"Claw" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... me, Captain, what voyage thou art about to undertake next," said the Goodman, sucking a lobster-claw ...
— The Puritan Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... blind to the fact that you are clutching both arms around them, that no gleam of flashing gold may reveal their whereabouts to him. You draw yourself up in your shell, projecting a monosyllabic claw occasionally as a sign of continued vitality; but the pachyderm does not withdraw, and you gradually lower into an ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... felt that the joke had been carried far enough, he would rise in his wrath, chase the cat out into the kitchen, around the back-yard, into the kitchen again, and then, perhaps, have it out with the cat under the sink—without the loss of a hair, the use of a claw, or an angry spit or snarl. Punch and the cat slept together, and dined together, in utter harmony; and the master has often gone up to his own bed, after a solitary cigar, and left them purring and ...
— A Boy I Knew and Four Dogs • Laurence Hutton
... had turned sicklier and uglier as his friend had continued to speak. He looked now as if he would like to pounce upon me with his claw-like fingers. He was evidently between the desire to question me outright as to whether anything had passed between me and the Countess, and the dislike of showing openly to a stranger any suspicion of his wife. The latter feeling prevailed, and he regained control of himself. ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... on almost scientific observation of natural phenomena. Unlike Wordsworth, Tennyson does not regard nature as a manifestation of the divine spirit of love. He sees her more from the new scientific point of view, as "red in tooth and claw with rapine." The ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... puzzle was, how he got there; for there was no chair within reach of the table, and he was much too small to have jumped up on it; while the theory of the servant, who propounded that he must have climbed up by the table-cloth, tooth over claw, was wild, and simply entitled to the contempt of any person aware of the difference between dog and cat. There is but one acceptable theory on the subject,—that he was down in the caverns of the beef, tail and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... spectacles. I had never seen her betray emotion before during all the years of our friendship. The look and the tone of her voice moved me. I expressed my sympathy and my readiness to do anything in my power to snatch the infatuated boy from the claw and fang of the syren and hale him to the forgiving feet of Maisie Ellerton. Indeed, such a chivalrous adventure had vaguely passed through my mind during my exalted mood at Murglebed-on-Sea. But then I knew little beyond the fact that Dale was fluttering round an undesirable candle. Till now ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... of all that is unreal or needlessly perplexing, and make it speak plainly and humanly to people who have their duty to do and their battle to fight?" It makes intelligent, sympathetic, and helpful living take the place of the tooth and the claw, the growl and the deadly hiss of the jungle—all right in their places, but with no place ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... night-blooming cereus. The walls of her bungalow seemed to be tinted red, varying to purple, which gave a strange yet most pleasing effect in the setting of blossoms. Not till later did I learn that this was the rare Cat's Claw wood, nowhere to be ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... the light of the dimly burning lantern I saw a thousand-leg, reddish brown and ten inches long, halting perhaps for breath midway between my knee and waist. It seemed indeed to have a thousand legs, and each separate foot made impresses of terror on my mind, while each toe and claw clutched my ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... see," explained the young woodsman. "When a gopher goes down his hole, he simply draws in his flippers and slides, but when he wants to get out he has to claw his way up. You'll see the first hole has the sand pressed smooth at the entrance, while the sand in the other hole shows the mark of the flippers. That third hole is easy, too; you can see the coon ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... A fulsome Trot and good for nought, Unless it be to chat; You stole a Spoon out of the Room, Last Christning you were at: You lye you Bitch you've got the Itch, Your Neighbours know you are not sound; Look how you Claw with your nasty Paw, And I'll fell you to the Ground; You've tore my Hood, you shall make it good If ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... lovely it all is; but let us penetrate beneath the canopy of leaves and the cottage roof. Ah, what suffering of man or beast they hide, where on the one hand the wolf, the fox, the wild cat, the hawk, the stoat, and all the birds and beasts of prey tear their victims, and nature's hand is like a claw, red with blood—and on the other, beneath the cottage roofs, many a bed-ridden sufferer lies groaning with painful disease, many children mourn their sires, many widows and orphans feel that the light is withdrawn from the world, so far ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... man stopped and blinked up uncertainly from under the sodden brim of his hat. His dirty claw-like hands clutched his coat together in an instinctive gesture of concealment. He seemed disturbed and even rather offended at ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... which the life and well-being of some can be secured only through the suffering and final extinction of others; and even in its higher stages, cunning and unscrupulous strength frequently overcomes humane wisdom fettered by weakness. "Nature, red in tooth and claw, with ravin shrieks against the creed" of the Theist. If God is working through evolution, we must admit that he has marvellously hidden himself, and agree with the poet that he does "move in a mysterious way ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote
... all that, my dear. You do, that I know. But I don't see how it's to be managed. Mart Tinman and I have been at tooth and claw to-day and half the night; and he has thrown off the mask, or he's dashed something from my sight, I don't know which. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and cunning, with slanted rat's eyes. Ornate head-dress and stiffly inlaid robes denoted him to be the High Priest. He held a claw-like hand high. ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... privately roasted, that mystic individual muttered incantations over it, and then they all grasped at it, exclaiming, "Thus we pull Buckra to pieces!" He gave them parched corn and ground-nuts to be eaten as internal safeguards on the day before the outbreak, and a consecrated cullah, or crab's claw, to be carried in the mouth by each, as an amulet. These rather questionable means secured him a power which was very unquestionable; the witnesses examined in his presence all showed dread of his conjurations, and referred to him indirectly, with a kind of awe, as "the little ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... in the evening, after a long day's work in the hayfield or carting manure, was never too tired, nor for the matter of that too dirty, to take the baby, and let it dab its fat hands on his face, or claw at his grizzled whiskers or slobber open-mouthed ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker
... Sun. There for the stranger crew With cunning spells she knew To mix th' enchanted cup. For whoso drinks it up, Must suffer hideous change To monstrous shapes and strange. One like a boar appears; This his huge form uprears, Mighty in bulk and limb— An Afric lion—grim With claw and fang. Confessed A wolf, this, sore distressed When he would weep, doth howl; And, strangely tame, these prowl ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius
... tang of ... well, it was not wholly ease As back into your mind the man's look came. Stricken in years a little,—such a brow His eyes had to live under!—clear as flint On either side the formidable nose Curved, cut and coloured like an eagle's claw. Had he to do with A.'s surprising fate? When altogether old B. disappeared And young C. got his mistress,—was't our friend, His letter to the King, that did it all? What paid the bloodless man for so much pains? Our Lord the King has favourites manifold, And ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... of electric lights, and remembered the glow of Fargo in Eastern Dakota as I saw it across the prairie. Then the mines were no longer separate: they joined together and became like a fiery reptile, a dragon in the outcrop, clawing deep with every joint, wounding the earth with every claw, as a centipede wounds with every poisoned foot. The white residues gleamed beneath the moon, from every smoke stack poured smoke: the dragon breathed. Then the great white cyanide tanks were like bosses on the beast; the train stopped, and the battery roared. ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... when she comes in at a barn door." Between the windows stood an old, old-fashioned secretary, that filled up from floor to ceiling; and over the fireplace a mirror of equally antique date tilted forward from the wall. Opposite the secretary, a plain mahogany table; and eight high-backed, claw-footed chairs ranged stiffly ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... sir,—that is my ambition; I had it from a child, sir; dreamed of it three tunes, ma'am. If I had back my property in that phenomenon, I would go at the thing, slap-bang, take the York, and bring out the phenomenon with A CLAW!" ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... culture hum." Mr. Fuller, I understand, reproached her with her stockyards—an injustice which even Mr. Bernard Shaw would scarcely have committed. Is it the fault of Chicago that the world is carnivorous? Was not "Nature red in tooth and claw" several aeons before Chicago was thought of? I do not understand that any unnecessary cruelty is practised in the stockyards; and apart from that, I fail to see that systematic slaughter of animals for food is any more disgusting than sporadic ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... mean, pokey, ugly little dirty hovel it was! The thatch was getting scraggy over the gables and sagging at the back. In the front it was sodden. A rainy brown streak reached down to the little window looking like the claw of a great bird upon the walls. He had been letting everything go to the bad. That might not signify in the past. ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... in their shadow a score of boarding-houses alternately languished and flourished. The summer cottage also appeared and multiplied; and with it came many of the peculiar features which man elaborates in his struggle toward the finest civilization—afternoon teas, and amateur theatricals, and claw-hammer coats, and a casino, and even a few ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... performing thereon a rude mystery-play. The play thus improvised by a handful of troopers before this motley invading army: before the feudal cavalry of Burgundy, strange steel monsters, half bird, half reptile, with steel beaked and winged helmets and claw-like steel shoes, and jointed steel corselet and rustling steel mail coat; before the infantry of Gascony, rapid and rapacious with their tattered doublets and rag-bound feet; before the over-fed, immensely plumed, and slashed and furbelowed giants of Switzerland, and the starved, half-naked ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... but did exactly what it liked. Its name was Lorrito. It was a very human bird; I saw it eat some bread and milk from its tin one day and then sidle along a pole to a place where there was a towel hanging. It took a corner of the towel in its claw, wiped its beak with it, and then sidled back again. It would sometimes come and see me at breakfast; it got from a chair-back on to the table by dropping its head and putting its round beak on to the table first, ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... Nance who, having mothered him from his birth, worked with him through the long night of agony; and who, when the end came, cut the faded cotton flowers from her hat to put in the tiny claw-like hand that had never touched a real blossom; and it was Nance's heart that broke when they took ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... their horrid meal, were added the flapping wings and croaking cries of innumerable night birds flocking to the carnage; and these were blended still with the sharp outcries, and faint murmurs, that told how keener than the mortal sword were the beak and talon, the fang and claw, of the wild ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... last emperor of Anahuac. Here he hung in the dim and desolate forest, dead by the death of a thief, while the vulture shrieked upon his head. I sat bewildered and horror-stricken, and as I sat I remembered the proud sign of Aztec royalty, a bird of prey clasping an adder in its claw. There before me was the last of the stock, and behold! a bird of prey gripped his hair in its talons, a fitting emblem indeed of the fall of Anahuac and the ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... am not justified in what I ask," said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit's robe, "but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw?" ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... tide we may find a crab or two, perhaps, some jelly-fish, star-fish, and those wonderful living flowers, the sea-anemones. And then we will watch the great gulls sweeping about in the air, and if we are lucky, we may see an army of little fiddler-crabs marching along, each one with one claw in the air. We may gather sea-side diamonds; we may, perhaps, go in and bathe, and who can tell everything that we may do on the shores of the grand ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... command: Her snows fall to freeze him: her suns burn to brand: Her seas yawn to engulf him: her rocks rise to crush: And the lion and leopard, allied, lurk to rush On their startled invader. In lone Malabar, Where the infinite forest spreads breathless and far, 'Mid the cruel of eye and the stealthy of claw (Striped and spotted destroyers!) he sees, pale with awe, On the menacing edge of a fiery sky, Grim Doorga, blue-limb'd and red-handed, go by, And the first thing he worships is Terror. Anon, Still impell'd by necessity hungrily on, He conquers the realms of his ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... my pretty black cat! Go ye and sit on Goody Corey's breast, and claw her if she stirs. Do as I bid ye, my pretty black cat, ...
— Giles Corey, Yeoman - A Play • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... carry when they move about the country. The old man saluted Langley and asked in his own language for a pipeful of tobacco. Langley always carried some loose leaves broken up in his pocket, so he at once pulled some of these out and half filled the claw-like hand outstretched to receive them. The old native was voluble in thanks. There was a large ant-heap close to the one on which he had been sitting, and on which he reseated himself whilst filling his pipe. Against this Langley leant and took a good look at his companion. ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... came. It looked very big as it fluttered down between the walls, and as it neared them the children saw that its bigness was caused by a basket of boiled chestnuts which it carried in one claw. In the other it held a piece of bread. And in its beak was a very large pear. The pear was juicy, and as good as a very small drink. When the meal was over every one felt better, and the question of how to get home was ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... with wonder saw; A whisker first, and then a claw, With many an ardent wish, She stretch'd in vain to reach the prize: What female heart can gold despise? What ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... and throw them landwards far from the water's edge. The poor beast is very often followed, unperceived, by the smaller carnivorous animals, and sometimes by bands of fishermen. I have seen large fishes with the claw-marks of the tiger on them exposed for sale ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... lay on the floor sucking his little claw-like fingers, and stirring feebly in the sun. Mrs. Nevill Tyson continued to gaze abstractedly at nothing. When Swinny came back after a judicious interval, he was still lying there, and she still sitting as before. She ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... one thigh, and his left arm almost growing again like a crab's claw. I do not think that he was in the least surprised to hear of the war, nor indeed of its end. All he wanted to know was of you, as it seemed, at least from me. So it was also with Howel and the princess. It was good to see their faces when ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... secret from Liang, lest it should die with him.—"How is it," said the Keeper, "that when you feed them, the tigers, wolves, eagles, and ospreys all are tame and tractable? That they roam at large in the park, yet never claw and bite one another? That they propagate their species freely, as if they were wild? His Majesty bids you ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... the mare foaled a large and beautiful colt. And it was standing up in the place. And Teirnyon rose up and looked at the size of the colt, and as he did so he heard a great tumult, and after the tumult behold a claw came through the window into the house, and it seized the colt by the mane. Then Teirnyon drew his sword, and struck off the arm at the elbow, so that portion of the arm together with the colt was in the ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 3 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... frightened before, now he was terrified almost out of his wits. And he began to claw ...
— The Tale of Timothy Turtle • Arthur Scott Bailey
... either wafter ready To buoy and to upbear that body great. Potent of beak and claw, of eye-glance steady, Lord of the air, and master of its fate, It seems, it seems, sailing in splendid state Athwart the stretches of the skyey blue. Yet what might be the fleet-winged wanderer's fate. Did either ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, September 13, 1890 • Various
... together, their wings held in place by a strip of thin paper. They must all be mounted—the insects quivering upon brass wire, the humming-birds with their feathers ruffled; they must be cleansed and polished, the beak in a bright red, claw repaired with a silk thread, dead eyes replaced with sparkling pearls, and the insect or the bird restored to an appearance of life and grace. The mother prepared the work under her daughter's direction; for Desiree, though she was ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Weaver's indignant message up to his eyes with one many-jointed claw, while his other three forelimbs gestured uncertainly. Finally he seized the note-pad and wrote, "Do not understand monstrous, please forgive. They do for more change, so not to ...
— The Worshippers • Damon Francis Knight
... compassion to get the better of his anxiety, and once more she was seen racing madly about the field with Shag, whom she always beat so ignominiously that she felt half sorry for him, and as a consolation allowed him gently to claw her mane with his teeth. This was a privilege which Shag could not fail to appreciate, though she never offered to return the favor by clawing him. At any rate, as soon as Lady Clare reappeared in the meadow Shag's cup of bliss seemed to ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... is allied to the Notopods (or those crabs which have their posterior legs placed almost on their backs, for the purpose of adhering to the under side of rocks), is very remarkable from the structure of its hind pair of legs. The penultimate joint, instead of terminating in a simple claw, ends in three bristle-like appendages of dissimilar lengths — the longest equalling that of the entire leg. These claws are very thin, and are serrated with the finest teeth, directed backwards: their curved extremities are flattened, ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... he swore to himself, Teuton erudition acts so often like a mad bear ready to claw away at men and things. He never attended another ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... shining silver franc on the table beside the remnants of the broken bottle. The man seized the neck of the bottle in a black, claw-like hand and gave it a preparatory flourish. He was a cadaverous little man, incredibly dirty, with mustaches and beard of a moth-eaten tow-color, and a purple flush on his cheeks. His uniform was clotted with ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... eyes of Warrigal, there began the finest fight of her experience. Regarding her mate's good looks she had more than satisfied herself; here was her opportunity to judge of his prowess, in a world wherein all questions are submitted to the arbitrament of tooth and claw in physical combat. And keenly the handsome dingo judged; watchfully she weighed the varying chances of the fray; not a single movement in all the dazzling swiftness of that fight but received her studious and calculating attention, ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... me a box full of glass slides, each with a specimen ready mounted for the microscope. I was most struck with one little beast flattened out like a turtle, semi-transparent, six-legged, as I remember him, and every leg terminated by a single claw hooked like a lion's and as formidable for the size of the creature as that ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... We've all been so comfortable, we never stopped to think what other people were suffering before our eyes. None of us has understood. I'll hire the finest detective in Chicago, and we'll go to work together. This is nothing compared with things people do find out. We'll go at it, beak and claw, and we'll show you a ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... the Ladies Endor, Eldritch, and Cowry, shot up again, hooting across the dormant chief city Old England's fell word of the scarlet shimmer above the nether pit-flames, Rome. An ancient horror in the blood of the population, conceiving the word to signify, beak, fang, and claw, the fiendish ancient enemy of the roasting day of yore, heard and echoed. Sleepless at the work of the sapper, in preparation for the tiger's leap, Rome is keen to spy the foothold of English stability, and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... after the admiral, who laid the case on his desk, and took out his keys. None of them would turn in the ancient lock. With an impatient gesture, which escaped the others, the secretary seized Mr. Donovan's hammer, inserted the claw between the lock and the catch, and gave a powerful wrench. The lid fell back, ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... the loom; ears of Indian corn, and strings of dried apples and peaches, hung in gay festoons along the walls, mingled with the gaud of red peppers; and a door left ajar gave him a peep into the best parlor, where the claw-footed chairs and dark mahogany tables shone like mirrors; and irons, with their accompanying shovel and tongs, glistened from their covert of asparagus tops; mock-oranges and conch-shells decorated the mantelpiece; strings of various colored ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... almost hear the horrible clamour of the devils, and the despairing yells of the victims. The general effect is of one 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 ...
— Luca Signorelli • Maud Cruttwell
... be so sorry for the cats if they had got a claw into you," Jimmie observed. "Just one claw in the flesh and it ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... an' left. He's not far," said Dale, as he stooped to lift the head of the deer. "Warm! Neck broken. See the lion's teeth an' claw marks.... It's a doe. Look here. Don't be squeamish, girls. This is only an hourly incident of everyday life in the forest. See where the lion has rolled the skin down as neat as I could do it, an' he'd just begun to bite in there ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... from Marl's height, And cried, astonished at the sight, "Whose fine estate is that there here?" "State! Je vous n'entends pas, Monsieur." "His? What the land and houses too? The fellow's richer than a Jew: On everything he lays his claw! I should like ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... a little. He did not speak for a moment or two; then he reached forth a claw-like hand and tentatively fingered her dress. "I don't want Freddy—when ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... be thus described: A deep cut is first made in the stomach of the departed one. Into this incision a stone, some bone ash, and a bird's claw are introduced. The body is then placed over the grave on two sticks, a muttering incantation is said by the witch doctor, and the sticks are roughly knocked from under the body, so as to permit it to fall in a sitting posture. A bow and arrows, and some food and ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... bear had an inkling of the man, and got somewhat slow to move off. Biorn waxed very sleepy where he lay, and cannot wake up, and just at this time the beast betakes himself from his lair; now he sees where the man lies, and, hooking at him with his claw, he tears from him the shield and throws it down over the rocks. Biorn started up suddenly awake, takes to his legs and runs home, and it was a near thing that the beast gat him not. This his fellows knew, for they had spies about Biorn's ways; in the morning they found the shield, and made the ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... breathed smoke and made a power dive. Forrester dodged and the fangs of the monster missed him by inches. Mars sank claw-deep into the ground, and Forrester slammed the War God on the side of his head with one mighty forepaw. Mars blew out a cloud of evil-smelling smoke and managed to jerk himself free. He leaped to all four feet, glaring at Forrester with great, ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... age, with his stealing steps, Hath claw'd me in his clutch, And hath shipp'd me into the land, As if I ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... rich man's garage—rooms warm, clean, and brightly lighted, with pictures, and crisp curtains, and a thick, rose-patterned rug in the parlor. In her kitchen was a great cookstove called "The Black Diamond," which seemed like some live thing, for it had four claw-shaped feet, and seven isinglass eyes ranged in a blazing row upon a flat face. Under the eyes were toothlike bars forming a grate. These seemed always to be grinning hotly. Often when the stove was fed with the ebony lumps that Aunt Sophie said it loved, its burning breath was ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... which we had news of the Lion being at Mokha, having a small frigate or bark in her company. The same day the Bee arrived from Narsipore-pete, with provisions for the fleet. The 19th, the Dragon's Claw came from Narsipore-pete[272] almost laden with rice and paddy.[273] On Thursday the 9th December, Mr Ball, Mr Methwould, and the other merchants who were to remain in the country, went ashore in the afternoon. In the morning of Friday the 10th, we left the road ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... A little coal fire in a low grate made things still brighter, and brought out the soft faded reds of the rug, and purples and yellows of the worn chintz covers of lounge and chairs. And right in the lightest and brightest spot of all this lightness and brightness stood a little claw-footed round table, bearing an old-fashioned tea-service of china. The sunshine seemed actually to fill up the cups and spill over into the gilt-bordered saucers, as Laura looked. "It is a 'sunset tea,' indeed," she said to herself; "and if Kitty Grant could see how pretty and refined were the ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... of family has an old place to keep these things in, furnished with claw-foot chairs and black mahogany tables, and tall bevel-edged mirrors, and stately upright ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... his claw-like hand—so dirty that Pollie almost shrank from touching it as she gave him the violets. He took them without a word of thanks, but as she was moving away ...
— Little Pollie - A Bunch of Violets • Gertrude P. Dyer
... but 'tis the foin, handsome man ye are, an' ye've a gintleman's face on ye, bedad ye have, an,'" here she showed a halfpenny in her withered claw, "this is all I got since I kem out, and me that's twistin' wid the rummatacks like the divil on a hot griddle; the holy Mother o' God knows its thrue, an' me ould man, that's seventy or eighty or more—the ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... Tooth and claw and deadly grip—the old Cat raged and tore, the black fur flew in every direction, and the Skunk for once lost her head and fired random shots of choking spray that drenched herself as well as the Cat. ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... bit of woman's wakeness in ye. Oh, my cat-o'-cats! let any man throw her from him, which way he will, she's on her legs and at him again, tooth and claw. ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... south-east, and we steered southward, close to it, with soundings from 8 to 11 fathoms. Several land birds of the size of a pigeon, but more slender, came off to the ship; when taken they fought desperately, being armed for war with a strong claw upon each wing. This bird had been seen at Port Philip on the South Coast, and belongs to the genus Tringa, being very nearly allied to the Tringa Goensis. At noon, the latitude was 11 deg. 241/2', longitude ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... 'clutcht' for a long time 'sticks strangely' in Crispinus' throat; it is only thrown up with the greatest difficulty. In Hamlet (act v. sc. i, in the second verse of the grave-digger's song) we hear, 'Hath claw'd me in his clutch. In the original song, which is here travestied, the words are, 'Hath ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... I'll be prouder'n ever if you can follow them towboats in without havin' to claw off Baker's beach or the Point ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... beak and claw." On land and in sea the animal creation chase and maim, and slay and devour each other. The beautiful swallow on the wing devours the equally beautiful gnat. The graceful flying-fish, like a fair white bird, goes glancing above the blue magnificence ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... added a shining dollar to it, and stepping to the door where the palsied beggar stood mumbling and whining a pitiful hard luck tale, she pressed the silver into the leathery, claw-like hand, smiled a sympathetic smile and bade ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... pointed, the muzzle furnished with long slender hairs; the fore, as well as hind legs, from the knees downward, almost naked, and ash-coloured; on the fore feet are five claws, and on the hind, four and a thumb without a claw; the tail, for about an inch and an half from the root, covered with hairs of the same length as those on the body, from thence to the end with long ones not unlike that of a squirrel. The specimen from which the above account was ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... minute. Plants and animals on Pyrrus are tough. They fight the world and they fight each other. Hundreds of thousands of years of genetic weeding-out have produced things that would give even an electronic brain nightmares. Armor-plated, poisonous, claw-tipped and fanged-mouthed. That describes everything that walks, flaps or just sits and grows. Ever see a plant with teeth—that bite? I don't think you want to. You'd have to be on Pyrrus and that means you would be dead within seconds of leaving the ship. ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... never seen without the other.... It's a fact, indeed—where the horse puts its hoof, there the crab sticks its claw.' ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... of English middle-class domestic life, but in the contrasts and incongruities of a Boston boarding-house. He informs us at the outset that he much prefers a family with an ancestry— one that has had a judge or a governor in it, with old family portraits, old books and claw-footed furniture; but if Doctor Holmes had depended on such society for his material he would hardly have interested the public whom he addressed. One of Goethe's critics complained that the class of persons he had introduced in "Wilhelm Meister" ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... the owl, and found that I could easily twist the wire down its leg, so that the claw would appear to be grasping the rabbit's wrist, while the sage-looking bird stood on one leg; and, satisfied in this, I was about to arrange the jay and other birds, but thought I would do the rabbit first, and, taking it up, I thrust my hand in the ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... of human life? Is there something more powerful than kaisers and castes which drives masses of men against other masses in death-struggles which they do not understand? Are we really poor beasts in the jungle, striving by tooth and claw, high velocity and poison-gas, for the survival of the fittest in an endless conflict? If that is so, then God mocks at us. Or, rather, if that is so, there is no God such as we men may love, with love ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... common day. Grabbing an axe from young Peter Leary, he set to with a fury of effort and unheeding skill that brought the slim spruces flapping to earth. Men had to jump to save themselves from being crushed. The white chips flew in the gray twilight; and Bill Brennen wondered what imp's claw had marked the skipper under the eyes and crisscrossed ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... In fighting weight the combatants seemed to be fairly equally matched, but in length the lizard had the advantage by at least two inches. The adder was slightly the bulkier. At times the lizard, full of pluck, would scamper away a few inches, dragging the adder, or would claw the sand into tiny, ineffectual furrows in vain efforts. The adder was never able to shake the lizard; it merely maintained its grip. All the wit and sprightliness of the fight was on the part of the lizard, who lashed its foe with its pliant tail, ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... love and praise my verses, still Thy long black thumb-nail marks them out for ill: A fellon take it, or some whitflaw come For to unslate or to untile that thumb! But cry thee mercy: exercise thy nails To scratch or claw, so that thy tongue not rails: Some numbers prurient are, and some of these Are wanton with their itch; scratch, and ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... followed the cook, it is true; but I did not follow the cook as a rule—not, for instance, when she went out to the coal-hole in the yard. I had slipped in under her dress. I was behind the potato-tub when she went out, shutting the door after her. For some mysterious reason I felt on the tip-claw of expectation. My nose twitched with agreeable sensations. An inward voice seemed to murmur, Toots! Regardless of the draughts, I sprang on to the shelf close under the window. And there was such a dish of cream! The ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... sennor. Please you Enthratha the chambrata, worthy don: Where if you please the fates, in your bathada, You shall be soked, and stroked, and tubb'd and rubb'd, And scrubb'd, and fubb'd, dear don, before you go. You shall in faith, my scurvy baboon don, Be curried, claw'd, and flaw'd, and taw'd, indeed. I will the heartlier go about it now, And make the widow a punk so much the sooner, To be revenged on this impetuous Face: The quickly doing of it ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson
... to pay them the last honours. They dug graves with swords and spears, brought earth in their caps and the skirts of their garments, laid the Cossacks' bodies out decently, and covered them up in order that the ravens and eagles might not claw out their eyes. But binding the bodies of the Lyakhs, as they came to hand, to the tails of horses, they let these loose on the plain, pursuing them and beating them for some time. The infuriated horses flew over hill and hollow, ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... is—in the girls' eyes. Men see differently. And he's rich, or he will be, though, for me, I would not care what money a man had if the devil had his claw in it, mon Gyu, no! But there you are, mon gars. There is he with all that, and here are you with nothing but just your honest face and your good heart and your two strong arms. And what I want to know is—what are you ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... of that: Discoursed a while, 'mongst other matter, Of the chameleon's form and nature. "A stranger animal," cries one, "Sure never lived beneath the sun; A lizard's body, lean and long, A fish's head, a serpent's tongue, Its foot with triple claw disjoined; And what a length of tail behind! How slow its pace! And then its hue— Who ever saw so fine a blue?"— "Hold there," the other quick replies, "'Tis green; I saw it with these eyes As late with open mouth it lay, And warmed it in the sunny ray; Stretched at its ease ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... Colonel George Armistead by the citizens of Baltimore in recognition of his services in the defense of Fort McHenry against the British attack in 1814. The service includes an oval silver tray with a handle on each end, the whole of which is supported on six winged-claw feet. The tray is 29 inches ...
— Presentation Pieces in the Museum of History and Technology • Margaret Brown Klapthor
... rugs on the polished floor; furniture carved and padded in brocade, tables with massive claw feet, and others in thin spindles that seemed hardly stout enough to hold up the top. There was a great carved chimney-piece with some tiles let in, and some curious iridescent bulbs not unlike the "bullseyes" over the wide hall door, but ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... steadily enough, for the cry of the brown owl was quite familiar to him, and he knew that it was only uttered in all probability close to some patch of ivy, where small birds roosted, to startle them out, ready for the sharp dash of their enemy's claw, from whose four-way talon clutch there was ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... bottom of the flight of the terrace steps. Clenk drew back with an obvious shock. "Why, look-a-hyar, you ain't Mr. Briscoe!" he exclaimed insistently, as with a desire to reassure himself. His eyes large, light, distended, were starting out of his head. His jaw quivered violently. The grimy, claw-like hand he extended shook as ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... turn in his road. Paris had held him fascinated for a long while, not only because he saw her doom written like that of Babylon in letters of fire, and Ruin, like a giant bird of prey hovering over her with beak and claw prepared to pick the very flesh from her bones,—but also because he had met Angela Sovrani, one of the most rarely- gifted types of womanhood he had ever seen. He recognised her genius at once, and marvelled at it. And still more ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... felt a curious sensation of shrinking from the weird-looking old man, which increased as he suddenly beckoned him to approach with his thin, claw-like hand, after ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... dig for all I was worth. No chance of finding blue dirt down there! But I kept on. And to-day when my pick hit what felt like a soft rock—I looked and saw the gleam of gold!... You ought to have seen me claw out that nugget! I whooped and brought everybody around. The rest was a parade.... Now I'm embarrassed by riches. ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... of the robbers, with Lobo in the lead—his track was always easily distinguished. An ordinary wolf's forefoot is 4-1/2 inches long, that of a large wolf 4-3/4 inches, but Lobo's, as measured a number of times, was 5-1/2 inches from claw to heel; I afterward found that his other proportions were commensurate, for he stood three feet high at the shoulder, and weighed 150 pounds. His trail, therefore, though obscured by those of ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... her, Ebenezer, and settle it," commanded Miss Cynthia, and at the word the bird stretched out his funny claw, which Ruth took in ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... every day." As she spoke, she reached out and took, from a bundle that lay within easy reach in a crotch of the Gugollaph-tree, something that looked like a little ivory stick. She snapped it easily with one golden claw, dropped the fragments, and reached out with careless grace ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker
... Bird to the great Eagle of the Iroquois, who left his lonely eyrie to pay his respects to the Good Hunter's memory. The poor little birds tried everything in their power to bring back to life their dear friend. With beak and claw and tender wing they strove, but all their efforts were in vain. Their Good Hunter was dead, and his ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... period deserve a passing notice as a step in the development of that important member of our "Lares and Penates." What was and is still called the "pillar and claw" table, came into fashion towards the end of last century. It consisted of a round or square top supported by an upright cylinder, which rested on a plinth having three, or sometimes four, feet carved as claws. In order to extend these tables for a larger number of guests, an arrangement ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... of Foedora's vanity had taken hold of me at last. I probed my soul, and found it cankered and rotten. I bore the marks of the devil's claw upon my forehead. It was impossible to me thenceforward to do without the incessant agitation of a life fraught with danger at every moment, or to dispense with the execrable refinements of luxury. If I had possessed millions, I should still have gambled, reveled, ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... laughed to see her stirred To anger by the plaguing bird: Proud of his love the beauteous dame With burning rage was all aflame. Now here, now there, again, again She chased the crow, but all in vain, Enraging her, so quick to strike With beak and wing and claw alike: Then how the proud lip quivered, how The dark frown marked her angry brow! When Rama saw her cheek aglow With passion, he rebuked the crow. But bold in impudence the bird, With no respect for Rama's word, Fearless again at Sita flew: Then Rama's wrath to fury grew. The hero of ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... her calico dress sleeves, patched and darned, but absolutely clean, rolled back, uncovering a pair of plump, strong arms, a saucer of tacks before her, and a tack hammer with a claw head in her hand. She was taking up the carpet. Grace Van Horne, Captain Eben Hammond's ward, who had called to see if there was anything she might do to help, was removing towels, tablecloths, and the like from the drawers in a tall "high-boy," ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... should have been two hares, and two quail, and two birds that seemed very like pheasants. One fell in impenetrable thorns, and we could not get nearer than about ten yards, and I missed another sitting. To restore my reputation with the Burmese boy, I had to claw down some high pigeons from untold heights on their way home to roost. After this, as I was loading, a partridge got up from some stubbly grass in a clearing, with an astonishingly familiar whirr, and went clear away, and I'd barely loaded when a Button quail ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... forehead of the philosopher, and a certain geniality of eye; but the hard, thin-lipped mouth, with the deep lines from the nose, give him the air of an elderly chimpanzee. He has a hand like a bird's claw; and the antique shirt-front and small bow-tie denote the man who has fixed his opinions on the cut of his clothes at an early date and does not intend to modify them. Quite apart from the intense seriousness with which the sage took himself, ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... spawn; divide the mixture into pieces of an equal size, and shape them like cutlets. They should not be very thick. Brush them over with egg, and sprinkle with bread crumbs, and stick a short piece of the small claw in the top of each; fry them of a nice brown in boiling lard, and drain them before the fire, on a sieve reversed; arrange them nicely on a dish, and pour bechamel in the middle, but ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... imagination with the picture of a bird. But "robin-run-the-hedge" is better, for it is an image of wild adventure. It will be a pity if the tradition of picturesque names for flowers is allowed to die. The kidney-vetch, a long yellow claw of a flower that looks withered even at birth, may not deserve a prettier name, but at least it is possible to give it an ugly name with more interesting associations. "Staunch" is an older name that reminds us that the flower ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... doubtful if there is any portion of the earth upon which there are so many deadly struggles as upon the earth around the trunk of a tree. Upon this small arena there are battles fierce and wild; here nature is "red in tooth and claw." When a tree is small and tender, countless insects come to feed upon it. Birds come to it to devour these insects. Around the tree are daily almost merciless fights for existence. These death-struggles occur not only in the daytime, but in the night. Mice, rats, and rabbits destroy millions of ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... from Frisco with the claw-hammer coat, who put up at the Gag House last Thursday, and was looking for a chance to invest, was robbed the other night of three hundred ounces of clean dust. We know who did it, but don't be frightened, John Lowry; we'll never tell, though ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... vaunts that his Game-Cock was hard enough for the gallant Shake-bag of Sir John Boaster; although Sir John Boasters famous Shake-bag, but three weeks before, had fought against that incomparable Game-Cock of Squire Owls-eg, and claw'd ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... kicked off his deer-skin socks, and stood bare-footed on the cold and draughty floor, while the poison he had imbibed showed only in his heated face, Silently he extended a cracked and hardened hand, which closed like the armoured claw of a crustacean and tightened on the crunching fingers of the other. Captain's expression remained unchanged and, gradually slackening his grip, the sailor ...
— Pardners • Rex Beach
... "Shall I change the damask cloak to a tiger's skin? One claw just hanging over the white shoulder—Omphale, you know—in a modern drawing-room—a small cast of the Farnese Hercules upon a bracket, there, on the right. Decidedly, here is an idea. Do ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... claw the elbow o' troublesome thought; But man is a soger, and life is a faught; My mirth and gude humour are coin in my pouch, And my Freedom's my lairdship nae ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... senior pilot. His skin hung on his face in folds, like that of a rhinoceros It was very much the same color. His grizzled hair was all lengths, like a worn-out mop; his hand reminded one of an eagle's claw, and his teeth were a pine yellow. He greeted only such people as he deemed worthy of notice, but he had ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Mrs. Farnham for good!" exclaimed Isabel, starting up and pushing the hair back from her temples. "I shall never see Frederick again, never, never—Mary, Mary Fuller, I know this is death, my heart seems clutched with an iron claw." ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... from the icebox. But by the time he was back a staggering amount of whiskey had disappeared from the decanter, a moist but empty glass stood beside it, and Mr. Iff was stroking smiling lips with his delicate, claw-like fingers. He discontinued this occupation long enough to wave the ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... all-artificial English land; and reproducing here, as surely as in the Australian bush, a native forest, careless of mankind. Still, I wish it were easier to ride through. Stiff are those Scotchmen, and close and stout they stand by each other, and claw at you as you twist through them, the biggest aiming at your head, or even worse, at your knees; while the middle-sized slip their brushes between your thigh and the saddle, and the little babies tickle your horse's stomach, or twine ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... heart of the individual and transforms him first and foremost. The power is 'to every one that believeth.' It is power in its most universal sweep. Rome's Empire was wellnigh ubiquitous, but, blessed be God, the dove of Christ flies farther than the Roman eagle with beak and claw ready for rapine, and wherever there are men here is a Gospel for them. The limitation is no limitation of its universality. It is no limitation of the claim of a medicine to be a panacea that it will only do good to the man who swallows it. And that is the only limitation of which the Gospel is ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... closed claw-like upon it. "Whist now, Miss Dinah!" she said. "If Sir Eustace was to hear me, sure, he'd wring the neck on me like as if I was an old fowl. But ye've asked me what's happened, mavourneen, and sure, I'll tell ye. For it's the pretty young lady that ye are and a cruel shame that ye should ever belong ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... wondering, as I have said, where she could be, even as I felt the thrill a man experiences when he sees that he must fight: and just as I felt this thrill, one of our men closed with the old fellow from behind, and wrenching his bird's-claw hands behind his back, thrust the wizened old bearded face forward for ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... will you be gone?" asked Laura, as she toyed with a lobster claw and glanced around the cafe, to ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... so?" Captain Danny put out a hand like a bird's claw and hooked me by the cuff. "Wasn' there nothing in it about Execution Dock; nothing about ripe medlars—'medlars a-rottin' on the tree'? No?"—for I shook my head. "Well, then, I could be sworn I heard him singin' ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... Mr. Shanghai, scratching his topknot with his left claw, and looking wise, 'you see there are times when it's better to be on one side of the fence than ...
— The Gray Goose's Story • Amy Prentice
... which I don't understand. You say that she was beautiful, and I suppose you know what you mean by the word. How then is a beautiful person to be degraded by anything the likes of you, or your fellow-dog, do to her? The thing's absurd. You can't claw her soul or blacken the edges of that. You can't sell that into prostitution or worse. That is her own, and it's that which makes her beautiful,—in spite of the precious pair of you, bickering and mauling each other to possess her. Possess her, poor fool! Can you possess moonlight? If you have ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... his board. Stories are still told of the small table that used to be brought into the room at the end of dinner by two little Ethiopians in white tunics. An ancient table with faded gilding just visible on the claw feet that looked out from under its petticoat of finest damask; and on it priceless gold and silver bowls and salvers of all shapes, full of the most marvellous fruits from all countries, some of which fruits were never ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... God!" answered the boy, and turning within Arden's clasp, began to babble of London streets and the Triple Tun. The claw-like hands had dragged themselves from Nevil's hold, and the spirit could be no longer caught by the voice of authority, but wandered ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... and the fulling mills, and all the brunts he had ever borne in his life, were but cakes and gingerbread. "Good your worship," cried he, "here is no enchantment in the case, nor anything like it. I peeped even now through the grates of the cage, and I am sure I saw the claw of a true lion, and such a claw as makes me think the lion that owns it must be bigger than a mountain."—"At any rate," said Don Quixote, "thy fear will make him bigger than half the world. Retire, Sancho, ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... pi-na/-wa ni[n]-bosh/-i-na/-na. With the bear's claws I almost hit him. [The Mid[-e]/ used the bear's claw to work a charm, or exorcism, and would seem to indicate that he claimed the powers of a W[^a]b[)e]n[-o]/. The one spoken of is an evil man/id[-o], referred to in the preceding line, in which he speaks ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman
... four-footed babies. When they grew bigger, she romped and sported with them, as if she and they were equal members of the same family. The older brother watched carefully, so that the little brutes, as they increased in size, should not bite or claw his sister, for he knew the fierce nature that was in wild creatures. Yet the maiden had wonderful power over these beasts of the forest, whether little or big. She was not very much afraid of them and often made them run, by looking at them ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... gnat! With constant change of his attack, The snout now stinging, now the back, And now the chambers of the nose; The pigmy fly no mercy shows. The lion's rage was at its height; His viewless foe now laugh'd outright, When on his battle-ground he saw, That every savage tooth and claw Had got its proper beauty By doing bloody duty; Himself, the hapless lion, tore his hide, And lash'd with sounding tail from side to side. Ah! bootless blow, and bite, and curse! He beat the harmless air, and worse; For, though so fierce and stout, By effort ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... that sometime they could manage to get two rations of bread out of the tray. But in my experience that sometime never came. The club of the First Hall-man had a way of flashing out—quick as the stroke of a tiger's claw—to the hand that dared ambitiously. The First Hall-man was a good judge of distance, and he had smashed so many hands with that club that he had become infallible. He never missed, and he usually punished ...
— The Road • Jack London
... take to oldness in things; for that cause mainly loving old Montague, and old cheese, and old wine; and eschewing young people, hot rolls, new books, and early potatoes and very fond of my old claw-footed chair, and old club-footed Deacon White, my neighbor, and that still nigher old neighbor, my betwisted old grape-vine, that of a summer evening leans in his elbow for cosy company at my window-sill, while I, ...
— I and My Chimney • Herman Melville
... pratensis), and the rock-pipit or sea-lark (Anthus obscurus) have each occupied a distinct place in nature to which they have become specially adapted, as indicated by the different form and size of the hind toe and claw in each species. So, the stone-chat (Saxicola rubicola), the whin-chat (S. rubetra), and the wheat-ear (S. oenanthe) are more or less divergent forms of one type, with modifications in the shape of the wing, feet, and bill adapting them to slightly different modes of life. The whin-chat ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... water to cook something good for your brother, who must remain in that stall and get fat; when he is fat enough I shall eat him." Grethel began to cry, but it was all useless, for the old witch made her do as she wished. So a nice meal was cooked for Hansel, but Grethel got nothing but a crab's claw. ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm |
