"Wrest" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 217; grimace; deformity; malformation, malconformation^; harelip; monstrosity, misproportion^, want of symmetry, anamorphosis^; ugliness &c 846; talipes^; teratology. asymmetry; irregularity. V. distort, contort, twist, warp, wrest, writhe, make faces, deform, misshape. Adj. distorted &c v.; out of shape, irregular, asymmetric, unsymmetric^, awry, wry, askew, crooked; not true, not straight; on one side, crump^, deformed; harelipped; misshapen, misbegotten; misproportioned^, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... a brother of the late Emperor Francis Joseph and a member of that Kaiserbund and royal system which, while America was busy with domestic difficulties between the North and South, sought to wrest from Mexico her liberty. I wonder if the Mexicans have forgotten the incident ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... the frank use, in recognizable form, of the lines that he most admires. The only requirement has been that the poet should assimilate, and not merely agglomerate his acceptances, that he should as Vergil put it, "wrest the club from Hercules" and wield it as ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank
... to hate myself," said the young man in a low voice; "but even now, what can I do? What power have I to wrest her from the ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... of tenderness in her voice seemed to restore Cardo to life. He crossed the velvet path, and, laying hold of her hands, which she in vain tried to wrest from ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... in "The Freshman Full-Back" is that of character. The action has real dramatic quality and is staged with the local color of a college contest. But the great value of the action is ethical, for it shows that one may "wrest victory from defeat" and that it is a shameful thing to be ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... upon one knee, with both hands on the left side. She had the whole city at her feet, and, with the fine tact which was the perfection of her character, kept it there contented. Madame was, in short, one of the kind that gracefully wrest from society the prerogative of doing as they please, and had gone even to such extravagant lengths as driving out in the Americain faubourg, learning the English tongue, talking national politics, and similar freaks whereby she provoked the unbounded worship of her less audacious ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... took her hand in his. She glanced about wildly. She was in a whirl of terror of everything under heaven. Too dignified to wrest herself away and run, she gave him a swift glance of appeal, then bent her ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... a mere trifle to him after his hard toil as a peasant; in half an hour all his work was done, and he would once more stand stock-still in the middle of the courtyard, staring open-mouthed at all the passers-by, as though trying to wrest from them the explanation of his perplexing position; or he would suddenly go off into some corner, and flinging a long way off the broom or the spade, throw himself on his face on the ground, and lie for hours together without stirring, ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... that any of us will ever, like him, discover shipwrecked wealth, it gives us a fine example of what perseverance combined with intelligence, courage and honesty can accomplish in the face of great difficulties; for it was a union of all these qualities which enabled Sir William Phips to wrest fortune and honors ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... himself been a pirate tried to put down piracy, and he who had been a wild young robber sought to force all Norway to become Christian, he did these things in so fierce and cruel a way that at last his subjects rebelled, and King Canute came over with a great army to wrest the throne from him. On the bloody field of Stiklestad, July 29, 1030, the stern king fell, says Sigvat, ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... had met no violent resistance either from insurgents or from the States. In the Virginia convention of 1788 Patrick Henry had said: "I never will give up that darling word 'requisitions;' my country may give it up, the majority may wrest it from me, but I never will give it up till my grave." Nevertheless, when the requisitions on the States were given up, the chief cause of dispute in the Union was removed. Up to this time the only ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... of the Dutch early excited the envy and emulation of the English. The Navigation Ordinance of 1651 was aimed at them, and two wars were necessary to wrest the slave trade from them and place it in the hands of the English. The final terms of peace, among other things, surrendered New Netherlands to England and opened the way for England to become henceforth the ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois
... It is useless to insist, Brandon. If you can wrest the story from her, all well and good. You will hate me then, dear love. But it cannot be ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... Milton vainly now implore, And Powell prosper as he did before, Yet 'twere too much that, making no ado, Thy saints be slaughtered and be slandered too. So, Lord, make Knight his weapon keep in sheath, Or do Thou wrest it ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... slipped out myself without arousing anyone, and mounting at the stables, took the Orleans road through the forest. My plan was to strike at the head, and surprising Madame de Verneuil while the event; still hung uncertain, to wrest the secret from her by trick or threat. The enterprise was desperate, for I knew the stubbornness and arrogance of the woman, and the inveterate enmity which she entertained towards me, more particularly since the King's marriage. But in a dangerous case ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... King was not placated by what he said. He thought that the sons of Chalciope had returned to Aea bringing these warriors with them so that they might wrest the kingship from him, or, failing that, plunder the city. AEetes's heart was filled with wrath as he looked upon them, and his eyes shone ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum
... understood, the army moved down upon the range in companies of five and six crews, and the long summer's work began; each rider a unit in the war against the chaos which the winter had wrought; in the fight of the stockmen to wrest back their fortunes from the wilderness, and to hold once more their sway over ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... Boev, the man next in order behind Mokei, contrive to wrest himself from the grasp of the ice, though, on immersion, he started bawling, "Mates, I shall drown! I am dead already! Help me, help me!" and became so cramped with terror as to be extricated only with great difficulty, while ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... are sorry to note how completely you have misunderstood us. You have seen fit to surround yourself and household with armed guards, as though, forsooth, we were common criminals, apt to break in upon you and wrest away by force your twenty millions. Believe us, this is ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... now an impulse, like despair, Makes me these inner foldings tear! With desperate effort bids me wrest The yearning secret from my breast! Far be the thought that any blame Can fix on thy beloved name! The hapless Minstrel may not feign; But thou, I know, canst all explain— Yet let me from this place depart, To nurse my fainting, sicken'd heart! Yet let me in ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... by the same Savior, is reduced by cupidity and oppression below the level of the brute, spoiled of his humanity, plundered of his rights, and often hurried to a premature grave, the miserable victim of avarice and heedless tyranny! Men have presumptuously dared to wrest from their fellows the most precious of their rights—to intercept as far as they may the bounty and grace of the Almighty—to close the door to their intellectual progress—to shut every avenue to their moral and religious improvement, to stand between ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... demanded the recognition of the independence of the Republics and a free pardon for the Cape rebels as the price of peace. The Afrikander nationalists at once began to co-operate with the Republics in the endeavour to wrest these terms from the British Government. Mr. Schreiner, as we have seen, had already incurred Mr. Hofmeyr's displeasure by allowing the Cape Government to render assistance to the Imperial authorities in the prosecution of the war. The breach thus created between the Prime Minister ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... sense of victory which, in their perfection, belong only to the state of the blessed in Heaven. They feel that all things are possible to them through Him that strengtheneth them,(69) and that no temporal affliction, no power of man or any creature shall wrest from them the feast which they enjoy. And hence they are able to ask, in the confident words of the Apostle, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or famine, or nakedness; or danger, or persecution, or the sword ... In all ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan
... Americans, a love of freedom is the predominating feature which marks and distinguishes the whole; and as an ardent is always a jealous affection, your colonies become suspicious, restive, and untractable whenever they see the least attempt to wrest from them by force, or shuffle from them by chicanery, what they think the only advantage worth living for. This fierce spirit of liberty is stronger in the English colonies probably than in any other people of ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... are spies This hour at work. But, as thou art a man, Whom I have picked and chosen from the world, Swear that thou wilt be true to what I utter; And when I've told thee that, which only gods, And men like gods, are privy to, then swear, No chance, or change, shall wrest ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Thomas Otway
... land? It is in that great continent to whose distant shores Europe has sent forth her adventurous sons, to wrest for themselves a habitation from the wild inhabitants of the forest, and to convert the neglected soil into fields of exuberant fertility. It is, reader, in Louisiana that these bounties of nature are in the greatest perfection. ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... moment. I struck out with my clenched fists, throwing all the power I possessed into my blows, and fortunately for me—a mere boy in the grasp of a heavily-built man—he was comparatively, powerless from loss of blood consequent upon his wounds, so that I was able to wrest myself free, ...
— Blue Jackets - The Log of the Teaser • George Manville Fenn
... Troyan prisoner call'd Antenor, Yesterday took; Troy holds him very dear. Oft have you—often have you thanks therefore— Desir'd my Cressid in right great exchange, Whom Troy hath still denied; but this Antenor, I know, is such a wrest in their affairs That their negotiations all must slack Wanting his manage; and they will almost Give us a prince of blood, a son of Priam, In change of him. Let him be sent, great Princes, And he shall buy my daughter; and ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... "Manifesto": "The first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy. The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State—i.e. of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible. Of course in the beginning this cannot ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... hypothesis of the sceptic may be neutralized by opposing to it the hypothesis of the theist. But we are not satisfied to stop at this point. We intend, not merely to neutralize, but to explode, the theory of the sceptic. We intend to wrest from it the element of its strength, and grind it to atoms. We intend to lay our finger precisely upon the fallacy which lies so deeply concealed in its bosom, and from which it derives all its apparent force ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... thank you. My learned lord, we pray you to proceed, And justly and religiously unfold, Why the law Salique,(G) that they have in France, Or should, or should not, bar us in our claim: And Heaven forbid, my dear and faithful lord, That you should fashion, wrest,[4] or bow your reading,[5] Or nicely charge your understanding soul[6] With opening titles miscreate,[7] whose right Suits not in native colours with the truth. For Heaven doth know how many, now in health, Shall drop their blood in approbation[8] Of what your reverence ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... are couched in such extremely courteous terms, that sometimes civility almost borders on servility. Notwithstanding this, however, it is quite plain that it was always thoroughly understood who was master in Italy, and that any attempt on the part of the Senate to wrest any portion of real power from Theodoric would have been ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... brothers rush in with Swords drawn, wrest his Glass out of his hand, and break it against the ground; his rout make signe of resistance, but are all driven in; ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... Greece, and Carthage; and methinks that Rome, too, will run the course of other nations, and that some day, far distant maybe, she will sink beneath the weight of her power and her luxury, and that some younger and more vigorous people will, bit by bit, wrest her dominions from her and ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... also that on the completion of the Panama Canal we might be exposed to much international friction, and unless we were ready to defend the Canal and its approaches, a Foreign Power might easily do it great damage or wrest it from us, at least for a time. Here, too, was another motive for facing the possibility of war. We were growing up in almost childish trust in a world filled with warlike nations, which regarded war not only as the obvious way in which to settle disputes, but as the easiest way ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... and the generations engaged in it cannot keep, still less add to, the stores of garnered wisdom which once were theirs, and which are still in the hands of their brethren who dwell in the old land. To conquer the wilderness means to wrest victory from the same hostile forces with which mankind struggled in the immemorial infancy of our race. The primeval conditions must be met by primeval qualities which are incompatible with the retention of much that has been painfully acquired by humanity as through the ages it has ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... of my prize? I will not believe it, for it isn't in the nature of Madge Scarlet to do a good action, not even for pay. No; it is to gratify her own petty scheme of vengeance that she has stolen a march on me; but she will not succeed. I will get on her track and wrest ...
— Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective - Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express • Frank Pinkerton
... blame you, Duke," Mr. Sabin said. "My one desire now is to wrest my wife away from this gang. Can you tell me whether she left alone or ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and was greeted with ringing cheers. That evening the grasp of the Ice King was loosened by the soft touch of the south wind, and Red Dog rode in state to the adjoining camp to claim the alliance of his brother chiefs in his attempt to wrest from the agent the perpetrator of the murder of his tribesman. That the dead Indian was himself a murderer had no bearing on the matter, said Red Dog. He had simply knifed in self-defence a beggarly Brule who quarrelled with him over a girl. ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... if the story of the china religious figures will give a wrong impression of Mrs. Brandeis. Perhaps not, if you will only remember this woman's white-lipped determination to wrest a livelihood from the world, for her children and herself. They had been in Chicago a week, and she was buying at Bauder & Peck's. Now, Bauder & Peck, importers, are known the world over. It is doubtful if there is one of you who has not been supplied, indirectly, ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber
... in open and deadly warfare. It will hardly be denied by any one, that England was responsible for the conflict. The New England colonies wished to avail themselves of the opportunity to wrest New Netherland from the Dutch, and to extend their sway from Stamford to the Chesapeake. Governor Stuyvesant perceived his danger. He could be easily overpowered by the New England colonies. He wrote very friendly letters to the governors, urging that, notwithstanding the hostilities between ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott
... Louis Philippe was, it need not be said, the illustrious wielder of the sceptre which the three above-named princes desired to wrest from him. It does not appear that the sagacious monarch was esteemed by his subjects, as such a prince should have been esteemed. The light-minded people, on the contrary, were rather weary than otherwise of his sway. They were not in the least attached ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of heart which sometimes assailed her. She was perfectly happy. In each of them the good, red blood of youth ran full and strong, offering ample security against illness. They had plenty of food. In a few brief months Bill would wrest a sack of gold from the treasure house of the North, and they would journey home by easy stages. Why should she brood? It was sheer folly—a mere ebb ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... She must have education. She must have a chance to face life and wrest its lessons from it in her own way. It did not promise happiness for her. But she could go no other way. For hers was the high, stony way of those who demand more than jealous ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... other than appears. But he has some apology to offer for the vice. Many of the signs which form his dialect have come to bear an arbitrary meaning, clearly understood both by his master and himself; yet when a new want arises he must either invent a new vehicle of meaning or wrest an old one to a different purpose; and this necessity frequently recurring must tend to lessen his idea of the sanctity of symbols. Meanwhile the dog is clear in his own conscience, and draws, with a human nicety, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... several causes which shall presently be indicated, the old municipal life underwent a deep modification, the younger crafts proved strong enough to conquer their due share in the management of the city affairs. The masses, organized in "minor" arts, rose to wrest the power out of the hands of a growing oligarchy, and mostly succeeded in this task, opening again a new era of prosperity. True, that in some cities the uprising was crushed in blood, and mass decapitations of workers followed, as was the case in Paris in 1306, ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... immediate alarm among those on whom the massacre of Ferraud, and the dangers to which the Assembly was exposed, had made no impression. The dismay became general; and in a few hours the aristocrats themselves collected together a force sufficient to liberate the Assembly,* and wrest the government from the ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... Church and State than the mere question of how criminal clerks were to be dealt with. They boldly attacked the whole of the pretensions of the Church; they threatened to rob it of a mass of financial business, to wrest from its control an enormous amount of property, to deprive it of jurisdiction in the great majority of criminal suits, to limit its power of irresponsible self-government, and to prevent its absorption into the vast organization of the Church ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... although it be against yourselves, or your parents, or relations; whether the party be rich, or whether he be poor; for God is more worthy than them both: therefore follow not your own lust in bearing testimony, so that ye swerve from justice. And whether ye wrest your evidence, or decline giving it, God is well acquainted with that which ye do. O true believers, believe in God and his apostle, and the book which he hath caused to descend unto his apostle, and the book which he ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... any time, of invading Germany. Why should they? The matter of Alsace and Lorraine is finished. If these provinces ever come back to France, it will be by political means and not by any mad-headed attempt to wrest them away." ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... so sharply; and in 1829, in the capitol city of the United States of America, a court of men tried—and convicted—this solitary woman of sixty as a Common Scold. They raked up obsolete laws, studied and strove to wrest their meanings to apply to this case, got together some justification, or what seemed to them justification for their deeds, and succeeded in irretrievably ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... villain's swords, and ran with her arm lifted up to take away the life of her wretched husband: but little accustomed to such actions, the blow fell on the cords which bound him, and gave him liberty to wrest the weapon from her hands.—-He discovered immediately her thoughts, and made use of the most moving softness to calm the tempest of her soul: "If," said he, "you could read my heart, you would find grief and pity only there—-with what alas! can I accuse you!—-What are you guilty ...
— The Princess of Ponthieu - (in) The New-York Weekly Magazine or Miscellaneous Repository • Unknown
... lead to happiness; they cannot guide anyone to the promised goal. Now, I will very briefly show what serious evils are involved in following them. Just consider. Is it thy endeavour to heap up money? Why, thou must wrest it from its present possessor! Art thou minded to put on the splendour of official dignity? Thou must beg from those who have the giving of it; thou who covetest to outvie others in honour must lower thyself to the humble posture of petition. Dost thou long for ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius
... not a movement to wrest from the Turk the sovereignty of Palestine. Zionism seeks merely to establish in Palestine for such Jews as choose to go and remain there, and for their descendants, a legally secured home, where they may live together ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... Constantinople. And Constantinople is a sacred city. It's the only ancient city purely Christian in its origin, having been built by the first Christian Emperor in honour of the Blessed Virgin. Which brings us to the noblest idea of all. In their fight to wrest this city from the Turk, the three great divisions of the Church are united once more. The great Roman branch is represented by the soldiers and ships of France: the great Eastern Orthodox branch by the Russians, who ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... Europe, and Africa; To the unknown and strange Gods." And according to his example do the sons of the prophets, who, forcing out here and there four or five expressions and if need be corrupting the sense, wrest it to their own purpose; though what goes before and follows after make nothing to the matter in hand, nay, be quite against it. Which yet they do with so happy an impudence that oftentimes the civilians envy them ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... those who are riding them do in fighting for that standard, which has been grasped by a soldier, who seeks by the strength of his shoulders, as he spurs his horse to flight, having turned his body backwards and seized the staff of the standard, to wrest it by force from the hands of four others, of whom two are defending it, each with one hand, and, raising their swords in the other, are trying to sever the staff; while an old soldier in a red cap, crying ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... knew no bounds. Miss Scovill had made this long journey from San Francisco to get Helen—evidently to wrest her at once away from this ranch of mystery—and now she was going back alone, leaving the girl among the very influences she had intended ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... difficulties not only for the illiterate, but even for the learned. St. Peter himself informs us that in the Epistles of St. Paul there are "certain things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and the unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, to their own destruction."(146) And consequently he tells us elsewhere "that no prophecy of Scripture is ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... long list of troubles that was placed before the Commander-in-Chief. Disturbing as they all were, each requiring prompt and special action, there was one amongst them which stood out in bold relief—the situation at Delhi; and to wrest that stronghold from the hands of the mutineers was, General Anson conceived, his most pressing obligation. But could it be done with the means at his disposal? He thought not; and in this opinion ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... German attempts to wrest from the French the trenches they had won on November 1, 1916, on the western edge of St. Pierre Vaast Wood were unsuccessful, though at some points the German troops succeeded in penetrating the lines. But their foothold in the French trenches was only temporary, and they ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... face, animated now into stern beauty by the spirit within which spoke, "and think of it with shame. Listening to your words, I blinded myself into the belief that it was right, that it was a brave and a gallant act to wrest that Crown jewel from King Henry's hand; but I see more clearly now that my mad enterprise has met with its merited fate, and go back I will as a chivalrous knight, ask my brother King's forgiveness, and save that brave boy from ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... sunthin' said in the Bible about "spilin' the Egyptians." But I wouldn't let him wrest the Scripters to his own destruction, and told him I wouldn't, and then sez I, "I never could enjoy religion ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... encroachment or oppose violence, at last, by a gradual relaxation of vigilance, delivering up, without capitulation, the fortress which they defended against assault, and laying down unbidden the weapons which they grasp the harder for every attempt to wrest them from their hands. Men eminent for spirit and wisdom often resign themselves to voluntary pupilage, and suffer their lives to be modelled by officious ignorance, and their choice to be ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... by their own practice, and will not regulate their practice by the covenant. The apostle Peter speaks of Paul's writings, "That in them some things are hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, to their own destruction." We may fear, that tho' the text of this covenant be easy to be understood, yet some (who, at least think themselves learned), and whom we have ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... or of George Sand's. It should be endued with devotion, self-abnegation, greatness of soul, tenderness; and fine words. Her pliant nature almost rejoiced in this new attitude. She pondered almost till evening what she should do, wondering how she should manage to wrest the truth from ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... will learne thy thought: In thy dumb action, will I be as perfect As begging Hermits in their holy prayers. Thou shalt not sighe nor hold thy stumps to heauen, Nor winke, nor nod, nor kneele, nor make a signe; But I (of these) will wrest an Alphabet, And by still practice, learne ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... it spoken, let the synod now leave To wrest the whole Scripture, how souls to deceive; For all they have spoken or taught will ne'er save 'em, Unless they will leave that fault, hell's sure to ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... British aid against German ambitions[1170]. A distinct crisis was thus gradually created, coming to a head when Prussia, under Bismarck's guiding hand, dragging Austria in with her, thrust the Federal Diet of the Confederation to one side, and assumed command of the movement to wrest ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... her cheek. "Ah, no. But do not forget our conversation, loveliest of women. Things spoken in jest often come true in the end." She looked up and smiled as if enchanted at the idea. Then she rose, and when he grasped one of her hands she made no effort to wrest it away. He imprinted a long-drawn kiss on it. She shivered and then rapidly glided into the adjoining room, where the jumble of sounds produced by tuning a variety of musical instruments was now heard. The strident notes of violins, the rumbling boom of a cello, and the broken ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... and kneaded, is under an obligation to his brother, and cannot say he owes him nothing in return. The poorest of us has received from society much more than his own single strength would have permitted him to wrest from nature. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... of His creatures. We must accept them all gratefully as the results of the intelligence which He has been pleased to bestow upon us. At the same time the experience of every age teaches us that the weakness and perversity of many wrest to evil purposes these gifts, which in the Divine intention should serve only for good. It is against the perverted use of two of God's gifts that we would very ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... this and in many other instances, Mr. Everett in order to gain his cause, has been obliged to forget the command recorded in "the beggarly elements," to have been given from Mount Sinai, "thou shalt not speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgment." Exod. xxiii, 2. There are, however, cases in which lawyers allow that this precept may be dispensed with, particularly if the cause be of great importance: and more particularly still when the ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English
... such a confident assertion that he had nothing upon which to base it; that he was talking vaguely and at random; but he also knew the intense desire that had arisen in him to reverse conditions upon the man who had waited until the father died to wrest that father's pride from the son; and in some way he felt coming strength. In Biff's present frame of conviction Bobby was pleased enough to drop him in front of Kid Mills' obscure abode, and turn with a sudden hungry impulse in the direction of Agnes. At the Ellistons', ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... devilish spirit the means of destruction had been hit upon, which had so well succeeded, now stood over the body of the Georgian, with uplifted hand, about to complete the deed already begun. There was not a moment for delay, and the youth sprung forward in time to seize and wrest the weapon from his grasp. With a feeling of undisguised indignation, he exclaimed, as the ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... upright piano, the back frame of wood is first made; at the top of this is the pin-block, sometimes called the wrest-plank. This is composed of several layers of wood firmly glued together with the grain running in different directions to prevent splitting and warping. Into this plank the tuning pins are driven. The sound-board is fitted firmly into this frame of ...
— Piano Tuning - A Simple and Accurate Method for Amateurs • J. Cree Fischer
... collection of compositions by the great German masters and mediators. The boy extracted them from their resting-place, and we see the young tone-prophet striving to master the art-forms of Reinken, Buxtehude, Frescobaldi, Kerl, Froberger, and Pachelbel, endeavoring to wrest from them their style and inmost meaning by the light of the moon's pale rays, which led, alas! ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... setting free seasoned troops for operations in South Italy. The hardihood of Pitt in sending forth this expedition has often provoked criticism. But it was worth while to run serious risks to save Sicily from the grip of Napoleon, and to wrest from him the initiative which he had hitherto enjoyed unchallenged. Besides, the Czar insisted on that effort, and made it almost a sine qua non of his alliance. In a military sense the results were contemptible; in the diplomatic sphere they ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... for the sea that enabled her to master the new conditions first and most completely and that placed the trident in her hands so firmly that no enemy has ever been able to wrest it from her. Henry VIII paid great attention to the navy. He had fifty-three vessels with an aggregate of 11,268 tons, an average of 200 tons each, carrying 1750 soldiers, 1250 sailors and 2085 guns. Under Elizabeth the number of vessels had ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... the adjudication by the Supreme Court of cases in which appeals may hereafter be taken, but interdicts its jurisdiction on appeals which have already been made to that high judicial body. If, therefore, it should become a law, it will by its retroactive operation wrest from the citizen a remedy which he enjoyed at the time of his appeal. It will thus operate most harshly upon those who believe that justice has been denied them in ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... and hunger he sought shelter amidst the ruins of Carthage. Carthage, whose fallen towers lay in crumbling masses around him, was once the rival city of imperial Rome herself, and, under the able leadership of Hannibal, threatened to wrest from the queen of the Seven Hills the rule of the world. Now its streets are covered with grass; the wild scream of the bird of solitude and the moanings of the night-owl mingle with the sobs of a fallen demigod who once made the earth shake ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... not content with attempting to wrest from us our inherited freedom of religious worship, Charles Stuart and his abettors have pursued the courageous constancy with which we have defended the same, with more animosity than they ever ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... completely corrupted, I would rather lose my life by open military violence, than be conjured out of it by the hocus-pocus of some arbitrary lawyer, who lends the knowledge he has of the statutes made for our protection, to wrest ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... darted forward and tried to wrest it from his grasp. Finding his strength too great, she straightened swiftly and lifting one foot, brought her riding boot down fiercely with all her strength on Lynch's hand. With a smothered grunt his fingers laxed, and she caught up the weapon and stepped ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... his corner, Frank rose up, seized the pile of slates, turned them over, and examined the first intently, while Bert watched him with breathless expectancy, and Cohen, at first too surprised to act, sprang forward to wrest it from his hands. But Frank moved out of his reach, and at the same time, with a triumphant smile, exhibited the face of the slate to the rest of the class, ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... permit. Soon after, Dr Sparrman stepped aside into a thicket in search of a bayonet, which he had lost from the end of his musket. One of the natives, finding the temptation of the moment irresistible, grasped my fowling-piece, and struggled to wrest it from me. I called to my companion, and the two other natives ran away, unwilling to become the accomplices in this attack. In the struggle, our feet were entangled in a bush, and we both fell ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... coined, with which I was so well pleased, that I was resolved to keep it for the sake of the giver; or, as the common phrase is, to make a keepsake of it: and this resolution I held so sacred, that neither childish toy, or youthful pleasure, could wrest the treasure from me. ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... no very difficult matter for Monte to wrest the revolver from Hamilton's weak fingers, even with one arm hanging limp; but it was quite a different proposition to quiet Madame Courcy and Marie, who were screaming hysterically in the hall. Marjory, ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... disagreement deterred them from pursuing it to a conclusion, and they passed on quickly to some other question. And when, after months had been spent in these Penelopean labors, definite decisions respecting the peace had to be taken lest the impatient people should rise up and wrest matters into their own hands, the delegates referred the various problems which they had been unable to solve to the wisdom and tact of the ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... threatened; publicly terrified into a cowardly and disgraceful state of submission; and it was quite impossible that he could permanently continue as he then was. He must fully recover all his lost prestige and add immeasurably to it, or must be content to see some ambitious chief rise up and wrest the kingdom from him. These presumptuous strangers had forced him into enmity against them, and they must take ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... her cheeks and neck. He seized her brutally by the chin, and forced her to raise her face. "Blushing, I see?" he continued. "Blushing, blushing, eh? So it is for him you thrill, and lie awake, and dream of kisses, is it? For this new youth and not for Grio? Nay, struggle not! Wrest not yourself away! Let ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... first visit to the place, weeks after their return to New York. He had not felt friendly to Droom since the day at the prison; but now he was forgetting his resentment, in the determination to wrest from him the names of Jane's father and mother. He was confident that ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... questions, managed to wrest his attention long enough from the diversion of flea hunting to advance the theory that the power which made the lightning and the rain and the thunder came from Goro, the moon. He knew this, he said, because the Dum-Dum always was danced in the light of Goro. This reasoning, though ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... piston-rod. As soon as his nose was turned towards Bonaventure he smelt the wind of home in his nostrils; his hatchet head jerked till he got the bit straight between his teeth; then, gripping it as a fretful dog clamps the bone which his master pretends to wrest from him, he leaned down to his work, and the mud, the new-fallen snow and the slush flew like dirty sparks, and covered man ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... generous, full of gentle qualities, Incapable of base compliances, No prodigal in his nature, but affecting This shew of bravery for ambitious ends. He drinks, for 'tis the humour of the court, And drink may one day wrest the secret from him, And pluck you from your hiding ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... 1781, made the following declaration to the Court of Directors. "The Mahrattas have demanded the sacrifice of the person of Ragonaut Row, the surrender of the fort and territories of Ahmedabad, and of the fortress of Gualior, which are not ours to give, and which we could not wrest from the proprietors without the greatest violation of public faith. No state of affairs, in our opinions, could warrant our acquiescence to such requisition; and we are morally certain, that, had we yielded to them, such ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... "The fools will make him king if we do not act and act quickly. Get into the city, Pan-sat—let your feet fly and raise the cry that Ja-don has killed the king and is seeking to wrest the throne from O-lo-a. Spread the word as you know best how to spread it that Ja-don has threatened to destroy the priests and hurl the altars of the temple into Jad-ben-lul. Rouse the warriors of the city and ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... God is jealous, and nowhere states that God is without passions or emotions, we must evidently infer that Moses held this doctrine himself, or at any rate, that he wished to teach it, nor must we refrain because such a belief seems contrary to reason: for as we have shown, we cannot wrest the meaning of texts to suit the dictates of our reason, or our preconceived opinions. The whole knowledge of the Bible must be ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... weapons to ostrich eggs, from a lion's mighty coat to a tobacco-stopper chipped out of a morsel of deal, were piled together, pell-mell, or hung against the whitewashed walls, or suspended by cords from bed to bed. Everything that ingenuity and hardihood, prompted by the sharp spur of hunger, could wrest from the foe, from the country, from earth or water, from wild beasts or rock, were here in the midst of the soldiers' regimental pallets and regimental arms, making the barracks at once atelier, storehouse, workshop, and bazaar; while the ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... terror, snorted at the smell of blood, but he did not move. Maurice, equally dazed, scrambled into the saddle—almost inert—a dead weight—a thing that impeded progress and movement; but the thing that Crystal loved above all things on earth and which Bobby knew he must wrest out of these devouring jaws of Death and lay—safe and sound—within ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... was that Mr. Grey left the house of Grey & Barry, driven to premature retirement by the vices, or rather frauds, of old Mr. Scarborough. When Augustus went to work, which he did immediately on his father's death, to wrest the property from the hands of his brother,—or what part of the property might be possible,—Mr. Grey absolutely declined to have anything to do with the case. Mr. Barry explained how impossible it was ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... welcomed by the Protestants. But it was just as decidedly unwelcome to the other party. An expression which was then reported in Brussels shewed how lively the hatred was, and how widely and how far into the future political combinations extended. It was said that this marriage was designed to wrest the Imperial throne from the house of Austria; but it was added, with haughty reliance on the strength of Catholic Europe, that this design ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... I found nothing but a lonely spot and a wood. I wished to turn back, but the fellow paid no attention to my desire, and continued walking towards the wood. I then snatched my portmanteau from him, and refused to proceed any further. He endeavoured to wrest it from me, when, luckily, I saw in the distance two English soldiers, who hastened up in answer to my cries, and, on seeing this, the fellow ran off. I related my adventure to the soldiers, who congratulated me on the recovery of my luggage, and conducted me to the barracks, where ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... proof that at least the Jew Would wrest Christ's name from the Devil's crew. Thy face took never so deep a shade But we fought them in it, God our aid! A trophy to bear, as we march, thy band South, East, and on to the ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... He shouts, and wildly, with a desperate voice, As if he did rejoice That death had done his worst; And in his very desperation blessed, He felt that life could never more be cursed; And from its gross remains he still might wrest A something, not a joy, but needful to his breast! His hope is in the thought that he shall gain Sweet vengeance for the slain— For her, the sole, the one More dear to him than daylight or the sun, That perished to be pure! No more! no ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... straightforward sense; and that St. Paul meant by them what working-men mean by them in the affairs of daily life. No doubt St. Peter says that there are many things in St. Paul's writings difficult to be understood, which those who are unlearned and unstable wrest to their own destruction; and, most true it is, so they do daily. But what does "wresting" a thing mean? It means twisting it, bending it, turning it out of its original straightforward, natural meaning, into some ...
— Twenty-Five Village Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... always drew her nearer and nearer to him; and the forest and its strange voices seemed a dark, opposing influence, which strove to take possession of her heart and to wrest her away from him forever; she helplessly clung to him; every thought and emotion of her soul clustered about him, and every hope of life and happiness was ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... a century of bitter experience was needed ere the masses discovered that their ancient rulers were like the suits of armour in the Tower of London—empty iron astride of wooden steeds, and armed with lances which every ploughboy could wrest out of their hands, and use ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley
... doing, he had indirectly laid himself open to the unanswerable charge of usurpation; and with perfect impunity, both moral and legal, his crew if so disposed, and to that end competent, could refuse all further obedience to him, and even violently wrest from him the command. From even the barely hinted imputation of usurpation, and the possible consequences of such a suppressed impression gaining ground, Ahab must of course have been most anxious to protect himself. That protection could only consist in his own ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... his hornes towardes the east, streightwais the vpper horne was diuided into two, out of the the mids of which diuision a burning brand sprang vp, casting from it a farre off coles and sparks, as it had beene of fire. The bodie of the moone in the meane time that was beneath, semed to wrest and writh in resemblance like to an adder or snake that had bene beaten, and anon after it came to the old state againe. This chanced aboue a dozzen times, and at length from horne ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (5 of 12) - Henrie the Second • Raphael Holinshed
... very soon the king was forced to humble himself, and send messengers to beg his forgiveness. The Campeador was too generous to bear malice, and rode joyfully back, to find Sancho besieging Zamora. And an ill day it was for the king when he resolved to wrest his sister's possessions from her; for one of her citizens, spurred by love to his lady, gained admittance into the royal camp and offered to betray the city. A councillor of the princess, the old Arias Gonzalo, cried to the king from the walls to lend no ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... sympathy with the energies of the living system. Could we recover the hand from the Cross, or from the custody of the Black Douglas, I would be pleased to observe this wonderful operation of occult sympathies. But, I fear me, one might as safely go to wrest the joint from the talons of ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... the people. The latter desired a revision of the laws, and such modifications of the power and discretion of the magistrates as would be in sympathy with the spirit of personal liberty that pervaded the minds of the colonists. But while the people sought to wrest an arbitrary power from the unwilling hands of their judges, they found no pity in their hearts for the poor Negroes in their midst, who, having served as slaves because of their numerical weakness and the passive silence of justice, were now ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... makers were therefore under the necessity of using the cast-steel, if they would retain their trade in cutlery against France; and Huntsman's home trade rapidly increased. And then began the efforts of the Sheffield men to wrest his secret from him. For Huntsman had not taken out any patent for his invention, his only protection being in preserving his process as much a mystery as possible. All the workmen employed by him were pledged to inviolable secrecy; strangers were carefully excluded from the works; and the ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... us, or, to be more exact, has permitted us to wrest from the Indian and from creeping snake and prowling beast, a goodly land. Here we raise a product that supplies a need of the world that cannot be so acceptably filled up to the present time by any other quarter of ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... demonstrations from the Evangelical and Apostolic [writings] by perverting the interpretations and falsifying the expositions [Greek: exegeseis], but also from the law and the prophets; as ... being able to wrest what is ambiguous into many [senses] by their ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... if it has done much in the direction of satisfying man's straining and thirsting mind and his noble aspirations for knowledge, physical as to its most important particulars, it has ever laughed at man's puny efforts to wrest the great secrets of Infinitude by the help of only mechanical apparatus. While the spectroscope has shown the probable similarity of terrestrial and sidereal substance, the chemical actions peculiar to the variously progressed orbs of space have not been detected, nor proven to be identical ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... what she has done to all other countries; that is, duplicate her rival's fortification plans, her total military and naval strength; and so forth, and so on. The United States is not an enemy, but there are possibilities of her becoming so. Some day she must wrest Cuba from Spain, and then she may become a recognized ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... trifle sleepy he looks. He also looks, for a man who has just been indulging in a fit of severe self-depreciation, exceedingly confident and full of faith in himself. And why not? Let that man despair who has lost confidence in his own ability to wrest favors from the fingers of Fate or Fortune. Despair is ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... elder. Through the powerful protection of the Marshal de DURAS,[8] her lover, she prevailed over her formidable rival, who, however, had on her side the public, and the sublimity of her talent. This quarrel arose from Madame VESTRIS wishing to wrest from Mademoiselle SAINVAL the parts for which she was engaged. A memoir, written by an indiscreet friend, in favour of the latter, which she scorned to disavow, and in which the court was not spared, caused her to be banished from the capital by a lettre de cachet. The public, informed ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... easy prey to the eagle of Hapsburg, This will extend our dominions to the Adriatic sea. When the Duke of Modena is gathered to his fathers, my brother, in right of his wife, succeeds to the title; and as Ferrara once belonged to the house of Modena, he and I together can easily wrest it from the pope. Close by are the Tortonese and Alessandria, two fair provinces which the King of Sardinia supposes to be his. They once formed a portion of the duchy of Milan; and Milan is ours, ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... avail me to answer you?' said Edward sullenly. 'You appear convinced of my guilt, and wrest every reply I have made to support your own preconceived opinion. Enjoy your supposed triumph, then, and torment me no further. If I am capable of the cowardice and treachery your charge burdens me with, I am not worthy to ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... good lives never can secure Men from bad livers. Worst men will have best 40 As ill as they, or heaven to hell they'll wrest. ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... likely to gain ground upon them in this way, I threw down my weapons, and advanced unarmed, hoping that if they let me near them I might suddenly close with the eldest and wrest his gun from him. After advancing about sixty or seventy yards towards them, I found that they again began to retreat, evidently determined not to let me approach any nearer, either armed or unarmed. Upon this I halted, and endeavoured ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... mother were, however, soon relieved. Mr. Dougherty (an Indian trader), communicated the circumstance of the case to Major O'Fallon, (the agent), who immediately and peremptorily ordered the restoration of the child to its mother, and informed the trader that any future attempt to wrest it from her should be at ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... descendants of pioneers, or, in a sense, pioneers themselves; of men winnowed out from among the nations of the Old World by the energy, boldness, and love of adventure found in their own eager hearts. Such a Nation, so placed, will surely wrest success from fortune. ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... very well to say extort, for you may sooner wrest Hercules's Club out of his Hands than get a Play-day from him; but Time was when Nobody lov'd ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... State. It has hitherto withstood several violent Shocks from the Kings of Jerebi and Alniob, and the Emperor of the Maregins, who were all its professed Enemies. Especially the King of Alniob, who, taking Advantage of the Frenzy of one of its Sovereigns, made such a Progress, as to wrest the Sceptre out of his Hands; but the great Zokitarezoul, having compelled him to renounce even the very Title, has brought all the others into Subjection so as to acknowledge his Superiority over ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon
... God, Page 41, 2d Edit. "To this also might be added the strict Injunctions that God hath laid upon the subordinate Dispensers of his Law; as namely, to judge the People with just Judgment, not to wrest Judgment, nor respect Persons; yea, he curseth them that pervert Judgment, and will surely reprove them that accept Persons; and shall mortal Man be more just than God? will he, under such Penalties, command Men to do thus, and not do ...
— Free and Impartial Thoughts, on the Sovereignty of God, The Doctrines of Election, Reprobation, and Original Sin: Humbly Addressed To all who Believe and Profess those DOCTRINES. • Richard Finch
... of man those motives which are most suitable to deter him from committing injurious actions. If these motives fail of the proper effect, if they are unable to influence him, society, for its own peculiar good, is obliged to wrest from him the power of doing it further injury. From whatever source his actions may arise, therefore, whether they are the result of free-agency, or whether they are the offspring of necessity, society coerces him if, after having furnished him with motives, sufficiently powerful ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... (Baron Parke's) last Friday. Took down with me David Dundas, a Whig lawyer, and a very agreeable accomplished man, plenty of pleasant talk. Went over to Wrest, Lord de Grey's new house—built, decorated, and furnished by himself—and very perfect in all ways. Heard on Sunday a Mr. Howorth preach—an admirable preacher, who ought to be promoted in the Church, just as ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... Giant's Grave. We know little of the history of that giant, except that he carried off the wife of another giant who lived on the Great Island opposite, and held her here in his fastness amid the pine trees against all efforts to wrest her from him. A huge rock that he hurled back in one of these fights is still to be seen on the shore ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... power to hold back the flood of youth, seeking almost in vain to re-discover the spring that moved me then. Yet, though I can not feel it again, I know dimly what it was, that high, strange, noble, ludicrous ideal of my office which so laid hold on me as to scatter passion's forces and wrest me from the arms of her I loved. I can not now so think of my kingship, so magnify its claim, or conceive that it matters so greatly to the world how I hold it or what manner of man I show myself. I come to the conclusion (though it may seem to border on paradox) that in a like case I could not, ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... man who had brought death to Henry Wilton, and had twice sought my life in the effort to wrest from me a packet of information I did not have. This was the man whose face had gleamed fierce and hateful in the lantern's flash in the alley. This was the man I had sworn to bring to the gallows for a brutal ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... in the sights and sounds of New York she could not help thinking of how different it might all have been if she had not met Kathleen. The busy, endless streets terrified her and the more she saw of the great metropolis the less confidence she felt in her own power to wrest a living from it, ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... ever since. I will tell you what I believe to-day," she went on passionately. "I believe that the very class who was standing the firmest, whose fingers grasp most tightly the sword of warfare, will be most grateful to the people who will wrest the initiative from them and show them the way to an honourable, ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Wessex it saved England. The spell of terror was broken. The tide of invasion turned. From an attitude of attack the northmen were thrown back on an attitude of defence. The whole reign of AElfred was a preparation for a fresh struggle that was to wrest back from the pirates ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... last caressing pat to the tray before closing the trunk, and the look of her thin hands, with their slightly swollen knuckles, caused him to lean forward suddenly and wrest the keys away ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... of a man who had picked up an iron bar, and managed to wrest it from him, but another struck him violently on the head, and he had a very indistinct idea of what went on during the next minute or two. There was a struggling knot of men pressed against the side of the car, but it broke up when more figures came running ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... descended Kelly shot up his hand and caught it. He twisted on the oar to wrest it from Denny's grasp, and the two suddenly went to the floor, jarring ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... the end of our madness and we became again sober Christians. Most notable was Captain Bovill. 'We have seen what we have seen,' he told us, as we cast up our defences under Spanish bullets, 'and none shall wrest the secret from us. If God wills that we perish, 'twill perish too. The odds are something heavier than I like, and if the worst befall I trust every man to fling into the river what jewels he carries sooner than let them become spoil of war. For if they see ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... appoint you the executors of my last will. By the Feruer of my dead father, and in the name of all good and pure spirits, I conjure you not to suffer the government to fall into the hands of the unfaithful Magi. If they have obtained possession thereof by artifice, wrest it from their hands in like manner; if by force, use force to win it back. Obey this my last will, and the earth will yield you its fruits abundantly; your wives, your flocks and herds shall be blessed and freedom shall be your portion. Refuse to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... episode is typical of what went on at the Hudson's Bay forts for ten years. Each year, when the English ships came out to Nelson on the west coast, armed bands were sent south to wrest the forts on James Bay from the French; and each spring, when Iberville's bushrovers came gliding down the rivers in their canoes from Canada, there was a fight to drive out the English. Then the Indians would scatter to their hunting grounds. ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... for themselves; but how can they be certain that his descendants will have the same virtues; and when once an absolute power is granted to a good prince, it will be in vain that the people will endeavour to wrest it from the hands of a bad one.—Never can any point be redeemed from the crown without a vast effusion of blood, and the endangering such calamities on the country, that the relief would be as bad as the disease. Upon the whole, therefore, I cannot think Patkul in the wrong for attempting ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... Portugal, being equally near to Africa, was also overrun by Moors, and for ages the Portuguese had been at war with them, finally vanquishing them early in Columbus's century. A wise Portuguese prince then decided on a scheme for breaking their power utterly; and that was to wrest from them their enormous trade with Arabia and India; for their trade made their wealth and their wealth ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... says a modern writer, "in such circumstances of the brothers, drifting they knew not whither, in intolerable silence and loneliness on the bosom of a river which had caused the death of so many men who had endeavoured to wrest from it its secret." Two days later a large village appeared, and suddenly a cry rang through the air: "Holloa, you Englishmen! You come here!" It came from a "little squinting fellow" dressed in an English soldier's jacket, a messenger from the Chief of Bonney on the coast, buying slaves for ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... him an official standing, perhaps not so distinguished as that of a policeman, but still eminently worth while; and Mr. Shrimplin added not a little to the sense of its importance by dilating on the intrigues of ambitious rivals who desired to wrest his contract from him; and he impressed Custer, who frequently accompanied him on his rounds, with the wisdom of keeping the lamps that shone upon the homes of members of the town council in especially good order. Furthermore, there were possibilities ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... art a man, Whom I have pick'd and chosen from the world, Swear that thou wilt be true to what I utter; And when I've told thee that which only gods, And men like gods, are privy to, then swear No chance or change shall wrest ...
— Venice Preserved - A Tragedy • Thomas Otway
... right ahead, and we call to mind that this was the scene of one of England's great naval victories. These rocks, so still and peaceful now, have resounded to the din of deadly strife, when, in the year 1797, a Spanish fleet, of twenty-seven sail, tried to wrest the dominion of the seas from its lawful holders, the English fleet, under Sir John Jervis, numbering only ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... slope it stood still for what seemed an age. They saw the two in bow and stern struggle desperately again and again to wrest their craft from the clutch of the current. Then, almost with a leap, freed from the fierce resistance of the rapids, the canoe slid over the brink of the incline, into the deeper ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... blessings, Balm of my soul, and saviour of my justice! Oh! blest were kings, when fraud ensnares their sense, And passion arms their hands, if still they found One who like thee dared stand the victim's friend, Wrest from proud lawless Power his brandished javelin, And make him virtuous in ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... man with the vile and perishable insect. In denying both, you overturn the whole system of religion, whether natural or revealed; and in denying religion, you deprive the poor of the only comfort which supports them under their distresses and afflictions; you wrest from the hands of the powerful and rich the only bridle to their injustices and passions, and pluck from the hearts of the guilty the greatest check to their crimes—I mean this remorse of conscience which can never be the result of a handful ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... To will what he can do; for since 'tis vain To will what can't be compassed, to abstain From idle wishing is philosophy. Lo, all our happiness and grief imply Knowledge or not of will's ability: They therefore can, who will what ought to be. Nor wrest true reason from her seat awry. Nor what a man can, should he always will: Oft seemeth sweet what after is not so; And what I wished, when had, hath cost a tear. Then, reader of these lines, if thou wouldst still Be helpful to thyself, ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... ingenuity. What are they for? To be hidden in a napkin till some crushing calamity comes and shakes us out of our indifference enough to make us exercise them? No! They are given us to prevent calamity, to wrest from earth, air, and sea what is needed for our comfort. He gave man dominion. That does not mean just sitting back and bearing with resignation. It means using every faculty to reduce contending forces to our requirements. Patience is not half a virtue when it ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... Hampden, then and now! The year he left us, The People in full Parliament could wrest The Bill of Rights from the reluctant King; And now, he'll find in an obscure small room A stealthy gathering of great-hearted men That take up England's ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... hot milk will be all we need," she said, whereupon Radcliffe leaped upon her, trying to wrest the transmitter from her hand, beating her with his hard ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... Dearest, I must not shield myself behind the sweet excuse you find for me. I did think of the other man. It wasn't that I was afraid that he would intimidate me, and so corrupt my love. Not all the tyrannies of the world could do that now. But if from revenge or a desire to wrest me away from you by making you cast me off he told you his story before I had told you mine! That was a day-long and night-long terror, and now I confess it lest you should think me ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... loud that sundry heard him: 'E'en had King Olaf no larger ship than this, King Svein would with the Danish host alone never wrest it from him.' Then went the men to their ships and took the tilts from off them; whilst the chiefs were talking among themselves of that which is writ above saw they sailing along three very large ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... one of them, "my gods, my Sun-god, thus says Nin, thy handmaid, the dust of thy feet. At the feet of the king my lord, my gods, my Sun-god, seven times seven I prostrate myself. Let the king my lord wrest his country from the hand of the Bedwin, in order that they may not rob it. The city of Zaphon has been captured. This is for the information of ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce
... save the monarchy. His mission was in vain. General Marmont, to spare the useless shedding of blood, entered into a truce—some said a capitulation—with the revolutionary forces. The Duke d'Angouleme, in his rage, called the venerable marshal to his face a traitor. In endeavoring to wrest from him his sword, the duke severely wounded his own hand. General Marmont was put under arrest; but soon, by the more considerate ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott |
