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Cling to   /klɪŋ tu/   Listen
Cling to

verb
1.
Hold firmly, usually with one's hands.  Synonyms: clutch, hold close, hold tight.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Cling to" Quotes from Famous Books



... out of doors, set him struggling astride his mule which was cropping the grass, and struck that sagacious animal a blow upon her quarters which sent her galloping along the Barnesville Road at a pace which caused her rider to cling to her neck and body with arms and legs, in which inconvenient posture he remained, unable to recover himself, for a distance of at least ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... come out of it, into the contemplation of that paradise which the living never see. God willed, no doubt, to open to this elect the treasures of eternal beatitude, at the hour when other men tremble with the idea of being severely received by the Lord, and cling to this life they know, in the dread of the other life of which they get a glimpse by the dismal, murky torches of death. Athos was guided by the pure and serene soul of his son, which aspired to be like the paternal soul. Everything for this just man was melody and perfume in the rough road which ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... assured me that in his collection there were several franks of father and son hardly distinguishable except by their dates. Hofacker, in Germany, remarks on the inheritance of handwriting; and it has even been asserted that English boys when taught to write in France naturally cling to their English manner of writing.[8] Gait, gestures, voice, and general bearing are all inherited, as the illustrious Hunter and Sir A. Carlisle have insisted.[9] My father communicated to me two or three striking instances, in one of which a man died during the early infancy ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin

... "If he still cling to you faithfully, I will never forget it. I will forget only all that now makes me doubt him. But you talk of not living, Audley! Pooh! your frame is that of ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... cling to his free arm for a moment speechless. Then she lifted her face, her voice ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce

... from the nave with white faces, each seeking his own place, or any other that was far from Blythburgh Manor. For did not their dead master's guilt cling to them, and would they not also be held guilty of the murder of the King's officer, and swing for it from the gallows? So it came about that when at last lights were brought ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard

... peculiar quality in the mind of cats is the intense way in which they cling to a well-known locality. Their memory of places, and affection for them, if we may so term it, is evidently far greater than that which they feel for people. Some years ago I had an interesting exhibition ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler

... Pull for the shore, sailor, pull for the shore! Heed not the rolling waves, but bend to the oar; Safe in the life-boat, sailor, cling to self no more! Leave the poor old stranded wreck, and pull ...
— Moody's Anecdotes And Illustrations - Related in his Revival Work by the Great Evangilist • Dwight L. Moody

... he said. "Doomed as I am, degraded as I am, you are mine; you cannot escape me. Cling to your ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... just as before in the days of slavery; but we only partially succeeded. We began to train colored men for the ministry; we built Churches for them; we admitted them to our Diocesan Councils on equal terms; and we strove manfully to cling to the Catholic idea: one Church for all peoples ...
— Church work among the Negroes in the South - The Hale Memorial Sermon No. 2 • Robert Strange

... The sunshine, which it would seem would have been welcome, only added to our misery. The dazzling reflection made it very trying to our eyes, while its heat melted our frozen clothing and made it cling to our bodies. Jim was too small to step in the tracks made by the men, and to walk at all he had to place his knee on the little hill of snow after each step, and climb over it. Mother and I coaxed him along by telling him that every step he took ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... dressed man with no support. But Lord Torrington had a life buoy, guaranteed by its maker to keep two men safely afloat. He had a strong wind behind him and a tide drifting him down towards the island. The water was not cold. He realised that all that was absolutely necessary was to cling to the life buoy, but that he might, if he liked, slightly accelerate his progress ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham

... to Beth's waist. She had to turn and cling to him to keep her footing. She hid her face on his shoulder, and they stood so some time. The water rose above her waist. Alfred was head and shoulders taller than she was. He realised that she would be ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... his honours and slipped out one day to the sun-baked highway with nothing but an ochre-coloured garment and a beggar's bowl. I always envied that man. Not that I could rise to such Oriental heights. The beggar's bowl wouldn't do for me. I cling to my comforts: also, I am sure Sir Purun Dass left himself no loophole whereby he might slip back to his official position whereas I——-Well, the Politician thinks I have gone for a three months' rest cure, and at sixty one is not impatient. You will say, 'How like Pam!' ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)

... acquaintance with her on the streets; she received many gifts, flowers, fruit, jewelry, and all the other tempting sweet nothings which it is thought bewitch the heart of frail woman. But they had no effect upon her. Only goodness seemed to cling to her, and evil fell far off from her. You may set two plants side by side in the same soil—one will draw only bitterness and poison from the earth; while the other will gather, from the same nurture, nothing but sweetness ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly

... a voluminous night-cap. I remember that, at the swimming school, fat girls always floated best, and in an instant my plan is laid. At the first alarm I firmly attach myself to the plump lady, and cling to her through fire and water; for I feel that my old enemy, the cramp, will seize me by the foot, if I attempt to swim; and, though I can hardly expect to reach Jersey City with myself and my baggage in as good condition as I hoped, I might manage to get picked up by holding to my fat ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott

... of the lily tribe show a preference for the rule of three in the arrangements of their floral parts, so the wild roses cling to the quinary method of some primitive ancestor, a favorite one also with the buttercup and many of its kin, the geraniums, mallows, and various others. Most of our fruit trees and bushes are near relatives ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al

... He is an out-and-out immediate emancipationist,—believes that is the only way to break the strength of the South; that the black man is the life of the South; that they dread work above all things, and cling to the slave as the drudge that makes life tolerable to them. I do not know if his opinion is ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns

... the matter in this wise: I have promised my Queen, let us say, that for forty days the cunningest rogue in all England shall have freedom to come and go; but, lo! I find this outlaw in my grasp; shall I, then, foolishly cling to a promise so hastily given? Suppose that I had promised to do Her Majesty's bidding, whereupon she bade me to slay myself; should I, then, shut mine eyes and run blindly upon my sword? Thus would I argue within myself. Moreover, I would say unto myself, a woman knoweth nought ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle

... Edition I under-estimated the bias of Prussian and North-German writers. Where I have seen reasons to alter any statements, I have done so without reserve, as it appears to me childish for any one who attempts to write history to cling to an opinion after the balance of evidence seems to be against it. The publication of the second volume of this work has been delayed by the revision of the first; but I hope that it will appear before many months more. I must express my obligations ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... deluding influence of friendship and gratitude. We all know how unwilling we are to admit the truth of any disgraceful story about a person whose society we like, and from whom we have received favours; how long we struggle against evidence, how fondly, when the facts cannot be disputed, we cling to the hope that there may be some explanation or some extenuating circumstance with which we are unacquainted. Just such is the feeling which a man of liberal education naturally entertains towards the great minds of former ages. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... "Cling to the wall, Bull-dog," shouted Houston, at the same time seizing a projecting ledge with a vise-like grip, and swinging himself upward, where he hung by his hands and wrists. It was a horrible position, but his powerful, athletic ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour

... wavered—dimmed—then the generator was once more humming smoothly—working on the atmosphere of Venus! In a moment the power units were again operating, and now as they sucked a plentitude of power from the surrounding air, they produced a force that made the men cling to their holds with almost frantic force. Around them the rapidly increasing density of the air made the whine grow to a roar; the temperature within the ship rose slowly, warmed by friction with the air, despite the extreme cold ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell

... many lady mice who had followed the rats, and the rats therefore thought them very nice, but in spite of that would not let them have any place on the ship, so that they were forced to cling to a few planks and were every now and then overwhelmed by the waves. But when the mice begged to be taken on board saying, "Save us also, we beg you!" The rats only replied, "We are too crowded already; ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... success, or grieve if things went ill with him. Clarence and I had promised him long home letters, and impressed on him that we should welcome his intelligence of himself. For verily he had made his way into our hearts, as a thoroughly good-hearted, affectionate being, yearning for something to cling to; intelligent and refined, though his recent cultivation had been restricted, soundly principled, and trained in religious feelings and habits, but so utterly inexperienced that there was no guessing how it ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge

... beard is a grizzled four days' stubble. He is exceedingly haggard and worn, but has the face and look of a man of refinement and cultivation. He has lost his hat; his shoes and trousers are splashed with dried mud, and brambles cling to him here and there. He wears a soiled white shirt and collar, and a torn black tie, black waistcoat and trousers. He is covered with dust from head to foot; one sleeve of his shirt has been torn off at the ...
— The Man from Home • Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson

... been buried when Potts came to take us away. He insisted that we should leave the country, and offered to pay our way to America. We were all indifferent: we were paralyzed by grief. The alms- house was not a place that we could cling to, so we let ourselves drift, and allowed Potts to send us wherever he wished. We did not even hope for any thing better. We only hoped that somewhere or other we might all die. What else could we do? What else could I do? There was no friend to whom I could look: and if I ever thought of any ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille

... a Catholic priest into General Sherman's chamber to administer the rite of extreme unction to the sick man, in the nature of a claim that he was a Catholic. It is well known that his children have been reared by their mother, a devoted Catholic, in her faith, and now cling to it. It is equally well known that General Sherman and myself, as well as all my mother's children, are, by inheritance, education, and connection, Christians, but not Catholics, and this has been openly avowed, on ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... impertinently. We dare not contemplate an Atlantis, a scheme out of which our coxcombical moral sense is for a little transitory ease excluded. We have not the courage to imagine a state of things for which there is neither reward nor punishment. We cling to the painful necessities of shame and blame. We would indict our ...
— English literary criticism • Various

... devices, follow her, and my love for her only grows—but there are times when such thoughts are succeeded by a void so great that my whole life seems slipping away into it. It is then I need some one to cling to—. Oh, Mathilde, you have meant very much to me at times like that. (Goes up ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson

... running, and the wind had somewhat gone down. The thoughts of my wife still kept me up, and made me resolve to struggle to the last for life, but I was growing weaker and weaker. At length I fell off into a kind of stupor, though I still retained sufficient sense to cling to ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston

... I the wife of a drunken man I do not think there is any depth of degradation that I would not fathom with my love and pity in trying to save him. I believe I would cling to him, if even his own mother shrank from him. But I never would consent to [marry any man?], whom I knew to be un[?]steady in his principles and a moderate drinker. If his love for me and respect for himself were not strong enough to reform ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

... I had so recently gazed upon and the abyss now yawning at my feet! But so it is in the Court and the world! I felt then the nothingness of even the most desirable future, by an inward sentiment, which, nevertheless, indicates how we cling to it. Fear on account of the contents of the casket had scarcely any power over me. I was obliged to reflect in order to return to it from time to time. Regret for this incomparable Dauphin pierced my heart, and suspended all the ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... delicious task, the fervent bees In swarming millions tend: around, athwart, Through the soft air the busy nations fly, Cling to the bud, and with inserted tube, Suck its pure essence, its etherial ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth

... degradation and suffering to one of respectability and happiness. Can it, then, be justifiable, on account of any vague fears of we know not what evils, to reject this just, salutary and hitherto uninjurious measure; and to cling to a system which we know, by certain experience, is producing crime, misery and death, during every ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child

... dine with me, as Pomponia was dining out. He gave me your letter to read, which he had received shortly before—a truly Aristophanic mixture of jest and earnest, with which I was greatly charmed.[630] He gave me also your second letter, in which you bid him cling to my side as a mentor. How delighted he was with those letters! And so was I. Nothing could be more attractive than that boy, nothing more affectionate to me!—This, to explain its being in another handwriting, I dictated to Tiro ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... are lost in course of Pasteurization, since at the temperature necessary for the process they are transmuted by heat into insoluble elements, (phosphate and carbonate of lime) which, precipitated by chemical action, either drop to the bottom in sediment or cling to the surface coating and, in either case, are eliminated and lost to the child to an extent which constitutes a serious deterioration in its food and one likely in any case to promote rickets. Milk also contains important constituents which change ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann

... I cannot help it. If the wildest tempest were blowing about this hilltop, a leaf upon this tree might strive and strive to cling to the bough, to remain with its larger self—yet would it be twisted off and carried whither the wind willed! My passion is that tempest and ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... was seen, was dying. Nothing more was to be done. Her mariners could only cling to her like bees to comb. We got the two boats clear and there was the boat of the Nina. Missioned by the Admiral, Juan Lepe got somehow into cabin, together with Sancho and Luis Torres, and we collected maps and charts, log, ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston

... to make spills for you. Before you begin to smoke, scatter these about the fireplace. Then you will be able to reach them without rising. The irritating fire is the one that has burned low—when the coals are more than half cinders, and cling to each other in fear of death. With such a fire it is no use attempting to light a pipe all at once. Your better course now is to drop little bits of paper into the likely places in the fire, and have a spill ready to apply to the one that ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie

... holding this State back from real progress. I'm not discussing the liquor question alone. I haven't patience to discuss it with you. I'm referring to the spirit that actuates you. Your kind sat as judges in the Inquisition. Prohibition now offers an opportunity for your bigotry—that's why you cling to it. You cling to it in spite of the fact that it has made more than drunkards—it has made liars and thieves and perjurers and grafters out of men who would not otherwise have been tempted. When men arise ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day

... that man was born a poet, his mind a chamber of imagery, his world a gallery of art. Despite his utmost efforts, he can in nowise strip his thought of the flowers and fruits that cling to it, withered though they often are. As a fact, he has ever been a citizen of two worlds, using the scenery of the visible to make vivid the realities of the world Unseen. What wonder, then, that trees grew ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton

... storm, tossed about by the waves, and vainly striving to cling to the rocks, the soldier had only seen Gabriel very imperfectly, at the moment when, having snatched the sisters from certain death, the young priest had fruitlessly endeavored to come to his aid. And when, after the shipwreck, Dagobert had found the orphans in safety beneath ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... American life allowed only for the rule. If you couldn't conform to the rule, you were guyed and tormented and ejected. Among all his associates she alone knew what he suffered, and because she knew it a vast pity made her cling to him. He had forced himself into the life of clubs, into the life of society, into the life of other men as other men lived their lives, and the effect on him had been so nearly ruinous that it was no wonder if he was always on the edge of nervous explosion. His very wealth which ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King

... same sort may also happen with a monkey. Although it is usually cowardly enough to let itself fall a dead weight as soon as it is touched (so breaking all its bones) it may by chance cling to the bough upon which the Sakai shot it, but if the arrow itself does not succeed in killing it, the poison never fails to do so and nothing can save it from the fatal effect. The monkey holds on convulsively ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti

... try to understand what are the charms that have grown with her growth. There was a day when in herself Oxford was unlovely to behold, and when romance had not begun to cling to her like some beautiful diaphanous robe. It is possible to imagine a low-lying cluster of wooden houses forming narrow streets, and occupying the land between the Cherwell and the Isis, nearly a thousand ...
— Oxford • Frederick Douglas How

... and his heart; Lucia held him by his senses, his heart, his intellect, his will, by his spirit, by his genius, by the whole man. Long after his senses had renounced their part in her, the rest of him would cling to her, satisfied and appeased. And but for Flossie it would have been so even now. Though his senses had rest in Lucia's presence, their longing for her was reawakened, not only by the thought of his approaching marriage, but by the memory of that one moment when he had realized the ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... I left it, there is any likelihood of the Stony Desert changing its direction so much as to form any connection with the sandy basin to which I have alluded. Nevertheless it may do so. We naturally cling to the ideas we ourselves have adopted, and it is difficult to transfer them to the mind of another. In reference however to what I had previously stated, I would give the following quotation from Flinders. ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt

... tremendous effort? What do I gain by it? And all these others, none of whom, forsooth, praise life as so glorious and desirable a joy, what induces them to cling to it so frantically at the cost of so much pain ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden

... nothing for it then but to attack the roof with the ax, which Alec had managed to cling to through all his climbing. Hugh snatched the implement from the hands of his churn, and went at it. The ax bit into the roof with each hearty blow, and Hugh worked like a beaver, knowing that there was constant danger they ...
— The Boy Scouts with the Motion Picture Players • Robert Shaler

... courage as a rule of life, and something to cling to always. I began to build up this enormous faith in myself. I began to see that in all my idols in the past some manifestation of courage had unconsciously been the thing that attracted me. I began separating courage from the other things of life. All sorts of courage—the beaten, bloody prize-fighter ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... is, indeed, willing to show "charity" for the belief "that the authority of the right is in some way connected with God"; but it is the charity that may be extended to an exploded superstition on account of certain beneficent associations that cling to it. "If by the term 'God,'" he says,[2] "was meant simply the reason and nature of things, it might perhaps be freely used; but the word means something else to most persons"—and therefore the honest ethicist will not employ it. For this sensible and candid course we cannot but feel thankful; ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer

... there was greater beauty ahead. She beheld a lovely avenue formed of orange trees and red and white oleanders trimmed to a perfect archway. The winter had been a mild one. Not only did luscious ripe oranges cling to the trees, but green fruit was forming, and there was, also, a wealth of fragrant blossoms. The oleanders, too, ...
— A Little Florida Lady • Dorothy C. Paine

... Edward, "till we see all this with our eyes, we will look upon the formula as an analogy, out of which we can devise a lesson for immediate use. You stand for A, Charlotte, and I am your B; really and truly I cling to you, I depend on you, and follow you, just as B does with A. C is obviously the Captain, who at present is in some degree withdrawing me from you. So now it is only just that if you are not to be left to solitude a D should be found for you, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... such a paroxysm of rolling that, in a single instant, everything on the berth-deck—pots, kids, sailors, pieces of beef, bread-bags, clothes-bags, and barges—were tossed indiscriminately from side to side. It was impossible to stay one's self; there was nothing but the bare deck to cling to, which was slippery with the contents of the kids, and heaving under us as if there were a volcano in the frigate's hold. While we were yet sliding in uproarious crowds—all seated—the windows of the deck opened, and floods of brine descended, simultaneously ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... mischief. He died the day we moved to this house, and it hurts even now when I think of how I was kept from caring for him the last day of his short life. And he wanted to be with me, too, for when I put him in his box he would cling to my fingers and try to get back to me. It is such a pity that we ever cracked his nuts. His lower teeth had grown to perfect little tusks that had bored a hole in the roof of his mouth. As soon as that was discovered, we had them cut ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe

... since been dispelled, but they probably still cling to the idea of the great exhaustion ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle

... the bitter experience which Germany went through under the anarchy of feudalism and petty governments, lasting to well within living memory, which by a natural reaction has led the German people, under Prussian tutelage, to cling to the conception of the State as Power and ...
— Progress and History • Various

... men who cling to them, must take themselves out of the way as the new generation with its fresh thoughts and altered habits of mind comes forward to take the place of that which is dying out. This was a truth which the fiery old theorist found it very hard ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... worthy of the land. There will be found little of such frippery with them. Old furniture, well-preserved, useful in everything, mark the well-ordered arrangement of their rooms, and give an air of quietude, of comfort, and of hospitality to their apartments. Children cling to such objects in after life, as heir-looms of affection and ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen

... we artists, painters of portraits and landscapes, builders and decorators of houses, pianists, singers, fiddlers, and, quite as really though less obviously, writers, are all of us indirectly helping to keep up the greed which makes the privileged and possessing classes cling to their monopolies and accumulate their possessions. Bitter to realise that, disinterested as we must mostly be (for good artistic work means talent, talent preference, and preference disinterestedness), we are, as Ruskin has already told us, but ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee

... hath the wings of the eagle bold, Cling to him strongly— What if the look of the world be cold, And life go wrongly? Rest on his pinions, for broad is their fold; Love hath the wings of the ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... infant. Although his mother had so often spoken of him, he had scarcely been a reality to Gregory; for when he became old enough to comprehend the matter, it seemed to him certain that his father must have been killed. He could, then, hardly understand how his mother could cling to hope. ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty

... falls a victim to a kind of nostalgia; he regrets the many sights to be seen for nothing in Paris. The isolation, the darkened days, the suffering that affects the mind and spirits even more than the body, the emptiness of the life,—all these things tend to induce him to cling to the human being who waits on him as a drowned man clings to a plank; and this especially if the bachelor patient's character is as weak as his nature ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... and quicker to learn than human babies; for when he is only two days old he is able to cling to his mother, so that she can carry him with her on her hunting trips. If he becomes too noisy from sheer delight when she is travelling through the forest with him, she slaps him, in an attempt to quiet him, lest ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon

... been called a microcosm, or little world. And such, however mean and contemptible to others, is man to himself; nay, such he must ever be, whether he wills it or not. He may hate, he may despise, yet he cannot but cling to that without which he is not; he is the centre and the circle, be it of pleasure or of pain; nor can he be other. Touch him with misery, and he becomes paramount to the whole world,—to a thousand worlds; for the beauty and the glory of the universe are as nothing to ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston

... to recognise that his proper place was by Sylvia's side. Perhaps he ought to have told her at first, and then she would have been less unprepared for this—and yet how could he trouble her mind so long as he could cling to the hope that the Jinnee would ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey

... beautiful eyes were full of anxiety. There was about her manner a nervousness which I had never before noticed. Her cheeks were paler, and with these indications of emotion, something of the mystery which had seemed to me always to cling to her personality had departed. ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... Huns, even at the risk of being unjust to the real Huns. And let us send as many of them to the trenches as we can possibly induce to go, in the hope that they may presently join the lists of the missing. Still, as they rather cling to our soil, they will have to be reckoned with when the settlement comes. But they will not count for much then. Most of them will be heartily ashamed of what they said in those first three or four weeks of blue funk (I am too timid myself not ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various

... which the boy had felt when he was up in the air, was gone, and in his misery he looked around for his travelling companions. He had no one but them to cling to now. ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof

... will have to deliver the message; it is hardly possible that she should not, as my uncle has done, believe me to be guilty. Still, I do cling to the possibility of it. That is why I hesitate in giving you the commission, for if it fails I shall lose my last pleasant thought of home. If you find she has believed in me, write to me at Sacramento, ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty

... shrouded face was hidden under the coffin-lid and carried away to Greenfield Hill. Pitiful whisper! happily all-unmeaning to the child, but full of desolation to the mother, floating with but one tiny plank amid the wild wrecks of a midnight ocean, and clinging as only the desperate can cling to this ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... us! save us!" gasped Polly, losing her presence of mind, and dropping the reins to cling to her brother, with a woman's instinctive ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott

... seem to be my leg. I wasn't frightened, I felt absolutely nothing, I was amazed. I slipped, tried to get a hold on the tree trunk, felt myself being hauled down, and then got my arm about the branch. I still clung to my unloaded gun as an impoverished aristocrat might cling to his patent of nobility. That was, I felt, my ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells

... the church. That is to say, throw away your brains—put out your eyes. The Infidels will thank you. They are willing to adopt your exiles. Every deserter from your camp is a recruit for the army of progress. Cling to the ignorant dogmas of the past; read the 109th Psalm; gloat over the slaughter of mothers and babes; thank God for total depravity; shower your honors upon hypocrites, and silence every minister who is touched with that heresy ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll

... with appalling distinctness. An empty cash-box, closed doors, notes protested, ruin, are the phantoms he saw whichever way he turned. And when, on top of all the rest, came the thought of Sidonie's treachery, the wretched, desperate man, finding nothing to cling to in that shipwreck, suddenly uttered a sob, a cry of agony, as if appealing for help to ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet

... time she resisted the evidence which her own sensations might have afforded her and avoided asking any questions which might enlighten her. She was determined not to die, and, even in a case so awfully serious and real as this, people seem to cling to the persuasion so prevailing in lighter circumstances, that because a thing shan't be, it won't be, and because they are determined it is not, it is not. So, for many days, Mrs. Saunders went on, exceedingly angry if every body did not say she was getting better, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... still and I saw the girl had on low shoes and a shabby coat which had once been showy. On one side of her hat was a red bird, battered and bruised, and at this comic effort at dressiness, which poor people cling to with such pathetic persistence, I smiled, and then in alarm leaned closer ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher

... pitifully hard to remember, and is so sweet and brave we are all devoted to her. I always stop and talk to her when I go by her. She seems to cling to me, rather, as if I could help her get things back. Lord knows I wish I could. She is too dainty and fragile a morsel of humanity to be left to fight such a thing alone. She is a regular little Dresden shepherdess, with the tiniest feet and hands and the yellowest hair ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper

... Upon them you concentrate your attention. They are presented to your consciousness with greater precision and clearness than other facts. All facts that pertain to the art of flying henceforth cluster and cling to your conscious memory like iron filings to a magnet. All that are impertinent to this main pursuit are dissociated from these intensely active complexes, and in time fade ...
— The Trained Memory • Warren Hilton

... a reminder of the lighted boats sent down-stream in Japan to bear away the souls of the dead, is that which makes use of nut-shell boats. These have tiny candles fastened in them, are lighted, and named, and set adrift on a tub of water. If they cling to the side, their namesakes will lead a quiet life. Some will float together. Some will collide and be shipwrecked. Others will bear steadily toward a goal though the waves are rocked in a tempest. Their behavior is significant. The candle which ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley

... crow of delight from Johnnie. Then his grandmother carries him to the door, and glories in seeing him resist his mother's blandishments to cling to her. ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell

... England only came into line with the reform of the calendar in 1751. The Act of Parliament which sanctioned the change brought in the use of the words "new style" and "old style." Only Russia and Greece now of European countries cling to the old style. But the new style, as we have said, was bitterly resented by the mob in England, and every one remembers Hogarth's picture of the patriot drunk in the gutter with his banner near him bearing the inscription, "Give us back ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... Rome, that I have been driven up to the Capitol for the last time and may go there hereafter only afoot or in my litter, I am almost ready to change my mind, give up freedom and matrimony and Almo and all and cling to my privileges. When it comes over me that, as I go out to-day, the lictors of any magistrate will salute me, even the lictors of the Emperor, whereas after to-morrow noon there will be no salutes for me, ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White

... Remember me to Uncle Timothy!" And, leaving a cold kiss on each forehead, whose wrinkles seemed to try and cling to his lips as if longing to be kissed away, he left them looking brightly after him—dear Soames, it had been so good of him to come to-day, when they ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... traced The town, the province, and the watery waste: No aiding friend his patriot labours found; Fear master'd all, and all were slaves around. Each hope of liberty and Sweden lost, He now resolves to seek a foreign coast, In Albion or in Gaul secure to rest, And cling to Freedom's warm maternal breast. Such his intent—Ernestus! be it thine To tear the warrior from the rash design! Bid him to arms the free-born peasants move, Safe in the conduct of the powers above! Swift as from hill ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker

... out-rush of smoke and heard the report. I heard a grunt from Henry, and, turning my head, saw him cling to the spokes and turn the wheel half a revolution as he sank to the deck. It must have been a lucky shot. The boy was perforated through the heart or very near to the heart—we have no time for ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London

... She nearly always wears long white woollen wrappers that cling to her figure and trail on the ground, and intensify the appearance of attenuation. A pale lavender Shetland shawl is wrapped about her. She has had quite a discussion with her mother, in which she had evinced unwonted spirit. Floyd ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... on a desk, his head supported by his hand. Nothing could be finer than the sight. Oh! I would have given much for the ability to convey to paper a lasting copy of that countenance—a memorial for my life, to cling to in my hours of weakness and despondency, and to take strength and consolation from the spectacle of that intelligence, that meekness and chastity of soul, thus allied and linked to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various

... closest cling to earth, And they first feel the sun: so violets blue; So the soft star-like primrose—drenched in dew— The happiest of Spring's happy, fragrant birth. Spring Showers. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various

... freshness, even the brisk motion, had been such a relief to them after the pain and excitement of the morning. But all at once they began to realize that their peril was great. Their little boat tossed so fearfully that Erica had to cling to the seat for safety; one moment they were down in the hollow of a deep green wave, the next they would be tossed up upon its crest as though their boat had been a mere ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... of all human fancies. So long as there is a plausible ground to expect relief from any particular quarter, men will relax their exertions in the face of the most imminent danger, and they cling to their expectations long after reason has begun to place the chances of success on the adverse side of the scale. Thus it was with the party in the Montauk. Two or three precious hours were lost in the idle belief that ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... subject has always been unreasonable. But she has more influence over me than he has, or ever could have. She can generally eradicate the dangerous effects of his presence. This he resented—and rightly. I must renounce mother, home, every thing, and come to him, or—I must cling to him and let all other things go. He recognized no middle course; I constantly sought one. I put him off; I made him many promised, and meant them all—when with him. Finally he was forbidden the house, and now we barely more than speak. He is somewhat devoted to a half dozen or more of ...
— The Inner Sisterhood - A Social Study in High Colors • Douglass Sherley et al.

... to run and hide. Almost it made him want to cling to his sister, content to let her wear the pants if only he could be ...
— The Mississippi Saucer • Frank Belknap Long

... the beaten track to the rocks. The rocks lay a hundred feet beneath, torn from the mainland in craggy masses that seemed ready to slide from their base to the deep chasm between. Could it be possible that men who were the slaves of hinds like those in yonder tavern could cling to their little lives while a deliverance like this beetling cliff stood near? A cold smile played on Hugh Ritson's face as he thought that, come what would, such slavery ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... with his sister in Dublin, who offered to care for her an' the children until he'd made a home for 'em in the country he was goin' to. But no, Mona wouldn't hear to that. She'd promised at God's altar to take him for better or worse an' to cling to him till death. Because the worse had come, she wasn't goin' to desert him an' let him go out alone to the cold land of the stranger to fight his battle all by himself. She'd go with him an' stand by him and help an' comfort him in his struggles. She knew she could help him. She'd ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams

... retentive memory becomes possible. What is called cultivating the memory, therefore, does not mean anything more than close attention to whatever we wish to remember, with whatever associations naturally cling to it, until it is actually mastered. If one has not an instinctive or naturally strong memory, he should not rest satisfied with letting the days go by until he has improved it. The way to improve it, is to begin at the foundation, and by the constant exercise of the will-power, to take up every ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford

... the story of the old lady's rough tones, shaking hands and frightened eyes. To the old woman Sandro was the sum of life. She might sneer, she might scorn, she might rail, she might and would suffer at his hands. But he was the one thing, the sole support, she had to cling to; he kept her alive. Yet the last words that Miss Quisante said were, "I expect Sandro wanted to wheedle something out of that woman, and has been playing one of his tricks to get a bit of sympathy." Then she climbed slowly and ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope

... nurse, shelter, cling to, entertain, hold dear, nurture, treasure, comfort, foster, nourish, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... There was a huge sycamore tree in the centre of the circle made by the carriage way in front of the "big house," and there were sycamore trees of various sizes all over the place. The little balls alluded to by Uncle Remus are very hard at certain stages of their growth, and cling to the tree with wonderful tenacity. Uncle ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris

... herself as much as possible, disengaged, as he directed, her feet from the stirrups, and they started for the creek. At the point he had chosen for the plunge, he gave her a few admonitions, chiefly to the effect of doing nothing except to cling to her seat in getting into the flood and getting out. Just as her horse poised beside Laramie's a wave of dread swept over her. It was very literally a plunge into the dark. "Are you afraid?" he asked, ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman

... sorrows. There is no 'getting over' sorrow. I hate the idea. But there is a 'getting into' sorrow, and finding right in the heart of it the dearest of all human beings—the Man of Sorrows, a God. This may sound as commonplace, but it is awfully real to me. I cling to God. I believe He exists. If He does not, I can explain nothing. If He does, all whom we love are safer with Him than with us. If we can only get nearer ourselves to God, we shall get nearer to those whom we love, for ...
— Letters to His Friends • Forbes Robinson

... the stone debris and black patches of mountain fir, and towering bluffs and crags seem to pierce the sky with their sharp peaks, bastions and jagged ridges, like gigantic fortresses. Clouds of white mist, driven and torn by gusts of wind, cling to the precipitous walls, and masses of eternal snow lie in the many fissures and depressions, forming large, sharply outlined streaks ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... reason to doubt it. If I show more love for Helen, it is only because she is younger, smaller, and winds herself more closely around me by her loving, affectionate ways; she seems to love me better, to love us all better. That is the secret, Mittie; it is love; cling to our hearts as Helen does, and we will ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz

... the one deep red flower, the biggest, finest bloom of them all. It really did not belong there with the others in their cool, chaste whiteness. Quite suddenly she drew it out. She made the motion of throwing it out the window, but it seemed to cling to her fingers. ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond

... knowing well that it would not be their fault were it not delivered safe and undiminished even of a grain, and that bold must be the thieves who would seek to wrest it from the far-feared Maragatos, who would cling to it whilst they could stand, and would cover it with their bodies when they fell in the act of loading ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow

... Freedom, Thy champions cling to thee, They'll follow where'er you lead them To death or victory. Up with ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler

... He is; right living is the fruit of right thinking. Not that all who believe rightly are righteous and walk in the path of salvation: losing themselves, these are lost in spite of the truths they know and profess; nor that they who cling to an erroneous belief and a false creed can perform no deed of true moral worth and are doomed; they may be righteous in spite of the errors they profess, thanks alone to the truths in their creeds that are not wholly corrupted. But the natural order of things ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton

... people to swim beyond the breakers. She went on, in a voice that the noise of the surf could not drown, to tell him that she hoped ten thousand more people would say the same thing to him, and to declare that he ought to have several boats outside during bathing hours, so that people could cling to some of them, and so, perhaps, save themselves from exhaustion on their return, and so that one, at least, could be kept free to succor the distressed. At last the poor man vowed that he acted under orders, and that, if she wanted to pitch into anybody, she ought to pitch into the proprietors ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton

... and without stiltedness or intimacy. Their aim seems to be the ability to write a business letter which may be easily read, easily understood, and with the important facts in the attention-compelling places. But for the sake of those who still cling to these hackneyed improprieties (which most of them are), let us line them up for inspection. Many of them are inaccurate, and a moment's thought will give a better method of ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther

... so," answered Benita, "though a fate may cling to certain things or places, perhaps. At any rate, I think that it is of no use turning back now, even if we had anywhere to turn, so we may as well go through with the venture and await its end. Give me the water-bottle, please. ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard

... meant, since my marriage? It would provide a place to work in. The hours might not be excessive. The pay ... Fanny was for ever talking of the increase in prices. My earnings, though on the up grade, had seemed very insufficient of late. There certainly was nothing to make me cling to our home as a place in which to carry ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... efforts she sometimes made to cling to them that were about her. Thus her heart was the heart of a child, and she knew no delight like to that of playing with other children. But her father's house was under a ban; no child of any neighbour ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine

... into small foothills at the base, through which the Nubian threaded a rapid, circuitous way that led out on a rolling ground. A wide detour, still at the same urgent speed which jolted the breath from the girl and made her cling to the carpeted pummel of the saddle with both hands, led them at last within sight of palm trees ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley

... heroic soul, is as much an eyesore to them as Stein, with his plans of liberation and his energetic action for constitutional reform. One wishes to create a new Prussia, the other a new state, and both these ideas are utterly distasteful to some, for they cling to the rotten old system, and new things fill them ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach

... other means,—the window. He went to it and looked out. It was fully sixty feet from the ground, and there was nothing, in the shape of a lightning rod, or a rain-pipe leader to cling to. Nothing but the bare tenement house wall, broken here and ...
— The Boy from the Ranch - Or Roy Bradner's City Experiences • Frank V. Webster

... young children, who, miserable as they had been, and many as were the tears they had shed in the wretched school, still knew no other home, and had formed for it a sort of attachment, which made them weep when the bolder spirits fled, and cling to it as a refuge. Of these, some were found crying under hedges and in such places, frightened at the solitude. One had a dead bird in a little cage; he had wandered nearly twenty miles, and when his poor favourite ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... reference to the illusions which cling to the element of time, and in which Nature delights. Wellington, in speaking of military men, said,—"What masks are these uniforms to hide cowards! When our journal is published, many statues must come down." I have often detected the like deception in the cloth shoe, wadded pelisse, wig and spectacles, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... was to offend no party, was not likely to cling to the falling fortunes of a minister the study of whose life was to offend all parties. Arlington, whose influence was gradually rising as that of Clarendon diminished, was the most useful patron to whom a young ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay



Words linked to "Cling to" :   hold, nestle, nest, snuggle, draw close, nuzzle, cuddle, take hold



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