"Unclasp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... true, for at that moment she did not feel anything external. He looked at her, and exercising his own judgment proceeded to unclasp the cloak from her shoulders and hang it on his arm, while he put her hand ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... the woman suddenly rose to her feet and went away. Aratoff tried to rise also ... but he could not stir, he could not unclasp his hands, and could only gaze ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... the parting really came, it seemed as though Mrs. Arnold could never unclasp her arms from about the ...
— Angel Agnes - The Heroine of the Yellow Fever Plague in Shreveport • Wesley Bradshaw
... loiterer, has fate, in vain, Unclasp'd his iron gripe to set thee free? Still dost thou flutter in the jaws of death; Snar'd with thy ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... partial blessings after all; and all these things round us that do minister to our necessities, tastes, affections, and sometimes to our weaknesses, these good things fail just in this, that they stand outside us, and there is no real union between us and them. So, changes come, and we have to unclasp hands, and the footsteps that used to be planted by the side of ours cease, and our track across the sands is lonely; and losses come, and death comes, and all the glory and the good that were only externally possessed by us we leave behind us. As this psalm says: 'I considered their ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... it is. Wait! I will give you something to remember me by." She felt in her pockets; but suddenly she put her hand up to her neck and said: "No, you shall have this!" Then she blew on her fingers, which were stiff with the cold, until they were nimble enough to permit her to unclasp from her neck a necklace of five rows of garnets, with a Swedish ducat hanging from them; and she fastened the ornament around the child's neck, kissing ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... be the necklace, And all day long to fall and rise Upon her balmy bosom, With her laughter or her sighs, And I would lie so light, so light, I scarce should be unclasp'd ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... a sign as happy friend sets on his friend's dear brow When meadow-pipings break and blend to a key of autumn woe, And the woodland says playtime 's at end, best unclasp hands ...
— Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody
... too late. He could not unclasp the trusting little hand that was slipped in his. He could not cloud the happiness of the eager little face ...
— The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows Johnston
... said, stamping his foot, and, as he spoke, an arrow hissed between them. "Emlyn, drag her hence ere she is shot. Swift, I say, swift, or God's curse and mine rest on you. Unclasp your arms, wife; how can I fight while you hang about my neck? What! Must I strike ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... shameless moon shone full into their startled faces. A child could have read their story. In the surprise of the moment they forgot to unclasp hands. ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... fled to her room and resolutely began to unclasp the fasteners of her butterfly dress. A ripple of astonishment went through the rooms downstairs when she descended clad in a white linen skirt and a middy blouse. All the girls had heard about the dress from New York and were impatient to see it. Frances Jones ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... to speak, but, as usual in such cases, he could not utter a word. His tongue refused its office. The awful figure held up a warning finger, and then began deliberately to unclasp the volume he held in his hands. He turned the leaves hastily for a few minutes; then, holding the book aloft in his left hand, he pointed with his right to a line which seemed to start forth from the page ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... is the humor of it," says he. "In spite of all I should still really care. Come." He makes an effort to unclasp the small, pretty fingers that are grasping the rails so rigidly. At first they seem to resist his gentle pressure, and then they give way to ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... deep blue wave. Richardson had been killed and Hancock commanded here. The blue wave was strong. The sound of the melee was frightful; then out of it burst a loud huzzahing. Stafford straightened himself. The grey were coming back, and after them the blue. Almost before he could unclasp his arm from the cedar, the first spray of gaunt, exhausted, bleeding men came over and down into the sunken lane. All the grey wave followed. At the moment there outburst a renewed and tremendous artillery battle. The smoke drifting ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... not worth a nickel. God did this, or else our religion is founded upon a fraud. He did it, or orthodoxy is a mistake. He did it, or the Bible is an imposition. If it is true, no woman should submit to such a fiend for an hour; if it is false, let her unclasp the clutches of the superstition which is built upon her dishonor and ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... New Common Prayer Booke, unclasp't. Reprinted at London, with some briefe and necessary Obseruations to refute the Lyes and Scandalls that are contained ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 214, December 3, 1853 • Various
... laid her head on his breast. They remained so a little while without stirring, except that some whispers were exchanged too low for others to hear, and once more she raised her face to kiss him. A few minutes after those who could look saw his colour change; he felt the arms unclasp their hold; and as he laid her gently back on the pillow, they fell languidly down; the will and the power that had sustained them were gone. Alice was gone; but the departing spirit had left a ray of brightness on its earthly house; there ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... unclasp a secret book, And to your quick-conceiving discontent I'll read your matter deep and dangerous." 1. HENRY ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... a mile away, McLane, as usual, laughing like a boy just out of a plundered apple-orchard. To my horror Varnum was dead, with a ball through his brain. His arms, which were around the trooper's waist, were stiffened, so that it was hard to unclasp them. This rigidness of some men killed in battle ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... Piper, very gently, "you can. 'T is that, I'm thinking, that has set your life all wrong. Unclasp your hands from her rough garments, cease to question her closed eyes. Take her gift and the balm that infallibly comes with it; meet To-day with kindness and To-morrow with a brave heart. Oh, Spinner in the Shadow," he cried, his ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... and her. His first care was given to the child; whose cries, indeed, as she lay writhing on the trundle-bed, made it of peremptory necessity to postpone all other business to the task of soothing her. He examined the infant carefully, and then proceeded to unclasp a leathern case, which he took from beneath his dress. It appeared to contain medical preparations, one of which he mingled with a cup ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... women of the family; the bride advanced, weeping bitterly, and knelt and kissed her father's feet. The poor man, with emotion, raised her and clasped a girdle of diamonds round her waist, which was before ungirdled; it was part of her dower. No one could unclasp it but her husband, and this concluded the ceremony. Shortly afterwards the bride was borne in procession to the congratulations of all the women present. After about half an hour she was conducted to a private room by a female relative, and ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... the second verse, the children stop, unclasp their hands and suit their actions to the words contained ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman
... Fleetwood's wake to the door. Mrs. Mornway stood with her head high, smiling slightly. She shook hands with each of the men in turn; then she moved toward the sofa and laid aside her shining cloak. All her gestures were calm and noble, but as she raised her hand to unclasp the cloak her husband ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... did not hear, or heed,—he was lost in grief. M. de Bois also appealed to him, but in vain; then Gaston attempted to use force to recall him to reason, and, seizing both of Maurice's arms, essayed to unclasp them from their hold of the inanimate form, saying as ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... "Chieftains, forego! 785 I hold the first who strikes, my foe. Madmen, forbear your frantic jar! What! is the Douglas fallen so far, His daughter's hand is deemed the spoil Of such dishonorable broil!" 790 Sullen and slowly they unclasp, As struck with shame, their desperate grasp, And each upon his rival glared, With foot advanced, and ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... one advanced and proceeded to unloosen the purse, and to unclasp the fan-case; and allowing Pao-yue no time to make any remonstrance, they stripped him of every ornament in the way of appendage which he carried about on his person. "Whatever we do let's escort him home!" they shouted, and one after another hustled round him and accompanied him as far ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... of thy beauty Runs this poor river, charged with streams of zeal, Returning thee the tribute of my duty, Which here my love, my youth, my plaints reveal. Here I unclasp the book of my charged soul, Where I have cast th' accounts of all my care; Here have I summed my sighs. Here I enrol How they were spent for thee. Look, what they are. Look on the dear expenses of my youth, ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet-Cycles - Delia - Diana • Samuel Daniel and Henry Constable
... heard him breathing quickly, saw him, almost as a shadow just shown by the faint light that entered from the street through the two small windows, clasp and unclasp his hands, touch his forehead, his eyelids, move in his chair, like a man profoundly stirred and ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... his sandals.) Much must he toil who serves the Immortal Gods, And I, who am their herald, most of all. No rest have I, nor respite. I no sooner Unclasp the winged sandals from my feet, Than I again must clasp them, and depart Upon some foolish errand. But to-day The errand is not foolish. Never yet With greater joy did I obey the summons That sends me earthward. I will fly so swiftly ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... city looked like a speck on the desert beneath them. Knowing he must act quickly, Rob seized the dangling left arm of the unconscious Turk and raised it until he could reach the dial of the traveling machine. He feared to unclasp the machine just then, for two reasons: if it slipped from his grasp they would both plunge downward to their death; and he was not sure the machine would work at all if in any other position than fastened to the ...
— The Master Key - An Electrical Fairy Tale • L. Frank Baum
... will now—"unclasp a secret book; And to your quick conceiving discontents, I'll read you matter deep and dangerous, As full of peril and adventurous spirit, As to o'er walk a current, roaring loud, On the unsteadfast footing of ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... it myself!' Yes—the King would have to be told— something! Stooping, he tried to detach the pistol from the lifeless hand, but the fingers, though still warm were tightened on the weapon, and he dared not unclasp them. He was afraid! He stood up again, and looked around him. His glance fell on the knot of regal flowers he had noticed in the morning,—the great roses,—the voluptuous orchids—tied with their golden ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... in front of the grille door and keep out all persons. The examiner was obliged to urge Britt to unclasp his hands and follow him before the door was closed and ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... sake, let the man go," said Hacket, "or you'll have his death to answer for "—and as he spoke he attempted to unclasp the young man's grip; "Tom Dalton, I ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... tasted it two or three times, they will exert their attention merely with the hope of succeeding. We have seen a little boy of three years old, frowning with attention for several minutes together, whilst he was trying to clasp and unclasp a lady's bracelet; his whole soul was intent upon the business; he neither saw nor heard any thing else that passed in the room, though several people were talking, and some happened to be looking at him. The pleasure of success, when ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... strength could not unclasp the grip of the youth's hands, until he placed his knee upon his chest; then, ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... woman suddenly rose, and went away. Aratov tried to get up too ... but he could neither stir nor unclasp his hands, and could only ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... "Quick unclasp your tendrils clinging, Stealthily the trees enringing! I have learnt your wily secret: I will use it, I shall keep it! Cunning spider, cease your spinning! My web boasts the best beginning. Yours is wan and pale and ashen: After no such lifeless fashion Mine is woven. Golden ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... it," he said, moving so close to her that his breath was on her face, and reaching round to unclasp her hands. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... was turning, had turned, was already ebbing. She felt it, was conscious that he also had become aware of it. Then his grasp slackened, grew lax, loosened, and almost spent. She ventured to unwind her limbs from his, to relax her stiffened fingers, unclasp her arms. ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... growing faction. The scientific politician hailed with secret delight, hailed as the partner of his own enterprise, that new element of political power which the changing time began to reveal here then, that power which was already beginning to unclasp on the necks of the masses, the collar of the absolute will—that was already proclaiming, in the stifled undertones of 'that greater part which carries it,' another supremacy. They gave in secret the right hand of a joyful fellowship ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... clingingly, slowly, as though reluctant to unclasp her; whispering they fell from the high and tender breasts, the delicate rounded hips, and clustered about her feet in soft petalings as of some flower of pale amber foam. Out of the calyx of that ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... whatever that I did notice. But, when evening came, and he showed in Jarber, and, when Jarber wouldn't be helped off with his cloak, and poked his cane into cane chair-backs and china ornaments and his own eye, in trying to unclasp his brazen lions of himself (which he couldn't do, after all), I could ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... rides in bus and train, With eyes that fill too listlessly for tears. Her waxen hands clasp and unclasp again. Good News, they cry. ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... blew unclasp'd, From off her shoulder backward borne: From one hand droop'd a crocus: one hand grasp'd The mild bull's ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... her Saulteaux children and I expect the Crees and the Saulteaux to take my hand as they did last year. In our hands they feel the Queen's, and if they take them the hands of the white and red man will never unclasp. In other lands the white and red man are not such friends as we have always been, and why? Because the Queen always keeps her word, always protects her red men. She learned last winter that bad men from the ...
— The Treaties of Canada with The Indians of Manitoba - and the North-West Territories • Alexander Morris
... Sanchez, with a hang-dog glance at him, turned and sneaked back on the trail they had traversed. Before he was out of sight Sard saw him fish out a Spanish knife from his hip pocket and unclasp it. ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... already insisted on more than once, that the perfecting of this vision is in the historical fact of the Incarnate Son. Jesus Christ shows us God. Jesus Christ is the King of Glory. If we will go to Him, and fix our eyes and hearts on Him, then losses may come, and we shall be none the poorer; death may unclasp our hands from dear hands, but He will close a dearer one round the hand that is groping for a stay; and nothing can betaken away but He will more than fill the gap it leaves by His own sweet presence. If our eyes ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... does it. The outward form of his death is but putting into symbol and visibility the awful characteristics of that last moment for us all. However closely we have been twined with others, each of us has to unclasp dear hands, and make that journey through the narrow, dark tunnel by himself. We live alone in a very real sense, but we each have to die as if there were not another human being in the whole universe but only ourselves. But the solitude may be a solitude with God. Up there, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... eye hurriedly over the paper by the light of a dark lanthorn that had meanwhile been brought upon deck, unclasp his hunting-knife, and divide the ligatures of the captive, and then warmly press his liberated hands within his own, were, with Captain de Haldimar, but the ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... not thy soul," and he strove to release himself from her grasp. "Unclasp thine arms, Francis Stafford, and hearken to a ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... will not turn state's evidence notwithstanding the Statute of Limitations has run, as N.V. Creede advises me, against any one but Dick McGill—and the reason for my exposing him is merely tit for tat. Ma Fewkes could not unclasp the hands; but she produced an effect just ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... and the rest of the players stand some distance from him. He then clasps his hands and runs out, trying to tag an opponent with his clasped hands. This would be practically impossible except that the players endeavour to make him unclasp his hands by pulling at his arms and drawing temptingly near him. As soon as he has tagged a victim he runs for home as fast as possible. If he himself is tagged before he reaches home he is out, and the tagger becomes ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... for your turn in your own room." She unbuttoned Marie's dress, slipped off her clothes, and held up the gay little wrapper for her to put her arms into, and just then she noticed the locket on her neck. "We'll take this off, too," she said, beginning to unclasp it. ...
— The Belgian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... her head and continued to clasp and unclasp her hands in her muff. The step drew nearer, and a guardian in a braided cap walked listlessly through the room like a ghost stalking through a necropolis. They fixed their eyes simultaneously on the case opposite them, and when the ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... shun all stagnant settlements of grief; And even in our rest our hearts are stirr'd, Like insects settled on a dancing leaf:— This is our small philosophy in brief, Which thus to teach hath set me all agape: But dost thou relish it? O hoary chief! Unclasp thy crooked fingers from my nape, And I will show thee ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... was resting in her sleep in such a way that no one could possibly unclasp the necklace without awaking her. Loki stood hesitatingly by the bedside for a few moments, and then began rapidly to mutter the runes which enabled the gods to change their form at will. As he did this, Heimdall saw him shrivel up until he was changed to the size and form of a flea, when ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... was a noted witch. It runs in the family. Go away with you!" she cried striking apparently at something with her clenched hand. "It is her old great grandmother! See, there she is! Off! Off! She is trying to choke me!" endeavoring seemingly to unclasp ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... to clip the cavalier; Nor could unclasp her arms: with loving show Charlemagne, Roland, and Rinaldo, here And there, fix friendly kisses on his brow. Nor him Sir Dudon, nor Sir Olivier, Nor King Sobrino can caress enow: Nor paladin nor peer, amid the crew, Wearies of welcoming ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... difficulty the crier was able to persuade the child to unclasp her arms from the neck of the big friendly dog, but at last she left him, and was taken to the crier's home and "feasted sumptuously on bread and molasses in a tin plate with the alphabet round it," while her frantic family was being notified. The unhappy ending to ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... thy tears and sobs, my little Life! I did but snatch away the unclasp'd knife: Some safer toy will soon arrest thine eye, And to quick laughter change this peevish cry! Poor stumbler on the rocky coast of Woe, 5 Tutor'd by Pain each source of pain to know! Alike the foodful fruit and scorching fire Awake ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Glaucon—half prayer, half battle-shout—pealed above the bellowing stadium. Even as he cried it, all saw his form draw upward as might Prometheus's unchained. They saw the fingers of the Spartan unclasp. They saw his bloody face upturned and torn with helpless agony. They saw his great form totter, topple, fall. The last dust cloud, and into it the multitude seemed ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... Like a mermaid's green eyelash, and then anon A stem that a tower might rest upon, Standing spear-straight in the waist-deep moss, Its bony roots clutching around and across, As if they would tear up earth's heart in their grasp Ere the storm should uproot them or make them unclasp; Its cloudy boughs singing, as suiteth the pine, To snow-bearded sea-kings old songs of the brine, 20 Till they straightened and let their staves fall to the floor, Hearing waves moan again on the perilous shore Of Vinland, perhaps, while their prow groped its way 'Twixt the frothed gnashing ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... she tried to break the cord. It stood. "Unclasp it, Theodore," she begged. But he Refused, and being in a happy mood, Twitted her with her inefficiency, Then looking at her very seriously: "I think, Charlotta, it is well to have Always about one ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... I said sternly. "Unclasp his belt, Tom. Yes, take his gun. If he moves, or utters ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish |
