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More "Clench" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... days she refused all nourishment, employing her remaining strength to clench her teeth or to eject anything that Therese succeeded in introducing into her mouth. Therese was in despair. She was asking herself at the foot of which post she should go to weep and repent, when her aunt would be no longer there. ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... of iron break, Or bursts one lock, that still amain, 195 Fast as 'tis open'd, shuts again. That magic strife within the tomb May last until the day of doom, Unless the Adept shall learn to tell The very word that clench'd the spell, 200 When Franch'mont lock'd the treasure cell. An hundred years are pass'd and gone, And scarce ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... rather with the degree of continence they manifest in speech; and how in such wild ebullition, there is still a kind of polite rule struggling for mastery, and the forms of social life never altogether disappear. These men, though they menace with clenched right-hands, do not clench one another by the collar; they draw no daggers, except for oratorical purposes, and this not often: profane swearing is almost unknown, though the Reports are frank enough; we find only one or two oaths, oaths by Marat, reported ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... meaning of my new word. There was no occasion for it to mean either God or the Tivoli; [Footnote: Theatre of Varieties, etc., and Garden in Christiania.] and who said that it was to signify cattle show? I clench my hands fiercely, and repeat once again, "Who said that it was to signify cattle show?" No; on second thoughts, it was not absolutely necessary that it should mean padlock, or sunrise. It was not difficult to find a ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... Montijo is universally admitted to be, beyond all question, the most lovely woman in Cuba; and for once the popular estimate is correct, as no man knows so well as I do." ("Steady, old man, steady!" said Jack to himself. "Hold tight, and clench your teeth! The blackguard is talking now with the express intention of provoking you into the commission of some overt act for which you would be sorry afterwards, and you must not allow yourself to be provoked. The infernal fool, in his anxiety to hurt you, has made you a present of what ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... they 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
... befell that when Marie-Madeleine raised her eyes, she met those of the subject of her contemplations fixed directly on herself with a look that is unmistakable, the look of a person measuring and valuing another—and, to clench the false impression, that his glance was instantly and guiltily withdrawn. The blood beat back upon her heart and leaped again; her obscure thoughts flashed clear before her; she flew in fancy straight to his arms like a wanton, and ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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
... it became her, as a woman, to display some reserve in her opinions, and to remain calm whilst the men grew more and more excited. Now and then, however, in the heat of the debate, she would let a word or a phrase escape her and "clench the matter" even for Charvet himself, as Gavard said. In her heart she believed herself the superior of all these fellows. The only one of them for whom she felt any respect was Robine, and she would thoughtfully contemplate ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... all Phipps the philanderer, who had insulted Rose Mattel, and been responsible for the dismissal of more than one nurse from the hospital. The mere thought of such a man in connection with Eleanor Bartlett made Quin's strong fingers clench around an imaginary neck and brought beads of ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... England swallow him whole. He will find India and Cathay and Cipango, and France or England will be building ships, ships, ships! Blessed Virgin above us!' said I, 'If I could talk alone to the Sovereigns, I think I could clench it!'" ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... Doctor and his guests and set off for home. How gracious she was to me, how gracious she was to me! What could I do for her in return? My hands felt helpless; a sweet cold went through my wrists. Herregud! I thought to myself, here am I with my limbs hanging helpless for joy; I cannot even clench my hands; I can only find tears in my eyes for my own helplessness. What is to be done ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... clench the arm of his chair as if in an effort of self-control. Then he said: "Perhaps I shall tell you that, too. But not now." He rose abruptly. "It is warmer inside, and we can have some music. I am sure you must be tired of hearing me ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... gone. View not that corpse mistrustfully, Defaced and mangled-though it be; He saw the wreck his rashness wrought; Reckless of life, he desperate fought, And fell on Flodden plain: And well in death his trusty brand, Firm clench'd within his kingly hand, ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins
... of Venn's Valiants? It is well. A blessing on your work!" said the stern dark-faced officer, and on he went, happily not seeing Emlyn make an ugly face and clench her little fist ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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 to him ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... attitudes given to his body and limbs, but with this peculiarity, that the limbs and features act in unison. Join the hands of the patient as if in devout prayer, and his countenance assumes a devout expression; clench his fist, and anger is ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens
... 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 ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... for a moment, it occurs to me I might wake Falkenberg with my tossing about, and perhaps say things in my delirium. That would never do. I clench my teeth and jump up, get into my clothes again, scramble down the stairs, and set out over the fields at a run. After a little my clothes begin to warm me; I make towards the woods, towards the spot where we had been working; ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... 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
... you stand there, and simply let Him go past. That were bad enough; but the fact 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, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... San Gregorio," he cried passionately. "I love every rock and cactus and rattlesnake in it. Valgame Dios!" And the maimed right hand twisted and clutched as, subconsciously, he strove to clench his fist. "Ah, who was the coward—who was the traitor that betrayed us for a handful ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... occasionally went off for the East or West Indies, was often to me a sore affliction; but I was soon called to more serious evils. My father's generous master died; the farm proved a ruinous bargain; and to clench the misfortune, we fell into the hands of a factor, who sat for the picture I have drawn of one in my tale of "Twa Dogs." My father was advanced in life when he married; I was the eldest of seven children, and he, worn out by early hardships, was unfit for labour. My father's ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... 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
... bound and limitary land, The Scythian steppe, the waste untrod of men! Look to it now, Hephaestus—thine it is, Thy Sire obeying, this arch-thief to clench Against the steep-down precipice of rock, With stubborn links of adamantine chain. Look thou: thy flower, the gleaming plastic fire, He stole and lent to mortal man—a sin That gods immortal make him rue to-day, Lessoned hereby to own ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... reply. Aurelius saw his son's face pale, saw him straighten up as though he expected a blow on those broad shoulders, saw his hand clench as if he were in pain. And Aurelius was sorrowful. He loved Martius for himself and for his mother, whom he resembled. The lawyer was also, only too well aware of the danger run by all those who called themselves followers of Christus. The worst had not yet come. There were only ...
— Virgilia - or, Out of the Lion's Mouth • Felicia Buttz Clark
... stand up with 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
... 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 ever ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... brown hands slowly clench until they looked like steel. She glanced at her own slim white hands. They were quite as strong if more ornamental. She ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... 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, ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... outspread, A scene 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
... seemed to clench up, as if he were riding at a fence. 'He'll tell a lie,' she thought ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... whisky he had consumed. He straightened himself up, and his mouth hardened. The cigarette lolling between his lips became firmly gripped. O'Brien, watching the change in him, suddenly saw his hands clench at his sides, and understood the sudden access of resentment which the mention of Fyles's name stirred in the man. He read into what he beheld something of the real character of the "sharp," as ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... the inhabitants of Gallibornu, who insisted that the Turk should compromise the affair and return the handsome bullock, receiving in exchange his own half-starved old animal, in addition to a present of half a sovereign. Georgi was only too delighted to immediately clench the bargain. I advised him in future to manage his own cattle-dealing instead of confiding in his able friend Theodori, and I ordered the oxen to be put in the yokes at once, and to draw the vans to our old camping-place beneath ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... the children tittered, and Tabitha crimsoned angrily, but before she had even time to clench the little fists that were accustomed to fight her battles, Carrie saved the day. "That's her whole name, Miss Brooks, but we call her just Theodora Gabrielle. She ...
— Tabitha at Ivy Hall • Ruth Alberta Brown
... 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 ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... later Catrina, watching from the window of her own small room, saw Paul lift Etta from the sleigh, and the sight made her clench her hands until the ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... "Abused!" said Mrs. Holt, kindling in her wrath. "I cannot hold myself without abusing him." But it very soon did come to pass that Mr. Western's name was not mentioned between them. Mrs. Holt would now and again clench her fist and shake her head, and Cecilia knew that in her thoughts she was executing some vengeance against Mr. Western; but there was a truce to spoken words. Cecilia indeed often executed her vengeance against her husband after some fashion of ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... so often came between herself and her sole treasure, whom she had bought so dear, and who was all her world, Hester sometimes burst into passionate tears. Then, perhaps,—for there was no foreseeing how it might affect her,—Pearl would frown, and clench her little fist, and harden her small features into a stern, unsympathizing look of discontent. Not seldom, she would laugh anew, and louder than before, like a thing incapable and unintelligent of human sorrow. Or—but this more rarely happened—she would be convulsed with a rage ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... 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 ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... own mouth, and make A monochord of colour. Like an asp, One lithe lock wriggles in his rutilant grasp. Her bosom is an oven of myrrh, to bake Love's white warm shewbread to a browner cake. The lock his fingers clench has burst its hasp. The legs are absolutely abominable. Ah! what keen overgust of wild-eyed woes Flags in that bosom, flushes in that nose? Nay! Death sets riddles for desire to spell, Responsive. What red hem earth's passion sews, But may ...
— The Heptalogia • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... grief and anger, not from belief in the motive he imputed. When he saw Donald Brown turn white and clench the hands he dropped from his friend's shoulders, Atchison realized what he had done. He winced under the sting of the quick and ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... rather as a meditation in contrasts, though, that Sally thought thus to herself; for detached musical jerks of diabolical rapidity, that have to be snapped at with the punctuality of the mosquito slayer, don't show your rounded lines to advantage, and make you clench your teeth and ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... fellows. It took a big slug of whisky to set off his oratory, but when he got it wound up he surely could pull the feathers out of the bird of freedom to beat scandalous. But as a stump speaker you weren't always sure he'd fill the engagement. He could make a jury blubber and clench its fists at the prosecuting attorney, yet he didn't claim to know much law, and he did turn over all the work in the Supreme Court to his partner, Charley Hedrick. Then, when Charley was practising before the Supreme ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... until this moment did she realize what she had done; not until now did the teeth of remorse clench upon her. To marry her—because he loved her—this boy at her side must suffer THIS. It was her doing....She had cheated him into it. She had cost him this and was giving nothing to pay for it. He had foreseen ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... am sorry to say that as Camille's body strengthened some of the worst passions in our nature attacked him. Fierce gusts of hate and love combined overpowered this man's high sentiments of honor and justice, and made him clench his teeth, and vow never to leave Beaurepaire without Josephine. She had been his four years before she ever saw this interloper, and she should be his forever. Her love would soon revive when they should meet every day, and she would ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... melancholy, and eager for the little casualties that bring death: thus do they wait, and clench their teeth. ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... as though there might be some sort of a rumpus; and Seth even began to clench his hands as if ready to take a prominent part in the same; but as had happened more than a few times before when the storm clouds gathered over the scouts, Paul's wise counsel intervened to ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... the uninitiated as due merely to a desire to relieve the bladder. It is found in female infants. Thus, Townsend records the case of an infant, 8 months old, who would cross her right thigh over the left, close her eyes and clench her fists; after a minute or two there would be complete relaxation, with sweating and redness of face; this would occur about once a week or oftener; the child was quite healthy, with no abnormal condition of the genital organs.[215] The frequency of thigh-friction among women ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... had neglected to treat him to a glass of rum to clench his signing as surety, the shake of Bear's head would become more reproachful than sympathetic, and he would mutter bitterly: "Five pounds and not even a drink for the money." The jewelry he generously lavished on his womankind was in essence a mere channel of investment for his ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... 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 with this food, stifle them in the dark with ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... to him a thought which made him unconsciously clench his hands. Was it not possible, nay, even likely, that Margaret Pargeter, like many another woman before her, had found her courage fail her at the last moment—that Heaven, stooping to her feeble virtue, had come to save her in spite ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... brother, and bosom crony. But then, does he know what loffe is? Is it possible that you northern people understand loffe? It's we, Georgians, who are created for loffe. Look, Liubka! I'll show you right away what loffe is!" He would clench his fists, bend his body forward, and would start rolling his eyes so ferociously, gnash his teeth and roar with a lion's voice so, that a childish terror would encompass Liubka, despite the fact that she knew this to be a joke, and ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... thought came to him: he began to put on gloves, fine, white kid gloves. Then he tried to clench his fist in them ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... Why didst thou let so many Norsemen hence? Thy fierce forekings had clench'd their pirate hides To the bleak church doors, like kites ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... yours immediately; as one pays a shilling to clench a bargain, when one suspects the seller. I accept your visit in the last week of this month, and will prosecute you if you do not execute. I have nothing to say about elections, but that I congratulate myself ,every time I ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... 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! ...
— The Smart Set - Correspondence & Conversations • Clyde Fitch
... 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 ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... face died away, and a deadly paleness took its place. She made a movement to leave the summer-house—checked herself abruptly—and laid one hand on the back of a rustic seat at her side. A gentleman behind her, looking at the hand, saw it clench itself so suddenly and so fiercely that the glove on it split. The gentleman made a mental memorandum, and registered Miss Silvester in his private books as "the devil's ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... instance) would have guessed the truth by now. He knew how little Lenox appreciated the constant influx of men to tea and dinner; and one or two people—of the social vulture species—had already spoken to him of her friendship with Richardson in the tone of voice which made Desmond clench and pocket his fists, lest he should knock them down out of hand. He took advantage of his seat next the Gunner to mention, under cover of general conversation, his anxiety about Lenox's health; and managed also to take part in most of his talk with Quita ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... farce, for love they rhyme dispense, That tolls the knell for their departed sense. Dulness might thrive in any trade but this: 'Twould recommend to some fat benefice. Dulness, that in a playhouse meets disgrace, Might meet with reverence, in its proper place. The fulsome clench, that nauseates the town, Would from a judge or alderman go down, Such virtue is there in a robe and gown! And that insipid stuff which here you hate, Might somewhere else be called a grave debate; Dulness is decent in the church and state. But I forget that still 'tis understood, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... The very name caused him to clench his hands. Fortunately, he knew the truth, therefore that dastardly attempt upon the girl's life should not go unpunished. As he sat there chatting with her, admiring her refinement and innate daintiness, he made a ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... the Grecian train! Why could 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 pointed spear!" ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... first commission is almost as self-deceiving as that of a first love. In his place Philip de Commines, recognizing that he was outnumbered ten to one, would have been diplomatic. When there is no power to strike, it is always unwise to clench the fist, especially when a hat in the hand may gain the point. But the authority sufficed, and at a motion from their leader the ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... darkened by earthly—I may say by hellish—passions. Even then, and from that very night, she altered much: as one passed her, she muttered indistinctly; often she would lift up her hands in the air, clench them, and shake them as if at some figure that she saw in the clouds; and at times she slunk into corners, refused all comfort or society, and sank wholly ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... the effect of this on Eleanor. For two cents she would have fainted then and there. It's awful to hear a woman moan, and clench her teeth, and ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... kind as to come down. This was unreasonable, and I told him so in a 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 I resumed ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the Hawk, and tried himself to assume the unshakable steely calm of the great adventurer. But his fists would clench and unclench as he stared up at the visi-screen. No change! The brigand was running straight ahead ...
— Hawk Carse • Anthony Gilmore
... it, and left this surly and scandalous savage to the enjoyment of his own company. His temper rendered me extremely uneasy. The arms-room was full of weapons; he might draw a pistol upon me and shoot me dead before I should have time to clench my hand. Nor did I conceive him to have his right mind. His panic terrors and outbursts of rage were such extremes of behaviour as suggested some sort of organic decay within. He had been for eight-and-forty years insensible; in all that time the ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... feast, or waddin', The crone's in 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 of the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... too the deep and fervent orison Hath matron whisper'd for her absent lord, Peril'd in civil wars, that shook the throne, When every hand in England, clench'd the sword:— And here, as tales and chronicles agree, If tales and chronicles be deem'd sincere, Fair Warwick's heiress smiled at many a plea Of puissant Thane, or ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 366 - Vol. XIII, No. 366., Saturday, April 18, 1829 • Various
... 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 placed, I said, the centre ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... was ower i' summer, I nussed him on my knees; An' Mike browt home at lowsin'-time Wild rasps an' strawberries. We used to sit on t' door-sill I' t' leet o' t' harvist-moon, While our lile Doad would clench his fists An' suck his ...
— Songs of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... rested yestreen; for I saw the leaves the limmers had lain on, and the ashes of them; by the same token, there was a pit greeshoch purning yet. I am thinking they got some word oat o' the island what was intended—I sought every glen and clench, as if I had been deer-stalking, but teil a want of his ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... 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 for ever. ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... tiring work to sit on the Bench, Hearing the Counsel, day by day, Canting and ranting, while they clench Their fists, and thump and hammer away: Be their arguments weak or strong, Whatever I say I'm in the wrong. Ah me! who would be, A badgered Judge of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 5, 1892 • Various
... King of the land he goes, And straight to make his plaint began; Then murmured loud the assembled crowd, And clench'd his fist ...
— A Bibliography of the writings in Prose and Verse of George Henry Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... indirection a moment's glance—and also to ventilate a very earnest and I believe authentic opinion, nay conviction, of that time, the fruit of the interviews I have mention'd, and of questioning and cross-questioning, clench'd by my best information since, that Thomas Paine had a noble personality, as exhibited in presence, face, voice, dress, manner, and what may be call'd his atmosphere and magnetism, especially the later years of his life. I am sure of it. Of the foul and foolish fictions yet told about the circumstances ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... 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 in a S. ...
— The Adventures of Colonel Daniel Boone • John Filson
... said, but only called out 100, with his face still looking out to sea, and the same sturdiness in his voice. Then Maskew tried a spring, and went to 120, and Elzevir capped him with 130, and 140, 150, 160, 170 followed quick. My breath came so fast that I was almost giddy, and I had to clench my hands to remind myself of where I was, and what was going on. The bidders too were breathing hard, Elzevir had taken his head from his hands, and the eyes of all were on the pin. The lump of tallow was worn down now; it was hard to say ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... at once 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
... 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 the gripe ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... well. Others have detected the selfish motives which suggested it: the mean distrust of my honour, integrity, and firmness of purpose which it implied; and the equally mean anxiety on Sherwin's part to clench his profitable bargain at once, for fear it might be repented of. I discerned nothing of this. As soon as I had recovered from the natural astonishment of the first few moments, I only saw in the strange plan proposed to me, a certainty of assuring—no matter with what sacrifice, ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... as I passed along the Street, I saw a sturdy Prentice-Boy Disputing with an Hackney-Coachman; and in an Instant, upon some Word of Provocation, throw off his Hat and [Cut-Periwig, [1]] clench his Fist, and strike the Fellow a Slap on the Face; at the same time calling him Rascal, and telling him he was a Gentleman's Son. The young Gentleman was, it seems, bound to a Blacksmith; and the Debate arose about Payment for ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... out a flash. I could see the muscles of his hand clench against his knee. I had scored a point, and ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... did Vince good, for the action given to his muscles carried off the sensation which made his fists clench from time to time in his pockets and itch to be delivering blows wherever he could make them light ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... Clench lived in Brownlow Street, Holborn; and until his death, in 1831, John Abernethy occupied in Bedford Row the house which is still inhabited by an eminent surgeon, who was Abernethy's favorite pupil. Of ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... 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 place briskly a dozen times; ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... 'frightening poor innocent little children with talk of hell-fire and eternal damnation' (iii. 200). And indeed we cannot deny that when reading some of the sermons to which poor Phebe Bartlet must have listened, and remembering the nature of the audience, the fingers of an unregenerate person clench themselves involuntarily as grasping an imaginary horsewhip. The answer given by Edwards does not diminish the impression. Innocent as children may seem to be, he replies, 'yet if they are out of Christ, they are not so in God's sight, but are ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... rove through the knee of the bitts, which nips the cable on the bight: it consists of four or five fathoms of rope tailed out nipper fashion at one end, and clench-knotted at the other. The old bitt-stopper, by its running loop on a standing end, bound the cable down in a bight abaft the bitts—the tail twisted round the fore part helped to draw it still closer. It is now disused—chain cables having ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... known hours, slow and golden-glowing, Lovely with laughter and suffused with light, O Lord, in such a time appoint my going, When the hands clench, and the cold face grows white, And the spark dies within the feeble brain, Spilling its ...
— Young Adventure - A Book of Poems • Stephen Vincent Benet
... excitedly. Then another thought made her clench her fists. "Is it possible you told Professor Schillingschen your secret to-day? Did one of you tell him? Is that why ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... a man at any time, had to clench his fists and drive his finger-nails into the palms of his hands, else he could have struck this abject, miserable coward. He wrenched his cloak out of the Caesar's grasp and with a firm grip pulled him roughly up ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... 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 ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... 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 world with ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... 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 ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... them out in a beautiful abandonment of love, and the hidden eyes glistened as they watched the fingers slowly curl and clench as a look of horror crept gradually over the whole face, blotting out its sweetness and light, changing it into a veritable ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... mouth is much more likely to be a true index of character. A man may clench his teeth firmly or smile disdainfully or sneer, or do a hundred things which will be reflected in his mouth rather than in his nose or chin. It is through the mouth and eyes that all emotions are expressed, and in the mouth and eyes therefore that one would expect the marks of such ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... run his course. One is that dame The false accuser of the Hebrew youth; Sinon the other, that false Greek from Troy. Sharp fever drains the reeky moistness out, In such a cloud upsteam'd." When that he heard, One, gall'd perchance to be so darkly nam'd, With clench'd hand smote him on the braced paunch, That like a drum resounded: but forthwith Adamo smote him on the face, the blow Returning with his arm, that ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... Redesdale very frequently, and I could not but be struck by the effect of this blow upon his temperament. After the first shock of sorrow, I observed in him the determination not to allow himself to be crushed. His dominant vitality asserted itself almost with violence, and he seemed to clench his tooth in defiance of the assault on his individuality. It required on the part of so old a man no little fortitude, for it is easier to bear a great and heroic bereavement than to resist the wearing vexation ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... whom we entertain a 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 not ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... escape from this narrow space. 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 ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... past her, covering her with dust and causing her to clench her hands in anger. "Beastly thing!" she ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... difficulties of the trail increased, I saw more and more instances of suffering and privation, and to many the name of the White Pass was the death-knell of hope. I could see their faces blanch as they gazed upward at that white immensity; I could see them tighten their pack-straps, clench their teeth and begin the ascent; could see them straining every muscle as they climbed, the grim lines harden round their mouths, their eyes full of hopeless misery and despair; I could see them panting at every step, ghastly with fatigue, lurching and stumbling on under their heavy ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... 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 her mouth. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... came in, and utter inarticulate deprecatory 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, ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... leaping from 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 ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... of a dead twig against a rusty wire? Are flowers to lose their scent, and grass and trees and birds to be blurred and turned drab in my eyes? How do you think I live, man? How do you think I can go before juries and audiences and make them thrill and clench their fists and cry like children and breathe with my emotions, if I am to be stone dead? Do you think a wooden man can do that? Try Joe Calvin with a jury—what does he accomplish with all his virtue? He hasn't had an emotion in twenty years. A pretty woman ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... the cruel triumphant Oriental. "Tai-K'an warned your father that he would have his revenge. His daughter was to him as much as you are to your own father the mandarin," and he laughed that short, grating laugh of the Chinaman, which caused Otley to clench his fists. ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... way, sir," cried Mr Tobin, the first-lieutenant. Out ran the cable to the clench, carrying away the stoppers, and passing through both compressors. At length the messenger was again shackled, and the anchor hove up, when it was found that both ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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
... and seemingly as hard as iron. They breakfasted on a biscuit, with a full allowance of water, and then set to work at the boat. The thorns answered their purpose as nails admirably, and the planks soon were securely fastened into their places against the stem; but without nails to clench the planks together, it was evident to them all that the boat would not float five minutes. They ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... who had been bending so pertinaciously over some work that her eyes were invisible, looked quickly up, cast a furtive glance at Mrs. Staines, and finding she was employed for the moment, made an agitated signal to Dr. Philip. All she did was to clench her two hands and lift them half way to her face, and then cast a frightened look towards the door; but Philip's senses were so sharpened by constant alarm and watching, that he saw at once something serious was the matter. But as ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... 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
... such gladsome 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 and ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... 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
... best bid to clench the matter. She offered her bargain. "Now don't you worry," she said, sunnily, "about this setting Edith against you. She'll get over it after a while, anyway, but if she tried to be spiteful and make it uncomfortable for ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... they had made. "I was putting a mere hypothetical 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 fight our own shadows forever? O think! The ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... elephant and a peep-show man? Be ye goin' to let 'em outsquirt ye? Why, the wimmen-folks of Vienny will put p'isen in your biscuits if you go home beat by anything that Smyrna can turn out. Git a-holt them bars! Clench your chaws! Now, damye, ye toggle-j'inted, dough-fingered, wall-eyed sons ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... 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 to do it, but in spite ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... in the Territory, Smith Westcott should not have a moment's opportunity for conversation with her. He played the tyrannical brother to perfection. He walked about the house in a fighting mood all the time, with brows drawn down and fist ready to clench. ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... recognize by contenting himself with the lowest wages; there are endless exactions and overcharges, compensated by settlements on pay-days effected in the most rapacious and deceitful spirit. And the workman must keep silent and bend the knee, and clench his fist under his frock: for the employer has the work, and only too happy is he who can obtain the favor of his swindles. And because society has not yet found a way to prevent, repress, and punish this odious grinding process, so spontaneous, so ingenuous, so disengaged from ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... I 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 ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... made ready to go, urged quietly: "You've got the charts and soundings, Marmion, steam ahead!" and, with a swift but kindly clench of my shoulder, he left me. In that moment there came a cowardly feeling, a sense of shamefacedness, and then, hard upon it, and overwhelming it, a determination to serve Boyd Madras so far as lay in my power, and to be a man, and not a coward or ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... manner: O that there had been but two or three, nay even one person saved, that we might have lived together, conversed with, and comforted one another! and so much were my desires moved, that when I repeated these words, Oh! that there had been but one! my hands would clench together, and my fingers press the palms of my hands to close, that, had any soft thing been between, it would have crushed it involuntarily, while my teeth would strike together, and set against each other so ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... of 1859-60 we find him a volunteer, commenting not too happily on "the hideous English toadyism which invests lords and great people with commands," a remark which seems to clench the inference that he had not appreciated the effect of the Revolution upon France. For nearly three parts of 1860 we have not a single letter, except one in January pleasantly referring to his ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... the innermost wall of granite, there was a quick rustle all across its face as though the screen of shrubs and flowers had been fluttered by a draught of wind. Norris drew himself erect with a distinct appearance of relief, loosened the clench of his fingers upon his rifle, and began once more to search the ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... Messrs. Bryan Donkin and Clench, Ltd., and Assistant Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering at the ...
— A Textbook of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. • Cornelius Beringer and John Jacob Beringer
... it is that, from the Bible down to Josiah Allen's Wife, you have to talk in stories in order to impress the masses! You have to hold up the hammer of a personal incident to drive home the nail of Truth and have it clench and hold fast. ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... You keep your mist ... manners, and I'll stick to mine! I'm not the third, then: bless us, they must know! 240 Don't you think they're the likeliest to know, They with their Latin? So, I swallow my rage, Clench my teeth, suck my lips in tight, and paint To please them—sometimes do and sometimes don't; For, doing most, there's pretty sure to come 245 A turn, some warm eve finds me at my saints— A laugh, a cry, the business of the world— (Flower o' the ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... I saw his hands clench together feebly here, and then there was no more motion. Presently I looked into his face, and I knew that no sound of my voice, nor any sound of the world, could ever reach him again; for the story of his unspeakable sorrow, like the ruin of Troy, had been ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... Then she would clench her hands and determine more fiercely than ever to banish such memories. But with all her will, hardly for ten minutes at a time could she keep Gritzko from her thoughts. His influence over her was growing ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... necessary to regard yourself constantly, and in minute detail. You lie in bed for half an hour and enthusiastically concentrate on this beautiful new scheme of the right tone. You rise, and because you don't achieve a proper elegance of necktie at the first knotting, you frown and swear and clench your teeth! There is a symptom of the wrong attitude towards your environment. You are awake, but your brain isn't. It is in such a symptom that you may judge yourself. And not a trifling symptom either! If you will frown at a necktie, if you will use language ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... Again he beheld that ivory knee which alone remained outside of Torterue's horrible apparatus. Lastly, he pictured the young girl in her shift, with the rope about her neck, shoulders bare, feet bare, almost nude, as he had seen her on that last day. These images of voluptuousness made him clench his fists, and a shiver run along ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... at Rome. Paul says, He entered in once, and hath obtained an eternal redemption, and makes the type to be altogether spiritual and heavenly, which you make to be earthly and external. What can you do now? My advice is this: Clench your fist, smite him on the jaw, and say he is a liar, a heretic, a poisoner, just as you do to me; and you will be like your father Zedekiah, who smote Micaiah on the cheek [1 Kings 22:24]. Do ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... had a little despised people that had minded. But there had been ever, in the back of his mind, the thought of those days that were coming when, with his son at his side, he could face all things. Well, now he had his son—there, with him in the room. The irony of it made him clench his hands, there in the dark, whilst they talked in the lighted ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... 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 into despair, ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... second mate; recalled the fact that the wretched man had been 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 teeth and ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... &c (promise) 768. treat, negotiate, stipulate, make terms; bargain &c (barter) 794. make a bargain, strike a bargain; come to terms, come to an understanding; compromise &c 774; set at rest; close, close with; conclude, complete, settle; confirm, ratify, clench, subscribe, underwrite; endorse, indorse; put the seal to; sign, seal &c (attest) 467; indent. take one at one's word, bargain by inch of candle. Adj. agreed &c v.; conventional; under hand and ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... a burning and a shining light To all your people—Such a sacrifice, Such loan to God of your 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 ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... when Marie-Madeleine raised her eyes, she met those of the subject of her contemplations fixed directly on herself with a look that is unmistakable, the look of a person measuring and valuing another—and, to clench the false impression, that his glance was instantly and guiltily withdrawn. The blood beat back upon her heart and leaped again; her obscure thoughts flashed clear before her; she flew in fancy straight to his arms like a wanton, and fled ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... paid him his fare—then hurried along rapidly, Errington every now and then giving a fiercer clench to the formidable horsewhip which was twisted together with his ordinary walking-stick in such a manner as ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... 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, so to speak, from which material things and events were ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... keep my fingers off the weak, and to clench my fist against the strong—to carry no tales out of school—to stand forth like a true man—obey the stern order of a PANDE MANUM, and endure my pawmies without wincing, like one that is determined not to be the better for them. In a ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... 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 in a S. west and N. ...
— The Adventures of Colonel Daniel Boone • John Filson
... 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 lamented in the ...
— The Parish Register • George Crabbe
... feel the 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, suddenly, it seemed to him that the ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... leather, they 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 ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... is perhaps at last More grievous torment than a hermit's fast:— That is a doubtful tale from faery land, Hard for the non-elect to understand. Had Lycius liv'd to hand his story down, He might have given the moral a fresh frown, Or clench'd it quite: but too short was their bliss To breed distrust and hate, that make the soft voice hiss. 10 Besides, there, nightly, with terrific glare Love, jealous grown of so complete a pair, Hover'd and buzz'd his wings, with ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... rage. I saw him clench his fists as I swept out of the room, making as much noise with my train ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... herself and her sole treasure, whom she had bought so dear, and who was all her world, Hester sometimes burst into passionate tears. Then, perhaps—for there was no foreseeing how it might affect her—Pearl would frown, and clench her little fist, and harden her small features into a stern, unsympathising look of discontent. Not seldom she would laugh anew, and louder than before, like a thing incapable and unintelligent of human sorrow. Or—but this more rarely ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... a beautiful abandonment of love, and the hidden eyes glistened as they watched the fingers slowly curl and clench as a look of horror crept gradually over the whole face, blotting out its sweetness and light, changing it into a veritable mask ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... whilst Major-General Gatacre's former command, the 1st British Brigade, was taken over by Brigadier-General J. Wauchope. The first brigade was made up of the Lincolns, Warwicks, Seaforths, and Camerons, with six Maxims. To prepare for eventualities, and clench the special training he had bestowed upon his men, Major-General Gatacre issued a printed slip of notes, or hints, to his men. I give the ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... Lord! at 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
... singular success, charged with the burden of new thoughts and observations, slowly perfecting his life work, had neither time nor inclination for controversy. He set himself to publish facts, which by their accumulation tended to clench his arguments. Soon after the "Origin of Species" he had in course of publication several important botanical papers, on the two forms of flower in the Primrose genus (1862), and in the genus Linum (flax), ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... Rajah!" said Mary fiercely. "They may drag me in but they can't make me talk when they get me here. I'll sit and clench my teeth and never tell you one thing. I won't even look at you. I'll stare ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... detail. You lie in bed for half an hour and enthusiastically concentrate on this beautiful new scheme of the right tone. You rise, and because you don't achieve a proper elegance of necktie at the first knotting, you frown and swear and clench your teeth! There is a symptom of the wrong attitude towards your environment. You are awake, but your brain isn't. It is in such a symptom that you may judge yourself. And not a trifling symptom either! If you will frown ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... Him go past. That were bad enough; but the fact 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
... the 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 of ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... looked as if it might have been the result of what is popularly termed a smart box on the ear. He was also heard by the shopman at Rutherford Street to use a very shocking expression in reference to Mrs. Yatman, and was seen to clench his fist vindictively as he ran round the corner of the street. Nothing more has been heard of him; and it is conjectured that he has left London with the intention of offering his valuable services ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... on him calmly, and she spoke quite steadily, so that he did not guess that her heart was beating wildly, and that she had to clench the hand beside her in her effort to ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... 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 usually buff ...
— The Migrations of an American Boat Type • Howard I. Chapelle
... truth; Till 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 for ever. ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... as though struck by lightning. Who dared to whistle in this holy place? The father is about to grasp the boy and lead him out, the people clench their fists threateningly. But the rabbi turns from his place at the east of the synagogue and asks in a loud voice, 'Where is the saint? Where is the miracle-worker who destroyed the evil forces hanging above us, who bored through heaven that our prayers ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... moment as though there might be some sort of a rumpus; and Seth even began to clench his hands as if ready to take a prominent part in the same; but as had happened more than a few times before when the storm clouds gathered over the scouts, Paul's wise counsel intervened ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... 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 ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... with 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
... publication of our paper, for though everything was in readiness yesterday for an early start to-day, the elements seemed inclined to delay us, and when rain had fallen steadily nearly all day, The Instigator of the trip was seen to clench his jaw yesterday afternoon, as he remarked "We cannot start till Monday." This fiat caused dire consternation; the idea of waiting for two days when all those carts were packed ready for our immediate outset, filled the party with annoyance, and had it not been for the fact that ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... they shall not marry. She walks often to that cliff that overhangs your dwelling to look for her lover's boat (ye may remember the pleasure ye then took on the sea, my Lord)let him find her forty fathom lower than he expects!'Yes! ye may stare and frown and clench your hand; but, as sure as I am to face the only Being I ever fearedand, oh that I had feared him mair!these were your mother's words. What avails it to me to lie to you?But I wadna consent to stain ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... as well. Others have detected the selfish motives which suggested it: the mean distrust of my honour, integrity, and firmness of purpose which it implied; and the equally mean anxiety on Sherwin's part to clench his profitable bargain at once, for fear it might be repented of. I discerned nothing of this. As soon as I had recovered from the natural astonishment of the first few moments, I only saw in the strange plan proposed ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... the moment the voice of Natas trembled with irrepressible passion, which, before he could proceed, broke from his heaving breast in a deep sob that thrilled the vast assembly like an electric shock, and made men clench their hands and grit their teeth, and wrung an answering sob from the breast of many a woman who knew but too well the meaning of those simple yet terrible words. Then Natas recovered his outward composure and went on; but now there was an ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... she would have to encounter, sought to dissuade Dorothy from her meditated proposal—but feebly, for every one who had anything noble in his nature, and Caspar had more than his share, was influenced by the magnanimity that ruled the place. Indeed he told her one thing which served to clench her resolution—that there was a secret way out of the castle, provided by his master Glamorgan for communication during siege: more he was not at liberty to disclose. Dorothy went straight to the marquis and laid her plan before him, which was ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... please his patron, the republican Hollis, who supplied him with books, and every friendly aid. "It is possible for an ingenious man to be of a party without being partial" says Rushworth; an airy clench on the lips of a sober matter-of-fact man looks suspicions, and betrays the weak pang of ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... 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 credentials. ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... fit to be trusted with the whole charge of a ship. Well! he made it pretty warm for them; but it was a poor consolation. He had come in time to hate the ship too for the repairs she required, for the coal-bills he had to pay, for the poor beggarly freights she earned. He would clench his hand as he walked and hit the rail a sudden blow, viciously, as though she could be made to feel pain. And yet he could not do without er; he needed her; he must hang on to her tooth and nail to keep his head above water till the expected flood ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... in my way and, as I approached, she drew her skirts aside. No doubt it was my imagination which made her manner of doing it seem like an insult, but, imagination or reality, it was the one thing necessary to clench my resolution. Now when she looked at me I returned the look with interest. I strode through the doorway and across the hall. The butler would have opened the outer door for me, but I opened it myself to the imminent danger of his dignified nose. As I stepped from the portico I ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the peerless privilege of being Abraham's glory-inheriting and curse -proof spiritual seed, his highly-favoured children for eternity. . . . He then proceeds to prove again his already proved position, and thus to clench his argument. This he does in the third section of the chapter, which begins with the tenth verse and ends with the thirteenth. . . . His proof consists of the fact that the Edomites were as purely descended from Abraham through Isaac, as were the Israelites; and yet, as is manifest ...
— The Doctrines of Predestination, Reprobation, and Election • Robert Wallace
... more good hearty years of fishing in this lake, which grows, each instant, more beautiful in my eyes, as I confess does the whole earth; and to show you that I say no more than I think, I will clench ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... swallow him whole. He will find India and Cathay and Cipango, and France or England will be building ships, ships, ships! Blessed Virgin above us!' said I, 'If I could talk alone to the Sovereigns, I think I could clench it!'" ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... 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
... unwelcome truth made her clench her fingers together despairingly; she had hoped so that it was a dream. The truth of it banished her lethargy, made her think as nothing else had. "Ah! it was so, then; and the ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... himself well under control, but Akers saw his hand clench, and resorted to other tactics. He was not angry himself, but he was wary now; he considered that life was unnecessarily complicated, and that he ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... recollection of what he had seen near the Outwood station. 'Miserably disturbed!' that is not strong enough. He was haunted by the remembrance of the handsome young man, with whom she stood in an attitude of such familiar confidence; and the remembrance shot through him like an agony, till it made him clench his hands tight in order to subdue the pain. At that late hour, so far from home! It took a great moral effort to galvanise his trust—erewhile so perfect—in Margaret's pure and exquisite maidenliness, into life; as soon as the effort ceased, his trust dropped down dead and ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... 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 ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... behind the window curtains to avoid scandal—is discovered, and his sovereign's reputation is only saved by the declaration of Felicia, that the Captain is there on her account. Ollivarez asserts that they are married, to clench the fib—the Queen sees her folly—the Duchess is disgraced—all the characters stand in the well-defined semicircle which is the stage method of writing the word "finis"—Mrs. Yates speaks a very neat and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... 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 not ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... father, had commented to Steering upon that being Madeira's way with everyone who promised to be too much for him to handle—bah! it made Steering angry to consider that Madeira should ever have tried to "handle" him. He loosed the clench of his hands about his knees and jumped to his feet. That was not the worst, and he might as well face the worst. Naturally enough the daughter had had to go with the father. That ride across the ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... say that he actually went to New York the following afternoon. And thus "The Rebellious Princess" lost a stage manager and Mignon the hitherto chief factor in her plans. She was also the recipient of an apologetic note from the actor, which caused her to clench her hands in rage, then shrug her thin shoulders with a gesture that did not spell defeat. Somehow, in some way, she would accomplish her purpose. Even at the eleventh hour she would not acknowledge herself beaten. Yet as the day wore on toward evening she could think of nothing to do ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... the philanderer, who had insulted Rose Mattel, and been responsible for the dismissal of more than one nurse from the hospital. The mere thought of such a man in connection with Eleanor Bartlett made Quin's strong fingers clench around an imaginary neck and brought beads of ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... both his thumbs; the balls or muscles of the thumbs are much emaciated, and remain paralytic. He ascribes his disease to immersing his hands too long in cold water in the execution of his business. He says his hands had frequently been much benumbed before, so that he could not without difficulty clench them; but that they recovered their motion, as soon as they began to glow, after he had dried ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... within sight, thinking he had jeered him, and being of a morose temper, bade him follow his nose and be d—-n'd. Adams told him he was a saucy jackanapes; upon which the fellow turned about angrily; but, perceiving Adams clench his fist, he thought proper to go on without ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... Christian: I won't take it of you; for I believe I am as good a man as thyself" (and indeed, though he was now rather too corpulent for athletic exercises, he had, in his youth, been one of the best boxers and cudgel-players in the county). His wife, seeing him clench his fist, interposed, and begged him not to fight, but show himself a true Christian, and take the law of him. As nothing could provoke Adams to strike, but an absolute assault on himself or his friend, he smiled at the angry look and gestures of Trulliber; and, telling him he ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... Vatican, go see Laocooen's[526] 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[pv] Rivets the living links,—the enormous Asp Enforces pang on pang, and stifles ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... flash. I could see the muscles of his hand clench against his knee. I had scored a point, and his anger ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... galloping, galloping, pounding, thundering past—a frantic horse that tossed its head and tore on through the night, mane flying, bridle loose. And there, crouched on the saddle, two men swayed, locked in a death-clench—an Uhlan with ghostly face and bared teeth, and Brocard, the poacher, cramped and clinging like a panther to his prey, his broad knife flashing ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... your 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 ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... summer, I nussed him on my knees; An' Mike browt home at lowsin'-time Wild rasps an' strawberries. We used to sit on t' door-sill I' t' leet o' t' harvist-moon, While our lile Doad would clench his fists An' suck his toes ...
— Songs of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... 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, ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... pension him and cut him; to tell the truth, no objection against me existed in his family except on the score of the sort of father I owned to, and I had better make up my mind to shake him off before I grew a man; he spoke as a friend. I might frown at him and clench my fists, but he did speak as ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... "This is not murder; only passion bent On pouring out 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 ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... three paces back? Why paces three return to the attack? 1010 Why is the right leg, too, forbid to stir, Unless in motion semicircular? Why must the hero with the Nailor[79] vie, And hurl the close-clench'd fist at nose or eye? In Royal John, with Philip angry grown, I thought he would have knock'd poor Davies down. Inhuman tyrant! was it not a shame To fright a king so harmless and so tame? But, spite ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... 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
... waddin', The crone's in 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 of the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... the air about him with the slow wave of a fan, and waited to help him die. He stood in sore need of help,—and I could do so little; for, as the doctor had foretold, the strong body rebelled against death, and fought every inch of the way, forcing him to draw each breath with a spasm, and clench his hands with an imploring look, as if he asked, "How long must I endure this, and be still?" For hours he suffered dumbly, without a moment's respite, or a moment's murmuring; his limbs grew cold, his face damp, his lips white, and, again and again, he tore the covering off his ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... keep your mist ... manners, and I'll stick to mine! I'm not the third, then: bless us, they must know! 240 Don't you think they're the likeliest to know, They with their Latin? So, I swallow my rage, Clench my teeth, suck my lips in tight, and paint To please them—sometimes do and sometimes don't; For, doing most, there's pretty sure to come 245 A turn, some warm eve finds me at my saints— A laugh, a cry, the business of the world— (Flower o' the peach, ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... words, a terrible jar ran fiercely through the ship from stem to stern—a jar that made one clench one's teeth and hold one's jaws tight—the jar of a prow that shattered against a rock. I took it all in at a glance. We had forgotten Ushant, but Ushant had not forgotten us. It had revenged itself upon us ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... Indian nearest me. It was not a time for overniceness. If I could have done so, I would have struck him in the back while he thought no harm; as it was, some subtle instinct warning him, he whirled himself over in time to strike up my hand and to clench with me. He was very strong, and his naked body, wet with rain, slipped like a snake from my hold. Over and over we rolled on the rain-soaked moss and rotted leaves and cold black earth, the hail blinding us, and the wind shrieking like a thousand ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... lick the splash of moisture on the sill. I did not think of Castro, I had forgotten him. I raged at the deception of my thirst, exploring with my tongue the rough surface of the stone till I tasted my own blood. Only then, raising my head to gasp, and clench my fists with a baffled and exasperated desire, I noticed how profound was the silence, in which the words, "Take away his sting," seemed to pronounce themselves over the ravine in the impersonal austerity of the rock, and with the ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... was the most intense thing that had ever come into her life. To think of him looking at Margaret, talking to Margaret, smiling at Margaret, walking or riding with Margaret, was enough to send her writhing upon her bed in the darkness of a wakeful night. She would clench her pretty hands until the nails dug into the flesh and brought the blood. She would bite the pillow or the blankets with an almost fiendish clenching of her teeth upon them and mutter, as she did so: "I hate her! I hate her! ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... 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 us! VIVE ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... it not clear to us that to set our teeth, clench our hands, or hold any form of extreme tension and mistaken control, doubles, trebles, quadruples the impression of the feeling controlled, and increases by many degrees its power for attacking us another time? Persistent control of this kind gives a certain ...
— As a Matter of Course • Annie Payson Call
... common nature, coupled with the many modifications and adaptations to circumstances which equally require special gifts of discernment and wisdom from on high. Then occasional narratives, by way of illustration, to clench the statement of principles, might be introduced; but I can't write, what I might write if I chose, folios of mere events without deducing from them some maxims for ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was little enough 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 whole ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... the latter the young man marked down the Alethea; a sight which made him unconsciously clench both fists and teeth, reminding him of that ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... Side; and I think you will agree that it was a 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 of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various
... intended to tell you. Dona Isolda Montijo is universally admitted to be, beyond all question, the most lovely woman in Cuba; and for once the popular estimate is correct, as no man knows so well as I do." ("Steady, old man, steady!" said Jack to himself. "Hold tight, and clench your teeth! The blackguard is talking now with the express intention of provoking you into the commission of some overt act for which you would be sorry afterwards, and you must not allow yourself to be provoked. The ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... bit his lip, and the man noticed his hand clench hard. Then there started a low-voiced conversation, a conversation to which he listened attentively—his ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... 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
... to the crumbling trench Must go in the spirit that games with fate, With feet that stumble and teeth that clench Over the valley of hell and hate. Over the knees in water and mud, Up to the waist if you miss the track, You shall know your path by the trail of blood, And silent figures shall guide ...
— The Story of the "9th King's" in France • Enos Herbert Glynne Roberts
... the feeling of fear, nothing tangible is left. Similarly with sorrow or joy or anger. Take the latter emotion; imagine yourself angry,—immediately the jaw becomes set and the lips draw back in a semi-snarl, the fists clench and the muscles tighten, while the head and body are thrust forward in what is, as Darwin pointed out, the preparation for pouncing on the foe. Even if you mimic anger without any especial reason, there steals over you ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... 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
... himself, tried to prepare for that which he knew was coming, which he read on the page of that other face. But he was too late. Watching, almost doubting their own eyes, the six saw the end. They saw a dark hand of a sudden clench, shoot out like a brown light. They heard an impact, and a second later the thud of a great body as it met the floor. They saw the latter lift, stumble clumsily to its feet, heard a muffled, choking oath. ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... thy frozen lips at last Unclose, to teach our seamen how to sift A passage where blue icebergs clash and drift, And the shore loosely rattles in the blast. We hold the secret thou hast clench'd so fast For ages,—our best blood has earned the gift.— Blood spilt, or hoarded up in patient thrift, Through sunless months in ceaseless peril passed. But what of daring Franklin? who may know The pangs ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... feeblest follower, yet Thy follower Indomitable for Thine only sake. To-night I gird my will afresh, and stir My strength, and brace my heart to do and dare, Marvelling: Will to-morrow wake the whirr Of the great rending wheel, or from his lair Startle the jubilant lion in his rage, Or clench the headsman's hand within my hair, Or kindle fire to speed my pilgrimage, Chariot of fire and horses of sheer fire Whirling me home to heaven by one fierce stage? Thy Will I will, I Thy desire desire; Let not the waters close above my head, Uphold ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... 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 ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... to cause him some trouble to extricate himself. Ideally speaking, both divisions (19) will be backed by infantry kept in rear of the cavalry; these will suddenly disclose themselves, and rushing to close quarters, in all probability clench the nail of victory. (20) So at any rate it strikes me, seeing as I do the effects of what is unexpected—how, in the case of good things, the soul of man is filled to overflowing with joy, and again, in the case of things terrible, paralysed with amazement. In proof of what I ...
— The Cavalry General • Xenophon
... a keg of pork, a-bitin' on the chine, And he'd clench a rope and hang there like a puppy to a root; And a feller he could pull and twitch and yank up on the line, But he couldn't do no business ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... 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 of one ...
— The Ethics • Benedict de Spinoza
... not clear herself without accusing her sister, so she said nothing, but sat, consumed with fiery indignation; and for long afterwards she would wake up at night, and clench her little fists, and burn again, remembering how her mother ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... do as I do, don't you? Now go out and tell Aunt Pike that, and suck up to her. If she's going to live here, it's best to be first favourite." At which unusual outburst on the part of her big brother Betty was so overcome that she collapsed on to her chair again, and had to clench her hands tightly and wink hard to disperse the mist which clouded her eyes and threatened to turn ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... than now in France; 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 bud Of Brotherhood ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... the Vatican, go see Laocoon's torture dignifying pain - A father's love and mortal's agony With an immortal's patience blending: —Vain The struggle; vain, against the coiling strain And gripe, and deepening of the dragon's grasp, The old man's clench; the long envenomed chain Rivets the living links,—the enormous asp Enforces pang on pang, ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... depend: "Whilst I in fighting gain the palm, be thou "Victor in talking.—Furious on he rush'd. "So proudly boasting, to submit I scorn'd; "But stript my sea-green robe, my arms oppos'd, "And held my firm-clench'd hands before my breast; "For stout resistance every limb prepar'd, "To meet the fight. He in his hollow palms "The dust collecting, sprinkled me all o'er, "And then the yellow sand upon me threw. "Now on my neck ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... was valiant till danger stared him in the face; I've known them, too, that consaited they were kind and ready to give away all they had to the poor, when they've been listening to other people's hard heartedness; but whose fists have clench'd as tight as the riven hickory when it came to downright offerings of their own. Besides, Judith, you're handsome—uncommon in that way, one might observe and do no harm to the truth—and they that have beauty, like to have that which will adorn it. Are ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... scene 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 an ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... blows," Billy explained. "He was a regular devil at it. 'Most every clench, like clock work, down he'd chop one on me. It got so sore I was wincin'... until I got groggy an' didn't know much of anything. It ain't a knockout blow, you know, but it's awful wearin' in a long fight. It takes the ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... love they rhyme dispense, That tolls the knell for their departed sense. Dulness might thrive in any trade, but this 'Twould recommend to some fat benefice: Dulness, that in a playhouse meets disgrace, Might meet with reverence in its proper place. The fulsome clench, that nauseates the town, Would from a judge or alderman go down; Such virtue is there in a robe and gown! And that insipid stuff, which here you hate, 30 Might somewhere else be call'd a grave debate: ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... himself, the most exciting Lenten occupation was to hear him argued against and vilified. This excitement was to be had in Santa Croce, where the Franciscan appointed to preach the Quaresimal sermons had offered to clench his arguments by walking through the fire with Fra Girolamo. Had not that schismatical Dominican said, that his prophetic doctrine would be proved by a miracle at the fitting time? Here, then, was the fitting time. Let Savonarola walk through the fire, ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... that had fallen lay in the thickest of the smoke, and over it Lossing was just about to bend when I halted, seeing a sudden movement on Voisin's part which made me clench ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... down. This was unreasonable, and I told him so in a 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 I resumed ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... sigh at your weakness of heart, or of endeavor, and your sighs float out into the breeze, that rises ever from the shock of the waves, and whirl, empty-handed, to Heaven. You avow high purposes, and clench them with round utterance; and your voice, like a sparrow's, is caught up in the roar of the fall, and thrown at you from the cliffs, and dies away in the solemn thunders of nature. Great thoughts of life come over ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... at her fury). We shall see. Frown at me, Polly; there, you do it at once. Clench your little fists, stamp your feet, bite your ribbons—(A student of women, or at least of this woman, he knows that she is about to do those things, and thus she seems to do them to order. LADY MARY screws up her face like a baby and cries. ...
— The Admirable Crichton • J. M. Barrie
... the frowns and winks with which Mrs Nickleby intimated that she was going to say something which would clench the business at once, Kate maintained her point by an expressive look, and for once Mrs Nickleby was stopped upon the ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... answer in words. The strong muscular fingers of his left hand closed on the right arm of Verinder just below the shoulder with a pressure excruciatingly painful. Dobyans found himself moving automatically toward the end of the porch. He had to clench his teeth ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... the law provides a way, but you wouldn't, couldn't, understand how I feel about divorce." The mere mention of the word was difficult and caused Alaire to clench her hands. "We're both too shaken to talk sanely ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... with uncovered feet upon the coals, Until thou reach the ghostly Land of Souls, And, with thy Mohawk death-song please our ear? Or wilt thou with the women rest thee here?" His eyes flash like an eagle's, and his hands Clench at the insult. Like a god he stands. "Prepare ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... 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 envenom'd chain Rivets the living links,—the enormous asp Enforces pang on pang, and stifles gasp ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... none too patient a man at any time, had to clench his fists and drive his finger-nails into the palms of his hands, else he could have struck this abject, miserable coward. He wrenched his cloak out of the Caesar's grasp and with a firm grip pulled him roughly up from ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... 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 from the ...
— I Was a Teen-Age Secret Weapon • Richard Sabia
... man tell his story with many strong expressions of feeling, many a hand clench, and saw he was moved to tears; saw the hereditary Enniskillen blood rise, the heart that once throbbed responsive to the loyalty felt for the Enniskillen family now surging up against them passionately. I thought sadly ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... overeating and drinking, and helping to fill the tills of alien parasites in Soho. That has been your part. And now, now that the fatal crisis has arrived, you, whose qualification is that you can wield the pen of a begging letter-writer, who is also scurrilous and insolent—you lie in bed and clench your useless hands, and ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... explain the meaning of my new word. There was no occasion for it to mean either God or the Tivoli; [Footnote: Theatre of Varieties, etc., and Garden in Christiania.] and who said that it was to signify cattle show? I clench my hands fiercely, and repeat once again, "Who said that it was to signify cattle show?" No; on second thoughts, it was not absolutely necessary that it should mean padlock, or sunrise. It was not difficult to find a ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... "I saw her clench her teeth, and the flame of revolt rise in her face. He drew back his gnarled fist to strike, and I was afraid, and sick at heart. I could do nothing to prevail against him. So I got up to go, and not be witness to such indignity. But the Chauffeur laughed and threatened me with a beating ...
— The Scarlet Plague • Jack London
... to retreat; but, as he turned, his eyes chanced to travel to the sea, where he could still discern the fishing-boats riding at their nets; and the idea of 'Miah out there thinking of Dorcas made him clench his teeth grimly, as if he had received ...
— Drolls From Shadowland • J. H. Pearce
... in the dead of night— Men, three hundred strong! Armed and silent, masked from the light, Speeding swartly along. What is their errand? manly fight? Clench with a manly foe? I would rather be dead of wrong Than ride among ...
— Nirvana Days • Cale Young Rice
... and left this surly and scandalous savage to the enjoyment of his own company. His temper rendered me extremely uneasy. The arms-room was full of weapons; he might draw a pistol upon me and shoot me dead before I should have time to clench my hand. Nor did I conceive him to have his right mind. His panic terrors and outbursts of rage were such extremes of behaviour as suggested some sort of organic decay within. He had been for eight-and-forty years insensible; in all that time the current ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... the red drain of her own mouth, and make A monochord of colour. Like an asp, One lithe lock wriggles in his rutilant grasp. Her bosom is an oven of myrrh, to bake Love's white warm shewbread to a browner cake. The lock his fingers clench has burst its hasp. The legs are absolutely abominable. Ah! what keen overgust of wild-eyed woes Flags in that bosom, flushes in that nose? Nay! Death sets riddles for desire to spell, Responsive. What red hem earth's passion sews, But may be ravenously ...
— The Heptalogia • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... on my elbow. "Starling! Starling!" I cried. He made no sound. His head drooped, and I saw him clench his hand. I stared. He threw his head back, but when he tried to meet my look he failed. Yet I looked again. "My God!" I heard my voice say, and my teeth bit into my lip. I could smell the flowers in my hand, but they seemed a long distance away. "My God!" I cried again, and I rose and felt my way ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... so easily satisfied with yourselves! You are quite sure that you know us.... Alas! If you knew how we suffer sometimes when we see, not that you do not love us, but how you love us, and that that is all we are to those we love the best! There are moments, Christophe, when we clench our fists so that the nails dig into our hands to keep ourselves from crying to you: 'Oh! Do not love us, do not love us! Anything rather than love us like that!'... Do you know the saying of a poet: 'Even in her home, among ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... 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 powerless as ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... winter of 1859-60 we find him a volunteer, commenting not too happily on "the hideous English toadyism which invests lords and great people with commands," a remark which seems to clench the inference that he had not appreciated the effect of the Revolution upon France. For nearly three parts of 1860 we have not a single letter, except one in January pleasantly referring to his youngest child "in black velvet and red-and-white tartan, ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... them, and with mighty force clench them with the mallet about his hands: rivet him ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus
... answered excitedly. Then another thought made her clench her fists. "Is it possible you told Professor Schillingschen your secret to-day? Did one of you tell him? Is that why he ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... longer continue the pretence he had been making—for it was all pretence. The effort to be loving and affectionate was torture, so that all his nerves seemed to vibrate with exasperation. Sometimes he had to clench his hands in order to keep himself under restraint. He was acting all the time. James asked himself what madness blinded Mary that she did not see? He remembered how easily speech had come in the old days when they were boy and girl together; they could pass hours side ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... effects of the whisky he had consumed. He straightened himself up, and his mouth hardened. The cigarette lolling between his lips became firmly gripped. O'Brien, watching the change in him, suddenly saw his hands clench at his sides, and understood the sudden access of resentment which the mention of Fyles's name stirred in the man. He read into what he beheld something of the real character of the "sharp," as ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... young friend learned at gymnasium was to direct her mind only on to the muscles that were needed. Did you ever try to clench your fist so tight that it could not be opened? If not, try it, and relax all over your body while you are keeping your fist tight closed. You will see that the more limp your body becomes the tighter you can keep your fist clenched. All the force goes ...
— Nerves and Common Sense • Annie Payson Call
... by our slain! Look how some lie still clench'd with savages In all-embracing death, their bloody hands Glued in each other's hair! Make burial straight Of all alike in deep and common graves: Their quarrel now ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... riper years have seasoned brain and limb, You'll drop your corks, and like a Triton swim." 'Twas thus he formed my boyhood: if he sought To make me do some action that I ought, "You see your warrant there," he'd say, and clench His word with some grave member of the bench: So too with things forbidden: "can you doubt The deed's a deed an honest man should scout, When, just for this same matter, these and those, Like open drains, are stinking ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... suspect, have induced you to take such a step, you will now smile with me, at this new and very unnecessary addition to the 'fears of me' I have got so triumphantly over in your case! Wise man, was I not, to clench my first favourable impression so adroitly ... like a recent Cambridge worthy, my sister heard of; who, being on his theological (or rather, scripture-historical) examination, was asked by the Tutor, who wished to let him off easily, 'who was the first King of Israel?'—'Saul' ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... 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 of bitter wrong, was not there too. There was no telling what disaster might ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... thought thus to herself; for detached musical jerks of diabolical rapidity, that have to be snapped at with the punctuality of the mosquito slayer, don't show your rounded lines to advantage, and make you clench your teeth ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... interrogative omnibus word, he would clench one fat fist and knead the air downward with it, to illustrate the process of putting down ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... Prince with the Lip's Power is in, to make such a huff at this Time, shall come under Examination by and by; in the mean time the Solunarians have clench'd the Nail, and secur'd the War to last as ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... no gesture with his hands, did not frown or clench his fists, but remained impassively calm. His words, however, cut Rrisa like knives. The orderly remained trembling and sweating, with a piteous expression. Finally ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... 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 swiftness of ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... has been thus far no hesitation or irresolution among the people in the conduct of the war. 'Conquer them first,' has been the glorious war-cry from millions of the freest men on earth. But when we are driving a nail it is well to know that it will be possible to eventually clench it. And when the country shall fully understand the ease with which this Union nail may be clenched, there will be, let us hope, a greatly revived spirit in all now interested ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... breakfasted on a biscuit, with a full allowance of water, and then set to work at the boat. The thorns answered their purpose as nails admirably, and the planks soon were securely fastened into their places against the stem; but without nails to clench the planks together, it was evident to them all that the boat would not float five minutes. They stood looking ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... hath run his course. One is that dame The false accuser of the Hebrew youth; Sinon the other, that false Greek from Troy. Sharp fever drains the reeky moistness out, In such a cloud upsteam'd." When that he heard, One, gall'd perchance to be so darkly nam'd, With clench'd hand smote him on the braced paunch, That like a drum resounded: but forthwith Adamo smote him on the face, the blow Returning with his arm, that ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... dirty, filthy." Once she tried to get out of the window, said it was a door and that she wanted to get out and take a walk. Above all, she had, in these two days, repeated peculiar seizures which the aunt and the husband described as follows: When sitting on a chair she would close her eyes, clench her fists, pound the side of the chair, get stiff, slide on the floor, then thrash her arms and legs about and move the head to and fro. She frothed at the mouth. After the attack, which lasted a few minutes, she breathed heavily for a while. ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... me! What could I do for her in return? My hands felt helpless; a sweet cold went through my wrists. Herregud! I thought to myself, here am I with my limbs hanging helpless for joy; I cannot even clench my hands; I can only find tears in my eyes for my own helplessness. What is ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... if we interposed a definite revision by the conscious mind and will of all our plans and ideals between their (perhaps quite automatic) formation in our imagination and their translation into fact. Slack muscle should go with the daydream or picture of the future; we should not strike or clench or lift until we have decided that the action is right and just and wise. The girl who counted her chickens and broke the eggs is a true enough example: every doctor and coroner knows many instances of results far ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... upon the fears of the inhabitants of Gallibornu, who insisted that the Turk should compromise the affair and return the handsome bullock, receiving in exchange his own half-starved old animal, in addition to a present of half a sovereign. Georgi was only too delighted to immediately clench the bargain. I advised him in future to manage his own cattle-dealing instead of confiding in his able friend Theodori, and I ordered the oxen to be put in the yokes at once, and to draw the vans to our old camping-place beneath the hawthorn-tree. Upon ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... caused him to clench his hands. Fortunately, he knew the truth, therefore that dastardly attempt upon the girl's life should not go unpunished. As he sat there chatting with her, admiring her refinement and innate daintiness, he made a vow within himself to seek out that ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... to tell Fred: "What do you know about it? Jack Corey, the bandit, is treed up at the lookout station! He told me all the inside dope—" The thought of her animated chatter to Fred on the subject of his one real tragedy, made him clench his hands. ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... in a faithless age! Yet happier, in that death-dew drench'd, In each rude hand the claymore clench'd, Than who, to soothe a nation's craven rage, To the red scaffold went with steady eye, And the red martyr-grave, For one, who could not save! Who only lives to weep the ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... 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 from the violence of movement. He was trying to keep his ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... triumphant Oriental. "Tai-K'an warned your father that he would have his revenge. His daughter was to him as much as you are to your own father the mandarin," and he laughed that short, grating laugh of the Chinaman, which caused Otley to clench his fists. ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... To think of him looking at Margaret, talking to Margaret, smiling at Margaret, walking or riding with Margaret, was enough to send her writhing upon her bed in the darkness of a wakeful night. She would clench her pretty hands until the nails dug into the flesh and brought the blood. She would bite the pillow or the blankets with an almost fiendish clenching of her teeth upon them and mutter, as she did so: "I hate her! I hate ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... name And life unspotted, I've attained my aim: When riper years have seasoned brain and limb, You'll drop your corks, and like a Triton swim." 'Twas thus he formed my boyhood: if he sought To make me do some action that I ought, "You see your warrant there," he'd say, and clench His word with some grave member of the bench: So too with things forbidden: "can you doubt The deed's a deed an honest man should scout, When, just for this same matter, these and those, Like open drains, are stinking 'neath your nose?" Sick gluttons of a next-door funeral hear, ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... his single peer: Fag on at flesh, you'll never make the third!" Flower o' the pine, You keep your mist ... manners, and I'll stick to mine! I'm not the third, then: bless us, they must know! 240 Don't you think they're the likeliest to know, They with their Latin? So, I swallow my rage, Clench my teeth, suck my lips in tight, and paint To please them—sometimes do and sometimes don't; For, doing most, there's pretty sure to come 245 A turn, some warm eve finds me at my saints— A laugh, a cry, the business of the world— (Flower o' the peach, Death for us all, and his ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... crying, with fitful sobs and starts of indignant protest that made her clench her fists. At one moment she took her tear-soaked handkerchief, bit it with her teeth and tore it, after the manner of ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... deemed a cheat. Hard was his fare; for 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 ...
— The Parish Register • George Crabbe
... passionate lips that ache With the red drain of her own mouth, and make A monochord of colour. Like an asp, One lithe lock wriggles in his rutilant grasp. Her bosom is an oven of myrrh, to bake Love's white warm shewbread to a browner cake. The lock his fingers clench has burst its hasp. The legs are absolutely abominable. Ah! what keen overgust of wild-eyed woes Flags in that bosom, flushes in that nose? Nay! Death sets riddles for desire to spell, Responsive. What red hem earth's passion sews, But may be ...
— The Heptalogia • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... good a man as thyself" (and indeed, though he was now rather too corpulent for athletic exercises, he had, in his youth, been one of the best boxers and cudgel-players in the county). His wife, seeing him clench his fist, interposed, and begged him not to fight, but show himself a true Christian, and take the law of him. As nothing could provoke Adams to strike, but an absolute assault on himself or his friend, he smiled at the angry look and gestures of Trulliber; and, telling him he ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... unprepared for the effect of this on Eleanor. For two cents she would have fainted then and there. It's awful to hear a woman moan, and clench her teeth, ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... so frank, seemed to clench up, as if he were riding at a fence. 'He'll tell a lie,' she thought bitterly. But ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... muscles getting ready for flight from the feeling of fear, nothing tangible is left. Similarly with sorrow or joy or anger. Take the latter emotion; imagine yourself angry,—immediately the jaw becomes set and the lips draw back in a semi-snarl, the fists clench and the muscles tighten, while the head and body are thrust forward in what is, as Darwin pointed out, the preparation for pouncing on the foe. Even if you mimic anger without any especial reason, there steals over you a ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... thy 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 simply let Him go past. That were bad enough; but the fact 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 ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... 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 ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... 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 ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... must—but should your mere kindness and forethought, as I half suspect, have induced you to take such a step, you will now smile with me, at this new and very unnecessary addition to the 'fears of me' I have got so triumphantly over in your case! Wise man, was I not, to clench my first favourable impression so adroitly ... like a recent Cambridge worthy, my sister heard of; who, being on his theological (or rather, scripture-historical) examination, was asked by the Tutor, who wished to let him off easily, 'who was the first King of Israel?'—'Saul' ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... irresolution among the people in the conduct of the war. 'Conquer them first,' has been the glorious war-cry from millions of the freest men on earth. But when we are driving a nail it is well to know that it will be possible to eventually clench it. And when the country shall fully understand the ease with which this Union nail may be clenched, there will be, let us hope, a greatly revived spirit in all now interested ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... of hell-fire and eternal damnation' (iii. 200). And indeed we cannot deny that when reading some of the sermons to which poor Phebe Bartlet must have listened, and remembering the nature of the audience, the fingers of an unregenerate person clench themselves involuntarily as grasping an imaginary horsewhip. The answer given by Edwards does not diminish the impression. Innocent as children may seem to be, he replies, 'yet if they are out of Christ, they are ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... agonised him, and existence seemed an intolerable pain. As he entered the deeper gloom, where the fog hung heavily, he began, half consciously, to gesticulate; he felt convulsed with torment and shame, and it was a sorry relief to clench his nails into his palm and strike the air as he stumbled heavily along, bruising his feet against the frozen ruts and ridges. His impotence was hideous, he said to himself, and he cursed himself and his life, breaking out into a loud oath, and stamping on the ground. Suddenly he was shocked at ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... very name caused him to clench his hands. Fortunately, he knew the truth, therefore that dastardly attempt upon the girl's life should not go unpunished. As he sat there chatting with her, admiring her refinement and innate daintiness, he made a vow within himself to seek out that cowardly fugitive and ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... rushed past her, covering her with dust and causing her to clench her hands in anger. "Beastly thing!" ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... accuracy. The 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 to ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban
... back and lit a fire in the sheet-iron stove. As the circulation that meant life flooded back into her chilled veins Sheba endured a half-hour of excruciating pain. She had to clench her teeth to keep back the groans that came from her throat, to walk the floor and nurse her tortured hands with ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... 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 ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... 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 ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... able to clench his fist. That fact was enough for Felix, and next moment he was gone, and the moonlight cast his black shadow as he ran, making northeast, a darkness let loose on life and ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... 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 Immediately turned off ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... No emotion after all, when the very traditional test of our enjoyment of a play is the amount of feeling it arouses!—when hearts beat, hands clench, tears flow! Emotion there is, it may not be denied; but not the sympathetic ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... most insinuating smile, his lordship, or his grace, 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 ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 540, Saturday, March 31, 1832 • Various
... Harris is more intent on the deductions than the facts. The truth is, Harris wrote to please his patron, the republican Hollis, who supplied him with books, and every friendly aid. "It is possible for an ingenious man to be of a party without being partial" says Rushworth; an airy clench on the lips of a sober matter-of-fact man looks suspicions, and betrays the weak ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... 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
... 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.
... left it, and perceived the house and sign to be within sight, thinking he had jeered him, and being of a morose temper, bade him follow his nose and be d—-n'd. Adams told him he was a saucy jackanapes; upon which the fellow turned about angrily; but, perceiving Adams clench his fist, he thought proper to go on without ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... looked a little foolish, but Clench, the boatswain, coming aft to say something to him in confidence, just at that moment, he was enabled to avoid the awkwardness of attempting to explain. This man Clench, or Clinch, as the name was pronounced, was deep in the captain's secrets; far more so than was his mate, ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... crone's in 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 of ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... sir," cried Mr Tobin, the first-lieutenant. Out ran the cable to the clench, carrying away the stoppers, and passing through both compressors. At length the messenger was again shackled, and the anchor hove up, when it was found that both flukes ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... moisture on the sill. I did not think of Castro, I had forgotten him. I raged at the deception of my thirst, exploring with my tongue the rough surface of the stone till I tasted my own blood. Only then, raising my head to gasp, and clench my fists with a baffled and exasperated desire, I noticed how profound was the silence, in which the words, "Take away his sting," seemed to pronounce themselves over the ravine in the impersonal austerity of the rock, and with the tone ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... 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 ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... negotiate, stipulate, make terms; bargain &c (barter) 794. make a bargain, strike a bargain; come to terms, come to an understanding; compromise &c 774; set at rest; close, close with; conclude, complete, settle; confirm, ratify, clench, subscribe, underwrite; endorse, indorse; put the seal to; sign, seal &c (attest) 467; indent. take one at one's word, bargain by inch of candle. Adj. agreed &c v.; conventional; under hand and seal. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... voice, "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 swiftness of ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... spirit had pass'd in the moments last There was little trace to reveal: On the still calm face lay no imprint ghast, Save the angel's solemn seal, Yet the hands were clench'd in a death-grip fast, And the sods stamp'd down ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... 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 place briskly a dozen times; this ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... wit, the vice of the age, and not Ben Jonson's; for you see, a little before him, that admirable wit, Sir Philip Sidney, perpetually playing with his words. In his time, I believe, it ascended first into the pulpit, where (if you will give me leave to clench too) it yet finds the benefit of its clergy; for they are commonly the first corrupters of eloquence, and the last reformed from vicious oratory; as a famous Italian has observed before me, in his Treatise of the Corruption ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... a pity; I 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 ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... accuser of the Hebrew youth; Sinon the other, that false Greek from Troy. Sharp fever drains the reeky moistness out, In such a cloud upsteam'd." When that he heard, One, gall'd perchance to be so darkly nam'd, With clench'd hand smote him on the braced paunch, That like a drum resounded: but forthwith Adamo smote him on the face, the blow Returning with his ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... 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 ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... 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! ...
— The Smart Set - Correspondence & Conversations • Clyde Fitch
... struggling with his grief, 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 scorch in fancy 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 into despair, and from despair to prostration. After he had thrown ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... an arrow hit his shoulder, another pierced his neck, and he, too, fell gasping for breath. Karnis saw him drop, and painfully raised himself a little to help him; but it was too much for him; he could only clench his fist in helpless fury and chant, half-singing, half-speaking, as loud ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... lose their scent, and grass and trees and birds to be blurred and turned drab in my eyes? How do you think I live, man? How do you think I can go before juries and audiences and make them thrill and clench their fists and cry like children and breathe with my emotions, if I am to be stone dead? Do you think a wooden man can do that? Try Joe Calvin with a jury—what does he accomplish with all his virtue? He hasn't had an emotion in twenty ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... seek to explain the meaning of my new word. There was no occasion for it to mean either God or the Tivoli; [Footnote: Theatre of Varieties, etc., and Garden in Christiania.] and who said that it was to signify cattle show? I clench my hands fiercely, and repeat once again, "Who said that it was to signify cattle show?" No; on second thoughts, it was not absolutely necessary that it should mean padlock, or sunrise. It was not difficult to find a meaning for such a word as this. I would wait and see. In the meantime ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... fires than now in France; 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 bud ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... will clench the business, Don Antolin; you may reckon on me, I am always ready to earn a day's wage ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... moment, And nothing did he say, But the cheek of Argyle grew ghastly pale, And he turn'd his eyes away. The painted harlot at his side, She shook through every limb, For a roar like thunder swept the street, And hands were clench'd at him, And a Saxon soldier cried aloud, "Back, coward, from thy place! For seven long years thou hast not dared To look him ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... testators used to leave the disinherited one shilling, not out of a shilling's worth of kindly feeling, but that he might not be able to say his name was omitted through inadvertency, so Mrs. Dodd inserted this postscript merely to clench the nail and tantalise her enemy. It was a ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... they would pass within a mile of it. But Brokaw would never know. And they would never reach Thoreau's. Billy knew that. He looked at the man hunter as he broke trail ahead of him—at the pugnacious hunch of his shoulders, his long stride, the determined clench of his hands, and wondered what the soul and the heart of a man like this must be, who in such an hour would not trade life for life. For almost three-quarters of an hour Brokaw did not utter a word. The storm had broke. Above the spruce tops the sky began to clear. Day came slowly. ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... now I will teach you how to send him home with a bloody nose; down with your bag of books; and now, my game chick,' whispered he to me, placing himself between me and my adversary, so that he could not observe his motions, 'clench your fist in this manner, and hold your arms in this, and when he strikes at you, move them as I now show you, and he can't hurt you; now, don't be afraid, but go at him.' I confess that I was somewhat afraid, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... as he spoke and, adroit in managing men, reached out his hand as though to take the other's and so to clench the matter. Yet his heart leaped in surprise—a surprise which did not leave him wholly clear as to the other's motives—when the latter met his hand with so ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... cold, measured 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 dinted ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... who had thrown up his left arm to ward off the anticipated blow, and dropped his oar in order to clench his right fist, quietly resumed his oar, and shook his head gravely for nearly a minute, after which he made the ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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, and what you would have ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... the continuous political changes, the constant "saving of the country," which to his wife seemed a puerile and bloodthirsty game of murder and rapine played with terrible earnestness by depraved children. In the early days of her Costaguana life, the little lady used to clench her hands with exasperation at not being able to take the public affairs of the country as seriously as the incidental atrocity of methods deserved. She saw in them a comedy of naive pretences, ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... 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 was a happy child, "as quiet as a mouse." He ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole
... had to clench his teeth; he passed silently along, shaking the hands that were stretched out ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... the enemy with paralysing force, and to cause him some trouble to extricate himself. Ideally speaking, both divisions (19) will be backed by infantry kept in rear of the cavalry; these will suddenly disclose themselves, and rushing to close quarters, in all probability clench the nail of victory. (20) So at any rate it strikes me, seeing as I do the effects of what is unexpected—how, in the case of good things, the soul of man is filled to overflowing with joy, and again, in the case of things terrible, paralysed ...
— The Cavalry General • Xenophon
... What could I do for her in return? My hands felt helpless; a sweet cold went through my wrists. Herregud! I thought to myself, here am I with my limbs hanging helpless for joy; I cannot even clench my hands; I can only find tears in my eyes for my own helplessness. What is ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... at the last there would be no waiting—no delay. The very minute he sank exhausted into the snow they would be upon him—the great white leader and her rapacious horde—and in his imagination he could feel the viselike clench of iron jaws and the tearing rip with which the quivering flesh would be stripped ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... arms went out about each other and clasped behind each other's backs. Then some impulse moved them to a fierce clench of desperate sorrow. They were embracing their dead loves, the corpses that lay dead in these alienated bodies. It was an embrace across a grave, and they felt the thud of ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... creencia belief. creer to believe. crepusculo twilight. creyente believer. criado, -a servant. criador creator. criar to create, produce, raise. criatura creature. crimen m. crime. crispar to clench. cristal m. crystal, glass, pane. cristiano, -a Christian. Cristo Christ. critica criticism. crucifijo crucifix. crudo raw, cruel. crueldad f. cruelty. crujiente crackling. crujir to creak, crack, crackle. cruz f. cross. cruzado crusader. ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... the kidney blows," Billy explained. "He was a regular devil at it. 'Most every clench, like clock work, down he'd chop one on me. It got so sore I was wincin'... until I got groggy an' didn't know much of anything. It ain't a knockout blow, you know, but it's awful wearin' in a long fight. It takes the starch out ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... they move us, almost unconsciously, to fondle them. And yet we know not why we would fondle the sable "rascals." One knot is larking on the grass, running, toddling, yelling, and hooting; another, ankle-deep in mud, clench together and roll among the ducks, work their clawy fingers through the tufts of each other's crispy hair, and enjoy their childish sports with an air of genial happiness; while a third sit in a circle beside an oak tree, ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... latter the young man marked down the Alethea; a sight which made him unconsciously clench both fists and teeth, reminding him of that rare ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... 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 not intend to ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... enough. He was haunted by the remembrance of the handsome young man, with whom she stood in an attitude of such familiar confidence; and the remembrance shot through him like an agony, till it made him clench his hands tight in order to subdue the pain. At that late hour, so far from home! It took a great moral effort to galvanise his trust—erewhile so perfect—in Margaret's pure and exquisite maidenliness, into life; as soon as the effort ceased, his trust dropped down dead and powerless: and ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... up the slope, With broken gait, and hands in clench, A toiler came, bereft of hope, And sank beside him ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... and her brows had drawn together in an angry frown by the time Gabriel had finished, and Neale, silently watching her from the background, saw her fingers clench themselves. She gave a swift glance at the Earl, and then fixed her eyes steadily ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... humble bench Thy hands did handle saw and plane, Thy hammer nails did drive and clench, ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... of the Plank to be fastened with good well seasoned Treenails, and one 1/2 inch Copper Bolt in every Butt from the Keel up to the Wales, to go through and clench on a Ring on the Ceiling, and the Treenails drove through the Ceiling, wedged on the ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... the cabman and paid him his fare—then hurried along rapidly, Errington every now and then giving a fiercer clench to the formidable horsewhip which was twisted together with his ordinary walking-stick in such a manner as not to attract ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... prayer for pardon. It makes the heart hard, senseless, careless, lifeless, spiritless as to feeling, in all Christian duty; and this is a grievous thing to a gracious soul. The other things will create a doubt, and drive it up to the head into the soul; but these will go on the other side and clench it.[7] Now all these things ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... less openly and is interpreted by the uninitiated as due merely to a desire to relieve the bladder. It is found in female infants. Thus, Townsend records the case of an infant, 8 months old, who would cross her right thigh over the left, close her eyes and clench her fists; after a minute or two there would be complete relaxation, with sweating and redness of face; this would occur about once a week or oftener; the child was quite healthy, with no abnormal condition of the genital organs.[215] The frequency of thigh-friction ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... discussions with his village elders or stewards the blood rushed to his face and his fists began to clench, Nicholas would turn the broken ring on his finger and would drop his eyes before the man who was making him angry. But he did forget himself once or twice within a twelvemonth, and then he would go and confess to his wife, and would again promise that this should really ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... gathering of 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
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