? How pretend in ...
— Holiday Romance • Charles Dickens
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... up and down the platform at Victoria, having arrived there an hour before they need have, "and that's why we feel as though we're doing wrong. We're brow-beaten—we're not any longer real human beings. Real human beings aren't ever as good as we've been. Oh"—she clenched her thin hands—"to think that we ought to be so happy now, here on the very station, actually starting, and we're not, and it's being spoilt for us just simply because we've spoilt them! What have ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
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... black eyes and elf locks, with a baby wrapped in her shawl, crouching low and making a desperate long arm, grasped a covetous handful, which spirted away wastefully between her clenched fingers. She moistened some of this in a puddle as she knelt, and held the paste to her baby's mouth. But its head was drooping wearily aside, and its lips did not move when she touched them. "Ait it up, me heart's jewel," she said; "ait it up, mother's little ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
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... him on the ground, while the opened shutters admitted the twilight of a May evening, with a full moon, disclosing a strange scene. A youth in a livery riding coat lay senseless on the ground, partly covered by the black fragments of the curtain, the iron rod clenched in one hand, the other arm doubled under him. A face absolutely white, with long snowy beard and hair hung over him, and an equally white pair of hands tried to lift the head. Jumbo had in a second sprung down, removed the fallen table, and come to his masters help. ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
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... double, closing her eyes with small clenched hands; and he saw the ring shimmering in the sunshine, and her hair, heavily, densely gold, and the white nape of her neck, and the tiny close-set ears, and the curved softness of cheek and chin; every smooth, childlike contour and mould—rounded arms, slim, flowing lines of body ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
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... understand this? Can you explain it better than you can the production of thought? Have you the slightest conception of what it really is? And yet you speak of matter as though acquainted with its origin, as though you had torn from the clenched hands of the rocks the secrets of material existence. Do you know what force is? Can you account for molecular action? Are you really familiar with chemistry, and can you account for the loves and hatreds of the atoms? Is there not something ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll
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... the old witch clenched her fist, and shook it at the figure. Not that she was positively angry, but merely acting on the principle—perhaps untrue, or not the only truth, though as high a one as Mother Rigby could be expected to attain—that ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
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