"Gripe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... further provocation. With almost supernatural force and quickness he sprung upon the forester, and seized him by the throat. But the active young man freed himself from the gripe, and closed with his assailant. But though of Herculean build, it soon became evident that Ashbead would have the worst of it; when Hal o' Nabs, who had watched the struggle with intense interest, could not help coming to his friend's assistance, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... his heel. The poor baroness, all whose pride the iron law, with its iron gripe, had crushed into dismay and terror, appealed to him. "O sir! send me from the house, but not from the soil where my Henri is laid! is there not in all this domain a corner where she who was its mistress may lie down ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... effort he wrenched himself from those deadly hands, and rose to his feet, breathless, panting, lacerated, bloody; and fronting, with reeling eyes, the glaring look and grinning teeth of his baffled foe, now struggling (but struggling with disdain) in the gripe of the sturdy amazon. ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... Helstone; he could scarcely bring himself to bend to her. He glared on both the ladies. He looked as if, had either of them been his wife, he would have made a glorious husband at the moment. In each hand he seemed as if he would have liked to clutch one and gripe her ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... moment of their united lives. It was the fatal flaw of humanity which Nature, in one shape or another, stamps ineffaceably on all her productions, either to imply that they are temporary and finite, or that their perfection must be wrought by toil and pain. The crimson hand expressed the ineludible gripe in which mortality clutches the highest and purest of earthly mould, degrading them into kindred with the lowest, and even with the very brutes, like whom their visible frames return to dust. In this manner, selecting it as the symbol of his wife's liability to sin, sorrow, decay, and death, ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... that these were Nakir and Munkir, [302] who were come to question me; and I likewise heard the rustling of a rope, as if some one had let it down there. I was wondering, and began to feel about me on the ground, when some bones came into my gripe. ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... raised the red-cloaked figure by its collar and held it up in the firelight. As a murmur of laughter went around, he lowered it again and spoke more gravely. "A hand needs not be large to get a hilt under its gripe, however. The young wolf is of northern breed,—how he penetrated to the heart of an English camp, I cannot tell,—and there grows in his spirit a bloodthirsty disposition. He seeks my life because in a skirmish, ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... cried, "Sba alkheir a sidi" (Good-morning, my lord). "Are you Englishmans?" shouted the old grisly giant. "Englishmans, my lord," I replied, and, advancing, presented him my hand, which he nearly wrung off with his tremendous gripe. The other Moor now addressed me in a jargon composed of English, Spanish, and Arabic. A queer-looking personage was he also, but very different in most respects from his companion, being shorter by a head at least, and less complete by one eye, for the left orb of ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... youngsters, and I was the better chap until my friend reached his eighteenth year, when the heavy metal of the young Dutch giant told in our struggles. After that period was past, I found Dirck too much for me, in a close gripe, though my extraordinary activity rendered the inequality less apparent than it might otherwise have proved. I ought not to apply the term of "extraordinary" to anything about myself, but the word escaped me unconsciously, and I shall let it stand. ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... river during the heat of the day,—made me believe myself proof against malaria. But, at length, a violent pain in my loins, accompanied by a swimming head, warned me that the African fever held me in its dreaded gripe. In two days I was delirious. Ormond visited me; but I knew him not, and in my madness, called on Esther, accompanying the name with terms of endearment. This, I was told, stirred the surprise and jealousy of the Mongo, ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... noses together placed, Then their blood was scatter’d on every side; Desperate the fight, and the fight did last ’Till the brave black dog in Bran’s gripe died. ...
— King Hacon's Death and Bran and the Black Dog - two ballads - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... "Ask the hind, when the fangs of the deerhound are stretched to gripe her, if she is strong enough to spring over a chasm. I am equal to every effort that may relieve me from ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... stiff and upright dignity of the Baron of Bradwardine's demeanour, for the tears stood in the old gentleman's eyes, when, having first shaken Edward heartily by the hand in the English fashion, he embraced him a la mode Francoise, and kissed him on both sides of his face; while the hardness of his gripe, and the quantity of Scotch snuff which his accolade communicated, called corresponding drops of moisture to the ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... foeman round.— Now, gallant Saxon, hold thine own! No maiden's hand is round thee thrown! That desperate grasp thy frame might feel, Through bars of brass and triple steel!— They tug, they strain! down, down they go, The Gael above, Fitz-James below. The Chieftain's gripe his throat compressed, His knee was planted on his breast; His clotted locks he backward threw, Across his brow his hand he drew, From blood and mist to clear his sight, Then gleamed aloft his dagger bright!— —But hate and fury ill supplied The stream of life's exhausted tide, And all too late ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... scene. It was then I saw the young girls in the act of being hurried off by their captors. It was then my heart was wrung, by the spectacle of Gabriella struggling in the arms of the chief. I was helpless to interfere. I was prostrate upon the earth, and held fast in the gripe of two brawny savages—one kneeling on each side of me. I expected them at every instant to put an end to my life. I awaited the final blow—either the stroke of a tomahawk or the thrust of a spear. I only wondered they were delaying my death. My wonders ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... next bearer's gripe It wrought, is now by Cassius and Brutus Bark'd off in hell, and by Perugia's sons And Modena's was mourn'd. Hence weepeth still Sad Cleopatra, who, pursued by it, Took from the adder black and sudden death. With him it ran e'en to the Red Sea ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... into steady flame, such pain it is, the blood forcing its way along the dry channels, and the heavily-ticking nerves, and the sullen heart—the struggle of life and death in him—grim death relaxing his gripe; such pain it is, he cries out no thanks to them that pull him by inches from the depths of the dead river. And he who has thought a love extinct, and is surprised by the old fires, and the old tyranny, he rebels, and strives to fight clear of the cloud of forgotten sensations that ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... turning to the Vatican, go see Laocooen's[526] torture dignifying pain— A Father's love and Mortal's agony With an Immortal's patience blending:—Vain The struggle—vain, against the coiling strain And gripe, and deepening of the dragon's grasp, The Old Man's clench; the long envenomed chain[pv] Rivets the living links,—the enormous Asp Enforces pang on pang, and stifles gasp ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... carry (As he the manuscript he cherished) To Rat-land home his commentary, Which was, 'At the first shrill notes of the pipe, I heard a sound as of scraping tripe, And putting apples wondrous ripe Into a cider press's gripe; And a moving away of pickle-tub boards, And a leaving ajar of conserve cupboards, And a drawing the corks of train-oil-flasks, And a breaking the hoops of butter casks; And it seemed as if a voice (Sweeter far ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... my head seemed like to burst, that perchance if they should keep me here a captive for M. le Comte's arrival he might really follow to see what had become of me. I turned sick with the fear of it, and resolved on the truth. But Gaspard's last gullet-gripe had robbed me of the power to speak. I could only pant and choke. As I struggled painfully for wind, the door was flung open before a tall young man in black. Through the haze that hung before my vision I saw the soldier seize him as he ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... had torn the link that bound the chain—had unwound the chain itself—had snatched the woman from the stake. Before, in the surprise of the moment, a single person had stirred, his arm seized, with firm and heavy gripe, the collar of the nearest horseman, who found himself in his seat on horseback upon a level with the elevation of the pile. He knocked him with violence from the saddle. The guard reeled and fell; and in the next instant Claus had ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... No affliction of Providence, which, while it scourged us, cut off the sources of resuscitation! No! This damp of death is the mere effusion of British amity! We sink under the pressure of their support! We writhe under their perfidious gripe! They have embraced us with their protecting arms, and lo! these are the fruits ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... a good gripe to-night, boy?" asked the rear-admiral, smiling; "or will it be both hands for yourself and none for the king? I want you on the fore-top-gallant-yard, for ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... arms she spreads, With viperous twistings bound; and threatening shakes Her tresses: loud the serpents noise, disturb'd; Sprawl o'er her shoulders some; some, lower fall'n, Twine hissing round her breasts, with brandish'd tongue, Black poison vomiting. With furious gripe, Two from her locks she tore;—her deadly hand Hurl'd them straight on; the breasts of Athamas, And Ino, hungry, with their fangs they seiz'd; Fierce pains infixing, but external wounds Their limbs betray'd not: mental was the blow, So direly struck. Venoms most mortal, too, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... from the ground, he took his sabre from the man who held it behind him, and walked up among us, who with our heads bowed, and breathless with fear, awaited our impending fate. I happened to be standing the foremost, and grasping my arm with a gripe which made my heart sink, with his hand which held the sword he bent down my head still lower than it was. I made sure that he was about to cut off my head, when the women, who had risen from the ground, ran crowding round ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... your wrongs conceal'd, And, patient as the tortoise, let this camel Stalk o'er your back unbruis'd: sleep with the lion, And let this brood of secure foolish mice Play with your nostrils, till the time be ripe For th' bloody audit, and the fatal gripe: Aim like a cunning fowler, close one eye, That you the better may ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... was on his feet in a twinkling, thrust out his hand, gave his ancient crony the gripe of a giant, and slapping the other hand on a bench, "Sit down ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... platform on which I knelt. I only tightened my grasp of the brute's throat. His eyes were already starting from his head, and his tongue was hanging out. My anxious hope was, that, even after they had killed me, they would be unable to undo my gripe of his throat, before the monster was past breathing. I therefore threw all my will, and force, and purpose, into the grasping hand. I remember no blow. A faintness came over me, ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... company to heaven: Tarry, sweet soul, for mine, then fly abreast; As in this glorious and well foughten field, We keep together in our chivalry! Upon these words I came, and cheer'd him up: He smil'd me in the face, raught me his hand,[28] And with a feeble gripe, says,—Dear, my lord, Commend my service to my sovereign. So did he turn, and over Suffolk's neck He threw his wounded arm, and kiss'd his lips; And so espous'd to death, with blood he seal'd A testament of noble-ending love. The pretty and sweet manner of it forc'd Those waters from ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... tender, then no more; Let Love's strong magic charm thy trivial phrase, Wasted as vainly as to gripe the Sun: Augment not then more answers; lock thy lips, Unless thy wisdom suite me with ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... every argument he could think of, he heard him with his eyes bent on the ground, as if in the deepest meditation, and at length broke forth—"Nature?—yes! it is indeed in the usual beaten path of Nature. The strong gripe and throttle the weak; the rich depress and despoil the needy; the happy (those who are idiots enough to think themselves happy) insult the misery and diminish the consolation of the wretched.—Go ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... all. I should be glad to see our suppliant negotiator in the act of putting his feather to the ear of the directory, to make it unclinch the fist; and, by his tickling, to charm that rich prize out of the iron gripe of robbery and ambition! It does not require much sagacity to discern that no power wholly baffled and defeated in Europe can flatter itself with conquests in the West Indies. In that state of things it can neither keep ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... ready to take his oath, were worth every cent of two thousand dollars. In short, I concluded my blind bargain, and in the month of June, prepared to start to visit my estate. I was at New Orleans, which city was just then held fast in the gripe of its annual scourge and visitor, the yellow fever. I was in a manner left alone; all my friends had gone up or down stream, or across the Pont Chartrain. There was nothing to be seen in the whole place but meagre hollow-eyed negresses, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... Mr. Bartlett knew her. He might ask her if she wanted the groceries charged before she got the money out to pay for them. And good-by then to Jerry's secret charge account. "You said running errands was my chore," he reminded his mother. "You haven't heard me gripe about having to go to the ...
— Jerry's Charge Account • Hazel Hutchins Wilson
... herself, every rod and rivet and timber seems to lend its support; you almost expect to see the wooden walls of your room grow rigid with muscular contraction; she trembles from stem to stern, she recovers, she breaks the gripe of her antagonist, and, rising up, shakes the sea from her with a kind of gleeful wrath; I hear the torrents of water rush along the lower decks, and, finding a means of escape, pour back into the sea, glad to get away on any terms, and I say, ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... shining steel was raised aloft; and the gripe of the powerful hand clutching its hilt became more ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... stranger, I in the midst of them bound; and, my child, thou go with them also, Doom'd for the far-off shore and the tarnishing toil of the bondman, Slaving for lord unkind. Or perchance some remorseless Achaian Hurl from the gripe of his hand, from the battlement down to perdition, Raging revenge for some brother perchance that was slaughter'd of Hector, Father, it may be, or son; for not few of the race of Achaia Seiz'd broad earth with their teeth, when they sank from the handling ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... had not failed me, I might have quoted that line often and appropriately enough. But every agent in the "robbery"—from the vainglorious Virginian, my chief captor, down to the smooth Secretary, whose velvet gripe was so loth to unclose—seemed provokingly bent on exaggerating the importance of their prize. Perhaps the very interest felt in my release, and the exertions unsparingly used—especially in Baltimore—to secure it, strengthened ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... piping times of peace has not been taken advantage of. My lads, these are stern times; and this despatch tells me of what will bring the honest British blood into every face, and make every strong man take a firm gripe of his piece as he longs for the order to charge the mutinous traitors to their Queen, who, taking her pay, sworn to serve her, have turned, and in cold blood butchered their officers, slain women, and hacked to pieces innocent babes. My lads, we are going against a horde of monsters; but ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... been elicited even by the religious persecution. There were many inhabitants who were earnest and sincere Catholics, and who therefore considered themselves safe from the hangman's hands, while there were none who could hope to escape the gripe of the new tax-gatherers. Yet the Governor was not the man to be daunted by the probable unpopularity of the measure. Courage he possessed in more than mortal proportion. He seemed to have set himself to the task of ascertaining the exact capacity ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... out considerably, we began to feel the true breeze, when the schooner, even under the short and ill-set canvas we had been able to give her, at once increased her speed to about six knots. At the same time, however, she began to "gripe" most villainously, and with the helm hard a-weather it was as much as I could possibly do to keep her from running ashore among the bushes on our starboard hand. The people in the cabin were still pertinaciously blazing away through the companion ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... Swam across and lived to carry To rat-land home his commentary: Which was, "At the first shrill notes of the pipe, I heard a sound as of scraping tripe, And putting apples, wondrous ripe, Into a cider-press's gripe: And a moving away of pickle-tub-boards, And a leaving ajar of conserve-cupboards, And a drawing the corks of train-oil-flasks, And a breaking the hoops of butter-casks: And it seemed as if a voice (Sweeter far than by harp or by psaltery Is breathed) called out, ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... the miracle of adding a cubit to the stature, worse than the brazier of live coals brought close to the naked soles of the feet,—an instrument which, instead of trifling with the nerves, would clutch all the nerve-centres and the heart itself in its gripe, and hold them until it got its answer, if the white lips had life enough left to shape one. And here was this unfortunate maiden lady smiling at him, setting her limited attractions in their best light, ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... beneficence, rather than as claims recovered against struggling litigants, or at least if your beneficence obtained no credit in your concessions, yet that they should appear the salutary provisions of your wisdom and foresight—not as things wrung from you with your blood by the cruel gripe of a rigid necessity." ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... England) is good sport. You go to a stony shallow at night, a companion bearing a torch; then, stripping to the thighs and shoulders, wade in; grope with your hands under the stones, sods, and other harbourage, till you find your game, then gripe him in your "knieve" and ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... learnt experience from the fatal examples of R. Smith,[33] and T. Baker,[34] and the more recent ones of Thomas Rawlinson,[35] Bridges,[36] and Collins,[37] yet he seemed resolved to brave and to baffle it; but, like his predecessors, he was suddenly crushed within the gripe of the demon, and fell one of the most splendid of his victims. Even the unrivalled medical skill of Mead[38] could save neither his friend nor himself. The Doctor survived his Lordship about twelve years; dying of the complaint called the BIBLIOMANIA! He left behind an illustrious ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... most striking objects in the first casino was a group by Bernini,—Pluto, an outrageously masculine and strenuous figure, heavily bearded, ravishing away a little, tender Proserpine, whom he holds aloft, while his forcible gripe impresses itself into her soft virgin flesh. It is very disagreeable, but it makes one feel that Bernini was a man of great ability. There are some works in literature that bear an analogy to his works ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... had calculated it) had we walked the ship's deck together, at anchor watch, when all hands were below, and talked over and over every subject which came within the ken of either of us. He gave me a strong gripe with his hand; and I told him, if he came to Boston again, not to fail to find me out, and let me see an old watchmate. The same boat brought on board S——, my friend, who had begun the voyage with me ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... acclaim for David's victories, startled the king for the first time with a revelation of the national feeling. His unslumbering suspicion "eyed David from that day." Rage and terror threw him again into the gripe of his evil spirit, and in his paroxysm he flings his heavy spear, the symbol of his royalty, at the lithe harper, with fierce vows of murder. The failure of his attempt to kill David seems to have aggravated his dread of him as bearing ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... romance of skepticism. Not less true to all time are the details of that stately apologue. Apollo kept the flocks of Admetus, said the poets. When the gods come among men, they are not known. Jesus was not; Socrates and Shakspeare were not. Antaeus was suffocated by the gripe of Hercules, but every time he touched his mother earth his strength was renewed. Man is the broken giant, and in all his weakness both his body and his mind are invigorated by habits of conversation with nature. The power of music, the power of poetry, to unfix and as it were clap ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... she heard that Mr. Smith was oppressed by Sir Timothy Gripe and his friend Graspall; upon which she, in conjunction with her brother, defended him in Westminster Hall, where Mr. Smith gained a verdict. As a justice of the peace he was struck off the list, and no longer permitted to act in that capacity. A relation of his who had a right ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... would have seen in him a young man in whom the fire of youth glowed not the less ardently for the veil of reserve that covered it; who would shrink from no danger, but would not court it in bravado; and who would cling with an invincible tenacity of gripe to any purpose which he might espouse. There is good reason to think that he had come to Canada with purposes already conceived, and that he was ready to avail himself of any stepping-stone which might help to realize them. Queylus, Superior of the Seminary, ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... crown the bowl— My pipe and I alone,— I sit and muse with idler views Perchance than I should own:— It might be worse to own the purse Whose glutted bowels gripe In little qualms of stinted alms; And ...
— Songs of Friendship • James Whitcomb Riley
... night. Near the door, upon the ground, lay Sir Robert's sword-belt, which had given way in the scuffle. A huge splinter from the massive door-post had been wrenched off by an almost superhuman effort—one which nothing but the gripe of a despairing man could have severed—and on the rock outside were left the marks of the ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... but shook hands with them both, and bade them good-night. Weir could not speak a word; he could hardly even lift his eyes. But a red spot glowed on each of his pale cheeks, making him look very like his daughter Catherine, and I could see Miss Oldcastle wince and grow red too with the gripe he gave her hand. But she smiled again ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... scenery. Its form is a pyramid, whose top is lost in the sky, as its base in tumultuous murky waves. From the fluctuating crowds who inundate the base of the tribunal, we rise to Pilate, surrounded and perplexed by the varied ferocity of the sanguinary synod to whose remorseless gripe he surrenders his wand, and from him we ascend to the sublime resignation of innocence in Christ, and, regardless of the roar, securely repose on his countenance. Such is the grandeur of a conception, which in its blaze absorbs the abominable detail of ...
— Rembrandt and His Works • John Burnet
... every third stride one of the said uncanny gripes, half hidden in long hassock grass. Oh Aira caespitosa, most stately and most variable of British grasses, why will you always grow where you are not wanted? Through you the mare all but left her hind legs in that last gripe. Through you a red-coat ahead of me, avoiding one of your hassocks, jumped with his horse's nose full butt ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... Soracte, When winter nights are long, His beard flowed down o'er mail and belt, His heart and hand were strong: Under his hoary eyebrows Still flashed forth quenchless rage: And, if the lance shook in his gripe, 'Twas more with hate than age. Close at his side was Titus On an Apulian steed, Titus, the youngest Tarquin, Too good for such ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... cause, perhaps I should be less irritated: but he has rescued the poor being of a brother, Edward St. Ives, who had neither courage nor capacity to rescue himself, from the gripe of a gambler. This Edward, who is one of the king's captains, God bless him, and who has spent his fortune in learning the trade, not of a man of war, but of a man of fashion, having lost what ready money he had, staked his honour against a cogger of dice, and was presently tricked out of three thousand ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... supplies; and more than all, they underrated the dogged perseverance of Yankee character. It was as though a young boxer, in a deadly conflict with a giant, had dealt a staggering blow; and while the Titan braced his every muscle for a deadlier gripe, the weaker antagonist wasted his time lauding his strength ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... to the Generall States but others, Which the promiscuous multitude gladly followed: When Graves and Vendloe were held by the Spaniard And Nunweghen with violence assaulted, Confusion with one greedy gripe being ready To seaze on all; then when the Sluice was lost And all in muteny at Midleborough, Who then rose up or durst step in before me To doe these Cuntries service? Who then labourd More then the now suspected Barnavelt T'appease seditions and compound all Quarrells? Who pacified ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... eye He rouseth up himself and makes a pause; While she, the picture of pure piety, Like a white hind under the gripe's sharp claws, Pleads, in a wilderness where are no laws, To the rough beast that knows no gentle right, Nor aught obeys but ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... safe! He will not again return; the dead sleeps without a witness.—I may lay this working brain upon the bosom that loves me, and not start at night and think that the soft hand around my neck is the hangman's gripe. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 536, Saturday, March 3, 1832. • Various
... my question!' exclaimed her tormentor; and he attempted to extort the confession by shaking her, and remorselessly crushing her slight arms in the gripe of his ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... after she had cut off a bit of my tail, to make it appear the cat had eat me. He took me home, and called his dog into the garden, where he let me go, and sent the dog after me. The dog presently caught me, and lucky it was, he did not kill me the first gripe; for his master (seeing he caught me so soon, as he wanted to have had some fun, as he termed it) threw a stone at him, which hit him on the head, and laid him flat on the ground. I seized the opportunity, and ran up the garden wall, from whence I jumped, frightened almost out my wits. I continued ...
— The Adventures of a Squirrel, Supposed to be Related by Himself • Anonymous
... are flames I can survive.—I am alive,—I am beside you." Melmoth started, sprung from his bed,—it was broad daylight. He looked round,—there was no human being in the room but himself. He felt a slight pain in the wrist of his right arm. He looked at it, it was black and blue, as from the recent gripe of ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... nor thought of earth beneath us. I myself might scarcely leap, with the last spring of o'er-laboured legs, from the engulfing grave of slime. He fell back, with his swarthy breast (from which my gripe had rent all clothing), like a hummock of bog-oak, standing out the quagmire; and then he tossed his arms to heaven, and they were black to the elbow, and the glare of his eyes was ghastly. I could only gaze and pant; for my strength was no more than an infant's, ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... moose; for which purpose we wrapped ourselves in blankets between its feet, and placed the hatchets within our reach. The night was stormy, and apprehension kept me long awake; but finding my companion in so deep a sleep, that nothing could have roused him, except the actual gripe of a wolf, I thought it advisable to imitate his example, as much as was in my power, rather than bear the burthen of anxiety alone. At day-light we shook off the snow, which was heaped upon us, and endeavoured to kindle ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... opened t'other morning; I looked towards the common horizon of heads, but was a foot and a half below any face. The handsomest giant in the world made but one step across my room, and seizing my hand, gave it such a robust gripe that I squalled; for he crushed my poor chalk-stones to powder. When I had recovered from the pain of his friendly salute, I said, "It must be George Conway! and yet, is it possible? Why, it is not fifteen months ago since you was but six feet high!" In a word, he is within an ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... name. No; her father's name was Meanwell, and he was for many years a large farmer in the parish where Margery was born; but by the misfortunes he met with in business, and the wickedness of Sir Timothy Gripe, and a farmer named Graspall, he was ...
— Bo-Peep Story Books • Anonymous
... I don't know of any people I'd rather have on it. But what I want to gripe about is calling our new home world such a horrible name as 'Fuel Bin,' as though it were a wood-box or a coal-scuttle or something. And just think of the complexes it would set up in those super-children we're going ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... track and blindest path he still Threaded the tangled forest here and there; By thorniest valley and by roughest hill, And wheresoever darkest was the air; Thus hoping to have rid him of that ill, Hideous, abominable, poisonous Care; Beneath whose gripe he foully might have fared, But that one quickly to ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... reaper train: Here stretched in ranks the levell'd swarths are found, Sheaves heap'd on sheaves here thicken up the ground. With sweeping stroke the mowers strow the lands; The gatherers follow, and collect in bands; And last the children, in whose arms are borne (Too short to gripe them) the brown sheaves of corn. The rustic monarch of the field descries, With silent glee, the heaps around him rise. A ready banquet on the turf is laid, Beneath an ample oak's expanded shade. The victim ox the sturdy youth prepare; ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... cannot be sensible, otherwise than in the way of honour, that the Spaniards will not come unto you this year; for I have it from my own, what his preparations are in all his parts, and what he can do; for, be confident, he beareth up a reputation, by seeming to embrace more than he can gripe; but, the next year, be assured, he will cast over to you some forlorn troops, which, how they may be reinforced beyond his present ability, and his first intention, I cannot, as yet, make any certain judgment; ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... the ground, thus allowing Tom to get back his club. Before, however, either of them could repeat the blow, the seal, recovering, again dashed at Tom, who had to leap out of its way, narrowly escaping an ugly gripe on the leg. Willy had again loaded, but was afraid to fire lest he might hit either of the seamen. The seal now stopped, seeming doubtful at which of his assailants he should next rush. When they stopped the creature stopped also; and directly they moved, either ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... at last he extricated himself from my gripe, 'my daughter married with her free consent, and to one far better fitted to make her happy than you. Go, go—I forgive you—I also was once in love, and with ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 17, No. 483., Saturday, April 2, 1831 • Various
... with the green side, not the dirt side, placed next the skin. She could scarcely have worn this turf when she was up and around the house, could she? She must have had it placed upon her while she was in bed. Josselyn said in his "New England Rarities" that, "to wear the skin of a Gripe dressed with the doun on" would cure pain and coldness of the stomach. Thus did like cure like. A "Restorative Bag" of herbs and spices heated in "boyl'd Vinegar" is asserted to be "comfortable." "It must be ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... can occupy is but half a step from the veriest poverty; but still it is half a step from it. If all that I can urge be ineffectual, let her who seldom calls to you in vain, let the call of pride prevail with you. You know how you feel at the iron gripe of ruthless oppression: you know how you bear the galling sneer of contumelious greatness. I hold you out the conveniences, the comforts of life, independence, and character, on the one hand; I tender you civility, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... lord!" cried the trembling Harwold, quaking under the gripe of Thaddeus, and shrinking from the terrible brightness of his eye,—"my lord! ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... vest; The common crew with wreaths of poplar boughs Their temples crown, and shade their sweaty brows: Besmear'd with oil, their naked shoulders shine. All take their seats, and wait the sounding sign: They gripe their oars; and ev'ry panting breast Is rais'd by turns with hope, by turns with fear depress'd. The clangor of the trumpet gives the sign; At once they start, advancing in a line: With shouts the sailors rend the starry skies; Lash'd with their oars, the smoky billows rise; Sparkles ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... jealousy and mistaken interest kept England and Scotland at variance, and when the latter kingdom was in the habit of adopting the politics of France, and [end of page 261] embracing its interests, there seems to have been some repelling principle that kept the little nation out of the gripe of the great one. ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... spangin' away before him on the road. What it wer he could not think; but he never consayted there was a freet or a bo thereaway; so he kep near it, watching every spang and turn it took, till it ran into the gripe by the roadside. There was a gravel pit just there, and Tom Ettles wished to take another gliff at it before he went on. But when he keeked into the pit, what should he see but a man attoppa a horse that could not get up or on: ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... than being simply 'kilt.' Thus, 'I'm kilt with the cold,' is nothing to 'I'm kilt all over with the rheumatism.'] and they lifted her into a cabin hard by, and the maid was found after where she had been thrown in the gripe of a ditch, her cap and bonnet all full of bog water, and they say my lady can't live anyway. Thady, pray now is it true what I'm told for sartain, that Sir Condy has made over all ...
— Castle Rackrent • Maria Edgeworth
... him. Then steps in by way of climax this collar, three inches and a half high. See, it is as stiff as iron, and the miscreants have left the edges unbound that it may do the work of a man-saw as well as a garotte. In this iron three-handed gripe the victim writhes and sobs and moans with anguish, and, worse than all, loses ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... White-Jacket! I tell you there is no escape. Afloat or wrecked the Martial Law relaxes not its gripe. And though, by that self-same warrant, for some offence therein set down, you were indeed to "suffer death," even then the Martial Law might hunt you straight through the other world, and out again at its other end, following you through all eternity, ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... Rear, and when I had run down a fat Buck, a wild Goat, or an Hare, after he had feasted very plentifully upon it himself, would now and then throw me a Bone that was but half picked for my Encouragement; but upon my Being unsuccessful in two or three Chaces, he gave me such a confounded Gripe in his Anger, that I died ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... reptile on the island is a very vivid and beautiful green snake, which is exceedingly abundant. Yesterday, while catching grasshoppers for fish-bait, I nearly griped one in my hand; indeed, I rather think I did gripe it. The snake was as much startled as myself, and, in its fright, stood an instant on its tail, before it recovered presence of mind to glide away. These ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... you have," said Derry Duck, grasping the offered hand of the stripling in a gripe that would have made him wince with pain but for the bounding ...
— The Boy Patriot • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... surface-wave on the bar which itself has made, forms part of the dam over which the latter breaks, as over an upright wall. The sea thus plays with the land, holding a sand-bar in its mouth awhile before it swallows it, as a cat plays with a mouse; but the fatal gripe is sure to come at last. The sea sends its rapacious east-wind to rob the land, but before the former has got far with its prey, the land sends its honest west-wind to recover some of its own. But, according to Lieutenant Davis, the forms, extent, and distribution of sand-bars and banks are ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... be at peace. Make thyself right and the world will take care of itself. There lies the everlasting verity we are rapidly forgetting. And he saw, too, as no one to-day seems to perceive, the intimate connection between the preaching of false reform and the gripe of a sordid plutocracy. He saw that most reformers, by presenting materialism to the world in the disguise of a sham ideal, were really playing into the hands of those who find in the accumulation of ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... muscles, no abundant thews and wide-spreading shoulders. They exhibited, rather, an elemental economy of nature, such as the cave-men must have exhibited. But there was strength in those meagre bodies, the ferocious, primordial strength to clutch and gripe and tear and rend. When they spring upon their human prey they are known even to bend the victim backward and double its body till the back is broken. They possess neither conscience nor sentiment, and they will kill for a half-sovereign, without fear ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... ground, An' Shamus O'Brien throws one look around. Then the hangman dhrew near, an' the people grew still, Young faces turned sickly, and warm hearts turn chill, An' the rope bein' ready, his neck was made bare, For the gripe iv the life-strangling cord to prepare; An' the good priest has left him, havin' said ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... thy ear, And the pale Mansfield[121] chill thy soul with fear? Dost thou, fond man, believe thyself secure Because thou'rt honest, and because thou'rt poor? Dost thou on law and liberty depend? Turn, turn thy eyes, and view thy injured friend. 80 Art thou beyond the ruffian gripe of Power, When Wilkes, prejudged, is sentenced to the Tower? Dost thou by privilege exemption claim, When privilege is little more than name? Or to prerogative (that glorious ground On which state scoundrels oft ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... propt my selfe, And only by one friend in all the World! For vertues onely sake I use this wile, Which otherwise I wood despise, and scorne. The World should sinke, and all the pompe she hugs Close in her hart, in her ambitious gripe, Ere I sustaine it, if this slendrest joynt Mou'd with the worth that worldlings love so well Had power to save it from the throate of hell. [He drawes the curtains, and sits ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... long snout. It seemed in no degree afraid of True, and he evidently considered it a formidable antagonist. Presently it lifted itself up on its hind legs, when True sprang back just in time to avoid a gripe of its claws. Still the creature, undaunted by our appearance, made at him, when, seeing that he was really in danger, John and I rushed forward. We then discovered the creature to be a huge ant-eater, which, though it had no teeth, was armed ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... hopeless, thinking of myself forsaken, And thee, dear Loiterer, in the wood o'ertaken With passion for those bold and wanton ones, Who knit thine arms as poison-plants gripe trees With twining cords—their flowers the braveries That flash in the green ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... her up. David stepped hastily forward, his heart beating, seized her foot, never waited for her to spring, but went to work at once, and with a powerful and sustained effort raised her slowly and carefully like a dead weight, and settled her in the saddle. His gripe hurt her foot. She bore it like a Spartan sooner than lose the amusement of his simplicity and enormous strength, so drolly and unnecessarily exerted. It cost her a little struggle not to laugh right out, but she turned her head away from him a moment and ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... moreover knew resistance was useless. They jammed him in the jacket, pinned him tight to the wall, and throttled him in the collar. This collar, by a refinement of cruelty, was made with unbound edges, so that when the victim, exhausted with the cruel cramp that racked his aching bones in the fierce gripe of Hawes's infernal machine, sunk his heavy head and drooped his chin, the jagged collar sawed him directly and lacerating the flesh drove him away from even this miserable approach to ease. Robinson had formed no idea of the torture. ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... loaded platters. Then the Salii stand round the lit altar-fires to sing, their brows bound with poplar boughs, one chorus of young men, one of elders, and extol in song the praises and deeds of Hercules; how first he strangled in his gripe the twin terrors, the snakes of his stepmother; how he likewise shattered in war famous cities, Troy and Oechalia; how under Eurystheus the King he bore the toil of a thousand labours by Juno's malign decrees. Thine hand, unconquered, slays the cloud-born double-bodied race, Hylaeus ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... when a gloomy band Of vile excisemen threatened all the land, Help'd to deliver from their harpy gripe The cheerful bottle and the social pipe. O rare Ben Bradley! may for this the bowl, Still unexcised, rejoice thy honest soul! May still the best in Christendom for this Cleave to thy ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... as Dr. Rattray, who was witness to both, did declare.—When on his death-bed, he was under considerable darkness about his state, and said to Mr. John Carstair's brother, "For all that I have preached or written, there is but one scripture I can remember or dare gripe unto; tell me if dare lay the weight of my salvation upon it, Whosoever cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out."—Mr. Carstairs answered, "You may depend on it, though you had a thousand salvations at hazard." When he was drawing towards his departure in a great conflict and agony, ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... Billy seized his mail bags and dextrously got from his saddle to the stage, and the next instant he held the reins in his firm gripe. ...
— Beadle's Boy's Library of Sport, Story and Adventure, Vol. I, No. 1. - Adventures of Buffalo Bill from Boyhood to Manhood • Prentiss Ingraham
... together, an exclamation for mercy burst from his lips; but when, recovering the mere shock of his dastard nerves, he perceived it was not the gripe of some hireling of the law, but a father's hand that had clutched his arm, the vile audacity which knows fear only from a bodily cause, none from the awe ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of fortune, in love with Miran'da, the ward of sir Francis Gripe.—Mrs. Centlivre, The ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... thinkest thou, God or thee? If thou art not able to overcome him, thou art a fool for standing out against him; Matt. v. 25, 26. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." He will gripe hard; his fist is stronger than a lion's paw; take heed of him, he will be angry if you despise his Son; and will you stand guilty in your trespasses, when he offereth you his grace and favour? Exod. xxxiv. ...
— The Jerusalem Sinner Saved • John Bunyan
... there. See if you can't haul His backward progress to this spar of a ship Thrown up and sunk into the sand here. Clip His clipping feelers hard, and give him all Your hand to gripe at: he'll take care not fall: So,—but with heed, for you are like to slip In stepping on the plank's sea-slime. Your lip— No wonder—curves in mirth at the slow drawl Of the squat creature's legs. We've quite a shine ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... pitied his poor brother, and told her he had prepared a vessel to bear her for ever from me.—They were about to depart, when the burning fever in my heart rushed upon my brain—Picture the young tiger, when first his savage nature rouses him to vengeance—the knife was in my gripe—I sprang upon them—with one hand I tore the faithless woman from his damned embrace, and with the other—stabbed my ...
— Speed the Plough - A Comedy, In Five Acts; As Performed At The Theatre Royal, Covent Garden • Thomas Morton
... thing, and deliberately making a desert of every populous place, that grass might more abound for their horses and their flocks—the long and weary domination of these desolating masters; the gradual relaxation of the iron gripe with which they crushed the country; the pomp and power of the Russian church, even in the worst times of Tartar oppression; the first gathering together of the nation's strength as its spirit revived; the first great effort ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... the batoon of Grand Master. The poor soldiers of the Temple will not alone place their foot upon the necks of kings—a hemp-sandall'd monk can do that. Our mailed step shall ascend their throne—our gauntlet shall wrench the sceptre from their gripe. Not the reign of your vainly-expected Messiah offers such power to your dispersed tribes as my ambition may aim at. I have sought but a kindred spirit to share it, and I have found ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... mother cannot lawfully snatch from the gripe of the gambling spendthrift, or beastly drunkard, unmindful of his offspring, the fortune which falls to her by chance; or (so flagrant is the injustice) what she earns by her own exertions. No; he ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... light-brain'd king Have done their homage to the lofty gallows, And he himself lies in captivity. Be rul'd by me, and we will rule the realm: In any case take heed of childish fear, For now we hold an old wolf by the ears, That, if he slip, will seize upon us both, And gripe the sorer, being grip'd himself. Think therefore, madam, that imports us much To erect your son with all the speed we may, And that I be protector over him: For our behoof, 'twill bear the greater sway Whenas a king's name shall be under-writ. Q. Isab. Sweet Mortimer, the life of Isabel, ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... the foeman's gripe Your country's banner it was yours to wrest,— Ah, many a forehead shows the banner-stripe, And stars, once crimson, hallow ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... sank, but I thought I saw his head far down below the surface. So did Solon, who was watching the direction of my eyes, and leaping in, he dived down, and in an instant brought up to the surface the person, of whom he had a gripe by the collar of his jacket. When Solon saw that the seamen had got hold of the person, he scrambled on board again by the help of ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... another man to go instead of me. "I'll make you pay for this another day," he cried out, looking at me. I saw the mate shaking hands with several on board before he stepped into the boat. "Remember the case, Jack," said old Tom as he passed me, giving me a gripe by the hand. "You have ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... horsemen and as many dogs, who chased him till he took refuge in the water. A boat now put off, and soon overtaking the tired animal, he was tied securely. When towed ashore, one rope was fastened round his horns, and another to his fore-foot, each held by a negro, while a third took a strong gripe of his tail. In this manner, they led and drove him along, the fellow behind occasionally biting the beast's tail, to quicken his motions; until at length the poor creature was made fast to an anchor on the beach, there to await ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... draw his volatile substance and his tincture: And let the water in glass E be filter'd, And put into the gripe's egg. Lute him well; And ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson
... that he was in my power; it's apt to make sprats of his size flounce desperately, in the mere hope of proving themselves whales after all, if it's only to their miserable selves. Never mind; he can't break my tackle; and besides, that gripe of the hand seemed to indicate that the poor wretch was beat, and thought himself let off easily—as indeed he is. We'll hope so. Now, zoophytes, for ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... beldams in the streets Do prophesy upon it dangerously: Young Arthur's death is common in their mouths: And when they talk of him, they shake their heads, And whisper one another in the ear; And he that speaks doth gripe the hearer's wrist; Whilst he that hears makes fearful action With wrinkled brows, with nods, with rolling eyes. I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus, The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool, With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news; Who, with his shears and measure ...
— King John • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... I caught her in savage gripe. "What," cried I, shaking her to and fro despite my weakness, "what ha' ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... purified in the Body of a Hog," is ultimately to return to earth again. Nor is the delight of some of those who profit by his enforced assistance less keenly realised:—"I remarked a poetical Spirit in particular, who swore he would have a hearty Gripe at him: 'For, says he, the Rascal not only refused to subscribe to my Works; but sent back my Letter unanswered, tho' I'm a better Gentleman than himself.'" The descriptions of the City of Diseases, the Palace ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... certainty of ultimate safety. The soul, fortunately, has an interpreter—often an unconscious, but still a truthful interpreter—in the eye. My eye rose to his; and while I looked in his fierce face I gave an involuntary sigh; his gripe was painful, and my over-taxed ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... fattening hogs on potale, a business pursued and highly spoken of, but from my experience I have discovered that few good pigs can be raised entirely on potale—as it has a tendency to gripe and scour too much; but after they are weaned and a little used with ...
— The Practical Distiller • Samuel McHarry
... the wretched brigantine, her sails close-reefed, tossed among the savage billows at the mercy of the storm. A heavy sea rolled down upon her, and threw her on her side. The surges broke over her, and, clinging with desperate gripe to spars and cordage, the drenched voyagers gave up all for lost. At length she righted. The gale subsided, the wind changed, and the crazy, water-logged vessel again bore slowly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Whose mangled bodies strew the ensanguin'd ground, To parch and stiffen in the blaze of day, Consign'd to vultures, and to wolves a prey, Your toils are past; no more ye wake to feel Lust's savage gripe, or rapine's reeking steel! And Thou, to whom my wedded faith was given, On earth my solace, and my hope in heaven, Approv'd in manhood, as in youth ador'd, Belov'd while living, as in death deplor'd, O stay thy flight! Around ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... whatever—the clothes lay smooth, and the chamber orderly: yet the corpse's face was of a purple hue, the tongue swollen, the eyes starting from their sockets: it might, indeed, possibly have been an apoplectic seizure, which took her in her sleep, and killed her as she lay; but that the gripe of clutching fingers had left their livid seals upon the throat, and countenanced ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... with us," said the third. By this time I saw some looking particularly fierce upon me; then they began to whisper in each others ears certain secret words, and to look at me; at length the whispering ceased, and each laying his gripe upon me they raised me upon their shoulders, as we do a knight of the shire, and then away with me they flew like the wind, over houses and fields, cities and kingdoms, seas and mountains; and so quickly did they fly that I could fasten my sight upon nothing, and what was worse, I began to suspect ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... novel-writer or a dramatist, in creating a villain of romance and fitting him with evil deeds, and the villain of actual life in projecting crimes that will be perpetrated, may almost meet each other halfway between reality and fancy. It is not until the crime is accomplished that Guilt clenches its gripe upon the guilty heart and claims it for his own. Then, and not before, sin is actually felt and acknowledged, and, if unaccompanied by repentance, grows a thousandfold more virulent by its self-consciousness. Be it considered, ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... for Frank sprang upon him like a tiger, and seizing his throat, with a powerful gripe, threw him to the ground; and, hastily catching up the musket which had fallen from his enemy's hand, dealt him a severe blow on the head. The muscles of the rebel instantly relaxed; and Frank—after unbuckling his cartridge-box, and fastening it to his ...
— Frank on a Gun-Boat • Harry Castlemon
... but there were no full-swelling muscles, no wide-spreading shoulders, no clean-limbed straightness, no generous symmetry of outline. It represented strength, that body of my father's, strength without beauty; ferocious, primordial strength, made to clutch and gripe and rend and destroy. ...
— Before Adam • Jack London
... the gripe and clutch of poverty upon her face, upon her figure, and not least of all upon her voice. Her sharp and high- pitched words were squeezed out of her, as by the compression of bony fingers on a leathern bag; and she had a way of rolling her eyes about and about ...
— George Silverman's Explanation • Charles Dickens
... The art of cheating at cards, composed of the following associates: bankers, those who play booty; the gripe, he that betteth; and the person cheated, who is styled the vincent; the gains ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... he flung it down before the wondering enemy, and one of the chiefs then thought it incumbent upon him to display his own prowess. He advanced, and offered to grasp hands with Rustem: they met; but the gripe of the champion was so excruciating that the sinews of his adversary cracked, and in agony he fell from his horse. Intelligence of this discomfiture was instantly conveyed to the king, who then summoned his most valiant and renowned chieftain, Kalahur, and ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... aborigines possessed large packs, from fifty to three hundred. On the destruction of the aboriginal tribes, these animals escaped, hunted in large numbers, and committed great havoc, among the flocks: farmers lost five hundred sheep in a season. By a single gripe these wild marauders destroyed a sheep, and a few minutes were sufficient to strew the downs with dead. A tax was imposed, from 5s. to L1 each. Large establishments required many sheep and watch dogs, and the cost amounted to L8 or L10 per ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... unspeakable Crowd in my breast to burning, when I hear Of this almighty Death, who is, it seems, Inevitable. Could I wrestle with him? I wrestled with the lion, when a boy, 260 In play, till he ran roaring from my gripe. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... wicked and crafty men, as touching thy belief, are but manifest excuses to get thee into their power, from which they mean not to liberate thee but by the fire that shall consume thy body, and free it for ever from their murderous gripe. Thou knowest, too, that Sir Roger beareth thee a malice, and hath used all subtlety that he might have wherewith to seek occasion against thee. Didst thou not rebuke him openly for his irreverence, when ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... of him they shake their heads, And whisper one another in the ear; And he that speaks doth gripe the hearer's wrist, Whilst he that hears makes fearful action With wrinkled brows, with nods, ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... friendship, and assure you that I shall always bear it in mind," said Rodney, stopping long enough to give the operator's hand a cordial gripe ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... no fact of the far past, no legend of the Middle Ages, for are there not Cains among us; white-faced, haggard-featured Cains to the last? Men who began with a little injury, and did not dream that their gripe would close in deadly persecution? Cains who slew the spirit, and through the spirit murdered the body? Cains unintentionally, whom all men free from the stain of blood, and to whom in the Jewish economy the gates of the Cities of Refuge would have stood wide open, yet who are never again ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... uttering the most horrible blasphemies and execrations. Judith, being the stronger of the two, had the advantage, and she had seized her opponent by the throat with the intention of strangling him, when a most terrific crash was heard causing her to loose her gripe. The air instantly became as hot as the breath of a furnace, and both started to their feet. "What ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... whom he had slain, Did feast the gods) with famine hath his hire; To gape and catch at flying fruits in vain, And yielding waters to his gasping throat; Where stormy Aeol's son with endless pain Rolls up the rock; where Tytius hath his lot To feed the gripe that gnaws his growing heart;[68] Where proud Ixion, whirled on the wheel, Pursues himself; where due deserved smart The damned ghosts in burning flame do feel— From thence I mount: thither the winged god, Nephew to Atlas that upholds the sky, Of late down ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various |
