"Gripping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... penitential plasters. He and the company lawyer, who was with him, came and took seats within the judge's railing; and a minute later the clerk called Jurgis' name, and the policeman jerked him to his feet and led him before the bar, gripping him tightly by the arm, lest he should ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... the edge of the people and crossed the open space beyond, passing the leaping blaze of the fagots, and so drew near the iron door of the pit. The key went slowly into the lock. All shrank with dismay at the roar which rent the air. Geoffrey paused with his hand gripping the key, and there came a sound of ...
— The Dragon of Wantley - His Tale • Owen Wister
... an instant, in spite of Geordie's quick-gripping hand. "You're boss on this train, Cullin," said he, savagely, "and you know I can't jaw back as you deserve, but if Bob Anthony happens to be where he can hear of that remark, you'll get your time ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... "Not quite," I said, gripping her arm to steady her as The Waif took a header. "We've weathered the worst of it and we're still sound. The storm centre has slipped away to the north, and we can count ourselves out of the ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... ill-timed and unthinkable levity Breslin stared in bewilderment; Lisner glared, gripping his fist convulsively; and Mr. Ben Creagan, an uneasy third inquisitor, breathed hard through his nose. Anastacio Barela, the fourth and last inquisitor, maintained unmoved the disinterested attitude he had held since the interrogation began. Feet crossed, he lounged in his ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... chair with both feet planted firmly on the metal floor, and his hands gripping the armrests as though he were afraid he might float off toward the ceiling if he let go. But only his body betrayed his unease; his ...
— Anchorite • Randall Garrett
... grown-up people, but there is never a moment in after-life more poignant with grief than, that which stabs a boy when he learns that he must wrestle with a series of water-soaked knots in a shirt. As Mealy sat in the broiling sun, gripping the knots with his teeth and fingers, he asked himself again and again how he could explain his soiled shirt to his mother. Lump after lump rose in his throat, and dissolved into tears that trickled down his nose. The other boys did not heed him. They were following ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... door, they were suddenly aware of a commotion of some sort going on just outside. Through the glass door Rosario was plainly visible, his sleekness ruffled, his white face distorted with terror. The hand of some unseen person was gripping him by the throat, bearing him backwards. There was a shout and they both saw the cloakroom attendant spring over his counter. Something glittered in the dim light—a flash of blue polished steel. There was a gleam in the air, a horrible cry, and Rosario ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... In all my life I've never been face to face with a thing like this. [Gripping the mantelpiece so hard that his hands and arms are seen shaking] You ask me to be calm. I am trying to be. Be good enough in turn not to take his part ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... fell over the courtyard. The statue stood as before, unmoving, its timeless eyes staring out from under the ugly helmet, its hands gripping the bayoneted rifle. A blue and white pigeon fluttered softly down, alighted on the bayonet, looked the crowd over and then flew to the ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak
... wheels, supported by arms which project out sideways so as to clear the supports at the posts; the motor or dynamo on the locomotive is also below the line. It is supported on two broad flat wheels, and is driven by two horizontal gripping wheels; the connection of these with the motor is made by a new kind of frictional gear which I have called nest gear, but which I cannot describe to-day. The motor on the locomotive as a maximum 1 horse-power when ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 417 • Various
... born agitator and a trained politician, unequaled almost in our history as an organizer and manager of men, able, narrow, coldly fierce, the man of the town meeting and the caucus, had no possibility of intellectual sympathy with the silent, patient, hard-gripping soldier, hemmed with difficulties, but ever moving straight forward to his object, with occasional wild gusts of reckless fighting passion. John Adams, too, brilliant of speech and pen, ardent, patriotic, and high-minded, was, in his way, out of touch with Washington. ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... up and up till, leaning forward and aside with outstretched arm, La Mothe could feel the pressing of the Dauphin's back, and the hand closed in upon the ribs. "Now," he cried, his voice cracked and hoarse. "Now, Christ help us, now, now," and gripping the boy he reined back as tightly as he dared, reined back to feel the slender boy slip from the bay's back, hang helpless in the air an instant, then fall sprawling across the saddle. On dashed the bay, and ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... not speak. He was gripping the stable-wall with his trembling fingers, and struggling for composure. Pete scraped the paving-stones at his feet, and mumbled again in a voice that was near to breaking. "Spake for me, Phil. It's you to do it. You've the way of saying things, and making them out to look something. ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... answer, but, with his hand gripping the tiller, kept his face to the front, his glance alternating between the heaving prow of the boat and the huge gray billows hissing with froth careering rapidly alongside. To pause for a moment, to vary by ever so little from the course of ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... ye lazy skunks!" cried Captain Snaggs, when he saw the watch at last turn out, gripping the brass poop rail in front of him with both hands, so as to steady himself and prevent his taking a header into the waist below, as he seemed to be on the point of doing every minute, in his excitement. "Lay out, thaar, on the yards, ye skulking lubbers! Lay ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... as before, and the cattleman rides after it, but instead of lassoing it, he leaps straight out of his saddle and plunges on to the horns of the beast. Gripping these long and cruel-looking weapons, he twists the bull's neck until the animal comes down, and there, with his body in the hollow of the neck and shoulder, he holds it until his companions run ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... gripping the mantel, rested his forehead on it and dark thoughts came upon him. They quickened his breath and brought the blood to his face and his aching eyes. It was all trouble, it seemed to him, trouble from the first minute ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... that!" added the Viscount, who had at length adjusted the trace to his own liking and Master Milo's frowning approval. "Good-by, Bev," he continued, gripping the hand Barnabas extended. "We are going down to Devenham for a week or so—Clemency's own wish, and when we come back I have a feeling that the—the shadows, y' know, will have passed quite away, y'know,—for good and all. Good-by, dear fellow, ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... documents. At first sight, the years seemed to have passed over Michael's head leaving him untouched; but, as Ivan stepped into the light of a low-hanging lamp, his father gave a sudden start, a hoarse gasp, and then fell back into his chair again—an old man. Ivan, though he had been gripping himself for the ordeal, felt himself turn slowly white, closed his eyes for an instant, and reopened them to meet the diamond-bright glare of his father's look. At that, moved by a combination of emotional ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... FERROVIUS (gripping his shoulders) Oh, do not harden your heart, young man. Come: try for yourself whether our way is not better than yours. I will now strike you on one cheek; and you will turn the other and learn how much better you will ...
— Androcles and the Lion • George Bernard Shaw
... Ingmar sat gripping the edge of the plain deal table. Suddenly a noise was heard as of something cracking. Ingmar had broken off a corner of the table. "If you become a school-teacher, he'll never let you have the farm," ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... party was sneezing, coughing and gasping for breath as the faint white mist, blown by the wind, enveloped them. It caused a terrible, gripping sensation, a constriction of the throat muscles so ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Death Valley - or Diamond X and the Poison Mystery • Willard F. Baker
... is murdering our master!" suddenly cried one of the men, recovering from his stupor of terror, and seeing now how Tom's great hands were gripping the ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... as if I wanted to go down on my knees to every boy in uniform," cried Betty, gripping the arms of her chair till the knuckles showed white. "No matter how hard we try we can't make up to them for what they're giving up—and giving up so cheerfully. And they're so dear and appreciative and thankful for every little thing ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope
... bird, we should make certain arrangements for it; we should place within its reach the branch of a tree, or crossed sticks which would afford foothold for its claws, since these are not designed to be spread out on the ground like the feet of creeping things, but are adapted to gripping a stick. We know that a bird "left free to move" over a vast, illimitable ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... his great agony the outlaw rolled his eyes in appeal to the crowd which surrounded the struggling two. Every man seemed about to spring forward, yet they could not move. Some had their fingers stiffly extended, as if in the act of gripping with hands too ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... Alice said," she whispered severely to Anna-Felicitas, gripping her arm as they stood jammed in the narrow passage to the door waiting to ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... named John Kirkmichael, Bishop of Orleans, as having himself broken a spear on the body of the Duke of Clarence. The Abbe of Cerquenceaux, also, was a valiant man in religion, and a good captain, and, all over France, clerics were gripping to sword and spear. But such a priest as this I did not ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... strung along the main-topsail-yard; the ship rearing and plunging under us, like a runaway steed; each man gripping his reef-point, and sideways leaning, dragging the sail over toward Jackson, whose business it was to confine the ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... second bidding. Resolutely gripping the bar, he raised it on high and dealt the stubborn obstruction to Tom's freedom a reverberating blow. Three times he brought it down upon the opposing portal. Half a dozen more swings of the bar and splinters began to ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... poles seemed to dance before his eyes like giddy marionettes, while the long rows of blue seats appeared to be tilted up at a dangerous angle. Then slowly the clown's bewilderment merged into keen understanding, but his painted face reflected none of the anguish that was gripping at ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... warm blood of perfect health could have endured the temperature of that shaded mountain pool so long, and soon even she felt its chill gripping her young muscles, and, as unconscious of her wholly revealed loveliness as any nymph of old mythology, scrambled from the water to the bank and stood there where a shaft of comfortable sunshine ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... the villagers were making for the wood, and the whole place rang with cries of excitement and dismay. The wintry scene was revealed only too clearly by the ruddy glare and by the same sinister light. Lambert suddenly beheld Chaldea at his elbow. Gripping his arm, she spoke hoarsely, "The tiny rye is dead. He drove the engine over a bank and it smashed ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... strangely ghostly, went over to the carved figure of the negro woman in labour. Her nude, protuberant body crouched in a strange, clutching posture, her hands gripping the ends of ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... the dimming glow of the fire I fancied I saw luminous eyes watching me, and the skin on my back crawled. I crept up behind him and leaped. We went down in a tangle of flailing legs and arms, and in less than a second he had his skean out and I was gripping his wrist, trying desperately to force the blade away ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... so the Professor, gripping his gun resolutely, crept along toward the opposite side of the camp where the noise had seemed to come from. So quietly had he moved that he made scarcely a sound, until suddenly there came a commotion that more than made up for the noise he had so successfully ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Ozarks • Frank Gee Patchin
... the door to open it; Parsons tried to disengage his hand. Mr. Garvace joined his effort to Morrison's. Then the heart of Polly leapt and the world blazed up to wonder and splendour. Parsons disappeared behind the partition for a moment and reappeared instantly, gripping a thin cylinder of rolled huckaback. With this he smote at Morrison's head. Morrison's head ducked under the resounding impact, but he clung on and so did Mr. Garvace. The door came open, and then Mr. Garvace was staggering back, hand to head; his autocratic, his sacred ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... sadly perplex the reader of "Melmoth" in the first version. It is hoped, however, that the present selection, by its directness and the clearness of the story thread, may please the modern reader better than the involved original, and bring before a wider public some of the most gripping descriptions ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... woman shifted their hands accordingly, tightly gripping the sides of the car, and Jerry slowly and carefully released the brake. The drum began to revolve as the endless cable passed round it, and the car slid slowly out into the chasm, its trolley wheels rolling ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London
... looked like a black crack in a greenish-gray desert of rock and moss, the landing stage like a tiny bird's nest. The floor of the car moved slightly from side to side. Burke's face had gone gray, and he crouched unsteadily, one hand gripping a steel bracket ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... Hold 'em! Hold 'em! Hold 'em!" chanted the grand-stand. Clint was scowling ferociously and gripping his hands hard between his knees. Amy was patting his feet on the boards. Chase was studying the situation intently, outwardly quite unaffected by the crisis. "Someone," he observed, "is making a mistake there. They'll never get six yards ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... but he extracted the service repeater from the holster of a body at his feet. Gripping it, he leaped to the helm of the dirigible. It was the work of a moment to clamp on the mechanical "iron mike," which steadied the ZX-1's mad swaying and leveled her ahead in a dead straight course. He could not cut down her speed, unless he went to ...
— Raiders Invisible • Desmond Winter Hall
... who bought pigs generally carried them away in their arms; and then there was no little diversion; dire was the screaming of the porkers, yet the purchaser invariably appeared to know how to manage his bargain, keeping the left arm round the body of the swine and with the right hand fast gripping the ear—some few were led away by strings. There were some Welsh cattle, small of course, and the purchasers of these seemed to be Englishmen, tall burly fellows in general, far exceeding the ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... ignoring the unnatural calm with which they greeted his entrance. He shook hands with them in turn, striding from one to another and gripping their hands so heartily that Nathaniel Letton could not forbear to wince. Daylight flung himself into a massive chair and sprawled lazily, with an appearance of fatigue. The leather grip he had brought into the room he dropped carelessly beside him ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... step at the last car, one foot hanging free, was a man. His black derby hat was pulled well down to keep it from blowing away, and his coat was flying open in the wind. He was swung well out from the car, his free hand gripping a small valise, every muscle tense for ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... fragile. Suddenly an intense desire surged over him to pick her up and crush her to him. He fought against it. He tried to fix his thoughts on the girl at home, to tell himself that he was a man of honour. His fingers, gripping the edge of the seat, tightened till every muscle ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... told her. The well was about four feet long, and the bottom of it about half that distance below the level of the deck. As a result of this, she sat close at his feet, while he balanced himself on the coaming, gripping the tiller. He noticed that she had brought out an oilskin ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... atmosphere, the suspension points and the seasonal epidemics of such words as "gripping," ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... she lay listening, with her hand gripping Roger's tight, frowning abruptly she said to him, ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... was, with Ed's arm gripping his shoulders. He did not give any sign that he knew she was trying to help him, or that he wanted help. He was not afraid of the lantern, like the others. His black eyes were laughing at all of them—laughing at Judith, too. He ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... cried, gripping her fan so tightly that her knuckles grew white. "Do you dare to tell ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... remained pointing at the spot where the mail bag had lain. It was as if the spot held him fascinated. Then his arm lowered slowly, and his hand came to rest on the edge of the table, gripping it with unnecessary force. ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... chemistry of life seems to play into the hands of a situation of this kind. Once Cowperwood was thinking vividly, forcefully, of her, Rita began to think in like manner of him. Hourly he grew more attractive, a strange, gripping man. Beset by his mood, she was having the devil's own time with her conscience. Not that anything had been said as yet, but he was investing her, gradually beleaguering her, sealing up, apparently, one avenue after another of escape. One Thursday afternoon, ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... and dodged and tried to guard. Once, twice, Macdonald's fists fell. LeNoir's right arm hung limp by his side and he staggered back to the wall helpless. Without an instant's delay, Macdonald had him by the throat, and gripping him fiercely, began to slowly bend him backward over his knee. Then for the first ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... C. R. W. Nevinson could do justice to the interior of a Tank. You see a hand gripping something; you see the eyes and forehead of an engineer's face; you perceive that an overall bluishness beyond the engine is the back of another man. "Don't hold that," says someone; "it is too hot. Hold on to that." The engines roar, so loudly that I doubt ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... groups, each group animatedly intent upon some topic from baseball to high finance. A few weeks earlier that same club had given a public dinner to Mr. Rowell and Sir George Foster, when each seemed to overdo the other in gripping those present by the presentation of a world theme backed by a striking personality. In the lounge Mr. Rowell, our best authority on the ethics of the Empire and the League of Nations, went about alone, unobtrusive, drab-coloured, almost insignificant. He spoke to ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... of men sliding along ropes, of men in trapeze-like seats hurling athwart the space. He heard voices behind him, a number of people descending the steps through the archway; he suddenly perceived that his guardian Howard was back again and gripping his arm painfully, and shouting inaudibly in ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... Dick out, to fall on her knees and plead with him: it was one of those physical obsessions against which the body has to stiffen its muscles as well as the mind its thoughts. Once she even sprang up to ring for a cab; but she sank back again, breathing as if after a struggle, and gripping the arms of her chair to ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... in knee-deep, with Crestwick behind him, and gripping the loosely-hanging arm of the body Batley was ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... with a yell of horror, and drawing my revolver fired it by a sort of instinct straight at the diabolical woman who had been caressing Mahomed, and was now gripping him in her arms. The bullet struck her in the back and killed her, and to this day I am glad that it did, for, as it afterwards transpired, she had availed herself of the anthropophagous customs of the Amahagger to organise the whole thing in revenge ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... had you miss me for anything," interrupted Steele, gripping the other's proffered hand. "You see, I'm out from Lac Bain to meet Colonel and Mrs. Becker, and—" He hesitated purposely, his white teeth gleaming in the frank smile which made people like him immensely, ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... the Houssa pick a finnicking way to the stern of the boat; saw the solemn faces of his rowmen as they bent their naked backs, gripping their clumsy oars. And to think that they and Hamilton were going back to the familiar life, to the dear full days he knew! Sanders coughed and swore ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... cloud of thoughts to discover the narrow compartment, with its feeble lamp overhead, and our rugs and hand-baggage swaying on the rack, and Isabel, very still in front of me, gripping my wilting red roses tightly in ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... raised his eyelids and opened wide his mouth with its threatening white teeth; his mustaches bristled; his sword dropped from his hands, but he caught it near the floor with his knees and held the pommel with his right hand, gripping it convulsively: the long black blade of the sword stretched out behind him and shook back and forth. And the Warden was like a wounded lynx, about to spring from a tree into the very face of a hunter: it puffs itself into a ball, growls, flashes fire from its bloody eyeballs, ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... gripping hard at his courage. 'We are in a civilised land here, and we can't have tomfoolery of this kind. Where does the thing ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... vertical pole like a squirrel, and hang for hours from a bough by one hand like a cherry by its stalk. If he could have made a vacuum with his hands, as the lizard is said to do with its feet, he would have gone along a ceiling. Now, this pocket-athlete was insanely fond of gripping the dinner-table with both hands, and so swinging; and then—climax of delight! he would seize it with his teeth, and, taking off his hands, hold on like grim death ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... that shut your mouth, you dirty scoundrel?" said Sprowl, gripping his riding-crop till his fat fingernails ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... drilled by Kingozi, Simba, and Cazi Moto. Evidently the instruction was in rifle fire. Two were getting individual treatment: Simba and Cazi Moto were putting them through a careful course in aiming and pulling the trigger on empty guns. Kingozi sat on a chop box in the shade, gripping his eternal pipe, and issuing curt orders and criticisms to the baker's dozen, before him. When he saw the Leopard Woman he arose ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... strip from the main trunk. Grom saw that her purpose obviously was to pull the tree to pieces bit by bit, in order to get at her intended victims. Mawg apparently saw this also, and it was too much for him. Gripping his strip of dried meat between his teeth, he slipped around the trunk till he was sheltered from the monster's sight, dropped to a branch which stretched far over the water, ran out along it nimbly as an ape, and dived. The monster, ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Lord James, gripping the bony hand of Griffith. "Don't let Tom chaff you. My name's just ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... He could not see, for his back was resolutely toward it and he was gripping the cover of the book hard to steady his hands; but he felt a breath of colder air from the outer hall; he felt above all a new presence peering in upon him, like a winter-starved lynx that might flatten its round face ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... A gripping story about two young children, a boy of about fourteen and his sister of about twelve, who set off with their father, a south-sea whaling captain, on what is intended to be his last voyage, their mother having died during his previous three-year voyage. Unfortunately some of ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... content. Oh! Stephen dear, can't there be love—love without this clutching, this gripping, this carrying off?" ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... man sat huddled forward—a grey-haired man, clad in a white robe. His hands were gripping the chair-arms as though in agony. His head hung ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... keen, eager, dominant, his hands gripping the edge of the desk till the big knuckles whitened. He seemed the embodiment of harsh and unrelenting Power—power over men and things, over their laws and institutions; power which, like Alexander's, sought only new worlds to conquer; power ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... one of his remarkable exhibitions of youthfulness. Flinging aside his decrepitude, as though it had been no more than an affectation, he shot bolt upright, gripping the arms of his chair. "Last night, within a handful of hours of my forbidding him the house, he had the impertinence to call here to inform me that he was in love with Terry. Not content with that, he added ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... to carry this thing through as a large joke, and here he was mixed up in a crooked deal if ever there was one. The worst of it was he wasn't out of it yet. He wished he knew whose car this was and where they were bound for. How about the license tag? Gripping his unstable seat he swayed forward and tried to see it just below him. In the dim light it looked like a New York license. It must be the guy they were after all right,—they had telephoned about a New York man—yet—Cart had a New York license on his car! He was living in New ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... the bed with her face in the pillows, but a moment later she got up, moved quickly to him, seized both his hands and, gripping them tight in her thin fingers, began looking into his face again with the same intent stare. In this last desperate look she tried to look into him and catch some last hope. But there was no hope; there was no doubt remaining; it was all true! Later ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... study door opened. Shenton entered. His father was seated, his nervous hands gripping the arms of his chair. On the desk beside him lay a thin cane. He motioned to his ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... and out among the other horses, the fragment of humanity on its back meanwhile clinging to his place like a monkey. For a minute, then another, the youngster kept his seat, pulling upon the reins at intervals, gripping together his small knees until the muscles ached. Then suddenly the colt, changing its tactics, planted its front feet firmly into the ground, stopped short, and the small Benjamin shot overhead, to strike the turf beyond with an impact ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... faint—I will not faint!" she said to herself, clenching her teeth hard, and gripping her dress with her cold hands. "It is a mistake—a mistake. It is not Drake. I thought I saw him the other night; it is thinking, always thinking of him, that makes me fancy any one like him must be he! ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... on the bridge and gripping As steady as fate the wheel, He has taken the storms to his forehead, And ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... his feet. The wine he had drunk had not taken effect and Steve Hunter had been forced to go home disappointed. All the evening something stronger than wine had been gripping him. Now he knew what it was. All through the evening thoughts and desires had whirled through his brain. Now they were all gone. "I won't let her do it," he muttered, and running quickly to the door closed it softly. With the shoes still held in his ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... Gradman was leaning forward, convulsively gripping a stout black knee with each of his thick hands; his mouth had fallen open so that the gold fillings of three teeth gleamed; his eyes were blinking, two tears rolled slowly out of them. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... of East St. Louis is a gripping thing. The rivers are dirty with sweat and toil and lip, like lakes, along the low and burdened shores; flatboats ramble and thread among them, and above the steamers bridges swing on great arches of steel, striding with mighty grace from shore to shore. ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... from the mental elation, the fever of the intellect that had been the first effect of my tremendous experience, had arrived. The emotional crisis which had awaited the full realization of my actual position, and all that it implied, was upon me, and with set teeth and laboring chest, gripping the bedstead with frenzied strength, I lay there and fought for my sanity. In my mind, all had broken loose, habits of feeling, associations of thought, ideas of persons and things, all had dissolved and lost coherence and were seething together in apparently irretrievable chaos. There ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... like going into a wood, or, rather, creating a wood. For at first there was darkness, since one closed one's eyes when one kissed as when one prayed; and then it seemed as if at each kiss they were being a tree, for their bodies were pressed close together like a tree-trunk, and their trembling, gripping arms were like branches, and their faces where love lived on their lips were like the core of foliage where the birds nest. She would see springing up in the darkness around her the grove of the trees that their kisses had created: the silver birches that were their delicate, ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... on the heels of the faint, interrupted sound of their voices. Ward took a long breath, discovered that he was gripping his gun as though his life depended on hanging to it, and rubbed his numbed fingers absently. After a minute or so, he mounted and rode down to ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... sufficiently to eat the fish, but his soup had to be removed untasted. He sat, with both hands gripping his table-napkin as it lay across his knees, his eyes on the table-cloth, seeing the pretty Deleah and her fat but agile father dancing down the gay ball-room. In prison! Some one he had known, and touched ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... doubt if mine was a single-minded pursuit. I knew that honour required me to pursue, and I had a vivid impression of having just been down in the dust with a very wiry and active and dirty little antagonist of disagreeable odour and incredible and incalculable unscrupulousness, kneeling on me and gripping my arm and neck. I wanted of course to be even with him, but also I doubted if catching him would necessarily involve that. They kicked my cap into the ditch at the end of the field, and made off compactly along a cinder lane ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... I answered as, taking up the hammer, I, in turn, stepped into the ring. Gripping the shaft firmly, I whirled it aloft, and began to swing it swifter and swifter, gaining greater impetus every moment, till, like a flash, it flew from my grasp. Panting, I watched it rise, rise, rise, and then plunge down to earth in a ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... pulled low over his eyes and gripping his suit case, Henkel slunk through the corridors of Bancroft Hall. Now he faced the hardest ordeal of all in going out through the entrance of the great white building, beyond which stood ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... in!" Jeremy Ammidon exclaimed, gripping Rhoda's arm. "He is lowering his top-gallant yards and hauling up the courses! My dear, there's nothing on God's earth finer ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... a shiver which seemed to spread from her heart throughout her limbs. She sat quite still, gripping her little ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was relying on the fact that on the second satellite, with its far lesser gravitational influence, their Earth-muscles gave them enormous strength. He grasped the bar, Hackett and Sarja gripping it below him, and then at a whispered word they pulled with all their force. The bar resisted and again, with sweat starting on their foreheads, they pulled. It ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... all been that," she slowly said. "Till the next one." The old unhappiness had returned, gripping her heart. She no longer looked at him, but stared away, ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... stifling her sobs on her pillow. They ceased, and the passion that was in her had its way then. She lay on her face, convulsed, biting into the pillow; gripping the sheets, tearing at them and wringing them in her hands. Her whole ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair
... the gate, and stumbled heavily down, reeling, gripping fast to the trap. He descended ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... bringing down the first of their wounded. Slung in a blanket came a captain, his wet hair matted over his forehead, brow and teeth set, lips twitching as they put him down, gripping his whole soul to keep it from crying out. He turned with the beginning of a smile that would not finish: "Would you mind straightening out my arm?" The arm was bandaged above the elbow, and the forearm was hooked under him. A man bent ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... out!" the Bosun yelled. The Dauber laid Out on the yard, gripping the yard, and feeling Sick at the mighty space of air displayed Below his feet, where mewing birds were wheeling. A giddy fear was on him; he was reeling. He bit his lip half through, clutching the jack. A cold sweat glued the shirt upon ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... aloud—and he was a dumb beast, too, as a rule, but I guess the pain was excruciating—as a hooked stiletto, it appeared, stabbed through fur, through skin, deep down through flesh, right into his back, clutching, gripping vise-like. Another stiletto, hooked, too, worse than the first one, beat at his skull, tore at his scalp, madly tried to rip out his eyes. Vast overshadowing pinions—as if they were the wings of Azrael—hammered in his face, smothering him, beating ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... cattle already Were home, but he came not. I went through the village And saw that the people Were gathered together And talking of something. I listened, then elbowed My way through the people; Fedotka was set 230 In their midst, pale and trembling, The Elder was gripping His ear. 'What has happened? And why do you hold him?' ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... I was convinced that Master Mahasaya was in intimate converse with the Universal Mother. It was deep humiliation to realize that my eyes were blind to Her who even at this moment was perceptible to the faultless gaze of the saint. Shamelessly gripping his feet, deaf to his gentle remonstrances, I besought him again and ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... legs, and lay as close to it as he could press, he thought two or three times, as he made his way out toward the tail, that he would be torn loose. He knew that his friends in the cabin, whom it might be he would never speak to again, were watching his progress with fear gripping their hearts, and were probably inwardly praying for ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... even smile at his thinking Nyoda was our mother. With the military precision we have learned from long practice of doing things together, we formed in a goose line behind Nyoda, each one gripping tightly the hand of the one ahead of her, and thus we began to move forward. After what seemed a hundred years, but could not have been more than five minutes, we felt a gust of fresh air blowing on us, and knew that we were standing ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey
... the strand adheres to the main part of the blade at the tip so firmly that the force of the flying baya is not sufficient to sever it. The bird then swings for a few seconds in mid-air, suspended by the strip of leaf. Not in the least daunted the baya makes a fresh effort and flies off, still gripping the strand firmly. At the third, if not at the second attempt, the thin strip is completely severed. Having secured its prize the weaver-bird proceeds to tear off one or two more strands and then flies with these in its bill to the nesting site, uttering cries of delight. The fibres obtained in ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... I thought," said Jack, gripping Harry's hand hard, "but I knew you would—I knew it. And there is Carroll Shannon," he went on, holding out a hand to me. "You never were very fond of me, Carroll, but ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... Landing was of course Paul's first experience in an airship. For some time he was subdued and Norman could see his tense fingers gripping the edge of the cockpit. But when assurance came to him, he made up for his preliminary apprehension and was soon taking impossible pictures of the far-away hills ...
— On the Edge of the Arctic - An Aeroplane in Snowland • Harry Lincoln Sayler
... and writhed in sharp discomfort. Then, he did the one thing possible, by way of reprisal. Before Brice could dodge out of his close-quarters position, the other clasped him tight in his bulgingly powerful arms, gripping the lighter man to his chest in a hug which had the gruesome force of a boa-constrictor's, and increasing the pressure with all his weight ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... myself, were climbing up to temporary safety afforded by the topsides of a craft on her beam ends; and aft, in the alleyway, was the German professor, unlashed, but safe and secure in his narrow confines, one leg through a cabin window, and both hands gripping the rail, while he bellowed like a bull, not for himself, however—but for his menagerie in ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... No one spoke. There was no sound but the rattle of the wheels. It was too dark to see the expression on the faces of the twins. Rex was leaning partly forward, one hand gripping Roy's knee. He could think of nothing save the night Mr. Keeler had spent with them and the horror they had had of him before they found out that it was his brother whose picture ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.
... left," she told him suddenly; gripping her courage at this bold mention of his flight. How she wished she ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... understand, if the heavens would but make a sign! But his questionings remained unanswered. Seated there in his brown varnished chair under the Ruskinian window, he could have screamed aloud. He gripped the arms of his chair—gripping, gripping for control. The knuckles of his hands whitened; he bit his lip. In a few seconds he was able to relax the tension; he began to rebuke himself for his ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... Don Pedro the lads grappled with each other; the brown and ruddy limbs were close entwined, and with bare feet gripping the decks they swayed back and forth like twin saplings caught ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... no farther. Gabriel Druse was on him, gripping his arms so tight to his body that his swift motion to draw a weapon was frustrated. The old man put out all his strength, a strength which in his younger days was greater than any two men in any Romany camp, and the "breath and beauty" of Jethro Fawe ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... is not an impertinence. I have just been turning about, with my head full of Spenser and Shakespeare and "Gil Blas," looking for something in our own present day literature to which I could surrender myself as to those five gripping old writings. And nothing could I find until I took up "Life on the Mississippi," and "Huckleberry Finn," and, just now, the "Connecticut Yankee." It isn't the first time I have read any of these three, and it's because I know it won't be the last, because these ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... fierce fight for possession of luckless Ken. Both sides were linked together by gripping hands. Ken was absolutely powerless. His clothes were torn to tatters in a twinkling; they were soon torn completely off, leaving only his shoes and socks. Not only was he in danger of being seriously injured, but students of both sides were handled as fiercely. ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... Gripping their cudgels tightly in their hands; and with compressed lips, as well as determined-looking faces, the little bunch of boys followed the sunken lane as it left the main road, and ran into ...
— Fred Fenton on the Track - or, The Athletes of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... hurriedly, and suddenly looked up. "Why do you stand here?" he asked very red-faced. "Waste no time." Tamb' Itam did not move. "Forgive me, Tuan, but . . . but," he began to stammer. "What?" cried his master aloud, looking terrible, leaning forward with his hands gripping the edge of the bed. "It is not safe for thy servant to go out amongst the people," said Tamb' Itam, ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... blazed the zenith: the deepening East like a scarlet poppy Burned while, dazzled with golden bloom, white clouds like daisies, green seas like wheat, Gripping the sign-post, first, I climbs, to sun my wings, which were wrinkled and floppy, Spreading 'em white o'er the words No Road, and hanging fast by my six ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... three," he read. "Hold on, he's about to git another one. Got him! Oh, you bet he's got him foul. Wait a minit." Then, gripping the table with one hand and with the other one grasping the paper, he continued to read: "'Then the Captain findin' himself again surrounded by the'"—he halted and began to spell out the word—"'by ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... minute, please; don't go so fast," she said, gripping tighter to his arm. "I must get this all as straight and plain as possible. You don't mean to say that Searle really drugged you, or ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... half a hundred plays produced by Strindberg during his lifetime, none has won such widespread attention as "Miss Julia," both on account of its masterful construction and its gripping theme. Whether liking or disliking it, critics have repeatedly compared it with Ibsen's "Ghosts," and not always to the advantage of the latter work. It represents, first of all, its author's most determined and most daring endeavour to win the modern stage for Naturalism. If he ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... pause. Mr. Czenki was leaning forward in his chair, gripping the arms fiercely, with his lips pressed into a thin line. It was only by a supreme effort that he held himself in control; and the lean, scarred ...
— The Diamond Master • Jacques Futrelle |
