"Tighter" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was falling as we sallied out, and there was a sting in the December wind which made us draw our cowls the tighter about our face. Abandoning the main street, I led her down some narrow alleys, deserted like all the rest of the city, and not so much as a stray cat abroad in that foul weather. It was very dark, and a hundred times we stumbled, whilst in some places I almost carried her bodily to ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... demonstration of the fact that civilization never touches barbarism without polluting it. The Indian, finding his highest ideal in the rude and tipsy defender of our flag; the Chinaman, taking home more heathenism than he brings; the Negro, bound tighter by the vices of the whites than ever he was by their iron chains—these three, ignorant of the Christ and grasping the satanic weaponry of our sinful land and age, together form the most discouraging of mission fields. Our laborers are faced by all the serious problems of the foreign land—problems ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various
... at her now, idly, dully. I saw that her belt was drawn tighter about a thinner waist. Her face was much thinner and browner, her eyes more sunken. The white strip of her lower neck was now brick red. I dared not ask her how she had gotten through the nights, because she had used the blanket ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... he felt all the stunning of his fall come back again upon him, and, for a moment, he seemed well-nigh lost. But his heart was sound, and there was One who was faithful holding him up: so he grasped his good staff tighter than ever, though its roughness had come out again and sorely pricked his hand; but this seemed only to quicken his steps; and when he had gone on a little while thus firmly, as he looked into his book he saw written on its open page, "I will make darkness light before thee." {76} And as ...
— The Rocky Island - and Other Similitudes • Samuel Wilberforce
... watchin' th' sun go down, 'n' lookin' forerd ter goin' ter th' house 'n' hev er nice little wife ter meet me, wi' everything tidied up 'n' cheerful 'n' comf'ble." Mandy Calline simply drooped her head lower, and twisted her handkerchief tighter. "Mandy Calline, don't yer say 'no,'" he said. "I love yer too well ter give yer up easy; 'n' I swear ef ye don't say 'yes,' I'll set fire 'n' burn up th' new house, fer no other 'oman sha'n't never live there. I'm er-waitin', Mandy Calline, ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... have a decent excuse for it. Of his father could Lionel Haughton be proud now? And Darrell was cognizant of his paternal disgrace, had taunted his father in yonder old hall—for what?—the marriage from which Lionel sprang! The hands grew tighter and tighter before that burning face. He did not weep, as he had done in Vance's presence at a thought much less galling. Not that tears would have misbecome him. Shallow judges of human nature are they ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... mail-boat, but would stay and live with us, that, being a doctor, as he had said, he might heal our folk when they fell sick, and no one would die, any more. He laughed at that—but not because of merriment—and gripped my hand tighter, and I began to hope that, perhaps, he would not go away; but he did not tell me whether ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... that he saw nothing more, began to feel that he felt nothing more, and understood that he could understand nothing more, so he made no reply, but girded his sword tighter and prepared to fight. "Now the Welwa can come," he cried, "I will die or throw the bridle over its head." He had scarcely uttered the words when something whose like he had never beheld before approached him. A dense fog surrounded ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various
... swayed the stout Norse rowers; tighter and tighter pulled the cables; fast down upon the straining war-ships rained the Danish spears and stones; but the wooden piles under the great bridge were loosened by the steady tug of the cables, and soon with a sudden spurt the Norse war-ships darted down the river, while the slackened ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... seemed dressed for house-cleaning. A tremendous floppy hat crowned her flaxen head; she was tightly incased, like a chrysalis in its cocoon, in a delicate creation of pink; her gloves were long and tight, and her high-heeled boots were longer and tighter. Nevertheless she promptly proceeded with a reckless discard of her finery—a process she had begun on her way up- stairs, like a country boy on his approach to ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... in a pile of stove-wood, all the potatoes were rotten: on the muck, which was unlike a peat-bog, very fine and tight, almost impervious to the atmosphere, they were nearly all sound; on the sand, which was quite open, but tighter than the gravel, part were decayed and the rest sound. Their condition was graduated entirely by the condition of the soil. It is an apparent objection to this theory, that when the rot prevails, ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... only bold and wild. There was indeed a signal particular in which he would distinctly be more so. Strether didn't, as he talked, absolutely follow himself; he only knew he was clutching his thread and that he held it from moment to moment a little tighter; his mere uninterruptedness during the few minutes helped him to do that. He had frequently for a month, turned over what he should say on this very occasion, and he seemed at last to have said nothing he had thought of—everything was so ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... a wind, sharp with cold, was blowing. It came over vast wastes, and as it swept across the swells kept up a bitter moaning sound. Dick shivered and fastened his deerskin tunic a little tighter. He looked up at the sky. Not a star was there, and sullen black clouds rolled very near to the earth. The cold had a raw damp in it, and ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... woman shrunk and recoiled, as if with sudden fear that her daughter would strike her. But though the daughter's face was fixed upon her, and expressed the most vehement passion, she remained still: except that she clenched her arms tighter and tighter within each other, on her bosom, as if to restrain them by that means from doing an injury to herself, or someone else, in the blind fury of the ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... could cling to. But presently an involuntary muscular contraction stole over him, and his terrible dying grasp held the poor girl as if she were wedged in an engine of torture. She pressed her lips together and sat still. The inexorable hand held her tighter and tighter, until she felt as if her own slender fingers would be crushed in its gripe. It was one of the tortures of the Inquisition she was suffering, and she could not stir from her place. Then, in her great anguish, she, too, cast her eyes upon that dying figure, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... and, halting for a moment, clung tighter to his arm. He turned a look of affectionate pride upon her, and, pressing her hand, led her on. Father Antoine's face glowed with loving satisfaction as he pronounced the words so solemn to him, so significant to them. As for ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... off into the darkness. For awhile he rode cautiously, listening intently lest he might fall into the hands of some of the Roundhead bands. But all was quiet, and after placing another mile or two between himself and Abingdon, he concluded that he was safe, drew Rollo's reins tighter, pressed him with his knees, and started at ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... 'Bernard! Bernard!' and then I jumped back, and almost screamed, for I thought some other boy had spoken. I did not know my own voice; it sounded so strange and solemn. But no one answered, and I dragged myself away, feeling as if that awful hand grew tighter on my heart, and thinking, as I went out of the door, how two of us went in, and why I was coming out alone. Then I sat down on the grass, and though it was warm summer weather, I shivered from head to foot, and I remember thinking to myself, 'This queer boy sitting ...
— The Old Castle and Other Stories • Anonymous
... blinding sense of the loss of all external objects, that the children stood stunned, not fearing, because they utterly failed to realize. Maurice, it is true, hid his pretty head in Joe's breast, and Cecile clung a little tighter to her young companion. Toby, however, again seemed the only creature who had any wits about him. Now it would be impossible to get back to Caen. There was, as far as the little party of pilgrims were concerned, no ...
— The Children's Pilgrimage • L. T. Meade
... really a hold on millions of Indian rustics.[732] The directness and childlike simplicity of his poems have caused an Indian critic to compare him to Blake. "Though the mother beat the child," he sings, "the child cries mother, mother, and clings still tighter to her garment. True, I cannot see thee, yet I am not a lost child. ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... watching him too intently? No, he must ride a tighter rein on his imagination. There was no reason in the wide world why Don Cazar should expect him to ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... to undo the cord, but he only pulled the knot tighter. He had put down the sword on the grass, and Peronnik had been careful to fix the net on the other side of the tree, so that it was now easy for him to pluck an apple and to mount his horse, without being hindered by the dwarf, whom he left ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... bath, and the being hung up to dry, speedily sobered the American, but his arms being within the sack, he could do nothing for his own emancipation; he kept swearing, however, and entreating, and dancing with rage, every jerk drawing the cord tighter round the waist of the overseer, who, unaware of his situation, thought himself bewitched as he was drawn with violence by starts along the floor, with the chair as it were glued to him. At length the patient extricated one ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... He shouted, 'Don't hold by me; I shall be out the next minute!' What could be done? I was sure I shouldn't stay on half a minute. Blessings on the red sash of the drosky-man—I caught at that! He drove faster and faster, and I clung tighter and tighter, but alarmed at two immense dangers: first, that I should stop his breath by dragging the girdle so tightly; and, next, that when it became unendurable to him, he would loosen ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... forth their glorious song, and my heart longed to listen. Knitting my brows, I signed my men to set me free; but bending forward, on they rowed. And straightway Perimedes and Eurylochus arose and laid upon me still more cords, and drew them tighter. Then, after passing by, when we could hear no more the Sirens' voice nor any singing, quickly my trusty crew removed the wax with which I stopped their ears, and ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... in a cage hung in the office window. I sent him on an errand, and I took the little bird in my hand, in my hand where I felt its heart beat. It was warm. I went up to my room. From time to time I squeezed it tighter; its heart beat faster; this was atrocious and delicious. I was near choking it. But I could ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... which was thronged with the gay and elegant youth of Rome. "I can tell you more," continued Flaminius; "somebody was remarking to the Consul yesterday how loosely a certain acquaintance of ours tied his girdle. 'Let him look to himself;' said Cicero, 'or the state may find a tighter ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... at the table. His name 's Albrecht," suspiciously. "But see here, I tell you there ain't any use of your hittin' him for 'comps'; he 's tighter than ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... fists, but his head was down between his arms; I tore at his wrists, but he gripped my throat the tighter; and now we were down, rolling upon the sodden grass, and now we were up, stumbling and slipping, but ever the gripping fingers sank the deeper, choking the strength and life out of me. My eyes stared up into a heaven streaked with blood and fire, there was ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... passed him like trees seen from a train window. He turned the wet rag in his mouth to draw a little more moisture from it. He clutched his sweating hands tighter around the knife and twig. He shook the blowing, dripping hair from his eyes. Forward, forward! If he slackened his speed now he would fall—collapse. Like a top, ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... one, though there was as a rule nothing in any way remarkable about his conversation, and he was apparently merely one of the many quietly-spoken, bronze-faced men who are even by their blunders building up a great future for the Canadian dominion. He accordingly drew his old rug tighter round him, and instinctively pulled his fur cap lower down when the lights of the settlement faded behind him and the creaking wagon swung out into the blackness of the prairie. It ran back league ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... to me to have enough furbelows and things round your neck to keep you warm," continued he; "let me tie it up tighter, somehow." ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... of that gray-black depth, a cry of many voices, a cry that came from far and near, a cry at which the women huddled closer together and pressed each other's hands, and looked speechless love and pity at the woman who lay upon her best friend's breast, clutching it tighter and tighter. Of the men outside, the father leaned forward and clutched the arm of his chair. The others saw the great drops of sweat roll from his brow, and they turned their faces away from ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... there myself, so that it all happens very nicely," said the gentleman, commencing to start off briskly, and grasping her hand tighter. ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... very accurate piece of work. The loops run clumsily and anyhow: some are slacker, others tighter; but, when all is said, it is solid, which is the main point. Also, this fibrous sheath, the keystone of the edifice, occupies a fair length of branch, which enables the fastenings for the net ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... you," he shouted, grasping her arm tighter until she winced with pain, "I will show you that ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... rapid movement they lift up the snake's head and slip it through the noose. The snake gives a shake but it is too late. At a sign from the two who have disturbed its slumber, the others pull hard the bamboos that they are holding in their hands. The noose is pulled tighter and the boa constrictor fights furiously to get free. But the more it resists the closer the knot becomes. The struggle between captor and captured is not soon finished. The monster pulls, jumps, writhes, sometimes giving such sudden springs as to ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... trapped me," he said, smiling in the dark and holding the hand tighter as the swinging steps stopped in front of the house of the garden. "Brant ...
— The Courage of the Commonplace • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... years old; let a blacksmith weld around his waist an iron band. At first it causes him little inconvenience. He plays. As he grows older it becomes tighter; it causes him pain; he scarcely knows what ails him. He still grows. All his internal organs are cramped and displaced. He grows still larger; he has the head, shoulders and limbs of a man and the ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... driver drop the skim-copter to the street when we got to Pennsylvania Avenue within a block of the building, and he skimmed to the outskirts of the crowd that was pressing around the entrance. There were four or five hundred people there, milling around like a herd of restless cattle. Tighter knots of humanity were pressed around the usual four or five firebrands who were ranting and ...
— Tinker's Dam • Joseph Tinker
... her, her hand was still grasped in that of George. All this had taken place in the passage; and before Michel's embrace was over, Adrian Urmand was standing in the doorway looking on. George, when he saw him, held tighter by the hand, and Marie made no attempt ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope
... your soul!" cried Ned, and for the time of a breath hugged his enemy the tighter. But for the time of a breath only; the hold then relaxed; and Philip, rising easily from the embrace of the limp form, ran unimpeded to the road, mounted the waiting horse, and galloped to ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... So, taking a tighter hold of the branch of palm nuts in his trunk, off started Umboo again, splashing through the muddy puddles. He looked this way and that, and he listened every now and then, stopping to do this, for he made so much noise himself, as he hurried along, that he could ...
— Umboo, the Elephant • Howard R. Garis
... felt myself grabbed by my coat collar behind, and my neck-handkercher and collar drawn tight around my throat till I couldn't breathe. The more I twisted round, the tighter the clinch seemed to get. I couldn't holler nor speak, but thar I stood with my mouth open, pinned back agin that cursed stockade, and my arms and legs movin' up and down, like one o' them dancin' jacks! It seems funny, Mr. Grey—I reckon I looked like a darned ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... Money grew tighter. Beginning with the crash of several of the greatest Eastern banking houses, the tightness spread, until every bank in the country was calling in its credits. Daylight was caught, and caught because of the fact that for the first time he had been playing ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... it's done got on his mind," explained Maria, winding her long thin hair into a yet tighter knot at the back of her head. "He takes on like that every time he hears us talkin' 'bout it, and nobody can't make out a word he's sayin'. Fer two or three days I couldn't scarcely git him to ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... His hand clamped tighter on Boyd, keeping him pinned on his back. If he only had time ... but there was no way of disguising the younger boy. And Thomas McKeever, strolling with Captain Campbell, had already sighted them, stopped short, and now was moving ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... would soonest of his clothes Strip a wayfaring clown, so runs the tale. First, Boreas blows an almost Thracian gale, Thinking, perforce, to steal the man's capote: He loosed it not; but as the cold wind smote More sharply, tighter round him drew the folds, And sheltered by a crag his station holds. But now the Sun at first peered gently forth, And thawed the chills of the uncanny North; Then in their turn his beams more amply plied, Till ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... duties were harder than ever. The McGees held me with tighter grip, and it was nothing but cruel abuse, from morning till night. So I made up my mind to try and run away to a free country. I used to hear Boss read sometimes, in the papers, about runaway slaves who had gone to Canada, and it always made me long to go; yet ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes
... to me who hadn't heard a prayer for thirty years. I never tried to stop him, you may be certain of that. He'd ask God to bless his pa and ma, and wind up with 'Bless Uncle John too.' Then I couldn't help hugging him right up tighter; for it carried me back to Old Missouri, to the log-cabin in the woods where I was born, and used to say 'Now I lay me,' and 'Our Father' at my ma's knee, when I was a kid like him. I tell you, boys, there ain't nothing that will take ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... which rush into the eyes, nostrils, and mouth, and almost prevent my progress; the narrowing ledge is not more than a foot wide, and the boiling gulf is seventy feet below. Yet thousands have pursued this way before, so why should not I? I grasp tighter hold of the guide's hand, and proceed step by step holding down my head. The water beats against me, the path narrows, and will only hold my two feet abreast. I ask the guide to stop, but my voice is drowned by the "Thunder of Waters." He guesses what I would say, and ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... the quarter pole was past, Old Hiram said, "He's going fast." Long ere the quarter was a half, The chuckling crowd had ceased to laugh; Tighter his frightened jockey clung As in a mighty stride he swung, The gravel flying in his track, His neck stretched out, his ears laid back, His tail extended all the while Behind him ...
— The One Hoss Shay - With its Companion Poems How the Old Horse Won the Bet & - The Broomstick Train • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... the girth of his saddle two holes tighter, threw away his pistols, coat and hat, and rode away, on a gentle patter. After two miles this was increased to a stiff gallop. He knew his horse—he was turning off each mile in just five minutes. He rode sixty miles in five hours, using up three horses. The messenger to whom he tossed his saddlebags ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... does call any body out now," added the pacific lord. "But nothing on earth shall ever induce me to speak again to a man who is so little like a gentleman." Lydia now held Lucy's hand still tighter, as though to prevent her rising. "He has never forgiven me," continued Lord Fawn, "because he was so ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... I mean!" cried Alice; and now she flung herself on his neck, and the tears came. "Do you suppose it can be very pleasant to have everybody talking of you as if everybody loved you as much—as much as I do?" She clutched him tighter and sobbed. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... that ain't a purty way to manage such things!" he exclaimed, astonished at the shape the matter had taken. "Them varmints couldn't have knowed that Sut Simpson owned that hoss, or they'd have tied him up tighter than that, and they'd had somebody down yer to watch him; but they war a couple of greenys, that's mighty sartin. It's a wonder they didn't fetch out some of thar mustangs, and leave 'em whar I could lay my hands onto 'em. But I rather think I've got my own hoss ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... and the tobacco seemed to have brought him back to life, and he gripped tighter hold of the idea behind his age-bleared eyes. He straightened up somewhat. His voice lost its querulous and whimpering note, and became strong and positive. He turned upon me with dignity, and addressed me as ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... pearls, until, at the top, they were lost in the folds of a ribbon; a double row of pearls round the fair neck; a ruff, opening low in front, a tight bodice, and sleeves full to an extreme at the top, tighter toward the wrists, seem to indicate that the dress of the period of Charles I had even been selected for this most lovely portrait. The head is turned aside—with great judgment—probably to mitigate the decided expression of the face when in a ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... were only a few inches from the ground, and the weight of his body at first bent the bough for a moment; but it rose again, and the unfortunate boy exhausted himself in useless efforts. At every movement the knot grew tighter, his legs struggled, his arms sought vainly something to lay hold of; then his movements slackened, his limbs stiffened, and his hands sank down. Of so much life and vigour nothing remained but the movement of an inert mass turning round and ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... home in this land which to me was wilderness. The contrast of what life had undoubtedly been to its inmates, and what it would now become through the medium of this unwelcome message I bore, struck me with new force. My mission became instantly a hateful thing, yet I only set my lips tighter, determined to end it ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... tighter grew the grip of winter. Rarely the temperature rose above twenty-five degrees below zero, even at midday, and oftener it crept well down into the thirties. The air was filled with rime, which clung ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... stand amid the roar Of a surf-tormented shore, And I hold within my hand Grains of the golden sand— How few! yet how they creep Through my fingers to the deep, While I weep—while I weep! O God! can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp? O God! can I not save One from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem But ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... and grasped tighter his friend's hand. "So glad am I to see you at the last, Elder. As in you came, I was thinking about you. Let us part good friends and brothers. If ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... years ago most educated men in the south regarded slavery as a misfortune and not justifiable, though necessary under the circumstances. But the meddling, coercive conduct of the detested and despised abolitionists had caused the bonds to be drawn much tighter. ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... never had fainted, and probably did not know the way; but she clenched her hands still tighter, breathed harder than before, and repeated her appeal to her mother in a voice of ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... stock. They found no preparations for stock-sales. No registration of the company for raising funds. It wasn't going to the public for money. It wasn't selling anybody anything. Then Cochrane refused to see any reporters at all, everybody connected with the enterprise shut up tighter than a clam, and Jamison vanished into a hotel room where he was kept occupied with beverages and food at Dabney's father-in-law's expense. None of this was standard for ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... his weather-stained trousers and drew his leather belt tighter. "I told you just now," he said, "that I'd never turn another sod. ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... it's her duty—we all have our duties. Why does her mother let her out at this time of night? I keep my maids tighter than that, I warrant." And disciplinarian Mr. Brown makes a ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... fury that I momentarily expected to see it torn bodily off the boat and go driving away to leeward in tatters. Probably the thorough soaking that it almost instantly received—and which caused the fabric to shrink up and strain still tighter than it was before—may have had something to do with the stubborn resistance that it offered to the gale. Be that as it may, it held intact; and to that circumstance I attribute the fact that the gig was not instantly swamped. But no woven fabric, however stout,—scarcely wood itself,—could ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... family whom he had so long and faithfully served. He was fairly cut to the quick—while these three females merely darkened judgment by talking all at cross purposes and all at once. Never had the solid, honest coachman found himself in a tighter or, for that matter, in anything like so tight a place. But, looking in the direction of the village, black of clothing, heavy of walk and figure, he espied, as he trusted, ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... present situation. I look round for a resting place, and I find none. Yet there is one, which I have long too, too much disregarded, and thither I must now betake myself. There are many situations worse than mine, and I have no business to complain. If these afflictions should draw the bonds tighter which hold me to my Redeemer, it will be well. You may be assured that you have here a plain statement of my case in its true colours without any palliation. I am now well again, and have only to fear a relapse, which I shall do all I can to prevent, ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... upon those to whom we go. He opens doors; the doors of circumstances that we find locked and double-padlocked against us. He opens the yet tighter-shut, harder-to-open human doors. He inclines men favorably toward us personally, and to our message. Under His touch the message becomes as a tongue of flame, kindling, disturbing, softening, burning down, and moulding over ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... it is all couched in clear, flowing, rather loosely jointed English, carefully avoiding rhetoric and eloquence and striving always to reproduce the ease and flow of cultured conversation, rather than the tighter, more closely knit style of consciously "literary" prose. His methods were the methods of the four great prose-writers who followed him—Defoe, ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... back against the shelves of white jars and pondered. Recovering presently, he made a minute inspection of his finger nails. He then stroked his mustache into a tighter curl that revealed the rich red curve of his upper lip. And as he caught the pleasing reflection of himself in the looking-glass panel opposite he smiled with a ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... to get away. Instead of doing this, he fell flat on his face. The thing on his hind leg had tightened and held him fast. A great fear came to Peter Rabbit, and lying there in the snow, he kicked and struggled with all his might. But the more he kicked, the tighter grew that hateful thing on his leg! Finally he grew too tired to kick any more and lay still. The dreadful thing that held him hurt his leg, but it didn't pull when he ...
— The Adventures of Danny Meadow Mouse • Thornton W. Burgess
... storm of life ascends Up through the shadow of the world! Beyond our gaze the line extends, Like wreaths of vapour tempest-hurled! Grasp tighter, brother, lest the storm Should sweep us down from where we stand, And we may catch some human form We know, amongst the ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... his throat. After all, this delirium of joy was sincere. He stood for the moment the idol of the populace. For him this vast concourse of human beings had waited in rain and mud and now became a deafening, seething welter of human passion. He gripped the rail tighter and closed his eyes. He heard as in a dream the voice of the mayor behind him: "Say a few words. They won't hear you—but that ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... ran down my cheeks as these sad thoughts passed through my mind, and a strong inward cry for deliverance, for endurance, for some present comfort in this awful misery, shook my frame with convulsive shudders. Dot felt them, and clasped me tighter, and Flurry trembled in sympathy; my paroxysm disturbed them, but my prayer was heard, ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... my dear. I am almost seventy years old, and I have treated three hundred servants and seen sixty laid in their graves, but if you think you are a better doctor than I am, of course there's nothing to be said. Docia, hold the yarn a little tighter." ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... her arms round Alec Forbes's neck, laid her wet cheek against his, and sobbed as if her heart would break. She did not care for the Bruces, or the rats, or even the schoolmaster now. Alec clasped her tighter, and vowed in his heart that if ever that brute Malison lifted the tag to her, he would fly at his throat. He would have carried her all the way home, for she was no great weight; but as soon as they were out of the house Annie begged him to set her down so earnestly, ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... to shiver as she looked into the black night about us—and it was indeed, although in summer time, as black a night as ever I saw—and her hand got a tighter grip on mine. ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... aloud, and her lips pressed tighter. So this man was Vil Holland—that Vil Holland, everybody called him. The man who had chased an inoffensive sheep herder from the range, and whose name stood for lawlessness in the hill country! So Aunt Rebecca's allusion to desperate characters had not been so far-fetched, after all. He looked ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... the intermittent snorting, panting, and seething of the steam engines, the suck and thud of their pistons, the dull beat on the air as the spokes of the great driving-wheels came round, a note the leather straps made as they ran tighter and looser, and a fretful tumult from the dynamos; and over all, sometimes inaudible, as the ear tired of it, and then creeping back upon the senses again, was this trombone note of the big machine. The floor never felt steady and quiet beneath one's ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... the huge snake in the most gallant way, and struck it a violent blow on the tail, almost severing the end. Still the monster kept firm hold of the terrified Jose, whose fearful shrieks were each instant becoming fainter as the creature pressed his body tighter and tighter in ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... people hastened to the shore with boats. The Cossacks arranged the horses' trappings. Taras assumed a stately air, pulled his belt tighter, and proudly stroked his moustache. His sons also inspected themselves from head to foot, with some apprehension and an undefined feeling of satisfaction; and all set out together for the suburb, which was half a verst ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... trotted his little porcine eyes had glistened as they lingered upon the perfect figure, from the slim ankles to the confused face, and Leonie had blushed, though you could not have discerned it through the tan, pulled the cloak tighter and hurried across the road to ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... and looked at the strange spectacle of that dauntless man, erect, his foot upon Marius's neck, like some fantastic figure of a contemporary Saint George and a contemporary dragon. She pressed her hands tighter upon her bosom; her eyes sparkled with an odd approval ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... long-term challenges of European economic integration and globalization, although some economists continue to argue the need for change in inflexible labor and services markets. Growth may fall below 2% in 2008 as the strong euro, high oil prices, tighter credit markets, and slowing ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... horse up to the front steps, and sat viciously regarding the city widow, as that lady shook out the folds of her riding-skirt, pulled the gauntlets to a tighter fit on her shapely hands, and kept her cornelian-headed riding-whip in a constant state of vibration, for the benefit of that evidently too admiring widower on the ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... happiness, and Elizabeth understood the silence. As they rode home and sauntered up the terraces, Antony said, "What a dull evening we have had;" but Phyllis was of the initiated, and knew better. She looked at Elizabeth and smiled brightly, while Richard clasped tighter the dear hand ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... hers tighter and tighter. She struggled to free it, looking hard at me with pale cheeks and frightened eyes. Owen hastened up and released her, and ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... thing, Wally," she said. "It'll knit us all tighter together. That's partly why we've wanted it so awfully. Do you know that if it hadn't been for you Norah wouldn't have been allowed to come and ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... little hand grew tighter, and when Grant looked up he saw the girl smiling down on him half-shyly, and yet, ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... up. I had put out my arm to get my matches and revolver, when suddenly I felt a weight on my bed and then I was corded, bound like a sausage, my arms tight to my body! For ten minutes I struggled with all the power of my muscles against a frightful and mysterious grip which continually grew tighter." ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain
... 165).—In the closer stuffs, of a coarse texture, the threads of which do not admit of being drawn together, as you can those, of a loose thin stuff, where, by simply pulling your thread a little tighter you get open spaces, you must begin by cutting out every fourth or fifth thread. After which, you overcast all the rows, first one way, and then the other, with stitches covering 4 threads, each way. On this foundation with strong, loosely-twisted cotton, Coton ...
— Encyclopedia of Needlework • Therese de Dillmont
... The tighter the collar grew and the shorter became his breath the more he kicked and thrashed, until finally the collar broke, and the half-strangled bear fell to the ground with a great thud. Feeling that he had been cruelly treated and insulted, he picked ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... Tighter and tighter grew the grip of winter. Rarely the temperature rose above twenty-five degrees below zero, even at midday, and oftener it crept well down into the thirties. The air was filled with rime, which clung to everything, and the ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... great fellow spat in his hand before taking a tighter grip of his weapon, and making a ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... sort of women to turn a man's head, but they are the sort of women to lay hold of a man's heart—very gently at first, so that he hardly knows that they have touched it, and then, with soft, clinging tendrils that wrap themselves tighter and tighter year by year around it, and draw him closer and closer—till, as, one by one, the false visions and hot passions of his youth fade away, the plain homely figure fills more and more his days—till it grows to mean for him all the better, more lasting, true ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... smaller. A Chesterton novel is like an adventurous voyage of discovery, which begins on smooth water and is made with the object of finding the causes of the ripples. As ripple succeeds ripple—or chapter follows chapter—so we have to keep a tighter hold on such tangible things as are within our reach. Finally we reach the centre of the excitement and are either sucked into a whirlpool, or hit on the head with a stone. When we recover consciousness we feebly remember we have had a thrilling ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... you gave me authority to draw on you for any sum not exceeding five hundred dollars. I see clearly that such a privilege would be more available now than it was then. I am aware that times are tighter now than they were then. Please write me at all events, and whether you can now do anything or not I shall ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... back door, and had waited for her to turn round. He was haggard and travel stained, and there was a feverish light in his eyes. His fingers trembled as they adjusted his belt, which seemed too large for him. Mechanically he buckled it tighter. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... weather was still colder, and she had tied the broad ribbons of her small bonnet rather closely under her chin, the double bow a little to the left. A knitted bodice over the dress and under the jacket made the latter tighter than usual, so that the fur edges of it curved away somewhat between the buttons, and all the upper part of the figure seemed to be too strictly confined, while the petticoats surged out freely beneath. A muff, brightly coloured to match the skirt and the bonnet and her cheeks, completed ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... agreement on his part she drew tighter the reins on her mules. He sprang down over the wheel. The sun and the dust had their way again; the monotony of life, its drab discontent, its yearnings and its sense of failure once more resumed sway in part ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... can't you take a little advice? When you're in the scouts you'll learn that you can always hang on tighter with ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... my darling? Why?" The thin arms held her tighter, warm lips kissed her neck and shoulders. "Did ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... screwed up still tighter than before, replied that the gentleman would not send his name, but wished to see me. I pondered for a moment, wondering who this visitor might be, and I remarked that he embraced the opportunity of exchanging another nod with the housekeeper, ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... me take care of myself in tighter places than any that he can put me in, haven't you?" asked Sam. "There's the root fortress within ten feet of us. You haven't forgotten ...
— Captain Sam - The Boy Scouts of 1814 • George Cary Eggleston
... sat, like some huge grasshopper's. "Guess ye ain't got more 'n time to fill yer cubbud,—winter's a-comin'! Them leetle birches on Bog-eddy is turnin' yeller,—that's the fust sign. 'Fore ye knows it snow'll be flyin'. Then whar'll ye be with everything froze tighter'n Sampson bound the heathen, you cunnin' leetle skitterin' pups. Then I presaume likely ye'll come a-drulin' raound an' want me an' George should gin ye suthin to git through th' winter on,—won't ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... a promise of rejuvenescence and an early spring. There was something of this, I think, in Mrs. Catron's presence, shown perhaps in the coquettish bow of a ribbon, in a larger and more delicate ruche, in a tighter belting of her black cashmere gown; but still there was a suggestion of recent rain in the eyes, and threatening weather. As she entered the room, the sun came out, too, and revealed the prettiness and delicacy of her figure, and I regret to state, also, ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... concerned about economic and political stability. Prospects for the future are brighter - including prospects for foreign investment - because the ECEVIT government is implementing a major economic reform program, including a tighter budget, social security reform, banking reorganization, and ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... say; I doan't knaw how ever I done it, but my tongue weern't my awn for the time. Pull that thing tighter about 'e. This rain would go through a ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... that's a thong that binds tighter than any chain. One may be broken, but the other can't. Ropes and chains allow of knives, and desait, and contrivances; but a furlough can be ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... hastily glanced at him, and then, in a moment, looked elsewhere. Almost imperceptible as this movement had been, Sarudine noticed it with unutterable anguish and despair. He shut his eyes tighter, and exclaimed, in a broken, ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... the state than if he had been long seated there. For the actions of a new prince are more narrowly observed than those of an hereditary one, and when they are seen to be able they gain more men and bind far tighter than ancient blood; because men are attracted more by the present than by the past, and when they find the present good they enjoy it and seek no further; they will also make the utmost defence of a prince if he fails ...
— The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... glanced idly down, puffing slowly on his cigarette. Then he stiffened, the muscles around his right eye clamping tighter on the monocle. Leaning forward, he punched Harry Quong lightly on ...
— Ullr Uprising • Henry Beam Piper
... miners were working the claim under a defective title and that they had jumped to the conclusion that he had come to get evidence against them. But he knew that never in his life had he been in a tighter hole. In another minute they would attack him. Whether it would run to murder he could not tell. At the best he ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... then was going to turn away my head, but Miss Palmer held the tumbler tight to my lips, as I have seen people do to children when they were giving castor oil. I took another, and tried again, but there was the tumbler tighter still, so down with it I went, and—and—she had no mercy; she made me drain it to the last drop; then she put it on ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... button, cannot be given greater freedom on a hot, muggy day. He shows, by exhibition on his own person, the exquisite relief afforded by the adjustable collar clasp. "When the day grows cool," he says, "when you begin to enjoy yourself and want your collar tighter, you just loosen the clasp, slide the tabs closer together, and there you are. And no picking at your tie to get the knot undone. Now, how many of you men have spoiled an expensive tie by picking at it? Your fingers come in contact with the ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... tighter, and shook her head very positively. "They don't want me, father. I am in ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... makes most of me at home, it is so plain that he is taking trouble, as if he grudged a soft word or a kiss to another as something stolen from her. But he deals evenly, after all. If he were less tender of her we should have to draw our zones tighter. But he won't give us the chance to say, 'Teach the amba with stick ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... it in silence—until he remembered Park. After that he could think of little else. As before, now Sunfish battled as seemed to him best, for Thurston, astride behind the saddle, held Mona somewhat tighter than he need to have done, and ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... it grew tighter and tighter as they went on. Sile managed finally to get up to Yellow Pine in the ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... still tighter, and her head drooped still lower, as if she would hide from other eyes the flush of shame which suddenly blazed over her face ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... we failed of finding game, we buckled our belts the tighter and went on, consoling ourselves with the hope that fortune would ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... all that most men can give—love Of youth, of beauty, and of passion; and I gave you full return; my womanhood Matched well your manhood. Yet had you grown ill, Or old, and unattractive from some cause (Less close than was my service unto you), I should have clung the tighter to you, dear; And loved you, loved you, loved you more ...
— Poems of Purpose • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... The watchman on the church listened intently as each report reached his ear, and kept his fingers firmly on the bell-rope. An hour passed on, and the sun rode high in heaven; gradually the thundering died away. Quicker grew the breathing, and tighter the cold fingers clasped each other. The last sound ceased: a deathlike silence reigned throughout the town, and many a cheek grew colorless as marble. There came a confused sound of shouts—the mingling of many voices—the ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans |
