"Gripping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the great festoons dead spiders had made in the corners; then as he watched it it began to sway. He looked up into the dimness then to see who was swaying the rope; and for a long time, as it seemed to him lying gripping his Castilian sword on the floor he saw nothing clearly. And then he saw mine host coming down the rope, hand over hand quite nimbly, as though he lived by this business. In his right hand he held a poniard of exceptional length, yet he managed to clutch the rope and hold the poniard all the time ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... wild mountain cats the men dashed at it. They swung themselves up by branches of trees, gripping projecting stones and roots with hand and knee. It was hot, breathless work, but soon they were near the top. But they had been heard. Once more the challenge rang ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... been obliged to release the captives from the stocks, but Hib had taken the precaution to place on the formidable athlete a pair of leg irons joined by a shackle. Not merely were Glaucon's arms pinioned by a stout cord, but the great Libyan was gripping them tightly. Lars and Adherbal conducted the other prisoners, whose feet, however, were not bound. For a moment the three captives stood blinking at the unfamiliar light, unconscious of the situation and their extremity, whilst Hasdrubal for the fortieth ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... air — with heavenly plunder? — Gripping the dazzling bird my dreaming knew? Nay! but a piteous freight, A dark and heavy weight Despoiled of silver plumage, its voice forever stilled, — All of the wonder Gone that ever filled Its guise with glory. Oh, bird that I have killed, How brilliantly you flew Across my rapturous vision when ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... down into the water, and saw what in fact, seemed to be a gigantic shell-fish, gripping both his legs: it retained its hold so tenaciously, that I found I could not extricate him, and when Arthur came up, as he did in a moment, it was as much as we could both do, to lift him and his singular captor, which still clung obstinately to him, out of the ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... fact, the conduct of the Wagogo of Nyambwa was an exaggeration of the general conduct of Wagogo. Hitherto, those we had met had contented themselves with staring and shouting; but these outstepped all bounds, and my growing anger at their excessive insolence vented itself in gripping the rowdiest of them by the neck, and before he could recover from his astonishment administering a sound thrashing with my dog-whip, which he little relished. This proceeding educed from the tribe of starers all their native power of vituperation ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... he remarked, ignoring the unnatural calm with which they greeted his entrance. He shook hands with them in turn, striding from one to another and gripping their hands so heartily that Nathaniel Letton could not forbear to wince. Daylight flung himself into a massive chair and sprawled lazily, with an appearance of fatigue. The leather grip he had brought into the room he dropped carelessly beside him ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... Pedro the lads grappled with each other; the brown and ruddy limbs were close entwined, and with bare feet gripping the decks they swayed back and forth like twin saplings ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... light and warmth and a beckoning invitation. Griswold's gift, prostituted to the service of the changed point of view, bade him read in the red face, the loose lip, and the bibulous eyes the temptation that was gripping the plain-clothes man. "Wait," whispered the colorless inner voice; "wait, and be ready when he goes in to get the drink he has promised himself he will never again be weak enough to take while he is on duty. It ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... when there is no moon. The nights in Africa's jungles are silent with an evil-foreboding and awesome silence, which conceals so many ambushes and costs so many lives. The inhabitants of the jungle may expect an ambush at any moment. The lonely Colonel waited, gripping his rifle hard. He relates himself that he felt more and more anxious as time went on. He knew that the lion would come to feed on the ass, for no cry of distress was heard from ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... of sounds following their disappearance. Then they came crawling out again, each one gripping ...
— In Camp on the Big Sunflower • Lawrence J. Leslie
... something rising from our heels along our back, gripping us in a spasm, as we were cycling along; a needlelike pang, too, pierced our heart with a sharp thrill. What was it? We remembered feeling something nearly like it when our father died eighteen years ago; but at that time our physical organs were fresh and grief was easily ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... themselves with the contrast between the seasoned regulars marching to their station, and his boyish self, full of eager enthusiasm, but trained only in the hunting field, the polo ground and the gymnasium. Then, gripping his hope in both hands, he resolutely shouldered his way into the nearest recruiting office. He went into the office as Harvard Weldon, amateur athlete and society darling of his own home city. He came out as Trooper Weldon of the First Regiment ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... said slowly, still gripping her wrists and peering into her face till his scorching breath made her feel sick and faint. "That is the way thou wouldst defy the will of Caesar? Death, sayest thou?... Death and disobedience—rather ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Hope's fingers gripping my belt. Fresh multitudes were pouring up the ramp, brushing aside the five or six priests that had hurried there in an effort to ...
— The Infra-Medians • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... drilled by Kingozi, Simba, and Cazi Moto. Evidently the instruction was in rifle fire. Two were getting individual treatment: Simba and Cazi Moto were putting them through a careful course in aiming and pulling the trigger on empty guns. Kingozi sat on a chop box in the shade, gripping his eternal pipe, and issuing curt orders and criticisms to the baker's dozen, before him. When he saw the Leopard Woman he arose and strolled in ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... crowded stages of the golden-lined bars of the famous Feather River! Bret Harte reads her graphic and pathetic account of the fallen woman and the desperate men being driven out of camp, and lo! we have the gripping tale of The Outcasts of Poker Flat; and from another of her recitals came the inspiration that set him to work on that entertaining story, The Luck of Roaring Camp. And her incidental mention of the pet frog hopping on the bar of the hotel, in the midst of a group of onlooking miners,—was it ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... things with it, and yet you expect it to produce power—to keep perfect time. It is important that the human machine shall be kept as responsive to the slightest impression or influence as possible, and the brain should be kept clear so that the thought may be sharp, biting, gripping, so that the whole mentality will act with efficiency. And yet you do not hesitate to saturate the delicate brain-cells with vile drinks, to poison them with nicotine, to harden them with smoke from the vilest of weeds. You expect the ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... opportunity to speak to Mrs. Wilder, seized upon it and offered himself as her escort. She agreed with complimentary readiness, and they turned along a wooded road, where the shadows were deep and where Hartley felt the gripping hands of romance ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... glanced out into the yard, and her heart gave a leap, and then sank as she saw several of their Tory neighbors sanding in a group a few yards from the house. She noted, with a feeling of fear gripping her heart, that two or three of them ...
— The Dare Boys of 1776 • Stephen Angus Cox
... wrote under these conditions simply gushed forth, so to speak, during fits of fever. When the mood came over him, he would scribble the notes on whatever lay nearest him; his haste seemed to betray a sense of guilt. He stole from himself; tones appealed to him as so many crimes. When the gripping melody of the twenty-second Psalm arose in his mind, he trembled from head to foot, and left the house as if lashed by Furies, though it was in the dead of night. The recurring bass figure of the presto ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... forgetting for a moment that the stars were caught in the needled network of their hair. Against the sky in the west, where still lingered the sunset gold, we saw the wild toss of the horizon, shaggy with forest and cliff, gripping the heart like the motive in a symphony, and sending the sense of beauty all a-shiver through the mind—all these surrounding islands standing above the water like low clouds, and like them seeming to post along silently ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... thrust his lank arm out of bed, and, gripping her by the wrist and drawing her close to him, bade her out with it, and freely too, or he would not answer for the consequences; being wholly unable to endure the state of excitement and expectation. ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... no reply. He came up the stairs, walked straight through the open door of the doctor's flat and confronted that calm man as he leant against the table, his hands gripping the edge, a cigar in the corner of his mouth and a smile of quiet amusement ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... sudden swift impulse, and rushed madly, as though the furies were after him and any moment might lay a hand on him, back to where he could just see the white road gleaming in the distance. His heart thumped so he thought it would choke him, his head swam, a numbness seemed to be gripping his limbs, blackness creeping over his sight. Before he reached the road he staggered, stumbled, fell—and for a few moments lay, a small unconscious heap, on ...
— Paul the Courageous • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... of the Master' cheers me up now as then with the thought that a broken sword flung away by a craven as useless was used by a king's son to win victory in the same battle. God will use it and perform His work. We have dedicated ourselves for His duty which is gripping our souls. He will use them according ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... nozzles of their oxygen tanks, the two cadets shot toward the ship. They quickly clambered onto the stern where Connel lay stretched out on the side of the hull, arms extended, his gloved hands gripping the small cleat on the ...
— Sabotage in Space • Carey Rockwell
... but his head ached, and he felt reluctant, even unable, to open his eyes. Even closed, they ached from the brilliant spots which snapped into being before them. He shuddered, bringing his head down to his breast, gripping it with shaking hands, and breathing ...
— Millennium • Everett B. Cole
... he struggled to his knees, gripping the iron foot-rail with one hand, a single glance gave him a distinct impression of their desperate situation. With that knowledge, there likewise flashed over his mind the only possible means of defence. The Indians, numbering at least thirty, had ridden recklessly out from under the ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... Cross watching the sun, like a crimson flower, sink behind the dim grey forest. The Nestor, in the evening mist, was a golden shadow under the hill. This beauty made him melancholy. He was wishing passionately, as he stood there, for work, hard, dangerous, gripping work. He did not know that that was to be the last idle minute of his life. Hearing a step on the path he turned round to find ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... light Of the bright moon. The great night seemed to pause Chin upon hand to watch the struggle, air Hushed to retain the hoarse and laboring sobs Such strain brought forth. Their shining bodies, oiled In honor of the feast, granted no hold To the fierce gripping arms. ...
— The Rose of Dawn - A Tale of the South Sea • Helen Hay
... remember, I learned nothing, though it greatly annoyed me. But there was one present who did, and that was the King. He laid his hand on my shoulder, gripping it with a force, that I read as a command to be silent. "Where," he said to the man, "do you keep the King and Sully and The ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... said Johnny gripping the other's hand, "I can give you welcome, comrade. We are traveling the ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... ferns to still the furious exultations which almost consumed him during the moment when he marked his victim. He lay there breathing hard, gripping tightly his rifle, slowly mastering the passion that alone of all things ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... pawing about then for matches with which to relight the gas. For the blackness—that blackness to which he had been stranger for more than half his life—had come upon him as an enemy smothering him, muffling his head in its terrible black folds, stopping his nostrils with its black fingers, gripping his windpipe with black cords, so ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... contracts and extends himself that he pulls to and fro those who are trying to restrain him by their gripping weight, and I can see the zigzags of the candle held by a kneeling man whose other arm engirdles the mutilated maniac, who shouts so fiercely that he wakes up the sleepers and dispels the drowsiness of the rest. On all sides they turn towards him; half rising, they ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... he had counted the days, scratching them off his calendar with a dig each night that once or twice snapped the pen. Then, when the trail stood open, this meeting was deferred, put off for indefinite days, or weeks; he could not tell how long. So, gripping his pencil and tracing heavy words, he gave himself what consolation he could ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... hold on tightly, so she pressed her knees hard against old Ned's sides. Instantly he started to gallop across the pasture. He went up the lane, through the open gate into the barn lot, and on to the watering trough. Joyce still held to his mane with all her might, gripping him tightly with her knees. Don bounced up and down behind her, with his ...
— A Hive of Busy Bees • Effie M. Williams
... but it was too late now to turn back, and some desperate expedient was necessary. I found myself on deck, gripping a backstay and looking giddily down and then up at the dinghy, as it bobbed like a cork in the trough of the sea alongside, while Davies settled the ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... Gripping the cheque and the letter, Linda lurched forward against the window casement and shut her eyes tight, because she could feel big, nervous gulps of exultation and rejoicing swelling up in her throat. She shifted the papers to one hand and surreptitiously slipped ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... sudden blow she struck the pistol from his hand; it fell upon the floor of the carriage. And then with a scream she sprang like a wild cat straight at his throat. So sudden was the attack that the long lean hands were gripping his windpipe before he knew it had been made. Back she bore him, though he seized her round the waist. She was the heavier of the two, and back they went, /crash/ ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... standing there in the sunshine, both hands gripping his dark hair in pretense of grief, and vowing that he had a mind to scalp himself for very vexation. Alas! That I remember now such idle words, spoken in the pride and strength and gayety of youth! And always when I think of him I remember his dread of fire—the only fear ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... straight toward the temple; and a man came out to meet her, tall and strong, who strode like a scion of a stock of warriors. They met mid-way and neither spoke, but each looked in the other's eyes, then took each other's hands, and stood still minute after minute. Hasamurti, gripping Tess's fingers, caught her breath in something like a sob, while Tess could think of nothing else than ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... quiet, undemonstrative woman of the New England race, and if mother and son loved each other,—as it now transpired that they did,—no mention had ever been made of the fact on either side. The consequence was, that when, at parting, an iron hand seemed to be gripping the boy's throat, he had been so taken at unawares, that he had found it impossible to articulate a single word. On the mother's part there had been one little, half-suppressed sob that sounded in his ears yet. It left an ache in him that he did not at first ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... of documents. At first sight, the years seemed to have passed over Michael's head leaving him untouched; but, as Ivan stepped into the light of a low-hanging lamp, his father gave a sudden start, a hoarse gasp, and then fell back into his chair again—an old man. Ivan, though he had been gripping himself for the ordeal, felt himself turn slowly white, closed his eyes for an instant, and reopened them to meet the diamond-bright glare of his father's look. At that, moved by a combination of emotional ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... to claim this woman's love while it was possible that in a few months he might once more become a wandering outcast. He sat still for a moment or two, and it seemed to Ida, who watched him quietly, that he had worn much the same look when he stood beside the helpless Grenfell, gripping the big ax. This was really the fact, though he now entered upon a sterner struggle than he had been ready to engage in then. Once more he was endeavoring to do what it seemed ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... he would whisper, his trembling hand gripping the girl's arm until it bruised the flesh, "I am the work of Thy hands. Break me if Thou wilt. But give me courage not to cry out at ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... against talons, wolf cunning against cat ferocity. Crouched in the snow, spitting and snarling, his teeth bared and round eyes blazing and long claws aching to close in a death grip, Upweekis waited impatient as a fury for the rush. He is an ugly fighter; but he must always get close, gripping his enemy with teeth and fore claws while the hind claws get in their deadly work, kicking downward in powerful spasmodic blows and ripping everything before them. A dog would rush in now and be torn to ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... and waved the sceptre in a fine manner. So we followed, each tiny boy gripping my hand tight. We were all three a trifle awed. Elsbeth led us into a dark underbrush. The branches, as they flew back in our faces, left them wet with dew. A wee path, made by the girl's dear feet, guided our footsteps. Perfumes of elderberry and wild cucumber ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie
... He did so with a singular rapidity, for he had seen murder flash from beneath Jem Agar's eyebrows. He was standing between them, his left hand gripping Jem's right arm with an undeniable strength. Dora, looking at them, suddenly felt the tears well to her eyes. There was something that melted her heart strangely in the sight of those two men—friends—standing side by side; and at that moment her affection went out ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... the bottle firm enough between his knees, he tried gripping it between his feet. Then in a hot whisper he besought D'Arcy to hang on to the end, and for a time the bottle was invisible under the two. Then he took another, amid the enthusiastic cheers of the spectators, and was proceeding to release the corkscrew from the refractory vessel, when ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... recovered sufficiently to eat the fish, but his soup had to be removed untasted. He sat, with both hands gripping his table-napkin as it lay across his knees, his eyes on the table-cloth, seeing the pretty Deleah and her fat but agile father dancing down the gay ball-room. In prison! Some one he had known, ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... argument? Say, I'll be driven to take up this Hoot-Mon pastime myself some of these days. Got to if I want to keep in the swim. It was about some particular club Dowd claimed he had just learned how to play. A mashie-niblick, that was it. Said it was revealed to him in a dream—something about gripping with the left hand so the knuckles showed on top, and taking the turf after he'd hit the ball. That gave him a ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... exaltees that they were ready to face death for their cause. The police were so exasperated that they saw red and some went mad with sex mania. It was a horrible spectacle in detail. Men with foam on their moustaches were gripping women by the breasts, tearing open their clothing, and proceeding to rabid indecencies. Or, if not sex-mad, they twisted their arms, turned back their thumbs to dislocation, rained blows with fists on pale faces, covering them with blood. They tore out golden hair ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... straight in his chair, his plump hands gripping the arms of it, and his lips compressed with anger, while he struggled for patience to hear ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... swung head downwards, gripping the bars with all four feet. In this position he could at least nip the cross-piece, and worry it with his teeth. Every muscle of his small body was strained to the utmost. The bar rattled in its sockets, slipped ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... A gripping story about two young children, a boy of about fourteen and his sister of about twelve, who set off with their father, a south-sea whaling captain, on what is intended to be his last voyage, their mother having died during his previous ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... him. I fear his red-rimmed horny eyes. It is with him I must struggle all through this night till day come, till he or I lie dead, gripping him by the sinewy throat till... Till what? Till he yield to me? No. I ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... his midnight visitor? Softly Howland went back to his heavy coat and slipped his small revolver into his hip pocket. The knock came again. Then he walked to the door, shot back the bolt, and, with his right hand gripping the butt of his ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... with the young man after lunch, "to show him the country," and gave him a taste of what he took for her variable moods. He misjudged her. Like a swimmer going through warm and cold springs of certain lake waters, he thought her a capricious ladyship, dangerous for intimacy, alluring to the deeps and gripping with cramps. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... ports alongside us were darkened by the run of a wave. The Boy made an exclamation partly stifled, and looked at me quickly. I did not look at him, but went on with the food. He stopped eating, and remained with his gaze fixed on the ports, gripping his chair whenever they went dark. He said nothing about it, but he must have been thinking pretty hard. "I suppose this is a strong ship, isn't ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... the story was gripping the other man through all his horror, and his tone had lost its hostility for the moment. ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... courtyard. The statue stood as before, unmoving, its timeless eyes staring out from under the ugly helmet, its hands gripping the bayoneted rifle. A blue and white pigeon fluttered softly down, alighted on the bayonet, looked the crowd over and then ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... to the surface and forms or adds to the protecting blanket of ice. The warmer water remains unfrozen at the bottom, and the animals live on. (3) The risk of being washed away, e.g. to the sea, is lessened by all sorts of gripping, grappling, and anchoring structures, and by shortening the juvenile stages when ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... however, to feign ignorance when, gripping the frame of the doorway, she said in a voice that trembled noticeably in spite of her obvious effort ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... his hand with a mighty swing, and caught at Rainey's in mid-air, gripping it till Rainey bit his lips to repress ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... I'd be glad to, but one can't restrain oneself. All at once your eyes become clouded, your head whirls, it seems as if some one were gripping your heart with his hand and you can think only of misfortune and sin. You walk about as if half crazed, and see nothing all around you. But now when your anger has calmed down, then you're at ease, as if nothing had happened. ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... spade and brought it down smartly on the object. When it hit, he almost dropped the spade. He had been gripping the handle rigidly, braced for a recoil. But the spade struck that unyielding surface and stayed. There was no perceptible give, but ...
— The Leech • Phillips Barbee
... the long run is all right if one can only hold out," he answered, gripping my hand and breathing rapidly. He was almost in delirium. "But I'll take the short run, Baron Ned." Here his voice rose almost to a scream: "I'll take the short run, Ned, and will kill the king! Then to hell after him by way ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... Peters did not approve of women in journalism, but he did disapprove very particularly of making any distinction between the sexes in the office. Yet frequently he found himself gripping the chair arm to prevent himself from rising when she entered; and in his secret soul he knew that he looked out of the window to note the weather before giving her an out-of-town assignment. When she came into the city room now he conquered this annoying impulse of politeness ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... see the two on the hearthrug. Hal, with her shining eyes, rising coulour, and laughing lips, and Hermon with a sort of answering glow in his face, boyishly gripping her shoulders as if to shake her. He stood and looked at them a moment without speaking, then Hal espied him, and thinking he had that ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... bolo turned edgewise, and gripping the back of it firmly with both hands. "Do you hear it?" ...
— The Woman with a Stone Heart - A Romance of the Philippine War • Oscar William Coursey
... Traill's place at two o'clock the landlord stood in shirt-sleeves and apron in the open doorway with Bobby, the little dog gripping a mutton shank ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... caught her before she fell, and held her erect until her strength returned. Belatedly he understood the emotional strain that had been gripping her. "If you come back later, sir, you'll take me with you." The words were ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... have behaved with great presence of mind. She snatched up the sealed bag of letters that was waiting to go on to Urshot, and rushed out of the door at once. Almost simultaneously Mr. Skelmersdale himself appeared down the village, gripping a watering-pot by the spout, and very white in the face. And, of course, in a moment or so every one in the village was rushing ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... at once found that he could not do, seeing that a pair of firm and muscular knees were gripping and imprisoning his legs, even while that same all-powerful left hand with the hard knuckles had an unpleasant ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... struggle, with darkness, cold, and hunger, in a land of enemies. It may sound monotonous to the reader at times, but I assure you, we never, for one minute, got accustomed to the pangs of hunger, the beat of the rain, or the ache of our tired legs, and the gripping, choking fear that through some mishap we ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung
... peace be with thee!" Thereupon King Yunan took the bat from the Sage and grasped it firmly; then, mounting steed, he drove the ball before him and gallopped after it till he reached it, when he struck it with all his might, his palm gripping the bat handle the while; and he ceased not malling the ball till his hand waxed moist and his skin, perspiring, imbibed the medicine from the wood. Then the sage Duban knew that the drugs had penetrated ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... dolphin-striker, and let himself still lower by means of a looped rope. By this means he had been enabled to swing himself down, so that he could reach the surface. Fortunately, it was at that moment that I had risen in the water to face the crocodile, and had thus given Brace the opportunity of gripping me firmly and ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... nearer. The fact that, all so ill-explained and formless, the thing yet lay in her consciousness, out of reach but moving and alive, filled her with a kind of puzzled, dreadful wonder. Its presence was so very real, its power so gripping, its partial concealment so abominable. Then, out of the dim confusion, she grasped one thought and saw it stand quite clear before her eyes. She found difficulty in clothing it in words, but its meaning perhaps was this: That cedar stood in their life for something ...
— The Man Whom the Trees Loved • Algernon Blackwood
... the heavy clouds were smothering the sunset, he came slowly back across the field. A gripping nausea had seized upon him—a nausea such as he had known before after that merry night at college. His head throbbed, and as he walked he staggered like a drunken man. The revulsion of his overwrought emotions had thrown him into a state of ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... no response, so the Professor, gripping his gun resolutely, crept along toward the opposite side of the camp where the noise had seemed to come from. So quietly had he moved that he made scarcely a sound, until suddenly there came a commotion that more than made up for the noise he had ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Ozarks • Frank Gee Patchin
... his hand remained pointing at the spot where the mail bag had lain. It was as if the spot held him fascinated. Then his arm lowered slowly, and his hand came to rest on the edge of the table, gripping it with unnecessary force. ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... room to where Etta was standing, white-lipped, by the fire. Her clenched hand was gripping Maggie's wrist. She was half hidden behind her cousin. Maggie was looking at Paul. Etta was obviously conscious of Steinmetz's gaze ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... only knew—" he said, sharply—"if you only knew how I have longed to hear you say just that one word man!" He paused almost triumphantly, his eyes searching her frightened face, his fingers gripping hers. ...
— The Mystics - A Novel • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... the path came the tiger, and Ab, gripping the limb more firmly, looked down upon the thing so closely and in daylight for the first time in his life. Ab was certainly brave, and he was calm and wise and thinking beyond his time, but when he saw plainly this beast which had slipped so easily and silently from the forest, safe ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... the Viscount, who had at length adjusted the trace to his own liking and Master Milo's frowning approval. "Good-by, Bev," he continued, gripping the hand Barnabas extended. "We are going down to Devenham for a week or so—Clemency's own wish, and when we come back I have a feeling that the—the shadows, y' know, will have passed quite away, y'know,—for good ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... atmosphere, the suspension points and the seasonal epidemics of such words as "gripping," "virile," ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... then there was no little diversion; dire was the screaming of the porkers, yet the purchaser invariably appeared to know how to manage his bargain, keeping the left arm round the body of the swine and with the right hand fast gripping the ear—some few were led away by strings. There were some Welsh cattle, small of course, and the purchasers of these seemed to be Englishmen, tall burly fellows in general, far exceeding the Welsh in ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... levity Breslin stared in bewilderment; Lisner glared, gripping his fist convulsively; and Mr. Ben Creagan, an uneasy third inquisitor, breathed hard through his nose. Anastacio Barela, the fourth and last inquisitor, maintained unmoved the disinterested attitude he had held since the interrogation began. Feet ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... story, in disconnected patches, came floating in to them. He heard it, gripping all the while the sides of his chair, struggling with a deadly faintness. She too listened, watching him carefully all the time lest he should call out. In their corner they were scarcely to be seen ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... go into that," said the other harshly, gripping his side with his claw-like hand. His face was contorted by pain. After a moment, he went on: "She's better than I thought, and so is that good-for-nothing brother of hers. I shall never forgive this scoundrel Wade though. He has been my servant, my slave for more than thirty years, ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... Nervously gripping a freshly lighted cigar, Winston finally strolled forth upon the wide porch to await, with all possible patience, the opportunity he felt assured was fast approaching. It was a bright spring morning, sufficiently warm ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... hundred plays produced by Strindberg during his lifetime, none has won such widespread attention as "Miss Julia," both on account of its masterful construction and its gripping theme. Whether liking or disliking it, critics have repeatedly compared it with Ibsen's "Ghosts," and not always to the advantage of the latter work. It represents, first of all, its author's most determined and most daring endeavour to win the modern stage ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... escape—though flight would have been futile, for I was nothing of a runner—shrieked aloud for help. The thing sprang at me, its jaws wide open, its eyes red with rage. I struck at it wildly, and have dim recollections of my puny blows landing on its face. It closed in on me, and gripping me tightly round the body with its sinewy arms, hurled me to the ground. My head came in violent contact with a stone, and I lost consciousness. On recovering my senses, I was immeasurably surprised to find Dalghetty sitting on a rock watching ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... it was wicked," Blair's mother tried to explain; "in fact, I don't think it was; it wasn't big enough to be wicked. No, it was only a dirty, contemptible trick." Nannie cringed back, her hand gripping the knob behind her. "If Blair had been a hard-working man, knocking up against other hard- working men, trying to get food for his belly and clothes for his nakedness, he'd have been ashamed to play such a trick—he'd have been a man. If I had loved him more I'd ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... she flared at me, gripping the arms of her chair. "I do not wish to hear any more about your stupid English nation. It is because they are stupid that I do what I do. They can be led by the nose, like your stupid king: I can do ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... me in life," said Mr. Wilder, and proceeded to tell me how the Doctor had filled him with optimism and success. He was always doing this, gripping young men by the shoulders and shaking them into healthful life. And then men of political or national prominence were always seeking him out, to gain a little dynamic energy and balance from the Doctor's storehouse of experience and philosophy. He was a giant of ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... into the narrow gateway leading through the brick coping, hurrying silently as if pursued, her foot barely planted upon the step when we met. I stopped, speechless, rigid, my outstretched hand gripping the rail, but the woman drew hastily back, her lips parted in a sudden sob of surprise, one hand flung out as if in self-protection. It was instantaneous, yet before either could move otherwise, or utter a word of explanation, ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... himself upon me, determined that I should not escape. With great good fortune, however, I managed to unbolt the door, and after a desperate struggle, in which he endeavoured to wrest the weapon from my hand, I succeeded at last in gripping him by the throat, and after nearly strangling him flung him to the ground and escaped into the street, just as his associates, hearing his cries of distress, ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... workings of his countenance, the convulsive gripping of his hands, the grinding of his great white teeth, the scalding tears which sometimes fell from his sightless eyes, revealed to the mind of his patient and watchful observer the passions secretly and ceaselessly ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... officer was gripping him excitedly by the arm, and as the new officer stood six-foot-four and was brawny in proportion, Master Cockerell's appeal was uttered in a ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... of sunburnt arms—the red type—vanished. Soon the same head and the same shoulders, decently but loosely clad in blue and followed by the rest of the hearty body, emerged, and in a few minutes friends were gripping each other's hands and talking furiously about a particular island, pilots, pearls, and Torres Straits "Jimmy" passed, and the florid man in blue said, nudging his friend, "I ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... gripping at his heart, Blount turned away, sick and revolted, and there was a curse on his lips for the cruelty of the woman who had brought him to be a witness to his father's shame. But when he groped for the door of egress and found it, the knob refused to turn. ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... sin, she said to herself, and that was all. What a strange stunned quietness was over her; the pain and the fever seemed all burned out. She did not suffer now. If something that felt like an iron claw would leave off gripping her heart, she could almost have felt comfortable. Maurice must die, she knew that, but something else had died before him. She wondered if it were this same heart of hers; and then she noticed her baby's hood was crooked, and stopped at the next lamp-post to put ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... of them invading the school-yard after I had dismissed the boys to go upstairs at the end of the intermission, thinking that they would have a fine game with the monitor. One made a pretext to quarrel with me, and, gripping me round the body, called to his companions to go and get some stones to pound me on the head with, this being the approved manner of the young roughs of New York. Finding that I could not extricate myself from his grip, I dragged him to the wall, and, catching him ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... the leverage of the saddle, the girth was gripping Cleopatra in a ticklish place, and the bow of the saddle was dipping into another ticklish place, whilst Willoughby's swinging feet provided for the ticklish places on the horse's thighs and flanks. Cleopatra mistook all this ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... 'slang-whanging.' That's what it's for from first to last, no matter what it's for in between; and I know what it's for in between, too, and Ned Ferry knows. Did you see Ned Ferry take him under his protection? O—oh! they're two of one hell-scorched kind!" My companion stood gripping the bedpost and fumbling at his holster. I sank to the bed, facing him, expecting his rage to burn itself out in words, but when he began again his teeth were clenched. "You heard him tell Ned Ferry he knows why I'm here. It's true! he does know! he knows I'm here to protect a certain person ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... and she had no arm free to replace it. She felt she must suffocate if these men did not put her down, and for a time they would not put her down. Then with an indescribable relief her feet were on the pavement, and she was being urged along by two policemen, who were gripping her wrists in an irresistible expert manner. She was writhing to get her hands loose and found herself gasping with passionate violence, "It's damnable!—damnable!" to the manifest disgust of the fatherly policeman on ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... figure bare-headed and dishevelled, his torn raiment black with blood and smoke. Staring at him, Miriam knew the man who Simeon—yes, Simeon, her cruel judge, who had doomed her to this dreadful end. After him, gripping his robe indeed, came a Roman officer, a stout man of middle age, with a weather-beaten kindly face, which in some dim way seemed to be familiar to her, and after ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... carried down the long ramp to the ground floor, the arms of his captors gripping him with painful tightness. Heading the procession was the immensely tall, gangling Rogan leader, clutching Greca by the wrist and dragging her indifferently along ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... and Quin had returned from Chicago. He and Madam Bartlett sat facing each other in the sepulchral library, where the green reading-light cast its sickly light on Lincoln and his Cabinet, on Andrew Jackson dying in the bosom of his family, on Madam savagely gripping the lions' heads on the ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... propeller increased as the motor warmed up. Tom ran to his seat and opened the gasoline throttle still more, advancing the spark slightly. The roar increased. The lad darted a look at Eradicate. The colored man's face was like chalk, and he was gripping the upright braces at his side as though his salvation depended ...
— Tom Swift in the Caves of Ice • Victor Appleton
... Gripping Burns's hand, Alf Pond broke down. Tears streamed down his battle-seared features, and he sobbed with the choking agony of ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... his teeth, gripping his sword. At the entrance to General Jackson's headquarters in Royal Street they were questioned by a sentry, who looked from the swarthy old man to the pale ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... my father—who had sunk back in his chair and sat gripping its arms—I passed on this epistle to my uncle Gervase, who read it and ran ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... distraught with the grievous torment, or ever he could turn and gain breath again, I fell on him, and seized him by the column of his stubborn neck. To earth I cast my bow, and woven quiver, and strangled him with all my force, gripping him with stubborn clasp from the rear, lest he should rend my flesh with his claws, and I sprang on him and kept firmly treading his hind feet into the soil with my heels, while I used his sides to guard my thighs, till I had strained his ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... moved by a swift impulse, I stooped and kissed the firm hand that rested so near me, gripping the edge of the port-hole. He looked up with a sudden ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... great, my brother," replies the Arab, with a shrug of the shoulders. "But I would ask, what have we, in our numbers and with arms such as these," gripping significantly his Express rifle, "to fear from those devil-worshippers armed with spears and shields—yea, even ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... critical of the talk around him. Upon those who talked excitedly of war and its consequences, with perverse spirit he fell like a sledge-hammer, and proved their information or judgment wrong. Then, again, he became amiable and almost sentimental in his attitude toward them all, gripping the hands of two or three with a warmth which more than surprised them. It was as though he was subconsciously aware of some great impending change. It may be there whispered through the clouded space that lies between the dwelling-house of Fate ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... a trumpeter choked, soon," said O'Grady, gripping him by the neck-handkerchief, with his knuckles ready to twist into his throat. "By this and that I'll strangle you, if you don't play ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... down and cleared a pebble from before his ball. It was the veriest atom of a pebble that ever showed on a putting green, but West was willing to take no chances beyond those that already confronted him. His mind was made up. Gripping his iron putter firmly rather low on the shaft and bending far over, West slowly, cautiously swung the club above the gutty, glancing once and only once as he did so at the distant goal. Then there was a pause. Whipple ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... sense that at no cost must I delay gave me the strength of a bull elephant. I fairly wrenched the constable off his feet, floored the man who was gripping my collar, and set off at my best pace down Duke Street. I heard a whistle being blown, and the ...
— The Thirty-nine Steps • John Buchan
... murdering our master!" suddenly cried one of the men, recovering from his stupor of terror, and seeing now how Tom's great hands were gripping the throat of ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... what Aunt Alice said," she whispered severely to Anna-Felicitas, gripping her arm as they stood jammed in the narrow passage to the door waiting to be ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... had the broncho in tow headed out on the flat prepared to throw off his dallies and two others, including Purdy, rode forward quirt in hand, to haze the hate-blinded outlaw from crashing into the wagons. With his hand gripping the cheek-strap, Tex turned and looked ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... were on the small intruders. Something was gripping at her heart, and somehow it felt like four small ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... the Terror of Peculators!" I gasped in amazement, arising and gripping the table as I ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... beating against his heart, and Alix, his chum, his companion, his comrade on so many night walks under the stars—he had lost them both. But it was Alix who was closest to his thoughts to-night, Alix, the thought of whom was gradually gripping his heart and ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... a Thomas' knee splint, may be of service. The strapping may be applied only to the distal fragment, but we prefer to carry it to the upper third of the leg. If the overriding of the fragments persists, extension may be taken directly from the bone, the ice-tong callipers gripping the ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... instantly some sudden violent passion shook him; he pressed both palms to his temples, and Susan could see that the fingers with which he covered his eyes were shaking. "My God! What more can I do?" he said aloud, in a low tone. "What more can I do? You come to me with this, little girl," he said, gripping her hands in his. "You turn to me, as your only friend just now. And I'm going to be worthy of your trust ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... sinuous bodies, as thick as a man's arm, would swim languidly in, seeking for the young mullet and gar-fish which had preceded them into the shallow waters beyond. These could be caught by the hand by suddenly gripping them just abaft of the head. A Moruya River black boy, named "Cass" (i.e., Casanova), who had been brought up with white people almost from infancy, was a past-master in this sort of work. Lying lengthwise upon the tree which bridged the opening, he would watch the giant gars passing in, ...
— The Colonial Mortuary Bard; "'Reo," The Fisherman; and The Black Bream Of Australia - 1901 • Louis Becke
... half-crown was bad, and broke it in halves,' I exclaimed, and gripping me more tightly Mr. Parsons quickened his pace and turned aside down the first street ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... when we noticed, a little ahead of us in a space where five ways met, a man with a hose, watering the roads. The pipe, supported at each joint by a pair of tiny wheels, writhed after him as he moved, suggesting a gigantic-worm, from whose open neck, as the man, gripping it firmly in both hands, pointing it now this way, and now that, now elevating it, now depressing it, poured a strong stream of water at the rate of ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... has happened, the good ship is safe, sir, as yet. But she has narrowly escaped a great danger, Pendennis," cries F. B., gripping my arm with great energy, "there was a traitor in her crew—she has weathered the storm nobly—who would have sent her on the rocks, sir, who would ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a little wildly fixed upon his face in the lamplight, the girl stumbled to her feet, and for a moment remained cowering against the wall, terribly shaken, a hand gripping a corner of the packing-box for support, the other pressed against the bosom of her dress as if in attempt forcibly to quell the mad hammering ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... FERROVIUS (gripping his shoulders) Oh, do not harden your heart, young man. Come: try for yourself whether our way is not better than yours. I will now strike you on one cheek; and you will turn the other and learn how much better ...
— Androcles and the Lion • George Bernard Shaw
... Hal, gripping the other's hands. "If it hadn't been for you our mission would have failed. ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes
... ears against that note of human agony. It pierced into one's soul. One could only stand gripping one's hands in this torture chamber, with darkness between high walls, and with shadows making awful noises out ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... of his sword. The thrust delivered, he leapt back, and not too soon, for forgetting his caution in his fury, the savage charged straight at him with a roar like that of a lion. So swift and terrible was his onset that Aziel, having no time to spring aside, did the only thing possible. Gripping the ground with his feet, he bent his body forward, and with outstretched arm and sword, braced up his muscles to receive the charge. Another instant, and the leopard skin cloak fluttered before him. With a quick movement of his left arm he swept it aside; ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... time when her capital would be gone was like an icy hand gripping at her heart. "Money is terribly useless," she had said to Riviere, but there were times when she wished passionately that she had the money with which to buy comforts for a life of blindness. Those were craven ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg |
