"Wrench" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... two. For a short time they strained and struggled and writhed, and then stout William gave his most cunning trip and throw, but the stranger met it with greater skill than his, and so the trip came to nought. Then, of a sudden, with a twist and a wrench, the stranger loosed himself, and he of the scar found himself locked in a pair of arms that fairly made his ribs crack. So, with heavy, hot breathing, they stood for a while straining, their bodies all glistening with sweat, and great drops of sweat trickling down ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... slope to the beach, skidding the last few feet, saving himself from going headfirst into the water only by a painful wrench ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... wrench to him to leave Agatha again so soon, in the first full force of his passion. But he left her almost happily. His love for her was rising up and filling his whole existence. And it is not those lives that are frittered away in a ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... are remote corners, even of the United States, where the primitive conditions still subsist, and where woman still bears her old-time relation to industry, where the industrial life of the girl flows on with no gap or wrench into the occupational life of the married woman. Through wifehood and motherhood she indeed adds to her burdens, and complicates her responsibilities, but otherwise she spends her days in much the same fashion as before, with some deduction, often, alas, inadequate, ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... course, for in the matter of legends he could not seem to restrain himself; but I do not repeat his tale because there was nothing plausible about it except that the Hero wrenched this column into its present screw-shape with his hands —just one single wrench. All the rest of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... essence and purpose in reconstruction. At the time of which I write, there seemed nothing left for the friends of law, bereft as they were of all statutary means for its enforcement, but making a virtue of this necessity by organizing a "vigilance committee" to wrench by physical strength that unobtainable by moral right. There had been no flourish of trumpets, no herald of the impending storm, but the pent up forces of revolution in inertion, now fierce for action, discarded restraint. Stern, but quiet had been the preparation ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... here! You'll come upstairs and let them alone; that's what you'll do!" And with such passionate determination did she clutch and tug, never losing a grip of him somewhere, though George tried as much as he could, without hurting her, to wrench away—with such utter forgetfulness of her maiden dignity did she assault him, that she forced him, ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... the station-master. A glance, and the latter signalled to a porter, saying: 'Paradis'; and the porter laid hold of Skepsey's bag. Skepsey's grasp was firm; he pulled, the porter pulled. Skepsey heard explanatory speech accompanying a wrench. He wrenched back with vigour, and in his own tongue exclaimed, that he held to the bag because his master's letters were in the bag, all the way from England. For a minute, there was a downright trial of muscle and will: the porter appeared furiously excited, Skepsey had ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... absolutely nothing, the matter, except the doctor. He is all broken up over the accident, and says I must lie here or somewhere for two or three days to cure a wrench in my back which I ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... birch trees with their naked white branches, the bushes, the turf, the nettles, the currant-trees, the elders with the pale side of their leaves turned upwards—all were dashing themselves about, and looking as though they were trying to wrench themselves free from their roots. From the avenue of lime-trees showers of round, yellow leaves were flying through the air in tossing, eddying circles, and strewing the wet road and soaked aftermath of the hayfield with a clammy carpet. ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... Go away! I'll kill you! [Catches hold of her arms; she escapes, he runs after her with the spade. Matryna runs towards him and stops him. Ansya runs into the porch. Matryna tries to wrench the spade from him. To his mother] I'll kill you! I'll kill you! Go away! [Matryna runs to Ansya in the porch. Nikta stops] I'll kill you! ...
— The Power of Darkness • Leo Tolstoy
... minutes, his reasoning powers began to act, and overcoming the disinclination to move, consequent upon his being so horribly stiff, he gave himself a wrench and turned right over on ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... world had builded foolishly; for with early manhood, they fell in love with the same round-cheeked school-teacher. Jonathan married her, after what wrench of feeling I know not; and the other fled to the town, whence he never returned save for the briefest visit at Thanksgiving or Christmas time. The stay-at-home lad is a warm farmer, and the little school-teacher a mother whose unlined face shows the record of a placid life; ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... The wrench to the fisherman's knee proved more serious than he had anticipated. The doctor pronounced it out of the question that he should be moved for ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... Terry, working away like a madman with spanner and screw-wrench; "if I can but loosen this nut I can disconnect this bent rod and replace it in half ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... a sharp movement forward, nerved for the fray by sheer all-possessing anger. She gripped the handle of the door above his hand and gave it a sharp wrench. He would not—surely he would not—struggle with her! Surely she must discomfit ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... Putney with a slight mental wrench, yet sufficiently clear-headed to say decidedly that Glasgow, on the whole, had a much better climate than the South, because I had once spent a day there, and the sun shone the whole time, so I ought to know. Then I started off again, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 15, 1914 • Various
... As to its other faults, they consist in his having made a beautiful English poem of a sublime Greek one. It will always hold. Cowper and all the rest of the blank pretenders may do their best and their worst: they will never wrench Pope from the hands of a single reader of ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... wrench tore the thing loose and broke away a section of the thin plastered wall. There, in the cleverly concealed cavity behind, was revealed the mechanism of the radio "eye." Somewhere, someone bad been watching their every move. And abruptly ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... however are a mystery to me. He is a determined and relentless man, with the genuine character of an inquisitor; and had he any object to gain by putting Clifford to the rack, I verily believe that he would wrench his joints from their sockets, in order to accomplish it. But, so wealthy and eminent as he is,—so powerful in his own strength, and in the support of society on all sides,—what can Judge Pyncheon have to hope or fear from the imbecile, ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... severe wrench, but he had fought the battle manfully and gained the victory. In his new-born sense of personal unworthiness and strict Justice, he had come to the conclusion that he had forfeited the right to offer heart or hand to the Rose of Oregon. Whether he was right or wrong in his opinion we do ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... Bullet-mould, not a heavy one; bit of iron place for a ladle; gun-cleaning apparatus; turnscrews; nipple- wrench; bottle of fine oil; spare nipples; spare screw for cock (see chapter on Gun-Fittings).......................2 1/2 Two macintosh water-bags, shaped for the pack saddle, of one gallon each, with funnel-shaped necks, and having wide mouth (empty) (see chapter on Water for Drinking).......2 ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... F, is a speculum oris. The dotted lines represent it when shut; the black lines when open. It opens at G, H, by a screw below with a knob at the end of it. This instrument was used by surgeons to wrench open the mouth in case of lock-jaw. It is used in slave-ships to compel the negroes to take food; because a loss to the owners would follow their persevering attempts to die. K represents the manner of ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... things which she required. She gave a little sigh of satisfaction as she saw all her belongings stowed away in the big box; she had never had so many new possessions in her life before, and in the pleasure of owning them felt some slight compensation for the wrench of parting from home. The two useful navy-blue serge skirts, with their accompanying blouses, the pretty brown velvet dress for Sundays, the flowered delaine for evenings, and the white muslin for school parties, not to mention the hats, coats, ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... Not a dualism so violent as to break up the national unity, but yet one so marked and substantial, that thenceforward it was very difficult for any individual or body of men to represent the entire English character, and the old balance of its forces. The wrench which severed the Church and people from the Roman obedience left for domestic settlement thereafter a tremendous internal question, between the historical and the new, which in its milder form perplexes us to this day. ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... is saddening, what is it to see a human dwelling fall by the hand of violence! The ripping off of the shelter that has kept out a thousand storms, the tearing off of the once ornamental woodwork, the wrench of the inexorable crowbar, the murderous blows of the axe, the progressive ruin, which ends by rending all the joints asunder and flinging the tenoned and mortised timbers into heaps that will be sawed and split to warm some new habitation as firewood,—what ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... an unsoldier-like thing that he afterward tried to forget. For the driver developed unexpected strength, refused to submit, got the tunic off his head, and, seeing himself attacked by one man only, took courage and fell to. He picked up a wrench from the seat beside him, and made a furious pass at Nikky's head. Nikky ducked and, after a struggle, secured the weapon. All this in the car, over the ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... and gazed down the moon-lit valley. Troubled as she was, its rugged beauty and its stillness appealed to her, and she knew it would be a wrench to leave the land which had hitherto safely sheltered her. She had known only the smoother side of life in it, and nobody could appreciate the ease and luxury it could offer some of its inhabitants better than she did. Now, it seemed, she must leave it, and go out ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... with sawdust and dirt. His hands and arms and even his face were treated liberally with the same mixture that stained his clothing; and the shaggy red brown hair, uncovered, was sadly tumbled. In his hand he held a wrench. The morrow was grinding day, and he had been making some repairs ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... been in the house a quarter of an hour, you go a smearing your wet face against the expensive mourning that Mrs Richards is a wearing for your Ma!' With this remonstrance, young Spitfire, whose real name was Susan Nipper, detached the child from her new friend by a wrench—as if she were a tooth. But she seemed to do it, more in the excessively sharp exercise of her official functions, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... Battalion was fighting, the total given below is a proud achievement. It was always a wrench to part with candidates, but the figures prove that the strictures, often heard, that Commanding Officers refused to part with their best men were unfounded in the case ...
— Short History of the London Rifle Brigade • Unknown
... wrench of faith, the shame Of science that cannot prove proof is, the twist Of blame for praise and bitter praise for blame, The silly stake and tether round the wrist By fashion fixed, the virtue that doth claim The gains of vice, the lofty mark ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... of both her arms in a sudden spasm, attempting to climb out upon her as a drowning man might try to climb out on an oar and sinking her down under him. In the struggle under water, before he permitted her to wrench clear, her rubber cap was torn off, and her hairpins pulled out, so that she came up gasping for air and half-blinded by her wet-clinging hair. Also, he was certain he had surprised her into taking in a quantity ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... sudden wrench of his strong wrist upon the leather collar which he grasped, he whipped Crazy Cow flat across his saddle and held ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... life-long enmity, he would not break his word. Complex problems resolve themselves at the point of action into such simple axioms. Dick should have a blessing and his sweetheart; he would do his best for Fairfax Preston; with his might he would keep his word. A great sigh and a wrench at his heart as if a physical growth of years were tearing away, and the decision was made. Then, in a mist of pain and effort, and a surprised new freedom from the accustomed pang of hatred, he heard the rustle and movement of a kneeling congregation, ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... eye followed this last movement, however, and he picked up Gum roughly, and proceeded to wrench open its jaws. He felt all round his mouth, but the nugget was not there. He held the senseless body up by the tail and shook it, but no gold appeared. He took his head between his knees, and sounded all ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... looked carelessly at it, and said: "Why, I thought I had brushed that all off! When I was out looking for Josh. I stumbled and gave my knee a terrible wrench." Then glancing at the clock, she said: "Why, how late it is! Miss Johnson will think that ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... the actors were perfect, and the audience good-humoured. We need hardly say who played the hero; and having named Wrench, as the nephew, who was much as usual, everybody will know how. Mr. David Rees is well adapted for Snoxall, being a good figure for the part, especially in the duck-and-green-peas season. The ladies, of whom there were four, performed as ladies ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... "Kill him." "Hang him up by the heels and stone him." "Twist off his tongue," and so forth. Out shot a hand, a long, skinny, female hand, and a harsh voice cried, "Give us a keepsake, my pretty boy!" Then there was a sharp wrench at his head, and he knew that from it a lock of hair was missing. This was too much. He ought to have stopped there and let them kill him if they would, but a terror of these human wolves entered his soul and mastered him. To be trodden beneath ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... older in years, had known sorrow and cares so early that she was much older in character. Besides, her shy reserve, and her quiet daily walk within the lines of duty, were much in accordance with Mr Farquhar's notion of what a wife should be. Still, it was a wrench to take his affections away from Jemima. If she had not helped him to do so by every means in her power, he ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Quarter past eleven; half past; quarter to twelve—and three miles yet to go! It was barely possible to do it. And perhaps it would have been done, if at that moment the good little Black Cock had not stumbled on a loose stone, gone down almost to his knees, and recovered himself with a violent wrench—lame! Chichester was a fair runner and a good walker. But he knew that the steep sandy hills which lay between him and Tadousac could never be covered in fifteen minutes. He gave the reins to the driver, leaned back in the seat, and folded ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... Maria coldly, amusedly almost. But still the fool was silent, his nether lip caught so tightly in his teeth that the blood trickled from it adown his chin. Again the Duke gave the signal, and again they let him go. This time they allowed him a longer drop, so that the wrench with which they arrested it was more severe than ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... well turn you out—'twould be hardly genteel—- But be moderate, pray,—and remember thus much, Since you're treated as Gentlemen—show yourselves such, And don't make it late, But mind and go straight Home to bed when you've finished—and don't steal the plate, Nor wrench off the knocker, or bell from the gate. Walk away, like respectable Devils, in peace, And don't 'lark' with the watch, or annoy ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... numerous visitors who had preceded me. The coffins were nine in number, and mostly covered with tin; each lay on a tressel of mason-work, and bore the marks, more or less, of the violence that had been employed to wrench them open. ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... declared Jonas. "I ain't watched you and her for a year for nothing. This ain't going to be the shattering wrench for her you might ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... heavy wrench into his pocket and closed the kit-box. With the girl, he avoided any reference to the possible presence of the Japanese among the trees, but knowing that he was no match for them unarmed, with their skill in jiu-jitsu, he resolved to be ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... filling and filling with folk who seemed to spring from the earth, when the Silver Man ran in under our arms, making a noise exactly like the mewing of an otter, caught Fleete round the body and dropped his head on Fleete's breast before we could wrench him away. Then he retired to a corner and sat mewing while the crowd blocked ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... she was smiling at? S'death! what a simpleton—Ho! what do I hear? A woman's voice—a cry?—of terror? There again!—a scream! the words, "Help, oh! help!" Is it she who is calling? Yes—yes it is she! By such strange sounds were my reflections interrupted. Turning my horse with a wrench, I urged him back along the path. I was yet scarcely a dozen lengths from the log—for the reflections above detailed were but the thoughts of a moment. Half-a-dozen bounds of my steed brought me back to the edge of a standing timber—where I pulled up, to ascertain ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... terrible scenes that ensued, Mr. Manton, followed by his faithful dog, was barely able to reach his own stateroom, secure his money and some important papers, wrench the door from its hinges, throw it and Nanita overboard, and then leap for his own life into the ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... to think it," said Charles; "the hold our Church has on the mind is so powerful; it is such a wrench to leave it, I cannot fancy any party-tie standing against it. Humanly speaking, there is far, far more to keep them fast than ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... love for Sieglinde, whom now he can rescue. As the fire and the song die away together, Sieglinde reappears. She has drugged Hunding into a deep sleep, and in an exultant song tells Siegmund the story of the sword. They can be saved if he is strong enough to wrench it from the trunk of the ash. He recognizes his sister and folds her passionately in his arms. The storm has passed, and as the moonlight floods the room he breaks out in one of the loveliest melodies Wagner ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... not," he answered in the same tongue, "but I am afraid that with those high heels you will wrench ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... I can't say. For it was somewhere in the middle of the second or third hill after this that the little roadster began to splutter and cough like it had swallowed a monkey wrench. ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... she echoed. The dog's throat twitched, his body stiffened and shook as though he were going to have a fit. Then he came back with a visible wrench to his unwinking watch. ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... deep in the stump of a wild olive tree that stood in the field. The tree had been sacred to the deity Faunus, but the Trojans had cut it down to make a clear ground for their military movements. When AEneas attempted to wrench the spear out, Turnus prayed to Faunus ...
— Story of Aeneas • Michael Clarke
... that we were walking rather too near to the edge, and so I took hold of her arm. But you know what Bubbles is like? She's a queer kind of girl, and she tried to wrench herself free. Then I gripped a little harder and—well, I don't know exactly what did happen! I suppose her foot turned, for I suddenly felt her weight full on me, and then, ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... Shipp, the sub-manager, must be instantly put on the others. We had the genuine signature of J. P. Shipp on a draft, and Mac at once sat down to write it on all the letters. It was a trying ordeal for him, Mac's nerves having had a wrench. He was a temperate man, but under the circumstances we advised him to take a glass of brandy to steady his nerves. Then placing the genuine signature before him and the forged letters, he began to put in the name. The ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... flood, Allied with foes of our own flesh and blood, The elements of earth and hell combine, Yet tho' he trembles, stands in strength divine; He rests secure on the unyielding rock. The top may sway, but base feels not the shock; His heart is fixed, nor earth nor hell can move; They wrench not loose, but his allegiance prove. Christ wept with Mary at her brother's grave; Laid down His life a rebel world to save; Tried, like ourselves, and like us too, infirm, Yet knew no sin in either root or germ; Let us be like ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant
... centering his interest upon the casual things about him; inevitably it turned his mind back to inner contemplations. The sensation was mental largely, but it seemed so nearly akin to the physical that to himself Uncle Tobe diagnosed it as the after-result of a wrench for his weak heart. You see, never before having experienced the reactions of a suddenly quickened imagination, he, naturally, was at a loss to account for it ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... "I don't care whose basket it is! Let go!" he ordered, and gave such a wrench at the strings that all parted, suddenly, and the basket was his. "Y' think y're pretty smart, don't y'?" he demanded, head out of the window again; "helpin' this kid t' ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... up with the wrench in his hand, and looked for the first time into the gray-blue eyes under the bushy iron-gray brows. "The country is the same as it is on this ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... his eye had a look which even a very little experience understands. His air was haggard, spiritless, hopeless; so unlike the alert, self-sufficient, confident manner of old, that Dolly's heart got a great wrench. And something in the whole image was so inexpressibly pitiful to her, that she did the very last thing it had been in her purpose to do; she fled to him with one bound, threw herself on his breast, and burst into ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... Every time the sun sets, every time the old man sees his children gathering round him, there is a filling of the eye with an emotion that we can understand. There is upon his soul the thought of parting, that strange wrench from all we love which makes death (say what moralists will ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... chap!" cried Jack suddenly; for the wrench must come, and lingering over it was painful. "I shall miss you lots! it seems so queer to be without you! Of course you'll succeed: there's no use ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... myself, they have found her. And I fell to shuddering again. Now they have brought her in, unless what they saw, when they found her, scattered them, raving, through the woods. Now they are trying to soothe Antonio, perhaps to wrench a weapon from his hand. Now surely they ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... fought for liberty with which to finish his task, and those who restrained him found that somehow he had managed to draw an ivory-handled six-shooter from some place of concealment. Nor could they wrench ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... though when the circumstance was afterwards not unfrequently thrown in his teeth, he would forget it and deny it. Her ladyship heard the word very plainly, and at once stalked out of the room, thereby showing that her feminine feelings had received a wrench which made it impossible for her any longer to endure the presence of such a foul-mouthed monster. Up to that moment she had been anything but the victor; but the vulgarity of the curse had restored to her much of her prestige, so that she was able to leave ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... McGann to a foreign man who worked at the selfsame bench, "Let me tell you this," and for emphasis he flourished a Stilson wrench; "Don't talk to me of the bourjoissee, don't open your mouth to speak Of your socialists or your anarchists, don't mention the bolsheveek, For I've had enough of this foreign stuff, I'm sick as a man can be Of the speech of hate, and I'm ...
— When Day is Done • Edgar A. Guest
... close together that it seemed to him that he did not rest a second in the saddle; that each time the big brute struck the ground with his four feet bunched together, to pause for a breathless moment, gathering every ounce of strength to wrench, leaping sideways, he must surely be thrown. But in spite of all he did not pull leather, he did not cease to ply spur and quirt, and he was not thrown. It was a perfectly quiet horse he rode away across the ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... beautiful now as he looked down at them. Slightly parted, they held his eyes with a strange, new fascination. They were alive, those lips. They were warm and pulsating. He found himself breathing faster because of them. He seemed, against his will, to be bending toward them. Then, with a wrench, he tore himself free from the spell, not daring to look ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... illustrious engineers vied with each other and cooperated with nature that the fortress was esteemed the strongest in Europe. Over one gate had been placed a vaunting inscription which defied the allies to wrench the prize from the grasp ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... but a fleeter foot was behind her, and though she dodged and evaded like a creature of the woods, the reaching hand fell upon the loose sleeve of her red blouse, nor fell lightly. She gave a wrench of frenzy; the antique fabric refused the strain; parted at the shoulder seam so thoroughly that the whole sleeve came away—but not to its owner's release, for she had been brought round by the jerk, so that, agile as she had shown herself, the pursuer threw an ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... refuge behind the tubs with the children. Virginie made a spring at the throat of her adversary and actually tried to strangle her. Gervaise shook her off and snatched at the long braid hanging from the girl's head and pulled it as if she hoped to wrench it off, and the head ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... a stand, but the mate was ready for him. Dodging the straight left, Pete hurled himself forward and seized the burly Frenchman in his arms. Then, with a tug and a wrench, as though he were uprooting a tree, he lifted his opponent and crashed him ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... awe-stricken. Then he braced himself, and went forward, reeling at first like a drunken man. But by the time he had reached the stairs he was master of himself again. Swiftly, for all his trembling fingers, he unfastened the cord's end from the newel-post. The wrench upon it had already pulled the bodkin from the wainscot. He went down that abrupt spiral staircase at a moderate pace, mechanically coiling the length of whip-cord, and bestowing it with the bodkin in his pouch again, and all the while his eyes were fixed upon the grey bundle ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... hearty laugh, so much so, that the cards, she held in her hand, flew all over the table; but pushing Yuean Yang. "Be quick," she shouted, "and wrench that mouth of hers!" ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... however, has some moxey left in him as he has two of his hands around Wurpz's throat, the third around Zahooli's leg and is reaching for a ray Betsy with his fourth. He grabs the disintegrator just as I belt him over his ugly noggin with a wrench about two feet long and which was certainly not made ...
— Operation Earthworm • Joe Archibald
... warded off the blow with his arm, but one of his pistols was sent flying from his grasp. As he raised his other revolver, his arm was suddenly seized from behind, and Edna attempted to wrench the revolver from him. He turned on her, and as he did so the revolver ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... with a wrench that almost tore the insides out of his engine the Senior Surgeon brought the great ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... given her apples and candy hearts when he was in the third grade and she learning her A, B, C. So she felt a heartache to see him go like this. Their friendship was shattered, too. Nor had she experience enough to know that this could not have endured, save as a form, after the wrench he had given it. Yet she knew him well enough now to be sure that it was his vanity and self-esteem that were hurt, and not his love. He would soon find consolation among the other ranch girls, upon whom he had been used to lavish his attentions at intervals when she was not handy ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... would say and what explanation she would give at the office. She was not particularly in love with her work, and it would be no wrench for her to drop it and give herself up to the serious study of art. Five thousand pounds a year! She could live in Italy, study under the best masters, have a car of her own—the possibilities seemed ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... exclaimed Frank Chester, flinging down his wrench and passing his hand through a mop of curly hair; "what time ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... amusement afforded by his horrible fate. And, fiendish cruelty like this is not confined to the outer wilds. When some civilized English-speaking bird-catchers get a bird they do not want, they will deliberately wrench its bill apart, so that it must die of lingering starvation. Sometimes the cruelty is done to man himself. Not so many years ago some whalers secured a lot of walrus hides and tusks by having a whole herd of walrus wiped out, in spite of the fact that these animals ...
— Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador • William Wood
... when the death of the old mother made it impossible for life to be sustained by Miss Ophelia unless wrenched up from the roots where clustered so many memories. So Brother John decided to make that wrench, and to make it complete. So here ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... alone. He was not one of those who forced the convictions of others; he was not one of those who think it a great thing to be followed in a serious change by a crowd of disciples. Whatever might be at the end, it was now an agonising wrench to part from the English body, to part from the numbers of friends whose loyalty was immovable, to part from numbers who had trusted and learned from him. Of course, if he was in the right way, he could ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... eyes, however, before she heard a curious noise in the vicinity of her ear, and something unmistakably gave her plait a violent wrench. She started up with a yell, in time to see an enormous head withdraw itself from the tent door. A clatter of ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... careless voice jarred upon her. Her nerves were all on edge. Fletcher Hill's hand was like a steel trap, cold and firm and merciless. She longed to wrench herself free from it, yet felt too ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... Napoleon felt the wrench. Not only the ghost of his early love, but his dislike of new associates and novel ways cried out against the change. "In separating myself from my wife," Napoleon once said to Talleyrand, "I renounce much. I should have to study ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... brought bound before him, and asked him, through Tchebu Lama, if he would write from dictation. The Soubah was violent, excited, and nervous; Tchebu Lama scared. Campbell answered, that if they continued torturing him (which was done by twisting the cords round his wrists by a bamboo-wrench), he might say or do anything, but that his government would not confirm any acts thus extorted. The Soubah became still more violent, shook his bow in Campbell's face, and drawing his hand significantly across his throat, repeated his questions, adding others, enquiring ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... will pass his fingers, perhaps, over the strings of his harp and, with the music, some memory may arise of the wind in the glens of the mountains that stand in the Isles of Song. Then the musician will wrench great cries out of the soul of his harp for the sake of the old memory, and his fellows will awake and all make a song of home, woven of sayings told in the harbour when the ships came in, and of tales in the cottages about the people of old time. One by one the other bands of musicians will take ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... space lighter makes a trip to Texcoco every month or so. Gotta keep up with you boys. Maybe throw a wrench or so in the works once ...
— Adaptation • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... dancing about in his efforts to get Dolly started. "I'm ashamed of you, Towhead! Brace up now, and have a nerve. One final wrench and off you go!" ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... was so short, and I feared that he might wrench one of his hands loose. Moreover, I thought that you might prefer his being searched ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... just aiming at the jagged hole Torn in the yellow sandbags of their trench, When something threw me sideways with a wrench, And the skies seemed to shrivel like a scroll And disappear... and propped against the bole Of a big elm I lay, and watched the clouds Float through the blue, deep sky in speckless crowds, And I was clean again, ...
— Young Adventure - A Book of Poems • Stephen Vincent Benet
... had also picked up Hindustani from Dyan, and looked forward to tackling Sanskrit. In the Schools, he had taken a First in Mods; and, with reasonable luck, hoped for a First in the Finals. Once again, parting would be a wrench, but India glowed like a planet on the horizon; and he fully intended to make that interlude the pick ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... assented. "I'll speak to Mrs. Talbert—" He walked so inconclusively away that I was not surprised to have him turn and come back before I left my place. "Why, certainly! Make the announcement! It's got to come out. It's a kind of a wrench, thinking of it as a public affair; because a man's daughter is always a little girl to him, and he can't realize—And ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... Prytaneum in the city of Athens as the great centre of their larger polity. In just the same way the lesser kindreds of a tribe would have their sacred hearths and rites, but would look to the hearth and person of their chief as symbolical of their tribal unity. Thucydides also mentions how great a wrench it seemed to the Athenians to be compelled to leave their "sacred" homes, to take refuge within the walls of Athens from the impending invasion by ...
— On The Structure of Greek Tribal Society: An Essay • Hugh E. Seebohm
... forever.—If my insult had been deliberate or planned, I would have held her longer, and knowing I was going to lose her by my action, I would have profited by it. As I lay on my bed in great pain from the wrench in getting there alone—I tried to analyse things. The nervous excitement in which she always plunges me must have come to the culminating point. The only thing I was glad about was that I had not attempted to ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... supposed that I should be forced to leave Spain as long as I have a drop of blood in my veins. I will use all my efforts to maintain myself upon a throne on which God has placed me, and on which you, after Him, have set me, and nothing but death shall wrench me from it or make me yield it." War re-commenced on all sides. The king had just consented at last to give Chamillard his discharge. "Sir, I shall die over the job," had for a long time been the complaint of the minister worn out with fatigue. "Ah! well, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... he moaned, and he sprawled at full length on the floor of the tank, for there the air was purer. As he did so his fingers touched something. He started as they closed around the handle of a big monkey wrench. It was one he had brought into the place with him. Imbued with new hope be struck a match and lighted his lantern, which he had allowed to go out as it burned up too much of the oxygen. By the gleam of ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... but the words had scarce left her lips when they were followed by a cry of alarm. For the car had taken a sudden turn from the road and plunged into a growth of young poplars that fringed the hillside. The oldish man at the wheel gave it a violent wrench, but left his motor in gear, and the car half slid, half plowed its way into semi-vertical position among the young trees. The two occupants were thrown from their seat; the girl fell clear, but her father was ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... Thompson decided that in common decency he should offer to lend a hand and thus was moved to rise and approach the disabled car she had the jack under the front axle and was applying a brace wrench to the rim bolts. But the rim bolts that hold on a five-inch tire are not designed to unscrew too easily. Sophie had started one with an earnest tug and was twisting stoutly at the second when he reached her. He knew by the impersonal glance she gave him ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... a wrench and a pang that Edna left her children. She carried away with her the sound of their voices and the touch of their cheeks. All along the journey homeward their presence lingered with her like the memory of a delicious song. But by ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... back and stretching his leg, suddenly it broke loose; he lurched to one side, and the other boot began sliding. There was a terrible ache in his arms, as though some malignant giant were tearing at him, trying to wrench him loose as he ...
— Gold in the Sky • Alan Edward Nourse
... was metamorphosed to a frenzied demon of rage. The broad grin that had sat upon the sailor's face as he perpetrated his little joke froze to an expression of terror. He attempted to dodge the long arms that reached for him; but, failing, drew a long knife that hung at his belt. With a single wrench the ape tore the weapon from the man's grasp and flung it to one side, then his yellow fangs were buried ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... he was now growing old—put his hands behind his back and said nothing, but went on with his usual routine of work. Whether he had become dulled and deadened and cared nothing, whether hope was extinct, or he could not wrench himself from the old place, he said nothing. Even then some further time elapsed—so slow is the farmer's fall that he might almost be excused for thinking that it would never come. But now came the news that the old uncle who had 'backed' him at the bank had ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... as if she would wrench her fingers from their sockets, she clutched at her long white hair, and, rocking to and fro, moaned, "Woe is me, and woe the day ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... keep her with me for an hour longer! Any excuse to put off, to delay that frightful wrench that seems to tear out the inside of both body and soul which parting from ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... corner on West Ohio street, then walked hurriedly down Wells street. At a corner of the building which shadowed the river from the north he paused and listened; then with a quick wrench, he tore a door open, closed it hastily and silently, and was up the dusty stairs like a flash. At the top he waited and listened, then turning, made his way up two other flights, walked down a dark corridor, turned a key in a lock, threw the door open, closed it after him, ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... bad wrench, my lad. My ankle must have doubled under me when I fell. There's no help for it; we have had nothing but misfortunes from the start, but this is ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... this a Christian country," she said, "and you haven't got a screwdriver, nor a bradawl, nor a monkey-wrench, nor a rat-tail file, nor no kind of a useful tool to bless yourselves with; and my Miss Peabody, that's worth ten dozen of you put together, has got to stay home from the Castle and eat warmed-up scraps ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... constitutional disgust for the shallow excitability of women like Camilla, whose faculties seemed all wrought up into fantasies, leaving nothing for emotion and thought. The exhortation was not yet ended when she started up and attempted to wrench her arm from Camilla's tightening grasp. It was of no use. The prophetess kept her hold like a crab, and, only incited to more eager exhortation by Romola's resistance, was carried beyond her own intention into a shrill statement of other visions ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... old sailor. "They tear off their flesh with hot pincers, wrench out their nails, and play all sorts of devil's games; and then, at last, they burn what is left of them in the marketplaces. I have heard tell of fearsome tales, lad; but the Spaniards outwit themselves. Were our men to have fair treatment as prisoners ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... crape, be sure, with an aching void in her heart, and an acute sense of the painful wrench to her life caused by this bereavement. A fine stately, woman still, though she was now fifty-five. But six years back she had sat for Sigismunda: the dreadful mistake in historical art which poor Hogarth had vainly perpetrated in ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... [Contemptuously] That ass! [Pulling the shaving papers out of the case] No! The man who put those there was clever and cool enough to wrench that creeper off the balcony, as a blind. Come and look here, General. [He goes to the window; the GENERAL follows. DE LEVIS points stage Right] See the rail of my balcony, and the rail of the next? [He holds up the cord of his dressing-gown, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... because of his heartless cruelty towards the captive girl whom he had in his power and was holding for ransom. With a twist Jim got hold of the back of Captain Bill Broome's neck, and by means of a mighty wrench he got the old wretch around in front of him, breaking free from his hold. Jim ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... Kitty did not wrench herself loose at once. She wasn't quite sure that this was not a continuance of her nightmare. She knew that nightmares had a way of breaking off in the middle of things, of never arriving anywhere. ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... Winnipeg. The French Captain Verandrye, his sons and his men, made further journeys to the far West, even once coming in sight of the Rocky Mountains. But French Canada was doomed. In twenty years more Wolfe was to wrench Canada from France and make it British. The whole French force of soldiers, free traders, and voyageurs were needed at Montreal and Quebec. Not a Frenchman seems to have remained behind, and for a number of years the way to the West was blocked up. The canoes went to decay, the ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... The wrench with which he finally pulled it up did great damage to the giant's house and his feet broke through the floor. As Tyr and Thor were departing, the latter with the huge pot clapped on his head in place of a hat, Hymir summoned his brother frost giants, and proposed ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... not to begin the work of making his rope until the sun was getting low. When it did so he tore up the blankets, twisted and knotted together the strips, and then sat down to await the coming of the jailers. He had already tried to wrench off one of the legs of the table, but it was too heavy and strongly made for him to succeed. He then thought of using the chair, but he could not feel certain of stunning the soldier with the first ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... down with a broken leg and I riding in his place. Just at present I certainly do not feel very delighted at the change. You see, from my father being a captain in the regiment, I have been brought up with it, and to be taken so suddenly away from them seems a tremendous wrench." ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... cried Captain Jimmie in dismay. He gave a wrench to the wheel, shouting orders to the Ancient Mariner to gee her around and go back, but he was too late. Before the gang-plank had been thrown out, or rope hitched, the Old Boys had leaped ashore. Captain Jimmie yelled at them to come back, but they ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... the well-mark'd footprints trac'd, "And from his lurking covert rous'd a boar; "Whom with a stroke oblique, as from the brake "To spring he went, the gallant youth transpierc'd. "Instant, with crooked tusks, the gore-stain'd spear "Wrench'd the fierce boar away, and at him rush'd, "Trembling, and safety seeking: every fang "Deep in his groin he plung'd, and on the sand "Stretch'd him expiring. Cytherea, borne "Through midmost ether in her chariot light, "Had not at Cyprus with her swans arriv'd, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... They were well matched in strength, but Frank felt that his antagonist was careless of his own life, for he had wound his legs round him, and, unable to wrench his arm from his grasp, was doing his utmost to prevent their coming ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... spirit,—one of those strange, appalling sounds of human agony which, once heard, are never forgotten. It is as the wail of Hope, when SHE, too, rushes forth from the Coffer of Woes, and vanishes into viewless space; it is the dread cry of Reason parting from clay, and of Soul, that would wrench itself from life! For a moment all was still—and then a dull, ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... at the frail cloth, he gave himself a violent wrench and rolled himself right over upon his face, searching quickly with his toes for some support, and feeling them glide over the surface again and again, till a peculiar sensation of blindness began to attack him. Then a thrill of satisfaction ran through his nerves, for one boot toe glided ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... weapon as if it had been a ball hot off the bat. In doing so I dropped my sabre and was cut across the fingers. He came at me fiercely, clubbing his gun—a raw-boned, swarthy giant, broad as a barn door. I caught the barrel as it came down. He tried to wrench it away, but I held firmly. Then he began to push up to me. I let him come, and in a moment we were grappling hip and thigh. He was a powerful man, but that was my kind of warfare. It gave me comfort when I felt the grip of his hands. I let him tug a jiffy, and then caught him with ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... forwards towards his antagonist, seeing which, Kelly sprung back, and was again meeting him with full force, when Grimes, turning a little, clutched Kelly's stick in his right hand, and being left-handed himself, ere the other could wrench the cudgel from him, he gave him a terrible blow upon the back part of the head, which laid ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... wasn't left unscrewed, Tony. We always use a wrench on those valves because high pressure is so dangerous. And it wasn't like that yesterday. I checked the tanks when we stowed ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin
... tides of Providence put in their way have never been subject to proof. Does virtue go by default where there is no opportunity to be otherwise than virtuous? The very first pipe of port, or aum of Rhenish, or bale of silk, which comes rolling along may wrestle with my morality and so wrench and twist it as to incapacitate it for ordinary usage for months, or may even permanently disable it. And must not I, venturing to regard myself as a truthful historian, frankly admit a sense allied to disappointment when the white blazing beaches are ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... both bands, Tom gave a strong, sudden wrench and succeeded in drawing the imperiled man out of ...
— The Young Engineers in Arizona - Laying Tracks on the Man-killer Quicksand • H. Irving Hancock
... with satisfaction, sunk under all the floors of sleep. She had to drag him up, with kisses first and light stroking, then with a strong undoing of their embrace, pushing back his heavy arms that fell again to her breast as she parted them. Then she would wrench herself loose and shake him by the shoulders till she woke him. He woke clean, with no ugly turning and yawning, but with a great stretching of his strong body and a short, sudden laugh, the laugh he had for danger. Then he would ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... for his chief. "Mr. Galbraith was a good bit upset, naturally. It was a pretty bad wrench for a man ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... was close at his heels he threw down his cap. The bear at once pulled up, smelt it all round, tossed it into the air with his snout, pawed it once or twice, then tore it to pieces with one wrench, and continued the chase. Very little time was lost in this operation. He was soon up with the man again; then a mitten was thrown down for his inspection. After that the other mitten went, the cravat followed, and the axe went next. All that ...
— Fast in the Ice - Adventures in the Polar Regions • R.M. Ballantyne
... of lightning That movest the French From the hands of the tyrant, The sceptre to wrench. Thou no more wilt be cheated But keep under arms Till the sway thou upholdest Is free from ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... into Manchu all documents submitted to what is called the "sacred glance" of His Majesty. In a similar sense, until quite a recent date, skill in archery was required of every Bannerman; and it was undoubtedly a great wrench when the once fatally effective weapon was consigned to an unmerited oblivion. But though Bannermen can no longer shoot with the bow and arrow, they still continue to draw monthly allowances from state funds, as an hereditary ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... moved in a hurry, though we might have done it in time. Miss O'Regan found one in hers which was looser than the rest, and Mr Rogers and I on examining it discovered that it was so eaten away with rust, that by hauling at it together we might wrench it out. What we wanted was to get free, and to go and find the British consul. The window looked into a yard surrounded by a high wall; but what was behind we couldn't tell. The bar once out we could, we thought, lower ourselves ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... waistband, like a rudimentary, Darwinian stump. To this, all at once, his hand flung back. With a wrench and a glitter, he flourished a blade above his head. Heywood sprang to intervene, in the same instant that the disturber of trade swept his arm down in frenzy. Against his own body, hilt and fist thumped home, with the sound as of a football lightly punted. He turned, with a freezing look ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout
... to weather the storm, God knows, and He alone. At the mercy of wave and wind, she was tossed and hammered and racked for two frightful days and nights, and yet she remained afloat, battered, smashed, raked from stem to stern, stripped of everything the tempest could wrench from her in its fury. And yet on the third day, when the storm abated, the sturdy ship was still riding the waves, flayed but un-conquered, and the baffled sea was licking the sides of her once more with servile though ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... Ted worked himself up until he could release his foot from the stirrup. Then, with a sudden wrench that almost pulled Stella to the ground, he was again on top. With a kick he sent the saddle to the ground, and was riding bareback, while the brute stumbled and almost went to his knees as the ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... high voice. "By God, it makes no difference—only one thing." He paused. Then with a wrench he went on, "Alves, did you—did you—" But he could not make himself utter the words, and before he had mastered his hesitation she ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... dingy room, however, Helbeck had known the most blessed, the most intimate moments of the spiritual life. To-night he entered it with a strange sense of wrench—of mortal discouragement. Mechanically he went to his writing-table, and, sitting down before it, he took a key from his watch-chain and opened a large locked note-book that lay ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... your old friends.—O, I'm so glad to see you. We've been waitin and waitin for you ever so long. Come in, luncheon ain't gone down," cried out this hospitable lady, squeezing Pen's hand in both hers (she had dropped the Major's after a brief wrench of recognition), and Blanche, casting up her eyes towards the chimneys, descended from the carriage presently, with a timid, blushing, appealing look, and gave a ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... you; don't go on in such a way as that, and force me to wrench everything from you, ...
— The Impostures of Scapin • Moliere (Poquelin)
... on the stone I had my supreme wrench, and it left me numb, hard, in a cold sweat. "Don't betray me! I'll forestall him! He's planned nothing for to-day," I whispered hoarsely. "Sally—you dearest, gamest little girl in the world! Remember I loved you, even if I couldn't prove ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... chief betray For sordid gain our new Strathspey; No fearful king, no statesmen pale, Wrench the strong claymore from the Gael. With arm'd wrist and kilted knee, No prairie Indian half so free: Stand fast, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... unfathomable gloom. All Pierre's poor weary frame quivered at the sound as he stood motionless in the centre of the expanse. What! had he spent barely three-quarters of an hour, chatting up yonder with that white old man who had just wrenched all his soul away from him! Yes, it was the final wrench; his last belief had been torn from his bleeding heart and brain. The supreme experiment had been made, a world had collapsed within him. And all at once he thought of Monsignor Nani, and reflected that he alone had been right. He, Pierre, had ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... on Stut's command lined up behind the wagon, and the boys, accompanied by Lolo, rushed for the door. It was but the work of a moment to wrench the bars away, and without waiting for any ceremony George and ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Conquest of the Savages • Roger Thompson Finlay
... Within these three houres Tullus Alone I fought in your Corioles walles, And made what worke I pleas'd: 'Tis not my blood, Wherein thou seest me maskt, for thy Reuenge Wrench vp thy power ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... simultaneous convulsed movement, one seething turmoil. In detail, the horror is most dramatically rendered. The malignancy of the devils, their brutal fury as they claw their prey, tear at their throats, and wrench back their heads; the utter horror and anguish of the victims, the confusion, the uproar, are given with a convincing realistic force, which makes the scene ghastly and terrible. In most representations of Hell, and especially of Devils, human imagination fails in conveying any sense ...
— Luca Signorelli • Maud Cruttwell
... wrench at her husband's heart that his grip tightened on the frail shoji, and with a nervous spasm he sent it clattering out of its socket flat upon the floor of the room, like a screen blown down by the wind. Ito dashed forward to help Geoffrey replace the damage. ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... is she? You have insulted me. . . . I? . . . Not a single one can wrench herself from me, never! And you say to me such offensive words." . . . And, indeed, he looked really offended. Evidently there was nothing for which he might respect himself, except for his ability to lead women astray; it may be that aside from this ability there was no life in him, and ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... scrap of paper with the pencilled message that Captain von Kessel had asked him to take to his sisters. All were greatly moved on reading the few hastily scrawled words. The incident revealed what a wrench the hearts and nerves of even the seamen had undergone. At the mention of this or that person or incident, Pander and the three sailors burst into hysterical tears. When asked whether they thought the Roland would remain ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... tragedy is one very common in Shakespeare's system. Life has been wrenched from her course. Wrenching is necessary to bring her back to her course or to keep her where she is. Hamlet is a man who understands too humanly to wish to wrench either this way or that, and too shrewdly to be himself wrenched by grosser instruments ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... slipped from his grasp; two great hands choked a despairing cry from his throat. He saw the prophet's face over him, distorted with passion, his huge neck bulging, his eyes flaming like angry garnets. He struggled to free his pinioned arms, to wrench off the death grip at his throat, but his efforts were like those of a child against a giant. In a last terrible attempt he drew up his knees inch by inch under the weight of his enemy; it was his only chance—his ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood
... round the fifteen-acre lot,—from misunderstandings with grave elder brothers, and feeling somehow as if, he knew not why, he grieved his mother all the time just by being what he was and couldn't help being,—and, finally, by a bitter break with his father, in which came that last wrench for an individual existence which some time or other the young growing mind will give to old authority,—by all these united, was the lot at length cast; for one evening James was missing at supper, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... wrench made the bones pop in the cattle king's hand, and with a yell of pain he let go. Kid Wolf took the derringer, empty now, and tossed it contemptuously to ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... drank, but the fires of hell were rising now in his eyes. There was treachery in the bottle. . . . Diane, he chose to fancy, had refused him justice, salvation, respect to the memory of his mother! . . . So be it! . . . His to wrench from the mocking, gold-hungry world whatever he could and however he would. . . . Only his mother had understood. . . . And Diane had mocked her memory. Still there had been thrilling moments of tenderness for him in Diane's life. . . . But Diane was like that—a flash of fire and then ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... on the present occasion. On the contrary, the haughty jeering tones fell bitterly upon the ear of the cibolero. He replied, at length, "Captain Roblado, I have said it is not worth my while to perform what a muchachito of ten years old would hardly deem a feat. I would not wrench my horse's mouth for such a pitiful exhibition as running him up on the edge of that ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... key of the street door, and the curtain-cord, long rotted and useless, dangled at her cheek. With a quick wrench she brought its length tumbling beside her on the sill, then knotted it to the key and let it down ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... it; and in another moment Philammon would have wrenched the bill out of his opponent's hand, when, to the utter astonishment of the onlookers, he suddenly loosed his hold, shook himself free by one powerful wrench, and quietly retreated to his seat, conscience-stricken at the fearful thirst for blood which had suddenly boiled up within him as he felt his ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... so: better so, that she should fall with tragic greatness, lit by a blazing palace! She felt not a trace of pity for Gondremark or of concern for Gruenewald: that period of her life was closed for ever, a wrench of wounded vanity alone surviving. She had but one clear idea: to flee;—and another, obscure and half-rejected, although still obeyed: to flee in the direction of the Felsenburg. She had a duty to perform, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson |
