"Grip" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of menace that to Sanine sounded singularly ridiculous. The whole left side of Sarudine's face had instantly became swollen. His eye was no longer visible; blood was flowing from his nose and mouth, his lips twitched, and his whole body shook as if in the grip of a fever. Of the smart, handsome officer nothing remained. That awful blow had robbed him of all that was human; it had left only something piteous, terrifying, disfigured. He made no attempt to go away nor to defend himself. His teeth rattled, and, while he spat blood, he mechanically ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... the clutching old man had lost his grip on life, was left as he had left it. There was the old grisly four-post bedstead, without hangings, and with a jail-like upper rim of iron and spikes; and there was the old patch-work counterpane. There was the tight-clenched old bureau, receding atop like ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... his rapier, and caught at the railings, where for a moment he hung swaying and gasping. Then his head fell forward, his grip relaxed, and swooning he ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... spurs also pressed home, so that the two horses plunged as one. Big Medicine, bellowing one solitary oath, drew his right leg from the stirrup to dismount. Miguel reached out, caught him by the arm, and held him to the saddle. And, though Big Medicine was a strong man, the grip held firm ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... if that was prophecy or desperation, Rilla, the horror of that dream holds me yet in an icy grip. We shall need all our ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... old Sir Even Dhu used to say to me when I was out with the metall'd lads in 1689. 'Craigengelt,' he used to say, 'you are as pretty a fellow as ever held steel in his grip, but you ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... dogs, but the crush prevented his making the separation complete. Instantly they were at it again. The police made superhuman efforts to arrive before it was all over. The fight, however, came to an end as suddenly as it had begun. Jove found his grip. But for the broad collar on McQuade's dog the animal would have been ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... of the window of the shed and clamped a fierce grip around his throat, jerking him backward against the wall. He grabbed frantically for the ...
— Be It Ever Thus • Robert Moore Williams
... and funeral wreaths, sorrow and tears, the long home, the last sleep. The major shivered with apprehension as the slender hand which he held in his own contracted nervously and in a spasm of pain clutched his fingers with a viselike grip. ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... tense grip with a frightful lightness. He caught up its neighbor for further confirmation. It responded with reassuring bulk and weight. But this one from which all specific gravity seemed to have ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... right, lad," answered the monitor, "your ain conscience is the first thing to be satisfied—for how sall he teach others that has himself sae ill learned the Scriptures, as to grip for the lucre of foul earthly preferment, sic as gear and manse, money and victual, that which is not his in a spiritual sense—or wha makes his kirk a stalking-horse, from behind which he may tak aim at his stipend? But I look for better things of you—and specially ye ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... succeed in conquering this territory from the Austrians. At one time we find them even in possession of all except one of the chief passes in the Carpathians and threatening to overrun the plains of Hungary. To hold Russian Poland it was necessary that they should have a firm grip of East Prussia and Austrian Poland, thus protecting the flanks of their center. Had they been able to hold their grip, then they could have straightened out their entire line from north to south, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... of the success of my last book, which ought to show you that I'm getting a grip of myself. My mother and I were en rapport and under the dual personality theory, it is reasonable to suppose that I have been guided by her since her death. I certainly have been guided by God or by her, ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr
... alike in sound they have no sympathy one with another. Put them in active operation and they rush at each other's throats far worse than Allies and Germans are now fighting. They strive for a death grip, and as soon as one gets hold he hangs on to the end—if he can. Yet, as in all conflicts, the right is sure to win in an equal combat, the right of the hobby is absolutely certain to win over the wrong of ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... the warrior philosopher beside the seeing philosopher. He is in closest grip with the foe, and his calm is the calm of the victor holding down ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... right kind of talk. Now you're gittin' past all this make-believin' to the truth. We're a cussed mean set—we folk who go to church and read the Bible, and then do just what the devil tells us, a-helpin him along all the time. Satan's got a strong grip on you, from all I hear, and we're all a-helpin' him keep it. You've gone half way to the devil, and all the good people tell you to go the rest of the way, for they won't have anything to do with ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... flanks. He had hoped to shake the man off, but the great arms still clasped him. The situation could not last. Oscar took advantage of the moonlight to choose a spot in which to terminate it. He had his bearings now, and as they crossed an opening in the wood he suddenly loosened his grip on the horse and flung himself backward. His assailant, no longer supported, rolled to the ground with Oscar on top of him, and the freed horse galloped ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... belong to skin-touch. They penetrate the skin, the nerves, the bones, like pain, heat, and cold. The beat of a drum smites me through from the chest to the shoulder-blades. The din of the train, the bridge, and grinding machinery retains its "old-man-of-the-sea" grip upon me long after its cause has been left behind. If vibration and motion combine in my touch for any length of time, the earth seems to run away while I stand still. When I step off the train, the platform whirls round, and I find it difficult ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... this city, but in your native State you can become almost what you please. If, for instance, with your splendid health you entered upon the study of law and mastered it, I have influence and wealth enough to advance you rapidly, until by your own grip you can climb to the top of the ladder. You can then eventually marry into one of the best families in the State, and thus at the same time secure happiness and ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... it all, stood Sandy, as alert and distressed as a young hound restrained from the hunt. It is something to accept punishment gracefully, but to accept punishment when it can be avoided is nothing short of heroism. Sandy had to shut his eyes and grip the railing to keep from planning an escape. Spread before him in brave array across the water lay the promised land—and, like Moses, he ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... call him Doughy Daw. Feathered his nest well anyhow. Daughter engaged to that chap in the inland revenue office with the motor. Hooked that nicely. Entertainments. Open house. Big blowout. Wetherup always said that. Get a grip of ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... an incipient Polish rebellion of his own, came willingly to the aid of his brother autocrat. Just as Austrian troops had so often done in Italy, so now a huge Russian horde poured over Hungary, beat down all resistance, and having reduced the land to helplessness returned it to the angry grip of its insulted sovereign. [Footnote: See The ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... managed it, stepping over the endless row of legs, with every side step the stretcher lurching over to the left and threatening to pitch us into the river. So slippery too was the ground that our boots refused to grip. The man on the stretcher was dreaming, making a little sound like an unceasing lullaby on two notes—"Na ... na! Na ... ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... cellar door when Nibet gripped Cranajour's arm and growled—intense rage was expressed in grip and tone—"It's he! Again! The journalist of the Dollon affair, of the Depot business—Jerome Fandor! Ah.... ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... of us in that ample wilderness of his imagination, and the cry of the swift woke its echoes every evening for a time. Bears and panthers prowled in the deep thickets, but the swifts took a firmer grip on us, being bolder and more terrible. Uncle Eb became a great favourite in the family, and David Brower came to know soon that he was 'a good man to work' and could be trusted 'to look after things'. We had not been there ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... a man, after being chased by a nightmare of masked figures. Rousseau never showed the substantial quality of his character more surely and unmistakably than in controversy. He had such gravity, such austere self-command, such closeness of grip. Most of us feel pleasure in reading the matchless banter with which Voltaire assailed his theological enemies. Reading Rousseau's letter to De Beaumont we realise the comparative lowness of the pleasure which Voltaire had given us. ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... weapon to see whether it would spring back properly. Giovanni's eyes followed his movements, watching the slender steel, and then glancing at Spicca's long arms, his nervous fingers and peculiar grip. ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... began by inches to draw me up and feel for some better launching hold. But in the midst, for all my care and caution, I slipped and lost my grip upon the casement; lost that and got another on the wooden shutter opened back against the outer wall, and then went down, pulling the shutter from its rusted hinges in crashing clamor fit ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... man lifted his flaming torch and lo! it was Walkyn, who, beholding Beltane in his mail, uttered a hoarse shout of welcome, and stooping, thrust a plank across the gulf. So Beltane crossed the plank and gave his hand to Walkyn's iron grip and thereafter followed him along winding, low-roofed passage-ways hollowed within the rock, until they came to a cavern where a fire blazed, whose red light danced upon battered bascinets and polished blades that hung against the wall, while in one corner, ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... condition, for all his tremendous power. He was going fast, and Ted was badly shaken up and out of breath, also. If Shan held out a few minutes longer Ted must be thrown, for his hold on the muscles under his antagonist's arms had begun to loosen, and he dared not let go for an instant to get a fresh grip. ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... went for a walk in the Saski Gardens. The weather had changed suddenly. It was quite mild and springlike. At last the grip of winter seemed to be slackening. There were others in the gardens who held their faces up to the sky, and breathed in the softer air with a sort of expectancy; who seemed to wonder if the winter had really broken, or if this should only be a false hope. It was one of the first days in March—a ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... did not come within his new code to stop, since he could "carry his liquor well;" but he rarely, if ever, swore. He told me this tale through the throes of his anguish as he lay crouched on a mattress on the floor; and as the grip of the pain took him he tore and bit at his hands until they were maimed and bleeding, to keep the ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... It promised not horror but quiet rest, and the Infinite dwelt there as a fond mistress, a compassionate sister, a mother. And ever stronger grew its gentle embrace, until he felt, as it were, the breath of a mouth hungry for kisses... Then it seemed as if iron bones protruded in a ravenous grip, and closed upon him in an iron band; and cold nails touched his heart, and slowly, slowly ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... "We who think so much of ourselves have become pigmies upon the face of the earth. There towers the representative of modern omnipotence. Those are the hands—grim, strong-looking hands, aren't they?—that grip the levers of modern American life. Rodin ought to do a statue of him as he stands there—art and letters growing smaller as he grows larger. We exist for him. He builds theatres for our plays, museums for our ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... stood and reeled, while he beckoned, passionately, imploringly, his arm outstretched toward his broken regiment. The lull in the firing made a moment of strange quiet, broken only by groans and the hard, gasping curses of men locked in the death-grip. Therefore the shrill young voice carried far, ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... matter?" called Ben, coming up briskly, with a strong grip of his stout stick. There was no need of any answer, for, as he came into the shadow, he saw the man, and stood looking at him as if ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... crash of the opened door and triumphant shouts. Ste. Marie gave a little gasp of triumph, too, and clung the harder to the man with whom he fought. He drove his head into the Irishman's shoulder, and set his muscles with a grip which was like iron. He knew that it could not endure long, for the Irishman was stronger than he, but the grip of a nervous man who is keyed up to a high tension is incredibly powerful for a little while. Trained ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... I remember going late to that and having to sit far back, yet hearing every word easily; and there, too, the feeling was the same—that he had mastered his audience, taken possession of them, and held them to the end in an unrelaxing grip, as a great actor at his best does. There was nothing of the actor about him, except that he knew how to stand still; but masterful ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... had finished my business and was going to start back and leave him to enjoy by himself his trip to Pike's Peak and the other sights of the State, considerably disappointed at not having seen Phil, when he came in on us as I was packing my grip-sack. He was rough and hardy as a bear, and had grown a tremendous black beard: his heavy hand closed over mine till my knuckles cracked. We were glad enough to see each other, and had plenty to talk about. Of course I stayed over another day, and Wayland put off his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... when, walking on the river-bed, she looked up towards the moonlit sky, and saw the little grebe dive like a dark phantom into the deep hole beneath the rocky ledges of Penpwll. Once the otter-cub, acting under an irresistible impulse, swam towards the bird and tried to seize him. She managed to grip one of his feet, as they trailed behind him while he dived, but the grebe escaped, leaving in the assailant's mouth only a morsel of flesh torn from ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... voice was strangled in the spasm of his throat. But he took Rowcliffe's hand and wrung it, discharging many emotions in that one excruciating grip. ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... the home, their entire freedom to be courted and married or let alone in unbounded respect—how long would these conditions have been permitted by the Gothic Kaiser if heedless America had fallen into his gradually tightening grip? Doubtless to his view Yankee women were treated too much like dolls. They are not breeders of soldiers, makers of kingdoms. They do not rear children for the State. What have they desirably in common with the disciplined ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... train at some city or other where we were held for an hour; and out of the car-window I saw her returning with a brand-new grip sack. ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... sufferer whose human dignity is to be insulted, knows not why he is to be punished. He thinks indignation will lend him strength to resist those who throw themselves upon him. But he is grasped by the iron grip of jailers' hands; he is dragged down; and in the midst of the regular counting of the strokes by the leader of the execution, a deep groan is heard—a groan not arising from mere physical pain, but from the soul's grief of a down-trodden, outraged man. At last, silence reigned ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... his grip, saying sternly, "Are you a pickpocket, my enterprising friend, or what is the meaning of ...
— In A New World - or, Among The Gold Fields Of Australia • Horatio Alger
... him again in those weary hours,—came and sat by his side, slipping a grisly hand in his and tightening its grip until he could have cried out with the torment of it; the while whispering insidiously subtile, evil things in his ear. And he had not even Hope to comfort him; at any previous stage he had been able to distil a sort of bitter-sweet satisfaction from the ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... outbreak of the Revolution; politics claimed more attention than formerly, and theology less. With all this intercourse and mutual reaction of the various colonies upon one another, the isolated theocracy of New England naturally relaxed somewhat of its grip on the minds of the laity. When Franklin was a printer's apprentice in Boston, setting type on his brother's New England Courant, the fourth American newspaper, he got hold of an odd volume of the Spectator, and formed his style upon Addison, whose manner he afterward imitated in his ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... fighting was hottest. When a scaling ladder was placed against the wall she was the first to mount and was half way to the top when an English crossbowman, taking careful aim, fired an arrow with such force that it pierced right through her steel coat of mail and stood out behind her shoulder. Her grip relaxed from ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... patrolman, had hands but never eyes. And even now, when things were not so lax, he would take a passive share in some enterprise of the sort. But his principal activity was doing charity—lending the fishermen, or their wives, advances on their pay at fifty per cent a month; and this had given him a grip on the throats of the poorest elements along shore, so that he could deliver their vote bodily in every election campaign. His nephews could hardly contain their pride when they heard him calling mayors and sheriffs by their first names, or saw him, even, going up to Valencia in his best clothes ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Everybody wanted to meet them, and wanted everybody else to do so, and Verena saw they could easily have quite a vogue, if they only chose to stay and work that vein. Very likely, as Olive said, it wasn't their real life, and people didn't seem to have such a grip of the movement as they had in Boston; but there was something in the air that carried one along, and a sense of vastness and variety, of the infinite possibilities of a great city, which—Verena ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... that it is a moral movement strictly directed by men fired with religious fervour. It follows, therefore, that co-operation should be confined to men wishing to be morally right, but failing to do so, because of grinding poverty or of the grip of the Mahajan. Facility for obtaining loans at fair rates will not make immoral men moral. But the wisdom of the Estate or philanthropists demands that they should help on the onward path, men struggling to ...
— Third class in Indian railways • Mahatma Gandhi
... offences. To some of my readers such incidents may seem too trivial for record, and no doubt such days as these are foolish days, but are they not in our memories, among our very happiest too? As David Copperfield said of such, so say we, that "of all my time that Time has in his grip, there's none at which I smile so much, or ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... thoroughly good fellow, and deserve to be as happy as you are to-night. My hand upon it!" when, turning round, he added, still as Steerforth, but speaking in a very different voice and offering a very different hand-grip, as though already he were thinking to himself what a chuckle-headed fellow the young shipwright was—"Ham, I give you joy, my boy. My hand upon that too!" The always keenly observant Novelist became aware of a Frenchman, who was eagerly listening in the front row of the stalls, suddenly exclaiming ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... when this island continent was in the grip of one of the most severe and protracted droughts in its history. The war between Prussia and Austria had begun and ended; the failure of Overend and Gurney and others brought commercial disaster; and my brother, with ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... wild ox be willing to serve thee, Or abide by thy grip? Wilt thou trust him because his strength is great, Or wilt thou ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... gutter-hound!" he exclaimed; "I'll learn you to insult the Lady Harflete with your ribald japes," and stretching out his big fist he seized his enemy's purple nose in a grip of iron and began to twist it till the sot roared with pain. Thereon guards ran up and would have arrested Bolle for breaking the peace in the King's palace. Indeed, arrested he must have been, notwithstanding all Jacob Smith could do ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... Isaac who felt that he could never retreat now; that he would always despise himself as a coward, a traitor to the heroes of his race. Setting his teeth for the drubbing he felt certain he would receive, he struck out blindly. Then he felt a hand grip his arm so tightly that he winced with pain, and looking up, saw that ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... instructions to hold his mail until further notice. The first part of that time he was moving constantly from one out-of-the-way place to another where postal delivery was slow and uncertain. The last part of that time he was lying ill in the grip of the very disease which he had gone out to study ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... stared starkly at us as nonsense. As, for instance, the phrase "Glory to Man in the Highest, for man is the master of things"; after which there is evidently nothing to be said, except that it is not true. But even where Swinburne had his greater grip, as in that grave and partly just poem Before a Crucifix, Swinburne, the most Latin, the most learned, the most largely travelled of the Victorians, still knows far less of the facts than even Mrs. Browning. The whole of the poem, Before a Crucifix, breaks down by one ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... would leave him to lord it over. He dreamt of a Babbiano courted by the great republics, and the honour of its alliance craved by them that they might withstand the onslaughts of French and Spaniard. All this he saw in that fleeting vision of his, and Temptation caught his martial spirit in a grip of steel. And then another picture rose before his eyes. What would he do in times of peace? His was a soul that pined in palaces. He was born to the camp, and not to the vapid air of courts. In exchange for this power that was offered him what must he give? His glorious liberty. Become ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... With that iron grip on his shoulder poor Philander's feet barely touch the ground as he is whirled through space, and the dog, mad or not, that overtakes Aunt Gwen and her infant must be a rapid traveler, indeed. Thus they reach a house, and in another minute reappear upon a balcony, to witness ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... of the Glengyle Macgregors, and sequestered for near upon a month in a bourock of old cold ruins on the Bass. Move that and see what dirt you fling on the proceedings! Sirs, this is a tale to make the world ring with! It would be strange, with such a grip as this, if we couldna squeeze out a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... by merely destroying Five Points and the Mulberry Bend. There are other fights to be fought in that war, other victories to be won, and it is slow work. It was nearly ten years after the Great Robbery before decency got a good upper grip. That was when the ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... me,—for he does escape me quite often, and the reason is that I hold him only through his intellect. Now if I were one with a pretty woman who was also intimate with him, I should hold him by his weaknesses, and that is much the firmest grip. Therefore, let us be friends, you and I, and share the advantages of the conquest you ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... long strides could carry him. He was a large man, sun-burned to the point of duskiness, bearded and moustached as though barbers were unknown in the land from which he hailed. Dressed in servicable tweed knickerbockers and Norfolk jacket, his Alpine hat placed upon his head to stay put, his grip slung by a strap across his broad shoulders, he came striding over the ground as though intent upon very important business. Toinette watched his approach in a listless sort of way, but as he drew nearer and nearer seemed to ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... at a time, seize the Boer gun there, and put it permanently out of action. Instead of that, we have allowed our adversary to increase the number of artillery works and rifle sangars, girding us about until his grip is so strong that even cavalry scouts cannot push five miles from camp in any direction without having to run the gauntlet of shells or ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... grip on her arm suddenly relaxed and while she watched his face in curiosity the glow in his eyes suddenly flickered out, his gaze shifting from side to side as he seemed to shrink away from her. From timidity at his roughness she found new courage in her ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... several hotel servants on the way through the kitchen. Verkan Vall stripped to the waist, pulled off his ankle boots, and examined Olirzon's knife. Its tapering eight-inch blade was double-edged at the point, and its handle was covered with black velvet to afford a good grip, and wound with gold wire. He nodded approvingly, gripped it with his index finger crooked around the cross-guard, and advanced to meet Marnark ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper
... And you will be to-morrow as free as any bird of the air. Then, darling, it will be only you and I, all in all to each other forever more! I will send for you. Wait for me. Our hold on Andrew Fraser is the deadly grip of the criminal law. ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... vill, anent all purposes; As I sall indeid recommend yow and yowr trustiness till his lo. as ye sall find an honest recompense for yowr panes in the end. I cair nocht for all the land I hew in this kingdome, incase I get an grip of Dirleton, for I estem it the plesantest dwelling in Scotland. For Goddis cawse, keip all thingis very secret, that my lo. my brothir get na knawlege of owr purposes, for I (wald?) rather be eirdit quik. And swa lwking for ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang
... his overcoat and preceded him to the front door. She held out her hand to be tortured afresh, and suffered the grip of the vice with a ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... on Fort Steadman, but it was a signal failure. Three thousand out of five thousand engaged in the attempt were lost. To make matters worse, a Union assault followed directly afterward, and a portion of the Confederate outer defences was captured. Thus Grant's grip was only tightened. He had made no change in the position of his troops, and this sortie neither hastened nor delayed the grand, ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... ahead on the road as he drove back to Calexico; his hands held the wheel with a steady grip, but his mind was neither on the road ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... which he turned and trotted off to see what the boy was doing. He found him floundering in the sink, trying to get out that he might go to the girl's rescue, but he could not as his feet would not reach the floor and he could get no grip on himself in the slippery sink. Just at this crisis the maid came home and unlocked the outside door at the head of the cellar stairs. With one bound Billy was at the door the minute it was opened. As he flew by her, he hit ...
— Billy Whiskers' Adventures • Frances Trego Montgomery
... Kater looked at them with glittering eyes, and his shaking hand shut upon them, crushing the bank notes in a tight grip. "We'll halve it, share and share alike," he whispered, staring at the ghost without counting it. "As for this," his finger touched the decoration on his breast—"it is given to a—You won't take half? ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... plucky fellow, fought hard for his life, and swam round and round, up and down, hither and thither, trying to escape from this terrible murderer; but it was no use, he could not free himself from his grip; and while the poor little wretch was giving the last few flutterings of his tail, the water-beetle proceeded coolly to peck out his left eye, and to devour it at once." The larva not only of the carnivorous ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... sin. Therefore shalt thou labour, winning thy portion on the earth by toil, eating thy bread in the sweat of thy brow while thou dwellest here, until that grim disease, which first thou tasted in the apple, shall grip hard at thy heart. ...
— Codex Junius 11 • Unknown
... caught it firmly behind the ear with his long, deadly teeth—teeth designed to hold the convulsive and slippery writhings of the largest salmon. With mad contortions the beaver struggled to break that fatal grip. But the otter held inexorably, shaking its victim as a terrier does a rat, and paid no heed whatever to the slashing assaults of the other beaver. The water was lashed to such a turmoil that the waves spread all over the pond, washing ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... exactly up to me, Harry. It's up to Washington." He poured out three cups of coffee and handed one to Davis and one to McCandless. The Lieutenant clutched the cup in a deathlike grip, as if the ship were doing forty-degree rolls and he might lose it any minute. "I asked you up to breakfast to get your ideas on it. I have my own but on something like this, anybody's ideas are as good as mine. ...
— Decision • Frank M. Robinson
... and the thrill of higher anxieties. A further result will be that the phantom of the Unknowable will be exorcised, since it no longer represents anything but the relative and momentary limit of each method, the portion of being which escapes its partial grip. ...
— A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson • Edouard le Roy
... two trees in the Sierra forests that are never blown down, so long as they continue in sound health. These are the Juniper and the Dwarf Pine of the summit peaks. Their stiff, crooked roots grip the storm-beaten ledges like eagles' claws; while their lithe, cord-like branches bend round compliantly, offering but slight holds for winds, however violent. The other alpine conifers—the Needle Pine, Mountain Pine, Two-leaved Pine, and Hemlock Spruce—are never thinned ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... individuals belonging to them. Thus at the present moment we see quite decent Englishmen and quite decent Germans tearing one another to pieces like mad dogs, a thing they would never dream of doing as between man and man, and which they do only because they are in the grip of forces alien to their own nature. We have overestimated Progress by thinking only of what is happening inside each of the States. We have forgotten to consider the bearing of the States to one another, which remains on a level ...
— Progress and History • Various
... awful shudder of unnatural evil; they are lukewarm, neither good nor bad. Their abominable love is in their own eyes a mere weakness of the flesh; there is no sense of revolt against man and nature and God; they are neither dragged on by irresistible demoniac force nor held back by the grip of conscience; they slip and slide, even like Francesca and Paolo. They pay each other sweet and mawkish compliments. The ferocious lust of Francesco Cenci is moral compared with the way in which the "trim youth" Giovanni praises Annabella's beauty; the blushing, ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... sink, very slowly; until presently they showed minute specks of red fire, like the gleamings of rubies in the darkness. Still, I sat watching; while a sort of dreamy indifference seemed to steal over me; banishing altogether the fear that had begun to grip me. ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... at pall and mall. He was accompanied by his suite, Emirs and Chamberlains, Wazirs and Lords of the realm and, ere he was seated, the sage Duban came up to him, and handing him the bat said, "Take this mall and grip it as I do; so! and now push for the plain and leaning well over thy horse drive the ball with all thy might until thy palm be moist and thy body perspire: then the medicine will penetrate through thy palm ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... thrust into his girdle. In his hand he bore a spear like his master, and was followed by a grey old lurcher, who, though wanting an ear and an eye, and disfigured by sundry scars on throat and back, was hardy, untiring, and sagacious. This ancient dog was called Grip, from his tenacity in holding any thing he set his teeth upon, and he ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... with its satellites, and China are held in the tight grip of communist party chieftains. The party dominates all social and political institutions. The party regulates and centrally directs the whole economy. In Moscow's sphere, and in Peiping's, all history, philosophy, morality ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... previously, and beyond which the route to Bering Sea was well known. The prize was nearly won when the ships became imprisoned by the ice for the winter, a few miles north of King William Land. The following June Franklin died; the ice continued impenetrable, and did not loosen its grip all that year. In July, 1848, Crozier, who had succeeded to the command, was compelled to abandon the ships, and, with the 105 survivors who were all enfeebled by the three successive winters in the Arctic, started on foot for Back River. How far they got we ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... a sudden return of the blind despairing rage which was wont to grip him after his visits to Michael in prison. This inert, cold-blooded shadow; was this all that was ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... as hard, an' he never stopped, but came in an' clinched. My God! I'm breathless now wi' the squeezin' I got there. I'm afraid of no man standin' within twenty mile, at ayther Ingin hug, collar an' ilbow, or side-hold, but I was like a child in its grip. ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... teachings of history; we have spoken of the laws of literature and art as if they were mere conventions designed to oppress the free activity of the artist. Typical utterances of our writers are Jack London's "I want to get away from the musty grip of the past," and Frank Norris's "I do not want to write literature, I want ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... worth looking at. She had shrunk as far down in the chair as the captain's grip would permit, her usually red face was now as white as the full moon, which it resembled in some other ways, and she was, evidently, as Primmie said afterwards, "scart to ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... hand, and, taking that of his prisoner, gave it a cordial grip: "That's all right, O'Grady. Try to sleep now, and we'll pull you through. Good-by, for the present." And, with a heart lighter, somehow, than it had been of late, the ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... It should have a dual aim—to equip a man for hours of work, and for hours of leisure. They interact; if the leisure is misspent, the work will suffer. As regards the first, we cannot expect a school to purvey more than a grip of general principles. Even that is seldom given. The second should enable a man to extract as much happiness as possible out of his spare time. The secret of happiness is curiosity. Now curiosity is not only not roused; it is repressed. ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... the imaginary disturbed dolly she tucked the object of her anxious care into its crib, as if doubting the expediency of allowing her in the clumsy grip of this newly found cousin until he had been given a few lessons on the way to ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... the border stream of Epte came Rou the Norman, where, Begirt with barons, sat the King, enthroned at green St. Clair; He placed his hand in Charles's hand,—loud shouted all the throng, But tears were in King Charles's eyes—the grip of Rou was strong. "Now kiss the foot," the Bishop said, "that homage still is due;" Then dark the frown and stern the smile ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... cried Julia, "he is fainting or something," and nervous though she was, it was she who managed to get the first grip on ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... costly playthings. Indeed, had I so desired, I think that I might then and there have struck a bargain, and set the stone against a title; but I, who for many years had been the prince of a great tribe, had no wish to be a knight. So I kissed the royal hand, and so tightly did it grip the gem within that the knuckle joints shone white, and I went my ways, coming back home to this my house by the ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... what does the work of Greno Wood for me here—namely, my little patch of garden, looking out upon, what I call my big fields. For some time I feared the said bits were not going to live, but they have now, I really think, got grip of the ground. They are those offshoots of your American Bramble which you gave to me. And, ere long, I hope to sow a little paper of your poppy seed, and—if two years' keeping has not destroyed its vitality—I may, perchance, ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... easily reached the top, and, grasping the slippery surface with a grip made firm by despair, and concentrating every ounce of strength in one final effort, I drew myself out of the water and fell completely ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... Vienna—scarcely touched the ordinary city surfaces, that is to say. In hotels and cafes, streets and parks, life flowed on almost as brightly as ever. Farther north, in the Hungarian towns and villages, life still went on as usual, but one felt the grip of war—you might not go there nor move about without a military pass. Beyond Radom, where now in the pleasant park the very literary Polish young people were strolling, reading as they walked, there was, so to speak, no ordinary life at all—only the desert ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... doubt of the fact, for, besides the relief experienced by the boy, from the relaxing of her grip on his waistband the moment the wail was heard, the sound of the girl's footsteps as she flew back towards the entrance of the cave was ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... trash!" stormed the Squire. "Not one of them shall ever darken my threshold again. Hech! that's what comes of being kind to such objects. They take you to be as big fools as themselves, and act accordingly. The constable shall lay his grip on that loon so sure as I ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... a grip o' Saunders, I'll tak' mair than the fairntickles aff him," says he; an' faigs, mind you, there's nae sayin' but he may do't; he's a spunky carlie Sandy, ...
— My Man Sandy • J. B. Salmond
... oath Joshua quickened his pace to a run, stretched out his powerful arm, and seized hold of a boy about Tim's size, who, with several parcels in his arms, was trying in vain to escape. In vain—because, hanging fast on to one leg, with resolute grip and starting fiery eyes, was the faithful Moses. Every separate hair of his rough coat bristled with excitement and rage, his head was bleeding from a wound made by a kick or a blow, and he uttered all the time the half-strangled growls ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... is—pyrotechny." It was too much for the young man's nerves, and he fell back in his chair, purple with suppressed laughter. Angrily darting at him and catching his left shoulder in a vicelike grip, ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... the left an' the minute his hoofs came down I slipped thumb an' forefinger into his nostrils, an' tried to jerk his head around to the right; but I'd thrown him once before that way an' he was too quick. He threw up his head before I could grip his mane with my left, an' a reachin' kick with his right hind foot ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... it is written in Scots, which English tongues can hardly pronounce, and many words of which to English ears hardly carry a meaning. But the plaintive melody and the pathetic force of the rhythm grip the heart. There is no need to understand every word of this "glad kind greeting"* any more than there is need to understand what some great musician means by every note which his violin ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... Showers of snowflakes whirling white, And the pallid moonbeams waning— Sad the heavens, sad the night! Cloudward course the evil spirits In unceasing phantom bands, And their moaning and bewailing Grip my heart ...
— Russian Lyrics • Translated by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi
... seemed to surge to his head and leave his heart like ice. He seized her arm with a grip ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... spinning coin, but he did not touch it. His head, with its long, straight hair, swung a moment uncertain between his shoulders. Then, swiftly and with a firm grip, he took his resolution. ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... widest work ever done which was voluntary on both sides; and the Middle Ages was in this and other things the age of volunteers. It is possible enough to state roughly the stages through which the thing passed; but such a statement does not explain the loosening of the grip of the great slave-owners; and it cannot be explained except psychologically. The Catholic type of Christianity was not merely an element, it was a climate; and in that climate the slave would not grow. I have already suggested, touching that transformation of the Roman ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... about the barrels of his gun, and strongly he pulled, but I loosened his grip and whispered: "Let them go. There is no honor and very little ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... Quatermain," he answered, "but the fact is this is a 'ateful and un'oly 'ole" (in his agitation he quite lost grip of his h's, which was always weak), "and I am sure that it is the last I shall ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... hands—an ugly sight in the dim dawn for men chilled with the moist, damp air and only half-awake. But Trent had not been caught napping. His stealthy call to arms had aroused them in time at least to crawl behind some shelter and grip their rifles. The war-cry of the savages was met with a death-like quiet—there were no signs of confusion nor terror. A Kru boy, who called out with fright, was felled to the ground by Trent with ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... filled by Matogee and passed to Tamedokah good-naturedly, still with a broad smile on his face. "It must be acknowledged," he resumed, "that you have the strongest kind of a grip, for no one else could hold on as long as you did, and secure such a trophy besides. That tail will do for an eagle ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... were talking in flesh and blood on the terrace. They were talking of him. His misery! That had but one meaning. And the devil laughed! Unconsciously his grip tightened on the butt of the pistol. ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke
... valley and she on a high mountain. Thus insulted at four-and-twenty, in all the splendor of her beauty, enhanced by pure and devoted love—it was not a stab, it was death. The first shock had been merely on the nerves, the physical frame had struggled in the grip of jealousy; but now certainty had seized her ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... faith in Mr. Rose, Dolly lay down prone, and cautiously edged along till she could see over the shelving rock. She felt Mr. Rose's firm grip on her ankles, and she looked down with wonder at the sheer straight descent of rock and down at the very bottom of the chasm she saw a tiny brook tossing and ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... unpleasant, and under the soothing influence he came to believe that his tormentors had experienced a change of attitude. But he was mistaken. Suddenly his ear was gripped as in a vise. Also, it was twisted sharply, once, twice, and then held in a relentless grip. He stood still as death. Up and down his spine, from his ear to his tail, coursed shrieking pain, hacking him like the agony of a thousand twisting knives. Under the terror of it he stopped breathing—stopped till he must breathe or swoon. Then he did take air, in short, faint gasps, ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... he desired. The next moment it was struck by a hand feeling about. Then the trouser was tugged at, and directly after the bottom was turned over and over, so as to form a good roll to grip. Then, with this for a second hand-hold, Mike was helped, and his climb on to the shelf-like projection became easier for the aid afforded, and he too rose to stand panting ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... their money," cried the other, the chief architect of the city, a man of about thirty years of age with highly-arched brows and eager piercing eyes; and grasping the roll he held in his hand with a strong grip, he continued: ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Mr. Joe! Shake! For God's sake, give me a grip! This is great for sore eyes! Where you been keeping yourself? Ain't he the limit? He's the same old penny! Look at ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... architecturally the most important relic of the great age of the early ecclesiastical builders. The west facade before us, completed about 1140 by Abbot Suger, is of profound interest, for here we may behold the round Romanesque arch side by side with the Pointed, and the very first grip of the new Gothic on the heavy Norman architecture it was about to overthrow. The sculptures on the W. portals, however, almost wholly and clumsily renewed, need not detain us long. We enter and descend from the sombre ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... threats to a different effect. And why? Because he knew that he had done what he was charged with doing; he was abjectly afraid to use any such expressions; his resolution could not rise to them, but shrank back; for it was in the grip of his conscience; whereas there was nothing to hinder him from uttering irrelevant abuse and slander. {211} But here is the strongest proof of all, and it consists not in words, but in fact. For when I was anxious to do what it was right to do, namely, to make a second report to ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes |
