"By inches" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Hoddan's face and missed him only by inches. It buried its point in the floor. A whirling knife spun past his nose. He glanced up. There were balconies all around the great hall, and men popped up from behind the railings and threw things at him. They popped down out of sight instantly. ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... deserved to be shut out of heaven for it. Thinking twice about it! I'm ashamed of myself. Why,—why,—he looks like a ghost. But he won't look that way long! We aren't here to browbeat a man, and kill him by inches, I take it." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... yanked the gear from third into first. She sped up. The motor ran like a terrified pounding heart, while the car crept on by inches through filthy mud that stretched ahead of her ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... at Gangley's Mills the pace grew even greater. From the west prong of the road fork at the bottom a taxicab shot into view. There was a shout of warning, a rattle and creak as the taxi swerved, safe by inches. ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... plenty else to do, most likely. If it wasn't for Christopher I wouldn't be anyways unwilling to die. When one has had such a life as I've had, there isn't much in death to be afraid of. Only, a body would like to go right off, and not die by inches, ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... only a class above, and able to give them some help in learning their lesson. Then parent and child keep growing together, in the same house. Let them blunder as we blundered. God is patient for us; why should not we be for them? Aspiration teaches always, and God leads, by inches. A perfect being would hurt a child no ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... scent, and he saw the shadowy figure coming through the starlight. He tried to drag himself back, but he could move only by inches. The man came rapidly nearer. Kazan caught the glisten of the rifle in his hand. He heard his hollow cough, and the tread of his feet in the snow. Gray Wolf crouched shoulder to shoulder with him, trembling and showing her ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... up over the stern of that schooner, a trifle compared to the same task on the Nautilus; but it was hard work to Mark Vandean, who had to move by inches, getting well hold and drawing himself up till he was about to reach his hand over the top, when he felt one foot gliding from its support, and thought that he was gone. But a spasmodic clutch saved him, and after clinging there motionless and in a terribly constrained attitude for a ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... still, deeper and deeper into the heart of the cold, silent rock, fearing at every moment to feel their way barred by a solid wall, and find themselves cut off from escape, and doomed to be drowned by inches. But, no; the strange tunnel went on and on as if it would never end, their only consolation being that they were unmistakably tending upward, and already (as they calculated) beyond the reach ...
— Harper's Young People, February 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... here—so wretched, this is but a gleaning white stone prison, Justine! I stifle in this wretched land! Why did my father bring me here to die by inches?" There was no pretense ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... over there in France was real to you," he continued. "Well, less than a mile from this spot, I called this afternoon on a man who is dying by inches of consumption, contracted while working in our office. For eight years he was absent from his desk scarcely a day. The force nicknamed him 'Old Faithful.' When he dropped in his tracks at last they carried him out and stopped his pay. He has no care—nothing to eat, even, ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... moment. How happy, joyous, and innocent they were, just as God intended his children to be. Two days before, this lovely family had been in the depths of despair, day by day watching a beloved wife and mother dying by inches of a painful, lingering, loathsome disease. Not a sound of music had been heard in the house for many days. The violin, guitar, and dulcimer had lain utterly neglected and unstrung. Now a change has occurred that must have delighted the angels of God. Through the unselfishness, skill, ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... precipice, whose height I can mete by inches here, Is a thousand fathoms quite. I must journey to your foot, Grow on you as on my root; Feed upon your silent speech, Awful air, and wind, and thunder, Shades, ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... maiden. She extended a white arm with jeweled fingers, pointing. Blaine swung quickly, brushing the arm aside just as that intangible something flashed from her hand. The energy of the black disks! It had missed Ulana by inches, ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... constantly in danger, living and moving among unimaginable horrors. Nevil, threatened with septic poisoning, had only been saved at the cost of his left forearm. Not till he was invalided out, near the close of 1916, had he realised—too late—that she was killing herself by inches, with work that alone could leaven ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... to Burkhardt's indignation frequently shot beasts whose skins and horns they did not even trouble to take. When antelope were so far off that it was impossible to kill them, and the approach of night made it useless to follow, he would often shoot, and leave a wretched wounded beast to die by inches. His selfishness was extreme, and he never shared any information with his friend that might rob him of an uninterrupted pursuit of game. But notwithstanding all this, Burkhardt had so high an opinion of Haddo's general capacity ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... to kill the men, and I know the rascals deserve it, do it at once. Hanging is the best way. But don't keep them there to die by inches, for it will disgrace us all over ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... The unfeeling relative inherited the nephew's wealth, but, like all ill-gotten gear, it did not bring happiness. Frightful dreams and dreadful sights compelled the uncle to leave the mansion, where he had murdered by inches a comely, docile young man, once the comfort of a fond mother and loving father. For a few nights nothing of an alarming nature occurred; she began to hope that confidence would be restored in her household, ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... partly from anxiety, apparently, caught the side of the seat in a firm grip and leaned forward to break the jar when they struck rough places. Around an elbow turn they went with one warning scream of the Klaxon, skidded horribly at the sharp angle of the curve, and missed by inches a car from the ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... they entered, having recognized on the straw near the entrance the drummer-boy of their company, Bastian, a fat, good-natured little fellow, who had had the ill-luck to receive a spent ball in the groin about five o'clock the day before, when the battle was ended. He had been dying by inches for the last ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... sorrowful and has higher claims upon our pity? We think it sad when a woman is thus crushed by neglect or abuse, by the hand of poverty, by hard toil, or the harder fate of a consuming death at the hands of a false or brutal companion. But really, why is it sadder than to die by inches on the guillotine of Fashion? The results are the same in either case. Abused women generally outlive fashionable ones. Crushed and care-worn women see the pampered daughters of Fashion wither and die around them, and wonder why death in kindness does not come to take them away instead. ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... us are committing suicide by inches in one form or another—and always in that form which is inherent in ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... fore hatchway, whence the words of alarm proceed, the main one being battened down and covered with tarpaulin. Then a hurried descent to the "'tween-decks" and an anxious peering into the hold below. True—too true! It is already half full of water, which seems mounting higher and by inches to the minute! So fancy ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... open the door, and Venning overtopped him by inches, yet he did not look either small or unwieldy. His step was springy, and his head, poised on a massive neck, was well set, with the chin raised. He was a man, evidently, who had always looked the world straight in the face. His eyes had a yellowish tinge, and in their colour and ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... and not incarnate devils, who thus appeal to Heaven, while they are devouring by inches the life blood of their hapless master!" muttered Catharine, as her two baffled inquisitors left the apartment. "Why sleeps the thunder? But it will roll ere long, and oh! may it be to preserve as well ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... it was fixed right, I mean." He passed a thin, shaking hand over his face, and went on: "Do you want to fool with such things?—Not if you are wise. You see, the cigarette habit will kill you sometime, by inches, if not right away, or else drive you crazy; and no sane person wants to kill himself or spoil his health. That is what I am doing, though," he admitted, with a bitter smile and a sad shake of his head. "But I cannot ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... the door against it, with a rhinoceros determination, nay almost something of a mastiff's; resolute not to admit it, to admit death as soon. Doubtless he had a feeling it would be death, the sagacious man;—and such it is now proving; the Walpole Ministry dying by inches from it; dying ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... long night Cameron lay stretched upon the edge of their bed, staring into the lumpy darkness. Nellie slept like a baby. But once, soon after the lights were turned off, Cameron's blood froze by inches from his head to his feet. It seemed to him that Nellie was laughing, was fairly biting her pillow to keep from laughing aloud! Gravely, of the darkness, he asked how all this had come about. He asked it of the familiar, shadowy heap of Nellie's clothes upon the chair by the window, asked if ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... Saints be praised! I'm a man agin, and not a starvin' machine; and I shall see ye, Mary, mavourneen! but, och, the poor boys that we're lavin'! Hurra! how iver will I ate three males a day, and slape under a blanket, and think of thim on the ground and starvin' by inches!" ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... herbs here I could prolong my days for a long time, I most thoroughly believe, but they can never touch my disease the way they go on here—I am dying by inches." ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... able to trace some event to that date. It was six months ago that she began to take an interest in the fate of John Keith. Since then the change in her has alarmed me, Conniston. I don't understand. She has betrayed nothing. But I have seen her dying by inches under my eyes. She is only a pale and drooping flower compared with what she was. I am positive it is not a sickness—unless it is mental. I have a suspicion. It is almost too terrible to put into words. You will be going up there tonight—you will be alone with her, will talk with her, ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... Katherine. "Why, Rhoda Tuttle, if I could just see you with the old light in your eyes I'd wait on you by inches on my knees. I ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... nearest Ross gave a queer little cough and folded forward to his knees, sprawling on his face. His companion stared at him wildly for an instant, and then skidded into the passage beyond, escaping by inches a shot which clipped the door as he lunged ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... don't know what ails him, you'd ort to; so I'll tell you. He's dyin' by inches ever sence you turned his mother out ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... good sense, answers a good many questions which are bruited to-day. Dr. Albert Shaw, in the Review of Reviews, once brought some of these questions forward. "How far is it right for the people of a free state to kill their magistrates by inches?" This is the question reduced to its simplest terms. It was generally understood, when the late Governor Greenhalge died in Massachusetts, that his career, invaluable to the people of that State and of the country, ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... "You're killing me by inches! To tell us all this and then ask us to settle on going up there into the woods for a two-weeks' spin! It's a crime, that's ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... on my protection, doubtless," said Elizabeth. "Thou art Amy, daughter of Sir Hugh Robsart. I must wring the story from thee by inches. Thou didst leave thine old and honoured father, cheat Master Tressilian of thy love, and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... in this, Babe," he said wearily. "I've thought it all out, and it's best for all of us. I can't see you dying here by inches—in the harness. And think of Vic, if that happened. He's just at the age where he needs you. I couldn't do anything much with him alone. It's the best thing to do, the only thing to do. Don't say anything more against it, don't ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... chance it, lads,' said the mate, 'it is better to be killed outright by the blacks, than die by inches from hunger and thirst. I am ready to step on shore first, and you may shove off, and wait till you see what ...
— Norman Vallery - How to Overcome Evil with Good • W.H.G. Kingston
... said in his last illness, "Ah, Sir Thomas, it will be sooner over with me than it would be with you, for I am dying by inches." Lord Chesterfield was very short.' CROKER. Southey, writing of Rokeby Hall, which belonged to Robinson, says that 'Long Sir Thomas found a portrait of Richardson in the house; thinking Mr. Richardson ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... or two on the snout will deprive the fish of life. Always kill your fish,—big or small,—as nothing ought to be more repulsive to a true sportsman than to see or hear any animal he has captured dying by inches. ...
— Scotch Loch-Fishing • AKA Black Palmer, William Senior
... it was wrong to stay in like this week after week, and month after month. He—he said you were killing yourself by inches, Monsieur Maurice." ...
— Monsieur Maurice • Amelia B. Edwards
... Bet, and I was proud to think as we was pals once on board The Albion ship when it sailed over the dancing waves. He's not a feller to let a comrade suffer, is Dent. I got your letter. You was right, Bet—I couldn't a-bear prison,—it was killing me by inches. I'm wasted now almost to a shadder. Dent tells me as you'll soon be wed, and that never may I call you wife o' mine. Bless you and him! I hasn't another ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... went on, "and a deal's happened in that time. Jack Belton's gone in for stores, and to report. We've shifted camp where the flies, and bugs, and things'll let you folks forget the darn river, and the nightmare I guess you dreamt on it. You're all beating the game, some of you by yards, and others by inches. But you're beating it. And I'm still guessing at those things you all know like you were born to 'em. When are you going to hand me the yarn, Steve? When are you going to feel like thinking about the things that two weeks ago looked ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... see, it's not as if there were one breed, so to speak, of rouble. There were KERENSKY roubles, and Duma roubles, and NICHOLAS roubles, and every little town had a rouble-works which was turning out local notes as hard as they, could go. I missed a fortune there by inches." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 17, 1920 • Various
... though it were accursed, though indeed it was not half so gloomy then as it is now. The sun shone into it then, sometimes, and the birds sang. You would n't think it from the looks of things now, would you? As the dead man rotted in his grave, and the living man died by inches above him, they say the wood grew darker, and darker, and darker. How dark it's getting now, and cold,—cold ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... itself? Only let him instantly be bound, master overseer, hand and foot in the heaviest chains you can get, and then have the dog flogged till he is cut to pieces, that his life and his infernal soul may crawl out of him by inches." ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... been with Captain P——n? He answer'd, No, sir. I thought, sir, you promised me you would: However, I have his answer from Mr Bulkeley; I am to be carried a prisoner to England. Gentlemen, I shall never live to see England, but die by inches in the voyage; and it is surprising to me to think what you can expect by going to the southward, where there are ten thousand difficulties to be encounter'd with: I am sorry so many brave fellows should be led to go where they are not acquainted, when, by going to the northward, there ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... round this house have orders from the Governor to kill me. They will pretend to give me a thrust with a bayonet by mistake some day." Gourgaud reports him as saying on another occasion, "Hudson Lowe is a Sicilian grafted on a Prussian; they must have chosen him to make me die under his charge by inches. It would have been more generous to have ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... well, did it? And the Sioux did not eat you by inches, beginning with your thumbs? Ha! Tres bien! Very good taste! You were not meant for feasts, my solemncholy? Some men are monuments. That's you, mine frien'! Some are champagne bottles that uncork, zip, fizz, froth, stars ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... doing anything else," replied Jack. "It only takes a smart rap with a club on the head to end their sufferings. I'd hate to think of even a fish dying by inches, and flapping all over the boat or the ground, as it gasps its life away. That's one of the things scouts are taught—to be humane sportsmen, giving the game a chance, whether fish, flesh or fowl, and not inflicting ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... 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 ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett
... a more subtle way in all things, had proceeded to the issue with delicate caution, creeping toward it by inches, as a man stalks a caribou. He too had been aware of rivalry; and, having surmised Tommy Lark's intention, he had sought the maid out unwittingly, not an hour after her passionate adventure with Tommy Lark, and had then cast the die of ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... my old dad!" he answered, with a sort of sob in his excited voice. "She's murdering him by inches, that's what she's doing, and I want you to help me bring it home to her. God knows what it is she's using or how she uses it; but you know what demons they are for secret poisons, those Javanese, what means they have of killing people without a trace. And she was out there for years and years. ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... water, with colours flying and all hands on deck, and heard the broadsides roaring over me to the last! That's the death for a British tar, my fine fellow, in action gallantly, and not to lie on the mud and rot away by inches like ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... that she is spoiling her boy by inches; making a nursery darling, instead of a hardy soldier of him? You are weaving silken bonds to fasten me more securely here, when you ought rather to aid me in snapping the fetters of affection, habit, and association. Come, be so good as to brush the dust out of my hair, while you tell me everything ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... and to cherish a long face. It attributes to him as meritorious, all the voluntary evils he inflicts upon himself. From thence originate those austerites, those penances, destructive to health; those cruel privations by which the inhabitants of the monastic cell kill themselves by inches, in order to merit the joys of heaven. Now, how can good sense admit that God delights in seeing his ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... whom they met with such a warm and obstinate reception, that it was not without the most surprising efforts of courage and perseverance that they at length obliged them to give ground; and even then they lost it by inches. St. Ruth, seeing them in danger of being overpowered, immediately detached succours to them from his centre and left wing. Mackay no sooner perceived them weakened by these detachments, then he ordered three ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... cannot describe it as anything but China's most awful curse. It cannot be compared to alcohol, because its grip is more speedy and more deadly. It is more deadly than arsenic, because by arsenic the suicide dies at once, while the opium victim suffers untold agonies and horrors and dies by inches. It is all very well for the men who know nothing about the effect of opium to do all the talking about the harmlessness of this pernicious drug; but they should come through this once fair land of Yuen-nan and see ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... Jim, "I'm a-goin'. I've been a long time about it. I've been dying by inches, but I guess I'll finish the job pretty slick this time. Well, boys, I'm in possession of all my faculties. I want you to know that. I was crazy when I started off, but that's passed away. My mind's clear. Now, pardners, I've got you into this scrape. I'm responsible, an' it seems to me I'd ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... just what that paper says to-day—and to-morrow he will be forgotten. He will scarcely find a place in history, for history only concerns itself with the great leaders of men. What does it all come to, then? Neither present nor posthumous fame; but death—death all the time. He is dying by inches now, dying of the most horrible persecution; and the emotion that his end will cause among a few individuals cannot be called posthumous fame. (HARALD begins to speak, but checks himself.) Can you hope to make a better fight of it? You ...
— Three Dramas - The Editor—The Bankrupt—The King • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... the most important of all, and each had his own plan of operations to lay before the Secretary of War. A million men were tugging manfully at the Car of Freedom, which was at a stand-still, or moved only by inches, because they had no head. But when the President appointed General Grant to the command, he gave up his own plans, while General Halleck became a subordinate. The department commanders found all their plans set aside. There was not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... it, Sagamore, beginning at the spring, and going over the ground by inches. The Huron shall never brag in his tribe that he has a foot ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... And yet the Church of Jesus has been the greatest generator of Scribes and Pharisees the world has ever known, and they have even proved the very bulwark of it to this day. Look, again, at Luther. There was the Catholic Church dying by inches, gently, even exquisitely. And here came that gigantic peasant, with his too exuberant energy, battered the dying Church into acute sensibility, kicked it into emotion, galvanised it into life, prolonged its existence for a thousand years. The man who sought to exterminate the Church proved ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... not of stormy graves— Though winds be high, there let them roar; I 'd rather perish on the waves Than pine by inches on the shore. I ask no willow where I lie, My mourner let the mermaid be, My only knell the sea-bird's cry, My ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... ride, mounted on a horse of the plains, Maqueda? Oh! what need is there for me to ask? You go to see that accursed Gentile whom I would I had killed by inches, as I would that I could ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... and I were over that bottle of whisky. Something happens between them. Something inside the man says, 'now,' and the message runs along the reins to the horse's brain. It flies down into his legs. There is a rush. The head of the horse has just worked its way out in front by inches—not too soon, nothing wasted. Ha, that ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... Praile's life could never be so poor again, after a winter here with you, as it might be if she had never had it. If you'd like her, let her come, and don't be a bit afraid. We're only working by inches, any of us; like the camel's-hair embroiderers in China. But it gets put together; and it is beautiful, ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... by inches, pausing now and then to listen breathlessly to the low murmur of the Indian voices, and endeavoring to note any change in the posture of the barely distinguishable figures. There was no alarm, no changing of places, and the success of our approach brought ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... Eleazar, and other worthies caused their own death, and that Jesus Christ himself, if really the Son of God, dying of his own free grace, was a suicide, to say nothing of the various ascetic penitents who have killed themselves by inches.[154] "The fear of death, after all," he says, summing up his case, "will only make cowards; the fear of its alleged consequences will only make fanatics or melancholy pietists, as useless to themselves as to others. Death is a ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... Rates"; but it is different in London. You may point out a street, correctly enough, as the abode of washerwomen; but, in that second floor, a man may be studying Chaldee roots, and in the garret over the way a forgotten artist is dying by inches.' ...
— The House of Souls • Arthur Machen
... ventilation was afforded on all sides but one, that it was not possible to remain beyond a few moments without retreating for recovery to the outward air. Irritation of body, produced by utter filth and exposure, incited her to the horrid process of tearing off her skin by inches; her neck and person were thus disfigured to hideousness.... And who protects her," Miss Dix suggestively asks, "who protects her,—that worse than Pariah outcast,—from other wrongs and blacker outrages!" This question had more meaning ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... rich food—they were before him: he could see them all, he had but to reach out his hand, and take them—and, though the illusion was reality itself, he knew that he was sitting alone in the deserted street, watching the rain-drops as they pattered on the stones; that death was coming upon him by inches—and that there were none to ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... nothing more. After her grim decision she had forced large quantities down her throat by sheer strength of will. But she had found the result all that she had expected, she had alternated between exhilaration and oblivion, and was sure that it was killing her by inches. Now, she could indulge in neither wild imaginings nor forget. And if he cured her!—but her will when she chose to exert it was as strong as his, and her ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... den and over his person until even the little scullion who attended him shuddered with horror as he glanced into the place and muttered, "Everything is alive in that room." "Yes," says Beauchesne, "everything was alive except the boy they were killing by inches, and murdering in detail. This beautiful child, so admired at Versailles and at the Tuileries, would not recognise himself, his form is scarcely human—it is something that vegetates—a moving mass of bones and skin. Never could any state of misery have been conceived ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... a lion, forcing his way through the furious crowd, attacked in the most brutal way on every side, yet ever struggling on if only by inches. Never once did his steadfastness waver, never for a single instant did his spirit sink. His unfailing presence of mind enabled him to get through what would have been impossible to most men, his great height and strength stood him in good stead, while the meanness and the injustice of ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... Coke upon Lyttelton and Three Estates of Parliament in the rear of them, got together without human labour,—mostly forgotten now! From the time of Cain's slaying Abel by swift head-breakage, to this time of killing your man in Chancery by inches, and slow heart-break for forty years,—there too is an interval! Venerable Justice herself began by Wild-Justice; all Law is as a tamed furrowfield, slowly worked out, and rendered arable, from the waste jungle ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... to my desire to hasten from such scenes; and I had soon left the town for the Ohio. I will not weary you with further details, as my breath is failing fast. Suffice it to say I arrived in Mexico, and, here I am, perishing by inches upon ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... within the bounds &c (limit) 233. Adv. by degrees, gradually, inasmuch, pro tanto [It]; however, howsoever; step by step, bit by bit, little by little, inch by inch, drop by drop; a little at a time, by inches, by slow degrees, by degrees, by little and little; in some degree, in some measure; to some extent; di grado in ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... was, talking like a gentleman at large who was free to come and go and roam about the world at pleasure, when that gallant coachmaker had vowed but the night before that Miss Varden held him bound in adamantine chains; and had positively stated in so many words that she was killing him by inches, and that in a fortnight more or thereabouts he expected to make a decent end and leave the business ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... neighbourhood looking on, and anyhow not worse than this Saturday-to-Tuesday business of dying by inches; and then I should go on into something else. If I had been a moderately good otter I suppose I should get back into human shape of some sort; probably something rather primitive—a little brown, unclothed ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... fairly correct. Chambers had shot her bolt. Brimfield secured the ball by inches on a fourth down near the middle of the field and her first desperate attack, a skin-tackle play with St. Clair carrying the pigskin, piled through for nearly ten yards, proving that Chambers was no longer invulnerable. Carmine, still in ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... whole people's habit of thought, he reflected. Even the Courier followed the popular whim by miles and led it only by inches. So it seemed, at least. And yet if one should try to make his scheme a public one and leave the ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... about his bree, His tap-lip lang by inches three - A slockened sort 'mon,' to pree A' sensuality - A droutly glint was ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hot stove for the same length of time, any day in the week. The reason Bost is a great coach is because his men don't dare play poorly. When they do he talks to them. If he would only hit them, or skin them by inches, or shoot at them, they wouldn't mind it so much; but when you get on the field with him and realize that if you miss a tackle he is going to get you out before the whole gang and tell you what a great ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... strained his ears to catch the words that might follow it. As he listened, his head thrust half in at the door, Obadiah's voice became lower and lower, until at last it ceased entirely. Not a step, not a deep breath, not the movement of a hand disturbed the stillness of the little room. By inches Nathaniel drew himself inside the door. His heavy boot caught in a sliver on the step but the rending of wood brought no response. It was the quiet of death that pervaded the cabin, it was a strange, growing fear of death that entered Nathaniel as he now hurried across the room and ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood
... over the death-bed of an illiterate woman, old and plain, dying away by inches? Is it only that she died with a hold of my hand, and that therefore I am interested in the story? I trust not. I was interested in HER. Why? Would my readers be more interested if I told them of the death of ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... I am here, to see if I can't fix up a deal with you to straighten things out. I am in your hands, boy, at your mercy. I have the reputation of being hard as shingle nails. I'm soft as putty where the girl is concerned. It kills me by inches to have ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... players on the fringe drew away until the referee could see the ball. There was a moment of tense expectancy and then the official waved his arm in a direction that brought forth a vast yell of joy from the Ridgley stands. Jefferson had been held; that leather oval had failed by inches to cross the last ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... manacled feet; and then brands and embers were thrust underneath. Pike turned sick with horror and helplessness at the sight, for he knew instantly what it meant. The wagon was to be the wretched Manuelito's funeral pyre. They meant to burn him to death by inches. Suddenly a bright flame leaped up from the bottom of the stack of fuel; broader, brighter, fiercer it grew until it lapped up over the floor of the wagon. A scream of agony rang through the Pass, answered by jeering laughter and fiendish yells. The next minute the whole band were ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... forcing its way along the dry channels, and the heavily-ticking nerves, and the sullen heart—the struggle of life and death in him—grim death relaxing his gripe; such pain it is, he cries out no thanks to them that pull him by inches from the depths of the dead river. And he who has thought a love extinct, and is surprised by the old fires, and the old tyranny, he rebels, and strives to fight clear of the cloud of forgotten sensations that settle on him; such pain it is, the old sweet music reviving through his frame, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a younger man he had first clashed with the minister during Mr. Rattray's attempts to do away with some old customs that were already dying by inches. One was the selection of a queen of beauty from among the young women at the annual Thrums fair. The judges, who were selected from the better-known farmers as a rule, sat at the door of a tent that reeked of whisky, and regarded the competitors filing by much as ...
— Auld Licht Idylls • J. M. Barrie
... that turns the life of tens of thousands of men into martyrdom. Let the wife of the overborne and exhausted husband remember this, and do not nag him about that, and say you might as well have no husband when the fact is he is dying by inches that the home ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... so sanguine about himself, that he never thought he was going to die. To the last he believed he would recover. And, happily, his was not that painful form of the disease where there is a great deal of suffering, and a literal dying by inches, so that the poor sick ...
— The French Prisoners of Norman Cross - A Tale • Arthur Brown
... un all," argued Joan. "Why shouldn't 'ee? 'Tis the same, so far as you'm concerned, whether he's killed to wance or dies by inches." ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... it. There is not a word in the articles of war about officers working. I am willing enough to be shot by the Spaniards, but not to be killed by inches. No, sir, there is not an O'Moore ever did a stroke of work, since the flood; and I am not going ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... of heavy sorrow and foreboding hung over the little village. All its inhabitants were oppressed by a dreary sense of helpless wretchedness and personal loss. Maryllia was not dead,—but it was to be feared that she was dying,—slowly, and by inches as it were, yet nevertheless surely. A great specialist had been summoned from London by Dr. Forsyth, and after long and earnest consultation, his verdict upon her case had been well-nigh hopeless. Thereupon Cicely Bourne was immediately ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... plead to know what had happened. She had never been like this before, he would argue—it was monstrous and unthinkable. It was the life she had to live, the accursed work she had to do, that was killing her by inches. She was not fitted for it—no woman was fitted for it, no woman ought to be allowed to do such work; if the world could not keep them alive any other way it ought to kill them at once and be done with it. They ought not to marry, to have children; ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... forward and pushed me off my seat, so that I fell right under the mules just as they stepped on the ferry. The frightened mules trampled and kicked fearfully. I lay still, thinking that if I moved they would step on me, as their hoofs missed my head by inches only. I thought of my mother and how sorry she would be if she could see me now, but I was thinking, ever thinking and lay very still. Then my guardian angel, in the person of a Mexican, crawled under the wagon from the rear ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... expected as much when the oily blackguard Mfumbi came over from his chief to ask after my health; so, judging from my experience with Makaka, I told Lumeresi at once to tell me what he considered his due, for this fearful haggling was killing me by inches. I had no more deoles, but would make that up in brass wire. He then fixed the hongo at fifteen masango or brass wire bracelets, sixteen cloths of sorts, and a hundred necklaces of samisami or red coral beads, which was to pay for Grant as well as myself. I paid it down ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke |
