"Clinch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... consoling glass were speedily supplied; and with the reassured stamina of my improved condition, it may readily be supposed I was not long in satisfying the worthy Mr. Seagram that I had no concern in the encounter betwixt the natives and his boats. To clinch the argument I assured the lieutenant that I was not only guiltless of the assault, but had made up my mind irrevocably to abandon ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... was almost afraid it might make feeling between them, till I soothed the loser by selling her an old brass tea-kettle that I had picked up in a curiosity shop in Oxford years ago. It was so old that it had a hole in it, which seemed to clinch the matter. I sent for the packer the moment they were out of the house, and had the things boxed and away before they could change their minds. When I showed J—— the money, he said I was wasting my time writing, that he was sure I ...
— The Smiling Hill-Top - And Other California Sketches • Julia M. Sloane
... to cover the first, but he planted evidence against nearly all of you. He dropped the ampulla in McGroarty's car to implicate any one of four people. He coolly stole a cigarette case to put it where it would be found after the film fire and clinch suspicion. ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... vague idea of village politics, but he had more important things to think of. Most of his foul mood had disappeared with the clue he'd stumbled on, and his chief worry now was to clinch ...
— Badge of Infamy • Lester del Rey
... fairly to blaze from the smouldering eyes, as Lapierre's thoughts dwelt upon the closing moments of that fight, when he felt himself giving ground before the hammering, smashing blows of Bob MacNair's big fists. Felt the tightening of the huge arms like steel bands about his body when he rushed to a clinch—bands that crushed and burned so that each sobbing breath seemed a blade, white-hot from the furnace, stabbing and searing into his tortured lungs. Felt the vital force and strength of him ebb and weaken so that the lean, slender fingers that ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... the two was not marked by the effusion vocal, gymnastical, osculatory and catechetical that distinguishes the greetings of their unprofessional sisters in society. There was a brief clinch, two simultaneous labial dabs and they stood on the same footing of the old days. Very much like the short salutations of soldiers or of travellers in foreign wilds are the welcomes between the strollers at the corners ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... old Indian night-gown was wrapped about his rugged limbs; a red nightcap overshadowed his frowning brow; an iron-grey beard of three days' growth gave additional grimness to his visage. Thrice did he seize a worn-out stump of a pen, and essay to sign the loathsome paper; thrice did he clinch his teeth, and make a horrible countenance, as though a dose of rhubarb-senna, and ipecacuanha, had been offered to his lips. At length, dashing it from him, he seized his brass-hilted sword, and jerking it from ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... for Kentucky with his family and his brother, Squire Boone—Is joined by five families and forty men at Powell's Valley—The party is attacked by Indians, and Daniel Boone's oldest son is killed—The party return to the settlements on Clinch River—Boone, at the request of Governor Dunmore, goes to the West and conducts a party of surveyors to Virginia—Boone receives the command of three garrisons and the commission of Captain—He takes a part in the Dunmore war—Battle of Point ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... all this winked a few bleared lamplights through the beating drops, lights that denoted the situation of the county town from which he had appeared to come. The absence of all notes of life in that direction seemed to clinch his intentions, and he knocked at ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... himself together to fling her off, and then he seemed to think better of it and fell into the clinch. ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... in view of what's ahead in the way of competition, but we have made it a five-eighths proposition in order to clinch the deal promptly. I just sent one of our ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... not likely to be troubled with any further sight of him," I said, to clinch the matter. "After these events Master Rupert will be no such fool as to endanger his neck by trespassing ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... brief formulae of politeness in French, our conversation was carried on in Italian, and I had a better opportunity of studying my host's air and manner. His hands he held clasped before him, but frequently released them, to make those vivid gestures with which Neapolitans frequently clinch their phrase. His most remarkable feature was his eyes, of a greenish grey: extraordinary eyes, not for beauty, but for their fathomless depth, and for the sympathy which one felt welling up in them from the ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... up and down the polished floor of the resort, his hands in his pockets, his brow wrinkled, his mouth set. He was getting some vague comfort out of a good cigar, but it was no panacea for the ill which affected him. Every once in a while he would clinch his fingers and tap his foot—signs of the stirring mental process he was undergoing. His whole nature was vigorously and powerfully shaken up, and he was finding what limits the mind has to endurance. He drank more brandy and soda than he had any evening in months. He was altogether ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... have touched live coals as have submitted to be his wife. Ah, well, it was his luck in his last toss-up, and he had never been lucky before; yet he had never felt so great a reluctance to conclude his engagement of twenty-four hours, and clinch his repentance, as he did at this moment. It was good for him that he stood committed. But why had he not sought out some humble, meek lass, who would still have looked up to him and reckoned him not quite such a reprobate, but believed that there was ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... elegance in the wave of the hair and the arch of the forehead? I have studied her; I may say I know her. I have absorbed her little by little; my mind is stamped and imbued, and I have determined now to clinch the impression; I shall at last invite her to sit ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... where she was, all into the golden mass and shine of her bright raiment, with her hands before her eyes, the paper crumpled in the clinch ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... summer, than ever before during its existence. There is probably more human electricity, more population to make it, more business, more light-heartedness, than ever before. The armies that swiftly circumambiated from Fredericksburgh—march'd, struggled, fought, had out their mighty clinch and hurl at Gettysburg—wheel'd, circumambiated again, return'd to their ways, touching us not, either at their going or coming. And Washington feels that she has pass'd the worst; perhaps feels that she is henceforth mistress. ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... exhibition of in front of Sally without doing something to hold his end up. He proposed to go down with his flag flying, and in pursuance of this object he dug Mr. Butler heavily in the lower ribs with his right, causing that expert to clinch and the two wise guys to utter sharp barking ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... sure of it, the farmer made her say out loud, "The Blessing of God be upon your cattle!" To clinch the matter, he compelled her to repeat the Lord's Prayer, which she was able to do, without missing one syllable. She used the form of words which are not found in the prayer book, but are in the Bible, and was very earnest, ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... singing this hymn, which swelled high above the howling of the storm. A brief pause ensued; the preacher slowly turned over the leaves of the Bible, and at last, folding his hand down upon the proper page, said: "Beloved shipmates, clinch the last verse of the first chapter of Jonah—'And God had prepared a great fish ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... the sacred hour of noon at Sammtstadt. Everybody was at dinner; and the serious Kellner of "Der Wildemann" glanced in mild reproach at Mr. James Clinch, who, disregarding that fact and the invitatory table d'hote, stepped into the street. For Mr. Clinch had eaten a late breakfast at Gladbach, was dyspeptic and American, and, moveover, preoccupied with business. He was consequently indignant, on entering ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... of those who will foolishly drive a nail into mere lath and plastering; such a deed would keep me awake nights. Give me a hammer, and let me feel for the furring. Do not depend on the putty. Drive a nail home and clinch it so faithfully that you can wake up in the night and think of your work with satisfaction—a work at which you would not be ashamed to invoke the Muse. So will help you God, and so only. Every nail driven should ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... Resolving to clinch matters with regard to Iris and her elderly suitor, he invited "Owd Dickey" to supper on Sunday evening. The girl endured the man's presence with a placid dignity that amazed her uncle. On the plea of ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... was strained to Manassas plains; every heart throbbed stronger at the mention of that name. All knew that there the giants were soon to clinch in deadly wrestle for the mastery; that the struggle was now at hand, when the flag of the South would be carried high in triumph ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... Mary concluded it would be more satisfactory to go, for perhaps Ellis might give her the slip, or, if the big brother objected, she might add her persuasions to Ellis's and so clinch the matter. Yet while she stood waiting for Ellis to make his request for the boat, she had many compunctions of conscience. She had never before done so bold and desperate a thing. She had scarcely ever appeared on the street without her governess, and indeed it was the strict measures of ...
— Three Little Cousins • Amy E. Blanchard
... wishings that but one man had been saved. I believe I repeated the words, "Oh that it had been but one!" a thousand times; and my desires were so moved by it, that when I spoke the words my hands would clinch together, and my fingers would press the palms of my hands, so that if I had had any soft thing in my hand I should have crushed it involuntarily; and the teeth in my head would strike together, and set against one another so strong, that for some time I could not part them again. Let the naturalists ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... toward a sky that yields nothing to Italy's. The heavens are a soundingboard devised for the sole purpose of throwing back the mellifluous voices of native orators. At the cross-roads store, philosophers, perched upon barrel and soap-box (note the soap-box), clinch in endless argument. Every county has its Theocritus who sings the nearest creek, the bloom of the may-apple, the squirrel on the stake-and-rider fence, the rabbit in the corn, the paw-paw thicket where fruit for the gods lures farm boys on frosty ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... have been satisfied to rest with this achievement. With Francqui it simply marked a milepost in his life. In 1896, when he resigned from the army, Leopold had fixed his eyes on China as a scene of operations, and he sent Francqui there to clinch the Pekin-Hankow concession, which he did. In the course of these negotiations he met Jadot, who was later to become his associate both in the Societe ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... a change had come over the fight. Both men were clutching each other in a tense embrace; no blows were being struck at all. She recognized it to be what Joe had described to her as the "clinch." Ponta was struggling to free ...
— The Game • Jack London
... To clinch our conclusion, we descended suddenly and together on Martha; proceeding, however, not by simple inquiry as to facts,—that would never have done,—but by informing her that the air was full of school and that we knew all about it, and then challenging denial. Martha was a ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... to clinch the deal," Baumstein remarked. "I've met your partner as far as I can, but the bargaining has gone on ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... the first time. As it was, the two boys suddenly straightened their faces, and assumed an air of meek penitence, as if suffering the most harrowing remorse for what they had done; and the father, after glaring at them a moment, as if to drive in and clinch the impression he had made, let his head drop back with a dull thump upon the ground, ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis
... fellow-townsman, was so impressed by his tone of quietistic mysticism that he felt sure the philosophic doctor was guided by "the inward light," and wrote, sending a godly book, and proposing to clinch his conversion in a personal interview. Such are the perils that environ the man who not only repeats a creed in sincerity, but ventures to do and to utter his own ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... alley, expecting to see some one lurking there. A hundred times I took the locket out of its hiding-place and wondered what to do, and at last it came to me that the first question the Judge would ask was why I had not told him at once. That was enough to clinch the matter; until to-night the secret has been my own and you can blame me or not, as you ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... purpose of lightening a ship which is aground, they must be buoyed, and care is to be taken that each buoy-rope is of a proper length and strong enough to weigh the gun. The best mode of securing the buoy-rope to the gun is to form a clinch or splice an eye in the end which goes over the cascabel, and take a half-hitch with the bight around the chase of the gun, and stop it ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... those confounded women! how they do cajole us! How true the saying: "'Tis impossible to live with the baggages, impossible to live without 'em"! Come, let us agree for the future not to regard each other any more as enemies; and to clinch the bargain, let us ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... clinch the reunion and fulfil customary law, advises Agamemnon to bring out the gifts of atonement (the gifts prepared in Book IX.), after which the right thing is for him to give a feast of reconciliation, ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... not the fire flash into his honest eyes, and leap into his swarthy cheek, and nerve his brawny arm, and clinch his horny fist, as he marched straightway up to the doomed offender, fiercely denounced his dishonesty, and violently demanded redress? Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro, and eagerness and delight on every ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... a novelty in these particulars; keeping as true to education as if you had never left the settlements. With me the case is different, and I never want to clinch an idee, that I do not feel a wish to swear about it. If you know'd all that I know consarning Judith, you'd find a justification for a little cussing. Now, the officers sometimes stray over to the lake, from the ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... Now Osceola scalped his enemy with his own hands. On the same day, Major Dade, leading a relief expedition from Tampa Bay, was ambushed and overwhelmed near Wahoo Swamp. Only four of his men escaped death. Within forty-eight hours, on the last day of the year, General Clinch, commanding the troops in Florida, won a bloody fight on the ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... pit, having had a vague idea up till then that an actor lived like a god on praise and greasepaint and his photograph in the papers. "Another cup, won't you?" says Miss Gladys Cooper; "No, thank you," says Mr. Dennis Eadie—dash it, it's exactly what we do at home ourselves. And when, to clinch matters, the dramatist makes Mr. Gerald du Maurier light a real cigarette in the Third Act, then he can flatter himself that he has indeed achieved the ambition of every stage writer, and "brought the actual scent of the hay across ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... was handsome and personally popular, and the opening years of his reign (quinquennium Neronis) were famous for good government and prosperity. But there are two further pieces of internal evidence which clinch the argument. A comet is mentioned (i. 77) as appearing in the autumn, an appearance which would tally with that of the comet observed shortly before the death of Claudius in 54 A.D., ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... this circus was over, anyway, and if Carter will take my bid I'll clinch that deal with you. Have the pack and seizings ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... citizens; they suffer through the long winter at Valley Forge and join with Washington in his midnight vigils; they rejoice at Yorktown; they dream with Jefferson and plead with Webster; their hearts are fired with the news of Sumter; they clinch their teeth at Bull Run; they gather hope at Donelson, but they shudder at Shiloh; they struggle through the Wilderness with Grant; tired but triumphant, they march home from Appomattox; and through it all, in virtue of the limitless capacities of vicarious ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... raised in colossal blocks. The spire, floriated richly and graduated with a precise symmetry, rises to an extreme altitude of 220 feet 6 inches. The extreme length is about 170 ft. The massive oaken front doors are carved handsomely, and contain the arms of the Stewart family, the Clinch family (Mrs. Stewart's maiden name), the Hilton family, and those of Bishop Littlejohn, the Episcopal head of the Long Island Diocese. The porch or tower entrance, which is the main entrance to the building, is paved with white marble. In the center ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... vessels carrying them were to go up the Appalachicola, and General Gaines was not sure that the little fleet would be permitted to pass the robbers' stronghold, which had come to be called the Negro Fort. Accordingly, he sent Colonel Clinch with a small force down the river, to render any assistance that might be necessary. On the way Colonel Clinch was joined by a band of Seminoles, who wanted to recapture the fort on their own account, and the two bodies determined to ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston
... sting of shame which this last thought aroused, following in the train of her bitter reasoning, that caused her to quicken her pace and clinch her hands. That same pride, which had been her ally hitherto, had come to her rescue once more. She said to herself that she had done what she knew was right, and that no force of cruel circumstances should induce her to regret that ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... driven in, and I clinch them," said Tregelly. "Only look here: I always like to do a good turn to ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... a woman," I replied. "Hasn't your analytical mind told you yet that the more a woman loves a man, the harder he's got to work to find it out and—and clinch the bargain?" ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs
... space of a few heart-beats there was only a tangle of whirling forms with the sound of fist on flesh, then the blot split up and forms plunged outward, falling heavily. Again the sailors rushed, attempting to clinch. They massed upon Dextry only to grasp empty air, for he shifted with remarkable agility, striking bitterly, as an old wolf snaps. It was baffling work, however, for in the darkness his blows fell ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... wonder, and got to be in that condition of mind when a man does not know what to think of any particular event. The bee-hunter, quick-witted, and managing for his life, was not slow to perceive the advantage he had gained, and he proceeded at once to clinch the nail he had so skilfully driven. Turning from Cloud to the head-chief of the party, a warrior whom he had no difficulty in recognizing, after having so long watched his movements in the earlier part of the night, he pushed the same ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... thou comest from the realms afar! Thy strong wings whir like some huge bellows' breath— Swift falls thy fiery eyeball, like a star, And dark thy shadow as the pall of death! But thou hast marked a tall and reverend tree, And now thy talons clinch yon leafless limb; Before thee stretch the sandy shore and sea, And sails, like ghosts, move in the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... favorable, the farmer, assisted by his relatives and friends, begins the clearing without delay. It is essential that at least a little work be done in order to clinch the bargain with the powers above, for should a delay occur the omens might go awry and necessitate a repetition of the ceremonies and even an abandonment of the farm. I heard of several cases where prospective farms were ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... it won't keep mor'n two nights; but your two sheep, dogs'll help him. We'll feed 'em up a bit for two or three days, and then starve 'em for two or three more to put it straight. Now then, sir, you stick the fork into they three bits, and you shall feed 'em, that'll clinch old Nibbler's making ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... a man in everything but sense," said Morgan, not unkindly, "and I reckon if you and I was to clinch we'd raise a purty big dust and muss things around a right smart. And I don't know who'd come out on top at the finish, neither. So I don't want to have any trouble with you. All I ask of you is step to one side and leave us two alone in what we've started to do and got all planned to carry ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... dominant there, as we have seen, put S. tubulina A. & S. as an undeveloped phase of S. fusca, which, of course, it is not. It needed not the authority of Rostafinski, Mon., p. 197, to assure us this. The earlier authors describe the species in course of development to complete maturity, and clinch the story by declaring the form a constant companion of the commonly recognized amaurochete, so fixing the relationship for us ...
— The North American Slime-Moulds • Thomas H. (Thomas Huston) MacBride
... just right. I want the nail to go through and come out on the other side, so that I can clinch it." ...
— Stuyvesant - A Franconia Story • Jacob Abbott
... his side Marc'antonio kept them going, as a juggler plays with three balls. Not until our boat's nose grated alongside the landing was the bargain concluded, and the first runner, a bag of silver in his fist, almost tumbled upon us down the slippery stairs in his hurry to clinch it. ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... went up as the two fighters leaped forward. Both seemed about to clinch, to test their prowess as wrestlers. Murmurs went up from back of Mormon where his fanciers had ranged themselves. "Russell's got too many tricks for him," men told each other and ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... "Then we'll clinch your ladyship's determination at once. May I make use of your writing table? Have you any other ink than this rose-coloured ink, with which to be sure, your ladyship generally writes your letters, but which is a little ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... you have got something to go on," said the lawyer. "That certainly would clinch the nail. Ye're thinking ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... store the day before and selected, in broad daylight, with a big mirror staring me out of countenance, a hat which was a quarter of a size too large. To clinch the matter, I had ordered four ventilating holes to be punched in it, and had it sent to my rooms to be my hat—implacably my hat as I supposed, for better for worse, for richer for poorer—always. The next morning, after standing before a mirror and trying hopefully for a ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... To clinch the evidence as to the source from which Eugene Field derived pretty nearly everything that won for him such meed of fame as fell to his lot, let me quote from an interview with Melvin L. Gray, his guardian and foster-father, ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... can whoop yo' dawg, too," said Tad, and Chad saw that he was going to have trouble with those Dillons, for Daws winked at the other boys, and the Dillon girl laughed again scornfully—at which Chad saw Melissa's eyes flash and her hands clinch as, quite unconsciously, she moved toward him to take his part; and all at once he was glad that he had nobody else to ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... fragrance from a flower; sharply reawakening his own temptation to respond—were it only to ease her pain. And there was more in it than that—or very soon would be, if he hesitated much longer to clinch matters by telling her the truth; though every nerve shrank from the ordeal—for himself and her. Running away from oneself was plainly a futile experiment. To have so failed with her, disheartened him badly and dwarfed his proud achievement to an ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... seems to me, having got these two old fellows to look out for us here, we had better go and present ourselves in Montreal, and so be as it were in two places at once. Moreover, I should like to see Roland Stanley if possible before I clinch any bargain. We are perfectly certain of getting disinterested advice from him, though I see no reason whatever to doubt the policy of what I have done or the intentions of our backers. I don't know if I have made all our doings and plans sufficiently clear. I am writing in a very rambling ...
— Canada for Gentlemen • James Seton Cockburn
... mornings he would dive down in some deep shady pool under the dark ledges of rock where the catfish are wont to lurk, his right arm wrapped to the fingers with a scarlet cloth. Tempted by the seeming bait, the catfish would take the finger-tips deep in its gullet, the strong hand would instantly clinch on its head, and Attusah would rise with his struggling gleaming prey, to be broiled on the coals ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... enough," cried Lapham; "but if I don't clinch this offer within twenty-four hours, they'll withdraw it, and go into the market; and then ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... what his swords is worth. It would be ill done no to tell him." To clinch the matter, off went Tommy at a run, and off went Francie after him. As a rule Tommy was the swifter, but on this occasion he lagged of fell purpose, and reached the sword-swallower's tent just in time to see ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... absence, in which our friends either forget us, or recollect our vices. Our virtues are best acknowledged when we are standing nigh and ready to enforce them. Like the argumentative eloquence of the Eighth Harry, they are never effectual until the halberdiers clinch ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... said, gravely, "is the original of the Woods Eagle—the Eagle that intimidates us all. Do you remember what Shakespeare—one always harks back to Shakespeare to clinch an argument, because not even our foremost actors have been able to conceal the fact that he was, as somebody in Dickens acutely points out, 'a dayvilish clever fellow'—do you remember. I say, what Shakespeare observes as to ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... over-estimating their hold upon the public interest. Excepting General Jackson, who was a fighter and not a talker, their public men, with Henry Clay and Felix Grundy in the lead, were "stump orators." He who could not relate and impersonate an anecdote to illustrate and clinch his argument, nor "make the welkin ring" with the clarion tones of his voice, was politically good for nothing. James K. Polk and James C. Jones led the van of stump orators in Tennessee, Ben Hardin, John J. Crittenden and John C. Breckenridge in Kentucky. ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... the two other men to clinch with the mad creature. They rolled and tossed about furiously, tearing up snow and tundra, their fierce struggle writing a tragedy of human passion on the white sheet spread by nature. And ever and anon a hand or foot of Jan emerged from the tangle, ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... and looked at the signatures dashed across the paper; both who saw him saw also the shiver, like a shiver of intense cold, that ran through him as he did so, and saw his teeth clinch tight, in the extremity of rage, in the excess of pain, or—to hold in all utterance that might be ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... himself looked at his watch; he had three minutes left to clinch their convictions. Clearly and admirably he outlined his present scope of work; then, stepping into the future, he showed into what it might easily grow, had it the room and beds. He showed indisputably what experimental surgery had done for science—what a fertile ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... are immediately deputed, sir, By the Assembly of Asturias, More sailing soon from other provinces. We bring official writings, charging us To clinch and solder Treaties with this realm That may promote our cause against the foe. Nextly a letter to your gracious King; Also a Proclamation, soon to sound And swell the pulse of the Peninsula, Declaring that the act by which King Carlos And his son Prince Fernando ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... there come times when a fellow must act, and act promptly, or lose his chance to clinch a good thing. In the preceding talk our key-word was "Wait." To-day it is a shorter, quicker, sharper word, and one that a boy likes better. A-c-t—that's it. There is movement,—something doing. The word is all pep, touch and go! We like ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... the Seminoles. The government endeavored to recover them and to force the Seminoles to remove westward. These efforts were not immediately successful, Osceola, their wily and intrepid chief, defeating and capturing four of the generals sent against them, namely, Clinch, Gaines, Call and Winfield Scott. He was finally captured by his captors violating a flag of truce. In 1845 they were induced to move west of the Mississippi and in 1856, they were assigned lands west of the Creeks in the central part of ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... man gets angry he is a wild man, his eyes glitter, his mouth is cruel, his fists clinch, his body trembles, his blood veins strain and he does more harm in five minutes' anger than nature ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... upon Jube, who offered a culminating inducement to clinch the trade. He suddenly stood erect, teetered fantastically on one foot, as if about to begin to dance, and held out a ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... sorry not to be able to clinch the story, but the man recovered and is now a successful stockbroker in Drapers Gardens. The woman, too, is the mother of a considerable family. But ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... gather no positive evidence against him, at any time. The robbery of the Hailesbury gallery at London, when the famous Whistler portrait of the Duchess of Winterton was cut from its frame, was traced almost to his door. But the scent died out before they could clinch the matter, and he escaped. It was believed that the thing was planned by him and executed by a confederate. Several other occurrences of like nature, but of less importance, have been laid against him. But, if he was concerned ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... but be d—d careful how you say it," was the reply, with a sneer that would have stung an abject slave into a longing for revenge, and that grated on Mr. Billings's nerves in a way that made him clinch his fists and involuntarily grit his teeth. Could it be that O'Grady detected it? One quick, wistful, half-appealing glance flashed from the Irishman's eyes towards the subaltern, and then, with evident effort at composure, but with a voice that trembled with the pent-up sense of wrong ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... other stretched the likeliest the city could show in the way of slums, and, farther back, just over the brow of the sinister Hill, something less cheering than honest slums. One glittered upon the future; the other decayed into the past. And it would cost you—to clinch the comparison with the true and only—two thousand dollars a year, say, to secure Mr. Heth's house, negotiating with his executor at that; while in the great pile of the eponymous Dabney, you could have all of three rooms and (portable) bath for twelve dollars ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... 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 clinch 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 ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... woman she had sat on her stool beside that jovial old man, her father, grimy from his forge, and drunk the tales wide-eyed, to creep away and watch the stars, to dream of those dashing streams and to clinch her hands for that she was ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... uncertain, And I felt to clinch his throat; But, instead, I shot—to scare him— All the buttons off his coat. Then I pumped two in the corner, Where he'd sunk down on his knees— Slit his ear and cut his collar, Never listening to his pleas. Told him if he didn't mosey I would plant his carcass whole, In a grave I'd dig that evening ...
— Nancy MacIntyre • Lester Shepard Parker
... replied Hyde, promptly. "I bought it when I was touring in the United States, at a town called Guthrie, in Oklahoma. And," he added suddenly and with a triumphant smile as of a man who is unexpectedly able to clinch an argument, "there is a gentleman there who was with me when I bought ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher
... Gilbert. It's a strong p'int o' law, I've heerd tell, not that I know much o' law, Goodness knows, nor ever want to, but never mind, it's a strong p'int when there's two witnesses to a thing,—one to clinch what the t'other drives in; and you must have a show o' law to work on Alf. Barton, ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... in the las' round, and turned his man over like a tab. He's a proper angletwitch, that Wendron fella. Stank 'pon en both ends, and he'll rise up in the middle and look at 'ee. There was no one a patch on en but the Dane; and I'll back the Dane next time they clinch. 'Tis a nuisance, though, to have'n like this—with a big job coming on, too, over ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... gets that leg on and feels the consciousness creeping over his soul that it is his. Consequently, I say that when I offer it to you I'm doing a personal favour; and I think I see you jump at the chance, and want to clinch the bargain before I mention—you'll hardly believe it, I know—that I'll actually knock that leg down to you at four hundred dollars. Four hundred, did I say? I meant six hundred; but let it stand. I ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... butt nor trip. Don't clinch. Don't use knee, elbow, nor shoulder. When I call 'Break away,' break without hitting. If you do any of these things you will be jolly well disqualified. Fight fair and God have mercy on your souls." To Dam it seemed that the advice was ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... principal, he was unrivalled as confidant. He could enter into a passion; he could counsel wary moves, being, in his own phrase, so old a hawk; nay, he could turn a letter for some unlucky swain, or even string a few lines of verse that should clinch the business and fetch the hesitating fair one to the ground. Nor, perhaps, was it only his "curiosity, zeal, and intrepid dexterity" that recommended him for a second in such affairs; it must have been a distinction ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Gervas Jerome, knight banneret, and sole owner of Beacham Ford Park, with a rent-roll of four thousand good pounds a year, he is now up for sale, and will be knocked down to the bidder who pleases him best. Say but the word, and we'll have another flagon of sack to clinch the bargain.' ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... clinch the bargain, advanced to meet him, and the boy, keeping his back toward the new-comer, managed to walk out of the ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis
... were drawn tightly in a grimace of cold anger. His eyes were shining hard and bright. He stepped in quickly and chopped two straight lefts to Loring's jaw, then doubled the spaceman up again with a hard right to the heart. Loring gasped and tried to clinch. But Roger threw a straight jolting right to his jaw. The prisoner slumped to the floor, out cold. The ...
— Danger in Deep Space • Carey Rockwell
... tenderly as her own, and allowed to nurse freely. Thus a friendship sprang up between the kitten and the woodchuck, which lasted as long as the latter lived. They would play together precisely like two kittens,—clinch and tumble about and roll upon the grass in a very amusing way. Finally the woodchuck took up his abode under the floor of the kitchen, and gradually relapsed into a half-wild state. He would permit no familiarities from any one save the kitten, ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... on," said Meldon. "The rest of the article is mere piffle. The essential part is what you've read out, and I imagine it ought to pretty well clinch the matter. She drove to Euston, intending to travel from that station to some very quiet neighbourhood in which she had taken a house beforehand. Now where could you possibly find a ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... go out to you in spite of my will; my lips would cry to you! I would clinch my teeth—I would pinion my arms to my side. I would hide here behind the casement and gaze at you between the leaves of the geraniums—and you would never know! You ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... You keep your mistr. . .manners, and I'll stick to mine!' I'm not the third, then: bless us, they must know! {240} Don't you think they're the likeliest to know, They with their Latin? So, I swallow my rage, Clinch my teeth, suck my lips in tight, and paint To please them—sometimes do, and sometimes don't; For, doing most, there's pretty sure to come A turn, some warm eve finds me at my saints— A laugh, a cry, the business of the world— ('Flower o' the peach, Death for us all, and his own life for ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... him locked up with his short account. No doubt he'd hear from the Orchils through the Fanes. However, to clinch the matter, he thought he might as well stop in to see Ruthven. A plain word or two to Ruthven indicating his own wishes—perhaps outlining his policy concerning the future house of Neergard—might as well be delivered ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... any flank attacks which might be hurled against it from Paris, the Germans placed a strong army under von Kluck in front of that city to hold the French left in check, as a boxer in a clinch holds back his opponent's left arm. Von Kluck fought his way to a position approximately defined by a line through Creil, Senlis, Nanteuil-le-Haudouin, and Lizy-sur-Ourg. His cavalry advanced even to Chantilly and Crecy. His army was not intended to have any part in the ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... reason to be proud of her letter. For the purpose in view it couldn't have been better done. That was what made it so touchingly absurd. He put himself in her position. He pictured himself as her, "sitting up in bed," pencil in hand, to explain away, to soothe, to clinch and bind... Yes, if he had happened to be some other man—one whom her insult might have angered without giving love its death-blow, and one who could be frightened out of not keeping his word—this letter would have ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... devotion, gratitude, adoration—now you got it. Turn on your lamps full power, dearie! Wow! Bully! A couple of tears, please. That's the stuff. You'll be the queen of the world. Weep a little more. Real tears. That's it! Now clinch for ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... would allow me to kiss her when we parted), until I was quite gone altogether, and did nothing but think of her all day and dream of her all night. Well, the last time that I was in the transport to Portsmouth, I had made up my mind to clinch the business, and as soon as the sails were furled, I dressed myself in my best toggery and made all sail for the old house. When I came in I found Peggy in the bar, and a very fancy sort of young chap alongside of her. I did not think so much of that, and I was going inside the bar to shake ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... more than that—I'll bring ye together and let ye help mend him," and she stretched forth her hand to clinch ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... with its creeping terror, cold with its sudden clinch; Cold so utter you wonder if 'twill ever again be warm; Clancy grinned as he shuddered, "Surely it isn't a cinch Being wet-nurse to a looney in the ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... back, but rushed into another clinch as Duval raised his revolver. Ducking, Chester drove his fist to his opponent's chin, even as the latter pressed the trigger. The bullet whistled harmlessly ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes
... of debt and thrown into prison. The Commons, on the other hand, not only insisted that their ancient privilege of exemption from arrest in such cases should be respected, but they passed a special law (1604) to clinch the privilege. ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... stood at arm's length and sparred. In this style of fighting, however, the young Englishman had all the better of it and after he had landed several blows upon the pirate's face and body, the latter rushed into a clinch. ...
— The Boy Allies with Uncle Sams Cruisers • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... capacity acquired. Even as mere impression, it fails to produce its proper effect upon the memory; for, to remain fully among the acquisitions of this latter faculty, it must be wrought into the whole cycle of our operations. Its motor consequences are what clinch it. Some effect due to it in the way of an activity must return to the mind in the form of the sensation of having acted, and connect itself with the impression. The most durable impressions are those on account of which ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... avowed purpose of destroying him and his sub? No sir! His microphones will tell him, while he is still totally submerged, that his approaching prey is a slow poke and cannot possibly outrun him; then he'll come up, take a look and clinch his ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... a bloody nose ye'll have, too," as he drove his left with deadly precision on Quinlan's olfactory organ, staggering that amazed youth, who, nothing daunted, ran into a series of jabs and swings that completely dazed him and forced him to clinch to save further damage. But the fighting blood of O'Connell was up. He beat Quinlan out of the clinch with a well-timed upper-cut that put the youth upon his back on ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... heart swelled with sudden misery and wretchedness. Why was such an unkind thing permitted in the world? And then again returned that something which stirred inside him, something hot and hard, which made his cheeks and eyes burn and his fingers clinch once more. And then again the ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... cavalier nod, to clinch the last word on the subject, the bushranger gave himself over to his camp-chair, his pipe, and his inexhaustible Australasian. As for Vanheimert, he eventually returned to the tent in which he had spent the night; and there ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... then," said Varney, ever ready to clinch the business that promised gold, and relieve his apprehensions of the detection of his fraud. "And now to your noiseless hands, as soon as may be, I consign the girl; she ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Secret Service man had thought it best not to be too confidential with him, kind Fate decreed that it should be Tom Slade and none other who should clinch the case against this foreign wretch whose ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... in, and a little woman in a gray dress, with sort of illuminating hair, slides off and looks around quick. And the Boy Avenger sees her, and yells 'Mamma,' and she cries 'O!' and they meet in a clinch, and now the pesky redskins can come forth from their caves on the plains without fear any more of the rifle of Roy, the Red Wolf. Mrs. Conyers comes up and thanks me an' John Tom without the usual extremities you always look for in ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... was coming, and Shoop decided to surprise the assemblage. The main issue was not the shooting contest, and if High-Chin Bob had not already seen enough of Shoop's work to satisfy him, the genial Bud intended to clinch ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... useful, suggestive institution, and has done work of value (as it would doubtless say itself) in a more or less nagging and sporadic way, but it has had no national militant vision or sense of thoroughness in what it could do because it lacked the advertising clinch, the advertising willfulness and irresistibleness ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... such a gale, no one felt the least doubt or hesitation as to the safety and good condition of her moorings. The master and mate were extremely anxious, however, to heave in the hempen cable, and see the state of the clinch or iron ring of the chain-cable. But the vessel rolled at such a rate that the seamen could not possibly keep their feet at the windlass nor work the handspikes, though it had been several times attempted since the gale ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... dazed way. A short fellow with a thick clipped beard kept on yelling periodically:—"Who's afeard? Who's afeard?" Another one jumped up, excited, with blazing eyes, sent out a string of unattached curses and sat down quietly. Two men discussed familiarly, striking one another's breast in turn, to clinch arguments. Three others, with their heads in a bunch, spoke all together with a confidential air, and at the top of their voices. It was a stormy chaos of speech where intelligible fragments tossing, struck the ear. One could ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... us beast-like; With unchangeable purpose we're men. We must drive the nail home—and then clinch it Or storms shake it loose again. In things of great import, in trifles, We our recreant souls must subdue Till the evil we would not we do not And the good that we ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... shadow showed on the window-shades, beside Paddington's. They stood close together, and from their gestures, he seemed to be arguing or pleading, while she was drawing back and refusing, or at least, holding out against him. At last they fell into a regular third-act clinch—it was as good as a movie! After a moment she drew herself out of his arms and they moved away from the window. In a minute or two they came out of the house together, and I tailed them. They walked slowly, with their heads very close, and I didn't dare get near enough to try to ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... fatherhood, From exultation, victory and relief, from the bedfellow's embrace in the night, From the act-poems of eyes, hands, hips and bosoms, From the cling of the trembling arm, From the bending curve and the clinch, From side by side the pliant coverlet off-throwing, From the one so unwilling to have me leave, and me just as unwilling to leave, (Yet a moment O tender waiter, and I return,) From the hour of shining stars and dropping dews, From the night a moment ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... hawk-like features—the thin and tightly compressed lips. Then, in a trice, it all came back to him: the face he looked at was that of the uncouth gardener—the man who had given him the hand. And to clinch ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... enough to clinch his fist and shake it at Clif; and then he retired into a corner to ...
— A Prisoner of Morro - In the Hands of the Enemy • Upton Sinclair
... appeared that Coligny was paramount at court. Both English and French volunteers were fighting in the Netherlands. Small wonder that Burghley and Walsingham believed that a French marriage would clinch matters, make France a virtually Huguenot Power, and secure a combination which would bring the Pope and the King of Spain to their knees. The approaching marriage of the French King's sister, Margaret, to young Henry of Navarre—now standing next after the King's brothers in the line ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... place as well as any man, but his eye fell on the rabbit and he looked very queer and nearly dropped a cup. She saw it and began to tremble and go white, and it came over me then that now or never was the time to clinch matters or she'd nearly die from shame and I couldn't ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... church and all de children too, and I think all should look after saving their souls so as to drive de nail in, and den go about de earth spreading kindness and hoeing de row clean so as to clinch dat nail and make dem ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... around, between us. You talk to him after I go, and the next time I see him I'll clinch matters. You'll make the most gorgeous of queens, ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... was pure inclination that induced him to a good treatment of them, and not any love or partiality to their persons; for, says he, "there is none of you but will hang me, I know, whenever you can clinch ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... and fearing accidental defeat, forgot caution and tried to rush in for a clinch. But this was the kind of attack that ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock
... obtained a reduction, and was about to complete the purchase for L1150. But when Walter left the country the proprietor never dreamed of going again to the haughty Colonel. He went to Bartley, and Bartley bought the property in five minutes for L1200, and paid a deposit to clinch the contract. He completed the purchase with unheard-of rapidity, and set an army of workmen to raise a pit village, or street of eighty houses. They were ten times better built than the Colonel's cottages; not one of them could ever be vacant, they ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... fair get away, not attempting to strike as the clinch was broken. But an instant later Dave came back, dancing all around his dazed opponent, landing on the short ribs, on the breast bone, under either ear and finally on the ...
— Dave Darrin's Second Year at Annapolis - Or, Two Midshipmen as Naval Academy "Youngsters" • H. Irving Hancock
... it was known to someone else. But that person took care to keep in the background. When once I had been suggested as the culprit a quantity of evidence was forthcoming to clinch the matter, so to speak. I was never particularly popular here, and people were quite ready to believe me capable of the deed." She smiled faintly. "I confess one or two things looked black for me—the letters were ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... sent him back several feet, and his legs shook under him, sagging limply. His lips, where the blow had landed, were smashed, gaping hideously, red-stained. Randerson was after him relentlessly. Masten dared not clinch, for no rules of boxing governed this fight, and he knew that if he accepted rough and tumble tactics he would be beaten quickly. So he trusted to his agility, which, though waning, answered well until he recovered from ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... noses were but three inches apart; they stood sidewise, both ready to clinch, but each waiting for the other. They glared for three minutes in silence and like statues, except that each ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... mind; and so presently our terms were concluded, and I found myself occupying the responsible relation of master to a mouth-organ playing boy and an extraordinarily wise ass. It was arranged that both of these dependants of mine should accompany me in my expedition to the Indian villages; and to clinch our bargain I gave Pablo the seven reales wherewith to buy his rain-coat on ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... Worthington, striving to reproduce the murder of Tom Langdon as he evidently had reconstructed it, experimenting with his experts in the safety of a different city, for points of evidence that would clinch the case against the accused man beyond all shadow of a doubt? Instinctively Houston felt that he just had heard an unwritten, unmentioned phase of his own murder case. Yet—if that had been Worthington, if those experts had found ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... eldest son, were slain, and the cattle scattered; and though the backwoodsmen rallied and repulsed their assailants, yet they had suffered such loss and damage that they retreated and took up their abode temporarily on the Clinch River. ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... comparison, analogy, is twofold—to enliven and to convince; to illustrate and enforce an accepted truth, and to press home and clinch one in dispute. An apt figure may put a new face upon an old and much worn truism, and a vital analogy may reach and move the reason. Thus when Renan, referring to the decay of the old religious beliefs, says that the people are no poorer for ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... informed him, and leaped from the bulkhead straight down at Mr. Gibney. Jack Flaherty followed. Mr. Gibney welcomed Captain Hicks with a terrific right swing, which missed; before he could guard, Dan Hicks had planted left and right where they would do the most good and Mr. Gibney went into a clinch to save himself ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... tempting in the extreme, and baited with alluring possibilities that certainly were dazzling to her if they were not to her lover. She meant to make him tell her of the offer, and she meant to make him accept it that very afternoon and clinch the contract by telephoning the acceptance to the telegraph-office ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... inexhaustible store at his command. These anecdotes had not seldom a flavor of rustic robustness about them, but he used them with great effect, while amusing the audience, to give life to an abstraction, to explode an absurdity, to clinch an argument, to drive home an admonition. The natural kindliness of his tone, softening prejudice and disarming partisan rancor, would often open to his reasoning a way into minds ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... secure his place. Bang! went an easel. "Nom de Dieu!" in French,—"Where in h—l are you goin'!" in English. Crash! a paintbox fell with brushes and all on board. "Dieu de Dieu de—" spat! A blow, a short rush, a clinch and scuffle, and the voice of the massier, ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... and alone. Whereupon Arriguccio, beginning with the discovery of the pack-thread attached to his lady's great toe, gave them the whole narrative of his discoveries and doings down to the very end; and to clinch the whole matter, he put in their hands the locks which he had cut, as he believed, from his wife's head, adding that 'twas now for them to come for her and deal with her on such wise as they might deem their honour required, seeing that he would nevermore have her in his house. Firmly believing ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... the opinions of old men about life have been accepted as final. All sorts of allowances are made for the illusions of youth; and none, or almost none, for the disenchantments of age. It is held to be a good taunt, and somehow or other to clinch the question logically, when an old gentleman waggles his head and says: "Ah, so I thought when I was your age." It is not thought an answer at all, if the young man retorts: "My venerable sir, so I shall most probably think when I am ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... break the monotony, although at one time it looked as if Belleville might add a tally to their score, and possibly clinch matters. Leonard, their hard-hitting backstop, sent one out in short center, failing to give it enough force to take advantage of that incline back of "K.K." Then Conway, who had been hitting savagely ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson
... come to-night," she said cheerfully. "I gave you a day to drive the nail—and, O David! you have driven it well!—another day to clinch it, and a third to recover from the effects. Have you ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde |
