"Clench" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pleasantly to trouble their heads as to whether they existed or no—that this best part of mankind should have gratefully caught at such a straw as "cogito ergo sum," is intelligible enough. They felt the futility of the whole question, and were thankful to one who seemed to clench the matter with a cant catchword, especially with a catchword in a foreign language; but how one, who was so far gone as to recognise that he could not prove his own existence, should be able to comfort himself with such a begging of the question, would seem unintelligible ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... "but I am his daughter, and am come in his place, as he is detained by company. He bade me deliver a message to you alone and then hasten back." With this the girl almost whispered in the ear of the old soldier a few words that caused his teeth to clench and his heartstrings to tighten. She had hardly concluded, when an approaching step from the direction of the fort caused her to spring aside and fly with the ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... with it, and is thereby far sooner overthrown by the inflexible enemy with whom he is engaged. Once overthrown, his struggles cease. Louis could not hold out more than a few minutes, at the end of which he had ceased to clench his hands, and to burn up with his looks the invisible objects of his hatred; he soon ceased to attack with his violent imprecations not M. Fouquet alone, but even La Valliere herself: from fury he subsided ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... case." With a long look of trouble he gazed in her face. "Woe to him,..." he exclaim'd... "woe to him that shall feel Such a hope! for I swear, if he did but reveal One glimpse,—it should be the last hope of his life!" The clench'd hand and bent eyebrow betoken'd the strife She had roused in his heart. "You forget," she began, "That you menace yourself. You yourself are the man That is guilty. Alas! must it ever be so? Do we stand in our own light, wherever we go, And ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... the rough tunes and words of the ballads the refinement of the wits who in the "Easy" and "Johnstone" clubs talked over their cups of Prior and Pope, Addison and Gay. Burns inspires them with a fervour that thrills the most wooden of his race. We may clench the contrast by a representative example. This is from Ramsay's version of perhaps the best-known ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... two had gone over, Lawrence walked out upon the log. Lucy was not afraid, but she watched and remarked that he seemed unusually careful. After a few paces, he moved slowly, and when near the middle stopped. She saw him clench his hands as he tried ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... had seen Sir Reginald rise from his seat and go with the rest of the party across the centre transept to the chancel, she needed all her self-control to shut her teeth and clench her hands and prevent herself from leaving her seat and accusing him of his infamy before clergy and congregation. She thought thankfully how good a thing it was that Carol, with her fierce impetuosity and sense ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... the midshipman was about to withdraw his, but it was held tightly, and somehow or another his own fingers began to respond in a tight clench. ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... deck. The boat had a small square hatch in the foredeck and two mast holes, one at the stem and one at the forward bulkhead. A tie rod, 3/8 inch in diameter, passed through the hull athwartships, just forward of the forward bulkhead; the ends of the tie rod were "up-set" or headed over clench rings on the outside of the wale. The hull was usually painted white or gray, and the interior color ...
— The Migrations of an American Boat Type • Howard I. Chapelle
... the lords of the creation has become very 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 ...
— The Pocket George Borrow • George Borrow
... hostilities, and awaited on their respective poops the issue of the death-shock. It was not long coming. "Yield, dog!" said the water-bailiff. The tinklerman could not answer—for his throat was grasped too tight in the iron clench of the city champion; but drawing his snickersnee, he plunged it seven times in the bailiff's chest: still the latter fell not. The death-rattle gurgled in the throat of his opponent; his arms fell heavily to his side. Foot to foot, each standing at the side of his boat, stood the brave men—THEY ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... his feet, so that he dangled in the air like a pendulum. He was suspended by the shoulders, Lawler's fingers gripping him like iron hooks; he was shaken until his feet, powerless to retard the movement, were flopping back and forth wildly, and his teeth rattled despite his efforts to clench them. It seemed to him that Lawler would snap his head from his shoulders, so viciously did Lawler shake him. Then suddenly the terrible fingers relaxed, and Hamlin reeled and swayed, dizzy and weak ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... e'er the Prince of Darkness herdsman were, These cattle black were his by surest right, Like things but seen in horrid dreams of night. The steeds are swathed in trappings manifold, The armed knights are grave, and stern, and cold, Terrific too; the clench'd fists seem to hold Some frightful missive, which the phantom hands Would show, if opened out at hell's commands. The dusk exaggerates their giant size, The shade is awed—the pillars coldly rise. Oh, Night! why ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... They saw him clench his dagger tightly and with slow steps advance to the side of the helpless girl. Glaring down at her, he swung the blade high. It poised directly over her heart. It would not torture her, Taia knew: it was ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... merely look to the fact that a man raises his arm, clenches his fist, and moves his whole arm violently downwards, is a virtue or excellence which is conceived as proper to the structure of the human body. If, then, a man, moved by anger or hatred, is led to clench his fist or to move his arm, this result takes place (as we showed in Pt. II.), because one and the same action can be associated with various mental images of things; therefore we may be determined to the performance ...
— The Ethics • Benedict de Spinoza
... baton from the trench, Wake up stout Charles Martel, Or find some woman's hand to clench The sword of La Pucelle! Give us one hour of old Turenne,— One lift of Bayard's lance,— Nay, call Marengo's Chief again To lead ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... him at length we saw In cart convey'd and laid supine on straw. His feeble voice now spoke a sinking heart; His groans now told the motions of the cart: And when it stopp'd, he tried in vain to stand; Closed was his eye, and clench'd his clammy hand: Life ebb'd apace, and our best aid no more Could his weak sense or dying heart restore: But now he fell, a victim to the snare That vile attorneys for the weak prepare; They who when profit or resentment call, Heed not the groaning victim they enthrall. Then died ...
— The Parish Register • George Crabbe
... of such terrific grandeur lay That reeled the brain at what the eyes beheld; The hands would clench involuntarily And clutch from intuition for support; The eyes by instinct closed, nor dared to gaze On such ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... according to him, connotes goodness: whence it follows that (say) Napoleon I. was not great. Another man is disgusted with greatness: according to him, good and great are mutually exclusive classes, sheep and goats, as in Gray's wretched clench: "Beneath the good how far, yet far above the great." In feet, however 'good' and 'great' are descriptive terms, sometimes applicable to the same object, sometimes to different: but 'great' is the ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... While, in their clear white flashes, Wrong's shadow, backward cast, Waves cowering o'er the ashes Of the dead, blaspheming Past, O'er the shapes of fallen giants, His own unburied brood, 170 Whose dead hands clench defiance At the overpowering Good: And down the happy future runs a flood Of prophesying light; It shows an Earth no longer stained with blood, Blossom and fruit where now we see the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... scientific interest, I invited in mid-ocean the most thorough investigation concerning the crew-list of the Spray. Very few had challenged it, and perhaps few ever will do so henceforth; but for the benefit of the few that may, I wished to clench beyond doubt the fact that it was not at all necessary in the expedition of a sloop around the world to have more than one man for the crew, all told, and that the Spray sailed with only one person on board. And ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... should like to keep her company," said the gendarme, with a grin, which made O'Grady clench his fist, and Jaques look indignant. The man put the book under his arm, and having been unable to discover anything apparently, ordered his companions to fallow him down-stairs. O'Grady was for descending into the room at once from their uncomfortable position; but Paul held ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... morning, the current being slack, we hove short on the small bower, which soon after parted at a third from the clench. We immediately took in the cable, and perceived that, although we had sounded with great care, before we anchored, and found the bottom clear, it had been cut through by the rocks. After some time, the current becoming strong, a fresh ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... undeceive him, but allowed him to proceed, and even to bring out the five hundred crowns which he had promised me, and the sight of which he doubtless supposed would clench ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... read that letter?" demanded she, turning suddenly upon the trembling maid. The girl saw her mistress's cheeks twitch with passion, and her hands clench as if she would strike her ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... keep her seat, and longs To cheer the fallen hero's fate; Her fingers clench upon the bench As if it were the Trundler's pate! Because this rascal's on the spot Her passion fails to be concealed; She asks me why the wretch is not ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... the sulks, for she 'd fain be gaddin', A wink to the girls sets her soul a-maddin', She 's a shame and sorrow to me. If I stop at the hostel to buy me a gill, Or with a good fellow a moment sit still, Her fist it is clench'd, and is ready to kill, And the talk ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... all my heart, Robin, my boy, but it shall be to shake hands with you, and drink down all unkindness. It is not the fault of your heart, man, that you don't know how to clench your hands." ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... rushed past her, covering her with dust and causing her to clench her hands in anger. "Beastly thing!" she ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... not insist on effacing all that their fathers had done and beginning again—with the result that the edifice never rises far above its foundations, and that children for this and other reasons have a natural inclination to treat their parents as Cassandras. Then, as it were to clench the argument, democracy is ready with its teaching that each generation is independent of the other, and that the dead have no lesson to impart ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... awakened something quite novel. Poverty he had known before, but now he saw the injustice that lay beneath it, and cried to heaven. His hands would suddenly clench with anger as he sat so quietly in his room. Here was something one must hasten forward, without intermission, day and night, as long as one drew breath—Morten was right about that! This child's father was a factory hand, and the girl dared not summon him before the magistrates ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... gulp which served to clench Hahmed's fingers, the wretched Achmed vowed he had music of a kind and dancers of sorts, and that at that moment his first wife was preparing a brew surpassed only by that drunk in the Gardens of Delight by the chosen of Allah, ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... silence between them that took on the roar of a simoon and Miss Samstag jumped then from her mother's embrace, her little face stiff with the clench of ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... particular aversion; a big, burly parson, with the face of a lion, the voice of a buffalo, and a fist like a sledge-hammer. The last time I was there, I observed that his eye was upon me, and I did not like the glance he gave me at all; I observed him clench his fist, and I took my departure as fast as I conveniently could. Whether he suspected who I was, I know not; but I did not like his look at all, and do ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... up to the King of the land he goes, And straight to make his plaint began; Then murmured loud the assembled crowd, And clench'd ...
— A Bibliography of the writings in Prose and Verse of George Henry Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... face, on his reappearance in London, had looked slightly paler, more set and determined, not unlike that of a man, who, strongly assailed, has made up his mind to do battle to the end. With whom? How many? He might put out his hand, clench it; the thin air made no answer. He regarded the shadows now; they seemed to wave around him, intangible, obscure. A dark day in town, the streets were oppressive; the people below passed like poorly done replicas ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... To clench the matter by chapter and verse, I should like to recall what, I have said of these theories and principles in their most perfect and most important literary version. How have I described Rousseau's Social Contract? It ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... moans when she was going away. When the door shut upon her he would cry and sob—whereupon Hester's face and manner, which was always exceedingly bland and gentle while her lady was present, would change at once, and she would make faces at him and clench her fist and scream out "Hold your tongue, you stoopid old fool," and twirl away his chair from the fire which he loved to look at—at which he would cry more. For this was all that was left after more than seventy years of cunning, and struggling, and drinking, and scheming, and ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... cold devil's fist, Still clench'd in malice impotent, Dost the creative power resist, The active, the beneficent! Henceforth some other task essay, Of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... And—Ulana was gone! She had slipped from his grasp in the coughing fit and he could not find her with his wildly searching hands. Another betraying cough over there. The green-bronze ones were between them. He saw one of them draw back in amazement, then clench his fingers and twist. ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... so much as smile at their insipid raillery. I see not why Persius should call upon Brutus to revenge him on his adversary; and that because he had killed Julius Caesar for endeavouring to be a king, therefore he should be desired to murder Rupilius, only because his name was Mr. King. A miserable clench, in my opinion, for Horace to record; I have heard honest Mr. Swan make many a better, and yet have had the grace to hold my countenance. But it may be puns were then in fashion, as they were wit in ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... evening falls, The walls grow luminous and warm, the walls Tremble and glow . . . the music breathes upon us, The rayed white shaft plays over our heads like magic, And to and fro we move and lean and change . . . You, in a world grown strange, Laugh at a darkness, clench your hands despairing, Smash your glass on a floor, no longer caring, Sink suddenly down and cry . . . You hear the applause that greets your latest rival, You are forgotten: your rival—who knows?—is I . . . I laugh in the warm bright light of answering laughter, I am inspired ...
— The House of Dust - A Symphony • Conrad Aiken
... yourself, reader. Hold out your left arm; clench the fist so as to harden the muscle a little, and write your name on the skin with a blunt pencil or any similar point, in letters say three-quarters of an inch long, pressing firmly enough to feel a little pain. Rub the ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... clearly the whole monstrous situation. It had taken time for it to fasten itself upon him. In a general way it had been clear to him a few moments before; now, detail by detail, it closed in upon him, and his muscles tightened, and Father Layonne saw his jaw set hard and his hands clench. Death was gone. But the mockery of it, the grim exultation of the thing over the colossal trick it had played, seemed to din an infernal laughter in his ears. But—he was going to live! That was the one fact that rose above all others. No matter what happened ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... hatred grew dark in the giant's face, and the stranger saw the big hands clench and the huge frame grow tense with passion. Then, as if striving to be not ungracious, the woodsman said in a somewhat softer tone, "You can't see much of it, this evening, though, 'count of the mists. It'll fair up by morning, I reckon. You ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... perpetrated. I see it, and it leaves me, perhaps, cold and unmoved. In such case, it is hardly expected of me that I should take energetic measures to have the evil-doer punished. The man whose face flushes, whose brows descend, whose teeth come together, whose fists clench, whose heart beats thickly, at the recognition of an insult, is, as a rule, the man from whom we look for vigorous efforts at retaliation. The apathetic creature who feels no resentment is usually expected to swallow the indignity. ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... embrace, and the little hand dared not take itself away. The fingers of his hand were trying to get between the delicate fingers of hers and take possession of it altogether. Hers resisted, trying to clench itself in the glove by way of refusal. All the time they went on walking, arm in arm, neither speaking nor looking, but much moved, resistance, according to the natural law, exciting the relative desire. At last came the surrender; the little hand opened, and their fingers ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... Joseph's humble bench Thy hands did handle saw and plane, Thy hammer nails did drive and clench, ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... slow movement of her breasts against his side. He would close his eyes and think of her lips on his, and her heart beating quickly while his thumped so loudly that it seemed that every one must hear it ... and thinking thus, he would clench his fists with futile force and swear to himself that he would go to her and make her marry him. Once, when he had spent an afternoon at the Zoo in the Phoenix Park, he had lingered for a long while in the house where the tigers are caged because, ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... lot of title for twopence. Day after day, as I fumbled among the old books in the Twopenny Bin of the little secondhand bookseller's shop, that volume would wriggle itself forward and worm its way into my hands; and I would clench my teeth and thrust it to the remotest depths ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various
... doomed to a speedy and degrading death by the same individuals who were now sitting in judgment upon him; and a shameful panic took possession of him. An uncontrollable shivering fit seized his frame, he was obliged to clench his teeth together, to prevent them from chattering audibly; he glanced wildly round him as if seeking for some means of escape; and, after two or three ineffectual efforts to speak, he managed to gasp out brokenly through his clenched ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... liar you are, Baltimore!" says his wife, turning to him with a sudden breaking out of all the pent-up passion within her. Involuntarily her hands clench themselves. She is pale no longer. A swift, hot flush has dyed her cheeks. Like an outraged, insulted queen, she holds him a moment with her eyes, then sweeps out ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... a man is lying to you, don't watch his face. Any poker-player can make his face a mask. Watch his hands. Ten to one, if he is lying, he'll clench them." ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... give you mah name, rank an' serial number, suh." Wims saw the colonel's face harden and his fist clench. Just then a burst of angry shouting and scuffling erupted in the corridor. Suddenly the door was flung open and half a dozen Chinese stormed into the room trailing a couple of protesting Russian guards. Two of the Chinese were civilian attaches ...
— I Was a Teen-Age Secret Weapon • Richard Sabia
... irritating, and they grew in depth and intensity as the afternoon wore on. They were painful at first, but their constant resurgence at last altogether upset my balance. I flung aside a crib of Horace I had been reading, and began to clench my fists, to bite my lips, and to pace the room. Presently I got to stopping my ears ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... own flesh and blood, Will silence envious tongues, and prove you wise For the next world as for this; will clear your name From calumnies which argue worldliness; Buy of itself the joys of paradise; And clench your lordship's interest ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... not I by that strong arm be slain, And lie by noble Hector on the plain, Or great Sarpedon, in those bloody fields Where Simois rolls the bodies and the shields Of heroes, whose dismember'd hands yet bear The dart aloft, and clench ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... islanders - singing a serenade under the window of his Shetland mistress - is conceived in the very highest manner of romantic invention. The words of his song, "Through groves of palm," sung in such a scene and by such a lover, clench, as in a nutshell, the emphatic contrast upon which the tale is built. IN GUY MANNERING, again, every incident is delightful to the imagination; and the scene when Harry Bertram lands at Ellangowan is a model instance ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that these were the gifts brought in from the far outlying districts by the commanding officers of the frontier posts. The majority of them were women, destined, I was told, for the harems of the emperor and his favorites. It made my old companion clench his fists to see those poor white women marching past to their horrid fates, and, though I shared his sentiments, I was as powerless to alter ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... to clench themselves upon the normality of her surroundings. But beneath that normality, that familiar solidity, her innate mysticism, her instinctive habit of foreboding, seemed to perceive a basis invisible yet similar—a solution, ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... the least sense of the 'fist'. It's funny. With most men there's the instinct to clench the fist and hit. It's not so with me. I should want a knife or a pistol or something ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... I was a little lad, I knew by instinct how to shield myself from the blow I saw descending: if I had nothing else, I had my two fists, and used them with all my force against my foe: no one taught me how to do it, on the contrary they beat me if they saw me clench my fists. And a knife, I remember, I never could resist: I clutched the thing whenever I caught sight of it: not a soul showed me how to hold it, only nature herself, I do aver. I did it, not because I was taught ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... never pass, where only come Wild beasts, and vultures sailing overhead. There, there thou liest now, my hapless child! Stretch'd among briars and stones, the slow, black gore Oozing through thy soak'd hunting-shirt, with limbs Yet stark from the death-struggle, tight-clench'd hands, And eyeballs staring for revenge in vain. Ah miserable! And thou, thou fair-skinn'd Serpent! thou art laid In a rich chamber, on a happy bed, In a king's house, thy victim's heritage; And ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... as the rank of the party might be, would add:—'You want orange? You want goat? Cheap! I got good, very. You send me you clothes; I wash with my own hand—clean! fine! very! I got every thing, plenty, great, much! God d—n!' And then, as if to clench the favourable opinion which these eloquent appeals had made, the speaker was sure to produce a handful of certificates from mates of Indiamen, masters of Yankee brigs, and middies of men-of-war; some written in solemn earnest, some quizzically, but all declaring his lordship, the bearer, to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 540, Saturday, March 31, 1832 • Various
... said Ulrica, stepping before the couch of Front-de-Boeuf; "she hath long drunken of this cup, and its bitterness is now sweetened to see that thou dost partake it.—Grind not thy teeth, Front-de-Boeuf—roll not thine eyes—clench not thine hand, nor shake it at me with that gesture of menace!—The hand which, like that of thy renowned ancestor who gained thy name, could have broken with one stroke the skull of a mountain-bull, is now unnerved and ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... her chair at the moment that Wentworth hurled himself upon Hedin. Her cry was drowned in the swift impact of bodies and the sound of blows, and grunts, and heavy breathing. McNabb and Cameron drew back and the bodies, locked in a clench, toppled to the floor, overturning ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... monarchs for the sake of a jest. Lewis XI. promoted a poor priest whom he found sleeping in the porch of a church, that the proverb might be verified, that to lucky men good fortune will come even when they are asleep! Our Henry VII. made a viceroy of Ireland if not for the sake of, at least with a clench. When the king was told that all Ireland could not rule the Earl of Kildare, he said, then shall this ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... warmed the contestants' blood. Now a cold wind penetrated through their woollens to the goose-flesh. It was impossible to judge of the effect of the shots, but both knew that the accuracy of their shooting was falling off. Clench his teeth as he would, hold his breath as steadfastly as he might, Alfred could not accomplish that steady, purposeful, unblinking pressure on the trigger so necessary to accuracy. In spite of himself, the rifle jerked ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... was closed and to his narrow cell Bearing his supper, every prisoner went, The night-lock firmly clench'd, beside some grate While the large lamp thro' the long corridors Threw flickering light, the Chaplain often stood Conversing. Of the criminal's past life He made inquiry, and receiv'd replies Foreign from truth, or vague and taciturn: And added pious ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... men about the base of the framework that still partly veiled the Platform. They tended to face outward, angrily, and to clench their fists. ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... voice he turned. His eyes looked at her out of such a depth of misery as pierced her to the heart. She saw his hands clench against his sides. "O my God!" he said under ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... trying not to clench a muscle, seeking to force his surrender to inanition; but he could not get sleep though he implored his soul for it, prayed ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... devil's fist Still clench'd in malice impotent Dost the creative power resist, The active, the beneficent! Henceforth some other task essay, Of Chaos thou ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... and Miss Prothero, Glanyravon, and Sir John Simpson. This was quite enough. He seized the paper with an oath, crumpled it up, and thrust it into the fire, and gave Owen such a violent blow on the back with his fist, that the young man's first impulse was to start up and clench his in return; however, his flush of passion cooled in a moment, and ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... pierced altogether, Like tenter-hooks holding when clench'd from within, And the maids cried—"Good gracious! how very tenacious!" —They as well might endeavor to pull off ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... glass, "O king!—king by name, and not in fact;—phantom, vain phantom art thou!—inert statue, which has no other power than that of provoking salutations from courtiers, when wilt thou be able to raise thy velvet arm, or clench thy silken hand? when wilt thou be able to open, for any purpose but to sigh, or smile, lips condemned to the motionless stupidity of the marbles ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... man situated as Fulton was, some definite plan of action is necessary; and to my mind the one that would be best would be one in which the least possible consideration for the woman should be shown. When Lucy began to play clench-dummy with her own life, with her husband's love, and with the institution of marriage, Fulton, I think, would have made no mistake if he had stripped her to the skin and taken a ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... him all doors and all ears? Was it not in her marvellous marble music-room—one of the boasts of Chicago—that he had mentally seen himself enthroned as the lord of the feast? And instead of these Olympian visions, lo! a typewritten note to clench his fist over—a note from a secretary regretting that the state of Mrs. Wilhammer's health forbade the pleasure of receiving a maestro with such ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... easing of the strain were the wheels of Chiawassee Consolidated oiled to their new whirlings on the road to fortune. If Caleb Gordon remembered how the miracle had been wrought, he said no word to clench his disapproval; and as for Tom—ah, well; it was not the first time in the history of the race that the end has served to justify the means—to make them clean and white ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... mistake—reflect seriously upon the many lesser instances which you had begun to perceive, in proof of your friend's disaffection towards you. None of them singly was much to the purpose, but the aggregate weight is positive; and you have this last affront to clench them. Thus far the process is any thing but agreeable. But now to your relief comes in the comparative faculty. You conjure up all the kind feelings you have had for your friend; what you have been to him, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... speech of some length. He replied, but with an evident misunderstanding of my ideas upon the subject. I accordingly grew angry, and told him in plain words, that he was a fool, that he had committed an ignoramus e-clench-eye, that his notions were mere insommary Bovis, and his words little better than an ennemywerrybor'em. With this he appeared satisfied, and ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... moments—when you hardly felt the ache. But other times—evenings and Sundays—it came back sharper than ever. And in the course of those weeks he had learnt a number of things not included in the school curriculum. He had learnt that it was better to clench your teeth and not cry out when your ears were tweaked or your arm twisted, or an unexpected pin stuck into the soft part of your leg. But, inside him, there burned a fire of rage and hate unsuspected by his tormentors. It was ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... heart celestial ardor flings, And showers affection from his sparkling wings; 470 Rolls o'er the world his mild benignant eye, Hears the lone murmur, drinks the whisper'd sigh; Lifts the closed latch of pale Misfortune's door, Opes the clench'd hand of Avarice to the poor, Unbars the prison, liberates the slave, Sheds his soft sorrows o'er the untimely grave, Points with uplifted hand to realms above, And charms the ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... vast majority of the negroes had no chance, but Farquhar pressed the point that Peter himself disproved his own statement. At the time Peter felt there was an clench in the Illinoisan's logic, but he was not skilful enough to analyze it. Now the mulatto began to see that Farquhar was right. The negro question was a matter of individual initiative. Critics forgot that a race was composed ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... upon me: But if they happen'd to ridicule Father, whenever on Sundays Out of church he came with his slow deliberate footsteps, If they laugh'd at the strings of his cap, and his dressing-gown's flowers, Which he in stately wise wore, and to-day at length has discarded, Then in a fury I clench'd my fist, and, storming and raging, Fell upon them and hit and struck with terrible onslaught, Heedless where my blows fell. With bleeding noses they halloed, And could scarcely escape from the force of my blows and my kicking. Then, as in years I advanced, I had much ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... Marden thought he heard a curious sort of noise from the gate. West appeared to have heard nothing; but I have no doubt that it was the sound of the constable's fall. West's pipe had gone out, and he struck a match to relight it. As he did so, Marden saw him drop the match, clench both fists, and with eyes glaring in the moonlight and his teeth coming together with a snap, ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... care that the rosy little homunculus seemed to require, so strenuously did he clench his fists, and bawl as though he were minded to challenge the ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... we not have given to join them in their brave, hopeless task! But to lie inglorious beneath showers of shrapnel darting divergent from the unassailable sky—meekly to be blown out of life by level gusts of grape—to clench our teeth and shrink helpless before big shot pushing noisily through the consenting air—this was horrible! "Lie down, there!" a captain would shout, and then get up himself to see that his order ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... I let my hand clench on hers. "Take me to husband then, and I will be a good man to you. But, as I am bidden speak to Phorenice the woman now, and not to the Empress, I offer fair warning that I ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... is worse than that. It is that you turn your back upon Him. It is not that His hand is laid on yours, and yours remains dead and cold, and does not open to clasp it; but it is that His hand being laid on yours, you clench yours the tighter, and will not have it. And so every man (I believe) who rejects Christ does these things thereby—wounds his own conscience, hardens his own heart, makes himself a worse man, just because he has had a glimpse, and has willingly, and almost consciously, 'loved darkness ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... voice as ever, with only a slight sarcastic inflection to vary the deep, grave tones; but a very close observer might have seen his fingers clench the handle of a knife while he was speaking, as if their gripe would have ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... apprehensions, strange anticipations, strange remembrances. He had never, from the day of his birth, been known to cry. When he was frightened or distressed the colour would pass slowly from his cheeks, and strange little gasping breaths would come from him; his body would stiffen and his hands clench. If he was angry the colour in his face would darken and his eyes half close, and it was then that he did, indeed, seem in the possession of some disastrous thraldom—but he was angry very seldom, and only with certain people; for the most part he ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... another epoch was closed. It was with relief that he felt that he would never see the hospital again or any of the people in it. He thought of Chrisfield. It was weeks and weeks since Chrisfield had come to his mind at all. Now it was with a sudden clench of affection that the Indiana boy's face rose up before him. An oval, heavily-tanned face with a little of childish roundness about it yet, with black eyebrows and long black eyelashes. But he did not even know if Chrisfield were still alive. Furious joy took possession ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... brutal disposition, and his mortal foes. They would have scalped him on sight. If his sister was their captive, her lot was hard indeed; and the very thought of such a fate caused the cibolero to start up with a shudder, and clench his hands in a ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... now the dark was worn, and overhead The lights of sunset and of sunrise mix'd In that brief night; the summer night, that paused Among her stars to hear us; stars that hung Love-charm'd to listen: all the wheels of Time Spun round in station, but the end had come. O then like those, who clench [4] their nerves to rush Upon their dissolution, we two rose, There-closing like an individual life— In one blind cry of passion and of pain, Like bitter accusation ev'n to death, Caught up the whole of love and utter'd it, And bade adieu ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... unshutter'd lattice; but, in vain, Thy chirp repeated earnestly; the flap, Against the 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 ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... the flying train, with their hair unbraided and their garters ungyved,—not a negro left to till the fields, nor a son or brother who had not travelled to the wars. They must be now hewers of wood, and drawers of water, and the fingers whereon diamonds used to sparkle, must clench the axe and ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... its poison"—one could pray That the day's end might see the madness done And saner souls rise with the morrow's sun. But this incarnate hell that yawns before Your bright, brave soul keyed to the fighter's clench— This purgatory that men call the "trench"— This modern "Black Hole" of a modern war! Yea, Love! yet naught I say can save you, so I lay my heart in yours and let ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... want to go to bed yet!" in a strange, choked voice, and the next moment Aimee saw her hands clench themselves and her whole frame begin to shake. "Shut the door and lock it," she said, wildly. "I can't stop myself. Give me some sal volatile. I can't breathe." And such a fit of suffocating sobbing came upon her that she ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... his first cruise, except for practice runs at the Academy! Yet his rating called him an experienced man on the Polaris run. He'd had the Lhari training tape, which was supposed to condition his responses, but would it? He tried to clench his fists, drove a claw into his palm, winced, and commanded himself to stay calm and keep his mind ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... flushing, and his fists began to clench. "But I say, Serge, I should like to, but I'm a bit tired, and ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... gladness. But under your dear influence I gradually forgot how tears came. You almost never cried; and what a good baby you were—oh, a blessed baby!—and I tried to repay you by not worrying you with too many kisses, with too much loving, which I'm sure is not good for a child. Sometimes I had to clench my hands, so strong was my desire to take you up and clasp you tight. Then how quickly you began to grow; and before long my letters and intimate conversation began to be filled with what "Rob said this morning;" and you did say such delightful things! I never knew so naively witty a child! And soon ...
— The Smart Set - Correspondence & Conversations • Clyde Fitch
... right hand over right hip, clench the left fist, raise it slowly, drawing the deep breath, and bending the body to the right as far as possible. Relax, expel breath. Now repeat with the left hand placed over the left ...
— Supreme Personality • Delmer Eugene Croft
... at a blow, and she saw his hands clench. In the silence that followed she stood waiting for the storm to burst, waiting for his savagery to tear asunder all restraining bonds and leap forth in devilish fury. But—by what means she knew not—he ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... came to him: he began to put on gloves, fine, white kid gloves. Then he tried to clench his fist in them without ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... enemy and wipe out all other thoughts, and he would wrestle in his heart with the desire to kill Wainwright—yes, and the captain, too. As some poor wretch near him would writhe and groan in agony his rage would boil up anew, his fists would clench, and he would half rise to go to the door and overpower that guard! If only he could get up to where the officers were enjoying themselves! Oh, to bring them down here and bind them in this loathsome atmosphere, feed them ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... credulous debasing attachment, and to such an object! He might well avoid her! His sister had always bantered her on what had seemed too absurd to be rebutted, and, at any rate, this fainting fit would clench his belief. No doubt he believed it. And if he did, why should not every one else whose opinion she cared for: Ermine, her Colonel, even gentle Fanny—no, she would never believe any harm, she had suffered too ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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 clench; the long envenomed chain Rivets the living links,—the enormous asp Enforces pang on pang, and stifles ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... went to anoint his hands with the oil of extreme unction, he refused to open his right hand, which clutched a few dirty coins, not considering that very soon neither his hand nor he himself would be his own any more. And so we close and clench, not our hand, but our heart, seeking to ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... front, eyes blinking independently, my uncle is superb. Or when he raises his hat with a large, outward gesture of his arm, bowing slightly from the shoulders, in affable salutation. Or most of all, when his fists clench, his jaws display big nervous knots, his eyes gleam with hard blue light in wrath over some palpable iniquity, some base cowardice, some outrageous act ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... effect was startling and grotesque. As a galvanic current applied to the proper nerves and muscles of a dead body will produce expressions and actions resembling those of life, so the touch of Lefevre's finger made the unconscious young man scowl or smile or clench his fist according ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban
... very heavy, and in a wrestling bout with the strong and wiry girl he sometimes came out second best. It spoke well of him that he seemed to be careful not to hurt Bo. He never bit or scratched, though he sometimes gave her sounding slaps with his paws. Whereupon, Bo would clench her gauntleted fists and ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... never said much to me, but he was never harsh to me. I suppose we were company to each other, without talking. I forgot to mention that he would talk to himself sometimes, and grin, and clench his fist, and grind his teeth, and pull his hair in an unaccountable manner. But he had these peculiarities: and at first they frightened me, though I soon got used ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... son was one that fell in the action. Though we defended ourselves, and repulsed the enemy, yet this unhappy affair scattered our cattle, brought us into extreme difficulty, and so discouraged the whole company, that we retreated forty miles, to the settlement on Clench river. We had passed over two mountains, viz. Powel's and Walden's, and were approaching Cumberland mountain when this adverse fortune overtook us. These mountains are in the wilderness, as we pass from the old settlements in Virginia to Kentucke, are ranged ...
— The Adventures of Colonel Daniel Boone • John Filson |
