"Gripe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the store. Mr. Bartlett knew her. He might ask her if she wanted the groceries charged before she got the money out to pay for them. And good-by then to Jerry's secret charge account. "You said running errands was my chore," he reminded his mother. "You haven't heard me gripe about having to go to the store, ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson
... golden coal to crown the bowl— My pipe and I alone,— I sit and muse with idler views Perchance than I should own:— It might be worse to own the purse Whose glutted bowels gripe In little qualms of stinted alms; And so I ...
— Songs of Friendship • James Whitcomb Riley
... outrage more flagrant than to forbid the culprit to hide his face for shame; as it was the essence of this punishment to do. In Hester Prynne's instance, however, as not unfrequently in other cases, her sentence bore, that she should stand a certain time upon the platform, but without undergoing that gripe about the neck and confinement of the head, the proneness to which was the most devilish characteristic of this ugly engine. Knowing well her part, she ascended a flight of wooden steps, and was thus displayed to the surrounding multitude, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... these were Nakir and Munkir, [302] who were come to question me; and I likewise heard the rustling of a rope, as if some one had let it down there. I was wondering, and began to feel about me on the ground, when some bones came into my gripe. ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... shall take pains the best I may To save your honor, and what thing lieth in me That will I do, but no close manslayings. I will not have God's judgment gripe my throat When I am dead, to hale me into hell For a man's sake slain on this wise. Take heed. ...
— Chastelard, a Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... 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
... go, They are giving a lead which we earnestly hope Will be followed beyond its original scope; For the more German books that in Gothic are printed The more will the spread of Hun "genius" be stinted, And the larger the number, released from its gripe, Of the students of Latin ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, Feb. 7, 1917 • Various
... jealousy and mistaken interest kept England and Scotland at variance, and when the latter kingdom was in the habit of adopting the politics of France, and [end of page 261] embracing its interests, there seems to have been some repelling principle that kept the little nation out of the gripe of ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... a brother to poor Beverley, I will pursue the robber that has seized him, and snatch him from his gripe. ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... with prunes which render it palatable, confection of senna, syrup of senna, and the sweet essence of senna are generally very readily taken by children, but all have the disadvantage of being liable to gripe. The German liquorice powder, as it is called, which is composed of powdered senna, liquorice powder, fennel, and a little sulphur with white sugar, is freer from this drawback than any other preparation, and when mixed with a little water ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... can make him bite you; but, if you have Jacko, you can make him bite me." Just such a creature was Barere. In the hands of the Girondists he would have been eager to proscribe the Jacobins; he was just as ready, in the gripe of the Jacobins, to proscribe the Girondists. On the fidelity of such a man the heads of the Mountain could not, of course, reckon; but they valued their conquest as the very easy and not very delicate lover in Congreve's lively song valued the conquest of a prostitute of a different kind. Barere ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... apply himself to them without applause. In times past, when those of Crete would curse any one, they prayed the gods to engage him in some ill custom. But the principal effect of its power is, so to seize and ensnare us, that it is hardly in us to disengage ourselves from its gripe, or so to come to ourselves, as to consider of and to weigh the things it enjoins. To say the truth, by reason that we suck it in with our milk, and that the face of the world presents itself in this posture to our first sight, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... the most striking objects in the first casino was a group by Bernini,—Pluto, an outrageously masculine and strenuous figure, heavily bearded, ravishing away a little, tender Proserpine, whom he holds aloft, while his forcible gripe impresses itself into her soft virgin flesh. It is very disagreeable, but it makes one feel that Bernini was a man of great ability. There are some works in literature that bear an analogy to his works in sculpture, when great power is lavished a little outside of nature, and therefore proves ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... there, flinging down their arms, they closed in a mad struggle. On the sloping roof, the tiles of which crush beneath them, at a hundred feet from the ground, they struggled without mercy, without respite, until at last the soldier felt his strength give way, and endeavoured to escape from the gripe of his adversary. Then, the Federal—the person from whom I learnt this was at an opposite window and lost not a single one of their movements—the Federal drew a knife from his pocket and prepared himself to strike his half-prostrate antagonist, ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... but the captain's head was harder than he had expected it to be; he instantly grappled with Jenkins. Edwin's amazement did not prevent his prompt action; but at the moment he sprang to the rescue, he received a blow from Thomson, who leaped on him, and seized him by the throat with a vice-like gripe. At the same moment Smith ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... This apology was just made in time, as the irritable Celt had begun to entertain the idea of challenging the Spaniard to mortal combat. As it was, however, his good nature at once gave way to the pacific overture that was made him. Seizing the apologist by the hand, with a gripe that produced some dismal contortions of countenance on the part of him on whom ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... Caesar, Swam across and lived to carry To rat-land home his commentary: Which was, "At the first shrill notes of the pipe, I heard a sound as of scraping tripe, And putting apples, wondrous ripe, Into a cider-press's gripe: And a moving away of pickle-tub-boards, And a leaving ajar of conserve-cupboards, And a drawing the corks of train-oil-flasks, And a breaking the hoops of butter-casks: And it seemed as if a voice (Sweeter far than by harp ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... shouted their neighborhood jargon from windows flung momentarily open. Poverty scuttled along close to the scant shelter of these houses. An old man, with a beard to his chest, paused in a doorway to cough, and it was like the gripe-gripe of a saw with its teeth in hard wood. A woman sold apples from a stoop, the form of a child showing through her shawl. Yet Mrs. Meyerburg ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... swiftly waft us to our port. Where I must Caesar's message loud proclaim And my strong obligation to you voice. Our noble functions must be so performed, That happy impress graves the rabble mind But thus to meet these vultures with a smile Doth like a colic make mine honor gripe, Machiavelian methods were in sooth The better physic for the patients' needs And I like good physician must the probe Thrust in and sound the ugly, gaping wound. Quezox: Most noble sire, if I may caution speak It were ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... near to her the unseen clerk responding, and then followed a gospel of love and comfort. She could not catch every word, but there was a sense of promised peace and comfort, which began to soothe the fluttering heart, for the first time enjoying a respite from the immediate gripe of deadly terror. ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "Gripe him hard!" sung out old Grim, "or he will slip through your fists, lads; he's got such a lot of seaweed ...
— Sunshine Bill • W H G Kingston
... large, dark, inquisitive eyes, lit up with much clearer intelligence than frequently falls to the share of persons of his age and opportunities. The father and son were greatly attached to each other; and it was chiefly the hope of bequeathing Les Pres, free from the usurious gripe of Destouches, to his boy, that encouraged the elder Delessert to persevere in his well-nigh hopeless husbandry. Two years thus passed, and matters were beginning to assume a less dreary aspect, thanks chiefly to the notary's not having made any demand in the interim ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... than the brazier of live coals brought close to the naked soles of the feet,—an instrument which, instead of trifling with the nerves, would clutch all the nerve-centres and the heart itself in its gripe, and hold them until it got its answer, if the white lips had life enough left to shape one. And here was this unfortunate maiden lady smiling at him, setting her limited attractions in their best light, pleading with him in that natural language which makes any ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Match your Cock Carefully, or what you have hitherto done, is nothing. And here Observe the Length, and Strength of Cocks. The Length is thus known: Gripe the Cock by the Waste, and make him shoot out his Legs, and in this Posture compare, And have your Judgment about you. The Strength is known by this Maxime, The largest in the Garth, is the strongest Cock. The Dimension of the Garth, is thus known: Gripe ...
— The School of Recreation (1684 edition) • Robert Howlett
... adversary, seeking to cover himself with his weapon, but, from his trembling hold, ineffectually. The stature of the youthful Scotsman appeared towering, as he stood over him with his uplifted sword, refusing to strike a defenceless man, but holding him with a gripe of iron; his cheek flushed crimson, his nostrils distended, for his soul was moved with a mightier, darker passion than had ever stirred its depths before. The soldiers of both parties, joined, too, by some from the castle—for a party headed ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... thy ear, And the pale Mansfield[121] chill thy soul with fear? Dost thou, fond man, believe thyself secure Because thou'rt honest, and because thou'rt poor? Dost thou on law and liberty depend? Turn, turn thy eyes, and view thy injured friend. 80 Art thou beyond the ruffian gripe of Power, When Wilkes, prejudged, is sentenced to the Tower? Dost thou by privilege exemption claim, When privilege is little more than name? Or to prerogative (that glorious ground On which state scoundrels oft have safety found) Dost thou pretend, and there a sanction ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... goose. There is not an idea in it beyond what might germinate in the brain of a washerwoman.' He then proceeds to call the author by such elegant names as 'lickspittle,' 'beggarly skittler,' jackass, ninny, haberdasher, 'fifty-fifth rate scribbler of gripe-visited sonnets,' and 'namby-pamby writer in twaddling albums kept by the mustachioed widows or bony matrons of ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... over her bows and floods her forward deck; she braces herself, every rod and rivet and timber seems to lend its support; you almost expect to see the wooden walls of your room grow rigid with muscular contraction; she trembles from stem to stern, she recovers, she breaks the gripe of her antagonist, and, rising up, shakes the sea from her with a kind of gleeful wrath; I hear the torrents of water rush along the lower decks, and, finding a means of escape, pour back into the sea, glad to get away on any terms, and ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... Gripe, in aetate hominum plurimae Fiunt transennae, ubi decipiuntur dolis; Atque edepol in eas plerumque esca imponitur. Quam si quis avidus pascit escam avariter, Decipitur in transenna avaritia sua. Ille, qui consulte, docte, atque astute cavet, Diutine uti bene licet partum bene. Mi istaec videtur ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... intention of severing his wrist. But not finding it, he had again recourse to the bludgeon, and began beating the hand fixed on the upper rail, until, by smashing the fingers, he forced it to relinquish its hold. He then stamped upon the hand on the lower bannister, until that also relaxed its gripe. ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... with green verdure and gladdening his soul with the love they gave him. The tree, too, drops yearly its leaves upon his back, and the roots, though they hug him closer, seem to him to do it more lovingly and not with the old terrible gripe. ...
— Seven Little People and their Friends • Horace Elisha Scudder
... it, and indeed, as it was, her forefoot touched the ground, and loosened the broken part of the wood so much as to enable us to pull it up with ropes, when we found the fragments to consist of the whole of the “gripe” and most of the “cutwater.” The strong breeze continuing, and the sea rising as the open water increased in extent, our bergs were sadly washed and wasted; every hour producing a sensible and serious diminution in their bulk. As, however, ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... is theirs. Theirs is the whole empire of Spain in America. That stroke finishes all. I should be glad to see our suppliant negotiator in the act of putting his feather to the ear of the directory, to make it unclinch the fist; and, by his tickling, to charm that rich prize out of the iron gripe of robbery and ambition! It does not require much sagacity to discern that no power wholly baffled and defeated in Europe can flatter itself with conquests in the West Indies. In that state of things it can neither keep nor hold. No! It cannot even long make war if the grand bank and deposit of ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... elated with noble joy at the sight of slaves— when the soul retires in the cool communion of the night, and surveys its experience, and has much ecstasy over the word and deed that put back a helpless innocent person into the gripe of the gripers or into any cruel inferiority—when those in all parts of these states who could easier realise the true American character, but do not yet[1]—when the swarms of cringers, suckers, doughfaces, ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... answer my question!' exclaimed her tormentor; and he attempted to extort the confession by shaking her, and remorselessly crushing her slight arms in the gripe ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... from my hold, and securing me, notwithstanding my struggles, in his own Herculean gripe, he called out, 'Take the bent, Mr Rashleigh—make ae pair o' legs worth twa pair o' hands; ye hae ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... not venture to visit his concealed friend, but the lamentations of the villagers, who surrounded their departing pastor with tears and blessings, added to the distress of Isabel, soon informed Colonel Evellin that his revered protector was seized by the strong gripe of power. He insisted on accompanying him to London as a fellow-prisoner, protesting he was ready to defy Cromwell, accuse Bellingham, and die. Isabel had sufficient strength to prevent the immediate execution of this rash purpose. "O think," said ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... drew out the saexes, all aside; they smote on the right side, they smote on the left side, before and behind they laid them to the ground, all they slew that they came nigh; of the king's men there fell four hundred and five—woe was the king alive! Then Hengest grasped him with his grim gripe, and drew him to him by the mantle, so that the strings brake. And the Saxons set on him, and would the king kill, and Hengest gan him defend, and would not suffer it; but he held him full fast, the while the fight lasted. There was many noble Briton bereaved ...
— Brut • Layamon
... The pioneer of his race, he is uprooting a huge tree, all unconscious that another figure is laboring at his side. It is not Eve, who sits in the background with her first-born at her breast and her distaff by her side,—but Death, who, with a huge lever in his bony gripe, goes at his work with a fierce energy which puts the efforts of his muscular companion to shame. The people of Holbein's day not only saw in this subject the beginning of that toil which is the lot of humankind, but, as they looked upon the common ancestors of all men, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... their noses together placed, Then their blood was scatter’d on every side; Desperate the fight, and the fight did last ’Till the brave black dog in Bran’s gripe died. ...
— King Hacon's Death and Bran and the Black Dog - two ballads - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... if ye know the accursed thing And know it accurst, for the Gift is yours Of Sight where the prophets of blindness sing By the brink of death. And the Gift endures; Ye shall see the last of the sharpened lies That rivet privilege's gripe. Be still, then, ye with the opened eyes, Come away from the thing till the time ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... foeman round.— Now gallant Saxon, hold thine own! No maiden's hand is round thee thrown! That desperate grasp thy frame might feel, Through bars of brass and triple steel!— They tug, they strain!—down, down they go, The Gael above, Fitz-James below. The Chieftain's gripe his throat compress'd, His knee was planted on his breast; His clotted locks he backward threw, Across his brow his hand he drew, From blood and mist to clear his sight, Then gleam'd aloft his dagger bright! —But ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... authoritie by apparant veritie. Notwithstanding, in this question, I will not take on me the person of either Iudge, or stickler: and therefore if there bee any so plunged in the common floud, as they will still gripe fast, what they haue once caught hold on, let them sport themselves with these coniectures, vpon which mine auerment in behalf of Plymmouth is grounded. The place where Brute is said to haue first landed, was Totnes in Cornwall, and therefore ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... hardly suppose existed in the prototype himself. He saw nowhere above-ground one single shilling that he could attach,—no, not one; every place had been ravaged; no money remained in sight. But possibly some might be buried in vaults, hid from the gripe of tyranny and rapacity. "It must be so," says he. "Where can I find it? how can I get at it? There is one illustrious family that is thought to have accumulated a vast body of treasures, through a course of three or four successive reigns. It ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... loaded platters. Then the Salii stand round the lit altar-fires to sing, their brows bound with poplar boughs, one chorus of young men, one of elders, and extol in song the praises and deeds of Hercules; how first he strangled in his gripe the twin terrors, the snakes of his stepmother; how he likewise shattered in war famous cities, Troy and Oechalia; how under Eurystheus the King he bore the toil of a thousand labours by Juno's malign decrees. Thine hand, unconquered, slays the cloud-born double-bodied race, ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... armies of intemperance cannot resist its march. But the temperate can. If backward to come up to the vital principle of this work, they will prevent its accomplishment. But the banner of triumph will wave in peace over all the land, hailed by thousands of grateful captives from the gripe of death, in spite of all the warring of the "mighty to drink wine," if those who abhor intemperance, and think they would be willing to make a great sacrifice to save their children or friends from its blasting curse, ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... empire—but not till the latter days of the kingdoms which grew up out of the ruins; whereas Jesus Christ was born in the time of Augustus, i. e. when the Roman empire itself was in the height of its splendour and vigour. Mr. Everett in p. 201, endeavours to escape the strong gripe of the prophet Daniel, by maintaining that these strong and weak parts, into which the Roman empire was to be divided, meant that it should be divided into "strong and weak institutions." Now to turn this sensible interpretation head over heels, [fn75] it appears to ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English
... wound, Whose mangled bodies strew the ensanguin'd ground, To parch and stiffen in the blaze of day, Consign'd to vultures, and to wolves a prey, Your toils are past; no more ye wake to feel Lust's savage gripe, or rapine's reeking steel! And Thou, to whom my wedded faith was given, On earth my solace, and my hope in heaven, Approv'd in manhood, as in youth ador'd, Belov'd while living, as in death deplor'd, O stay thy flight! Around this dreary shore A moment hover, and ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... endeavoured to propitiate the offended Dwarf by every argument he could think of, he heard him with his eyes bent on the ground, as if in the deepest meditation, and at length broke forth—"Nature?—yes! it is indeed in the usual beaten path of Nature. The strong gripe and throttle the weak; the rich depress and despoil the needy; the happy (those who are idiots enough to think themselves happy) insult the misery and diminish the consolation of the wretched.—Go hence, thou who hast contrived ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... going to gripe every time the Bureau raises the quotas a notch," Winfree said, "you don't belong in that uniform ...
— The Great Potlatch Riots • Allen Kim Lang
... looked fully eight feet in length. As we drew nearer we saw that it had also an extraordinary long snout. It seemed in no degree afraid of True, and he evidently considered it a formidable antagonist. Presently it lifted itself up on its hind legs, when True sprang back just in time to avoid a gripe of its claws. Still the creature, undaunted by our appearance, made at him, when, seeing that he was really in danger, John and I rushed forward. We then discovered the creature to be a huge ant-eater, which, though it had no teeth, was armed with formidable claws, with which it would ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... before, she disdained. Instead of a succession of visiters, her house was deserted; and, at the expiration of the year, the proud fair, awakened from her golden dream by the clamours of her importunate creditors, found herself without one friend to rescue her valuables from their rapacious gripe. ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... renown'd, Whose reign with science dignifies the page; Bright noon of genius—great Augustan age. Such was thy Queen, and such th' illustrious time That nurs'd thy muse, and tun'd thy soul to rhyme; Yet wast thou fated sorrow's shaft to bear, Augmenting still this catalogue of care; The gripe of penury thy bosom knew, A gloomy jail obscur'd bright freedom's view; So life's gay visions faded to thy sight, Thy brilliant hopes enscarf'd ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... with Harris. Nearly two hundred hours (as we had calculated it) had we walked the ship's deck together, at anchor watch, when all hands were below, and talked over and over every subject which came within the ken of either of us. He gave me a strong gripe with his hand; and I told him, if he came to Boston again, not to fail to find me out, and let me see an old watchmate. The same boat brought on board S——, my friend, who had begun the voyage with me from Boston, and, like me, was going back to his family and to the society which ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... turning to the Vatican go see Laocoon's torture dignifying pain; A father's love and 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 clinch; the long envenomed chain Rivets the living links; the enormous asp Enforces pang on pang ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... was agog for adventure, since, all unknown to any but himself, he had ventured to the summits before, had stood by Silent Water, touched the Seven Sisters one by one, and had even entered the dreadful, haunted, forest of Knapp. He had had a fright, had been smitten by that sudden gripe of fear which palsies limbs and freezes blood, which the ancients called the Stroke of Pan, and we still call Panic after them. He had never forgotten what he had seen, though he had lost the edge of the fear he had. He was ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... the creature staggered and sank to the ground, thus allowing Tom to get back his club. Before, however, either of them could repeat the blow, the seal, recovering, again dashed at Tom, who had to leap out of its way, narrowly escaping an ugly gripe on the leg. Willy had again loaded, but was afraid to fire lest he might hit either of the seamen. The seal now stopped, seeming doubtful at which of his assailants he should next rush. When they stopped the creature stopped also; and directly they moved, either ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... and dishonesty by more expeditious and compendious measures: the wealth of credulity is an open prey to falsehood; and the possessions of ignorance and imbecility are easily stolen away by the conveyances of secret artifice, or seized by the gripe of unresisted violence. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... hardly be detected in company with a niggardly temper. Wishes which cost nothing; pity which expires on the lips; be ye warmed and be ye clothed, from a cold heart and an unyielding gripe, never imprinted their disgraceful brand upon Isabella Graham. What she urged upon others she exemplified in herself. She kept a purse for God. Here, in obedience to his command, she deposited the first-fruits of all her increase; and they were sacred to his ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... his feet in a twinkling, thrust out his hand, gave his ancient crony the gripe of a giant, and slapping the other hand on a bench, "Sit down ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... hauled up with tackles, was hung by a single rope at each davit. It was very broad in proportion to its length, and was secured from motion by a single gripe, which confined it in its place, bowsing it close to the stern of the cutter, and preventing it from turning over bottom up, which, upon the least weight upon one gunwale or the other, would be inevitably the case. Smallbones was lying close to the gunwale ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... completely had he got to be interwoven with the church—'meeting,' we ought to say—in that vicinity, that speaking disparagingly of him would have appeared like assailing Christianity. It is true, that many an unfortunate fellow-citizen in Suffolk had been made to feel how close was the gripe of his hand, when he found himself in its grasp; but there is a way of practising the most ruthless extortion, that serves not only to deceive the world, but which would really seem to mislead the extortioner himself. Phrases take the place ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... hail'd him father to a line of kings: Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown, And put a barren sceptre in my gripe, Thence to be wrench'd with an unlineal hand, No son of mine succeeding. If't be so, For Banquo's issue have I filed ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... point that tumultuous night; but long before it settled anywhere her thoughts were bathed in bitter tears; in floods of weeping that seemed fit to wash her very heart away. It occurred to Eleanor, if they could, how much trouble would be saved! She saw plenty before her. But there was the gripe of a fear and a wish upon her heart, that overmastered all others. The people had sung a hymn that evening, after the first one; a hymn of Christian gladness and strength, to an air as spirited as the words. Both words and air rang in her ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... bring himself to bend to her. He glared on both the ladies. He looked as if, had either of them been his wife, he would have made a glorious husband at the moment. In each hand he seemed as if he would have liked to clutch one and gripe ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... dead-killing eye He rouseth up himself and makes a pause; While she, the picture of pure piety, Like a white hind under the gripe's sharp claws, Pleads, in a wilderness where are no laws, To the rough beast that knows no gentle right, Nor aught obeys but ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... muscular contraction stole over him, and his terrible dying grasp held the poor girl as if she were wedged in an engine of torture. She pressed her lips together and sat still. The inexorable hand held her tighter and tighter, until she felt as if her own slender fingers would be crushed in its gripe. It was one of the tortures of the Inquisition she was suffering, and she could not stir from her place. Then, in her great anguish, she, too, cast her eyes upon that dying figure, and, looking upon its pierced hands and feet and side and lacerated forehead, ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... I didn't know the reason, but whatever reason they had, it must gripe the devil out of them to ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... — N. pain; suffering, sufferance, suffrance^; bodily pain, physical pain, bodily suffering, physical suffering, body pain; mental suffering &c 828; dolour, ache; aching &c v.; smart; shoot, shooting; twinge, twitch, gripe, headache, stomach ache, heartburn, angina, angina pectoris [Lat.]; hurt, cut; sore, soreness; discomfort, malaise; cephalalgia [Med.], earache, gout, ischiagra^, lumbago, neuralgia, odontalgia^, otalgia^, podagra^, rheumatism, sciatica; tic douloureux [Fr.], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... into a dispute with a man with whom he had previously been on friendly terms, they proceeded to blows; in the scuffle, the boy, the son of Ian's adversary, observing the two combatants locked in a close and firm gripe of eager contention, and being doubtful of the event, ran into the house and brought out the iron pot-crook, with which he saluted the head of the unfortunate Ian so severely, that he not only relinquished his combat, but departed this life ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... the man, who, when a gloomy band Of vile excisemen threatened all the land, Help'd to deliver from their harpy gripe The cheerful bottle and the social pipe. O rare Ben Bradley! may for this the bowl, Still unexcised, rejoice thy honest soul! May still the best in Christendom for this Cleave to thy stopper, and ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... delusion? Has He taken back what He gave? Not so. And yet His servants are ignominiously beaten. One poor devil-ridden boy brings all their resources to nothing. He stands before them writhing in the gripe of his tormentor, but they cannot set him free. The importunity of the father's prayers is vain, and the tension of expectancy in his eager face relaxes into the old hopeless languor as he slowly droops to the conviction that 'they could not cast him out.' The malicious scorn ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... Prince of Darkness had thee and all the other diabolicals of these woods in his own good gripe!" muttered the messenger between his teeth; and then, as if guided by a spirit that could not long be quelled, he assumed something more of his unbridled and natural air, boldly declining to join in the prayer on the plea of haste, and the necessity of ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... and Syria, has even alarmed the Sultan of the Turks for the safety of his capital, whilst the hardy bands of Russia have been called forth into action both to defend her former inveterate foes, and to wrest the classic ground of Italy from the gripe [sic] of the modern Vandals, the French! Yet amid all this carnage, the horrors of the war, if we except the enormous expenditure attending it, have scarcely been felt in this country; two attempts of invasion by the enemy have been frustrated; the captured fleets of France, ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown
... contracted, there came into them a sort of sullen, suppressed, inward light, like that of jet or cannel coal. One curious thing about them was, that they never seemed to care about following you, and yet you felt you could not escape from them. The first hand-gripe, however, settled the question with most people: few, after experiencing the involuntary pressure, when he did not in the least mean to be cordial, doubted that there were passions in Royston Keene—difficult perhaps to rouse, but yet more ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... Aurora from the East abroad, When the illustrious offspring of divine Ulysses bound his sandals to his feet; He seiz'd his sturdy spear match'd to his gripe, And to the city meditating quick Departure now, the swine-herd thus bespake. Father! I seek the city, to convince My mother of my safe return, whose tears, I judge, and lamentation shall not cease Till her own eyes behold me. But I lay 10 On thee this charge. Into the city ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... Sir, I have briefly overronne to direct your understanding to the wel-head of the History; that from thence gathering the whole intention of the conceit, ye may as in a handfull gripe al the discourse, which otherwise may happily ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... the red-cloaked figure by its collar and held it up in the firelight. As a murmur of laughter went around, he lowered it again and spoke more gravely. "A hand needs not be large to get a hilt under its gripe, however. The young wolf is of northern breed,—how he penetrated to the heart of an English camp, I cannot tell,—and there grows in his spirit a bloodthirsty disposition. He seeks my life because in a skirmish, a few days gone by, ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... leaped upon him like a tiger, fastening both hands upon his throat and bearing him backward upon the prostrate Governor, still struggling to rise. This man was promptly spitted upon the bayonet of a Federal sergeant and his death-gripe on the captain's throat loosened by a kick upon each wrist. When the captain had risen he was at the rear of his men, who had all passed over and around him and were thrusting fiercely at their more numerous but less coherent antagonists. Nearly all the rifles on ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... glen, roaring down the rocks we descried a stream from the mountains. But ere those waters gained the sea, vassal tribute they rendered. Conducted through culverts and moats, they turned great wheels, giving life to ten thousand fangs and fingers, whose gripe no power could withstand, yet whose touch was soft as the velvet paw of a kitten. With brute force, they heaved down great weights, then daintily wove and spun; like the trunk of the elephant, which lays lifeless a river-horse, and counts the pulses of a moth. On ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... and who, after "being purified in the Body of a Hog," is ultimately to return to earth again. Nor is the delight of some of those who profit by his enforced assistance less keenly realised:—"I remarked a poetical Spirit in particular, who swore he would have a hearty Gripe at him: 'For, says he, the Rascal not only refused to subscribe to my Works; but sent back my Letter unanswered, tho' I'm a better Gentleman than himself.'" The descriptions of the City of Diseases, the Palace of Death, ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... examples of R. Smith,[33] and T. Baker,[34] and the more recent ones of Thomas Rawlinson,[35] Bridges,[36] and Collins,[37] yet he seemed resolved to brave and to baffle it; but, like his predecessors, he was suddenly crushed within the gripe of the demon, and fell one of the most splendid of his victims. Even the unrivalled medical skill of Mead[38] could save neither his friend nor himself. The Doctor survived his Lordship about twelve ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... welfare tender, then no more; Let Love's strong magic charm thy trivial phrase, Wasted as vainly as to gripe the Sun: Augment not then more answers; lock thy lips, Unless thy wisdom suite me with disguise, According to ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... had been suddenly impelled up by some powerful machinery; and, casting his cloak away from his arms, so as to have them at liberty, he sprang upon Charles Holland, and hurled him to the ground, where he held him with a giant's gripe, as he cried,— ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... given him of proving his will supreme—that is himself a free man! He drew himself up, with a full breath, and stepped within the arch. Up rose the horror again, jerked itself towards him with a clank, and held out its hand. Malcolm seized it with such a gripe that its fingers came off ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... quoth Little John. "Disgrace, sayest thou? Methinks it is more disgrace for one of our garb to wring hard-earned farthings out of the gripe of poor lean peasants. It ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... in savage gripe. "What," cried I, shaking her to and fro despite my weakness, "what ha' you ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... supposes that in every such case reason has become unhinged, and responsibility is gone. And what desperate misery, what a black horrible anguish of heart, whether expressing itself calmly or feverishly, must have laid its gripe upon a human being before it can overcome in him the natural clinging to life, and make him deliberately turn his back upon 'the warm precincts of the cheerful day.' No doubt it is the saddest of all sad ends; but I do not forget that a certain ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... they placed a fruitless crown, And put a barren scepter in my gripe, Thence to be wrenched with an unlineal hand, No ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various
... Governours stood ill Affected to you, all our Garrisons Not sworne then to the Generall States but others, Which the promiscuous multitude gladly followed: When Graves and Vendloe were held by the Spaniard And Nunweghen with violence assaulted, Confusion with one greedy gripe being ready To seaze on all; then when the Sluice was lost And all in muteny at Midleborough, Who then rose up or durst step in before me To doe these Cuntries service? Who then labourd More then the now suspected Barnavelt T'appease seditions and compound all Quarrells? Who ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... knee, whirlin' and spangin' away before him on the road. What it wer he could not think; but he never consayted there was a freet or a bo thereaway; so he kep near it, watching every spang and turn it took, till it ran into the gripe by the roadside. There was a gravel pit just there, and Tom Ettles wished to take another gliff at it before he went on. But when he keeked into the pit, what should he see but a man attoppa a horse that could not get up or on: and says he, 'I think ye be ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... strict hand Was made to seize on vice, and with a gripe Squeeze out the humor of such spongy souls As ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... riata. He rode powerful native roan, wild-eyed, untiring in stride and unbroken in nature. Alas! the curves of beauty were concealed by the cumbrous MACHILLAS of the Spanish saddle, which levels all equine distinctions. The single rein lay loosely on the cruel bit that can gripe, and if need be, ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... swuthe [gh]eorne. praying right earnestly that the come bote. that help might come to thee? heom thuthte alto longe. They thought it all too long that thu were on live. that thou wert alive, for heo weren graedie. 115 for they were greedy to gripen thin aeihte. to gripe thy property. nu heo hi daelith heom imang. Now they divide it among them, heo doth the withuten. they do without thee, ac nu heo beoth fuse. eke now they are prompt to bringen the ut of huse. 120 to bring thee out of house; bergen the ...
— The Departing Soul's Address to the Body • Anonymous
... orbs but ill resemble the azure and ecstatic tenderness of her eyes. The lucid stream that meandered over that bosom, the glow of love that was wont to sit upon that cheek, are much unlike these livid stains and this hideous deformity. Alas! these were the traces of agony; the gripe of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... drawcansirs enough to push this offence as far as it will go. Let them know that there have been and still are drawcansirs in England, Ireland and Scotland—that Dublin particularly was once full of them; but that they were soon brought to manners by the just resentment of the audience—the gripe of the constable, and the contempt ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... had flung it away; I had set my will up for my destiny, and the one had worked out the other. But had I? When that devilish suggestion came to me on the bank, did I entertain it? Have I not said how I grasped at the great idea of a God, and held it with a death-gripe in the midst of assault? How did I come in the water? I did not plunge nor fall. No shock of horror chilled me; no remembrance of a voluntary assent to the Tempter could I recall. I was there, it was true; but ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... in this of our owne, made to daunt the insolence of a beautifull woman. Brittle beauty blossome daily fading Morne, noone, and eue in age and eke in eld Dangerous disdaine full pleasantly perswading Easie to gripe but combrous to weld. For slender bottome hard and heauy lading Gay for a while, but little while durable Suspicious, incertaine, irreuocable, O since thou art by triall not to trust Wisedome it is, and it is also iust To sound the stemme before the tree be feld That ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... with both hands; and therewith the hands both of the Cornishman and of the Dane. There was a struggle; but so bitter was the stranger's gripe, that (says the chronicler) the blood burst from the ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... for nearly half a minute without uttering a syllable; at length he seized Dandy by the arm, which he pressed with the gripe of Hercules, for he was a man of huge size ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... barren sceptre in their gripe, Thence to be wrenched with an unlineal hand, No son ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... the wit of Dryden and Pope is irresistible. What follows? For having contented our liking, we let them do any thing that they like. Poor Og! poor Shadwell! poor Bayes, poor Cibber! He sprawls and kicks in the gripe of the giant, and we—as if we had sat at bull-fights and the shows of gladiators—when the blood trickles we are tickled, and—oh, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... decks of the frigate "Lively," has been transmitted to posterity with little diminution. "Nothing in the world was ever more noble than the transaction of the Captain from beginning to end, and the glorious group of your ship and her two prizes, fast in your gripe, was never surpassed, and I dare say never will." Yet it may better be looked upon as another of those "fortunate" occurrences which attend—and in Nelson's career repeatedly attended—the happy meeting of opportunity and readiness. ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... Clearing-House in Copenhagen or the Vatican. Peace of mind returned a step nearer each time that she shook her head and murmured, "Yes, we tried that. It was no good, though." Then his growing security was checked by a gripe of conscience; he felt like a murderer who stole furtively into the woods by night to see whether prowling animal or pursuing man had disturbed the grave. Well, at least another week had passed. . . . But in a week's time he must undergo the ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... dire extremity, and it has only been when hope had entirely forsaken her, or when her capture was inevitable, that she has reluctantly thrown out the fawn. Their method of warfare has often reminded me of the style of two practiced pugilists, the aim of each being to firmly gripe his opponent by the shoulder, upon accomplishing which, the long hind leg, with its horny blade projecting from its toe, comes into formidable play. It is lifted and drawn downward with a rapid movement, and one or other of the combatants soon ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various
... Mother had the gripe and clutch of poverty upon her face, upon her figure, and not least of all upon her voice. Her sharp and high- pitched words were squeezed out of her, as by the compression of bony fingers on a leathern ...
— George Silverman's Explanation • Charles Dickens
... on the island is a very vivid and beautiful green snake, which is exceedingly abundant. Yesterday, while catching grasshoppers for fish-bait, I nearly griped one in my hand; indeed, I rather think I did gripe it. The snake was as much startled as myself, and, in its fright, stood an instant on its tail, before it recovered presence of mind to glide away. These ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... romance of skepticism. Not less true to all time are the details of that stately apologue. Apollo kept the flocks of Admetus, said the poets. When the gods come among men, they are not known. Jesus was not; Socrates and Shakspeare were not. Antaeus was suffocated by the gripe of Hercules, but every time he touched his mother earth his strength was renewed. Man is the broken giant, and in all his weakness both his body and his mind are invigorated by habits of conversation with nature. The power of music, the power of ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... found; Sheaves heaped on sheaves here thicken up the ground. With sweeping stroke the mowers strow the lands; The gath'rers follow, and collect in bands: And last the children, in whose arms are borne (Too short to gripe them) the brown sheaves of corn. The rustic monarch of the field descries, With silent glee, the heaps around him rise. A ready banquet on the turf is laid Beneath an ample oak's expanded shade. The victim ox the sturdy youth ...
— The Young Farmer: Some Things He Should Know • Thomas Forsyth Hunt
... Was not I struck by two vile slaves, who will babble through the city? Was not I held down by an executioner? These arms, which have wound round the master of the world, and no other, polluted by his gripe." ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... of the desired effect, he threw down the hatchet and said he would first bite out the minister's finger-nails,—a form of torture then in vogue among the northern Indians, both converts and heathen. Williams offered him a hand and invited him to begin; on which he gave the thumb-nail a gripe with his teeth, and then let it go, saying, "No good minister, bad as the devil." The failure seems to have discouraged him, for he made no further attempt ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... But I had scarcely taken one step before the moaning was renewed—it changed into a threatening growl that would have suited a wolf's throat, and a hand clutched at my sleeve. I stood motionless. The muttering growl sank to a moan again, the chain sounded no more, but still the hand held its gripe of my garment, and I feared to move. It knew of my presence, then. My brain reeled, the blood boiled in my ears, and my knees lost all strength, while my heart panted like that of a deer in the wolf's jaws. I sank back, and the benumbing influence ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... who was witness to both, did declare.—When on his death-bed, he was under considerable darkness about his state, and said to Mr. John Carstair's brother, "For all that I have preached or written, there is but one scripture I can remember or dare gripe unto; tell me if dare lay the weight of my salvation upon it, Whosoever cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out."—Mr. Carstairs answered, "You may depend on it, though you had a thousand salvations at hazard." When he was drawing towards his departure in ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... dying on the black circular stand in the middle of the dormitory: day had already broken. How I pity those whom mental pain stuns instead of rousing! This morning the pang of waking snatched me out of bed like a hand with a giant's gripe. How quickly I dressed in the cold of the raw dawn! How deeply I drank of the ice- cold water in my carafe! This was always my cordial, to which, like other dram-drinkers, I had eager recourse when unsettled ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... dogs, who chased him till he took refuge in the water. A boat now put off, and soon overtaking the tired animal, he was tied securely. When towed ashore, one rope was fastened round his horns, and another to his fore-foot, each held by a negro, while a third took a strong gripe of his tail. In this manner, they led and drove him along, the fellow behind occasionally biting the beast's tail, to quicken his motions; until at length the poor creature was made fast to an anchor on the beach, there to ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... faith and hope in God is too weak an anchor to abide all storms. Our cords would break, our hands faint and weary, but he is the everlasting God, who faileth not, and wearieth not. He holdeth an invisible gripe of us. We are kept by his power unto salvation, and we are kept by his power in peace. "Thy right hand holdeth me," saith David, and this helpeth me to pursue thee. What maketh believers inexpugnable, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... lost in the sky, as its base in tumultuous murky waves. From the fluctuating crowds who inundate the base of the tribunal, we rise to Pilate, surrounded and perplexed by the varied ferocity of the sanguinary synod to whose remorseless gripe he surrenders his wand, and from him we ascend to the sublime resignation of innocence in Christ, and, regardless of the roar, securely repose on his countenance. Such is the grandeur of a conception, which in its blaze absorbs the abominable detail of materials ...
— Rembrandt and His Works • John Burnet
... but the "Nawth'n scum," Made these "gen'l'men" turn as white As a head o' hair in a single night! Cleaned their army completely out, (We're going to give that another wipe!) On the double-quick, by the shortest route,— Wrung their stronghold from their gripe,— Brought their garrison right to taw, And made 'em get down to the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... general outcry than any which had been elicited even by the religious persecution. There were many inhabitants who were earnest and sincere Catholics, and who therefore considered themselves safe from the hangman's hands, while there were none who could hope to escape the gripe of the new tax-gatherers. Yet the Governor was not the man to be daunted by the probable unpopularity of the measure. Courage he possessed in more than mortal proportion. He seemed to have set himself to the task of ascertaining the exact capacity ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Blocking the entrance: wide her arms she spreads, With viperous twistings bound; and threatening shakes Her tresses: loud the serpents noise, disturb'd; Sprawl o'er her shoulders some; some, lower fall'n, Twine hissing round her breasts, with brandish'd tongue, Black poison vomiting. With furious gripe, Two from her locks she tore;—her deadly hand Hurl'd them straight on; the breasts of Athamas, And Ino, hungry, with their fangs they seiz'd; Fierce pains infixing, but external wounds Their limbs betray'd not: mental was the ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... hold High revels: mid the Monastery's gloom, The sacrifice is spread, when the grave voice Episcopal, proclaims approaching day Of visitation, or Churchwardens meet To save the wretched many from the gripe Of eager Poverty, or mid thy halls Of London, mighty Mayor! rich Aldermen, Of coming feast hold converse. Otherwhere, For tho' allied in nature as in blood, They hold divided sway, his brother lifts His spungy sceptre. In the noble domes Of Princes, and state-wearied ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... living! from the foeman's gripe Your country's banner it was yours to wrest,— Ah, many a forehead shows the banner-stripe, And stars, once crimson, hallow many ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... George(430) is arrived with the fleet: my door opened t'other morning; I looked towards the common horizon of heads, but was a foot and a half below any face. The handsomest giant in the world made but one step across my room, and seizing my hand, gave it such a robust gripe that I squalled; for he crushed my poor chalk-stones to powder. When I had recovered from the pain of his friendly salute, I said, "It must be George Conway! and yet, is it possible? Why, it is not fifteen months ago since you was but six feet high!" In a word, he is within an inch ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... of my tail, to make it appear the cat had eat me. He took me home, and called his dog into the garden, where he let me go, and sent the dog after me. The dog presently caught me, and lucky it was, he did not kill me the first gripe; for his master (seeing he caught me so soon, as he wanted to have had some fun, as he termed it) threw a stone at him, which hit him on the head, and laid him flat on the ground. I seized the opportunity, and ran up the garden wall, from whence I jumped, frightened almost out my wits. I ...
— The Adventures of a Squirrel, Supposed to be Related by Himself • Anonymous
... into the mud, when we saw issuing sideways from under the roots a huge crab. David said he was of the Grapsus family. Suddenly he gave a spring, and seized the unfortunate Johnny in his vice-like gripe, and instantly began to make his dinner off the incautious fish, who, as Leo said, would have been wiser if he had kept in the water, and not attempted to imitate the habits of a ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... wrapped ourselves in blankets between its feet, and placed the hatchets within our reach. The night was stormy, and apprehension kept me long awake; but finding my companion in so deep a sleep, that nothing could have roused him, except the actual gripe of a wolf, I thought it advisable to imitate his example, as much as was in my power, rather than bear the burthen of anxiety alone. At day-light we shook off the snow, which was heaped upon us, and endeavoured to kindle a fire; but the violence ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... sympathy for her friend. She darted from the house, and rushed towards the dog to drag him off the defenceless idiot, calling him by his name in a tone of anger and dislike. He left the fool, and, springing at Elsie, seized her by the arm above the elbow with such a gripe that, in the midst of her agony, she fancied she heard the bone crack. But she uttered no cry, for the most apprehensive are sometimes the most courageous. Just then, however, her former lover was coming along the street, and, catching a glimpse of what had happened, was on the spot in an instant, ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... duke. The duke, somewhat surprised, asked what that meant? 'Sir,' replied the ambassador, 'this herb is of that nature, that if you handle it gently without squeezing, it will emit a pleasant and grateful scent; but if you squeeze and gripe it, 'twill not only lose its colour, but it will become productive of scorpions in a little time."—The Entertainer: London, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 193, July 9, 1853 • Various
... indeed, and Farmer Graspall had more money than he could possibly use. But they were both very greedy and covetous, and particularly hard on those who owed them anything. Farmer Graspall abused Farmer Meanwell and called him all sorts of dreadful names; but the rich Sir Thomas Gripe was more cruel still, and wanted the poor debtor ...
— Goody Two-Shoes • Unknown
... obdurate pane, of thy small wing;— He hears thee not—he heeds not—but, at morn, The ice-enamoured schoolboy, early afoot, Finds thy small bulk beneath the alder stump, Thy bright eyes closed, and tiny talons clench'd, Stiff in the gripe ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... Gripe called upon me, in a chariot bought with my money, and loaded with trinkets that I had, in my days of affluence, lavished on her. Those days were now over; and there was little hope that they would ever return. She was not able to withstand the temptation of ten pounds that Talon the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... any one but myself. Dirck and I often tried our manhood together, when youngsters, and I was the better chap until my friend reached his eighteenth year, when the heavy metal of the young Dutch giant told in our struggles. After that period was past, I found Dirck too much for me, in a close gripe, though my extraordinary activity rendered the inequality less apparent than it might otherwise have proved. I ought not to apply the term of "extraordinary" to anything about myself, but the word escaped me unconsciously, ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... arranged themselves in a row before the bed of their intended victims, who still strangely slept on. One more fearful pause succeeded, in which the greedy band seemed to be eagerly eyeing the fated sleepers, and marking out portions of their bodies for the deadly gripe; when suddenly springing forward, they all fiercely pounced upon the victims, and, with the seeming noise of a thousand wrangling fiends, mingled with the sharp, short, half-stifled screeches of human ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... upon his suggestion, but I did. I bundled the sugar into my pocket with a grim satisfaction; and Halicarnassus paid his thirty cents, looking—and feeling, as he afterwards told me—as if a policeman's gripe were on his shoulders. If any restaurant in Boston recollects having been astonished at any time during the summer of 1862 by an unaccountably empty sugar-bowl, I take this occasion to explain the phenomenon. I gave ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various |
