"Clench" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... stand up with all my heart, Robin, my boy, but it shall be to shake hands with you, and drink down all unkindness. It is not the fault of your heart, man, that you don't know how to clench ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... with the strong and wiry girl he sometimes came out second best. It spoke well of him that he seemed to be careful not to hurt Bo. He never bit or scratched, though he sometimes gave her sounding slaps with his paws. Whereupon, Bo would clench her gauntleted fists and ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... Catholic, named William Clench, wrote a treatise on the Pope's supremacy, and dedicated it to the Queen in Italian. The following specimen of his style may suffice. "O del sagro marito fortunata consorte! O dolce alleviamento d' affari alti! O grato ristoro di pensieri noiosi, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... there were interesting, even exciting moments—when you hardly felt the ache. But other times—evenings and Sundays—it came back sharper than ever. And in the course of those weeks he had learnt a number of things not included in the school curriculum. He had learnt that it was better to clench your teeth and not cry out when your ears were tweaked or your arm twisted, or an unexpected pin stuck into the soft part of your leg. But, inside him, there burned a fire of rage and hate unsuspected by his tormentors. It was not so much the pain, as the fact ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... whilst Major-General Gatacre's former command, the 1st British Brigade, was taken over by Brigadier-General J. Wauchope. The first brigade was made up of the Lincolns, Warwicks, Seaforths, and Camerons, with six Maxims. To prepare for eventualities, and clench the special training he had bestowed upon his men, Major-General Gatacre issued a printed slip of notes, or hints, to his men. I give the salient ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... all nourishment, employing her remaining strength to clench her teeth or to eject anything that Therese succeeded in introducing into her mouth. Therese was in despair. She was asking herself at the foot of which post she should go to weep and repent, when her aunt would be no longer there. She ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... the frowns and winks with which Mrs Nickleby intimated that she was going to say something which would clench the business at once, Kate maintained her point by an expressive look, and for once Mrs Nickleby was stopped upon the very ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... your heart in it, You to the Mother Country proffer. Beshrew the cynic would-be wit. Who coldly chuckles at the offer! BRITANNIA takes it, with a grip That on the sword, at need, can clench too, too! She will not that warm grasp let slip, Health, boys of British ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., August 23, 1890. • Various
... astonishment, and his left cheek displaying a bright patch of red, which looked as if it might have been the result of what is popularly termed a smart box on the ear. He was also heard by the shopman at Rutherford Street to use a very shocking expression in reference to Mrs. Yatman, and was seen to clench his fist vindictively as he ran round the corner of the street. Nothing more has been heard of him; and it is conjectured that he has left London with the intention of offering his valuable services to ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... a silence between them that took on the roar of a simoon and Miss Samstag jumped then from her mother's embrace, her little face stiff with the clench of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... be used to mount the animal on while drying, and the leg rods, if too strong to clench through on the under side, may be screwed ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... small square hatch in the foredeck and two mast holes, one at the stem and one at the forward bulkhead. A tie rod, 3/8 inch in diameter, passed through the hull athwartships, just forward of the forward bulkhead; the ends of the tie rod were "up-set" or headed over clench rings on the outside of the wale. The hull was usually painted white or gray, and the interior color usually ...
— The Migrations of an American Boat Type • Howard I. Chapelle
... its score; A clock it was of the Venetian breed, That cried the hour from one to twenty-four; The works moreover standing in some need Of workmanship, it struck some dozens more; A warning voice that clench'd Bianca's fears, Such strokes referring doubtless to ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... and horror, especially seeing him look with a stern countenance; but when they saw that he knelt also, and smiled, and returned the sword, their hearts became re-assured, and Charles took the sword like his liege lord, though trembling with wonder and affection: and in truth he could hardly clench his ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... long brown hands slowly clench until they looked like steel. She glanced at her own slim white hands. They were quite as strong if ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... than before, in replying that I meant no compliment, but the plain truth; though I was not aware of any change having taken place in the weather. It was in the state of my own feelings, I added bashfully: to clench ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... telling himself that another epoch was closed. It was with relief that he felt that he would never see the hospital again or any of the people in it. He thought of Chrisfield. It was weeks and weeks since Chrisfield had come to his mind at all. Now it was with a sudden clench of affection that the Indiana boy's face rose up before him. An oval, heavily-tanned face with a little of childish roundness about it yet, with black eyebrows and long black eyelashes. But he did not even know if Chrisfield ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... at Joseph's humble bench Thy hands did handle saw and plane, Thy hammer nails did drive and clench, Avoiding knot, ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... of such terrific grandeur lay That reeled the brain at what the eyes beheld; The hands would clench involuntarily And clutch from intuition for support; The eyes by instinct closed, nor dared to gaze On such an awful and ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... political changes, the constant "saving of the country," which to his wife seemed a puerile and bloodthirsty game of murder and rapine played with terrible earnestness by depraved children. In the early days of her Costaguana life, the little lady used to clench her hands with exasperation at not being able to take the public affairs of the country as seriously as the incidental atrocity of methods deserved. She saw in them a comedy of naive pretences, but hardly anything genuine ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... have got along further than you. I have had, all my sea-going life long, to keep my wits polished bright with acid and friction, like the brass cases of the ship's instruments. I'll keep you company on this expedition. Now you don't live by talking any more than I do. Clench that hand of yours in this hand of mine, and that's a speech on ...
— A Message from the Sea • Charles Dickens
... situation. It had taken time for it to fasten itself upon him. In a general way it had been clear to him a few moments before; now, detail by detail, it closed in upon him, and his muscles tightened, and Father Layonne saw his jaw set hard and his hands clench. Death was gone. But the mockery of it, the grim exultation of the thing over the colossal trick it had played, seemed to din an infernal laughter in his ears. But—he was going to live! That was the one fact that rose above ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... with fitful sobs and starts of indignant protest that made her clench her fists. At one moment she took her tear-soaked handkerchief, bit it with her teeth and tore it, after the manner ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... length decided upon taking Miss Emily, the youngest, though for a long time the victory was doubtful, and Amelia practised her 'Scamperdale' singing with unabated ardour and confidence up to the last. We believe, if the truth were known, it was a slight touch of rouge, that Amelia thought would clench the matter, that decided his lordship against her. Emily, we are happy to say, makes him an excellent wife, and has not got her head turned by becoming a countess. She has improved his lordship amazingly, got him smart ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... 1859-60 we find him a volunteer, commenting not too happily on "the hideous English toadyism which invests lords and great people with commands," a remark which seems to clench the inference that he had not appreciated the effect of the Revolution upon France. For nearly three parts of 1860 we have not a single letter, except one in January pleasantly referring to his youngest child "in black velvet and red-and-white tartan, looking such a duck ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... forming plans of attack and defence, till I burst in on them, and then—and then—Oh! there are many kinds of tyrants, and he is one. And so to-night I left him; I ran away to meet—" She stopped suddenly, and her head drooped, and Barnabas saw her white hands clench themselves. ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... dangers she would have to encounter, sought to dissuade Dorothy from her meditated proposal—but feebly, for every one who had anything noble in his nature, and Caspar had more than his share, was influenced by the magnanimity that ruled the place. Indeed he told her one thing which served to clench her resolution—that there was a secret way out of the castle, provided by his master Glamorgan for communication during siege: more he was not at liberty to disclose. Dorothy went straight to the marquis and laid her plan before him, which was that she should make her escape to Wyfern, and thence, ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... skirted the fire and made their way toward the parked vehicles of The Barbarian's captured supply train. The ground was rough and covered by underbrush. More than once, The Barbarian stumbled into Geoffrey, making him clench his jaw against the pain in his chest. But he saw no point in ...
— The Barbarians • John Sentry
... stern; and I saw the hand, that hung beside his chair, clench sharply. Mrs. Spencer saw ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott
... his shriek; and I flung myself forward to lick the splash of moisture on the sill. I did not think of Castro, I had forgotten him. I raged at the deception of my thirst, exploring with my tongue the rough surface of the stone till I tasted my own blood. Only then, raising my head to gasp, and clench my fists with a baffled and exasperated desire, I noticed how profound was the silence, in which the words, "Take away his sting," seemed to pronounce themselves over the ravine in the impersonal austerity of the rock, and with the tone ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... enough care that the rosy little homunculus seemed to require, so strenuously did he clench his fists, and bawl as though he were minded to challenge the whole world ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... Duchess; the lover escapes behind the window curtains to avoid scandal—is discovered, and his sovereign's reputation is only saved by the declaration of Felicia, that the Captain is there on her account. Ollivarez asserts that they are married, to clench the fib—the Queen sees her folly—the Duchess is disgraced—all the characters stand in the well-defined semicircle which is the stage method of writing the word "finis"—Mrs. Yates speaks a very neat and pointed "tag"—and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... physically, and in so far as we merely look to the fact that a man raises his arm, clenches his fist, and moves his whole arm violently downwards, is a virtue or excellence which is conceived as proper to the structure of the human body. If, then, a man, moved by anger or hatred, is led to clench his fist or to move his arm, this result takes place (as we showed in Pt. II.), because one and the same action can be associated with various mental images of things; therefore we may be determined to the performance of one and the same action by confused ideas, or ...
— The Ethics • Benedict de Spinoza
... about his head and shoulder and he could feel the slow movement of her breasts against his side. He would close his eyes and think of her lips on his, and her heart beating quickly while his thumped so loudly that it seemed that every one must hear it ... and thinking thus, he would clench his fists with futile force and swear to himself that he would go to her and make her marry him. Once, when he had spent an afternoon at the Zoo in the Phoenix Park, he had lingered for a long while in the house where the tigers are caged ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... thought Dillon had forgot his appointment in his swinish vices, I turned my mind another way. I resolved to leave Sturk to nature, and clench the case against Nutter, by evidence I would have compelled Irons to swear. As it turned out, that would have been the better way. Had Sturk died without speaking, and Nutter hanged for his death, the question could have opened no more, and Irons would have ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... self-deceiving as that of a first love. In his place Philip de Commines, recognizing that he was outnumbered ten to one, would have been diplomatic. When there is no power to strike, it is always unwise to clench the fist, especially when a hat in the hand may gain the point. But the authority sufficed, and at a motion from ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... I have gotten afraid of myself. My face in the mirror does not seem to belong to me, it is a curious unfamiliar face that I do not know. Every once in a while I want to beat the air and scream, but I don't do it. I clench my fists and set my ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... precious moment—was broken in upon in a way that makes me clench my teeth as I write. Up the sands, racing forward like a young colt, came "that child," with her flat flying back by the strings, and a broken parasol in her hand; up she flew toward ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... Manhattan, or even on the Hudson, they had felt some contact with the past; but here, Stern's eye looked out over a world as virgin as on the primal morn. And a vast loneliness assailed him, a yearning almost insupportable. that made him clench his fists and raise them to the impassive, empty sky that mocked him with its deep and ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... a way, but you wouldn't, couldn't, understand how I feel about divorce." The mere mention of the word was difficult and caused Alaire to clench her hands. "We're both too shaken to talk sanely now, so ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... cart convey'd and laid supine on straw. His feeble voice now spoke a sinking heart; His groans now told the motions of the cart: And when it stopp'd, he tried in vain to stand; Closed was his eye, and clench'd his clammy hand: Life ebb'd apace, and our best aid no more Could his weak sense or dying heart restore: But now he fell, a victim to the snare That vile attorneys for the weak prepare; They who when profit or resentment call, Heed not the groaning victim they enthrall. Then died lamented ...
— The Parish Register • George Crabbe
... end of the first basin the man had risen to serenity; at the second he was jovial; at the third, argumentative, at the fourth, the qualities signified by the shape of his face, the occasional clench of his mouth, and the fiery spark of his dark eye, began to tell in his conduct; he ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... The girl was in my way and, as I approached, she drew her skirts aside. No doubt it was my imagination which made her manner of doing it seem like an insult, but, imagination or reality, it was the one thing necessary to clench my resolution. Now when she looked at me I returned the look with interest. I strode through the doorway and across the hall. The butler would have opened the outer door for me, but I opened it myself to the imminent danger of his dignified nose. As I ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... triumphant Oriental. "Tai-K'an warned your father that he would have his revenge. His daughter was to him as much as you are to your own father the mandarin," and he laughed that short, grating laugh of the Chinaman, which caused Otley to clench ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... such wild ebullition, there is still a kind of polite rule struggling for mastery, and the forms of social life never altogether disappear. These men, though they menace with clenched right-hands, do not clench one another by the collar; they draw no daggers, except for oratorical purposes, and this not often: profane swearing is almost unknown, though the Reports are frank enough; we find only one or two oaths, oaths by Marat, reported ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... to his narrow cell Bearing his supper, every prisoner went, The night-lock firmly clench'd, beside some grate While the large lamp thro' the long corridors Threw flickering light, the Chaplain often stood Conversing. Of the criminal's past life He made inquiry, and receiv'd replies Foreign from truth, or vague and taciturn: And added pious counsels, unobserv'd, ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... She saw his hands clench with the words, and an overwhelming sense of danger swept over her. Instinctively she started to her feet. If a tiger had leapt in upon her through the window she could not ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... hands lay supple and white and quiet in her lap, with not a tense ligament, not a throbbing fibre—delicate, beautiful hands—it seemed odd to her companions to think how they had seen her wring them in woe and clench them in despair. Her black gown with its heavy folds of crape had an element of incongruity with that still, assured, resolved presence, expressing so cheerful a poise, so confident a control of circumstance. She ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... introduction which was to open to him all doors and all ears? Was it not in her marvellous marble music-room—one of the boasts of Chicago—that he had mentally seen himself enthroned as the lord of the feast? And instead of these Olympian visions, lo! a typewritten note to clench his fist over—a note from a secretary regretting that the state of Mrs. Wilhammer's health forbade the pleasure of receiving a maestro with such credentials. ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... Yes, I think it will clench the matter, for I believe I am of more good at Carriga than anywhere else, though the heart of it is taken out of it for me; but one lives on and gets on somehow without a heart, or a heart set where I suppose it ought not to be entirely at least! And, indeed, I think ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... man down before he had more than risen. As the blow landed upon the heavy bone of the cheek, Conniston's hand went suddenly limp and useless, his face went sheet-white from the pain of it. Some bone had broken, he realized dully. He couldn't clench the hand again. The fingers hung at his side, shot through with sharp pain, feeling as though they were being slowly ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... I saw his hands clench together feebly here, and then there was no more motion. Presently I looked into his face, and I knew that no sound of my voice, nor any sound of the world, could ever reach him again; for the story of his unspeakable sorrow, like the ruin of Troy, had been told to the end. ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... upon the Indian nearest me. It was not a time for overniceness. If I could have done so, I would have struck him in the back while he thought no harm; as it was, some subtle instinct warning him, he whirled himself over in time to strike up my hand and to clench with me. He was very strong, and his naked body, wet with rain, slipped like a snake from my hold. Over and over we rolled on the rain-soaked moss and rotted leaves and cold black earth, the hail blinding us, and the wind shrieking like a thousand watching ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... much to me, but he was never harsh to me. I suppose we were company to each other, without talking. I forgot to mention that he would talk to himself sometimes, and grin, and clench his fist, and grind his teeth, and pull his hair in an unaccountable manner. But he had these peculiarities: and at first they frightened me, though I soon got used ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... or feast, or waddin', The crone's in the sulks, for she 'd fain be gaddin', A wink to the girls sets her soul a-maddin', She 's a shame and sorrow to me. If I stop at the hostel to buy me a gill, Or with a good fellow a moment sit still, Her fist it is clench'd, and is ready to kill, And the talk ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... that grow, And flourish in the human breast, No other plant, perhaps, hath so Deep clench'd a root, or ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young
... baffling spell, that so often came between herself and her sole treasure, whom she had bought so dear, and who was all her world, Hester sometimes burst into passionate tears. Then, perhaps—for there was no foreseeing how it might affect her—Pearl would frown, and clench her little fist, and harden her small features into a stern, unsympathising look of discontent. Not seldom she would laugh anew, and louder than before, like a thing incapable and unintelligent of human sorrow. Or—but this more rarely happened—she ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... up his left arm to ward off the anticipated blow, and dropped his oar in order to clench his right fist, quietly resumed his oar, and shook his head gravely for nearly a minute, after which ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... shouted After us, in the words of some strange tongue, Rafel ma-ee amech zabee almee!— 'Dull wretch!' my leader cried, 'keep to thine horn, And so vent better whatsoever rage Or other passion stuff thee. Feel thy throat And find the chain upon thee, thou confusion! Lo! what a hoop is clench'd about thy gorge.' Then turning to myself, he said, 'His howl Is its own mockery. This is Nimrod, he Through whose ill thought it was that humankind Were tongue-confounded. Pass him, and say nought: For as he speaketh language known of none, So ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... be, beyond all question, the most lovely woman in Cuba; and for once the popular estimate is correct, as no man knows so well as I do." ("Steady, old man, steady!" said Jack to himself. "Hold tight, and clench your teeth! The blackguard is talking now with the express intention of provoking you into the commission of some overt act for which you would be sorry afterwards, and you must not allow yourself to be provoked. ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... jerks in my chain of ideas I seek to explain the meaning of my new word. There was no occasion for it to mean either God or the Tivoli; [Footnote: Theatre of Varieties, etc., and Garden in Christiania.] and who said that it was to signify cattle show? I clench my hands fiercely, and repeat once again, "Who said that it was to signify cattle show?" No; on second thoughts, it was not absolutely necessary that it should mean padlock, or sunrise. It was not difficult to find a meaning for such a word ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... grievous torment than a hermit's fast:— That is a doubtful tale from faery land, Hard for the non-elect to understand. Had Lycius liv'd to hand his story down, He might have given the moral a fresh frown, Or clench'd it quite: but too short was their bliss To breed distrust and hate, that make the soft voice hiss. 10 Besides, there, nightly, with terrific glare Love, jealous grown of so complete a pair, Hover'd and buzz'd his wings, with fearful roar, Above the lintel of ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... face had flushed, and her brows had drawn together in an angry frown by the time Gabriel had finished, and Neale, silently watching her from the background, saw her fingers clench themselves. She gave a swift glance at the Earl, and then fixed ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... his dull uneventful days in Scotland, and ever and anon of Cynthia, his beloved. Would she hear of his end? Would she weep for him?—as though it mattered! And every train of thought that he embarked upon brought him to the same issue—to-morrow! Shuddering he would clench his hands still tighter, and the perspiration would stand' out in beads ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... clench in anger? Are they hands that crush heartlessly? Are they hands that drag downward? Are they hands that pull backward? Are they hands that strike in cruelty? Are they hands that slap insultingly? Are they ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... say, "This is not murder; only passion bent On pouring out its poison"—one could pray That the day's end might see the madness done And saner souls rise with the morrow's sun. But this incarnate hell that yawns before Your bright, brave soul keyed to the fighter's clench— This purgatory that men call the "trench"— This modern "Black Hole" of a modern war! Yea, Love! yet naught I say can save you, so I lay my heart in ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... had seen Sir Reginald rise from his seat and go with the rest of the party across the centre transept to the chancel, she needed all her self-control to shut her teeth and clench her hands and prevent herself from leaving her seat and accusing him of his infamy before clergy and congregation. She thought thankfully how good a thing it was that Carol, with her fierce impetuosity and sense of bitter wrong, ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... with thy cold devil's fist, Still clench'd in malice impotent, Dost the creative power resist, The active, the beneficent! Henceforth some other task essay, Of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... himself in sighs, and groans, and tears, directly struggling with his grief, and is thereby far sooner overthrown by the inflexible enemy with whom he is engaged. Once overthrown, his struggles cease. Louis could not hold out more than a few minutes, at the end of which he had ceased to clench his hands, and scorch in fancy with his looks the invisible objects of his hatred; he soon ceased to attack with his violent imprecations not M. Fouquet alone, but even La Valliere herself; from fury he subsided into despair, and ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... knee. Again he beheld that ivory knee which alone remained outside of Torterue's horrible apparatus. Lastly, he pictured the young girl in her shift, with the rope about her neck, shoulders bare, feet bare, almost nude, as he had seen her on that last day. These images of voluptuousness made him clench his fists, and a shiver run ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... who had been bending so pertinaciously over some work that her eyes were invisible, looked quickly up, cast a furtive glance at Mrs. Staines, and finding she was employed for the moment, made an agitated signal to Dr. Philip. All she did was to clench her two hands and lift them half way to her face, and then cast a frightened look towards the door; but Philip's senses were so sharpened by constant alarm and watching, that he saw at once something serious was the matter. But as he had asked himself what he ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... your Majesty for an early opportunity," quoth Rupert airily; and he strode past Sapt with such jeering scorn on his face that I saw the old fellow clench his fist and scowl ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... rejoices I' a beautifu' sang, An' loves to see Dancers tangled beautifully; For the girls i' tumbled ranks Alang Eurotas' banks Like wanton fillies thrang, Frolicking there An' like Bacchantes shaking the wild air To comb a giddy laughter through the hair, Bacchantes that clench thyrsi as they sweep To the ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes
... useless to stamp so loud and clench his fists. There was no one to hear him and there was no one to see him. Neither was there any satisfaction in knocking over a chair. The outlook was utterly hopeless. There didn't seem to be any ...
— A Melody in Silver • Keene Abbott
... rushed past her, covering her with dust and causing her to clench her hands in anger. "Beastly thing!" she ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... damnation' (iii. 200). And indeed we cannot deny that when reading some of the sermons to which poor Phebe Bartlet must have listened, and remembering the nature of the audience, the fingers of an unregenerate person clench themselves involuntarily as grasping an imaginary horsewhip. The answer given by Edwards does not diminish the impression. Innocent as children may seem to be, he replies, 'yet if they are out of Christ, they are not so in God's sight, but are young vipers, and are infinitely more hateful than ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... after it with such Satanic looks Of eagerness, that I have wonder'd oft How he from theft and murder could refrain. 'Twas cowardice alone withheld his hands, For they would grasp and grapple at the air, When his grey eye had fixed on heaps of gold, While his clench'd teeth, and grinning, yearning face, Were dreadful to behold. The merchants oft Would mark his eye, then start and look again, As at the eye of basilisk or snake. His eye of greyish green ne'er shed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various
... be bothered by this pettifogger? Are you to sit tamely down and be undermined? Is that your custom? Then, sir, you are a base coward. Who said coward? Did you, sir? Let this right hand, which I now raise in air, and clench in awful menace, warn you not to repeat the damning accusation. Sevenoaks howls, and it is well. Let every man who stands in my path take warning. I button my coat; I raise my arms; I straighten my form, and they flee away—flee like the mists of the ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... Many is the man who has thought he was valiant till danger stared him in the face; I've known them, too, that consaited they were kind and ready to give away all they had to the poor, when they've been listening to other people's hard heartedness; but whose fists have clench'd as tight as the riven hickory when it came to downright offerings of their own. Besides, Judith, you're handsome—uncommon in that way, one might observe and do no harm to the truth—and they that have beauty, like to have that which will adorn it. Are you sartain you ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... emotion after all, when the very traditional test of our enjoyment of a play is the amount of feeling it arouses!—when hearts beat, hands clench, tears flow! Emotion there is, it may not be denied; but not the sympathetic emotions of ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... his lip, and the man noticed his hand clench hard. Then there started a low-voiced conversation, a conversation to which he listened attentively—his hearing seemed ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... bear, and clench myself, and die, Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited; Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than I Had willed and meted me ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... unconsciously, to fondle them. And yet we know not why we would fondle the sable "rascals." One knot is larking on the grass, running, toddling, yelling, and hooting; another, ankle-deep in mud, clench together and roll among the ducks, work their clawy fingers through the tufts of each other's crispy hair, and enjoy their childish sports with an air of genial happiness; while a third sit in a circle beside an oak ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... left it, and perceived the house and sign to be within sight, thinking he had jeered him, and being of a morose temper, bade him follow his nose and be d—-n'd. Adams told him he was a saucy jackanapes; upon which the fellow turned about angrily; but, perceiving Adams clench his fist, he thought proper to go on without taking ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... ower i' summer, I nussed him on my knees; An' Mike browt home at lowsin'-time Wild rasps an' strawberries. We used to sit on t' door-sill I' t' leet o' t' harvist-moon, While our lile Doad would clench his fists An' ...
— Songs of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... unspotted, I've attained my aim: When riper years have seasoned brain and limb, You'll drop your corks, and like a Triton swim." 'Twas thus he formed my boyhood: if he sought To make me do some action that I ought, "You see your warrant there," he'd say, and clench His word with some grave member of the bench: So too with things forbidden: "can you doubt The deed's a deed an honest man should scout, When, just for this same matter, these and those, Like open drains, are stinking 'neath your nose?" Sick gluttons ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... I was wrong, Karl. I would not have Yolanda other than she is. At times, wild thoughts suggest themselves to me; but I am not so weak as to give way to them. I drive them off and clench my teeth, determined to take the misery God doles out to me. I am glad we are soon to leave Burgundy. The duke marches in three days, and it is none too ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... limmers had lain on, and the ashes of them; by the same token, there was a pit greeshoch purning yet. I am thinking they got some word oat o' the island what was intended—I sought every glen and clench, as if I had been deer-stalking, but teil a want of his coat-tail could ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... the last interrogative omnibus word, he would clench one fat fist and knead the air downward with it, to illustrate the process of putting down greediness with an ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... his course. One is that dame The false accuser of the Hebrew youth; Sinon the other, that false Greek from Troy. Sharp fever drains the reeky moistness out, In such a cloud upsteam'd." When that he heard, One, gall'd perchance to be so darkly nam'd, With clench'd hand smote him on the braced paunch, That like a drum resounded: but forthwith Adamo smote him on the face, the blow Returning with his arm, that ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... point, unfortunately, the humour of the situation became too much for Miss Gertrude Hansombody, another of the students. She began to titter, went on to laugh uncontrollably, then to clench ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... him clench his dagger tightly and with slow steps advance to the side of the helpless girl. Glaring down at her, he swung the blade high. It poised directly over her heart. It would not torture her, Taia knew: it was death that she read in the High Priest's eyes. She closed her own, and thought ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... you're tempted to do wrong Is the time to prove you're strong. Shut your eyes and clench each fist; It will help ...
— Blacky the Crow • Thornton W. Burgess
... wet—beating against the window-pane, brought with them doleful shrieks. Sometimes a sudden gust seemed to bear upon it confused voices and the tramp of hurrying feet; and then he would knit his brow and clench his hand, with the apprehension that they had found his enemy, and were bringing him to the door. Not the slightest fear of the consequences to himself in such a case agitated his mind; he had quite resolved what to do, and that no prison walls should ever hem ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... keep my fingers off the weak, and to clench my fist against the strong—to carry no tales out of school—to stand forth like a true man—obey the stern order of a PANDE MANUM, and endure my pawmies without wincing, like one that is determined not ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... heav'd him on the rugged coast, Where flay'd his flesh had been, and all his bones Broken together, but for the infused Good counsel of Minerva azure-eyed. With both hands suddenly he seized the rock, And, groaning, clench'd it till the billow pass'd. So baffled he that wave; but yet again The refluent flood rush'd on him, and with force Resistless dash'd him far into the sea. As pebbles to the hollow polypus 520 Extracted from his stony bed, adhere, So he, the rough rocks clasping, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... deep and fervent orison Hath matron whisper'd for her absent lord, Peril'd in civil wars, that shook the throne, When every hand in England, clench'd the sword:— And here, as tales and chronicles agree, If tales and chronicles be deem'd sincere, Fair Warwick's heiress smiled at many a plea Of puissant Thane, or ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 366 - Vol. XIII, No. 366., Saturday, April 18, 1829 • Various
... it easily. On their way to Thoreau's they would pass within a mile of it. But Brokaw would never know. And they would never reach Thoreau's. Billy knew that. He looked at the man hunter as he broke trail ahead of him—at the pugnacious hunch of his shoulders, his long stride, the determined clench of his hands, and wondered what the soul and the heart of a man like this must be, who in such an hour would not trade life for life. For almost three-quarters of an hour Brokaw did not utter a word. The storm had broke. Above the spruce ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... of fire that waits thee now— Walk with uncovered feet upon the coals, Until thou reach the ghostly Land of Souls, And, with thy Mohawk death-song please our ear? Or wilt thou with the women rest thee here?" His eyes flash like an eagle's, and his hands Clench at the insult. Like a god he stands. "Prepare ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... overbearing woman, in velvet, or brocade, or poplin-yes, something stiff and overbearing, like grey poplin. Kitty looked at herself suddenly in the mirror-the half- length mirror on the opposite wall—and she felt her hands clench and her bosom beat hard under her pretty and inexpensive calico frock, a thing for Chloe, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... flying train, with their hair unbraided and their garters ungyved,—not a negro left to till the fields, nor a son or brother who had not travelled to the wars. They must be now hewers of wood, and drawers of water, and the fingers whereon diamonds used to sparkle, must clench ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... Plank to be fastened with good well seasoned Treenails, and one 1/2 inch Copper Bolt in every Butt from the Keel up to the Wales, to go through and clench on a Ring on the Ceiling, and the Treenails drove through the Ceiling, wedged on the inside ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... don't you? Now go out and tell Aunt Pike that, and suck up to her. If she's going to live here, it's best to be first favourite." At which unusual outburst on the part of her big brother Betty was so overcome that she collapsed on to her chair again, and had to clench her hands tightly and wink hard to disperse the mist which clouded her eyes and threatened to turn ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... at least have told you about the pain. The knives of pain. You had to clench your fists till the fingernails bit into the palms. Over the ear of the sofa cushions she could feel her hot eyes looking at her ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... old Niag'ry was licked by a passul of knittin'-work old-maids, led by an elephant and a peep-show man? Be ye goin' to let 'em outsquirt ye? Why, the wimmen-folks of Vienny will put p'isen in your biscuits if you go home beat by anything that Smyrna can turn out. Git a-holt them bars! Clench your chaws! Now, damye, ye toggle-j'inted, dough-fingered, wall-eyed sons of sea-cooks, give ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... his first cruise, except for practice runs at the Academy! Yet his rating called him an experienced man on the Polaris run. He'd had the Lhari training tape, which was supposed to condition his responses, but would it? He tried to clench his fists, drove a claw into his palm, winced, and commanded himself to stay calm and keep his mind ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... seemed stretched over the small bones. I stooped beside her, in answer to an appealing look. She could not lift the frail, tired hand that lay by her, its fingers uncurled, the hand of one who, dying, relinquishes gladly its grasp on life. The hands of the strong, torn from a world they love, clench and clutch at the last; it is an involuntary hold on earth. The doctor moved away. The whining sobs of the old man became more audible. I put my ear ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... senses for a moment, it occurs to me I might wake Falkenberg with my tossing about, and perhaps say things in my delirium. That would never do. I clench my teeth and jump up, get into my clothes again, scramble down the stairs, and set out over the fields at a run. After a little my clothes begin to warm me; I make towards the woods, towards the spot where we had been working; sweat and rain pour down my face. If only I can find the saw and ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... You lie in bed for half an hour and enthusiastically concentrate on this beautiful new scheme of the right tone. You rise, and because you don't achieve a proper elegance of necktie at the first knotting, you frown and swear and clench your teeth! There is a symptom of the wrong attitude towards your environment. You are awake, but your brain isn't. It is in such a symptom that you may judge yourself. And not a trifling symptom either! If you will frown at a necktie, if you will use language to a necktie which no gentleman ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... with his hands, did not frown or clench his fists, but remained impassively calm. His words, however, cut Rrisa like knives. The orderly remained trembling and sweating, with a piteous expression. Finally ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... came to him: he began to put on gloves, fine, white kid gloves. Then he tried to clench his fist in them ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... biscuit, with a full allowance of water, and then set to work at the boat. The thorns answered their purpose as nails admirably, and the planks soon were securely fastened into their places against the stem; but without nails to clench the planks together, it was evident to them all that the boat would not float five minutes. They stood looking at ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... inarticulate sounds for water. One of the signals (R.E.) fell face downward on the floor in a widening pool of his own blood, one part of his face blown away. Poor laddies, full of youth, vim, life—cursed artillery from your far-off safety! Aye, hands clench; if ever ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... and what a good baby you were—oh, a blessed baby!—and I tried to repay you by not worrying you with too many kisses, with too much loving, which I'm sure is not good for a child. Sometimes I had to clench my hands, so strong was my desire to take you up and clasp you tight. Then how quickly you began to grow; and before long my letters and intimate conversation began to be filled with what "Rob said this morning;" and you did say such delightful ...
— The Smart Set - Correspondence & Conversations • Clyde Fitch
... gone over, Lawrence walked out upon the log. Lucy was not afraid, but she watched and remarked that he seemed unusually careful. After a few paces, he moved slowly, and when near the middle stopped. She saw him clench his hands as he ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... inside himself, when he seemed merely at the mercy of his own powerful and conflicting elements. How to get some measure of control or surety, this was the question. And when the question rose maddening in him, he would clench his fists as if he would compel the whole universe to submit to him. But it was in vain. He could not even ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... something quite novel. Poverty he had known before, but now he saw the injustice that lay beneath it, and cried to heaven. His hands would suddenly clench with anger as he sat so quietly in his room. Here was something one must hasten forward, without intermission, day and night, as long as one drew breath—Morten was right about that! This child's ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... work, showing the mode that must be adopted in dealing with men as partakers of a common nature, coupled with the many modifications and adaptations to circumstances which equally require special gifts of discernment and wisdom from on high. Then occasional narratives, by way of illustration, to clench the statement of principles, might be introduced; but I can't write, what I might write if I chose, folios of mere events without deducing from them ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the words, a terrible jar ran fiercely through the ship from stem to stern—a jar that made one clench one's teeth and hold one's jaws tight—the jar of a prow that shattered against a rock. I took it all in at a glance. We had forgotten Ushant, but Ushant had not forgotten us. It had revenged itself upon us by ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... pierced altogether, Like tenter-hooks holding when clench'd from within, And the maids cried—"Good gracious! how very tenacious!" —They as well might endeavor to pull off ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... which I did as fast as possible; but that one false move could never be redeemed. I know there are shallow thinkers who love to prate of the supremacy of mind over matter,—who assert that circumstances are plastic as clay in the hands of the man who knows how to mould them. They clench their fists, and inflate their lungs, and quote Napoleon's proud boast,—"Circumstances! I make circumstances!" Vain babblers! Whither did this Napoleonic Idea lead? To a barren rock in a waste of waters. Do we need St. Helena ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... with the Lip's Power is in, to make such a huff at this Time, shall come under Examination by and by; in the mean time the Solunarians have clench'd the Nail, and secur'd the War to last as long as they ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... her chair at the moment that Wentworth hurled himself upon Hedin. Her cry was drowned in the swift impact of bodies and the sound of blows, and grunts, and heavy breathing. McNabb and Cameron drew back and the bodies, locked in a clench, toppled to the ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... compromise the affair and return the handsome bullock, receiving in exchange his own half-starved old animal, in addition to a present of half a sovereign. Georgi was only too delighted to immediately clench the bargain. I advised him in future to manage his own cattle-dealing instead of confiding in his able friend Theodori, and I ordered the oxen to be put in the yokes at once, and to draw the vans to our old camping-place beneath the hawthorn-tree. Upon arrival at the ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... the narrow defile, calling to the escort to follow. The keen eyes of the guard caught the situation at once. Miss Calhoun shot a quick glance at him as he rode up beside her. His face was impassive, but she could see his hand clench the bridle-rein, and there was an air of restraint ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... them," said Ulrica, stepping before the couch of Front-de-Boeuf; "she hath long drunken of this cup, and its bitterness is now sweetened to see that thou dost partake it.—Grind not thy teeth, Front-de-Boeuf—roll not thine eyes—clench not thine hand, nor shake it at me with that gesture of menace!—The hand which, like that of thy renowned ancestor who gained thy name, could have broken with one stroke the skull of a mountain-bull, is now unnerved ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... big, burly parson, with the face of a lion, the voice of a buffalo, and a fist like a sledge-hammer. The last time I was there, I observed that his eye was upon me, and I did not like the glance he gave me at all; I observed him clench his fist, and I took my departure as fast as I conveniently could. Whether he suspected who I was, I know not; but I did not like his look at all, and do not ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... himself in sighs, and groans, and tears, in direct struggles with it, and is thereby far sooner overthrown by the inflexible enemy with whom he is engaged. Once overthrown, his struggles cease. Louis could not hold out more than a few minutes, at the end of which he had ceased to clench his hands, and to burn up with his looks the invisible objects of his hatred; he soon ceased to attack with his violent imprecations not M. Fouquet alone, but even La Valliere herself: from fury he subsided into despair, and from despair to prostration. After he had thrown ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... creencia belief. creer to believe. crepusculo twilight. creyente believer. criado, -a servant. criador creator. criar to create, produce, raise. criatura creature. crimen m. crime. crispar to clench. cristal m. crystal, glass, pane. cristiano, -a Christian. Cristo Christ. critica criticism. crucifijo crucifix. crudo raw, cruel. crueldad f. cruelty. crujiente crackling. crujir to creak, crack, crackle. cruz ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon |
