"Clap" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... statements regarding the Saviour, but are willing to pass, without any real inquiry or any firm opinion, his presence in the world, and his influence at this moment on every event in modern life, the book might also have an immense value, if it could be conceived that any thunder-clap could wake them from that selfish and comfortable indifference as to the central point of all the history, philosophy, life, and religion, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... at her daughter's engagement; of course she was very quiet about it, she did n't clap her hands or drag in Mr. Tester's name; but it was easy to see that she felt a kind of maternal peace, an abiding satisfaction. The young man behaved as well as possible, was constantly seen with Joscelind, and smiled down at her in the kindest, most protecting way. They ...
— The Path Of Duty • Henry James
... treating the most delicate matters, in finding a remedy for those hidden suspicions which often keep them in suspense, and in terminating all difficulties in such a manner as to conciliate the most opposite interests; this was the subject of all talk, when on a sudden resounded, like a clap of thunder, that astounding news, Madame is dying! Madame is dead! And there, in spite of that great heart, is this princess, so admired and so beloved; there, as death has made her for us!" [Bossuet, Oraison funebre ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... that that was not so good a place for the shavings as that which I myself had selected, and asked him to tell me why he wanted me to put them in the place he designated. Upon this, he flew into a terrible rage, and without explanation reiterated his order like a clap of thunder. ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... that he was going to prove; after this preliminary flourish was over, behold, up got Mr. Sergeant Runnington, who appeared on behalf of the defendant, and let fall some remarks which, though given in a sufficiently matter-of-fact and every-day tone, fell like a thunder-clap upon the ears of all present, save two persons; and produced upon the Honorable Richard Pennroyal an effect as if a hand-grenade had been let off within his head, and his spine drawn neatly out through the ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne
... stamping down the corn which they had cultivated with care for their own domestic use. But time wore away, and all was still, excepting the cow in the garden. The sharp report of a gun was heard, and loud groans followed, which seemed to shake everything within like a clap of midnight thunder, and my brain seemed to reel, for deeds were going on I dare not ...
— The Forest King - Wild Hunter of the Adaca • Hervey Keyes
... absolutely realistic goes with you, and interprets its grandeur to you. Stand before his canvas and enjoy it as you would Nature herself if there. Surely, you say, nothing more could be desired, and you clap your hands, and shout, 'Bravo!' But wait a bit; the other side is yet to be heard from. What does the true artist do for you by his picture of Yosemite Valley? He not only gives you a free conveyance to it, but he goes with you, and interprets its grandeur to you. He translates ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... cried Poly with a sparkling eye. "The 'mos' won'erful thing I see at Fort Enterprise—Wa!—the laktrek light! Her shine in little bottles lak pop, but not so big. John Gaviller, him clap his hands, so! and ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... whether he had really made an ass of himself, and there was this amount of evidence for it that there certainly had been a series of moments each one of which glowed with the lucid sense that, as she couldn't like him as much as that either for his acted clap-trap or for his printed verbiage, what it must come to was that she liked him, and to such a tune, just for himself and quite after no other fashion than that in which every goddess in the calendar had, when you came to look, sooner or later liked some ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... the breath of flutes will float around you, And glorious sunshine, such as ours, you'll see, And myrtle groves, and happy bands who clap Their hands in triumph, ...
— The Frogs • Aristophanes
... into cold water, and immediately squeezed dry. If fine things be wrung, or roughly used, they are very liable to tear; so too much care cannot be exercised in this respect. If the article is lace, clap it between the hands a few times, which will assist to clear it; then have ready laid out on the table a large clean towel or cloth; shake out the starched things, lay them on the cloth, and roll it up tightly, and let it remain for ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... foot you tap, tap, tap, Then your hands you clap, clap, clap; Right foot first, left foot then, Round about and ...
— Story Hour Readers Book Three • Ida Coe and Alice J. Christie
... from his book; his eyes were not cold or malevolent, his mouth was not cynical; he was ready and willing to hear what I might have to say: his spirit was of vintage too mellow and generous to sour in one thunder-clap. ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... was for some moments a deep silence, which was followed by a wild, abrupt outcry from half a million people—the roar of indistinguishable words bursting forth from the lips of all that throng, whose accumulated volume arose in one vast thunder-clap of sound, pealing forth, echoing along the terraced streets, and rolling on far away in endless reverberations. It was like the roar of mighty cataracts, like the sound of many waters; and at the voice of that vast multitude ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... dismounted after the rain set in and was walking beside the girl's mule. Once, as an unusually heavy clap of thunder burst over their heads, she had impulsively stretched out her hand to him; he had taken it, and still held it, covered by a fold of the waterproof, steadying her so. He was wet to the ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Would I? Not on your life. What d'ye say to fifty quid? That might begin to interest me, but a hundred quid would interest me more. Why, a hundred quid all in beer 'd come pretty close to floatin' this old hooker. But who in Sam Hill'd offer a hundred quid? I'd like to clap eyes on him once, that's all, just once. D'ye want to know what for? All right. I'll whisper it. So as I could tell him to go to hell. Sure, Killeny Boy, just like that—oh, most polite, of course, just ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... palace. An abbe or soldier is unmercifully beaten and dragged into the Tuileries basin. One of the gunners of the Guard reviles the queen like a fish woman, and exclaims to her, "How glad I should be to clap your head on the end of my bayonet!"[2512] They supposed that the King is brought to heel under this double pressure of the Legislative Body and the street; they rely on his accustomed docility, or at least, on his proven lethargy; ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... between them was as the appalling pause between the lightning and the thunder-clap. All the savagery of which the human heart is capable was pent within its brief bounds. Then Burke spoke through lips that ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... stood in reverential attitude and gazed in speechless wonder and admiration. David and Moses and the Christ had much to do with mountains in their day; and, as we watched the power of the elements that afternoon, we realized as never before how David could hear the floods clap their hands and see expressions of joy or anger upon the faces of the mountains; and how Mount Sinai might have looked as it became the meeting-place of the Lord and Moses and the tables of stone. The storm lasted about an hour, and when at last Nature seemed to have exhausted herself the great ...
— In the Early Days along the Overland Trail in Nebraska Territory, in 1852 • Gilbert L. Cole
... remembrance of his folly; he now saw how happiness is lost when ease is consulted; he lamented the unmanly impatience that prompted him to seek shelter in the grove, and despised the petty curiosity that led him on from trifle to trifle. While he was thus reflecting, the air grew blacker and a clap ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... leave Albano, not a little impeded by the worthy successors of the ancient prototypes of Veiento.[19] It had been wild weather when I left Rome, and all across the Campagna the clouds were sweeping in sulphurous blue, with a clap of thunder or two, and breaking gleams of sun along the Claudian aqueduct lighting up the infinity of its arches like the bridge of chaos. But as I climbed the long slope of the Alban mount, the storm swept finally to the north, and the noble outline of the domes of Albano and graceful ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... their usurious gains at the very altar. They cast themselves on their knees that they may have an opportunity of displaying their mantles, and hardly take their eyes off the parson from their anxiety to see how his wig is frizzled. They swoon at the sight of a bleeding goose, yet clap their hands with joy when they see their rival driven bankrupt from the Exchange. Warmly as I pressed their hands,—"Only one more day." In vain! To prison with the dog! Entreaties! Vows! Tears! (stamping the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... grocery and its proprietor, the two pounds of the best butter, and the purple trading-stamp had nothing to do with the real business of the evening. The game was simply to identify the 'Mr. House-smith' who had advertised for his ninety-and-nine kisses, and the clap-trap of the message in telegraphic characters, and all the rest of it, were simply the kind of bait at which so eccentric a person might be expected to bite. The gentleman with one ear larger than the other desired to find ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... he is never angry with them. It is the attitude of an artist in expounding human nature, of an expert in observation of life: an attitude attainable but by very few, and disliked as a rule by the rest, who want to clap or to hiss—who can laugh ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... long heaths and through the mountain-forests, fishers and raftsmen sang them on the rivers. He composed the Song of the Sickle which cuts at a stroke the corn in its ripeness and the wild flower in its bloom, and the Song of the Mill-wheel, with its long creak and quick clap, and the melodious rush of water from the buckets of the wheel, and many another which it would take long to tell of; but that which to himself was sweetest and dearest was Golden Apples and Roses Red, the song in which he told the legend of St. ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... inevitable. Martin went over like a deer. Barney shut his eyes, seized the pommel of the saddle, and went at it like a thunder-bolt In the excitement of the moment he shouted, in a stentorian voice, "Clap on all sail! d'ye hear? Stu'n-sails and sky-scrapers! Kape ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... long, tedious row against the headwind, which now blew a gale. Our new acquaintance, every now-and-then, would throw down his oar, and howl and clap his hands to show his grief for the loss of his departed friend. These pathetic lamentations elicited no sympathy from Redpath, who abused him for "a lazy lubber," and ordered him "to pull and not make such an infernal howling, worse than a ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... any solid foundation of realities. Could I have looked forward a few years, I might have regretted that American enterprise had not provided a similar tunnel, under the Hudson or the Potomac, for the convenience of our National Government in times hardly yet gone by. It would be delightful to clap up all the enemies of our peace and Union in the dark together, and there let them abide, listening to the monotonous roll of the river above their heads, or perhaps in a state of miraculously suspended animation, until,—be it after months, years, or centuries,—when ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... no better," answered another, as a strong, red flash followed close after the sledge-hammer blow of the clap. The officer of the watch gave some command in muffled tones, and immediately afterwards the man at the helm ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... He may at some time restore all force to consciousness again, and make every part of the universe thrill with responsive joy. "Then shall the mountains and the hills break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field clap their hands." One of these changes is to come to the earth. [Page 241] Amidst great noise the heaven shall flee, the earth be burned up, and all their forces be changed to new forms. Perhaps it will ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... cried Dr. Fisher, bringing his hands together with a joyful clap; and getting out of his chair he began to skip up and down like a boy. "And let Amy Loughead do the piano music, do; that will please Polly to see how the child has gone ahead. I can't hardly believe Miss Salisbury; she tells me the chit practices every ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... in his wash-basin, and she had delicately and considerately introduced to him the idea of her new method. Nels, it appeared, had a great reputation as a bread-maker, and he was proud of it. Moreover, he was skeptical of any clap-trap thing with wheels and cranks. He consented, however, to let her show how the thing worked and to sample some of the bread. To that end she had him come up to the house, where she won him over. Stillwell laughed loud ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... of this fortress came like a thunder-clap over Europe. It announced the reign of anarchy in France, and the helplessness of the King. On hearing of the fall of the Bastille, the King is said to have exclaimed to his courtiers, "It is a revolt, then." "Nay, sire," said the Duke of Liancourt, "it is a revolution." ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... You can run past the stumps while you shoot, and as to stones, you can roll them down hill and let fly at them as they roll. Now clap the hatches on your mouth; ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... tree— The reed of the rude shepherd boy: All love the bird-carols when day has begun, When rock-fountains gush into song as they run, When the stars of the morn sing their hymns to the sun, And hills clap their hands in ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... "this Son of God being raised from the dead and ascended to heaven, is our high-priest there." But you talk not at all of his sprinkling the mercy-seat with his blood, but clap upon him the heathens' demons, negotiating the affairs of men with the supreme God, and so wrap up [Footnote: That is, dismiss the subject.] with a testification that it is needless to enlarge ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... pleasant, Nothing comes amiss to us; Hare, rabbit, snare, nab it; Cock, or hen, or kite; Tom cat, with strong fat, A dainty supper is to us; Hedge-hog and sedge-frog To stew is our delight; Bow, wow, with angry bark My lady's dog assails us; We sack him up, and clap A stopper on his din. Now pop him in the pot; His store of meat avails us; Wife cook him nice and hot, And ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... so," cried Mr. Warren. "What would our property be worth if it wasn't for the British frigate lying in the harbour? Tell me that, Maxwell; tell me that, sir! They'd confiscate the whole lot, and clap us into prison for being paupers," and the thumbs revolved like ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... there greet the ten million eyes, And lips uncounted smile to thy red. Yes, those who bow to thy crimson dyes, Are myriads more than all of thy dead. Lo! The young clap hands at thy bright unrest; And the child in arms it leaps in its glee. Nay, babes unborn, 'neath the mother's breast And given and pledged to thy cause ...
— Selected Poems • William Francis Barnard
... beyond the Waverley Novels." After dinner, kava. Lady J. was served before me, and the king drank last; it was the least formal kava I ever saw in that house,—no names called, no show of ceremony. All my ladies are well trained, and when Belle drained her bowl, the King was pleased to clap his hands. Then he and I must retire for our private interview, to another house. He gave me his own staff and made me pass before him; and in the interview, which was long and delicate, he twice called me afioga. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... up presently and looked out of the window. He could see but little excepting a stretch of snow. The cell-like room was almost without heat, and he had to clap his hands together, and stamp his feet, to ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield
... another; "Miserable puppy," cries a third; "I'd like to wring his neck," says Bruff, scowling over his shoulder at him. Clarence meanwhile nods, winks, smiles, and patronizes them all with the easiest good-humor. He is a fellow who would poke an archbishop in the apron, or clap a duke on the shoulder, as coolly as he ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the biggest changes are unconscious before they are conscious. They have been long preparing. They fall with a clap; and people call them sudden and exclaim, "How strange!" But it is only the discovery and recognition that are sudden. It all has happened already long ago—happened before. The faint sense of familiarity betrays it. It is there the ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... takes to his heels, and scampers away as fast as ever he can. Hacco and the robbers run after him, scrambling about among bushes and trees, as if they were playing at hide-and-seek. The spectators laugh and clap their hands, and the village children scream with delight. Hacco fires a pistol at the runaway, but misses, on which everybody cheers. Then he fires again, and the pilgrim tumbles down, and is killed with an arrow ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Belgium • George W. T. Omond
... four "old masters," and the bronzes and the teakwood carvings—you can see for yourself. Lucy wasn't quite satisfied with the room at first. She missed the fish-net draperies and cozy corners and the usual clap-trap of amateur studios. But she's educated up to it now, and it's a daily joy to me. On the other hand my broiled steaks and feather-weight waffles and first-class coffee are a joy to poor Henry, who can't even boil an egg properly, ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the thought of the presence of Deity cannot be borne without this great astonishment. "The mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... one of his revolvers and fired into the throng of his enemies, and the shot resounded like a clap of thunder in ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... became more violent as the rain lessened, and, so absolutely were we centred in this electrical maelstrom, there was no connecting any chain or flash or fork of lightning with any particular thunder-clap. The atmosphere all about us paled and flamed. Such a crashing and smashing! We looked every moment for the Elsinore to be struck. And never had I seen such colours in lightning. Although from moment to moment we were ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... to be sure there ain't; and why clap on the blinkers, my dear? You that has a face like a rose, and with a cove like Jerry Hunt, that might be your born father? (But all this don't ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... also, if the dust of Samaria shall suffice for handfuls for all the people that follow me.' And then Ahab replied in the words of our text. They have a dash of contempt and sarcasm, all the more galling because of their unanswerable common-sense. 'The time to crow and clap your wings is after you have fought. Samaria is not a heap of dust just yet. Threatened men live long.' The battle began, and the bully was beaten; and for once Ahab ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... flat-topped roofs, balconies, and streets there were cries of 'Bravo!' and 'Hurrah!' uttered by men and women who probably never spoke the words before, and quite close to the Jaffa Gate I saw three old Mahomedans clap their hands while tears of joy coursed down their cheeks. Their hearts were too full to utter a word. There could be no doubt of the sincerity of this enthusiasm. The crowd was more demonstrative than is usual with popular assemblies ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... to the Islander, the passengers of both vessels, on board of her, began to clap their hands. I was embarrassed by this demonstration, and after asking Washburn to see that we were made fast to our consort, I sat down in the pilot-house where ...
— Up the River - or, Yachting on the Mississippi • Oliver Optic
... best of uncles had taught her. And well could she use the spy-glass too, which she now held to her right eye. It had been hard at first to keep the left closed, but she could manage it now quite easily without asking Pansy to clap a hand over it. ...
— Crusoes of the Frozen North • Gordon Stables
... he exclaimed, "when I think of the way that the Neils will clap their wings and crow over us! If it was from any other family he tuck it so inanely, I wouldn't care so much; but from them! Oh, Chiernah! it's too bad! Turn ...
— The Dead Boxer - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... He hardly knew whether to fly into a rage with this extraordinary young man or to clap him on the back and tell him he liked him better and better every minute. He contented himself by repeating a remark he had made earlier in ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... there is a clatter, what the vulgar call "a shindy," round the pedestal. Squeezed by his believers, shied at by his scoffers, the poor man gets horribly mauled about, and drops from the perch in the midst of the row. Then they shovel him over, clap a great stone on his relics, wipe their foreheads, shake hands, compromise the dispute, the one half the world admitting that though he was a genius he was still an ordinary man; the other half allowing that though he was an ordinary man he was still a genius. And so ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... as that which this phrase, pronounced in a very resonant tone, evoked within me. In leaving M. Gottofrey's presence the words "You are not a Christian" sounded all night in my ear like a clap of thunder. The next day I confided my troubles to M. Gosselin, who kindly reassured me, and who could not or would not see anything wrong. He made no effort, even, to conceal from me how surprised and annoyed he was at this ill-timed attempt upon a conscience ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... got home again she told Mabyn. Strange to say, Mabyn did not clap her hands for joy, as might ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... company of his friends that he had a wine so good that Christ himself might drink thereof. This being reported to the inquisitor and he understanding that the man's means were large and his purse well filled, ran in a violent hurry cum gladiis et fustibus[53] to clap up a right grievous suit against him, looking not for an amendment of misbelief in the defendant, but for the filling of his own hand with florins to ensue thereof (as indeed it did,) and causing him to be cited, asked him if that which had been ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... returned Captain Blossom bluntly. "The fact that you used an assumed name proves it. If I wanted to do so, I could clap you in the ship's brig until we reach port and chain you into the bargain. I want no ...
— The Rover Boys on Land and Sea - The Crusoes of Seven Islands • Arthur M. Winfield
... of Prison Reform is all the more important because it is only by the agency of the Gaol that Society attempts to deal with its hopeless cases. If a woman, driven mad with shame, flings herself into the river, and is fished out alive, we clap her into Prison on a charge of attempted suicide. If a man, despairing of work and gaunt with hunger, helps himself to food, it is to the same reformatory agency that he is forthwith subjected. The rough and ready surgery with which we deal with our social patients ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... black fumes that poisoned the palate with sulphur. This way and that sped the demon engines, whirling lighted waggons full of people. Shrill whistles, the hiss and roar of steam, the bang, clap, bang of carriage-doors, the clatter of feet on wood and stone—all echoed and reverberated from a huge cloudy vault above them. High and low, on every available yard of wall, advertisements clamoured to the eye: theatres, journals, soaps, medicines, concerts, furniture, wines, prayer-meetings—all ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... pearl,—sandals belonging to his own daughter! But he stamped with shame and vexation; Salammbo, who busied herself in helping him, was as pale as he. The child, dazzled by such splendour, smiled and, growing bold even, was beginning to clap his hands and jump, when ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... around for some rock or instrument of defence. It was, I think, the most imminent danger to which I have ever been exposed. I was calculating my capacity for dodging the creature when suddenly a sound like a small clap of thunder was heard. The rest of the herd, which seemed quite wild, seeing the approach of a stranger, had taken alarm and started off down the hillside on a full run, their rushing and trampling causing the earth to reverberate beneath their ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... cool, scornful anger of the Rector, the keen question—"Was he mad?" burst upon the unhappy Val like a clap of thunder. He was standing in his shirt-sleeves, ready to go down, all but his coat and waistcoat, his hair-brushes in the uplifted hands. Hands and brushes had been arrested midway in the shock. The calm clerical man; all the more terrible then ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... going to stay at home?" cry I, at the top of my voice, jumping up in an ecstasy, and beginning to clap my hands. ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... can do things for yourself. What a chump you are, Dot. Why it's your left arm, you ought to be able to do everything in creation with your right arm alone, except maybe play the piano or clap your hands. I'll show you how to do things. Is ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... A remarkable clap of thunder drowned Nelson's reply. Perhaps it was as well. And as the heavy roll of the report died away, they heard a series of shrieks somewhere in the ...
— How Janice Day Won • Helen Beecher Long
... saved Hollyhock now, and he was bound to be good to her for that reason. His nephew, the next heir to the title, was staying at the Castle, and this Cameron had a son of his own, 'the bonniest lad you could clap eyes on,' who would, all in good time, be Duke and owner of ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... murmured, and walked into the bar. Jerry Strann was smiling in the way that showed his teeth. As Barry passed he said softly: "I see we ain't going to have no trouble, you and me!" and he moved to clap his strong hand on the shoulder of the smaller man. Oddly enough, the hand missed, for Barry swerved from beneath it as a wolf swerves from the shadow of a falling branch. No perceptible effort—no sudden start of tensed muscles, but a movement so smooth ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... sudden violence of a thunder-clap. In a moment the tossing trees became gesticulating ghosts seen dimly through a veil of glistening rods of water sharply diagonal—nearly horizontal; and even through the musketry rattle on the window-panes they could hear the pavement hiss beneath ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... yet sought to free himself from the necessity of paying it. Francis' own words and demeanor suggested this idea for the first time to his mind. Was it possible, he asked himself, to prove that Francis was insane—clap him into a lunatic asylum—get rid of him forever without hush-money? True, there was his wife, Mary, to be silenced; but she had no influence and no friends. "Power is always in the hands of those who have most money," Oliver said to himself, as ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... glen, and creeping up the mountain would cover it with a veil so dense that the children could not see it, and then they would say to each other: "Our mountain is gone away from us." But when the mist would lift and float off into the skies, the children would clap their hands, and say: "Oh, ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... lightning quivered along the horizon, a clap of thunder nearer than the first one was heard, a light foam appeared on the surface of the water, and the boat trembled like a living thing. Murat began to understand that danger was approaching, then he got up smiling, threw his hat behind him, shook back his long hair, and breathed in the storm ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MURAT—1815 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... small, I know; but I can't push things quite so far as that. I don't wish any sentimental business, to sit by your hearth a white-haired wanderer, and all that. Quite the contrary: I hope to God I shall never again clap eyes ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... rolled along the grass-covered plain. The driver on the front box did not clap his whip or call to his oxen, and Gregory sat beside him with folded arms. Behind them, in the closed wagon, she lay with the dog at her feet, very quiet, with folded hands. He, Gregory, dared not be in there. Like Hagar, when she laid her treasure down in the wilderness, ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... could speak, or even clap her hands a second time, they had entirely surrounded her, joining hands, and wheeling round and round, ...
— Harper's Young People, January 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... twenty-five of us—all that our small house would hold. There were more games than dances; and the games were largely "kissing" games: "post-office," "clap-in, clap-out," "drop the handkerchief," and such-like innocent infantilities. Some of us thought ourselves too old for this sort of thing, and would willingly have left it to the younger children; but the eager ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... closer up, 'Longside of the leader, an' hit him flat On his steamin' flank with a lightsome stroke Of the end of my limber lariat; He never swerv'd, an' we thunder'd on, Black in the blackness, red in the red Of the lightnin' blazin' with ev'ry clap That bust from ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... ended; and the crowd, delighted at its meaning, are full of applause, and clap their ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... noble height, with nimbly moving ears, erect necks, and plump haunches. He waxes eloquent over the races, the expert jockeys, the eager horses, the shouting crowds. "The riders, inspired with the love of praise and the hope of victory, clap spurs to their flying horses, lashing them with their whips, and inciting them by their shouts"; so wrote the worthy monk Fitzstephen. He evidently loved a horse-race, but he need not have given us the startling information, ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... discount rate in the Bank of England under such circumstances came like a thunder-clap, and the distended bladder burst. Banks suspended payment, and bank notes lost from 10 to 20 per cent. Exchange on France and England rose to 22 per cent., all metal disappeared from circulation, and a thousand failures took place. The English export houses lost from ...
— A Brief History of Panics • Clement Juglar
... beggar's clap-dish," said he; "leastwise, it did all the while I was in the garden this morning. She greeted me o'er the wall, and would know who we were, and every one of our names, and what kin we were one to the other, and whence we came, and wherefore, and how long we looked ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... main building or mansion. They were the stable—and good horses there were in that stable; the cow-house, for milk cattle; the barn, to hold the wheat and maize-corn; the smoke-house, for curing bacon; a large building for the dry tobacco; a cotton-gin, with its shed of clap-boards; bins for the husk fodder, and several smaller structures. In one corner you saw a low-walled erection that reminded you of a kennel, and the rich music that from time to time issued from its apertures would convince you that it was a kennel. ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... remark was addressed to a horse standing in one of the stalls. A clap of thunder had set the ...
— True to Himself • Edward Stratemeyer
... to trust to this arrangement; but in fine weather, and close in with the land, he found it convenient to have this sail haul out and brail like a ship's spanker. As the gaff was now aloft, it was only necessary to let go the brails to loosen this broad sheet of canvas, and to clap on the out-hauler, to set it. This was probably the reason why the brig was so unceremoniously cast into the stream, without showing more of her cloth. The jib and flying-jibs, however, did at that moment drop beneath ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... overcoat for his shabby ideas. So when wonderful phenomena in the nervous system are observed,—when tables are smashed by invisible hands,—when people see ghosts through stone walls, and know what is passing in the heart of Africa,—how easily you unlock your wardrobe of terms and clap on the back of every eccentric fact your ready-made phrase-coat,—Animal Magnetism, Biology, Odic Force, Optical Illusion, Second Sight, Spirits, and what not! It is a wonderful labor-saving and faith-saving process. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... the mailed lobster rise, Clap her broad wings, and, soaring, claim the skies? When did the owl, descending from her bower, Crop, 'midst the fleecy flocks, the tender flower; Or the young heifer plunge, with pliant limb, In the salt ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... you may say. And when she saw the white boat coming round the bend, she would flush all up, old Mary said, like one of them damask roses in your belt, Miss Hilda; and her eyes would shine and sparkle, and she'd clap her hands like a child, and run down to the wharf to meet him. Standing there, with her lovely hair blowing about in the wind, she would look more like a spirit, Mary would say, than a mortal person. Then ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... said, it were good to clap a cap. ultegatum upon my back! To which I only said he could not; and that he was at fault, for he hunted upon an old scent. He gave me a number of disgraceful words besides, which I answered with silence, and showing that I ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... time I'd got her out to the farm and had heared her talk and seen her clap her hands at the chippies, and laugh at the birds, and go half wild over every little thing she'd see, I knowed I'd got hold o' something that filled up every crack o' my heart. And she didn't ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... for the beautiful watch, in return for which she gave him a kiss, which I daresay amply repaid Colonel Newcome; and shortly after him Mr. Clive arrived. As he entered, all the girls who had been admiring his pictures began to clap their hands. Mr. Clive Newcome blushed, and looked none the worse for that ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... condescend to give That honour'd piece to distant times must live; When noble Sheffield strikes the trembling strings, The little loves rejoice and clap their wings. Anacreon lives, they cry, th' harmonious swain } Retunes the lyre, and tries his wonted strain, } 'Tis he,—our lost Anacreon lives again. } But when th' illustrious poet soars above The sportive revels of the god of love, Like Maro's muse he takes a loftier ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... Mrs. Delano, smiling. Flora had never been in a gallery of paintings, and she was as much pleased as a little child with a new picture-book. Her enthusiasm attracted attention, and visitors smiled to see her clap her hands, and to hear her little shouts of pleasure or of fun. Ladies said to each other, "It's plain that this lively little adoptee of Mrs. Delano's has never been much in good society." And gentlemen ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... which declares God's pitying knowledge of Israel's oppression, to verse 10, which thrusts Moses forward into the thick of dangers and difficulties, as God's instrument. 'I will send thee' must have come like a thunder-clap. The commander's summons which brings a man from the rear rank and sets him in the van of a storming-party may well make its receiver shrink. It was not cowardice which prompted Moses' answer, but lowliness. His former impetuous confidence had all been beaten out of him. Time was when ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... But in the stalls the applause seemed to be dying down, and Charmian had a moment of such acute, such exquisite apprehension, that always afterward she felt as if she had known the bitterness of death. Scarcely knowing what she did, and suddenly quite pale, she began to clap with Susan. She felt like one fighting against terrible odds. And the enemy sickened her because it was full of a monstrous passivity. It seemed to exhale inertia. To fight against it was like struggling against being smothered by a ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... use him as we do a hot horse. When he first frets and pulls, keep a stiff rein and hold him in if you can; but if he grows mad and furious, slack your hand, clap your heels to him, and let him go. Give him his belly full of it. Away goes the beast like a fury over hedge and ditch, till he runs himself off his mettle; perhaps bogs himself, and then he grows quiet of course.... Besides, good people, do you not know the nature of the barking creatures? ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... hackney writers fed; 190 Hence Monthly Critics earn their daily bread. This is a general tax which all must pay, From those who scribble, down to those who play. Actors, a venal crew, receive support From public bounty for the public sport. To clap or hiss all have an equal claim, The cobbler's and his lordship's right's the same. All join for their subsistence; all expect Free leave to praise their worth, their faults correct. When active Pickle Smithfield stage ascends, 200 The three days' wonder of his laughing friends, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... hotel, embowered in ten or twelve acres of gardened ground, with walks going and coming under its palms and eucalyptuses, beside beds of geraniums and past trellises of roses and jasmines, all in the keeping of a captive stork which was apt unexpectedly to meet the stranger and clap its formidable mandibles at him, and then hop away with half-lifted wings. Algeciras had other claims which it urged day after day more winningly upon us as the last place where we should feel the charm of Spain unbroken ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... made haste to clap his hand over the offending mouth; but he was too late. Rose had heard, and, with glowing cheeks, replied quickly, "But you forget that Uncle Don adopted me as ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... Eastern Siberia: "While we were walking on the bank here we observed our messmate, the captain of the general staff (of the Russian army), approach the steward of the boat suddenly, and, without any apparent reason or remark, clap his hands before his face; instantly the steward clapped his hands in the same manner, put on an angry look, and passed on. The incident was somewhat curious, as it involved a degree of familiarity with the steward ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 441, June 14, 1884. • Various
... The tremendous thunder-clap of sound from the camp had quickened the return of the superintendent and his men, already reached and warned by the doctor. More, it had startled even the drunken workmen so that when some one shouted that the dam had been blown up the debauch came to an immediate end, the house was ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... you could see the tree-ferns; some are quite twenty feet high in the trunk, for trunk it is, and the great broad frond waves over it in a way that would make that child Pena clap her hands with delight. Then the geraniums and roses in blossom, the yellow mimosa flower, the wild moncha, with a white flower, growing everywhere, and the great variety of evergreen trees (none that I have seen being deciduous) make the country very pretty. ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... spite of the steady breeze which came out of the north. The air felt as if it had passed through a furnace. The low, continuous thunder of the guns rolled up from Verdun, with now and then a sharper clap ...
— The Broken Soldier and the Maid of France • Henry Van Dyke
... turn into a fairy godfather, clap you on to my back, give you the lungs of a mermaid, to prevent your choking in the water, and then, come on! Or, rather, I ...
— Lord Dolphin • Harriet A. Cheever
... "Only thunder—a sharper clap than usual—don't be a goose!" said Betty, sharply. "Shall I try it again, Mollie?" for Mollie was still inspecting the motor by the light of one of the oil lamps held over it by Cousin Jane, while Betty was at the steering ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... with a cutlass. By this time the serpent—for it was a sea-serpent—had twisted itself round the bowsprit of the vessel, and was about twenty feet long. Its eyes were about the size of the scuppers and shined like the morning star." "Why, Bill," said one of the listeners, "clap a stopper on that yarn; those sarpents are only seen on the coast of Ameriky, and nobody but Yankees ever seed them." "Avast, Bob," replied the narrator, "don't be too hasty; it is as true as the mainstay ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... the first night with a brace of captains, on the particularly dirty floor of Company F., and dream those 'soldier dreams' in which Mrs. Soldier and two or three little soldiers—assorted sizes—run down to the garden gate to welcome the hero home again, while guardian angels clap their wings in delight and take a receipt for him as 'delivered in good order and well-conditioned' to the deities that preside over the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... had a living offered to him. You needn't jump and clap your hands, for it's nothing at all out of the way—indeed he hardly knows whether to accept it or not. It's a good deal better from a money point of view than this ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... sae guid yoursel', Sae pious and sae holy, Ye've naught to do but mark and tell Your neebor's fauts and folly:— Whase life is like a weel-gaun mill, Supplied wi' store o' water, The heaped happer's ebbing still, And still the clap plays clatter. ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... bright blade of flame stabbing the gloom a hand's breadth from his eyes, and deafened by the crash of the explosion not two feet from his ear-drums, he quickened to the circumstances with much of the confusion of a man awakened by a thunder-clap from evil dreams to realities ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... state of mind, I suddenly felt some one clap me on the shoulder, and heard a voice say, "Ha! comrade of the dingle, what chance has brought you into these parts?" I turned round, and beheld a man in the dress of a postillion, whom I instantly recognized as he to whom ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... to clap her hands—at that time the usual method of summoning a servant. When Levina tapped at the door, instead of bidding her enter, her ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... there, which—saving that he looked more jolly and more radiant after every struggle—troubled his peace of mind no more than if he had been a straw upon the water's surface, he never once released his firm grasp of an arm, drawn tight through his. He sometimes turned to clap this friend upon the back, or whisper in his ear a word of staunch encouragement, or cheer him with a smile; but his great care was to shield him from the pressure, and force a passage for him to the Golden Key. Passive and timid, scared, pale, ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... gone before you finish with me," replied his companion with a grin. "Clap it in the bill, my boy. 'For total loss of reputation, six and eightpence.' But," continued Mr. Wickham with more seriousness, "could I be bowled out of the Commission for this little jest? I know it's small, but I like ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... music were diffused over the whole north end of the hall; then the cloud seemed to rain down radiant flowers of hues and beauty, such as earth had never seen, after which a tremendous sound, as if a clap of thunder shook not only the castle to its foundation, but seemed to shake heaven and earth itself, and the cloud, parting in twain, disclosed the sun-angel in the centre. Yet the knight outside never heard this sound, nor did old Kruger, the Duke's boot-cleaner, who sat in the very next room ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... (They go to the opposite end of the room, while HARALD comes in rather quickly, with GERTRUD on his arm. As they cross the room, the others cry out: "Bravo! Bravo!" and clap ...
— Three Dramas - The Editor—The Bankrupt—The King • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... Sir Tom, with a tremulous laugh, "what is it but a little polypus after all? that can do nothing but eat and sleep, and crow perhaps—and clap its little fat hands," he said, with the tears somehow getting into his voice, and mingling with the laughter. "I allow that ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... The wise child, after the lemonade jug is empty, takes the lemons from the bottom of it and squeezes them into a still larger brew. So does the sagacious author, after having sold his material to the magazines and been paid for it, clap it into book-covers and give it another squeeze. But in the present case the author is of a nice conscience and anxious to place responsibility where it is due. He therefore wishes to make all proper acknowledgments to the editors ...
— Moonbeams From the Larger Lunacy • Stephen Leacock
... appeared that he had lost his hand;—'I would, Sir,' said he, 'that I had the power!' That no innocent person should incur blame, Coleridge went directly afterwards to the Proctor, who told him that he saw him clap his hands, but fixed on this person, who he knew had not the power. 'You have had,' said he, 'a narrow escape.'"—"Life of S. T. C"., ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... a common practice to snatch from a Union prisoner his cap, and clap on in lieu of it a worn-out slouched hat; pull off his boots, and substitute a pair of clumsy old shoes. The plundering was so thoroughly done that it was poetically termed "going through" ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... piratical deeds of such men as Frobisher, Raleigh, Gilbert, and Richard Greville? Suppose Lord Roberts had sent word to President Kruger that if four English soldiers, imprisoned at Pretoria, were molested, he would execute 2,000 Boers and send him their heads? The clap-trap cry of 'Barbaric Methods' would have gone forth to some purpose; it would have carried every constituency in the country. Yet this is what Drake did when four English sailors were captured by the Spaniards, and imprisoned by the ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... Clap following clap Acclaimed Convention's overleaping As Betsey gained her mother's lap And gave the ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 23, 1914 • Various
... Admiral came forth from his cabin in a dress that a prince might have worn, crimson and tawny, and around his throat a golden chain. Far and near rushed into light, for in these lands and seas the dawn makes no tarrying. It is almost night, then with a great clap ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... up that wreckage, my son, and put the unbroken things back into their places," exclaimed Maxwell. "Also, clap a stopper upon your jawing tackle, younker; you have altogether too much too say, for a little 'un. Here, you Fleming—" to another mid, who was lying upon a locker with his hands clasped under his head by way of ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... afar off the strange apparition gliding swiftly down the open gravel slopes, and the excited population have all rushed out in breathless expectancy to try and make out its character. The villagers of Assababad are simple-hearted people, and both men and women clap their hands like delighted children to have so rare a novelty suddenly appear upon the scene of their usually humdrum and uneventful lives. Quilts are spread for me on the sunny side of the village wall, and they gather eagerly around to feast to the full their unaccustomed ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... us, gave one mortal yell of fear, and, with a last despairing fury, tore myself from the encircling arms, and sprang into the corridor without. As I plunged and leapt, the warder clutched at me, missed, caught a foot on the edge of the door, and, as the latter whirled to with a clap, fell heavily at my feet in a fit. Then, as I stood staring down upon him, steps sounded along the corridor and the voices of ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... was when Three crabbed Moneths had sowr'd themselues to death, Ere I could make thee open thy white Hand: A clap thy selfe, my Loue; then didst thou vtter, I am ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... visited the coast hamlets. A mule would not answer; a truck was furnished by the army but almost impossible; a camel was too hard on the backbone; besides at certain seasons they are vicious as a Hun and unless muzzled will snatch your arm in their strong jaws and snap it as a clap pipe stem. ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... no words to answer her there came a knocking upon the door. It was gentle, almost furtive, but it startled them both like a clap of thunder. For a moment they stood rigid. Then Thresk silently handed Stella her cloak and pointed towards the window. He began to speak aloud. A word or two revealed his plan to Stella Ballantyne. He was rehearsing a speech which he was to make in the Courts before a jury. But ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... hands. Then they whistled for the dog. When he came out he scented the bait, and bolted the meat, cartridge and all. The boys touched off the fuse with a cigar, and in about a second a report came from that dog that sounded like a small clap of thunder. Sykes came bouncing out of the house, and yelled: "What's up! Anything busted?" There was no reply, except a snicker from the small boys roosting on the fence; but as Sykes looked up he saw the whole air filled with pieces of yellow dog. He picked up the biggest piece he could ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... pronounced certain prayers or incantations; but Moriarty, who had seized and held fast one good principle of surgery, that the air must never be let into the wound, held mainly to this maxim, and all Sheelah could obtain was permission to clap on her charmed plaster ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... straightforwardness, in which I saw no merit, at least as proof that the upper powers had not altogether forgotten me. I found both the editor and his periodical, as I should have wished them, temperate and sunny—somewhat clap-trap and sentimental, perhaps, and afraid of speaking out, as all parties are, but still willing to allow my fancy free range in light fictions, descriptions of foreign countries, scraps of showy rose-pink morality and such like; which, though they had no more power against the raging ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... gone from our earthly home, get to your own abode. I take the power of casting you all from here. Begone! begone! begone!" And all the devils flew up, and there was a mighty clap as of thunder, and the earth trembled, and the sky became overcast, and all the devils burst, ...
— Welsh Fairy-Tales And Other Stories • Edited by P. H. Emerson
... "Feeds 'Clap'n Jack' sugar, does he?" Carolyn June said pensively. "Captain Jack's a nice little broncho," she added, "he deserves sugar." She paused a moment. "'Lamblin' Kid's' a funny fellow, don't you think so, Sing ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... seemed happy. The fairies, too, as I before said, danced by moonlight at the very foot of the parent tree, yet even that brave sight gave him no pleasure, though his brother and sister leaves would clap their tiny ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer
... get your chores done, so we can clear away for dinner jest as soon as I clap my bread into the oven," called Mrs. Bassett presently, as she rounded off the last loaf of brown bread which was to feed the hungry mouths that seldom ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... utmost consternation fell upon the company. A great clap of thunder shook the rocks, a pitchy darkness covered the scene, and a fierce wind swept the hill. Then, looking upward, the miners saw the whole company—the dying man with them—disappearing northward in a dense black cloud, ...
— Legend Land, Volume 2 • Various
... terror and respect to do anything while an opportune storm was raging; and when women were weak and ignorant men used their wrath in much the same way to convince them of error. To us, educated as we are, however, an outburst of rage is about as effectual an argument as a clap of thunder would be. Both are startling I grant, but what do they prove? I have seen my father in a rage. His face swells and gets very red, he prances up and down the room, he shouts at the top of his voice, and presents altogether a very disagreeable spectacle which one never quite forgets. ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... lay in rest's soft lap, And hoped for long repose, There broke o'er me a thunder-clap, My stay came to ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel |
