"Tenter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... travelling Cheap Jack feel ashamed of himself. It was that human, I give you my word, sir, I forgot for the moment as the poor animal couldn't speak. I could see the words that were on its lips: "Why don't you tell us you swallowed the anchor?" and I sat on tenter-hooks, fearing each instant that she would say them aloud. It was a relief to me when she turned her ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... women are employed is that of keeping cloth running evenly through a tentering machine. The machine holds on tenter hooks—the hooks of the metaphorical reference—the damp cloth brought from the process of bleaching, and rolls it through evenly into a drier, where it slips off. There are two kinds of tentering machines. At one kind two girls sit, each watching an edge of the cloth and keeping ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... sorry about the whole affair, and is on tenter-hooks lest Jezebel should never speak to him again. He says she really didn't mean to kick, and she can't understand how it is that he has so little control over himself. ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... girl was laughing in her sleeve at my restlessness. She took a malicious pleasure in drawing out her hobnailed admirer on the interesting subject of sheep-rot. At last, having tormented me to the limit of prudence, she got rid of him. To say truth, Miss Aileen had for weeks held me on the tenter-hooks of doubt, now in high hope, far more often in black despair. She had become very popular with the young men who had declared in favour of the exiled family, and I never called without finding some colour-splashed Gael or broad-tongued Lowland ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... Major in, McMurrough," Asgill said, who on his side was on tenter-hooks lest Flavia and Morty O'Beirne should arrive from the Tower. "You'll like to get rid of your boots before supper, Major?" he went on. "Bid Darby send the Major's man to him, McMurrough; or, better, I'll be going to the stables myself and ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... sudden death of his agent in Calais required his immediate presence in that city. Governor Sweveseel, of Dunkirk, sent an orderly to get a passport for him from La Motte, commanding at Gravelingen. Anastro being on tenter-hooks lest the news should arrive that the projected murder had been consummated before he had crossed the border, testified extravagant joy on the arrival of the passport, and gave the messenger who brought it thirty pistoles. Such conduct naturally excited a vague suspicion ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... generally fatal one. For the slightest miscarriage they discharged their lawyer, and leaped into the office of a new one. Has any man moved in the affairs of men, with a grain of common-sense or half a pennyweight of experience, without being taught that an old tenter-hook sits easier to him than a new one? And not only that, but in shifting his quarters he may leave some truly fundamental ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... about somebody else, Mary, whom you've kept on tenter-hooks ever so long? Are you sure he is not walking up and down under the limes on ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Peggy," he answered passionately. "The fluctuations from hope to despair, and from despondency to hope again are far more trying than a certain knowledge of death would be. It keeps me on tenter-hooks. So long as the thing is inevitable, I ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... srieusement du ct de la plaine, comme disposs s'en retourner par o ils taient venus, quand leur chef, convaincu que les menaces ne produiraient aucune impression sur le fils de Falcone, voulut faire un dernier effort et tenter le pouvoir des caresses et ...
— Quatre contes de Prosper Mrime • F. C. L. Van Steenderen
... time of his return came nigh, Aunt Judith and the household were on the tenter-hooks of impatience. Master George came, as he had intimated, accompanied by a lady, so eminently beautiful, that, had it not been for her extreme and uniform paleness, she might have been reckoned one of the loveliest creatures ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... obliged to carry all the beds, hangings and furniture with them when they removed. The usual manner of hanging the rooms in the old castles was only to cover the naked walls with tapestry or arras hung upon tenter hooks, from which they were easily taken down upon every removal. On such an occasion the number of carts employed in a considerable family must have formed a caravan nearly as large as those which traverse the deserts of the East. . . . At the time of ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... convincing, however. Then, when the man has made up his mind that he wants us as his wife (that grammar sounds polygamous, but my whole philosophy of life is against that idea), why, we are to be ready to drop into his arms like a ripe plum and not keep him on tenter-hooks of anxiety, because only ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... night on tenter hooks: great news: a wireless from a warship to tell us the Suvla troops are up on the foothills: two cables from Stopford: many messages from ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... feel any interest in the subject, that the season shall not pass away, so far as it may depend on ourselves, without bringing the narrative to a close. Poor Captain Wallingford is now in his sixty-fifth year, and is naturally desirous of not being hung up long on the tenter-hooks of expectation, so near the close of life. The old gentleman having seen much and suffered much, is entitled to end his days in peace. In this mutual frame of mind between the principal, and his editors, the public shall have no cause to ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... enemy returned! If her uncle had such a power over him as he himself seemed to feel, then that was all the more reason for him to go quickly. But Pocket was not the man to get up and run like that. Perhaps he enjoyed displaying his bravery on the point, and keeping his companion on tenter-hooks on his account; at any rate he insisted on finishing his breakfast, and gave further free expression to the wildest surmises as he did so. And yet he was even then on the brink of a discovery which was some excuse for the ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... only one thread of the canvas at a stroke, and is therefore on a more minute scale than stitches which are two or three threads wide, as cross-stitch may, and cushion-stitch must, be. It derives its name from the old word tenture, or tenter (tendere, to stretch), the frame on which the embroidress distended her canvas. The word has gone out of use, but we still speak of tenter-hooks. The stitch is serviceable enough in its way, but is discredited by the monstrous abuse of it referred to already. A picture in tent-stitch is even ...
— Art in Needlework - A Book about Embroidery • Lewis F. Day
... mass when marching, were now strung out in long lines sweeping towards the left, and Lord Chesham with two squadrons had also gone far to the left, to try to get round the position. Meanwhile the guns were unlimbered, and their anxious crew (the battery had never been in action before) were on tenter-hooks. ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... Collett's was more than Jane could understand. She was still inclined to her conjecture that he was using her to draw Miss Collett, playing her off against Miss Collett, stinging Miss Collett to the desired frenzy by hanging that admirable woman upon tenter-hooks. That was why Jane felt so safe with him; because, she argued, he couldn't do it if he had not felt safe with her. He was not in love with her. He was not even, like Tanqueray, in love ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... you talking about, Miss Dover? I do just know Mademoiselle Klosking; I met her in society in Vienna, two years ago: but that cad I commissioned to bet for me I never saw before in my life. You are keeping me on tenter-hooks. My money—my money—my money! If you have a heart in your bosom, tell me what became of ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... was strongly opposed by Lord Tenterden, the chief-justice of England, the Duke of Richmond, and the Earls of Winchilsea, Harewood, Mansfield, Falmouth, and Ermiskillen. Lord Tenter-den declared against it, because he knew it to be a violation of the constitution, and because he believed that it threatened ruin to the Protestant church, which he valued, not only for the purity of its doctrines, but because, of all ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... not carry away from the reading of it any picture of that society; the story is so exciting that the mind has no time to rest on details, but hurries on from clue to clue till finally and literally the murder is out. Books which keep a reader on the tenter-hooks of conjecture must always suffer from this undue concentration of the interest; and in spite of cheery, inquisitive Dr. Toole, and the remarkable sketch of Black Dillon, the ruffianly genius with a reputation only recognised in the ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... the Old Buddha, had succeeded in terrorizing every one who came in contact with her, and her word was law. It was said of one of the Imperial princes that he was "horribly afraid of her Majesty, and that when she spoke to him he was on tenter-hooks, as though thorns pricked him, and the sweat ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles
... had waited the while on tenter-hooks. This welcome news broke upon them like the sun at midnight; and Hadden burst into a storm of tears, sobbing aloud as he heaved upon the tackle. But the work went none the less briskly forward; chests, men, and bundles were got over the side ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... attracted her attention; and, after looking down a moment into the small area in which we were enclosed, she disappeared. Presently a lady looked over the balustrade, and our Englishman seemed to be on tenter-hooks. Some thirty or forty French gathered round us immediately, and I presume it was thought none but loyal subjects could manifest so much desire to gaze at the family, especially as one or two of the French clapped the little ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... is seldom, however, that a failing market, or a sterile season, drives the owner of the plough to desperation, and his principles, if he have any, may be preserved; while the losses or risks of an investment involving more than the merchant really owns, suspend him for a time on the tenter-hooks of commercial doubt. The man thus placed must have more than a common share of integrity, to reason right when interest ...
— New York • James Fenimore Cooper
... winter calf, and Buck Davis is going to sell it for one dollar to the Boston Market where it will be turned into potted chicken. This leaves the mystery of his change of route unexplained. After two days' sitting on tenter-hooks it is discovered, obliquely, that Buck went to pay a door-yard call on Orson Butler, who lives on the saeter where the wind and the bald granite scaurs fight it out together. Kirk Demming had brought Orson ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... the private conversations of his outwardly discreet colleague that he himself threw diplomatic reserve to the winds. Walewski, dreadfully uncomfortable about the Pope, tried to bring the discussion back within politer bounds; Buol was stiffly indignant; Orloff, indifferent about the Pope, was on tenter-hooks as to Russia's friend, the king of Naples; the Prussian plenipotentiary said that he had no instructions; the Grand Vizier was the only person who remained quite calm. Cavour's concluding speech was dignified and prudent; ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... condition, and above all the face would have betrayed cancer if he had had it. The most likely thing is that L. N. is in good health (apart from the gall-stones), and will live another twenty years. His illness frightened me, and kept me on tenter-hooks. I am afraid of Tolstoy's death. If he were to die there would be a big empty place in my life. To begin with, because I have never loved any man as much as him. I am not a believing man, but of all beliefs ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... Son is, with his ruddy looks. But what's the bush, whose pricks, like tenter-hooks, Do scratch and claw the finest lady's hands, Or rend her clothes, if she too near it stands? This bush an emblem is of Adam's race, Of which Christ came, when he his Father's grace Commended to us in his crimson blood, While he in sinners' stead ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... me he is so entertaining a personage that I do not care to get rid of him,—had to overcome difficulties which stretched his fine genius on tenter-hooks. Once—rarely did the like unlucky accident happen to the wary master of the ceremonies—did Sir John exceed the civility of his instructions, or rather his half-instructions. Being sent to invite the Dutch ambassador ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... be "y-touked," that is, dyed, it was done at this period, and it was then "y-tented," spread on the tenter-field and caught on ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... escape the fever you would certainly give me. Good God! how I should be shocked, if you came into my room, for the first time, with two left legs, presenting yourself with all the graces and dignity of a tailor, and your clothes hanging upon you, like those in Monmouth street, upon tenter-hooks! whereas, I expect, nay, require, to see you present yourself with the easy and genteel air of a man of fashion, who has kept good company. I expect you not only well dressed but very well dressed; I expect a gracefulness in all your motions, and something particularly engaging in ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... Minories, and the four streets enclosing the Tenter Ground were then favourite places of residence for the merchant; and in one of these, Great Prescott Street, lived Levi Barent Cohen, the father of ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... till after tea-time, when he came limping in, very dirty and tired, but with a reposeful expression, which betrayed that a load was off his mind. Frank was busy about his own affairs and paid little attention to him, but Jill was on tenter-hooks to know where he had been, yet ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... nothing if not original. She is a dear, good girl, but quite too funny in her ways. She is really the incarnation of mischief, and keeps me on tenter-hooks from morning until night, but from her manner you would think she was a model of propriety. Nothing delights her so much as to get hold of a new word or ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... made of copper. I do not know whether these copper tools are tempered or not, but their make displays good workmanship. They have taken out more than a ton of cobble-stones, which have been used as mallets. These stones were nearly round, with a score cut around the tenter, and look as if this score was cut for the purpose of putting a withe round for a handle. The Chippewa Indians all say that this work was never done by Indians. This discovery will lead to a new method of finding veins in this country, and may be of great benefit to some. I suppose they will ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... the defences and the surrounding country with his powerful glass. When he observed that the sentries on the forts had left their posts, he would send over to have them flogged and their superiors punished. When his 'penny steamers' engaged the Dervish batteries he would watch, 'on tenter-hooks,' a combat which might be fatal to the defence, but which, since he could not direct it, must be left to officers by turns timid and reckless: and in the dark hours of the night he could not even watch. The ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... Sessionses, the Walls—do not inquire too closely; some have vanished already, and soon all will be gone; then—another rocket; it is the only way, and why is it not a good one? Harry and Cecile—yes, they still shine, in "dear old New Orleans." Camille kept me on the tenter-hooks while she "turned away her eyes" for years; but one evening when we were reading an ancient book together out dropped those same old sweet-pea blossoms; whereupon I took her hand and—I have it yet. There, we have counted the last spark—stop, no! two lights beam out again; Edgard and Charlotte, ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... threads of the newly-dressed, or newly-beamed, warp had to be drawn-in and reeded, these operations would be performed in the drawing-in and reeding department, and, when completed, the loom beam with its attached warp threads, cambs and reed, would be taken bodily to the loom where the "tenter," "tackler" or "tuner" adjusts all the parts preparatory to the actual operation of weaving. The latter work is ...
— The Jute Industry: From Seed to Finished Cloth • T. Woodhouse and P. Kilgour
... instructive art T' inform the intellect alone, But often melts th' obdurate heart And wakes it's paenitential groan—- For when in some great Master's draught, With genius as with judgement fraught, Nail'd haply to th' accursed tree, On his tenter'd wounds suspended, Every nerve with torture rended, Th' agonizing GOD we see—- 90 Supported by her weeping train While the dolorous mother stands With anguish'd features, writhen hands, Expressing e'en superior pain; Who but must ...
— A Pindarick Ode on Painting - Addressed to Joshua Reynolds, Esq. • Thomas Morrison
... "Good! Bob's been on tenter-hooks all the week, I know, but I didn't know old Max had given in. Alec will be the next deserter from the ranks of the business men. Max may hang on through this season and next, but you'll see him with us the third, or I'll ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... about trials of faith which I shall not repeat here, but which the majority of people, who are on the tenter-hooks of such trials, ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... on the other side of the excited youth, "don't keep us on tenter-hooks. Surely nothing has happened to ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... full well that every little irregularity in the road at once makes itself felt to the feet, and that the animal, as time goes on, learns to carefully avoid any suspicious-looking group of stones he may see. To drive an animal like this is to keep one's self continually on tenter-hooks, for, sooner or later, the inevitable happens, and the ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... times, with a score of well-known men; she had received presents and offers of marriage from them; she had certainly had two chances of becoming a peeress, she might have become the wife of a millionaire, and half a dozen younger sons had kept their families on tenter-hooks. ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... promises, seemed to give him any but a momentary and impersonal concern. At the supper-table he talked much and well, exceedingly well, I thought, except when he touched on the war, which he was continually doing, and then I was on tenter-hooks. His point of view was so opposed to ours as to threaten in several instances to bring on an engagement all along the line. This calamity was averted by my passing something to him at the critical moment. Now ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... le ciel des nuages de feu; Suspendez votre marche; il ne faut tenter Dieu. Par monsieur saint Denis! certes ce sont des ames Qui passent dans les airs ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... numbers still superior to that of their enemies, steered straight for the mouth of the harbour. The Syracusans advanced from the naval stations of Ortygia to meet them. The shore was thronged with spectators, Syracusans tremulous with the expectation of a decisive success, Athenians on the tenter-hooks of hope and dread. In a short time the harbour became a confused mass of clashing triremes; the water beaten into bloody surf by banks of oars; the air filled with shouts from the combatants and exclamations from the lookers-on: [Greek: olophurmos, boe, nikontes, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... Long Tom, and he had gradually worked himself up into such an uncontrollable condition of fidgety impatience, running his eye along the sights and then glancing round at me, that it seemed cruel to keep him thus any longer on the tenter-hooks of suspense, and I, rather reluctantly, nodded permission to him to fire. The next instant the gun spoke out, the shock of its discharge jarring the schooner to her keel, and the shot flew high over the mast-heads of the galley ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood |
