"Tenter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... else, Mary, whom you've kept on tenter-hooks ever so long? Are you sure he is not walking up and down under the limes ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... dears; you must have been on tenter-hooks all this time, for, of course, you saw there was a crisis, and you behaved much better than I should have done at your age; but it was only a fait accompli this very day, and we couldn't tell ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... had gone post haste to Dunkirk, pretending that the sudden death of his agent in Calais required his immediate presence in that city. Governor Sweveseel, of Dunkirk, sent an orderly to get a passport for him from La Motte, commanding at Gravelingen. Anastro being on tenter-hooks lest the news should arrive that the projected murder had been consummated before he had crossed the border, testified extravagant joy on the arrival of the passport, and gave the messenger who brought it thirty pistoles. Such conduct naturally excited a vague suspicion in the mind ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... however. Then, when the man has made up his mind that he wants us as his wife (that grammar sounds polygamous, but my whole philosophy of life is against that idea), why, we are to be ready to drop into his arms like a ripe plum and not keep him on tenter-hooks of anxiety, because only ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... of Pascal!" I cried, "even you could detect no casuistry here. And have you no scruple, young man, in keeping an old gentleman on the tenter-hooks of expectation whilst you are splitting hairs? Go on, like a good fellow, I was never so interested in my life. The idea ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... (says Herbert) that Merchant Taylors were originally bona fide cutters-out and makers-up of clothes, or dealers in and importers of cloth, having tenter-grounds in Moorfields. The ancient London tailors made both men's and women's apparel, also soldiers' quilted surcoats, the padded lining of armour, and probably the trappings of war-horses. In the 27th year of Edward III. the Taylors contributed L20 towards the ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... whatever I think. And I'm not going to be caught up on the tenter-hooks of conscience as to all my meanings, Miss Cotton. I don't know them all. But I'm not one of ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... marriage is seldom, if ever, observed in women. For reasons that we shall examine later, they have much more to gain by the business than men, and so they are prompted by their cooler sagacity tenter upon it on the most favourable terms possible, and with the minimum admixture of disarming emotion. Men almost invariably get their mates by the process called falling in love; save among the aristocracies of the North and Latin men, the marriage of convenience is relatively rare; ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... enemy returned! If her uncle had such a power over him as he himself seemed to feel, then that was all the more reason for him to go quickly. But Pocket was not the man to get up and run like that. Perhaps he enjoyed displaying his bravery on the point, and keeping his companion on tenter-hooks on his account; at any rate he insisted on finishing his breakfast, and gave further free expression to the wildest surmises as he did so. And yet he was even then on the brink of a discovery which was some excuse for the wildest of them all, while it demanded a fresh solution ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... one, however, although the race from the start to the finish was a hot one, and one that kept the lovers of base-ball on tenter hooks until the season was over, while the betting in the poolrooms throughout the country was hot and heavy, and be it said right here, to the credit of the ball players, there was not the slightest suspicion or whisper of crookedness in connection with the games. The rivalry was ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... Fifty or sixty were placed together in one house, which being set on fire, they all perished in the flames. Many were stripped naked, and being fastened to horses by ropes placed round their middles, were dragged through bogs till they expired. Some were hung by the feet to tenter-hooks driven into poles; and in that wretched posture left till they perished. Others were fastened to the trunk of a tree, with a branch at top. Over this branch hung one arm, which principally supported the weight of the body; ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... of well-known men; she had received presents and offers of marriage from them; she had certainly had two chances of becoming a peeress, she might have become the wife of a millionaire, and half a dozen younger sons had kept their families on tenter-hooks. ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... Loveday took him into the garden, all the while upon tenter-hooks, not lest Buonaparte should appear in their midst, but lest Bob should come whilst he was not there to receive him. When they had got into a corner Uncle Benjy said, 'Miller, what with the French, and what with my nephew Festus, I assure ye my life ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... began to sicken. The colour fled from her rosy cheeks, and she began to grow rapidly worse. Lady Vernon ascribed it to mere obstinacy, and grew impatient with her, and made her worse than she would otherwise have been by finding fault with everything she did; and by setting her long tasks of tenter-stitching to perform, making her unhappy lot more miserable still. The only friend she had to whom she could unbosom her secrets was her maid Lettice, and during this time the hearts of the two girls were knitted closely together, the one by a craving for sympathy, and ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... genius for frustrating and tormenting, she kept the poor man on tenter-hooks with perpetual relapses and recoveries. She jerked him on the chain. He was always a prisoner on the verge of his release. She was at death's door in March. In April she was to be seen, convalescent, ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... were now strung out in long lines sweeping towards the left, and Lord Chesham with two squadrons had also gone far to the left, to try to get round the position. Meanwhile the guns were unlimbered, and their anxious crew (the battery had never been in action before) were on tenter-hooks. ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... or seven each, seldom more; every three or four pieces of land had an house belonging to them,...hardly an house standing out of a speaking distance from another.... We could see at every house a tenter, and on almost every tenter a piece of cloth or kersie or shalloon.... At every considerable house was a manufactory.... Every clothier keeps one horse, at least, to carry his manufactures to the market and every one generally keeps a cow or two or more for his family. ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... imagined, I did little real work that day, and when I returned home at night I was on tenter-hooks lest something should go wrong; but fortunately Boswell himself came early and relieved me of my worry—in fact, he was at the machine when I entered ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs
... again to receive her answer she took a lot of persuading, and declared that she could not make up her mind to agree to his proposal, though she was all the time on tenter-hooks lest he should not consent to give the fifty crowns: but at last, when he grew urgent, she told him what she ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... veux argumenter avec vous, ni meme de tenter vous convaincre; il me suffit de vous exposer ce que je pense dans la simplicite de mon coeur. Consultez le votre pendant mon discours; c'est tout ce ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... is so entertaining a personage that I do not care to get rid of him,—had to overcome difficulties which stretched his fine genius on tenter-hooks. Once—rarely did the like unlucky accident happen to the wary master of the ceremonies—did Sir John exceed the civility of his instructions, or rather his half-instructions. Being sent to invite the Dutch ambassador and the States' commissioners, then a young and new government, to ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... peculiarity is that it covers only one thread of the canvas at a stroke, and is therefore on a more minute scale than stitches which are two or three threads wide, as cross-stitch may, and cushion-stitch must, be. It derives its name from the old word tenture, or tenter (tendere, to stretch), the frame on which the embroidress distended her canvas. The word has gone out of use, but we still speak of tenter-hooks. The stitch is serviceable enough in its way, but is discredited by the monstrous abuse of it referred to already. A ...
— Art in Needlework - A Book about Embroidery • Lewis F. Day
... . . . NOBLEMEN in HENRY the Eighth's time were obliged to carry all the beds, hangings and furniture with them when they removed. The usual manner of hanging the rooms in the old castles was only to cover the naked walls with tapestry or arras hung upon tenter hooks, from which they were easily taken down upon every removal. On such an occasion the number of carts employed in a considerable family must have formed a caravan nearly as large as those which traverse the deserts of the East. . . ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... Miss Mowbray had held all eyes; and even when he appeared, she was not forgotten. Every one was on tenter hooks to see how she would be greeted ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson |
