"Fist" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... time, the xebec, having picked up with the stronger breeze, had been shortening her distance (as Captain Pomery put it) hand-over-fist. But no sooner had we loaded the little gun and trained her ready for use, than my father, pausing to mop his brow, cried out that the Moor was losing her breeze again. She perceptibly slackened way, and before long the water astern of her ceased to be ruffled. An oily ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... it—curse it!" The man spoke aloud, but there was no one near to hear. He shook his skinny yellow fist out over the broad river that crept greasily down to ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... child!" cried Linda; "mark that smile! All heaven reflected in a dew-drop! See!" "And all the world grasped in that little fist,— At least as we esteem the world!" cried Charles. "And yet," said Linda, "'tis a glorious world: See how those families enjoy themselves!" "And who created all this happiness?" The husband said,—"who, after God, but Linda? Who spends her money, ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... sore as a result of his battle with Jabe. His jaw ached dully from its encounter with Jim Spurling's fist. But worse than any physical pain was the smart of his ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... took his leave, and rushed in frantic excitement to his lair in the house of Pinkus. Arrived there, he ran wildly up and down, clenching his fist at the thought of Bernhard. He opened his old desk, and took out of a secret drawer two keys, which he laid on the table, and stood looking at them steadfastly and long. At length he pushed them into his pocket, and ran down to the ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... one should touch me behind; it makes me so angry that I do not know what I do. I was very near giving the Dauphin a blow one day, for he had a wicked trick of coming behind one for a joke, and putting his fist in the chair just where one was going to sit down. I begged him, for God's sake, to leave off this habit, which was so disagreeable to me that I would not answer for not one day giving him a sound ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Mrs. Anderson," replied Mrs. Callender, with a high-spirited toss of the head. "I want my mug, and my mug I'll hae. Do ye hear that?" And here Mrs. Callender struck her clenched fist on the open side of her left hand, in the impressive way peculiar to some ladies when under the influence of passion. "And, since ye come to that o't, let me tell ye ye're a very insultin, ill-bred woman, to tell me that it wasna muckle worth, after ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... formerly distinguished the gentleman, who then wore a sword as a part of his dress. He is now contented with a regular stand-up fight, and exhibits a fist like a knuckle-bone of mutton—hard, coarse, and of certain magnitude. The bludgeon hammer-headed whip, or a vulgar twig, succeeds the clouded and amber-headed cane; and instead of the snuff-box being rare, and an article of parade, to ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... mother!" it came nearer and nearer, till it beat with the sound of a fist on the cabin door. In the piecing out of the instant dream which she started from, she thought as that night when Dylks called her, that it must be Laban; he sometimes called her mother after the baby came, and now she called back, "Laban! ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... did so to find himself still covered by the muzzles of that gun. When he had nearly reached the outer gate and felt himself out of range, he turned in his saddle, and looking back at Lawrence, who was still standing where he had left him, he violently shook his fist in the air. ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... door, determined that if Bateese was outside he would get some satisfaction out of him or challenge him to a fight right there. He beat against it, first with one fist and then with both. He shouted. There was no response. Then he exerted his strength and his weight against the door. It ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... clenched fist, but his son had flung out of the room. It was not the Deemster only who feared he might lay hands on ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... of view of both father and son was novel to Royson, and their ethics were vile, but he gave the girl, who was sent away at the same time, half of the six pounds he had in his pocket, and wished he had used his fist instead of his open hand ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... when he of a Sunday Home from Church would come, with his solemn and dignified bearing; If they made fun of his cap-string, or laughed at the flowers of the wrapper He with such stateliness wore, which was given away but this morning,— Threateningly doubled my fist in an instant; with furious passion Fell I upon them, and struck out and hit, assailing them blindly, Seeing not where. They howled as the blood gushed out from their noses: Scarcely they made their escape ...
— Hermann and Dorothea • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... be at St. Mildred's by this time, at the bottom of the whole story, and Philip would be taught to eat his words in no time, and make as few wry faces as suited his dignity. But what is the use of talking? This sofa'—and he struck his fist against it—'is my prison, and I am a miserable cripple, and it is mere madness in me to think of ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... they were more civil and less strict in their examination than in England. The Russian sailors look very unbright; they are not active in managing a boat. They not unfrequently received a few strokes from the fist of the helmsman, or a rope's-end, either of which they took with that unconcerned composure which showed they were accustomed to it. We are located at the hotel of H. Spink, an intelligent Yorkshireman; his wife is very ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... rested at the bottom it was too far down for me to see it. The grave was made very deep, as he used afterwards to tell us, that it might hold us all. My father first and abruptly let his cord drop, followed by the rest. This was too much. I now saw what was meant, and held on and fixed my fist and feet, and I believe my father had some difficulty in forcing open my small fingers; he let the little black cord drop, and I remember, in my misery and anger, seeing its open end disappearing ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... this boy waving his flag and shaking his fist back at the halting line. He was not a hundred feet from the ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... shook his fist at the writing-desk. "You wouldn't be locked," he thought, "unless you had some shameful secrets to keep! I shall have other opportunities; and she may not always remember to turn the key." He stole quietly down the stairs, and met no ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... when a sudden thought hit him between the eyes, like the blow of a fist. He gasped for a moment, then he burst into shrieks of laughter, kicking his legs up and down and waving his arms in maniacal mirth. After that he rose and danced. The sour-faced Englishwoman, in mortal terror, fled into the corridor. ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... the park that for the first time I pitted myself against life upon a definite issue, and prepared my first experience of defeat. "I will have her," I said, hammering at the turf with my fist. "I will. I do not care if ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... sun, Without whose aid you're all undone? Did Paulus e'er complain of sweat? Did Paulus e'er the sun forget; The influence of whose golden beams Soon licks up all unsavoury steams? The sun, you say, his face has kiss'd: It has; but then it greased his fist. True lawyers, for the wisest ends, Have always been Apollo's friends. Not for his superficial powers Of ripening fruits, and gilding flowers; Not for inspiring poets' brains With penniless and starveling strains; Not for his boasted healing art; Not for his skill to shoot ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... dropping a fist on the table, and staring at the notary; for he was not present in the afternoon when ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... will. One unarmed brave man can manage a thousand by the moral force of his will alone, much better than an hundred cowards with guns in their hands. They also require as a right when punished, to be punished with a switch or a whip, and not with a stick or the fist. In this particular the ethnical law of their nature is different from all other races of men. It is exactly the reverse of that of the American Indian. The Indian will murder any man who strikes him with a ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... moment Jack swung his left. Creviss had struck at him and missed when he back-stepped, and coming on swiftly ran into Jack's fist with a thud that jarred him into a state ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... the gaskets and rope of the foot and leach of the sail as stiff and hard as a piece of suction-hose, and the sail itself about as pliable as though it had been made of sheets of sheathing copper. It blew a perfect hurricane, with alternate blasts of snow, hail, and rain. We had to fist the sail with bare hands. No one could trust himself to mittens, for if he slipped, he was a gone man. All the boats were hoisted in on deck, and there was nothing to be lowered for him. We had need of every finger God had given us. Several times we got the sail ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... to him," suggested the Princess, brushing a damp lock from the General's warm forehead and slipping her ringless finger into his curved fist carefully. ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... you, or instantly quit my service. I will teach you," added he, clenching his fist at the count, who stood resolutely and serenely before him, "I will teach you how to behave to a man ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... body. He stood upright beside the deserted fire, panting, glaring, his clothes in tatters. Blood flowed from his nose, and from a cut upon his temple. He was a sorry sight. He lifted his clenched fist and shook ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... was stilled. This time the method was swift and certain. Sanderson took another step toward him and struck. His fist landed on Owen's jaw, resounding with a vicious smack! in the sudden silence that had fallen, and Owen crumpled and sank to the floor in an ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... departing guest and then shook his fist in the direction Penfield had taken. Having thus relieved his feelings, he threw himself into a chair and moodily lighted a cigarette. He was suffering one of the swift reactions of the optimistic and mercurial temperament, which, if it suns itself upon the slope of Olympus ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... too. "Yeah, Nancy, das de way dey does. I ain' gwine keep nasty house for nobody. But white people's funny. Dey think if you got clean house and bleachin' sheets you mus' have somepin' to eat inside." She clenched her fist, and her voice rose. "I tells you right now—I gwine keep my house neat jus' like I bin taught, ef I never gits no somepin' t'eat and ain' got cornpone in ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... hurt, and lived for some years to plot more mischief, and fail in his designs. He at last quarreled with one of his savage followers, and in a fit of anger, struck him a blow with his fist. The indignity was never forgotten or forgiven. The Indian vowed to be revenged, and he kept his oath; dogging the steps of his foe, he found an opportunity to inflict a wound, which felled his adversary to the earth. With proper attention ...
— Ellen Walton - The Villain and His Victims • Alvin Addison
... of skeering 'em away, if the thieves were to hear me singing out, my style of doing it would almost coax 'em to come and be took up. They'd feel like a bird when a snake is after it, and would walk up, and poke their coat collars right into my fist. Then, after a while, I'd perhaps be promoted to the fancy business of pig ketching, which, though it is werry light and werry elegant, requires genus. 'Tisn't every man that can come the scientifics in that line, and has studied the nature of a pig, so as to beat ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... them. During the process of arranging the carts for the night one of the women became enraged at the father of her brood because he would not aid her in the preparation of the simple tent under which the family was to repose. The woman ran to him, clenching her fist and screaming forth invective which, I am convinced, had I understood it and had it been directed at me, I should have found extremely disagreeable. After thus lashing the culprit with language for some time, she broke forth into screams and danced frantically ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... will bid you good-day," said Mr. Tutt, taking his hat from the window ledge and turning to the door. "And—you young whippersnapper," he added when once it had closed behind him and he had turned to shake his lean old fist at the place where W.M.P. presumably was still sitting, "I'll show you how to treat a reputable member of the bar old enough to be your grandfather! I'll take the starch out of your darned Puritan collar! I'll harry you and fluster you and heckle you and ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... voice changed as he got nearer. "She has a mighty antique look about her, but she may still serve our purpose," he said. "But I'm not quite certain," he added, as he struck his fist against a plank, which crumbled away before the blow. A kick sent another plank into fragments. The whole boat was ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... down several steps, but not feeling at the moment the pain of his fall, he sprung up again to the door, and beating at it fiercely with his clenched fist, he cried aloud in what seemed more a beast's howl than a human voice, so keen was his agony and despair: 'Oh, release me, release me, and I ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... alone for that," said the husband with a look of almost fierce determination, pressing his fist as he spoke rigidly on his desk, as though he had Mr. Slope's head below his knuckles and ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... by Macewen, in which the patient's spine is arched forwards by allowing the lower extremities and pelvis to hang over the end of the table, while the assistant, standing on a stool, applies his closed fist over the abdominal aorta and compresses it against the vertebral column. Momburg recommends an elastic cord wound round the body between the iliac crest and the lower border of the ribs, but this procedure has caused serious damage ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... down deeper into his chair, his chin sunk into his fist. It was quite like the act of cowering. It was long before he spoke. When he did so the tone of resentment was more bitter. "Does she realize what ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... are others, sanded too, but on their legs, going at each other with blows and kicks. We shall surely see this poor fellow spit out his teeth in a minute; his mouth is all full of blood and sand; he has had a blow on the jaw from the other's fist, you see. Why does not the official there separate them and put an end to it? I guess that he is an official from his purple; but no, he encourages them, and commends the one who ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... tired eyes sparkled green. Her little fist cracked against his chest. She turned half ...
— Second Sight • Basil Eugene Wells
... tapping with the tips of her fingers Cayrol's great fist which he held menacingly like a butcher about to strike. Then, taking him quietly aside toward the window, ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... his master's wife.' 'Then,' said Mr. Tyson, 'the law is against thee, and thou must submit. I can do nothing for thee.' Never, said Mr. Tyson, when relating this story, shall I forget the desperate resolution which showed itself in the countenance and manner of this man when he said, with clenched fist, his eyes raised to Heaven, his whole frame bursting with the purpose of his soul, while a smile of triumph played around his lips, 'I will die before the Georgia man shall have me.' And then suddenly melting into ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... time in Dublin, a certain woman, Biddy Moriarty, who had a huckster's stall on one of the quays nearly opposite the Four Courts. She was a virago of the first order, very able with her fist, and still more formidable with her tongue. From one end of Dublin to the other she was notorious for her powers of abuse, and even in the provinces Mrs. Moriarty's language had passed into currency. The dictionary of Dublin slang had been considerably enlarged by her, and her voluble ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... House were a bad commentary on the still hopeful minority of broadminded French-Canadians who wanted to carry on the honour of Courcellette. The controversy over titles was no feather in the cap of the Premier, who made a bad fist of defending a practice the most glaring instance of which was the creation of hereditary titles in a ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... beauty of innocence. Men living in those huge, hedgeless inland plains know nothing about frontiers or the tragedy of a fight for freedom; they know nothing of alarum and armaments or the peril of a high civilisation poised like a precious statue within reach of a mailed fist. They are accustomed to a cosmopolitan citizenship, in which men of all bloods mingle and in which men of all creeds are counted equal. Their highest moral boast is humanitarianism; their highest mental boast is enlightenment. ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... big heavy fist tightened. Then he drew himself up to his full dumpy height. "Dr. Pietro," he said stiffly, "I am as responsible to my duties as any man here—and my duties involve protecting the life of every man and woman on ...
— Let'em Breathe Space • Lester del Rey
... climbed upon the outside of the omnibus with his comrade. The vehicle hurried them quickly along toward the quay, crossed the Seine, the Carrousel, and passed before the Theatre-Francais, at which Jocquelet, thinking of his approaching debut, shook his fist, exclaiming, "Now I am ready for you!" Here the young men were planted upon the asphalt boulevard, in front of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... it was the cry that choked him," broke in the Small Chicken. "I had a cry in my throat yesterday. It was bigger than my fist, and most choked me to death, ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... seem satisfied after his feeding? Does he suck his fist? How much does he gain each week in weight? Does he sleep well? Does the baby vomit? What do his bowel movements look like? Will you please send a stool to ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... tell you the exact date of this whimsical adventure), you will note with even greater surprise that all this hubbub was caused by no crime against the commonwealth of the Republic or against the person of any of its conglomerate people. The blotter reads, in heavy simple fist, "disorderly conduct," a phrase which is almost as embracing as the word diplomacy, or society, ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... He shook his fist strongly at the river, which had him well up to the middle by this time; and then he disdainfully waded out, with ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... were still quivering, as if from a heavy strain just loosened. All this I could see, because the high door with the spikes, that used to part the Dial-court from this place of common business, was fallen forward from its upper hinge, and splayed out so that I could put my fist through. ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... was sneering, and Tarzan knew that it was because little Manu thought all creatures feared mighty Bolgani, the gorilla. Tarzan arched his great chest and struck it with a clinched fist. "I am Tarzan," he cried. "While Tarzan was yet a balu he slew a Bolgani. Tarzan seeks the Mangani, who are his brothers, but Bolgani he does not seek, so let Bolgani keep from ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... advanced, fists doubled. They circled around and around on the pavement, each looking for an opening through the other's guard. Suddenly the bigger boy lunged forward and his fist went true to the mark—John's nose. They sparred again, now feinting forward, now stepping backward, like two young turkey cocks. A tall, blue-clad, brass-buttoned figure rounded the corner, and Shultz ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... to be garroted, which the other two were rifling his pockets. This was too much for me. I was in pretty fit physical condition at that time and felt myself to be quite the equal in a good old Anglo-Saxon fist fight of any dozen ordinary Castilians, so I plunged into the fray, heart and soul, not for an instant dreaming, however, what was the quality of the person to whose assistance I had come. My first step was to bowl over the garroter. ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... he rose, and cleared his nose, and looked toward the chair; He saw the stately stripes and stars,—our country's flag was there! His heart beat high, with eldritch cry upon the floor he sprang, Then raised his wrist, and shook his fist, and spoke ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... you out, you bad boy!" she said, in a low voice, shaking her fist at the sleeping boy. "I wouldn't have believed that my Zeke would have robbed his own mother. We must have a ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger
... blackguard with a blackened face. 'I don't know what you mean,' says he, 'and I'm damned if I care.' 'Das halsband, says I, which means the necklace. 'Go to hell,' says he. But I struck myself and shook my head and then my fist at him and nodded. He laughed in my face; and upon my soul we were at a deadlock. So I pointed to the clock and held up one finger. 'I've one minute to live, old girl,' says he through the doors, 'if this rotter has the guts to shoot, and I don't think ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... that Shakespeare is a poet? Well, perhaps if you live two hundred and fifty years longer, you may discover that Niebuhr is an historian." "Schlegel did not like it," added Landor when telling the story himself—very much as who should say, "I knocked him down with an unexpected blow of my fist, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... visit the Opera one morning and ask leave to stroll where he pleases, without being accompanied by a stupid guide, let him go to Box Five and knock with his fist or stick on the enormous column that separates this from the stage-box. He will find that the column sounds hollow. After that, do not be astonished by the suggestion that it was occupied by the voice of the ghost: there is room inside the column ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... "dignity of human nature" to look at that man, and to sympathize with him in the seldom-heard joke which has unbent his careworn, hard-working visage, and drawn iron smiles from it? or with that full-hearted cobbler, who is honoring with the grasp of an honest fist the unused palm of that annoyed patrician, whom the license of the ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... was not all smooth sailing, especially for the boy. Periwinkle had never known his grandfather Maise, but he nevertheless held the old gentleman in high esteem. Therefore when Washington Grey called that relative "a mean old fellow," Peri's fist darted out with amazing rapidity but was just as quickly withheld before it reached Washington's eye. And that lad, wondering at his escape, showed his appreciation by presenting Periwinkle a horse-hair chain the next day which was accepted with all the graciousness of ...
— Pearl and Periwinkle • Anna Graetz
... time violently insolent to your father. And even the bishop thought to trample upon him. Do you remember the bishop's preaching against your father's chanting? If I ever forget it!" And the archdeacon slapped his closed fist against ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... by the water's edge. Still pale, the gambler plunged into the river and struck out for the opposite shore. It was a hard battle against that current, but presently Rasco and Dick saw him wade out at the other side. He shook his fist at them savagely, then disappeared like a flash into ...
— The Boy Land Boomer - Dick Arbuckle's Adventures in Oklahoma • Ralph Bonehill
... and lo, the fantasy, if fantasy it were, remained. I smote with my fist upon the stone. The stone was solid—it bruised the flesh. And as I saw the blood run, I screamed aloud like a ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... Steavens, struggling with one of the windows. The sash was stuck, however, and would not yield, so he sat down dejectedly and began pulling at his collar. The lawyer came over, loosened the sash with one blow of his red fist and sent the window up a few inches. Steavens thanked him, but the nausea which had been gradually climbing into his throat for the last half hour left him with but one desire—a desperate feeling that he must get away from this place with what was left of Harvey Merrick. Oh, he comprehended ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... spring aloft, invigorated by our Mother's touch; where our entire humanity and our human desires throb in every vein; where the desire to press forward, to vanquish, to snatch, to use his clenched fist, to possess, to conquer, glows through the soul of the young hunter; where the warrior, with rapid stride, assumes his inborn right to dominion over the world; and, with terrible liberty, sweeps like a desolating hailstorm ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... still plain Citizen, in House of Commons listening to commonplace proposals about unearned increment. This evidently wouldn't do. Suddenly jumped up; shook fist at back of ASQUITH's unoffending head, and, a propos de bottes, "wanted to know about the swindling companies and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 14, 1892 • Various
... Tom!" she called out, and came running out with the ladle of porridge in her fist, "Give me leave to pet that pretty ...
— East O' the Sun and West O' the Moon • Gudrun Thorne-Thomsen
... other as he moved on to the front of the fire. There he stood looking at me, and a curious smile came over his countenance. He had a stand-up collar and a cut-away coat with gilt buttons and a Scotch cap. All at once he struck at me, and I had the impression that he hit me. I up with my fist and struck back at him. My fist seemed to go through him and struck against the stone above the fireplace, and knocked the skin off my knuckles. The man seemed to be struck back into the fire, ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... man (who was then a person in power, with a lemon-coloured face and a very short and curly, not to say woolly, head of hair) went so far in his temporary discontent as to shake his yellow fist under the nose of his interlocutor, ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... all he wanted, thinking I would not dare use violence in the presence of a third party. I let go of him, but so roughly that he staggered back and fell against a tree. He clenched his fist and turned away without ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... be handled, to be made sure of, they were unable to realize the extent of their future happiness. Hayle dived his hands into a bowl of uncut rubies, and having collected as many as he could hold in each fist, turned to his companions. ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... of wreck and wrong, Of shame and lust and fraud, They backed their toughest statements with The Brimstone of the Lord, And crackling oaths went to and fro Across the fist-banged board. ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... pulso pulse, firmness of hand; a —— with the strength of the hand. punta point. punto point, place; stitch; instant. punzar to prick. punada fisticuff, blow. punado handful; punadillo (dim.). punal m. dagger. punetazo blow with the fist. puno fist. purgar to purge, expiate. puro ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... jaw; it was cruel, brutal! They were killing her. His clinched fist moved blindly toward his neighbor: he touched her hand ...
— In The Valley Of The Shadow • Josephine Daskam
... slamming his fist down on the desk within reach of him. "They are the devil, those Belgians! It is for them my good fellows lose their sleep." Then he stopped, and eyeing me shrewdly added: "Monsieur, you are an outsider and a gentleman. I can trust you. Three nights ago a strange ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... through-space-hurling machinery. We applied this new power to a pea-shooter, and, at the first shot, was sufficiently fortunate to hit a Marsian policeman on the nose. He first arrested an innocent person for the assault, but, on our repeating the signal, he looked up, and shook his fist at the Earth. Eventually he traced the source of the pea-shooting. They then began to watch our signals. They were just about to reply when we started off for ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 20, 1892 • Various
... long speech, and the others listened in absolute silence to the end of it. But the instant Nick ceased speaking, the man to whom he had addressed his remarks drew back his arm with a sudden motion, and drove his huge fist forward with ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter
... revel in human gore, and to delight in carnage and distress, making me the heartless villain that I am? Who was it did all this, I say? Was it not you, Wilson Hurst—was it not you that did it?" and the frantic man struck the table a tremendous blow with his clenched fist as this last question trembled on his white lips, while he glared ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... wires in the centre of the cable, he said, were called its soul, the rest of the mass, almost as thick as a man's fist and resembling a great hawser, served merely as a sheath to protect the soul. Frederick had a mental vision of the fearful solitudes of the ocean depths, with the monstrous metal serpent, apparently without beginning and without end, creeping over the sandy bottom peopled by the enigmatic ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... Hit me crool. There's a lump on the top now as big as your fist. Regularly knocked me silly. Just as they must have served you— knocked every bit of sense out of me. There warn't much in, as old Tipsy says, but I didn't know no more till I found myself here, feeling sick ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... which, like that near Rotas, is of stratified beds of limestone, capped with sandstone. A stream runs round its base, cutting through the alluvium to the subjacent rock, which is exposed, and contains flattened spheres of limestone. These spheres are from the size of a fist to a child's head, or even much larger; they are excessively hard, and neither laminated nor formed of concentric layers. At the top of the hill the sandstone cap was perpendicular on all sides, and its dry top covered with small trees, especially of Cochlospermum. A few larger trees of Fici ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... outrageous scoundrel!" he said between his set teeth, tortured by that most ardent desire to dash his clenched fist into Mr. Nowell's handsome dissolute-looking face. "You are a most consummate ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... as he passed Bertram, the young man already mentioned (who in preparation for the approaching catastrophe had buckled about his person a small portmanteau and stood ready to leap into the boat), with a blow of his fist he struck him overboard. All this was the work of ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... does not respect oaths. Then why subject him to the test of oaths? The oaths keep him out of Parliament; why, then, he respects them. Turn which way you will, either your laws are nugatory, or the Catholic is bound by religious obligations as you are; but no eel in the well-sanded fist of a cook-maid, upon the eve of being skinned, ever twisted and writhed as an orthodox parson does when he is compelled by the gripe of reason to admit anything in favour of ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... at once he spat in his fist, rubbed his hands together and clenched them, a hard, fierce aspect coming into his rough dark face, which seemed to promise severe retaliation if anything had happened ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... the chance guests were entertained with a feast of venison and athletic games, in the course of which Robin declared he would test the skill of his men, and that all who missed the bull's-eye should be punished by a buffet from Little John's mighty fist. Strange to relate, every man failed and was floored by Little John's blow, the rest roaring merrily over his discomfiture. All his men having tried and failed, Robin was asked to display his own skill for the stranger's benefit, and, ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... face deepened to purple, and a yellow light blazed in his brown eyes. He strode back to where Tuttle had resumed his post, his fist shot out, and Tom went staggering backward. "So you-all think I 'm a coward, do you?" he shouted. Then, wheeling, with a revolver in each hand, he rushed toward the front door. Nick saw what he purposed to do, and dashed after him ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... he muttered, clenching his big fist, "that's what worries me! Maybe she just thinks of me as one ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... curled against her under brows in her wide, still glance upward at him. Here was "the one" again! She shut her hand tightly into a fist ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... insisted with owl-like wisdom. "Two years my life spent inalleshual vacuity. Los' idealism, got be physcal anmal," he shook his fist expressively at Old King Cole, "got be Prussian 'bout ev'thing, women 'specially. Use' be straight 'bout women college. Now don'givadam." He expressed his lack of principle by sweeping a seltzer bottle ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... "You're falling pretty low, Joe. Why don't you stick to an honest business? Gosh! you'd make a queer fist editing ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... goin' to make you talk this time!" cried Dryfoos, striking the arm of the chair he sat in with the side of his fist. A maddening thought of Christine came over him. "As long as you eat my bread, you have got to do as I say. I won't have my children telling me what I shall do and sha'n't do, or take on airs of being holier than me. Now, you just speak up! Do you think ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... such a daughter?" Sakon went on in petulant dismay. "Truly it is a wise saying which tells that women love those best who beat them, be it with the tongue or with the fist. Not but what I would gladly see you wedded to a prince of Israel and of Egypt rather than of this half-bred barbarian, but the legions of Solomon and of Pharaoh are far away, whereas Ithobal has a hundred thousand ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... process." Stiffness of joint, or tension of muscles, whether recognized or not, must first be done away with before "the body can be molded to the expression of high thought." For this purpose the "decomposing," "relaxing" or "devitalizing" motions are given. The old gymnast doubled up the fist and, with great tension, gave a blow which jarred the whole nervous system. The "freeing" motions of Delsarte give harmonious, restful, wave movements to all portions ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... a physical misunderstanding is like among the Persian ryots. Two companies of katir-jees happen to get into an altercation about something, and from words it gradually develops into blows; not blows of the fist, for they know nothing of fisticuffs, but they belabor each other vigorously with their long, thick donkey persuaders, sticks that are anything but small and willowy; it is an amusing spectacle, and seated on the commanding knoll nibbling "drum-sticks" and wish-bones, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... partist de Venisse et chevaucha aux parties d'occident. Et demoura mainz jours es contrees de Provence et de France et puys fist passaige aux Ysles de la tremontaingne et s'en retourna par la Magne, si comme vous orrez cy-apres. Et fist-il escripre son voiage atout les devisements les contrees; mes de la France n'y parloit mie grantment pour ce que maintes genz la scevent apertement. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... banged me down upon my feet his face was bent close to mine and I did the only thing a gentleman might do under the circumstances of brutality, boorishness, and lack of consideration for a stranger's rights; I swung my fist squarely to his jaw and he went down like a felled ox. As he sunk to the floor I wheeled around with my back toward the nearest desk, expecting to be overwhelmed by the vengeance of his fellows, but determined to give them as good a battle as the unequal odds would permit ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... toss of heads and tails,—"Heads I win, and tails you lose"; or, to make use of a formula more appropriate to the occasion, "Heads I live, and tails you die." With some such process of reasoning current through the brain of Larry O'Gorman, he stepped boldly up to the bag; plunged his fist into its obscure interior; and drew forth—the ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... and please you," said the Scot. "But if it please your Majesty to indulge me with the privilege of hawking also, and you list to trust me with a falcon on fist, I trust I could supply your royal ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... slowly, "it won't do. Too risky. Guess they haven't seen me. If not, they will be back. And next time," he shook his fist at the vanishing car, "next time my fair lad or ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell
... in all thy actions, and if join'd With those that are not, never change thy mind. If ought obstruct thy course, yet stand not still, But wind about, till you have topp'd the hill; To the same end men sev'ral paths may tread, As many doors into one temple lead; And the same hand into a fist may close, Which, instantly a palm expanded shows. 170 Justice and faith never forsake the wise, Yet may occasion put him in disguise; Not turning like the wind; but if the state Of things must change, he is not obstinate; Things past ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... importance, we may note that even the frailty of the material operates to some extent in disgusting us with wax-work. A higher temperature of the atmosphere, it strikes us too forcibly, would dispose the waxen figures to melt; and in colder seasons the horny fist of a jolly boatswain would 'pun[5] them into shivers' like so many ship-biscuits. The grandeur of permanence and durability transfers itself or its expression from the material to the impression of the artifice ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... take their pay away. I know a man to whom they gave a cow and a calf for voting their ticket. After election they came and told him that if he kept the cow he must pay for it; and they took the cow and calf away." Another: "One man shook his fist in my face and said, 'D—— you, sir, you are my property.' He said that I owed him. He could not show it and then said, 'You sha'n't go anyhow.' All we want is a living chance." Another: "There is a general talk among the whites and colored people that ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... brought out the fact that the Glow-worm had knocked down an old woman (that is the way such things are exaggerated) and had gone on again. Their asking which way it had gone started an argument which ended in a fist fight, for the two small boys they asked each maintained stoutly that it had gone in a different direction. Then the mother of the boys ran out from a grocery store to see what the racket was about and seizing ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... to show that he immediately raised the hue and cry. So when Bracton speaks of the lesser offences, which were not sued by way of appeal, he instances only intentional wrongs, such as blows with the fist, flogging, wounding, insults, and so forth. /1/ The cause of action in the cases of trespass reported in the earlier Year Books and in the Abbreviatio Plaeitorum is always an intentional wrong. It was only at a later day, and after argument, that trespass was extended so as to embrace harms ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... cut through Schilo's shirt of mail, reaching the body itself with his blade. The Cossack's shirt was dyed purple: but Schilo heeded it not. He brandished his brawny hand, heavy indeed was that mighty fist, and brought the pommel of his sword down unexpectedly upon his foeman's head. The brazen helmet flew into pieces and the Lyakh staggered and fell; but Schilo went on hacking and cutting gashes in the body of the stunned man. Kill not utterly ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... silence and we sprang to our feet to see an old man shaking his fist in the face ...
— The Lure of San Francisco - A Romance Amid Old Landmarks • Elizabeth Gray Potter and Mabel Thayer Gray
... toward the sea and the clenched fist she raised was menacing some one way off on shore there, where the Miguelete raised its sturdy mass ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... needed was patience, to wait the short time till the Tecolote began to pour out its ore. He asked her minutely of Jepson and his work and of her interview with the great Whitney H. Stoddard, and then he struck the stone rail with his knotted fist and told what would have to be done. And then at last, as the lights grew dim, he spoke of his long days in jail and how he had looked each day for her letter, which had never failed to come. His voice broke ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... But since the fist fights of boyhood Alvin York has never had a personal encounter. His intents and deeds do not lead him into difficulties, and in his eye there is a calm blue light that steadies the impulses of men given to explosions of passion ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan |
