"Clutch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... States marshal that my father was a Revolutionary soldier; that he served under Lafayette, and fought through the whole war, and that he fought for my freedom as much as for his own; and he would sneer at me, and clutch me with his bloody fingers, and say he has a right to make me a slave! and when I appeal to Congress, they say he has a right to make me a slave, and when I appeal to your Honor, your Honor says he has a right to make me a slave. ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... virtual dictatorship might work great things for the North. But whence is he likely to emerge? Hardly from the midst of this vast political and military turmoil, where every man is struggling and straining to clutch at ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... a colossal fowl, Like Sindbad's monstrous Roc, A bird of prey some say, a-prowl Like that Stymphalian flock, With iron claws and brazen beak, Intent to clutch and collar, Fired with devotion strong, yet weak, To the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 19, 1892 • Various
... behind it there was coming a curious scrambling and scraping noise, as of a desperate thing imprisoned in this box of thin wood. The King threw away his cigar, and jumped on to the table. From this position he saw a pair of hands hanging with a hungry clutch on the top of the fence. Then the hands quivered with a convulsive effort, and a head shot up between them—the head of one of the Bayswater Town Council, his eyes and whiskers wild with fear. He swung himself over, and fell on the other side on his face, and groaned ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... in; I followed, grumbling execrations and vengeance. "What prey, Robert?" hallooed Linton from the entrance. "Skulker has caught a little girl, sir," he replied; "and there's a lad here," he added, making a clutch at me, "who looks an out-and-outer! Very like the robbers were for putting them through the window to open the doors to the gang after all were asleep, that they might murder us at their ease. Hold your tongue, ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... figure—it seemed almost an eternity. It hung as silent as a piece of sail and as fitfully swaying. Suddenly one hand relaxed and fell limp. It was as though something had sucked the breath from every onlooker. The hand was feebly raised in a futile clutch to regain the lost hold. It fell again. ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... gave a last clutch at my resolution. "People who do that kind of thing always get into trouble. She might miss her train. She's almost certain to ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... strong likelihood that they may meet with a sudden and violent end. Wyattsville numbered at least one such citizen within her enrolled midst. He was here now, jammed up against the creaking rope, holding fast with either clutch to a small and a sorely frightened child ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... beside her, in answer to an appealing look. She could not lift the frail, tired hand that lay by her, its fingers uncurled, the hand of one who, dying, relinquishes gladly its grasp on life. The hands of the strong, torn from a world they love, clench and clutch at the last; it is an involuntary hold on earth. The doctor moved away. The whining sobs of the old man became more audible. I put my ear ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud Under the bludgeonings of chance, My head is ...
— Life's Enthusiasms • David Starr Jordan
... once again the settlement at Sydney, whence had radiated the series of his valuable and unsparing researches; but on the next and final occasion he was "caught in the clutch of circumstance." His leave-taking in August, 1803, was essentially his farewell; and his general observations on the country he had served, and which does not forget the service, are, though brief, full of interest. ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... concern was caused by such a commonplace event. "The women of China—." Words failing him, he waved a thin dry hand. His father frowned heavily. Then, abruptly, as if he had been snatched out of his chair by an invisible powerful clutch, he ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... mere haste to seize it in my grasp. Down would I sink before her very feet. Yet, as the fragrance over valleys spread Is scattered by the wind's fresh blowing breath, Along the sloping terrace flees the throng. I tread the ramp—unending, far away It stretches up to heaven's very gate, I clutch to right, I clutch to left, and fear No one of all the treasures to secure, No one of all the dear ones to retain. In vain—the castle's door is rudely closed; A flash of brightness from within, then dark, The doors once more swing clatteringly together. And I awaking hold within ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... Godolphus interrupted the conversation, wriggling himself backwards and with a sudden yap out of Tilda's clutch. Boy and girl turned, and beheld him rush towards a tall, loose-kneed man, clad in dirty dungaree, dark-haired and dark-avised with coal-dust, who came slouching towards ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... went, and still the West held him in its powerful clutch. Success smiled upon his pathway, and into his life entered the sweet, new joy of a woman's love and devotion, and into his home came the happy music of children's voices. When his eldest boy was eight years old, his district elected him to the State senate, and four years ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... Down, down went the poor wretches, now utterly overwhelmed by the torrent, now regaining their feet only to utter a scream, and then be swept off. Here a miserable struggler, whirled onward, would clutch at the banks and try to scramble forth, but the soft turf giving way beneath him, he ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... shapes in the darkness under the gas-works. A shoal of coal barges lay indistinctly on the darkly shining mud and water below, and a colossal crane was perpetually hauling up coal into mysterious blacknesses above, and dropping the empty clutch back to the barges. Just one or two minute black featureless figures of men toiled amidst these monster shapes. They did not seem to be controlling them but only moving about among them. These gas-works have a big chimney that ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... bear this no longer. Mat, sit there and guard the small things, while you and I, Livy, charge boldly among these imbeciles and drag them to their duty;' and Amanda marched away to clutch a cockaded victim by the shoulder ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... rushed back to my heart—a deadly thrill ran through every limb—from shame and indignation, no doubt; my vision became obscure; it seemed as if my soul was leaving my body, and I fell forward fainting, and dragged her down to the bottom of the water in a mortal clutch. ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... passing a few feet over it. Before it could slip back again, and fall off, the young hunter had grasped it; and with the dexterity of a packer, double-knotted it around the limb. The next moment, and just as the great claws of the bear were stretched forth to clutch him, he slipped off the branch, and ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... Indians, "Jacobins to a man," because they did not feel their "present importance equal to their real wealth". So long as there is an uneasy class, a class which has not its just power, it will rashly clutch and blindly believe the notion that all men should ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... with a much keener insight into the political condition of the world around him. To make a dash for power, as a dog might do, and keep it in his clutch as a dog would, was enough for Marius. Sulla could see something of future events. He could understand that, by reducing men around him to a low level, he could make fast his own power over them, and that he could best do this by cutting off the heads of all who stood ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... utterly terrified. His flesh was numb and his legs moved automatically, rather than by conscious effort. The former mite of courage had atrophied. He felt wretchedly alone and unprotected, as an atom of dust drifting across a sunbeam. He wanted to clutch at something—to hold himself ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... came a step or two forward, and made a feeble clutch at the reins, which dropped from his grasp when the roosting turkeys stirred uneasily on the ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... once more, I saw his face, ghastly white and bound with an embroidered kerchief; he seemed almost a child. "You shall not pass!" he cried; "you shall not have her! She is mine, and mine alone! I am Prinzivalle degli Ordelaffi." I felt his ice-cold clutch, but with my other arm I laid about me wildly with the hatchet which I carried beneath my cloak. The hatchet struck the wall and rang upon the stone. ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... been strangely reviving within her. Just emerged, as she was, from the long gloom of nursing, she already wished to throw it all behind her—to travel, to read, to make acquaintances—she who had lived as a recluse for twenty years! There was in it a last clutch at youth, at life. And she had no desire to enter upon this new existence—in comradeship with Marcella. They were independent and very different human beings. That they were mother and daughter was a ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... few seconds came the sacristan, white and trembling—I had to help him out of the well mouth. The prior was close to him; he was calm, and even smiled at me as he saw me clutch my arms eagerly. ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... he released me from his clutch, and only looked at me. The look was far worse to resist than the frantic strain: only an idiot, however, would have succumbed now. I had dared and baffled his fury; I must elude his sorrow: I retired ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... sobbing cry, a cry in spite of himself, and then, as the flying machine swept over them, fell forward into the pit of that darkness, seated on the cross wood and holding the ropes with the clutch of death. Something cracked, something rapped smartly against a wall. He heard the pulley of the cradle hum on its rope. He heard the aeronauts shout. He felt a pair of knees digging into his back.... He was sweeping headlong through the air, falling through the air. All his strength was in ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... it howld on, ye say? An' did n't I howld on till the heart o' me was clane broke entirely, and me wastin' that thin you could clutch me wid yer two hands? To think o' me toilin' like a nager for the six year I 've been in Ameriky,—bad luck to the day I iver left the owld counthry! to be bate by the likes o' them (faix an' I'll sit down when I 'm ready, so I will, Aunt Ryan, an' yed better be listnin' than ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... he dove like a base-runner, and his hands closed around the dog's neck. Over they went with the shock of the onset, and before they were still, the hands had finished their work. A clutch, and a snap, and ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips
... the murk to find the well-worn threshold. A person under the tyranny of the blues is temporarily unable to adjust life to its usual limitations. He or she cannot see an inch beyond the dreadful present. Everything looks dark and forbidding, and despair with an iron clutch pins its victim down. People think, loosely, that trials that may be weighed and measured and felt and handled are the worst trials to which flesh is heir. But they are mistaken. Hearts are elastic, and real sorrows seldom crush them. Souls have in them a wonderful ...
— The Girl Wanted • Nixon Waterman
... sensibilities. We must cultivate conscience until we have too much of it, and become monkish, savage and misanthropic. The asceticism of manhood is apparent from the studied air with which everybody is on his guard against his neighbor. In a crowded car, men instinctively clutch their pockets, and fancy a pickpocket in a benevolent-looking old gentleman opposite. When we see men so distrustful, we shun them. They then call us selfish when we feel only solitary. We protest against such manhood as would lower golden ideals of youth to its own contemptible ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various
... a challenge all must meet, And nobly must we dare; Its gold is tawdry when we cheat, Its fame a bitter snare If it be stolen from life's clutch; Men must be true ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... were plain; they were feeding on the seeds of plants in the hay-cock, and from time to time dashed under—the hay. Then they gambolled farther off and were making merry over a pod of wild peas when a light form came skimming noiselessly over the field. There was a flash, a hurried rush, a clutch, a faint squeak, and one of the mice was borne away in the claws of its feathered foe. The survivor scrambled under the hay over Rolf's face and ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... followed is wellnigh indescribable, and may be said, in general terms, to have been naught but the blind and desperate clutch of two great bodies of men, who could scarcely see each other when they were but a few feet apart, and who fired at random, rather by sound than sight. A Southern writer, describing the country and the strange combat, ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... creature with her frightened eyes and short, curly hair seemed standing; on the other, the girl to whom Harrie was engaged. I could not help them. Could not help Selwyn. Could help no one! If David Guard—at thought of him the clutch at my throat lessened. David Guard could help them. He had promised to come whenever I sent for him, and to him I could talk as to ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... of him—of my only son in the clutch of his bitter foe, and I thank you for reminding me of him, little as I have for these long years needed spur to my ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... opinion was worth so much to me now that I crushed down my fears and sat up in bed (yet keeping a tight clutch upon the blanket), and ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... were breathless. Then she was being led over hard snow, towards a place where men stood, where there was new-turned earth, where a coffin lay upon the ground. She suffered the sound of more words which she could not follow, then heard the dull falling of clods upon hollow wood. A hand seemed to clutch her throat, she struggled convulsively and cried aloud. But the tears would ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... one believed this except the man who told it, but there seemed after all to be something in it. You had only to hit Cree's trouser pocket to hear the money chinking, for he was afraid to let it out of his clutch. Those who sat on dykes with him when his day's labor was over said that the wearer kept his hand all the time in his pocket, and that they saw his lips move as he counted his hoard by letting it slip through his fingers. ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... years, the travesty of feminine array, which could only serve him as a source of notoriety—in short, as an advertisement? The answer probably is that, having early seized opportunity by the forelock, and having been obliged, after an extraordinary struggle, to leave his hold, he was obliged to clutch at some mode of keeping himself perpetually in the public eye. Hence, probably, his persistent assumption of feminine costume. If he could be distinguished in no other way, he could shine as a mystery; there was even lucre ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... once thigh-deep into the dark, quivering mire, which shook for yards in soft undulations around our feet. Its tenacious grip plucked at our heels as we walked, and when we sank into it it was as if some malignant hand was tugging us down into those obscene depths, so grim and purposeful was the clutch in which it held us. Once only we saw a trace that someone had passed that perilous way before us. From amid a tuft of cotton grass which bore it up out of the slime some dark thing was projecting. Holmes sank to his waist as ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle
... was being pulled from the shore. With only the sand to clutch he could retard, not check the saurian's movements, and work as he might, it seemed impossible for Cummings to strike ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... wind and sea, was a marvel. The Oystercatcher breeds also in both the small Islands, Jethou and Herm, on almost all the rocky islands to the north of Herm, in Sark and Alderney, and on Burhou, near Alderney, where I found one clutch of three of the most richly marked Oystercatcher's eggs I ever saw: these, as well as another clutch, also of three eggs, were placed on rather curious nests; they were on the smooth rock, but in both cases the birds had collected a number of small stones and made a complete pavement ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith
... in a dense volume of sound. Men and women stood on their chairs and waved frantically, madly, anything they could clutch hold of to wave. The whole Olympia appeared to have gone mad. Noble peers, grave judges, sedate generals and austere philosophers acted as if suddenly bereft of the restaining influences of ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... the least. He never used to swear, though, at his men, they said; but somehow he got an inordinate quantity of cruel, unmitigated hard work out of them. When Bildad was a chief-mate, to have his drab-coloured eye intently looking at you, made you feel completely nervous, till you could clutch something—a hammer or a marling-spike, and go to work like mad, at something or other, never mind what. Indolence and idleness perished before him. His own person was the exact embodiment of his utilitarian character. On his long, gaunt body, he ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... horribly protracted. Nor was all the brutality by any means on one side; neither will I pretend that I was getting much more than my deserts in the defeat that threatened to end in my extinction. Not for an instant had my enemy loosened his deadly clutch, and now he had me penned against the banisters, and my one hope was that they would give way before our united weight, and precipitate us both into the room below. That would be better than being slowly throttled, even if it were only a better death. ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... course. How did he know? Why had Clayton not told her? She did not believe it. But why not? He had once told her that he would go away some time; why not now? But why-why did not Clayton tell her? Perhaps he was going to her. She almost stretched out her hands in a sudden, fierce desire to clutch the round throat and sink her nails into the soft flesh that rose before her mind. She had forgotten that he had ever told her that he must go away, so little had it impressed her at the time. She had never thought of a possible change in their relations ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... boulders close ahead, which was the chief danger, and the current seemed to be carrying the craft down on one of them. In a few moments she struck and jambed, broadside on, across the mass of stone. White foam boiled about her; they saw Gladwyne rise and clutch the rock, but whether to thrust her off or to climb out did not appear. He suddenly sank down and, so far as they could make out, the canoe ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... You begin by what you call trusting a friend, that is, aiding him to self-destruction—buying him arsenic to clear his complexion—you end by dragging all near you into your own abyss, as a drowning man would clutch at his own brother. Lionel Haughton, the saddest expression I ever saw in your father's face was when—when—but ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... as a train was entering the station, and dropped her child onto the metals. She tried to jump after it but was held back, and Mary, who had just come up, jumped in her stead, and by a miracle of strength and agility was just able to clutch the child and get onto the six-foot way ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... kariofilo. Clover trifolio. Clown sxercemulo. Cloy satigi. Club (thick stick) bastonego. Club (cards) trefo. Club (society) klubo. Clue postsigno. Clump (tuft) tufo. Clumsy mallerta. Cluster (of berries) beraro. Clutch kapti, ekkaptigi. Clyster klistero. Clyster-pipe tubeto. Coach veturilo. Coach-maker veturilfaristo. Coachman veturigisto. Coal karbo. Coalesce kunigxi. Coalition kunigxo. Coarse (manner) vulgara. Coast marbordo. Coat vesto. Coat of arms ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... a tug of war that was all the more ghastly for its soundlessness. The hunted jerked spasmodically to get away from the hunter. So wild were its efforts that several times it raised the monster clear of the bottom for a foot or so. But the grim clutch ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... with the blaze of the burning barge; a hand and arm would rise, and fall ere I could seize it. A hand was thrown up before me, the glinting fingers gripping at empty air. I caught the hand, swimming strongly with the current, for so the man could not clutch at me, and if a drowning man can be held apart, it is no great skill to save him. In this art I was not unlearned, and once had even saved two men from a wrecked barque in the long surf of St. Andrews Bay. Save for a blow from some great floating timber, I deemed that ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... clutch at her, but she broke away, leaving a fragment of her dress in his hand, and flew round the corner out ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... Doll, and without a second's delay he was gone. Hugh put out his whole strength in the endeavor to raise himself somewhat out of the ice-cold water. But the upturned boat sidled away from him like a skittish horse, and after grappling with it he only slipped back again exhausted, and had to clutch ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... spite of his many-sided experience of dissection-rooms, and morgues, and other ghastlinesses to which he had long since accustomed himself from principle, drew back at the sight—perhaps because he had come to this strange place to clutch the world-old mystery of the life-essence, and found himself, instead, confronted on its threshold by the ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... her heart sank and grew heavy, Doris was moved with an almost terrible understanding of the girl across the room. She wanted to push her on her way instead of holding her back, and at the same time she was striving to clutch her ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... chair, and, yielding to the slight rotatory movement of that active piece of furniture, indulged in the first twirl for three days. Bassett or no Bassett, it was exhilarating, and, having gone to the limit in one direction, he obtained impetus by a clutch at the table and whirled back again. A smothered exclamation from the door arrested his attention, and putting on the break with some suddenness he found himself looking into the pretty, astonished ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... not only on one's trial and in danger, but also in misfortune, is tall talk and boasting more suitable than in prosperity. For in prosperity people seem to clutch as it were at glory and enjoy it, and so gratify their ambition; but in adversity, being far from ambition owing to circumstances, such self-commendation seems to be a bearing up and fortifying the spirit against fortune, and an avoidance altogether of that desire for pity and condolence, and ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... had prepared it: the board spread over with a sheet and laid across the bath, above which only the head and shoulders emerged, livid and stained. One hand, the left, grasped the edge of the board with the last convulsive clutch of supreme agony. ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... tried and tender intercourse in their very touch. Their eyes held a past in them as well as a future. There was no hurry of the emotions now, no reason for haste in the seeking and giving of tenderness, no need to snatch and clutch the good gifts of love as though there was but a short day for the giving. Their love had grown conscious ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... shouts and those of the swimmer, which had first attracted their own attention, had aroused the miller, who instantly, on hearing them, ran down with a rope to the water's side. He threw it skilfully; with a wild clutch Kennedy caught it, and in another moment, as from the very jaws of death, when they were almost touching the fatal wheel, they were drawn to shore, still carrying, or rather dragging, with ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... floor, and then tossed the ball high in the air between them. They leaped as far as they could; but Sawed-Off's enormous height carried him far beyond the other man, and, giving the ball a smart slap, he sent it directly into the clutch of Reddy, who had run on and was waiting to receive it half over his shoulder. Finding himself "covered" by the opposing forward, he passed the ball quickly under the other man's arm across to Heady, who had run down the other side of the floor. Heady received ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... steering-wheel, a bum battery, a dilapidated differential and faulty ignition, it is just as good as new. Outside of buying four sets of tires, three new springs, a new top, two rear axles, a couple of batteries, having the valves ground sixteen times, the clutch tightened every week and the self-starter repaired now and then, I have never spent one cent for repairs. The old boat hasn't been run a mile over one hundred thousand, will average fourteen gallons to the mile, and absolutely will not exceed twenty-five miles an hour. ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... me the other day, do you imagine I believed for a single moment that you asked me to marry you simply because you cared? I think, Leonard, that it was because you were afraid, you were afraid of something coming into your life so big, so terrifying, that you were ready to clutch at the easiest chance ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... there were other things—some-thing that no human resolution could combat. He seized then eagerly on the things that he could conquer—the suspicions of Rupert Craven, the rivalry of Cardillac, the confidences of Bunning, . . . the grave tenderness of Margaret Craven . . . these things he would clutch and hold, let the Pursuing Spirits do ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... of a groan and a scream, and in an instant I was enveloped in a white, wet cloud of sheets, pillowcases, tablecloths, and underwear. Some of the things stuck so close to me, and others I grabbed with such a wild clutch, that nearly all the week's wash, lines and all, came down on me, wrapping me up like an apple in a dumpling—but I stopped. There was not anything in this world that would have been better for me to run into than those lines full ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... he said. He shot the outer barrel back along the inner one. "That loads it, and cocks it, you see. And then all I have to do is pull the trigger, eight times, as fast as I can quiver my finger. See that safety clutch. That's what I like about it. It is safe. It is positively fool-proof." He slipped out the magazine. "You see how ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... which is slowly crumpling under the clutch of his nervous fingers, is worthy of attention, for it is written on crested paper which is blue. And the ink is blue, too, and might reasonably indicate the tone of the blood of the sender, though hardly of ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... down the stair, trembling so violently that she could not clutch the banisters, and fearing she should fall forward upon him. But before she had reached the living-room she had made a desperate effort to control herself. She realized the danger of betraying Harriet's secret before she had made up her mind what course was best, but she was not capable of grappling ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... almost came close to Lonnie. It did gather in the hidden, dead, still twitching, completely uncommunicative carcasses of the five men who actually relieved the vault of the Citizen's Bank of Berlin of its clutch of millions. It even identified the body of the rocopilot found floating in the Potomac a few days later as being one of the group, and the killer. It did not locate the arsonized remnants of the plane, though, ...
— Zero Data • Charles Saphro
... his face a clutch of papers, folded—letters, they seemed to be. Shannon could see the trembling of the hand ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... and the 'Dreadnought,' than they began to throw up defences and remove their valuables into the interior. It was in the highest degree irksome to Raleigh to wait thus inactive, while this handsome Spanish colony was slipping from his clutch, but he had been forbidden to move without orders. After three days' waiting for Essex, a council of war was held on board the 'War Sprite.' On the fourth Raleigh leaped into his barge at the head of a landing company, refusing ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... fierce, as though no fight Raged elsewhere, nor the city streamed with gore. We see the War-God glorying in his might; Up to the roof we see the Danaans pour; Their shielded penthouse drives against the door. Close cling their ladders to the walls; these, fain To clutch the doorposts, climb from floor to floor, Their right hands strive the battlements to gain, Their left with lifted ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... berries, and I broke off a branch and brought it home, thinking that perchance it might have come down to us from one planted by Marban's hand. Of blackthorns there are plenty. The adjective he uses is "dusky." Could he have chosen a more appropriate one? I thought, too, of "the clutch of eggs, the honey and the mast" that God sent him, of "the sweet apples and red whortleberries," and of his dish of "strawberries of ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... I have saved her from him—she is mine in death. Let me in, I say,—I will come in,—I will, I will see her, and strangle him at her feet." With that, by a tremendous effort, he tore himself from the clutch of his holders, and with a sudden and exultant bound sprang across the room, and stood face to face with Maltravers. The proud brave than turned pale, and recoiled a step—"It is he! it is he!" shrieked the maniac, and he leaped like a tiger at the throat of ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... given herself ten months. She had asked for ten months; not a day more. But she had not allowed for friction or disturbance from the outside. And the check—it was a clutch at the heart that brought her brain up staggering—came entirely from the outside, from the uttermost rim of her ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... securely, smiles perchance to see The eager hands stretched out to clutch the prize, Or looks with pity in the yearning eyes, And is half moved to ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... at the man whom incessant calls had brought at last a little wearily before the curtain, as one might look at a god. And their eyes met. He did not start or betray himself in any way—perhaps his training befriended him there, but as he left the stage he staggered, and I saw his hand go to clutch the curtain for support. I knew then that, before the night was over, Isobel's history would no longer be ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Michael Sendivogius, who had wasted a good deal of his time and substance in the unprofitable pursuits of alchymy. He was touched with pity for the hard fate, and admiration for the intrepidity of Seton; and determined, if possible, to aid him in escaping from the clutch of his oppressor. He requested the Elector's permission to see the alchymist, and obtained it with some difficulty. He found him in a state of great wretchedness, — shut up from the light of day in a noisome dungeon, and with no better couch or fare than those allotted to ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... form of Howe's machine used a pair of angular clutches, embracing the flange of the wheel. In both Singer's and Wheeler & Wilson's latest styles of machines this arrangement is simplified and improved by the use of a single angle clutch, which is found to work even when the surfaces are ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 598, June 18, 1887 • Various
... other upward step remained for this good man to take, save the final step from earth to the golden gate of heaven! The pious clergyman surely would not have uttered words like these had he in the least suspected that the Colonel had been thrust into the other world with the clutch of ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... comprehend, grasp, overtake, snatch, capture, discover, grip, secure, take, clasp, ensnare, gripe, seize, take hold of. clutch, entrap, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... gasping a little, and pressing her hand to her heart, where an iron clutch seemed arresting the circulation. A glance at her face filled Clare with a terror which he had not felt before. Partly this, partly his own sensations, told him that the poison of the plant which they had shared between ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... heart. It lurched sideways, reared straight up and fell backwards with Le Grand Diable under. The fall knocked battle-axe and club from his grasp; and when his horse rolled over in a final spasm, two men were instantly locked in a death clutch. The evil eyes of the Indian glared with a fixed look of uncowed hatred and the hands of the other tightened on the redman's throat. Diable was snatching at a knife in his belt, when the cries of my Indians rang out close at hand. Their coming seemed to renew his strength; for with the full ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... breathless anxiety. I set my teeth and breathe hard. No, we shall not! We turn too sharp, and do not take a wide-enough sweep. The coach gives a horrible lurch. One side of us is up on the hedge-bank!—we are going over! I give a little agonized yell, and make a snatch at Frank, while my fingers clutch his nearest hand with the tenacity of a devil-fish. If it were his hair, or his nose, I should equally grasp it. Then, somehow—to this moment I do not know how—we right ourselves. The grooms are down like a shot, pulling at the horses' heads, and in a second or two—how it is done I do not see, ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... automobile. With a pretty cry of pleasure she leaped into the seat beside Thierry. Gayly she threw out her arms. "To Paris!" she commanded. The handsome eyes of Thierry, eloquent with admiration, looked back into hers. He stooped, threw in the clutch, and the great gray car, with the machine gun and its crew of privates guarding the rear, plunged ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... fairies play, The best game of all, Is sliding down steeples— You know they're very tall. You fly to the weathercock And when you hear it crow You fold your wings and clutch your things, And then ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 13, 1917 • Various
... pattern with the jewels of sunset. Carmen did not see the beauty of the magic temple, though she was conscious of her own. She hated to think that Nick Hilliard should keep her waiting, and there was cruelty in the clutch she made at a cluster of orange blossoms as she passed a long row of trees in terra-cotta pots on the terrace. Under the bamboos she scattered a handful of creamy petals on the golden brown earth, and rubbed them into the ground with the point ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... he sent the ball to a good distance, he only reached the fourth base. When he got there, he called out to Ellis to go in. Ellis seized the bat with a convulsive clutch, as if he was about to fight a battle with it, or was going to perform some wonderful undertaking. Even Ernest could scarcely help laughing at the curious contortions of countenance in which he indulged. However, remembering ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... in the river by some of the ship's papers not being ready. Such a scene at the dock gates. Not a sailor will join till the last moment; and then, just as the ship forges ahead through the narrow pass, beds and baggage fly on board, the men, half tipsy, clutch at the rigging, the captain swears, the women scream and sob, the crowd cheer and laugh, while one or two pretty little girls stand still and cry ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... he exclaimed, "the chap has got a big knife in his clutch, and those eyes of his ain't dead men's eyes, but maybe it will be just as well to pitch him overboard; he can't do no harm ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... come by; but while she stood absorbed by this, a door was suddenly pushed open close by her, and some one flung forward into the blessed country, falling upon the ground, and stretched out wild arms as though to clutch the very soil. This sight gave the Pilgrim a great surprise, for it was the first time she had heard any sound of pain, or seen any sight of trouble, since she entered here. In that moment she knew ...
— A Little Pilgrim • Mrs. Oliphant
... both his hands. Headlong, he dived off recklessly... driving at a fearful speed, ... when—the whole thing vanished into a gulf of empty blue, and he found himself running, not through the sky to clutch the Pleiades, but heavily downhill towards his ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... relic broke down in a fit of coughing. No sooner had he recovered than he leaped into the air, making a frantic clutch at something, but apparently ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... and faithful servant, touching whom a brief while ago I propounded to you my question, whom her own folk held none too dear, but cast out into the open street as a thing vile and no longer good for aught, but I took thence, and by my careful tendance wrested from the clutch of death; whom God, regardful of my good will, has changed from the appalling aspect of a corpse to the thing of beauty that you see before you. But for your fuller understanding of this occurrence, I will briefly explain it to you." He then recounted to them ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... but not by them; invisible hands touched me. Once I felt the clutch as of cold soft fingers at my throat. I was still equally conscious that if I gave way to fear I should be in bodily peril; and I concentrated all my faculties in the single focus of resisting, stubborn ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... apart from its material manifestations as we know them at present. (Remember note on p. 40.) It is easy to imagine that such a view is a mere surmise, having no intelligible meaning, and that it is merely an attempt to clutch at human immortality in an emotional and unscientific spirit. To this, however, I in no way plead guilty. My ideas about life may be quite wrong, but they are as cold-blooded and free from bias ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge
... Fred made a wild clutch at an object just beside him, and his fingers clutched an arm. He held on desperately, despite the waves that sought to tear ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... shouted, springing at him and seizing his hand in a clutch that effectually woke Garnet from his stupor. "How are you, old chap? This is good. By Jove, this is good! This ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... decimated the number of its ruling spirits. To recall a list of the names of patriot leaders who laid down their lives during this half century and more of civil wars makes one shudder for man's inhumanity to man. Little progress was made. The Romish Church held its parasitic clutch upon state and people, impoverishing and degrading both, until the burden became too great to bear; and, in 1857, the Laws of Reform were enacted and the constitution amended, causing the church to disgorge ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... strangely at times the vex'd effort at speed, That a keen eye might guess it was made—not for him, But some brawler more stalwart of stature and limb. That it irk'd him, in truth, you at times could divine, For when low was the music, and spilt was the wine, He would clutch at the garment, as though it oppress'd And stifled some impulse ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... nothing with them unless they are specifically needed for the more complete expression of a thought. Let them drop at the sides in their natural relaxed position, ready for instant use. To press the fist in the hollow of the back in order to "support" the speaker, to clutch the lapels of the coat, to slap the hands audibly together, to place the hands on the hips in the attitude of "vulgar ease," to put the hands into the pockets, to wring the hands as if "washing them with invisible soap," or to violently pound the pulpit—these belong to the ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... contorted, and assuming a supercilious expression and a languid manner, struts leisurely towards us, with his hands in his pockets, thereby giving what I am forced to admit is an imitation of myself perfect in its burlesque. Ben Flint roars with laughter. I clutch the imp and throw him across knee and pretend to spank him. We struggle lustily till Madame ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... seriously is death both to man and artist. Narcissus had sufficient success there to make this a temptation, and he fell. He lost his hold of the great things of life, he forgot the stars, he forgot his love, and what wonder that his art sickened also. For a few months life was but a feverish clutch after varied sensation, especially the dear tickle of applause; he caught the facile atheistic flippancy of that poor creature, the 'modern young man,' all-knowing and all-foolish, and he came very near losing his soul in the ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard
... disengaged herself from Rosas's clutch by an extreme effort, and ran to the rascal and spat ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... lightning goes down one trousers leg and up the other, and escapes up the back of your neck, causing the hair to raise and be filled with electricity enough to light a circus tent, and that when looking at her your hands clutch nervously as though you wanted to grasp something to hold you up, a sense of faintness comes over you, your eyes roll heavenward, your head falls helpless on your breast, your left side becomes ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... I said, "through and through you are evil, I think, and I can't help thinking you are a little crazy. But I wish you would teach me to be as you are, for tonight the hands of my dead father strain from his grave and clutch about my ankles. He has the right because it is his flesh I occupy. And I must occupy the body of a Townsend always. It is not quite the residence I would have chosen— Eh, well, for all that, I am I! And at bottom ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... to clutch at one of the stays for support, dazzled as I was by the light after my forty-eight ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... Presently she could make out, despite the failing light, that it was no island, but a crab larger than a hundred buffalo. Its goggling eyes were dreadful to see, its mouth was opening fiercely, its claws working as if eager to clutch its prey. The moon arose at the full, making a track of light across the heaving waters, and the crab, facing east, prepared to spring and drag it to its den beneath the ocean. Half a mile away the people of the princess were holding a feast with songs and ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... nothing but clutch the seat and shut his eyes. He dared not look down, lest he lose his balance and fall; he dared not look about him, for there were, in all parts of the heavens, the most terrifying animals—a great scorpion, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... Simeon, fast and double-locked in sleep in the next bed. He saw also the open trunk by the dressing-table in front of the window. Then he looked at the clock on the mantelpiece, the silent witness of the hours. And a pair of pincers seemed to clutch his heart, and an anvil to drop on his stomach and rest heavily there, producing an awful nausea. Why had he not looked at the clock before? Was it possible that he had been awake even five seconds ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... the effect of her words. The old actor's mobile features were suddenly contracted under the lash of violent despair; and tears, genuine tears which he did not even think of concealing behind his hand as they do on the stage, filled his eyes but did not flow, so tightly did his agony clutch him by the throat. The poor devil ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... "I am not fit to die! Oh, forgive me, Maurice, as you hope for forgiveness yourself! Maurice! Maurice!" She strove to get towards him, to clutch at his wrist, at his sleeve, but he stood with his hand on his sword, gazing at her with a face which was all wreathed and contorted with merriment. At the sight of that dreadful mocking face the prayers froze upon her lips. ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... 45. clutches, tongs, forceps, pincers, nippers, pliers, vice. paw, hand, finger, wrist, fist, neaf^, neif^. bird in hand; captive &c 754. V. retain, keep; hold fast one's own, hold tight one's own, hold fast one's ground, hold tight one's ground; clinch, clench, clutch, grasp, gripe, hug, have a firm hold of. secure, withhold, detain; hold back, keep back; keep close; husband &c (store) 636; reserve; have in stock, have on hand, keep in stock &c (possess) 777; entail, tie up, settle. Adj. retaining &c v.; retentive, tenacious. unforfeited^, undeprived, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... against a government, and hang for it; but if we help to found and sustain a government by patriotic effort and devotion, by toil and hardship, by courage, loyalty, and faith, by the sacrifice of those nearest and dearest to us, and then venture to clutch at the crumbs that fall from the table where our Masters Jonathan, Patrick, Hans, and Sambo sit at feast, you arrest us, imprison us, try us, fine us, and then add injury to insult, by calling us ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... now, and leave them to triumph over my defeat; for I dare not leave to my successor the accursed inheritance of civil war. To the last hour of my life I must humble my will before the decree of that cruel destiny which has persecuted me from boyhood! Be it so!—I must clutch at the ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... windows on the Calle de Plateros, and in their shade beautiful women gaze curiously on the scene beneath. Gayly dressed groups throng the balconies, and at the street-corners dark-faced men scowl, mutter deep curses, and clutch their knives. The street resounds with the heavy tramp of infantry, the rattle of gun-carriages, and the clatter of horses' hoofs. "Los Yanquies!" is the cry, and every neck is stretched to obtain a glimpse of the six thousand bemired and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... to handle it? All you need to do is to sit on the seat and let it go. Now shove this lever and throw in the clutch," suggested the agent, and off ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... Zara would need her help more than ever. And if she could only get a little distance away from Holmes, she was sure that she and Dolly would be able to elude him. So, doing exactly what she had seen Holmes do, she threw in the clutch, and, with nervous, trembling hands on the wheel of the big car, guided it as it gathered speed and moved ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the Farm - Or, Bessie King's New Chum • Jane L. Stewart
... the hairpins were dragged from her hair. The result was that the player, who might easily have left the court and fixed up her hair again firmly, adjusted it as best she could, her hair blowing about in all directions. In between every stroke she had to clutch wildly at stray portions that blew across her face and into her eyes. This diversion naturally upset her game, and I think that was the last time she wore ...
— Lawn Tennis for Ladies • Mrs. Lambert Chambers
... gave the mortal stab. Of the ninety-three senators and representatives from the eleven disloyal States, he said, eighty-five were soldiers in the armies of the rebellion, and their support of these "revolutionary measures is a fight for empire. It is a contrivance to clutch the national government. That we believe; that I believe."[1639] The President, by advising the country through his spirited veto messages of the desperate tactics invoked by the majority, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... And what avails reviling? Such pitch without defiling Can "Prince" or "Patriot" touch? This quicksand unromantic Closes on him, the Antic, Whose hands with gestures frantic Contiguous coat-tails clutch. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... knife but my arms were pinned down. Gervais raised himself a little to get a better clutch, and his fingers closed on my throat. One grip, and life seemed flowing from me. My arm was free now if I could but lift it. If I could not, nevermore should I lift it on this sunny earth. I did lift it, and drove the dagger ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... heavy tapestry shivered under Correy's clutch. Had this been observed by anyone besides himself? If by chance some person wandering about the court had been looking up—but no, the few people gathered there stood too far forward to see what was going ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... she felt a mighty clutch on the oar, a clutch that strained her arms to the breaking-point as she tried to brace her knees against the runners of the ...
— The Choice - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... tedious struggle, and often Jack thought the stranger would despair and be unable to drag his body from the firm clutch of the bog; but little by little the man succeeded in drawing himself up by the sapling, and at last he was saved, and sank down exhausted upon the ...
— Mother Goose in Prose • L. Frank Baum
... a life for so plain a duty; hardly heroic. She knew it. Yet, if there lay in this coming labor any pain, any wearing effort, she clung to it desperately, as if this should banish, it might be, worse loss. She tried desperately, I say, to clutch the far, uncertain hope at the end, to make happiness out of it, to give it to her silent hungry heart to feed on. She thrust out of sight all possible life that might have called her true self ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... it, he fired. Sometimes a dozen soldiers rushed upon the muzzle of the field-piece surrounding it. At such moments Davy Crockett's arms swept back and forth with smooth unhurried swiftness and his sinewy fingers relaxed from one walnut stock only to clutch another; his hands were never empty. Always a little red flame licked the smoke fog before him like the tongue of an angered snake. He was getting on in years but in all his full life his technic had never been so perfect, his artistry ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... looking for a law that will deport me. This will suit me, as I will swear that I am a citizen of no man's land. What I really need is not deportation, but solitary confinement, for the sake of my meditations. For even with my scant companionship I feel as if I were a circus animal. I still clutch convulsively to the idea that thought is the only reality and all expression of it merely a grading down of what was most high. If I am shut up I must cease talking and may think about real things, that is, ideal things. That would help me to put up with the world, which ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... there, and forced myself to investigate. I saw nothing, heard nothing, and step by step advanced clear to the back window, and looked out. Then, without the slightest warning, something was thrown over my head, and I was utterly helpless in the vice-like clutch of an arm. I cannot explain how startled, how helpless I was. It occurred so suddenly I could not even cry out, could scarcely struggle. I was instantly stifled, and left weak as a child. I know I did make an effort to break away, but the cloth was clutched closer about my face, and ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... The club which Rustum lifted now, and struck One stroke; but again Sohrab sprang aside, Lithe as the glancing snake, and the club came Thundering to earth, and leapt from Rustum's hand. And Rustum follow'd his own blow, and fell To his knees, and with his fingers clutch'd the sand; And now might Sohrab have unsheathed his sword, And pierced the mighty Rustum while he lay Dizzy, and on his knees, and choked with sand; But he look'd on, and smiled, nor bared his sword, But courteously drew back, and spoke, and said:— "Thou ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... demeanor of bellboys and janitors as the Date flows quietly toward us; we pass through the haggard perplexity of "Only Four Days More" when we suddenly realize it is too late to make our shopping the display of lucid affectionate reasoning we had contemplated, and clutch wildly at grotesque tokens—and then (sweetest of all) comes the quiet calmness of Christmas Eve. Then, while we decorate the tree or carry parcels of tissue paper and red ribbon to a carefully prepared list of aunts and godmothers, or reckon ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... but the smoothly-worn marble shute to tell the tale of the merry past; but we obtain a realistic idea of their sportive games by taking the bulldogs to the upper chamber, and giving them a start down the slide. As they clutch and claw, and look scared, and appeal mutely for assistance, only to slide gradually down, down, down, and fall with a splash into the tank at last, we have only to imagine the bull-dogs transformed into Fatteh-ali Shah's naiads, to learn something of the truth of current stories. After we have ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... two letters to show that his discoveries might be reconciled with Scripture. On a hint from the Inquisition at Rome, the archbishop sought to get hold of these letters and exhibit them as proofs that Galileo had uttered heretical views of theology and of Scripture, and thus to bring him into the clutch of the Inquisition. The archbishop begs Castelli, therefore, to let him see the original letter in the handwriting of Galileo. Castelli declines. The archbishop then, while, as is now revealed, writing constantly and bitterly to the Inquisition ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... stirred at that moment, so that the union of the sudden shout, with the profundity of Bill's remark, had the effect of causing him to clutch at the tea-kettle with such haste that he upset ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... two people, the seat being suspended on posts and the body on elliptical springs. There were two speeds—one of ten and the other of twenty miles per hour—obtained by shifting the belt, which was done by a clutch lever in front of the driving seat. Thrown forward, the lever put in the high speed; thrown back, the low speed; with the lever upright the engine could run free. To start the car it was necessary to turn the motor over by hand with the clutch free. To stop the car one simply ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... embodied British sovereignty in America. Naturally the material tokens of British rule radiated from the town, covering all of the island of Manhattan, most of Long Island, and all of Staten Island, and retaining a clutch here and there on the mainland of ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... this juncture, have wished to find his way out, escape was, in fact, out of the question; on the south and north was one continuous dead wall, which, even had he wished to scale, there was nothing which he could clutch ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... and with a sickening clutch at my heart I recognized who it was. Mary had been aeroplaning with Woods instead of automobiling as I had supposed. At the sight of her, laughing gaily at some witticism that Woods made as they walked across the field toward us, my head spun with hatred and jealousy ...
— 32 Caliber • Donald McGibeny
... but then, ye don't count all the folks an' happenin's that pass ye in yer wakin' hours. But when a dream, or a person, or an idee comes along, as means a comfort or a strengthener, I take it that it is a sort o' duty t' clutch it, an' make it real. When ye ain't got nothin' better, dreams is powerful upliftin' at times. Gum!" David drew his shoulders up and plunged his hands in his pockets, as if about to ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... there was no redress except through the extension of the classified service. This he urged at all times, and ten years later, when he was himself President, he added more than fifty thousand offices to the list of those which the spoilsmen could not clutch. ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... magnanimous generality are the tricks of villany. Indignant Mercy works with other tools; she leaps with the directness of lightning, and the same unsparing sincerity, to the spot to which she is attracted. What rogue ever felt the clutch of a stern phrase at his throat, with a good opinion of it? Shall we throttle the rascal in broad day, or grope in the dark after the impersonal weasand of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... forboded that the aid she had given was not hidden from her father, and that quickly she would fill up the cup of woe. And she dreaded the guilty knowledge of her handmaids; her eyes were filled with fire and her ears rung with a terrible cry. Often did she clutch at her throat, and often did she drag out her hair by the roots and groan in wretched despair. There on that very day the maiden would have tasted the drugs and perished and so have made void the purposes of Hera, had not the goddess ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... events that had so swiftly passed before them had gravely relaxed the vigilance of Evander's guardians. Garlinge and Clupp—a strong Gyas and a strong Cloanthes—open-eyed and open-mouthed, were open-handed also and clawed no clutch upon their prisoner's shoulder. Thoroughgood, confused between jealous thoughts of Tiffany and envious admiration of the manner in which Halfman handled the gentry, was as heedless as his inferiors, and was therefore taken too much by surprise to offer the slightest resistance when Evander, suddenly ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... up too high. [n] Don't be shamefaced. [o] Wherever you go, good manners make the man. [p] Reverence your betters, but treat all equally whom you don't know. [q] See that your hands are clean, and your knife sharp. [r] Let worthier men help themselves before you eat. [s] Don't clutch at the best bit. [t] Keep your hands from dirtying the cloth, and don't wipe your nose on it, [v] or dip too deep in your cup. [x] Have no meat in your mouth when you drink or speak; and stop talking when your neighbour is drinking. [y] Scorn ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... the shore through the rolling seas with those two women, my belly cleaves to my backbone and I become faint.... For the current was against us, and neither Sipi nor Solepa were good swimmers, and many times had we to clutch hold of the jagged coral, which tore our skins so that our blood ran out freely, and had the sharks come to us then I would not be here with thee to-night drinking this, thy good sweet grog which thou givest me out of thy kind heart. Ta|pa|! When ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke |
