"Hand to hand" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Egyptian; "but he"—pointing at me—"is no gentleman. He is at once a viper, a villain, and a coward. I leave this house; I renounce pleasant society; I leave this country—for ever; but before I go I would like to fight hand to hand with that giant, who—Ha!" He stood close to me and spat at me. "There!" he cried, and then he struck me in the face ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... to lose thyself in me, Relive in my renewal, and become The light of other lives, a quenchless torch Passed on from hand to hand, till men are dust And the last garland withers ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... and face that enemy as Van Corlaer faced the governor of Acadia, full of the fury roused by outrage. But what could he and Father Jogues and the persevering Capuchin say to the parchment which the governor now deigned to pass from hand to hand among them in reply?—the permission of Louis XIII. to his beloved D'Aulnay de Charnisay (whom God hold in His keeping) to take the Fort of St. John and deal with its rebellious garrison as seemed to him fit, for which destruction ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... hand to hand, and form the "root of title" of very many owners of house property in Kilkenny. The city is the centre of an extensive agricultural region, famous, according to an ancient ditty, for "fire without smoke, ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... come into collision with Jimmy and Bud were getting noisier. They had produced a stone jug, and had collected the remainder of the passengers,—with the exception of Shearer and Thorpe,—and now were passing the jug rapidly from hand to hand. Soon they became musical, striking up one of the weird long-drawn-out chants so popular with the shanty boy. Thorpe shrewdly guessed his companion to be a man of weight, and did not hesitate to ascribe his immunity from annoyance to ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... when objects are found buried in the sand one above the other. But, in fact, it is to vague traders and missionaries, rather than to trained archaeologists, that we owe most of our fine pieces, which, as often as not, have been passed from hand to hand till, after many wanderings, they reached the coast. Add to all this the fact that most African sculpture is in wood (except, of course, those famous products of early European influence, the bronze castings from Benin), that this ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... avalanche's snow On the Alpine vales below; Thus at length, outbreathed and worn, Corinth's sons were downward borne By the long and oft renewed Charge of the Moslem multitude. In firmness they stood, and in masses they fell, Heaped by the host of the infidel, Hand to hand, and foot to foot: Nothing there, save death, was mute: Stroke, and thrust, and flash, and cry For quarter or for victory, Mingle there with the volleying thunder, Which makes the distant cities wonder How the sounding battle goes, If with them, or for their foes; If they must mourn, or may rejoice ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... has opened up. We are on the alert. They have attacked and a good stiff hand to hand combat ensued. The Germans were driven back with heavy losses. We have taken many prisoners from about twelve different German regiments. We continued our advance and now are on ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... took four days to reach the Piazza, arriving on the 18th at the hour of 12. More than forty men were employed to make it go; and there were fourteen rollers joined beneath it, which were changed from hand to hand. Afterwards, they worked until the 8th of June 1504 to place it on the platform (ringhiero) where the Judith used to stand. The Judith was removed and set upon the ground within the palace. The said Giant was the ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... horrible scene. They fought hand to hand, four hundred on the one side, fifty on the other. They seized each other by the collar, by the throat, by the mouth, by the hair. There was no longer a cartridge in the barricade, but there remained despair. A workman, pierced through ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... who take it for no other end but to give themselves Occasion for pretty Action, or to fill up little Intervals of Discourse, I can bear with them; but then they must not use it when another is speaking, who ought to be heard with too much respect, to admit of offering at that time from Hand to Hand the Snuff-Box. But Flavilla is so far taken with her Behaviour in this kind, that she pulls out her Box (which is indeed full of good Brazile) in the middle of the Sermon; and to shew she has the Audacity ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... warmed his coat-tails at the Yule log, a grim smile stole over his features as he listened to the sounds in the room. In the darkness the blue flames leaped and danced, the raisins were snapped and snatched from hand to hand, scattering fragments of flame hither and thither. The children shouted as the fiery sweetmeats burnt away the mawkish taste of the furmety. Mr. Skratdj cried that they were spoiling the carpet; Mrs. Skratdj complained that he had spilled some brandy on her dress. Mr. Skratdj ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... that Palamon had Arcites body Within an inch o'th Pyramid, that the cry Was generall 'a Palamon': But, anon, Th'Assistants made a brave redemption, and The two bold Tytlers, at this instant are Hand to hand at it. ...
— The Two Noble Kinsmen • William Shakespeare and John Fletcher [Apocrypha]
... shifting of power from hand to hand made those four centuries an age of diplomacy. Whenever some great baron was suspected of aspiring to the leadership, combinations were formed to curb his ambitions; embassies sped from court to court; and armies were marshalled in ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... Love! What times were those, Long ere the age of belles and beaux, And Brussels lace and silken hose, When, in the green Arcadian close, You married Psyche under the rose, With only the grass for bedding! Heart to heart, and hand to hand, You followed Nature's sweet command, Roaming lovingly through the land, Nor sighed ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... be expelled from the habitations of men. "Over and above these motives," said he, "I own myself so vitiated with the alloy of human passion and infirmity, that I desire—I eagerly pant for an occasion of meeting him hand to hand, where I may upbraid him with his treachery, and shower down vengeance and ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... shouted the verses of the long hymn, their eyes flashed and their bodies moved rhythmically from side to side with an ever-increasing motion. From time to time, the golden goblets were filled with the sweet Haoma juice, and passed rapidly from hand to hand along the line, and as each priest drank more freely of the subtle fermented liquor, his eyes gained a new and more unnatural light, and his gestures grew more wild, while the whole body of voices rose together from ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... rather enjoy meeting him in mortal combat. My notion of bliss would be a fight to the death with love, for then the conflict would not be one-sided. What could be more glorious than to stand face to face with love, hand to hand, breast to breast, lip to lip until the end of time? Let him cut and slash and stab if you will, there would still be recompense for the vanquished. Even those who have suffered most in the conflict with love ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... vehemence, her bitter wailings and lamentations. When the food is thoroughly cooked the kettle is taken from the fire and placed in the center of the cabin, and the friends gather around it, passing the buffalo-horn spoon from hand to hand and from mouth to mouth till all have been bountifully supplied. While supper is being served, two of the oldest men of the company quietly withdraw and go to the grave and fill it up, taking down the flags. All then join in a dance, which not unfrequently ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... in silence and led the old man forth from under the tree. Simeon Deaves that night was like a pet dog on a leader, passed impatiently from hand to hand. ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... clear the ring! for, hand to hand, The manly wrestlers take their stand. Two o'er the rest superior rose, And proud demanded mightier foes, 635 Nor called in vain; for Douglas came. —For life is Hugh of Larbert lame; Scarce better John of Alloa's fare, Whom senseless home his comrades ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... one day, in spite of Balthazar's strict orders, Madame Claes resolved to follow him, to shut herself up in the garret where his life was spent, and struggle hand to hand against her rival by sharing her husband's labors during the long hours he gave to that terrible mistress. She determined to slip secretly into the mysterious laboratory of seduction, and obtain the right ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... communication between the various prisons that the police are powerless to prevent, to Saint Lazare. Saint Lazare is the women's prison, and where there are women there also is pity. The bouquet circulates from hand to hand among the unfortunate creatures that the police detain administratively at Saint Lazare; and in a few days the infallible secret post apprises those who sent the bouquet that Palmyre has chosen the tuberose, that Fanny prefers the azalea, and ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... an obstinate and deadly struggle, hand to hand. The assailants, wielding their falchions with one hand, strove with the other to drag down the structure of the barricade. On the other side, the parts were reversed; and the defenders exposed themselves like madmen to protect their rampart. So for ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to the little chamber, and there lay the beautiful child, still and quiet upon the bed. And the old man shut the door and prayed to God for him, and stretched himself upon the child, hand to hand, eye to eye, mouth to mouth, until the child grew warm, and showing signs of life, opened his eyes. Then the prophet called to his servant to bring the Shunammite woman. She needed no calling. Her foot was on the stair while he yet spoke, so quick ...
— Children of the Old Testament • Anonymous
... darting from the trench and stooping over the nearest figure. All about them were the battered trenches of that thin force of noble Frenchmen who had fought hand to hand with the Brandenburgers. There were the bodies of the slain—of friend and foe—lying in every sort of posture, some half in and half out of the trenches; some, alas! unrecognizable, for such is the effect ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... the Farallone, in that exposed position where she lay, was an affair of some dexterity. The less precious goods were hoisted roughly; the chronometer, after repeated failures, was passed gently and successfully from hand to hand; and there remained only the more difficult business of embarking Huish. Even that piece of dead weight (shipped A.B. at eighteen dollars, and described by the captain to the consul as an invaluable man) was at last hauled ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... clear." Le Gardeur, however, refused nothing that was offered him. He drank with all, and drank every description of liquor. He was speedily led up into a large, well-furnished room, where tables were crowded with gentlemen playing cards and dice for piles of paper money, which was tossed from hand to hand with the greatest nonchalance as the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... treasures. The arch-villain, Blackbeard, was a terror to Virginians and Carolinians until Spotswood, of "Horseshoe" fame, took the matter in hand, and sent after him lieutenant Maynard, who, slaying the pirate in hand to hand conflict, returned with his head at the bowsprit.[1] Lapse of time has cast a romantic and semi-mythologic glamor around these depredators, and it is in many instances at this day extremely difficult to distinguish fact from fiction. The unprotected ...
— Captain Richard Ingle - The Maryland • Edward Ingle
... and everyone owes. Oh, how great will be the harmony among mankind! I lose myself in this contemplation. There will be peace among men; love, affection, fidelity, feastings, joy, and gladness; gold, silver, and merchandise will trot from hand to hand. There will be no suits of law, no wars, no strife. All will be good, all will be fair, all will be just. Believe me, it is a divine thing to lend, and an heroic virtue to owe. Yet this is not all. We owe ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... strength that he would find himself forced to submit to the demands of the estates. The tenor, motive, and effect were all as had been proposed and foreseen. The agreement to expel the Spaniards, under the Catholic and loyal manifestations indicated, passed from hand to hand through all the provinces. It soon received the signature and support of all the respectability, wealth, and intelligence of the whole country. Nobles, ecclesiastics, citizens, hastened to give to it their adhesion. The states-general had sent it, by solemn resolution, to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... to the frigate bow and stern. The lines were passed to the men lying on the deck, none of whom were visible from the frigate's rail, and were slowly passed from hand to hand by the men, the coaster thus being cautiously drawn closer ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... is an act of rudeness to offer a large wine-cup. As, however, the same cup is returned to the person who has offered it, the ill carries with it its own remedy. At a Japanese feast the same cup is passed from hand to hand, each person rinsing it in a bowl of water after using it, and before ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... possession and use; and therefore it was only the burgess, and such as the community accounted in this respect as equal to burgesses, that were capable of holding property. All property passed freely from hand to hand. The Roman law made no substantial distinction between moveable and immoveable estate (from the time that the latter was regarded as private property at all), and recognized no absolute vested interest of children or other relatives in the paternal or family property. Nevertheless it was not in ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... a man who could wield it. Now at last the man had come—one who would put them into the battle and give them a chance to fight. So they had marched into the Wilderness, and there Lee struck them, and for three days they groped in a blind thicket, fighting hand to hand, amid suffocating smoke. The Colonel read in a quiet, unassuming voice; but one could see that he had hold of his hearers by the light that crossed their features when he told of the army's recoil from the shock, and of the wild joy that ran through the ranks when they took up their ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... the armies joined battle; and it came to a close fight, hand to hand, both sides showing great alacrity, and encouraging one another. And indeed while Moses stretched out his hand towards heaven [7] the Hebrews were too hard for the Amalekites: but Moses not being able to sustain ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... about to shoot his arrow at the panther," said the marquis, suddenly. "No doubt, he will next perform the hand to hand grapple." ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... receiving, I suppose, that exuberant applause with which every man repays the grant of perusing a manuscript, he was not very diligent to obstruct his own praise by recalling his papers, but suffered them to wander from hand to hand, till, at last, without his own consent, they were, in 1642, given ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... remarkable for two peculiarities—the effort required and the slowness of the process. Of course, there is a profound and beautiful use to be made of the prophet's action in laying himself upon the dead child, mouth to mouth, and hand to hand, if we regard it as symbolic of that closeness of approach to our nature, dead in sins, which the Lord of life makes in His incarnation and in His continual drawing near. It is His own life which Jesus imparts, and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... down to his work at the beginning of 1826, conducted his operations with the utmost vigour, boasting that he would accomplish in fourteen days what the Turks could not effect in nine months. But his veteran soldiers were thoroughly defeated when they met the Greeks hand to hand; and the Egyptian, furious with his enemy, his allies, and his own officers, confessed that Missolonghi could only be taken by blockade. He now ordered a fleet of flat-bottomed boats to be constructed and launched upon the lagoons that lie between Missolonghi ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... commonly been applied to them, is misleading. The use of the term certainly was due to a fundamental misunderstanding, they being once considered as contracts to furnish goods. They were even thought to be promises to pay, which passed from hand to hand, like our checks, and so formed a species of "clay money." These views were both partially true, but do not ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns
... Muza, as he joined his friends; "Lelilies! Lelilies!" echoed the Moors; and ere the Christians recovered their dismay, they were engaged hand to hand with their ferocious and swarming foes. It was, indeed, fearful odds; and it was a marvel to the Spaniards how the Moors had been enabled to harbour and conceal their numbers in so small a space. ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book II. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... are you?" she asked. "The thing you have done is unheard of. Even now I cannot believe that it is possible for a lone man armed only with a knife to have fought hand to hand with EL ADREA and conquered him, unscathed—to have conquered him at all. And that cry—it was not human. Why ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Bosworth Field. To quote from Hall's "Chronicle"—"King Richard set on so sharply at the first brount that he ouerthrew th'erle's standard and slew Sir William Brandon, his standard-bearer, and matched hand to hand with John Cheynye, a man of great strength, who would have resisted him, and the said John was by him manfully ouerthrowen." Wyatt, in his ghoulish explorations exhumed Sir John's bones, and confirmed the legend of his gigantic stature; the thigh-bone was found to be twenty-one inches ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... Whether the simple getting of money, or passing it from hand to hand without industry, be an object ...
— The Querist • George Berkeley
... the sake of my purpose, since I have been here. A word or two from my lips, in answer to the questions with which I have been baited, day after day, by those about me, would have called you before a magistrate to answer for an assault—a shocking and a savage assault, even in this country, where hand to hand brutality is a marketable commodity between the Prisoner and the Law. Your father's name might have been publicly coupled with your dishonour, if I had but spoken; and I was silent. I kept the secret—kept it, because ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... each man burning with the wish to reap the high renown of striking the body of the dead. They were met by Hard-Heart and a chosen knot of warriors, all of whom were just as stoutly bent on saving the honour of their nation, from so foul a stain. The struggle was hand to hand, and blood began to flow more freely. As the Pawnees retired with the body, the Siouxes pressed upon their footsteps, and at length the whole of the latter broke out of the cover with a common yell, and threatened to bear down all opposition by ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... get no closer, in spite of the drunken condition of all but one or two of the men. Though the night was now much brighter, they were in the shadow, and neither the Captain nor Danton observed that the brandy which the transport men had supplied was passing steadily from hand to hand. They could not know that the boy Guerin lay on his back amid the attacking Onondagas, an arrow sticking upright in his breast, one hand lying across his musket, ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... about, and saw more than one tasselled card appearing and disappearing from hand to hand. ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... Erg, the unit of mechanical energy, is recognized as the true unit of value, it seems difficult to believe that in the twentieth century and for more than ten centuries thereafter, the Dollar, a metallic circular disk, was being passed from hand to hand in exchange for the essentials ...
— John Jones's Dollar • Harry Stephen Keeler
... not long in returning. It placed the will and the codicil in the hands of the Chief-President, who presented them, without parting with them, to M. le Duc d'Orleans, then passed them from hand to hand to Dreux, 'conseiller' of the Parliament, and father of the grand master of the ceremonies, saying that he read well, and in a loud voice that would he well heard by everybody. It may be imagined with what silence he was listened to, and how all eyes? and ears ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... loosen his tongue. After gazing with an air of injured surprise at the genial loosening of his knees he gravely handed his rifle with an exaggerated sweep of his arm, to the cowboy nearest him, and wrapped his arms around the recipient to insure his balance. The rifle was passed from hand to hand until it came to Buck Peters, who gravely presented it to its owner ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... face was beaming but it was wet with tears, too, and while trying to get out her pocket-handkerchief, she was fumbling with the flowers which she was still holding and passing from hand to hand. ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... midst of school girls. Bullard and Hansen crowded around. "Now, take turns," said Quemos sharply, "and don't drop it. It's priceless, I assure you." The ancient wrist watch with its transparent back was passed from hand to hand. ...
— No Moving Parts • Murray F. Yaco
... arrivals bring with them from the older colonies experience, capital, and extensive connexions; fresh sources of industry and speculation are at once opened up by them; all town-land and landed property to be purchased at a cheap rate they secure; money circulates from hand to hand, and an impetus is given, and a progress made, which must be ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... and delicious. Thirty rounds lower, I stepped off on the pierres perdues of the foundation; a dumb helmeted figure took me by the hand, and made a gesture (as I read it) of encouragement; and looking in at the creature's window, I beheld the face of Bain. There we were, hand to hand and (when it pleased us) eye to eye; and either might have burst himself with shouting, and not a whisper come to his companion's hearing. Each, in his own little world of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... clothes still wet and dirty, with their haggard faces, and weary stiff limbs, encumbered with the horrid task of burying that loved body among the forest trees. And then, to keep life in them till it was done, the brandy flask passed from hand to hand; and after that, with slow but resolute efforts, they reformed the litter on which the living woman had been carried thither, and took her body back to the wild plantation at Padregal. There they dug for her her grave, and repeating over her some portion of the service for the ...
— Returning Home • Anthony Trollope
... In any hand to hand fight evidently that player will get the better of it who has more pieces ready for action on the battlefield. When examining the typical positions discussed in the previous chapter the fact will strike the observant reader that the winning ...
— Chess and Checkers: The Way to Mastership • Edward Lasker
... the very heart of the castle a terrible encounter took place. The garrison, twelve hundred strong, ran down from their places on the wall, and seeing how small was the force that had entered fell upon them with fury. It was a hand to hand fight. Loud rose the war cries of the Italian and Spanish soldiers, and the answering cheers of the Scots mingled with the clash of sword on steel armour and the cries of the wounded, while without the walls the cannon ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... but he knew that its effect was terrifying, and he did not mean to lose the gun. His precaution was taken well, as a picked band of Wyandots, Shawnees and Miamis, springing suddenly from the undergrowth, made a determined charge to the very muzzle of the cannon. There was close fighting, hand to hand, the shock of white bodies against red, the flash of exploding powder and the glitter of steel, but the red band was at last driven back, although not without loss to the defenders. The struggle had been so desperate that Colonel ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... of paper?" I echoed, with interest. For it sounded the obvious secret thing; a bit of paper stealthily slid from hand to hand. ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... to strange lands and peoples, and no one knew what wonders and mysteries lay behind each horizon. It was there, too, high courage was developed and endurance, for it was there that men did battle hand to hand with nature's mightiest forces. It was the one career of the age which called to the bold and adventurous spirit. What training Columbus received or what voyages he made we know not; but when, at about the age of thirty, he steps ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... rage. The Trojan hero, rejoicing to find himself once more on a field of battle, first encountered the Latian warriors, who chanced to be in his front. Their leader was Theron, a man of gigantic stature, who did not hesitate to engage AEneas hand to hand; but he paid dearly for his rashness, for the sword which Vulcan had forged—so keen was its edge, so excellent its temper—pierced through his brazen buckler and his tunic stiffened by bars of gold, and penetrating his side, drained the life-blood. Next the hero ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... plunder. When this is done, several of them mount the fairest fruit-trees, and, picking the fruit, throw it down to their companions who stand below; these again cast it to others at a little distance, and thus it flies from hand to hand till it is safely deposited in the woods or mountains whence they came. When they are taken very young they are easily tamed, but always retain a great disposition to mischief, as well as to imitate everything they see done by men. Many ridiculous stories are told of them in ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... confined and apart from the faithful, whom her touch would defile, and from the fire, which her very look would injure. She was not allowed to eat as much as she wanted, as the strength which she might acquire would accrue to the fiends. Her food was not given to her from hand to hand, but passed to her from a distance in a long leaden spoon." At childbirth, the mother was unclean, in spite of the logic of the religion, according to which she should be pure because she has increased life. "The ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... choir loft and then into the belfry itself. There they came to sheer hand to hand struggle. Kennedy tripped on a loose board and would have fallen backwards, if he had not been able to recover himself just in time. The crook, desperate, leaped for the ladder leading further up into the steeple. ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... pitch-pipes were comical little apple-wood instruments that looked like mouse-traps, and great pains was taken to conceal them as they were passed surreptitiously from hand to hand in the choir. I have seen one which was carefully concealed in a box that had a leather binding like a book, and which was ostentatiously labelled in large gilt letters "Holy Bible;" a piece of barefaced and unnecessary deception on ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... controversy, or seek to wrest a new truth from the arcana of science.... We remember hearing a brother artist describe him in his studio at Home, engaged for hours upon a picture, deftly shifting palette, cigar, and maul-stick from hand to hand, as occasion required; absorbed, rapid, intent, and then suddenly breaking from his quiet task to vent his constrained spirits in a jovial song, or a romp with his great dog, whose vociferous barking he thoroughly enjoyed; and often abandoning his ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... strength. And he broke through the shield, having struck with a rock like unto a millstone, and he wounded him in the knee; and he was stretched supine, having come into violent contact with his shield; but Apollo quickly raised him. And now in close combat hand to hand, they would have wounded each other with their swords, had not the heralds, the messengers of gods and men, arrived, one of the Trojans, the other of the brazen-mailed Greeks, Talthybius and Idaeus, both prudent men. And between both armies they held their ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... sensitive ear of the telephone is but a servile drudge 'twixt speculative bacon merchants. And Books!—those miraculous memories of high thoughts and golden moods; those magical shells tremulous with the secrets of the ocean of life; those love-letters that pass from hand to hand of a thousand lovers that never meet; those honeycombs of dreams; those orchards of knowledge; those still-beating hearts of the noble dead; those mysterious signals that beckon along the darksome pathways of the past; voices through which the ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... barrier, then across someone's shoulders. She found herself in a box: to get into the next tier she had to leap over a high wall. Auntie jumped, but did not jump high enough, and slipped back down the wall. Then she was passed from hand to hand, licked hands and faces, kept mounting higher and higher, and at last got into the gallery. . ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... asked for his photograph for a review, he stamped with rage and shouted that he was not, thank God! an emperor, to have his face passed from hand to hand. It was impossible to bring him into touch with influential people. He never replied to invitations, and when he had been forced by any chance to accept, he would forget to go or would go with such a bad grace that he seemed to ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... pike. Rousseau's division, cutting its way through the enemy in falling back from the cedars, took position on this temporary line with all its batteries posted on the knoll a short distance to the rear. Here the severest engagement of this day of heavy fighting was had, almost hand to hand. At this point the new line had open ground in front of it for some four or five hundred yards. Rousseau, while his batteries were unlimbering, requested Van Cleve to move with Colonel Samuel Beatty's brigade of his division to form ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist
... at the steps were only mildly interested. An urchin pillowed on the knees of a Goliath had shifted so as languidly to command the approach; a baseball, traveling back and forth in lazy flight, had stopped only a moment, and then continued from hand to hand. ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... him. And after that the second theft, and another and more dreadful ride when he raced through the night after the cavalry—the torture of it, the agony of his arm, the shooting, and the grappling hand to hand, and Pat sinking with exhaustion, and the thrill again, his own, at having the horse once more in his possession. It was worth it—all of it—and he was glad—glad to have had an object for once in his life. And he still had that object, for was he not riding the ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... white wampum in his hand, and set the example by a confession of his own faults, after which he handed the string to the one nearest to him, who received it, made his confession in like manner, and passed it to another. In this way the wampum went around from hand to hand, and those who had confessions to make, stated wherein they had done wrong, and promised to do better in the future. Old and young, men, women and even children, all united in this public acknowledgment of their faults, and ...
— Wampum - A Paper Presented to the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society - of Philadelphia • Ashbel Woodward
... avarice, and craft, the African acknowledges to his sad experience; but he complains of being made absolute property, such as cattle, goods and chattels, and subject to be seized, levied upon, and tossed from hand to hand for the payment of commercial debts, by the laws of your realm, to which he never owed any subjection or obedience. He complains of the means used to bring him into such grievous and deplorable circumstances, as unfair and iniquitous. He complains, that his utmost labour and ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... Breede answered and laid aside, and the sheaf of reports that he juggled from hand to hand. His hope had been that the session might be brief. There was no clock in the room and he several times felt for the absent watch. Then he tried to estimate the time. When he believed it to be one o'clock he diversified his notes with a ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... rushed upon them at full speed; and the Barbarians did not stand their charge; for though they were well enough equipped for a sudden onset and retreat upon the mountains, they were by no means sufficiently armed to receive an enemy hand to hand. At this juncture the trumpeter sounded, 32. when the enemy fled still faster, and the Greeks, turning in the opposite direction, made their way over the river with all possible speed. 33. Some of the enemy, perceiving ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon
... water sports, which opened with canoe races. The four who were not in this took their seats on the shore, being placed by Nyoda with great formality, and passed Nakwisi's spy-glass from hand to hand. Hinpoha and Nakwisi, and Sahwah and Migwan were partners in the races. First they raced for distance, paddling around the nearest island and coming back to the dock. Hinpoha and Nakwisi came out ahead, because Migwan, who was paddling stem in her canoe, lost time steering around ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... may be too often interpreted as really meaning an unfortunate tendency to procrastination, have hitherto prevented it being put into shape with a view to publication: one thing after another has intervened, and the work has been passed on from hand to hand, until after these long years a final effort has been made, and the self-imposed ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... take a live coal on his tongue, on which he put a raw oyster, and let it remain there till it gaped and was quite broiled; take wax, pitch and sulphur, and drink them down flaming; hold a fiery hot iron between his teeth, and throw it about like a stone from hand to hand, and ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... astonishment, and the box passed from hand to hand. Everybody said that it was my portrait, taken ten years ago, and that it might pass for a likeness of Cesarino. Therese got quite excited, and swearing that she would never let the box out of her hands again, she went up ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... neighborhood, if you rip up his claims, is as thin and timid as any; and the peace of society is often kept, because, as children say, one is afraid and the other dares not. Far off, men swell, bully and threaten: bring them hand to hand, and they ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... her own head and enjoyed a peep at the visible world. Thus it will easily be understood that only one of the Three Gray Women could see, while the other two were in utter darkness; and, moreover, at the instant when the eye was passing from hand to hand neither of the poor old ladies was able to see a wink. I have heard of a great many strange things, in my day, and have witnessed not a few; but none, it seems to me, that can compare with the oddity of these Three Gray Women, all peeping through a ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... ranks, and as the force of the crusaders' charge abated, so did the number of foes in their front multiply. Not only this, but upon either side chosen bands swept down, and ere long the Christians were brought to a stand, and all were fighting hand to hand with their enemies. The lances were thrown away now, and with axe and mace ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... by the Greeks in those days. They had then no fire-arms, so that in battle the combatants could not stand quietly, as they can now, at a distance from the enemy, coolly discharging musketry or cannon. In ancient battles the soldiers rushed toward each other, and fought hand to hand, in close combat, with swords, or spears, or other weapons requiring great personal strength, so that headlong bravery and muscular force were the qualities which ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Randy. He made a wild dive for the water bottle, and this was passed around from hand to hand, each lad drinking eagerly in an endeavor to wash the burning taste ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... scenes of love as well as ghastly glimpses of warfare, ... and languishing beauties reposing in the arms of their lovers, or listening to the songs of passion, were depicted side by side with warriors dead on the field of battle, or struggling hand to hand in grim and bleeding conflict. The corners of this wonderful apartment were decked with all sorts of flags and weapons, and in the middle of the painted ceiling was suspended a huge bird with the ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... years, as a moat would be but as slight obstructure in modern warfare. But it made the city well nigh impregnable in the mediaeval days before gunpowder was invented and when most fighting was of the hand to hand kind. We entered the city through an arched gate and crossed the moat on a bridge which could be drawn up in case of attack. At present the gate is always kept lowered, but it could be drawn up if necessary. It was easy to picture in the mind's eye as we looked ...
— In the Flash Ranging Service - Observations of an American Soldier During His Service - With the A.E.F. in France • Edward Alva Trueblood
... with the old clouded face on which Gowan had fallen like a shadow. In the arrangement of the house for the great occasion, many little reminders of the old travels of the father and mother and daughter had to be disturbed and passed from hand to hand; and sometimes, in the midst of these mute witnesses, to the life they had had together, even Pet herself would yield to lamenting and weeping. Mrs Meagles, the blithest and busiest of mothers, went about singing and cheering ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... old-clothes men who throw useless rags from hand to hand in the dirty market-place, and shout, and swear and abuse each other, so they embarked on a rabid and fiery bargaining. Intoxicated with a strange rapture, running and turning about, and shouting, Judas ticked off on his fingers ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... step to exchange an occasional hand-shake with a friend on the sidewalk, or to snatch a kiss from wife or sweetheart, but those in the middle of the line can only look their farewells. Now and then a mother intrusts her baby to a file-leader to be passed along from hand to hand till it reaches the father, to be sent back with a kiss, or, maybe, perched aloft on his shoulder, to ride to the depot, crowing at the music and clutching at the gleaming bayonets. At every such touch of nature the people cheer wildly. From every ...
— An Echo Of Antietam - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... Thirty men, equally divided between Irish and negroes, fell off the flat cars before the wheels had ceased to revolve, and, without a word of direction, began loading the heavy boxes on the train and passing the kegs of cartridges from hand to hand and shoulder to shoulder. The sailors spread out up the road that led to the Capital to give warning in case the enemy approached, but they were recalled before they had reason to give an alarm, and in a half hour Burke's entire shipment of arms was on the ore-cars, the men who were to have ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... communication, as when hand touched hand, but every organ is vitalised and quickened; as in the case of the other miracle of this prophet, when he stretched himself on the dead child eye to eye, and mouth to mouth, and hand to hand; and each part received the vitalising influence. We have, if we are Christian people, a Spirit given to us, and are 'strengthened with might by the Spirit in the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... complete in itself, is also the first of a trilogy, the scope of which is suggested in the prologue. The story of scientific discovery has its own epic unity—a unity of purpose and endeavour—the single torch passing from hand to hand through the centuries; and the great moments of science when, after long labour, the pioneers saw their accumulated facts falling into a significant order—sometimes in the form of a law that revolutionised the whole world of thought—have an intense human interest, and belong essentially to the ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... Pertell, and again the spirited action was under way. Cannon boomed; rifles spat fire and smoke; men fought hand to hand, often rolling over dead; riderless horses dashed here and there. Now and then a man would narrowly escape being run down. As it was, several were burned from being too near the cannon or the guns, and one man's leg was broken in a ...
— The Moving Picture Girls in War Plays - Or, The Sham Battles at Oak Farm • Laura Lee Hope
... the course of thirty-six hours Charlie got interested in it. He reached the fighting point—that crisis in an epidemic of which doctors can tell—that point where there is a certain glowing sense of battle over each bed—where death and the doctor see each other face to face—fight hand to hand for the life. ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... have I in steed that prances, True gentle man am I To tread to lutes slow, stately dances. 'Stead of your brutish swords and lances, I love love's lureful looks and glances, When hand to hand, unseen, advances, ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... panic-stricken enemy into Massoura. He was now completely cut off from the aid of his brother Crusaders, which the Moslems perceiving, took courage and returned upon him, with a force swollen by the garrison of Massoura, and by reinforcements from the surrounding districts. The battle now became hand to hand. The Christians fought with the energy of desperate men, but the continually increasing numbers of the foe surrounded them completely, and cut off all hope, either of victory or escape. The Count d'Artois was among the foremost of the slain; and when Louis arrived to the rescue, the brave ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... and found that the hand which dealt the blow to which my preservation was owing, was that of Charlton. There were about ten men about him. The enemy in our front were broken, and we dashed through. But we were again hemmed in, and again it was fought hand to hand, with that degree of determination, which the assurance that life and death were on the issue, could alone produce. There cannot be a doubt that we should have fallen to a man, had not the arrival of fresh troops at this critical juncture ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various
... Duke of York! our prop to lean upon, Now thou art gone, we have no staff, no stay. O Clifford! boisterous Clifford! thou hast slain The flower of Europe for his chivalry; And treacherously hast thou vanquish'd him, For hand to hand he would have vanquish'd thee. Now my soul's palace is become a prison. Ah, would she break from hence, that this my body Might in the ground be closed up in rest! For never henceforth shall I joy again, Never, O, never, shall I ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... rage of the barbarian finding himself thrown from his elephant. He rose in a fit of despair, and rushed against my steed and myself: but I scorned to fight him at so great a disadvantage on his side, and directly dismounted to fight him hand to hand. Never did I fight with any man who bore himself more nobly than this adversary; he parried my blows, and dealt home his own in return with astonishing precision. The first blow of his sabre I received upon the bridge of my nose, and but for the bony ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... into India are all false. It was made at Pooree ages since—the manner of its making would fill a small book—was stolen by one of the Temple dancing-girls there, for her own purposes, and then passed on from hand to hand, steadily northward, till it reached Hanla: always bearing the same name—the Bisara of Pooree. In shape it is a tiny, square box of silver, studded outside with eight small balas-rubies. Inside the box, which opens with a spring, ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... I purchased misery. Yea, and death also. It is amusing.... Two days ago, in a brief skirmish, a league north of Calonak, the Prankish leader met me hand to hand. He has endeavoured to do this for a long while. I also wished it. Nothing could be sweeter than to feel the horse beneath me wading in his blood, I thought.. Ey, well, he dismounted me at the first encounter, ...
— Domnei • James Branch Cabell et al
... Then the colonel, putting his hat on the point of his sword, ascended the parapet, crying 'Vive l'Empereur!' He was instantly followed by all the survivors. I have no clear recollection of what then occurred. We entered the redoubt, I know not how. They fought hand to hand in the middle of a smoke so dense that they could not see each other. I believe I fought too, for my sabre was all bloody. At last I heard a shout of victory, and, the smoke diminishing, I saw the redoubt completely covered with blood and dead bodies. About two hundred men in French ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... to spread, until it grew into a menace to the community. It was the same old story: the white man had come with the Bible in one hand, the bottle in the other. George Mansion had striven side by side with Mr. Evans to overcome the dread scourge. Together they fought the enemy hand to hand, but it gained ground in spite of all their efforts. The entire plan of the white liquor dealer's campaign was simply an effort to exchange a quart of bad whiskey for a cord of first-class firewood, or timber, which could be hauled off the Indian Reserve and sold in ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... young girls between fourteen and eighteen years old. They were dressed in all colors, but most of them wore a native bonnet tied about the ears. They formed in line on the stairs and then the coal was passed along from hand to hand until it reached the bunkers. These baskets held a little over a peck of coal, and the rapidity with which they moved along this living ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... suffered. Twice the ramparts were breached, and only nightfall had saved the situation. At long range fighting the white defenders had the best of it, but hand to hand the issue was reversed. Each day saw one or two of the white men laid low, and the burden of the rest proportionately increased. Thus, out of a total of thirty available men and youths, at the end of six days the force was reduced by ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... place to place, love-inspiring draughts, dragons and fairies; from ancient Greece and Rome came memories of the heroes and mysteries of mythology, like old coins worn and disfigured by passing, through ages, from hand to hand, but still bearing a faint outline of their original character. All this mass of fiction was floating idly in the imaginations of men, or worked as an embellishment into the rude numbers of the minstrels, when the mediaeval romancers gathered it up, and interweaving it with the traditions ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... point of destination was Fond du Lac, the residence of the Presiding Elder, where I must necessarily report for instructions. The walk of twenty-two miles, with no other companion than a plethoric satchel, passing from hand to hand as the weary miles, one after another, were dismissed, was not the most favorable introduction to my "new departure," but, bad as it was, I found relief in the thought that my Eastern friends, who had so kindly ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller
... orders, had resumed his rations of brandy, and exceeded the usual allowance. There was a vivid color on his flabby cheeks; he was alert, talkative, and frequently chuckled to himself, shifting the hickory staff from hand to hand, or rubbing his gums backward and ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... the horrible barricade (trampling out in many instances the little sparks of life which might have been rekindled), only to add their own bodies to the horrid pile, and to be trampled in their turn by comrades who sought to avenge them; of soldiers on both sides, grappling hand to hand, tearing open each other's wound, drenched with each other's blood, dying locked in a fierce embrace. It turns me sick even now when I remember the terrible things I then heard, the awful wounds I then saw. During the whole period of my service, I never had a harder task than when ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... those around me. The spirit of excited gayety pervaded every rank; and unlike the stern features which the discipline of our service enforces, the French soldiers were talking, laughing and even singing, as they marched; the canteens passed freely from hand to hand, and jests and toasts flew from front to rear along the dark columns; many carried their loaves of dark rye-bread on the tops of their bayonets; and to look upon that noisy and tumultuous mass as they poured along, it would ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... from the hearts of these oppressed people. They got very excited, and asked whether it was thought that they had no feelings or hearts, that they were thus treated as a stick or piece of tobacco, which could be passed from hand to hand without question. ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... connection, to observe what this specie was, the scarcity of which created so much embarrassment. Until 1785 no national coinage was established, and none was issued until 1793. English, French, Spanish, and German coins, of various and uncertain value, passed from hand to hand. Beside the ninepences and fourpence-ha'-pennies, there were bits and half-bits, pistareens, picayunes, and fips. Of gold pieces there were the johannes, or joe, the doubloon, the moidore, and pistole, with English and French guineas, ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... combat, paces apart, with rifles or pistols. Not a shot is being exchanged between them. Instead, they are close together, have clutched one another, and are fighting, hand to hand, ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... extending from one of the fresh-water butts in the waist, to the scuttle-butt near the taffrail. In this manner, they passed the buckets to fill the scuttle-butt. Standing, for the most part, on the hallowed precincts of the quarter-deck, they were careful not to speak or rustle their feet. From hand to hand, the buckets went in the deepest silence, only broken by the occasional flap of a sail, and the steady hum of the unceasingly ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... weapon with which he wasn't familiar. The Bowie knife was it. It didn't occur to him that a knife build in that shape and as big as that, was a precisely constructed throwing knife as well as one to use hand to hand." Joe twisted his mouth. "Besides, if the Sovs think all the Machiavellians are on their side, they're wrong. Poor Captain Rakoczi got sucked in. I had a throwing knife, ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... little crowd of miners had gathered around the lucky man; and handshakes and claps on the shoulders and verbal congratulations were showered on him from all sides, while the nugget was passed from hand to hand, with many wise and otherwise comments as to its weight and probable value and the likelihood of there being others like it where it came from. In the excitement caused by the finding of the nugget, the remaining dirt in the pan was forgotten, until Ham, suddenly ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... that they were to be overrun by barbarians, as their history told them their ancestors had once, in distant lands, been overrun. The Hili-lites did not have formidable weapons; but fortunately those of the invaders were scarcely more efficient. The conflict came to a hand to hand engagement. The invaders could not return, even had they so desired; so they must fight and win, or die. The Hili-lites had no place of retreat, even had they been willing to flee; and they too must fight and win, or die. The invaders numbered more than ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... They weren't just plain beads. They were a precious necklace made by some queer people, ages and ages ago. Queens have worn 'em and all sorts of wicked people and they've gone from hand to hand—I s'pose I ought to say neck to neck—for all these years and then, suddenly, no one could find them. And Mr. Allendyce's friend—the collector—gave me this money outright ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott |
