"Tooth and nail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Crimean War the Russian Government punctually paid the interest due on Russian loans to English holders and thereby established a prestige amongst English investors which was cherished for several decades. Now that nations have taken to going to war with tooth and nail, throwing their whole available population into the field and using every possible device, military, commercial, and financial, to beat their enemies, any such pleasant decencies as paying money due from one country ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... make a man of you. I've started you wrong, but it isn't too late yet. It's all very well for boys with rich fathers to run to clothes, and city jaunts, and 'chickens,' and cabs and flowers. Your mother is working tooth and nail to earn her six thousand, and when you realize just what it means for a woman to battle against men in a man's game, you'll stop being a spender, and become an earner—because you'll want to. I'll tell you what I'm ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... way of protesting against the general uproar. When the whole class was fairly out in the street again, its delight at being released from school for some time to come was too much for it, and in the exuberance of its high spirits it fell tooth and nail upon the Lutheran lads who were playing at ball in front of their own church, broke a couple of their heads, scribbled: "Vivat vacatio" on the walls of every house they came to, slammed to every gate they passed, and roused every dog in ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... pressing close to the ground. One could see very clearly how they sought cover behind corpses and now and then lay motionless so as to escape discovery by the foe. It was a pitiful sight—those God-forsaken creatures surrounded by death, each moment like an eternity above them, yet clinging with tooth and nail to their ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... those two young men. They're the right combination nation for me, to give real distinction to my undertaking. I have money, but they ain't the sort you can buy with money. There must be an incentive. If I get what they want, perhaps I can get them.' So I went into the job tooth and nail. Neither you nor Fenton was on the spot. I was—very much on it. Nothing was definitely fixed up between the Government and Fenton for the right to excavate at the Mountain of the Golden Pyramid, as they call the little old molehill, and I scored. Now, if you two will ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... spluttered Harry. "Why, didn't he force you into a duel with rapiers, or try to? and he is an expert! Say, what's the matter with you? If I'd been in your place I'd gone into him tooth and nail, and I wouldn't have left him in the shape of anything. Have you got a soft ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... right. See that you do." Turning to Mr. Yollop, he said: "The police are a pretty decent lot when you get to know 'em, Mr. Yollop. They do their share towards enforcin' the law. They do their best to get us the limit. The trouble is, they got to fight tooth and nail against almost everybody that ain't on the police force. Specially jurymen. There ain't a juryman in New York City that wants to believe a policeman on oath. He'd sooner believe a crook, any day. And sometimes ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon
... of you want your own government to keep on trying to solve them. In simple frankness and in simple honesty, I need all the help I can get—and I see signs of getting more help in the future from many who have fought against progress with tooth and nail. ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
... His glass informed, my face was much amended. And for the kindness he to me did show, God grant his customers beards faster grow, That though the time of year be dear or cheap, From fruitful faces he may mow and reap. Then came a smith, with shoes, and tooth and nail, He searched my horse's hoofs, mending what did fail, Yet this I note, my nag, through stones and dirt, Did shift shoes twice, ere I did shift one shirt: Can these kind things be in oblivion hid? No, Master Prestwitch, this and much more did, His ...
— The Pennyles Pilgrimage - Or The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor • John Taylor
... reached the raft just in time to save Binney, who he thought was Winn, from being dropped overboard by Plater, the "river-trader." The old negro attacked the big man so furiously with tooth and nail that the latter gave the lad in his arms a fling to one side, sending him crashing with stunning force against the "shanty," and devoted his entire attention to this new assailant. He had just stretched Solon on the deck with a vicious blow of his powerful fist, when Billy ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... replied Jerry heartily. "I was just the same at your age. I used to scamp at school and shirk at college until I found myself so far behind fellows I despised that I was ashamed. Then I went after them tooth and nail until I caught them up and ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... the Town Council that Mr. Wallingford's proposals for reform were of a very serious and drastic nature, that we of his party were going to support them through thick and thin, and that they were bitterly opposed by the other party, whose members were resolved to fight them tooth and nail." ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... his foot. "Woman, I have business, I tell ye,—business with the Bishop of London! I've kept his Lordship at the door this se'nnight, and if I give him not audience Blair will presently be down uon me with tooth and nail and his ancient threat of a visitation. Begone and keep the house! Audrey, where are ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... it? To get into Mrs. Vavasour's confidence, and show an inclination to take her part against her husband? If she be a true woman, she would order me out of the house on the spot, as surely as a fish-wife would fall tooth and nail on me as a base intruder, if I dared to interfere with her sacred right of being beaten by her husband when she chooses. No; I must go straight to John Briggs himself, and bind him over to keep the peace; and I think I know the way to ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... and he flew tooth and nail at the stepfather. Hugh Price, unprepared for this violent attack, shook the lad off, held him at arm's length for a ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... earthly joy and well-being, is, perhaps, the most interesting aspect of the history of Christianity; it is certainly shown in an absorbingly interesting way in the development of the Christian feast of the Nativity. The conflict is keen at first; the Church authorities fight tooth and nail against these relics of heathenism, these devilish rites; but mankind's instinctive paganism is insuppressible, the practices continue as ritual, though losing much of their meaning, and the Church, weary of denouncing, comes to wink at them, ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... the night before. At the mention of Billy Batters there was a sound of suppressed mirth all along the line. Mrs. Angus's sister fairly shrieked. "Billy Batters! Don't you know he has turned Conservative!—he's working tooth and nail for Brown." Mrs. Angus called Angus excitedly. Everybody talked at once; somebody laughed; one or two swore. Mrs. Porter told Milt Kennedy's wife she'd caught her eavesdropping this time sure. She'd ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... began again, this time silent and wordless and literally tooth and nail. Their extended hands with fingers stiffly crooked, caught wildly at all in their way, scratching and tearing. The red ribbon and the chenille net worn by the brunette were torn off; the waist of her dress was ripped ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... discouraged in the face of her ladyship's own overtopping earnestness. There were occasions when he even spoke as if he had wrenched his little charge from the arms of a parent who had fought for her tooth and nail. ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... I have been ever so foolish. Just now I can hear Daddy and Mr. Barnett saying good night, and I know that they have been fighting tooth and nail over that chess board. And I hear Mr. Barnett thanking Daddy, in a voice that is all choked up with emotion. I am so glad to think the dear little man is happy. Isn't it too bad, Aunt Jennie, that we can't all be happy ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... Howe is coming to York with a bigger army than we can raise, to fight us, if we fights, but with power to offer us all we wants, if we won't. Now there 's a big party in Congress as is mortal afraid that there'll be a reconciliation, and so they is battling tooth and nail to get independence declared before Howe can get here, so that there sha'n't be no possibility ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... Richards, "we've been beaten, but by heaven we'll shove them the last few minutes. Go for them, tooth and nail." ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... complete barbarism. Hunting yields them hardly any game, fishing is almost equally unproductive of results; they are obliged to depend upon the storms which now and then fling some huge cetacean on their shores, and upon such salvage they fall tooth and nail, not even taking the ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... went at it tooth and nail, I suppose," Dick said philosophically; "pity you girls can't indulge in a regular stand-up fight." And the wild boy began to brandish his arms about as if he would thoroughly enjoy commencing ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... up their fire by leaping the counterscarp, and falling tooth and nail upon the foe with furious outcries. And now might be seen prodigies of valor, unmatched in history or song. Here was the sturdy Stoffel Brinkerhoff brandishing his quarter-staff like the giant Blanderon his oak tree (for he scorned to carry any other weapon), and drumming ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... o'clock on Sunday afternoon, Los Angeles Street, from Commercial to Nigger Alley, Aliso Street from Los Angeles to Alameda, and Nigger Alley, were crowded with a mass of drunken Indians, yelling and fighting: men and women, boys and girls using tooth and nail, and frequently knives, but always in a manner to strike the ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... his own nation falls short, since their failings will be constantly before his eyes. But every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud adopts, as a last resource, pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and glad to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority. For example, if you speak of the stupid and degrading bigotry of the English nation with the contempt it deserves, you will hardly find one Englishman in fifty to agree with you; but if there should ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer
... found the other in his vicinage he raised his head six feet above water and fell upon him tooth and nail—if he had nails. In their struggles these unpleasant neighbors made such waves that the fishermen's boat was ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... of the country in which they sojourn have so far banished the use of knives from among them that they only grind them, otherwise these conflicts would always be fatal. They fight like tigers with tooth and nail, and knee and toe, and seem animated only with the spirit of daemonism. Luckily the worst weapon they use is a stick, and, if the devil ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 572, October 20, 1832 • Various
... persecution" it might be dangerous "if Dr. Taylor should be provoked to prove in print what he only dropped in conversation." How innocent was this gentleman of the arts and stratagems of logomachy, or book-wars! The proof would not have altered the cause: Hurd would have disputed it tooth and nail; Warburton was running greater risks, every day of his life, than any he was likely to receive from this flourish in the air. The great purpose was to make the Chancellor of Lincoln the butt of his sarcastic pleasantry; and this object was secured by Warburton's ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... for Hastings, Neb., where we were scheduled to play the next day. Arriving there Clarence Duval was taken out, given a bath, against which he fought with tooth and nail, arrayed in a light checked traveling suit with a hat to match, new underwear and linen, patent leather shoes and a cane. When he marched onto the field that afternoon he was the observed of all observers, and attracted so much ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... prevalent in England since pugilism has been discountenanced. Now the writer strongly advises any woman who is struck by a ruffian to strike him again; or if she cannot clench her fists, and he advises all women in these singular times to learn to clench their fists, to go at him with tooth and nail, and not to be afraid of the result, for any fellow who is dastard enough to strike a woman, would allow himself to be beaten by a woman, were she to make at him in self-defence, even if, instead of possessing the stately height and athletic proportions of the aforesaid Isopel, she were as ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... will be indispensable to Ireland at a moment of supreme national importance. Irretrievable mistakes may be made by too long a gamble with the chances of political warfare. Whatever the scheme produced, the extremists will have to oppose it tooth and nail. If the measure is big, sound, and generous, it will be necessary to attack its best features with the greatest vigour; to rely on beating up vague, anti-separatist sentiment in Great Britain; to represent Irish Protestants as a timid race forced to shelter behind British bayonets; in ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... his answer. I continued for half an hour to encourage and jolly him, telling him that dreams always went by the contrary, and my efforts were rewarded by his growing calm and promising he would fight tooth and nail against the thought, and we finally dropped off ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... mysterious personal equation which modifies all conditions here. You will have made your reflection that the servants, as they are cruelly called (I have heard them called so in their hearing, and wondered they did not fly tooth and nail at the throat that uttered the insult), form really no part of the house, but are aliens in the household and the family life. In spite of this fact, much kindness grows up between them and the family, and they do not always slight the work that I cannot understand ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... fair soon to come into power, but the Federalists learned no wisdom. Rather were they henceforth more factious than ever, opposing Jefferson and Madison even when they acted on purely federalist principles. Tooth and nail they fought against the acquisition of Louisiana, the War of 1812, and the protective tariff of 1816, which was carried by Republicans. A worse spirit still was shown in their disunion scheme of 1804, after the purchase ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... He said, too, that England wanted to do business with America, and as for this particular contract, not only did the British nation as a whole desire America to secure it, but the chaps who bent over the boards at No. 42-1/2 Threadneedle Street were plugging for her tooth and nail. His hollow-chested companions yelled their approval of this statement, whereupon Mitchell again arose, alternately flushing and paling, and apologized for what had happened in 1776. He acknowledged himself ashamed of the 1812 affair, moreover, ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... him. "Don't be so sure. Mars is desperate. They'll fight tooth and nail. I've been on Mars three years." She shuddered. "Thank ...
— The Crystal Crypt • Philip Kindred Dick
... it, ultimately dying out with the last month of 1834. To Mr. Joseph Allday must credit be given for the exposure of numerous abuses existing in his day. He had but to get proper insight into anything going on wrong than he at once attacked it, tooth and nail, no matter who stood in the road, or who suffered from his blows. His efforts to put a stop to the cruelties connected with the old system of imprisonment and distraint for debt led to the abolition of the ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... Miss Amy, there's no think like breakin' off short, there's nothink like turnin' the corner sharp, and fightin' the devil tooth and nail. It's an awful tussle at first, an' I thought I was goin' to knuckle under more'n once. So I would ef it hadn't 'a ben fer you, but you give me this little ban', Miss Amy, an' looked at me as if I wa'n't a beast, an' it's ben a liftin' me up ever sence. Oh, I've had good folks talk at me ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... backward, prepared to beat out my brains with a paving stone; but while he was still shouting for one, with an unerring stroke I luckily ran him through and stretched him at my feet. Before long a second stroke, aimed between the shoulders, finished off another of them, as he clung tooth and nail to my legs; while the third one, as he rashly advanced, I stabbed full in ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... Montenegro and Kosnovia. I have a bitter acquaintance with our history, madame, and am persuaded that if Alec is to remain King he must abandon forever this notion of marrying an alien. The Greek church would oppose it tooth and nail, and the people would soon follow the lead of their Popes. This young lady's appearance in Delgratz has come at a singularly inopportune moment. She was brought here by some one hostile to your son. If she came in obedience to Alec's wishes, he is ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... which generally became, especially on that great July occasion, the most numerous of the three. It comprised all those who made strong interest to obtain admittance within her ladyship's house,—who struggled and fought almost with tooth and nail to get invitations. Against these people Lady Monk carried on an internecine war. Had she not done so she would have been swamped by them, and her success would have been at an end; but yet she never dreamed of shutting her doors against them altogether, or of saying boldly that ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... doubt of it," answered Thorne, "but the point is, they've been fighting tooth and nail from the start. We had felt out their strength from the first, and it developed ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... taking her in my arms, "I am not deceiving you—indeed, indeed I am not. I may have been wrong in using the word 'crisis.' What I meant was that, knowing that Jack and a friend of his are striving tooth and nail to track down the thieves who robbed this house, and seeing that I have promised to help Jack to the best of my ability, I feel that this urgent telegram of his means that something has come to light, that he has heard something or discovered some clue which makes it imperative ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... his pack and started heavily down into the valley that separated him from the next range. It was a good two miles of tooth and nail climbing and the canyon was filled with afternoon shadows when Roger reached the foot-wall of the east range. The heat was ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... work, fellows," he told them, with a look of pride on his face; "and the way you played this afternoon was worthy of any Montreal Seven that ever toured the East to show how they do things up there in Canada at their favorite winter sport. And the boys who fought tooth and nail to hold you back, I congratulate them also; for they did excellent work. It was no disgrace to be beaten in that game; few hockey teams could have held their own against such fine play. Keep it up to-morrow, and there need be no doubt as to ...
— The Chums of Scranton High at Ice Hockey • Donald Ferguson
... to the scolding I am going to defend myself tooth and nail. In the first place, by all my Gods and No Gods, neither Green, nor Martineau, nor the Cairds were in my mind when I talked of "Sentimental Deism," but the "Vicaire Savoyard," and Charming, and such as Voysey. There are two chapters of "Rousseauism," I have ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... 'Forward, march!' said the sergeants. My clothes were in rags, my shoes worn out, from trudging along those roads, which are very uncomfortable ones; but no matter! I said to myself, 'As it's the last of our earthquakings, I'll go into it, tooth and nail!' We were drawn up in line before the great ravine—front seats, as 'twere. Signal given; and seven hundred pieces of artillery began a conversation that would bring the blood from your ears. Then—must do justice to one's enemies—the Russians let themselves be killed like Frenchmen; ...
— Folk Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... Jimmy Brunell was all broken up when he received such a message. More crafty than Pennold, he realized that it was a trap, and we were on his trail at last. We've got him cinched now, but he's only a tool, possibly a helpless one, in the hands of the master workmen. We'll go after them, tooth and nail, for the happiness and stainless name of two innocent young girls, who trust in us, and we'll get them, Guy, we'll get them if there is any justice and honor and ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... not get on at all, Sir Robert. He will not touch the thing on any terms, and indeed means to oppose it tooth and nail." ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... again the cry; "give him a sea-toss!" "Overboard with him!" and he was dragged along the deck, struggling and fighting with tooth and nail. ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... God-fearing prince, was devoted to the Virgin Mary, rigid in his fasts, lavish in charity. He was determined to avoid death and to hold on to his own, tooth and nail, and was his father's peer in valour. Like his father, he dressed richly; unlike him, he cared more for silver than for jewels. He lived more chastely than is usual to princes and was always master of himself. He drank little wine, ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... Speug went home in a state of utter confusion, coming finally to the conclusion that the Count intended to introduce some French game, and in that case it would be his painful duty to oppose the Count tooth and nail, for everybody knew that French games were only for girls, and would bring endless disgrace upon Muirtown Seminary. During Sunday Nestie had turned the matter over in his mind, and being full of Scott's novels he was able on Monday to give the astonished ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... fiercely interrupted the sobbing Seraphine, "She does, she does," she reiterated, and seemed disposed to fly at her tooth and nail. "She knows she is a bold and wicked creature,—she, she, she; she is a, a,—I don't know what she is;" she cried, spurting out the last words in a paroxysm of sorrow and vexation, and flung herself into a chair sobbing hysterically, with toilet ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... the cruelest of emperors, is said to have regaled his ears with music after setting fire to Rome; and you have all heard the story of the two famous prima donnas whose vicious temper and jealousy drove them to a tooth and nail contest on the stage, right before the public. Everybody knows, furthermore, what a lot of scamps and vagabonds are included in the number of so-called music teachers, and what irregular ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... doctor, however, seems to have pleased me better out of the pulpit than in it, for I find that "he called in the afternoon and chatted amusingly for an hour. He fell tooth and nail upon the Oxford Tracts men, and told us of a Mr. Wackerbarth, a curate in Essex, a Cambridge man, who, he says, elevates the host, crosses himself, and advocates burning of heretics. It seems to me, however," continues ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... Irish Members moving endless amendments, with the avowed object of delaying the Coercion Bill, which was eventually brought in by Forster on the 24th January. The gist of the Bill was arrest on suspicion and imprisonment without trial. The Irish Members fought it tooth and nail, and were defied by Gladstone in a speech of unusual fire. "With fatal and painful precision," he exclaimed, "the steps of crime dogged the steps of the Land League; and it is not possible to get rid of facts such as ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... may know a book which one has not read. It pretty nearly made an end of James Fenimore Cooper, we believe. His fellow-countrymen fell on him, tooth and nail. We didn't take so kindly to criticism in those days as we do now, when it merely tickles the fat on our ribs, and we respond with the ironic laughter you profess to like so much. What is the drift of the book ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... was only reasonable self-defence in the powers, since How to do it must obviously be regarded as the natural and mortal enemy of How not to do it. In this was to be found the basis of the wise system, by tooth and nail upheld by the Circumlocution Office, of warning every ingenious British subject to be ingenious at his peril: of harassing him, obstructing him, inviting robbers (by making his remedy uncertain, and expensive) to plunder him, and at the best of confiscating his property ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... tooth and nail. I took Ottilia's part; Gurli called her an old maid; I continued to champion her. On this afternoon Ottilia did not turn up. She wrote a chilly letter, making excuses and winding up by saying she could see that she was not wanted. I protested and suggested that I should ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... I ever tell you that my people originally wished to make a parson of me? Of course I resisted tooth and nail, but it seems to me now that I was rather foolish in doing so. I wish I had been a parson. In many ways the position would ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... uncontrollable, incontrollable[obs3]; insuppressible, irrepressible; orgastic, orgasmatic, orgasmic. spasmodic, convulsive, explosive; detonating &c. v.; volcanic, meteoric; stormy &c. (wind) 349. Adv. violently &c. adj.; amain[obs3]; by storm, by force, by main force; with might and main; tooth and nail, vi et armis[Lat], at the point of the sword, at the point of the bayonet; at one fell swoop; with a high hand, through thick and thin; in desperation, with a vengeance; a outrance[obs3], a toute outrance[Fr][obs3]; headlong, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... eyes small, and his tail ridiculously insignificant. Nor could he cover the ground with the easy swinging jump that makes one suspect relationship between the red vole and the wood-mouse. Still for a common, vulgar, agrarian vole, he was passable enough, and could hold his own, tooth and nail, with ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... Whinnyliggate school. When this was asked of Walter, he replied modestly that he did not know, whereupon his enemy, without provocation, smote him incontinently on the nose. Him our boy-from-the-heather promptly charged, literally with tooth and nail, overbore to the dust, and, when he held him there, proceeded summarily to disable him for further conflict, as he had often seen Royal do when that mild dog went forth to war. Walter could not at all understand ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... 'it's a bitter pill for you to swallow, and, as I have said, I am sorry for you. It will not be easy for you to be on terms of intimate friendship with a man who is compelled to fight your father tooth and nail, and there is nothing else for it at this moment but for you and me to say good-bye. Things may right themselves, but I see no use in mincing matters, and I tell you the honest truth when I say that I don't believe it, and that for ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... God. That fight against slavery was a beautiful, a joyful thing to me, with all its penalties of compassion and guilty feeling afterward. I think the best thing a man or boy can do is to find out how far and to whom he is a slave, and fight that servitude tooth and nail as I fought Ace. It would make ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... I seed her as plain as I see thee an' heerd ivvery word she said. Tha shouldst ha' seen her! Hoo med as if hoo'd lived wi' lads aw her days. Jud Bates and that young marplot o' Thorme's wur feightin about Nib—at it tooth and nail—an' th' lass sees 'em, an' marches into th' thick, an' sets 'em to reets. Yo' should ha' seen her! An' hoo tells Jud as he's a good lad to tak' care o' his dog, an' hoo does na know but what hoo'd fowt hersen i' his place, an' hoo ca's Jack Thorme ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... barn, the lady, who was all a-fume with rage, dealt it such a push with her hands that she sent it flying, and entering, saw Niccolosa astride of Calandrino. The former, seeing the lady, started up in haste and taking to flight, made off to join Filippo, whilst Dame Tessa fell tooth and nail upon Calandrino, who was still on his back, and clawed all his face; then, clutching him by the hair and haling him hither and thither, 'Thou sorry shitten cur,' quoth she, 'dost thou then use me thus? Besotted dotard that thou ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... so pugnacious an animal, that even the quakers, who in all other things seem effectually to have subdued this part of their animal nature, carry on controversy, whenever they engage in it, tooth and nail.—Quarterly Rev. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 348, December 27, 1828 • Various
... forgotten to say, his regard for truth, which may truly be said to have been "passionate," if we consider the effect produced in him when he discovered that any one had told him a falsehood. He would fall upon them tooth and nail, if they were menials; and if guests, he would forbid them his house. This was surely one excellent trait. Yet it was maintained by those carpers already alluded to, that to tell truth was comparatively easy in one who was as careless of all opinion as he was independent ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... convincing proof to the illiterate and the leveller, that head-work is not such easy, sofa-enjoyed labour, as is commonly supposed; and, finally, that the great writer's habit, vivos ungues rodere, proves him to be, tooth and nail, ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... little beggar, Nell! She said she had never been able to really give you anything before—she had only bought with your money and forced upon you things you didn't want. Then that night after dinner she and I were to act her two-part play—we've been at it for weeks, tooth and nail, ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... "Germany stands for nearly everything we Americans are opposed to, tooth and nail. We just loathe militarism. Conscription's a thing we abominate. And feudalism is more dead over here than in any country ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... tolerate and encourage, crowding the street car on a little fall in the temperature or the appearance of an inch or two of snow, packing up to overflowing, dangling to the straps, treading on each other's toes, breathing each other's breaths, crushing the women and children, hanging by tooth and nail to a square inch of the platform, imperiling their limbs and killing the horses,—I think the commonest tramp in the street has good reason to felicitate himself on his rare privilege of going afoot. Indeed, a race that neglects or despises this primitive gift, ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... first explosion of gunpowder;—and all failing! With pugnacious Prussia on the North, with rapacious Austria on the South, with insolent Bavaria hanging off on the Southwest, and the others fighting tooth and nail for the land, that will eventually fall to the strongest—the German problem became an exhibition over many years of the noblest, likewise of the darkest, passions of the ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... going, his strength was leaving him. He mustered up every ounce of energy, all his wit and courage, for one last effort: fought like a cat, tooth and nail; toiled once more to his knees, with two clinging to him like wolves to the flanks of a stag; shook one off, regained his feet, swayed; and in one final gust of ferocity dashed both fists repeatedly into the face of him who still ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... REPORT OF THE SENATE ON THE SUNDAY MAILS. The Portsmouth Advertiser has attacked this Report, "tooth and nail," imputing to it an influence as disastrous as that which attends the writings of Tom Paine or Citizen Brisset. The writer states, that the Senate by adopting it, "has virtually declared, that the laws of Almighty God are no rule for human legislation." We will give one ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 3: New-England Sunday - Gleanings Chiefly From Old Newspapers Of Boston And Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks
... sale was being held in the schools and all St. Gwithian was there, fighting tooth and nail over the bargains. A jumble sale is to rus what remnant sales are to urbs. I battled my way round to each table in turn, but nowhere could I find my poor dear old Gregory. Then I saw Etta, the presiding genius, and butted ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 28th, 1920 • Various
... those of du Tillet's guests who had demolished Madame Marneffe tooth and nail, were seated round her table an hour after she has shed her skin and changed her name for the illustrious name of a Paris mayor. This verbal treason is one of the ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... need of some ready money; and what I propose is, that you shall go to work, "tooth and nail," for somebody who will give you money for it. Let father and your boys take charge of things at home—prepare for a crop, and make the crop; and you go to work for the best money wages, or in discharge of ...
— Lincoln Letters • Abraham Lincoln
... been saying. But I stood studying him as he lay there asleep. It frightened me a little, to find him so big. If it's true, as Duncan threatens, that time will tend to turn him away from me, it's something that I'm going to fight tooth and nail. And I've seen no sign of it, as yet. With every month and every year that's added to his age he grows more companionable, more able to bridge the chasm between two human souls. We have more interests ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... only a small point of law, but the two counsel were hammering at each other tooth and nail. They had been submitting this and that to his lordship for twenty minutes, and growing more and more heated as they argued. At last: "You're an ass, sir!" shrieked one. "And you're a liar, sir!" roared the other. ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... on him. "You see, this is the way I figger it: Russia and Japan wa'n't fightin' so much for anything they reely wanted to git. It was suthin' in 'em that made 'em go for each other, tooth and nail, and pommel so—a kind o' pizen bubbling and sizzling inside 'em; we've all got a little of it." He smiled genially. "It has to work out slow-like. Some does it by fightin' and some does it by prayin'; and I reckon the Lord's in the fightin', ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee
... dark night, and I found myself hanging over the yard with eleven others, the ship plunging and rearing like a mad horse, till I felt like being jerked off the spar; then, indeed, I thought of a feather-bed at home, and hung on with tooth and nail; with no chance for snoring. But a few repetitions, soon made me used to it; and before long, I tied my reef-point as quickly and expertly as the best of them; never making what they call a "granny- knot," and slipt down on deck by the bare stays, instead ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... with his fist he slew, And Sarabh with his knee o'erthrew, Nor could Gavaksha's strength withstand The force of his terrific hand. At Gandhamadan's eager call Rushed thousands to avenge their fall, Nor ceased those Vanars to assail With knee and fist and tooth and nail. Around his foes the giant threw His mighty arms, and nearer drew The captives subject to his will: Then snatched them up and ate his fill. There was no respite then, no pause: Fast gaped and closed his hell-like jaws: Yet, prisoned in that ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... heard her declare that she would do nothing of the kind. On the contrary, her sobbed out intention was to remain in the garden, and fight tooth and nail for the protection of the vanquished man. ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... Tom did nothing but laugh. "I've seen a few passages of arms," he said. "By Jove, you don't know what war is till you see two —— at it tooth and nail. Two—what, Lucy? Oh, I mean fine ladies; they have no mercy. Her Grace will set her claws into the fair countess. And as for the ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... interrupted, in the course of his testimony, by the culprit's mother, a furious old beldame, with an insufferable tongue, and who, in fact, was several times kept, with some difficulty, from flying at him tooth and nail. The wife, too, of the prisoner, whom I am told he does not beat above half-a-dozen times a week, completely interested Lady Lillycraft in her husband's behalf, by her tears and supplications; and several of the other gipsy women were awakening ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... the biggest of them—"we'll teach you to lock up ladies, for the indulgence of your vulgar amusement;" and, without one other word, they fell upon Bedos, with incredible zeal and vigour. The valiant valet defended himself, tooth and nail, for some time, for which he only got the more soundly belaboured. In the meanwhile the landlady entered, and, with the same gentle smile as before, begged him to make no ceremony, to proceed with his present amusement, and when he was tired with the exercise, hoped he would refresh himself ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... horses could not have torn from the Colonel a word about Hotchkiss's anger. "He expressed his intention of employing counsel—and defending a suit," returned the Colonel, affably basking in her smile. She dragged her chair nearer his desk. "Then you'll fight him tooth and nail?" she said eagerly; "you'll show him up? You'll tell the whole story your own way? You'll give him fits?—and you'll make him pay? Sure?" she went ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... hurts. He was impressed anew each time he saw them with the punishing power of such vengeance as was left to the Lord. He could see more than either of the pair before him. The little white-haired boy who had fought him with tooth and nail so long ago, to be not taken from Prudence, had now come back with the might of a man, even the might of a lover, to take her from him when she had become all of his life. He could think of no sharper revenge upon himself or his people. For ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... suffering from brain troubles, she has taken a violent dislike to me, and believes that I'm the very devil in human form," he said, smiling. "Fortunately, she had a friend with her, or she might have attacked me tooth and nail just now," and leaning back in his chair he laughed at the idea—laughed so lightly that my suspicions were ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... proposed to make one great heap of them and burn them up in Smithfield. In that way he hoped to clear the ground of many mischievous traditions. This desperate act of Communism that tough-headed old lawyer, Prynne, opposed tooth and nail. In 1656 he wrote a pamphlet, which he called "A Short Demurrer against Cromwell's Project of Recalling the Jews from their Banishment," and in this work he very nobly epitomizes the value of these treasures; ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... of a child and the deep baying of a wolf, attracted their notice, and on running in the direction whence the cries sounded, they found a little girl defending herself against a monstrous creature, which was attacking her tooth and nail, and had already wounded her severely in five places. As the peasants came up, the creature fled on all fours into the gloom of the thicket; it was so dark that it could not be identified with certainty, ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... I thought it in the nature of things that you and I could ever agree on paper, touching a certain Chuzzlewitian question whereupon F—— tells me you have remarks to make, I should immediately walk into the same, tooth and nail. But as I don't, I won't. Contenting myself with this prediction, that one of these years and days, you will write or say to me, "My dear Dickens, you were right, though rough, and did a world of good, though you got most thoroughly ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... way to win her love is to linger her leisure. I measure my mistress by my lovely self: make a promise to a man, and keep it. I have but one fault—I ne'er made promise in my life, but I stick to it tooth and nail. I'll pay it home, i' faith. If I promise my love a kiss, I'll give him two; marry, at first I will make nice, and cry Fie, fie; and that will make him come again and again. I'll make him break ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... earth of old A dumb and beastly vermin crawled; For acorns, first, and holes of shelter, They tooth and nail, and helter skelter, Fought fist to fist; then with a club Each learned his brother brute to drub; Till, more experienced grown, these cattle Forged fit accoutrements for battle. At last (Lucretius says and Creech) They set their wits to work on SPEECH: ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... dream. Life, how and what is it? As here I lie In this state-chamber, dying by degrees, Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask "Do I live, am I dead?" Peace, peace seems all. Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace; And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know: —Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care; Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner South He graced his carrion with, God curse the same! Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence One sees ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... resplendent with green roses and bands, caused her to look like a great rag-doll with most of the sawdust missing. The others of the party arranged themselves on cushions and chairs about her, ready to fall, tooth and nail, upon the remains of the roast chicken. Azzie would not eat, but kept her hand hidden in the folds ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird
... fall on the stone flooring with a horrible thud. Tristram leapt forward indignantly and caught one of these ruffians a blow on the back of the neck that sent him down like an ox. Upon this the other three dropped their sport and fell upon him, like angry women, tooth and nail. Nobody interfered. He was driven back against the wall, where he leant, just contriving to keep his adversaries at arm's length with his fists, and feeling, now that the first spurt of wrath had left him, that ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and that the house before which he stood was Coligny's. I knew what was being done there. And in the same moment I sickened with horror and rage. I had a vision of grey hairs and blood and fury scarcely human, And I rebelled. I battled with the rabble about me. I forced my way through them tooth and nail after Pavannes, intent only on escaping, only on getting away from there. And so we neither halted nor looked back until we were clear of the crowd and had left the blaze of light and the work doing by it ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... this world," said the Doctor. "I cling to life tooth and nail. And when I come to die, then I hope to find a corner somewhere straight up over London and Paris, where I can hear the rumble of the human cancan all the time, all ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... he'd done, the man vith the red nose began. I was just a-thinkin' whether I hadn't better begin too—'specially as there was a wery nice lady a-sittin' next me—ven in comes the tea, and your mother-in-law, as had been makin' the kettle bile downstairs. At it they went, tooth and nail. Such a precious loud hymn, Sammy, while the tea was a brewing; such a grace, such eatin' and drinkin'! I wish you could ha' seen the shepherd walkin' into the ham and muffins. I never see such a chap to eat and drink—never. The red-nosed man warn't by no means the sort of person you'd ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... looked cautiously round when he reached the threshold. Linda was just boiling soup over the fire when he rushed in, and, without saying a word, seized her by the girdle and dragged her away to his boat. She resisted him with tooth and nail, but he muttered spells which unnerved her strength and overpowered her feeble efforts, and her prayers and cries for help were unheard by men. But she cried to the gods for protection, and the Thunder-God himself came ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... in a Socialistic program, for it merely substitutes the more deadly competition of nations for that of the individual, or even "trust" competition now existing, while Humanism, or Marxism, tends to a uniform condition of humanity which the American proletariat would fight tooth and nail because they would rightly believe that for them it would at present be a leveling down instead ...
— The Inhumanity of Socialism • Edward F. Adams
... as they stood, in the market-square at Krugersdorp. The state of the Boer Government at that time added to the President's difficulties. He was hampered by the narrowest—minded Volksraad (Parliament) imaginable, who resented tooth and nail even the most necessary concessions to the Uitlanders; he was surrounded by corrupt officials, most of whom were said to be implicated in the late rebellion; he was the head of a community which was known to be split up into several ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... plunging along madly in the wake, caused an astonishing burst of speed, and the Cinnamon thundered through the brush like a runaway locomotive on a down grade, with such lurches and rolls and plunges that Budd dropped his torch and hung on, tooth and nail, ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... epigram on the importation of sentimentality into politics. In plain words, Lord Redford, we, as a party, are asleep to what is going on. One statesman has recognized it, and proposed a startling and drastic remedy. We attack the remedy tooth and nail, but we place forward no counter proposition. It is as though a dying man were attended by two doctors, one of whom has prepared a remedy which the other declines to administer without suggesting one of his own. It is not a logical position. The medicine may ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... see nothing in our own faction but what was good and high and pure, nothing in the other but what was smutted with evil intent. In daily double-leaded editorial columns the chief preached a Holy War, and in the local pages we fought the foe tooth and nail, biting and gouging and clawing, and they gouged and clawed back at us like catamounts. That was where the hard work fell upon Devore. He had to keep half his scanty staff working on politics while the other half tried to cover the run ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... his time well. Yet she screamed, loud and shrill, once, twice, a third time, before Malbihn could leap across the tent and throttle her alarming cries with his brute fingers. Then she fought him, as any jungle she might fight, with tooth and nail. The man found her no easy prey. In that slender, young body, beneath the rounded curves and the fine, soft skin, lay the muscles of a young lioness. But Malbihn was no weakling. His character and appearance were brutal, nor did they belie his ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... becoming known, the canal companies prepared to resist the measure tooth and nail. The public were appealed to on the subject; pamphlets were written and newspapers were hired to revile the railway. It was declared that its formation would prevent cows grazing and hens laying. The poisoned air from the locomotives would kill birds as they flew over them, ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... Parson Foster, "the Devil himself gave it to Paracelsus; Paracelsus to the emperor; the emperor to the courtier; the courtier to Baptista Porta; and Baptista Porta to Dr. Fludd, a doctor of physic, yet living and practising in the famous city of London, who now stands tooth and nail for it." Dr. Fludd, thus assailed, took up the pen in defence of his unguent, in a reply called The Squeezing of Parson Foster's Spunge; wherein the Spunge-bearer's immodest carriage and behaviour towards his brethren is detected; the bitter flames of his slanderous reports are, by the sharp ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... is strictly true: whatever subject may turn up is laid hold on, tooth and nail, by the Ins and Outs of the day, who, dividing upon it, lift banners, and under the chosen war-cry, be it "Masonry," "Indian treaties," or "Bank charter," fairly fight it out; a condition of turmoil, which, viewed on the surface, may appear anything ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... stoutest pessimists, when fate or men try to take something out of their lives, fight tooth and nail, and cry out as loud as the greatest optimists. I am exactly in the like position. I do not cry out, but a terrible fear clutches at my heart, that a few days hence I shall not know what to do ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... an' it seems to come amiss, For it says that second-classers 'ain't allowed abaft o' this'; An' there ought to be a notice for the fellows from abaft — But the smell an' dirt's a warnin' to the first-salooners, aft; With their tooth and nail-brush, aft, With their cuffs 'n' collars, aft — Their cigars an' books an' papers, an' ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... ought to—that I sat next him, in London, a month ago, at dinner, and that he then told me he was working, tooth and nail, at what he called the wonderful modern science of Connoisseurship—which is upsetting, as perhaps you're not aware, all the old-fashioned canons of art-criticism, everything we've stupidly thought right and held dear; that he was to spend Easter in these parts, and that he should like ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... all the way from Tilbury, filling the situation of lady nurse. Miss Larcher had not completed the voyage, but had landed at Colombo! On hearing of his relationship to her late employe, Mrs. Jones, a hot-tempered matron, fell figuratively tooth and nail upon defenceless Shafto. In a series of breathless sentences she assured him that "his cousin, Miss Larcher, was no better than an adventuress, and had behaved in the most dishonest ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... enough to begin such a course with, or arithmetic enough to carry it through. It was sailing by dead reckoning to them, and they saw not clearly how to make their port so; therefore I suppose they still take life bravely, after their fashion, face to face, giving it tooth and nail, not having skill to split its massive columns with any fine entering wedge, and rout it in detail;—thinking to deal with it roughly, as one should handle a thistle. But they fight at an overwhelming disadvantage—living, John Field, alas! ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... of burning yet hung heavy in the powder-tainted air, and the R.A.M.C. men and their volunteer helpers were bringing in the wounded and the dead, that Emigration Jane saw a face upon a stretcher that was being carried through the rejoicing crowd, and screamed at the sight, and fell tooth and nail upon the human barrier that interposed between herself and it, and got through—how, she ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... are adrift; organised Christianity has abdicated; the aristocracy no longer governs even itself; Parliament has died of a surfeit of its own rules. If fundamental reform is to come, it will be forced upon us by the working class, and (at the pinch) opposed tooth and nail by the privileged. But is it to come? Is the working class deploying for action? In all the miscellaneous scrapping which we watch to-day is there one strong man with a sense of direction? It doesn't ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... anything, just simply went at them, like a maniac, like a demon. I won't tell you about it—it was too horribly brutal—or about what followed. I simply saw red. For the first time and the last time in my life, I hope, I fought a man—fought like a beast, tooth and nail. When it was over he was lying there in the mud we'd made, unconscious; and I was looking down at him and gasping for breath. I was bleeding in a dozen places, for he had a knife; but I never noticed. I suppose I stood there so for a minute looking at him, the other ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... Tired as he was, and wild and dangerous as the attempt might be, he did not dare to leave her to perish. Choosing his time in a lull, he struck out to the bush, and reached it just as her ebbing strength gave way. He took her in his sturdy arms, and, clinging with tooth and nail, stayed them both to their strange anchorage. Faint, half conscious, disrobed as she was, in the sweet, delicate features, the curve of the lip, and the raven tresses clothed in seaweed, he recognized the Creole belle of last night's hop. He ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... you never cease showing yourself hard and intractable, and especially to the accused? You tear them to pieces tooth and nail. ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... pirates, and now they shall smart for pirating me. At the present time, therefore, any American manager who may have the sense and honesty to treat with me will be quite secure from the competition of English copies. I have licked old Conquest, and the lawyers are now fighting tooth and nail over the costs. The judges gave me one hundred and sixty pounds damages, but, as I lost the demurrer with costs, the balance will doubtless be small. But, if the pecuniary result is small, the victory over the pirates and the venal part of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... the President again fought tooth and nail against the industry, and most strenuous efforts were made by him and his party to obtain a reversal of the decision, but without effect. This, however, only disposed of a small portion of the ground at stake. With regard ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... perhaps, that I'm bursting into wild huzzas?" Salgath Trod asked. "If I were to act as everybody expects me to, I'd be down there on the floor, now, clawing into the Management tooth and nail. All my adherents are wondering why I'm not. So are all my opponents, and before long one of them is ...
— Time Crime • H. Beam Piper
... highland ape. In each the strength, the might, the mien Of his own parent God were seen. Some chiefs of Vanar mothers came, Some of she-bear and minstrel dame, Skilled in all arms in battle's shock; The brandished tree, the loosened rock; And prompt, should other weapons fail, To fight and slay with tooth and nail. Their strength could shake the hills amain, And rend the rooted trees in twain, Disturb with their impetuous sweep The Rivers' Lord, the Ocean deep, Rend with their feet the seated ground, And pass wide floods with airy bound, Or forcing through ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... in love with you. I brought you here on purpose. I saw you had all the qualities that would strike Harold's fancy. So I had made up my mind for a delightful regulation family quarrel. I was going to oppose you and Harold, tooth and nail; I was going to threaten that Marmy would leave his money to Kynaston's eldest son; I was going to kick up, oh, a dickens of a row about it! Then, of course, in the end, we should all have been reconciled; we should have kissed and made friends: for you're just the one girl in the world ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... powersWas it to be an efficient body, armed with the right of full inquiry and wide examination, or was it to be a polite official contrivance for exonerating Dr. Andrew Smith? The War Office phalanx closed its ranks, and fought tooth and nail; but it was defeated: the Bison was bullyable. 'Three months from this day,' Miss Nightingale had written at last, 'I publish my experience of the Crimean Campaign, and my suggestions for improvement, unless there ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... Master Ironmonger, however hard of digestion may be your wares. You will come third, Master Fishmonger. You fourth, Master Grocer. And when they are surfeited with spiceries and fish, they will fall upon you, tooth and nail, ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... immortal in the history of music, because, although no one sings his songs now, or hears his operas, even the strictest composers make constant use of certain musical procedures, which were in his time forbidden, and which he fought for tooth and nail. Irisi says that he entered the Church after the death of his wife, and as he entered the priesthood in 1633, it would seem that she died when he was about sixty-five years of age. He had two sons, the elder of whom became ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... Rodier did not understand him, or, never having been called a sneaking Frenchman before, he would certainly have fallen tooth and nail on the offender, though in respect of bulk the German would have made two of him. Fortunately for the keeping of peace, he was quite ignorant of the German tongue, and when Herr Schwankmacher proceeded to shake his pipe at him, and deliver his opinion of trespassers in general and French trespassers ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... not be imagined that all this great army went forward in a day or two, or that the battle lasted but a short time. On the other hand, it was a fight, tooth and nail, for almost every foot of the way. The battle line from Les Esparages, around the nose of the St. Mihiel salient to the Moselle River was about forty miles, and was greatly strengthened by artificial defenses. This gives ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... Bjerregrav was particularly warlike; yet everybody could see that the town was not behind the rest of the world. Here the vanity of the town was quite in agreement with Master Jeppe, but for the rest he roundly condemned the whole movement. He always looked ready to fall upon Bjerregrav tooth and nail if the ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo |
