"Clinch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of vast territories in North and South America. The English had a small tract, Virginia, in which they had some interest but no colonists. The French regarded the St. Lawrence valley as theirs by right of discovery, but they could point to no settlements to clinch ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton
... shoe fits, clinch it," said Tedda, snorting. "I named no names, though, to be sure, some folks are mean enough an' greedy enough ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... a-playing one of you off agin t'other, and maybe don't care a pin for neither? Get shet of her once for all, and be a man; can't ye?' And then I'd find I couldn't; and so it went till we come to that night, and stood there on the edge of the crick,—two on us ready to clinch and fight till one cried enough, and t'other a-laughing ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... he don't behave. Hold on; don't be in a hurry. Let him throw a few more jumps, then he'll quit for to-day most likely. And say, son, if he does take to buckin' with you again, don't choke that saddle to death hangin' on to the horn. Set up straight, lean a little back, and clinch your knees. You'll get piled, anyhow, but you might ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... Kennedy one-handed. And we let them loose on the sand. Once, when it looked as if Nelson were getting the worst of it, French Frank and John Barleycorn sprang unfairly into the fight. Scotty protested and reached for French Frank, who whirled upon him and fell on top of him in a pummelling clinch after a sprawl of twenty feet across the sand. In the course of separating these two, half a dozen fights started amongst the rest of us. These fights were finished, one way or the other, or we separated them with drinks, while all the time Nelson and Soup Kennedy ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... all the same," his cousin went on. "The way to clinch the matter will be to show ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... Don't butt nor trip. Don't clinch. Don't use knee, elbow, nor shoulder. When I call 'Break away,' break without hitting. If you do any of these things you will be jolly well disqualified. Fight fair and God have mercy on your souls." To Dam it seemed that ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... only because as yet we provide no moral education of any consequence for our youth, but because, if we did, the temptations in a world where every man is free to grab for himself would still be almost irresistible. But there are two positive arguments for the extension of legal control that clinch ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... the most vindictive and shameless abuse. I heard more than enough; for, as we got closer to the Serapeum, the more slowly was the chariot obliged to proceed, to make its way through the crowd. And the things I heard! I clinch my fists now as I only think of them.—And what will it be in the Circus? What will ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... smoking the peace-pipe at his hearth. Long before she had reached the stature of woman she had sat on her stool beside that jovial old man, her father, grimy from his forge, and drunk the tales wide-eyed, to creep away and watch the stars, to dream of those dashing streams and to clinch her hands for that she ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... not the fire flash into his honest eyes, and leap into his swarthy cheek, and nerve his brawny arm, and clinch his horny fist, as he marched straightway up to the doomed offender, fiercely denounced his dishonesty, and violently demanded redress? Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro, and eagerness and delight on every countenance, and a ring ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... you!" crowed Westmoreland. "John, John, if anything were needed to make me love you, this would clinch it! Prying open nature's fist, John, having butterflies bear your name, working hand in glove with your government, boosting boys, writing books, are all of them fine big grand things. But if along with them one's man enough to stand up, John, with the odds against him, and punish a bully ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... cried Lapham; "but if I don't clinch this offer within twenty-four hours, they'll withdraw it, and go into the market; and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... separate action; and that it would not interfere with any proper efforts of other powers to secure simple redress for actual grievances; but that it could not make common cause with other powers in any such efforts. To clinch this, I cited the famous passage in Washington's Farewell Address against "entangling alliances with foreign powers'' as American gospel, and added that my government would also be unalterably opposed to anything leading to permanent occupation of South American territory ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... is such infernal swank," said Gordon. "We smashed them in the Thirds; to all intents and purposes we routed them in the Two Cock; the only thing the outhouses won was the Three Cock; and they are so bucked about that that they want to clinch a victory, get up and shout: 'Look at us, what devils of fine fellows we are! You can't touch us. Better take charity.' Unutterable conceit! Why, we won four times running about seven years ago. I have a good mind to go to Claremont and ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... of battle. He had longed for a fight but what he saw now fairly paralyzed him. The two bears were at it, roaring and tearing each other's hides and throwing up showers of gravel and earth in their deadly clinch. In this first round Noozak had the best of it. She had butted the wind out of Makoos in her first dynamic assault, and now with her dulled and broken teeth at his throat she was lashing him with ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... in some deep shady pool under the dark ledges of rock where the catfish are wont to lurk, his right arm wrapped to the fingers with a scarlet cloth. Tempted by the seeming bait, the catfish would take the finger-tips deep in its gullet, the strong hand would instantly clinch on its head, and Attusah would rise with his struggling gleaming prey, to be broiled on ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... myself occupying the responsible relation of master to a mouth-organ playing boy and an extraordinarily wise ass. It was arranged that both of these dependants of mine should accompany me in my expedition to the Indian villages; and to clinch our bargain I gave Pablo the seven reales wherewith to buy his rain-coat on ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... OLD MEN. Oh! those confounded women! how they do cajole us! How true the saying: "'Tis impossible to live with the baggages, impossible to live without 'em"! Come, let us agree for the future not to regard each other any more as enemies; and to clinch the bargain, let us ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... lump together, hold together, piece together[Fr], tack together, fix together, bind up together together; embody, reembody[obs3]; roll into one. attach, fix, affix, saddle on, fasten, bind, secure, clinch, twist, make fast &c. adj.; tie, pinion, string, strap, sew, lace, tat, stitch, tack, knit, button, buckle, hitch, lash, truss, bandage, braid, splice, swathe, gird, tether, moor, picket, harness, chain; fetter &c. (restrain) 751; lock, latch, belay, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... fellows!" broke in the captain. "You are getting down-hearted, and that won't do. We've got this game and we are going to hold it; but we want to go in to clinch it ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... chains some time before. Now Osceola scalped his enemy with his own hands. On the same day, Major Dade, leading a relief expedition from Tampa Bay, was ambushed and overwhelmed near Wahoo Swamp. Only four of his men escaped death. Within forty-eight hours, on the last day of the year, General Clinch, commanding the troops in Florida, won a bloody fight on the banks ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... headquarter orders and the incidental staff work, excellent march discipline, wonderful cooerdination between the different arms of the Service and with all auxiliary branches—especially the commissariat and transport, and, to clinch everything, a thoroughness of execution which distinguished each unit concerned. As a feat of arms this famous march is hardly worth mentioning. There were no battles and no such masterly maneuvers as those of the much harder march to Atlanta. Nor was the operational problem to be mentioned in ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... deputed, sir, By the Assembly of Asturias, More sailing soon from other provinces. We bring official writings, charging us To clinch and solder Treaties with this realm That may promote our cause against the foe. Nextly a letter to your gracious King; Also a Proclamation, soon to sound And swell the pulse of the Peninsula, Declaring that the act by which King Carlos And his son Prince Fernando cede the throne To whomsoever ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... rolled in, and a little woman in a gray dress, with sort of illuminating hair, slides off and looks around quick. And the Boy Avenger sees her, and yells 'Mamma,' and she cries 'O!' and they meet in a clinch, and now the pesky redskins can come forth from their caves on the plains without fear any more of the rifle of Roy, the Red Wolf. Mrs. Conyers comes up and thanks me an' John Tom without the usual extremities ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... the matter of that; she insisted on it. He knew his place as well as any man, but his eye fell on the rabbit and he looked very queer and nearly dropped a cup. She saw it and began to tremble and go white, and it came over me then that now or never was the time to clinch matters or she'd nearly die from shame and I couldn't soothe ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... to be able to clinch the story, but the man recovered and is now a successful stockbroker in Drapers Gardens. The woman, too, is the mother of a considerable family. But ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... strongly to the opening of Nero's reign. The young Nero was handsome and personally popular, and the opening years of his reign (quinquennium Neronis) were famous for good government and prosperity. But there are two further pieces of internal evidence which clinch the argument. A comet is mentioned (i. 77) as appearing in the autumn, an appearance which would tally with that of the comet observed shortly before the death of Claudius in 54 A.D., ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... days past there had been an idea of attaching Lucien to the prime minister's cabinet as his private secretary; but Madame d'Espard brought so many persons into the field in opposition to Lucien, that Charles X.'s Maitre Jacques hesitated to clinch the matter. Nor was Lucien's position by any means clear; not only did the question, "What does he live on?" on everybody's lips as the young man rose in life, require an answer, but even benevolent curiosity—as much as malevolent curiosity—went on from one inquiry ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... now that the nail was driven home, he would clinch it on the other side and make it stay forever. He moved a reconsideration of the vote by which the bill had passed. The motion was lost, of course, and the great Industrial University act was an accomplished fact as far as it was in the ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... account of the conversion of a distinguished young English nobleman at Rome had been invented and circulated, and would probably furnish the occasion for an action for libel. And now his return and appearance at the Chapel Royal, next Sunday, will clinch the whole business." ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... Planter arrived. We left St. Simon's on the following morning, reached Fort Clinch by four o'clock, and there transferring two hundred men to the very scanty quarters of the John Adams, allowed the larger transport to go into Fernandina, while the two other vessels were to ascend ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... from the embarcadero. I've told what a charming evening we had with you and your daughters in the old house, and how I returned your hospitality by giving you a tip about the railroad; and how you slipped out while we were playing cards, to clinch the bargain for the land with that ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... On'y one laig,' says dat scar't yaller gal, an' ter clinch it she added, 'All yo' geese dat a-ways, Mars' Colby. Dey all ain' got but ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... never saw such eyes as these Turkish women have. They are big and black, and they go right through you, and clinch on the other side. Dad says the facilities for getting into trouble are better in Constantinople than any place we have been, as the men look like bandits and the women look like executioners. Dad thanked me ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck
... realized at the outset that he was up against a hard fight. In his hurry to close with the red-bearded man, his foot had slipped on the slimy grass and he had been forced to clinch to save himself from falling. This placed him at a marked disadvantage. His opponent had the best of him in weight by at least twenty pounds and was heavily muscled. Moreover he possessed a certain agility ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... got to be in that condition of mind when a man does not know what to think of any particular event. The bee-hunter, quick-witted, and managing for his life, was not slow to perceive the advantage he had gained, and he proceeded at once to clinch the nail he had so skilfully driven. Turning from Cloud to the head-chief of the party, a warrior whom he had no difficulty in recognizing, after having so long watched his movements in the earlier part of the night, he pushed the same subject a ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... have," grinned Andy, promptly. "Never could bear to let anything puzzle me long. Used to lie awake half the night trying to clinch a name that had just slipped a ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... To clinch our conclusion, we descended suddenly and together on Martha; proceeding, however, not by simple inquiry as to facts,—that would never have done,—but by informing her that the air was full of school and that we knew all about it, and then challenging denial. Martha was a trusty soul, ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... furious. The followers of each leader, appalled at the fierceness of the combat, stood as though frozen in their places. The flag, clutched by both fighters, was in danger of being torn from end to end. Then came the clinch. Gripping, writhing, twisting, tangled in the colors, the lithe young bodies wavered to their fall. And when they fell the flag fell with them, into the grime and slush of the road. In an instant Pen was on his feet again, but ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... demands of State sovereignty. The right of women to vote under national protection was but the logical result of the political guarantees of the war, and Republican leaders should have been anxious to clinch their war record by legislative ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... over; but after some moments Cauchon, wishing to clinch this matter and make it final, put ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... man in everything but sense," said Morgan, not unkindly, "and I reckon if you and I was to clinch we'd raise a purty big dust and muss things around a right smart. And I don't know who'd come out on top at the finish, neither. So I don't want to have any trouble with you. All I ask of you is step ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... President, I wonder if the suggestion of Mr. O'Connor is clearly appreciated. It was barely suggested in his talk but he did not seem to clinch it at the end. As I understand his idea it was that this plan of furnishing a tree as a premium might well be accompanied by an offer of a prize for results, which would be an added ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 13th Annual Meeting - Rochester, N.Y. September, 7, 8 and 9, 1922 • Various
... heavy. The American forces were greatly outnumbered and to send them into those chlorine-swept areas was to bring the enemy's fate upon them. Wood must hold his men upon the heights until our artillery and poison gas attack had practically won the day. Then a final charge might clinch matters—that was the plan, but it worked out differently, for, after their first demoralisation, the enemy learned to avoid the descending danger by running from it. They could avoid the slowly spreading chlorine clouds by seeking higher ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... who, day after day, had struggled and fought to send him to the penitentiary for life? Had it been Worthington, striving to reproduce the murder of Tom Langdon as he evidently had reconstructed it, experimenting with his experts in the safety of a different city, for points of evidence that would clinch the case against the accused man beyond all shadow of a doubt? Instinctively Houston felt that he just had heard an unwritten, unmentioned phase of his own murder case. Yet—if that had been Worthington, if those experts had found evidence against him, if the theories ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... religiously stifled and hid, emanated from her like fragrance from a flower; sharply reawakening his own temptation to respond—were it only to ease her pain. And there was more in it than that—or very soon would be, if he hesitated much longer to clinch matters by telling her the truth; though every nerve shrank from the ordeal—for himself and her. Running away from oneself was plainly a futile experiment. To have so failed with her, disheartened him badly and dwarfed his proud achievement to an ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... raise cranberries if it was dug out and drained, and they had almost agreed on the price—about twice what it was worth—when down goes Muggles to spend the night and Jerry blabs it all out, and just why he wanted it, and the next morning Muggles, to clinch the deal and help Jerry, slips over to the hayseed and tells him how the Sunnybrook Club are going to buy Jerry's place, and how they wanted the swamp for a hatchery—all true—and that the hayseed oughtn't to wait a moment, but send word by HIM that the deal was closed, ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... condemnation of the Temple and the Sacrifices.(634) But that condemnation had been uttered by Jeremiah because of his contemporaries' sinful use of the House of God, whereas now he is looking into a new dispensation. How could he more signally clinch the promise of that reunion of Israel and Judah, for which all his life he had longed, than by this call to ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... business to be hard up; "respectable" men live on what they've got. If any one were to ask him how people are to live within their means when they've not got any, he would reply with the word "bunkum" and clinch the argument with a grunt. It will be understood that conversation with Mr. Adolf Reiss ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... two great facts which clinch the argument that this is a great struggle for freedom. The first is the fact that America has come in. She would not have come in otherwise. When France in the eighteenth century sent her soldiers to America ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... him I have never known him to give way to an ebullition of any kind. Yet upon this occasion there was an expression upon his face when he first set eyes upon our property which gave me to understand that he approved of our purchase. I hastened to clinch this favorable impression by apprising him briefly of the proposition Colonel Bobbett Doller had made to me the previous afternoon, and I flatter myself that, between us, Alice and I made a pretty fair presentation of the merits ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... calm alarms, which might at any moment have disturbed the public peace. That Bill of Indemnity and Oblivion had to be shaped in accordance with the Declaration issued by the King from Breda. Personally, Hyde had endeavoured to restrain the impulse which tempted the King to clinch a promising bargain by over-lavish concessions. He always held that the dignity of the King could not be satisfied without vengeance on the murderers of his father, and that the security of the Crown rendered a severe example necessary. ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... run 'em through three or four hundred pages, with him a-talkin' to her and her a-talkin' at him. All I got to do, accordin' to all the books I've ever read, is see that it don't all come too easy for him, and still turns out all right. I expect I'll run 'em into a clinch with another guy standin' around eatin' his heart out with jealousy. It'll serve him right; he's just that mean sort, you know. Oh, I'll just marry 'em, along toward the end of the last chapter, and that'll kind ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... the possibility, by raising his eyebrows and tilting his head sideways; a shrug with an accent, as it were. Then he allowed Sebastian to clinch his argument by saying that the Englishman seemed to be getting the better of his emotion; for here was a week, said he, and he had not once been into the shop to inquire for his relic. Sebastian was down upon the admission. "What did I tell ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... us, made us lie on the floor, bolted and barred the door, and posted herself there with an axe and rifle: We never knew why they desisted from an attack or how father escaped. In two or three days all of us set out for Clinch Mountain to the wedding of Happy Kincaid, a clever young fellow from Holston, and Sally McClure, a fine girl of seventeen, modest and pretty, yet fearless. We knew the Shawnees were about; that our fort and ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... careful to mention the exact number of four hundred and thirty years. The wide divergence in the time between the promise and the Law helps to clinch Paul's argument that righteousness is not obtained by ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... to clinch our understanding of the above conditions we must now consider in more detail certain ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... knew the value of Indian friendship, and suggested to the assembly that it would be better to clinch it with presents, and that as soon as possible. An envoy accordingly was sent off early in October, who was supposed to have great influence among the western tribes. This was one George Croghan, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... the laundry," said Dr. Silence finally, to clinch the plan; "we three alone—and at midnight, when the household is asleep and we ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... have been done!" cried the man, striking his left hand a blow with his fist, as if to clinch the thought which had been ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... charm, The Heath wide open'd, and the day was warm; There, where a bed of tempting green he found, Increasing anguish weigh'd him to the ground; His well-grown limbs the scatter'd Daisies press'd, While his clinch'd hand fell heavy on his breast. 'Why do I go in cruel sport to say, "I love thee, Jane; appoint the happy day?" 'Why seek her sweet ingenuous reply, 'Then grasp her hand and proffer—poverty? 'Why, if I love her and adore her name, 'Why act like time and sickness on her frame? ...
— Rural Tales, Ballads, and Songs • Robert Bloomfield
... An outburst was imminent. The cause of this demonstration of displeasure was the presence in the town of a big, pink-cheeked Englishman, who, it was said, was an agent of his government come to clinch the bargain by which the president placed his people in the hands of a foreign power. It was charged that not only had he given away priceless concessions, but that the public debt was to be transferred into the hands of the English, and the custom-houses turned over to them as a guarantee. The ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... camphire camphor canvas canvass carcase carcass centinel sentinel chace chase chalibeate chalybeate chamelion chameleon chimist chemist chimistry chemistry cholic colic chuse choose cimetar cimeter clench clinch cloke cloak cobler cobbler chimnies chimneys chesnut chestnut clue clew connection connexion corset corslet cypher cipher cyphering ciphering dactyl dactyle develope develop dipthong diphthong dispatch despatch doat dote drouth ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... clothes—and the conventional background of the New York drawing-room, with its pervading implication of an imminent tea-tray and of an atmosphere in which the social functions have become purely reflex, lent to her declaration a relief not lost on her cousin Mrs. Clinch, who, from the other side of the fireplace, agreed with a glance at the clock, that it was the ...
— The Descent of Man and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... their agent, General Thompson, and other acts of cruel treachery. When this alarming and unexpected intelligence reached the seat of Government, every effort appears to have been made to reenforce General Clinch, who commanded the troops then in Florida. General Eustis was dispatched with reenforcements from Charleston, troops were called out from Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia, and General Scott was sent to take the command, with ample powers and ample means. At the first alarm ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Martin van Buren • Martin van Buren
... another. Good idea if you're stuck. Gain time. But then you're in a cart. Wonderful of course if you say: good evening, and you see she's on for it: good evening. O but the dark evening in the Appian way I nearly spoke to Mrs Clinch O thinking she was. Whew! Girl in Meath street that night. All the dirty things I made her say. All wrong of course. My arks she called it. It's so hard to find one who. Aho! If you don't answer when they solicit must be horrible for them till they harden. And kissed my hand when ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... that of a cellar where a furnace is in full blast. But Susan knew she was indeed in luck. "It's clean and nice here," said she to Mrs. Tucker, "and I'm much obliged to you for being so reasonable with me." And to clinch the bargain she then and there paid half a month's rent. "I'll give you the rest when my ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... the power. Nearly all joined in singing this hymn, which swelled high above the howling of the storm. A brief pause ensued; the preacher slowly turned over the leaves of the Bible, and at last, folding his hand down upon the proper page, said: Beloved shipmates, clinch the last verse of the first chapter of Jonah — And God had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. Shipmates, this book, containing only four chapters —four yarns —is one of the smallest strands in the mighty cable of the Scriptures. Yet what depths ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... for breath and Morris brought the wine again, after which she went on with the story, which made Morris clinch his hands as he comprehended the deceit which had been practiced so long. Of course he did not look at it as Katy did, for he knew that according to all civil law she was as really Wilford's wife as if no other had existed, and he told her so, but ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... couldn't have been better done. That was what made it so touchingly absurd. He put himself in her position. He pictured himself as her, "sitting up in bed," pencil in hand, to explain away, to soothe, to clinch and bind... Yes, if he had happened to be some other man—one whom her insult might have angered without giving love its death-blow, and one who could be frightened out of not keeping his word—this letter would have ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... of the fighting men remained unbroken. They lay there upon the ground locked in a deadly embrace. A spasmodic jolt, a violent, muscular heave. The result was changed position, while the clinch remained unrelaxed. There were movements of gripping hands. There were changes of position in the intertwined legs clad in their hard cord trousers. The heavily-booted feet stirred and stirred again in response to the impulse of the searching brains ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... the devil thrust him into desperation, and strove thereby to clinch the hopelessness of his estate. With wild fierce passion, Kennedy flung himself into sins he had never known before; angrily he laid waste the beauty and glory of the vineyard whose hedge had been broken ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... of it, the farmer made her say out loud, "The Blessing of God be upon your cattle!" To clinch the matter, he compelled her to repeat the Lord's Prayer, which she was able to do, without missing one syllable. She used the form of words which are not found in the prayer book, but are in the Bible, and was very earnest, when she prayed ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... and down the polished floor of the resort, his hands in his pockets, his brow wrinkled, his mouth set. He was getting some vague comfort out of a good cigar, but it was no panacea for the ill which affected him. Every once in a while he would clinch his fingers and tap his foot—signs of the stirring mental process he was undergoing. His whole nature was vigorously and powerfully shaken up, and he was finding what limits the mind has to endurance. He drank more brandy and soda than he ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... encountered it for the first time. As it was, the two boys suddenly straightened their faces, and assumed an air of meek penitence, as if suffering the most harrowing remorse for what they had done; and the father, after glaring at them a moment, as if to drive in and clinch the impression he had made, let his head drop back with a dull thump upon the ground, and again closed ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis
... point the rancher's feelings amounted to little short of mania. And yet he persisted. John's nature was purely obstinate, and obstinacy is weakness. The money-lender knew that obstinacy could be broken down by steady determination. However, time, with him, was now everything. He must clinch the deal with as little delay as possible if he would escape from Foss River and the ruinous attacks of Retief. This thought was ever present with him and urged him to press the old man hard. If John Allandale would not be reasonable, ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... front of Sally without doing something to hold his end up. He proposed to go down with his flag flying, and in pursuance of this object he dug Mr. Butler heavily in the lower ribs with his right, causing that expert to clinch and the two wise guys to utter sharp barking ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... come? it's as much your interest as mine, you know, that the women should persuade each other that they're quiet and contented, and couldn't be better off. I know their way. Whatever one woman says, another woman is determined to clinch, always. There's that spirit of emulation among 'em, sir, that if your wife says to my wife, "I'm the happiest woman in the world, and mine's the best husband in the world, and I dote on him," my wife will say the same to yours, or more, ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... serve me. Which of you defies the fox or terrier in the open? I leave the fliers out—running away is not defence. To me a fight is child's play. The more inquisitive my foe, the tighter do I clinch myself together. They get more harm than ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... periodically:—"Who's afeard? Who's afeard?" Another one jumped up, excited, with blazing eyes, sent out a string of unattached curses and sat down quietly. Two men discussed familiarly, striking one another's breast in turn, to clinch arguments. Three others, with their heads in a bunch, spoke all together with a confidential air, and at the top of their voices. It was a stormy chaos of speech where intelligible fragments tossing, struck the ear. One could hear:—"In the last ship"—"Who cares? Try it ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... I could see he feared Harding's enormous strength and that he aimed to wind him if possible. He managed to elude the grasp of his antagonist for probably a minute, and more by luck than skill fell on top when the end of the clinch came. But Harding was not down by any means, and there then ensued a struggle which made me oblivious to ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... down where she was, all into the golden mass and shine of her bright raiment, with her hands before her eyes, the paper crumpled in the clinch of one ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... trial. That is the smooth skin, sometimes called lapstreak. They, the clinker canoes, are easily tightened when they spring a leak through being rattled over stones in rapids. It is only to hunt a smooth pebble for a clinch head and settle the nails that have started with the hatchet, putting in a few new ones if needed. And they are put together, at least by the best builders, without any cement or white lead, naked wood to wood, and depending only on close work for waterproofing. And each pair of strips is ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... explained. "It will be up-river most of the way, and I've got a couple of Siwash to pole the canoes. All you have to do is the cooking, make camp, and tend to Miss Stirling's friends when they go fishing." He waved his hand, and added, as though to clinch the argument, "I've known people of that kind to give a man ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... the Holston River. This stream takes its rise among the western ravines of the Alleghanies, in Southwestern Virginia. Flowing hundreds of miles through one of the most solitary and romantic regions upon the globe, it finally unites with the Clinch River, thus ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... This seemed to clinch the matter, for the Moor purchased the objectionable slave, ordered Peter the Great to bring him along, and ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... doubtless as lief have touched live coals as have submitted to be his wife. Ah, well, it was his luck in his last toss-up, and he had never been lucky before; yet he had never felt so great a reluctance to conclude his engagement of twenty-four hours, and clinch his repentance, as he did at this moment. It was good for him that he stood committed. But why had he not sought out some humble, meek lass, who would still have looked up to him and reckoned him not quite such a reprobate, ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... over [Mrs. Clinker was told]—the advent of Mr. Hanbury-Green (a very unpleasant personality, afraid of being polite to me in case I should fancy myself his equal) seemed to clinch matters in M. E.'s mind. I suppose he was able to give her some definite assurance of the future of the Government. In any case, I could see, when they returned from their excursion in the gondola yesterday, that things were upon a very familiar footing ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... of fury, his temples swollen and his eyes glaring, he kept throttling the officer with one hand, while with the other clenched he began to strike him violent blows in the face. The Prussian struggled, tried to draw his sword, to clinch with his adversary, who was on top of him. But M. Dubuis crushed him with his enormous weight and kept punching him without taking breath or knowing where his blows fell. Blood flowed down the face of the German, who, choking and with a rattling in his throat, spat out his ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... get away, not attempting to strike as the clinch was broken. But an instant later Dave came back, dancing all around his dazed opponent, landing on the short ribs, on the breast bone, under either ear and finally on the ...
— Dave Darrin's Second Year at Annapolis - Or, Two Midshipmen as Naval Academy "Youngsters" • H. Irving Hancock
... replied Hyde, promptly. "I bought it when I was touring in the United States, at a town called Guthrie, in Oklahoma. And," he added suddenly and with a triumphant smile as of a man who is unexpectedly able to clinch an argument, "there is a gentleman there who was with me when ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher
... easy enough to abstract her letters or yours from time to time, but the case needed something more than that. Neglect would not rouse her; jealousy might. One day there came the picture of those girls at Hastings (Abbot's hands begin to clinch; he has listened coldly up to this point), and I saw the group that was sent to them, and the pretty letter written by their secretary, Miss Warren. Then came her letter saying she was Guthrie Warren's ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... off. 'S enough! Fall, Hazlitt. Now gather up Miss Hardy, Walsh. Register devotion, gratitude, adoration—now you got it. Turn on your lamps full power, dearie! Wow! Bully! A couple of tears, please. That's the stuff. You'll be the queen of the world. Weep a little more. Real tears. That's it! Now clinch for the fade-out. Cut!" ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... remark I saw one of our Ruin's long hands draw up and clinch. He turned his head toward Harriet. His face was partly in the shadow, but there was something striking and strange in the way he looked at her, and a deepness in his voice when ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... be. Said so at breakfast, didn't I? Silly women always do have to have idees druv into their heads, like nails, 'fore they can clinch 'em. Eunice 'lowed that we'd ought to have a lot more small sticks chopped," answered the man who managed the estate but was presumably managed himself by Miss Maitland. He had his axe over his shoulder, and had merely stopped at the pantry window, kept open for his benefit, to ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... purchase for L1150. But when Walter left the country the proprietor never dreamed of going again to the haughty Colonel. He went to Bartley, and Bartley bought the property in five minutes for L1200, and paid a deposit to clinch the contract. He completed the purchase with unheard-of rapidity, and set an army of workmen to raise a pit village, or street of eighty houses. They were ten times better built than the Colonel's cottages; not one of them could ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... us. You talk to him after I go, and the next time I see him I'll clinch matters. You'll make the most ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... eager embracings of the object, that the absence of it is insupportable. Such were these earnest wishings that but one man had been saved. I believe I repeated the words, "O that it had been but one!" a thousand times; and my desires were so moved by it, that when I spoke the words my hands would clinch together, and my fingers would press the palms of my hands, so that if I had had any soft thing in my hand, it would have crushed it involuntarily; and the teeth in my head would strike together, and set against one another so strong, that for some time I ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... mountains. Six men were killed, among them Boone's eldest son, and the cattle were scattered. This misfortune brought such gloom upon the party that all turned back for a time to a settlement on the Clinch River. ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... banneret, and sole owner of Beacham Ford Park, with a rent-roll of four thousand good pounds a year, he is now up for sale, and will be knocked down to the bidder who pleases him best. Say but the word, and we'll have another flagon of sack to clinch ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... but at the same moment she turned extremely white, and as she fell back in her chair, Diana saw her clinch her hand as though in a ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... so, because I think there's a good deal of truth in it. I'm not without some glimmering of insight into her character myself; and to be quite frank, it was seeing her set her pretty white teeth and clinch her fist and stamp her foot, to get her way over nothing at all, that first made me ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... he seemed a little uncomfortable under his wife's stare of amazement. "But," he added, in a tone meant to clinch the argument, "she ain't 'Rosebud' ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... resembling Major Talbot as one pea does another. The long, thin white hair, curly at the ends, the aristocratic beak of a nose, the crumpled, wide, raveling shirt front, the string tie, with the bow nearly under one ear, were almost exactly duplicated. And then, to clinch the imitation, he wore the twin to the Major's supposed to be unparalleled coat. High-collared, baggy, empire-waisted, ample-skirted, hanging a foot lower in front than behind, the garment could have been designed from no other pattern. From then on, the Major and Miss Lydia sat bewitched, and ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... from the hips. John's left fist found its mark. He jabbed—once, twice, three times—and lashed out with his right. The blow glanced off the Mexican's shoulders and they clinched. He felt the Battler's strength in that clinch and he realized it was more than his. The referee called "Break!" and they pushed away ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... we parted (and she would allow me to kiss her when we parted), until I was quite gone altogether, and did nothing but think of her all day and dream of her all night. Well, the last time that I was in the transport to Portsmouth, I had made up my mind to clinch the business, and as soon as the sails were furled, I dressed myself in my best toggery and made all sail for the old house. When I came in I found Peggy in the bar, and a very fancy sort of young chap alongside of her. I did not think so much of that, ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... is." This was spoken in a tired drawl which was evidently meant to preclude further chit-chat. To clinch things, he slouched away, waving me in an abstracted manner to ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... with a stately smile, "seldom express much satisfaction with the terms of their rejection; but I cannot say that Lord Ballindine testified any strong emotion." He rose from the sofa as he said this, and then, intending to clinch the nail, added as he went to the door—"to tell the truth, Fanny, I think Lord Ballindine is much more eager for an alliance with your fair self now, than he was a few days back, when he could never find a moment's time to leave his horses, and his friend ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... the hastily made zeriba and marched towards the river. Without their camels or those of the transport they appeared insignificant, a mere speck on the broad plain of Metemma. The Dervishes hastened to clinch ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... wondered—had Dunham after all been on the level with his promised crookedness? He followed Holliday up, carefully. And again a wild right swing, a light step inside, a light left to the face. And then Holliday, holding him with disturbing ease in a clinch, pressed his mouth ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... acting as spokesman for the Indians expressed these views. When he had finished, the agent arose and rebuked the Indians for breaking their word. His charge of dishonor excited the Indians and many lost their tempers. In the confusion that followed, General Clinch threatened to order in the soldiers if the Indians did not sign the compact to leave Florida, without further parley. This threat proved to be effectual. Several chiefs signed, but three of the leading chiefs ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... soundingboard devised for the sole purpose of throwing back the mellifluous voices of native orators. At the cross-roads store, philosophers, perched upon barrel and soap-box (note the soap-box), clinch in endless argument. Every county has its Theocritus who sings the nearest creek, the bloom of the may-apple, the squirrel on the stake-and-rider fence, the rabbit in the corn, the paw-paw thicket where fruit for the gods ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... the two came to a clinch. Now, thought I, it's all off with the Jam-wagon. I saw Locasto's eyes dilate with ferocious joy. He had the other in his giant arms; he could crush him in a mighty hug, the hug of a grizzly, crush him like an egg-shell. But, quick as the snap of a trap, ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... is undoubtedly comfort in, that reflection; and depend upon it, my dear mother, that I'll be sure to clinch your masses in the surest mode. I'll not fly over them like Camilla across a field of potato oats, without discommoding a single walk, as too many of my worthy brethren—I mane as! too many of those whose worthy brother I will soon be—do in this present year of grace. I'm no fool ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... in spite of the hardest and must untoward circumstances. So unbelievable seemed this man's story that the Executive Committee took up with him personally the facts of his recital, and later the Secretary of the League, in response to a demand, had to vouch for his statements in open meeting. To clinch the matter still further Mr. Washington wrote to the Secretary of the Young Men's Christian Association in Brockton, who replied that Terry's story had, if anything, been understated rather than overstated. Booker Washington himself told Watt Terry's story in the pages of the Independent ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... strained to Manassas plains; every heart throbbed stronger at the mention of that name. All knew that there the giants were soon to clinch in deadly wrestle for the mastery; that the struggle was now at hand, when the flag of the South would be carried high in triumph ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... man grinned and sat down. "I was afraid she would back out," he said, "and I wanted to clinch the thing. Jest let me tell her that I am afraid she can't do a thing and then it would take a good deal more high water than we've had for a year or two to keep ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... had happened, the Bisons had again tied the score. They were indomitable. They grew stronger all the time. A stroke of good luck now would clinch the game for them. The Rube was beginning to labor in the box; Ashwell was limping; Spears looked as if he would drop any moment; McCall could scarcely walk. But if the ball came his way he could still run. Nevertheless, I never saw any ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... before they were out of the speaker's mouth. His answer to "Soapy's" query was a broad grin,—for he had detected a sly twinkle in the speaker's eye. He also shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands,—and, to clinch the matter, ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... aforesaid wassail and amenity. And Solomon Mills, which was his name, was to pay all expenses for a month. At the end of that time, if I had made good as director-general of the rowdy life, he was to pay me one thousand dollars. And then, to clinch the bargain, we called the roll of Atascosa City and put all of its citizens except the ladies and minors under the table, except one man named Horace Westervelt St. Clair. Just for that we bought a couple of hatfuls of cheap silver watches and egged him out ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... red-handed thug from Canada. They've had the alarm out for him a couple of years. You kids never knew that, hey?" And by way of a pleasantry he hit Roy a rap with his bulging wallet. "We'll measure him up down yonder. The face is enough, but these specifications will clinch it." ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... to stay until the whole job is cleaned up, and he's in right up to his shoulderblades. No more convincing proof of America's determination to see the thing through could be had than a sight of Uncle Sam's big storage depot and all-around tool shop. And, to clinch the argument even further, as fast as the shops on the big reservation have been put up, the machinery has been shoved into them and the work in them started as soon as the machinery was in ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... down his pack and took out the bacon. As Albert looked at it he began unconsciously to clinch and unclinch his teeth. Dick saw his face, and, knowing that the same eager look was in his own, he ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... permitted the two other men to clinch with the mad creature. They rolled and tossed about furiously, tearing up snow and tundra, their fierce struggle writing a tragedy of human passion on the white sheet spread by nature. And ever and anon a hand or foot of Jan emerged from the tangle, to be gripped by Lawson and lashed ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... absence. Death is a longer absence, in which our friends either forget us, or recollect our vices. Our virtues are best acknowledged when we are standing nigh and ready to enforce them. Like the argumentative eloquence of the Eighth Harry, they are never effectual until the halberdiers clinch their rivets forcibly. ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... John Byron, midshipman Alexander Campbell, ditto Isaac Morris, ditto Thomas Maclean, cook Richard Phipps, boatswain's mate John Mooring, ditto Matthew Langley, gunner's mate Guy Broadwater, coxswain Samuel Stook, seaman Joseph Clinch, ditto John Duck, ditto Peter Plastow, captain's steward John Pitman, butcher David Buckley, quarter-gunner Richard Noble, quarter-master William Moore, captain's cook George Smith, seaman Benjamin Smith, ditto William Oram, carpenter's ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... spirits of the air," Professor Henderson told his friends. "That we are evil spirits. And I guess that Washington flying down upon them as he did will clinch that belief ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... things to burn." He looked about him as though to choose a place. But he couldn't find one. He pointed vaguely, first at Maria, as though she was the thing to burn, and then at the landscape generally. "Then you can dance round it," he added convincingly to clinch ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... its creeping terror, cold with its sudden clinch; Cold so utter you wonder if 'twill ever again be warm; Clancy grinned as he shuddered, "Surely it isn't a cinch Being wet-nurse to a looney in the teeth of an ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service |
