"Tooth and nail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his obligation to Cobden, and Lord Palmerston, who had fought him tooth and nail, did the same, explaining, "A new epoch has arisen, and England is a manufacturing country, and as such the repeal of the Corn Laws became desirable." As though he would say, "To have had free trade before this new epoch arose, would have been a calamity." A large sum had been subscribed ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... the scolding I am going to defend myself tooth and nail. In the first place, by all my Gods and No Gods, neither Green, nor Martineau, nor the Cairds were in my mind when I talked of "Sentimental Deism," but the "Vicaire Savoyard," and Charming, and such as Voysey. There ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... stoutest pessimists, when fate or men try to take something out of their lives, fight tooth and nail, and cry out as loud as the greatest optimists. I am exactly in the like position. I do not cry out, but a terrible fear clutches at my heart, that a few days hence I shall not know what to do with myself ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... were too much for him. He stared in admiration at the girl, apparently oblivious of the rib, and sighed profoundly. Then he suddenly recovered himself, appeared to forget the girl, and applied himself tooth and nail to the rib. Could anything be more natural—even in a ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... away. We have threshed a stook of print and book, and winnowed a chattering wind And many a soul wherefrom he stole, but his we cannot find: We have handled him, we have dandled him, we have seared him to the bone, And sure if tooth and nail show truth he has no soul of his own." The Devil he bowed his head on his breast and rumbled deep and low: — "I'm all o'er-sib to Adam's breed that I should bid him go. Yet close we lie, and deep we lie, ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... hindermost by way of protesting against the general uproar. When the whole class was fairly out in the street again, its delight at being released from school for some time to come was too much for it, and in the exuberance of its high spirits it fell tooth and nail upon the Lutheran lads who were playing at ball in front of their own church, broke a couple of their heads, scribbled: "Vivat vacatio" on the walls of every house they came to, slammed to every gate they passed, and roused every dog in the village ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... Cornell," he told me. "Your determination to attack us tooth and nail was an excellent program, and with another type of person it might have worked. But I happen to know that your will to live is very great, young man, and that in the final blow, you'd not have the will to die great enough to carry your ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... night before. At the mention of Billy Batters there was a sound of suppressed mirth all along the line. Mrs. Angus's sister fairly shrieked. "Billy Batters! Don't you know he has turned Conservative!—he's working tooth and nail for Brown." Mrs. Angus called Angus excitedly. Everybody talked at once; somebody laughed; one or two swore. Mrs. Porter told Milt Kennedy's wife she'd caught her eavesdropping this time sure. She'd know her cackle ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... himself, "What could be madder than putting on a helmet full of curds, and then persuading oneself that enchanters are softening one's skull; or what could be greater rashness and folly than wanting to fight lions tooth and nail?" ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... exclaimed, taking her in my arms, "I am not deceiving you—indeed, indeed I am not. I may have been wrong in using the word 'crisis.' What I meant was that, knowing that Jack and a friend of his are striving tooth and nail to track down the thieves who robbed this house, and seeing that I have promised to help Jack to the best of my ability, I feel that this urgent telegram of his means that something has come to light, that he has heard something or discovered ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... of you. I've started you wrong, but it isn't too late yet. It's all very well for boys with rich fathers to run to clothes, and city jaunts, and 'chickens,' and cabs and flowers. Your mother is working tooth and nail to earn her six thousand, and when you realize just what it means for a woman to battle against men in a man's game, you'll stop being a spender, and become an earner—because you'll want to. I'll tell you what I'm going to do, Kid. I'm going to take you on the road with me for two weeks. ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... How do I know it? How do I know that there is any one else for me not to be? I, or rather something, feel a number of sensations, longings, thoughts, fancies—the great devil take them all—fresh ones every moment, and each at war tooth and nail with all the rest; and then on the strength of this infinite multiplicity and contradiction, of which alone I am aware, I am to be illogical enough to stand up, and say, "I by myself I," and swear stoutly that I am one thing, when all I am conscious of is ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... on my heel to quit the house, the garrulous Frenchman's three shipmates fell upon him, figuratively, tooth and nail, heaping reproaches upon the unhappy man's head for having warned me against the chief mate's astuteness. I did not wait to hear how the matter ended, but, leaving the house briskly, as though I were the bearer ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... he heard her declare that she would do nothing of the kind. On the contrary, her sobbed out intention was to remain in the garden, and fight tooth and nail for the protection of the vanquished man. ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... roads were so heavy that the dragging of guns from one place to the other would have meant a stiff day's work. There was apparently no option, the Frere bridge being broken, but to let the enemy destroy the Colenso bridge, invaluable as it was. It became very evident that the enemy meant to fight tooth and nail, and that the passage of the Tugela would be disputed inch by inch. However, none was dismayed: all believed that when the great tug-of-war should come, they would be equal, and more than equal, to the occasion. Indeed, ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... there was essentially an animal life, a commingling of either sex and of every age—humanity lapsing into animality through lack of even indispensable things, through indigence of so complete a character that men, women, and children fought even with tooth and nail for the very crumbs swept from the tables of the rich. And the worst of it all was the degradation of the human being; this was no case of the free naked savage, hunting and devouring his prey in the primeval ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... in the letter . . . ' He lapsed into reverie with the vision of his career, persuading himself that it was ardour for Christianity which spurred him on, and not pride of place. He had shouldered a body of doctrine, and was prepared to defend it tooth and nail, solely for the honour and ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... I lie In this state chamber, dying by degrees, Hours, and long hours, in the dead night, I ask, Do I live—am I dead? Peace, peace, seems all; St. Praxed's ever was the church for peace. And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know; Old Gandolf[113] cozened me, despite my care. Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner south He graced his carrion with. Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence One sees the pulpit ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... place. This, however, was Lloyd George's real opportunity. Independent as he had been in the ranks of his own party, he now found far greater scope as a foe in opposition to Ministers in power. He went for them, tooth and nail, making a dead set at Chamberlain, who had taken Gladstone's place as the leading figure in the House of Commons. Chamberlain himself had fought his way up. Those who have seen Chamberlain will never forget him—the ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... regiment leaped forward with a roar and rushed on the advancing detachment, stabbing, shooting, clubbing, throttling. Mutual hatred made the contest terrible beyond words; no quarter was given on either side. I saw men strangle each other with naked hands; kick each other to death, fighting like dogs, tooth and nail, rolling over ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... were observed in the "great pasture" of Salem), not always with a southern exposure however, the female sinks her deep well through the sod from six inches to a foot into the sandy soil beneath. She goes to work literally tooth and nail. Reasoning from observations made on several species of wasps, and also from studying the structure of her jaws and legs, it is evident that she digs in and loosens the soil with her powerful jaws, and then throws out the dirt with her legs. She uses her fore legs ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... for gorging so—obeyed the order of her mistress, and put the ham on the table. The good monk, without staying to ask "who goes there", fell upon it tooth and nail, and at the very first attack he carried off the knuckle, then the thick end, and so dismembered it that soon there was ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... President again fought tooth and nail against the industry, and most strenuous efforts were made by him and his party to obtain a reversal of the decision, but without effect. This, however, only disposed of a small portion of the ground at stake. With regard ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... other women patients suffering from brain troubles, she has taken a violent dislike to me, and believes that I'm the very devil in human form," he said, smiling. "Fortunately, she had a friend with her, or she might have attacked me tooth and nail just now," and leaning back in his chair he laughed at the idea—laughed so lightly that my suspicions ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... gave it to Paracelsus; Paracelsus to the Emperor; the Emperor to the courtier; the courtier to Baptista Porta; and Baptista Porta to Dr. Fludd, a doctor of physic, yet living and practising in the famous city of London, who now stands tooth and nail for it." Dr. Fludd, thus assailed, took up the pen in defence of his unguent, in a reply called "The Squeezing of Parson Foster's Spunge; wherein the Spunge-Bearer's immodest Carriage and Behaviour towards his Brethren is detected; the bitter Flames of his ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... the most learned and liberal of his order, and even then close to the red hat—of the importance of admitting laymen to certain State functions. "All right," said he, "from your point of view; but still I shall oppose it always, tooth and nail; for, if they come in, we must ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Minister of Justice and all was well. But deep down in his heart Hertzog remained unrepentant. When the question of South Africa's contribution to the Imperial Navy came up in 1912 he fought it tooth and nail. In fiery utterances attacking the Government he denounced Botha as a jingoist and an imperialist. Just about this time he made the famous speech in which he stated his ideal of South Africa. He declared ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... fair soon to come into power, but the Federalists learned no wisdom. Rather were they henceforth more factious than ever, opposing Jefferson and Madison even when they acted on purely federalist principles. Tooth and nail they fought against the acquisition of Louisiana, the War of 1812, and the protective tariff of 1816, which was carried by Republicans. A worse spirit still was shown in their disunion scheme of 1804, after the purchase of Louisiana, ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... need of some money; and what I propose is that you shall go to work "tooth and nail" for somebody who will give you money for it. Let father and your boys take charge of things at home, prepare for a crop, and make the crop; and you go to work for the best money wages, or in discharge of any debt you owe, that you can get; and to secure you a fair ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... frequently have quarrels and fights, in which they sometimes lose their lives. They are extremely jealous if a strange dog approaches their territory, namely the street or square of which they have possession. On such an intruder they all fall tooth and nail, and worry him until he either seeks safety in flight or remains dead on the spot. It is therefore a rare circumstance for any person to have a house-dog with him in the streets. It would be necessary to carry the creature continually, and ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... of his pallet-bed—"I suppose she is what they call 'in love'—yes, in love with that long thing in the next chamber. Whisht! is that Horsfall clattering him? I wonder he does not yell out. It really sounds as if she had fallen on him tooth and nail; but I suppose she is making the bed. I saw her at it once. She hit into the mattresses as if she was boxing. It is queer, Zillah (they call her Zillah)—Zillah Horsfall is a woman, and Caroline Helstone is a woman; ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... by it. At the time of the Crimean War the Russian Government punctually paid the interest due on Russian loans to English holders and thereby established a prestige amongst English investors which was cherished for several decades. Now that nations have taken to going to war with tooth and nail, throwing their whole available population into the field and using every possible device, military, commercial, and financial, to beat their enemies, any such pleasant decencies as paying money due from one country to another in the shape of interest or ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... opponent of Socialism must at least admit that there is a stronger argument to be met than that implied by the parrot-cry of 'spoliation.' Socialism has, at any rate, so far advanced as to be allowed the ordinary courtesies of debate. We may oppose it tooth and nail, but we must confront argument with argument ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... ascended the front stairs, we again heard a loud racketing within; but blackie's voice was now wanting in the row, wherein the Spaniard and our friend appeared to be the dramatis personae—and sure enough there was Don Ricardo and Bang at it, tooth and nail. ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... blindly—so blindly that we could see nothing in our own faction but what was good and high and pure, nothing in the other but what was smutted with evil intent. In daily double-leaded editorial columns the chief preached a Holy War, and in the local pages we fought the foe tooth and nail, biting and gouging and clawing, and they gouged and clawed back at us like catamounts. That was where the hard work fell upon Devore. He had to keep half his scanty staff working on politics while the other half tried to cover the ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... he flew tooth and nail at the stepfather. Hugh Price, unprepared for this violent attack, shook the lad off, held him at arm's length for a ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... small slip of paper, and ring a bell, whereupon a familiar would appear, take the paper in profound silence, glide out of the room, and return shortly loaded with ponderous tomes, upon which the other would fall, tooth and nail, with famished voracity. I had no longer a doubt that I had happened upon a body of magi, deeply engaged in the study of occult sciences. The scene reminded me of an old Arabian tale, of a philosopher shut up in an enchanted library, in the bosom of a mountain, ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... of that," he said. "I'm darned glad of it. How could she?" Ann wouldn't, he knew. Ann would have gone to her grave unmarried. But she would have done things first to clear her man's name. Somehow she would have cleared him, if she'd had to fight tooth and nail till ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... as they stood, in the market-square at Krugersdorp. The state of the Boer Government at that time added to the President's difficulties. He was hampered by the narrowest—minded Volksraad (Parliament) imaginable, who resented tooth and nail even the most necessary concessions to the Uitlanders; he was surrounded by corrupt officials, most of whom were said to be implicated in the late rebellion; he was the head of a community which was known to be split up into several sections, owing to acute religious disputes; ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... true cods as ever pissed. The one has rose-nobles, I say fine and weighty ones; the other would gladly have some too. The one knows something; the other's no dunce. The one loves the better sort of men; the other's beloved by 'em. The one is an old cunning fox; the other with tongue and pen, tooth and nail, falls foul on the ancient orators and philosophers, and barks at them ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... Biology was opposed tooth and nail as the worst of all infidelity. It exposed Genesis and put Moses out of court. It destroyed all special creation, showed man's' kinship with other forms of life, reduced Adam and Eve to myths, and exploded the doctrine of the Fall. Darwin was for years treated as ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... what he only dropped in conversation." How innocent was this gentleman of the arts and stratagems of logomachy, or book-wars! The proof would not have altered the cause: Hurd would have disputed it tooth and nail; Warburton was running greater risks, every day of his life, than any he was likely to receive from this flourish in the air. The great purpose was to make the Chancellor of Lincoln the butt of his sarcastic ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... catch. The crayfish, spider-crabs, and hermit crabs, gave me infinite amusement, as they are so different in their manners and customs to the ordinary crabs, and are very bellicose, going for each other tooth and nail, or rather legs and claws, in a most terrible manner. The way these little crustaceans maimed each other put me in mind of the scene in Scott's "Fair Maid of Perth," where the rival clans hew each others' limbs off with double-handed swords, so that a truce has to be called ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... tooth and nail over the way in which that film had been passed through the camera. Then, seeing that they could not shake my evidence, and doubtless impressed by my vehemence, they turned round completely to return ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... repeatedly interrupted, in the course of his testimony, by the culprit's mother, a furious old beldame, with an insufferable tongue, and who, in fact, was several times kept, with some difficulty, from flying at him tooth and nail. The wife, too, of the prisoner, whom I am told he does not beat above half a dozen times a week, completely interested Lady Lillycraft in her husband's behalf, by her tears and supplications; and several of the other gipsy women were awakening strong sympathy ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... merchant who happened to be on board, and brutally hanged him in the rigging of their own vessel with a dog at his feet. This so enraged the English sailors that there was no restraining them; and whenever, and wherever, English sailors met Norman sailors, they fell upon each other tooth and nail. The Irish and Dutch sailors took part with the English; the French and Genoese sailors helped the Normans; and thus the greater part of the mariners sailing over the sea became, in their way, as violent and raging as the sea itself when it ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... and drove a heavy stick of firewood straight at the half-breed's head. The man ducked swiftly, and the billet thudded against his shoulder, staggering him. Instantly two of the scowmen threw themselves upon the woman and bore her to the ground, where she fought, tooth and nail, while they pinioned her arms. Vermilion, his face livid, seized Chloe roughly. The girl shrank in terror from the grip of the thick, grimy fingers and the glare of the envenomed eyes that blazed from the ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... body, would be to him—who did much worse? These had escaped: the hunters had been after him. What would he do? Take the whip? He got to his feet with an oath. Take the whip? Never—never! He would fight this thing tooth and nail. Had he come to England to let them use him for a sensation only—a sequence of surprises, to end in a tragedy, all for the furtive pleasure of the British breakfast-table? No, by the Eternal! What had the first Gaston done? He ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... found the other in his vicinage he raised his head six feet above water and fell upon him tooth and nail—if he had nails. In their struggles these unpleasant neighbors made such waves that the fishermen's ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... at the slightest opportunity, but the opportunity never came. Wolf Larsen was too wise for that, and, besides, they had no adequate weapons. With their fists alone they had no chance whatever. Time and again he fought it out with Leach who fought back always, like a wildcat, tooth and nail and fist, until stretched, exhausted or unconscious, on the deck. And he was never averse to another encounter. All the devil that was in him challenged the devil in Wolf Larsen. They had but to appear on deck at the same ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... yields them hardly any game, fishing is almost equally unproductive of results; they are obliged to depend upon the storms which now and then fling some huge cetacean on their shores, and upon such salvage they fall tooth and nail, not even taking the trouble to ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... morts are their butchers, who presently make bloody work with what living things are brought them; and having made holes in the ground under some remote hedge in an obscure place, they make a fire and boil or broil their food; and when it is enough, fall to work tooth and nail: and having eaten more like beasts than men, they drink more like swine than human creatures, entertaining one another all the time with ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... "Don't care, either. Whatever it is, I'm going into it tooth and nail. I'll show them that I'm on the turf even if I can't ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... will," retorted Dave Darrin indignantly. His voice rang with righteous contempt. "Either you'll stand by at a time like this, or I'll fall upon you tooth and nail—-with the very able ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock
... it as one may know a book which one has not read. It pretty nearly made an end of James Fenimore Cooper, we believe. His fellow-countrymen fell on him, tooth and nail. We didn't take so kindly to criticism in those days as we do now, when it merely tickles the fat on our ribs, and we respond with the ironic laughter you profess to like so much. What is the drift of the book besides ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... Rolleston, "I thought how it would be, Helen; you have tormented him into defending himself, tooth and nail; so now we shall have the old story; he is innocent; I never knew a convict that wasn't, if he found a fool to listen to him. I decline to hear another word. You needn't excuse yourself for changing your name; I excuse it, and that is enough. But the boat is waiting, and we can't ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... well-being, is, perhaps, the most interesting aspect of the history of Christianity; it is certainly shown in an absorbingly interesting way in the development of the Christian feast of the Nativity. The conflict is keen at first; the Church authorities fight tooth and nail against these relics of heathenism, these devilish rites; but mankind's instinctive paganism is insuppressible, the practices continue as ritual, though losing much of their meaning, and the Church, weary of denouncing, ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... bravely enough, but I inwardly decided that instead of sixteen yards of fresh chintz I'd have to be satisfied with five yards. Poverty, after all, is not a picturesque thing. But I didn't intend to be poor, I protested to my troubled soul, as I went at that Harris Ranch wickiup, tooth and nail, while Iroquois Annie kept an eye on Dinkie ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... the Captain; "and I'll be second to my friend, Monseer Clapperclaw here. Come to it at once!-tooth and nail!" ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... do," Fenn replied. "Remember that if the people make peace for the country, it is the people who will expect to govern the country. It will be a notice to the politicians to quit. They know that. It is my belief that they, will resist, tooth and nail." ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... blame the von Lachnows because they fight tooth and nail for the retention of their old privileges—because they endeavour to hold the common people in a serfdom almost as complete as that of the Dark Ages. The dawn of constitutional government will be their twilight, the ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... partially dispelled by hanging oil-lamps; and babel enough to wake the Seven Sleepers. The uninitiated arriving at an Indian railway station are apt to imagine that a riot of some sort must be in progress. But it is only the third-class passenger, whose name is legion, fighting, tooth and nail, for the foot of space due to every possessor of the precious morsel of cardboard tucked into the folds of his belt: because he knows, from harsh experience, that when the train moves on more than a few will be left disconsolate, to watch its unwinking eye vanish out of their ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... the army. 'Forward, march!' said the sergeants. My clothes were in rags, my shoes worn out, from trudging along those roads, which are very uncomfortable ones; but no matter! I said to myself, 'As it's the last of our earthquakings, I'll go into it, tooth and nail!' We were drawn up in line before the great ravine,—front seats, as 'twere. Signal given; and seven hundred pieces of artillery began a conversation that would bring the blood from your ears. Then—must do justice to ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... by an overwhelming superior force, but General Korniloff, the commander, with a desperate effort and no little skill, succeeded in hacking his way through the enemy's lines and bringing a large portion of his force safely out of the trap. Inch by inch the Russian rear guards retreated, fighting tooth and nail to hold the pass while their comrades escaped. No less brave were the repeated charges made by the Austrians—clambering over rocks, around narrow pathways hanging high in the air, dizzy precipices and mountain torrents underneath. On Varentyzow Mountain, especially, a fierce hand-to-hand ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... along. And he's never done anything to you, fur's I see. He's given a lot to the town, and he's always been the most looked-up-to man we've got. Joe Dimick and two or three more chronic growls have been the only ones to sling out hints against him, till you come. Course I'm working for you, tooth and nail, and I will say that you seem to be gettin' the votes some way or other. But if Heman SHOULD step right out and say: 'Feller citizens, I'm behind Tad Simpson in this fight, and as a favor to me and 'cause I think it's right and ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... enough, nephew; you've shown enough devotion. Your desire to win the girl blinds you. The devil! you mustn't go at it tooth and nail. Let me sail the ship now; you can haul on the braces. Do you think it right to compromise your dignity as a magistrate ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... popping of guns as you never heard, and the air got so full of smoke you could only catch glimpses of them struggling together. There must 'a' been six hundred men in that battle, and it was terrible to see. Then they broke up into gangs and groups, fighting tooth and nail, and scurrying and scampering around, and laying into each other like everything; and whenever the smoke cleared a little you could see dead and wounded people and camels scattered far and wide and all about, and camels racing off ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... doubt of that. However, when Peter came to the years of discretion, Peter had sense enough in his noddle to discover, that "a rowing stane gathers no fog;" and, having got an inkling of the penny-pie manufacture when he was a wee smout, he yoked to the baking trade tooth and nail; and, in the course of years, thumped butter-bakes with his elbows to some purpose; so that, at the time of our colleaguing together, Peter was well to do in the world—had bought his own bounds, and built new ones—could lay down the blunt for his article, ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... do, they are dreadful. The laws of the country in which they sojourn have so far banished the use of knives from among them that they only grind them, otherwise these conflicts would always be fatal. They fight like tigers with tooth and nail, and knee and toe, and seem animated only with the spirit of daemonism. Luckily the worst weapon they use is a stick, and, if ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 572, October 20, 1832 • Various
... Felton: If I thought it in the nature of things that you and I could ever agree on paper, touching a certain Chuzzlewitian question whereupon F—— tells me you have remarks to make, I should immediately walk into the same, tooth and nail. But as I don't, I won't. Contenting myself with this prediction, that one of these years and days, you will write or say to me, "My dear Dickens, you were right, though rough, and did a world of good, though you ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... importation of sentimentality into politics. In plain words, Lord Redford, we, as a party, are asleep to what is going on. One statesman has recognized it, and proposed a startling and drastic remedy. We attack the remedy tooth and nail, but we place forward no counter proposition. It is as though a dying man were attended by two doctors, one of whom has prepared a remedy which the other declines to administer without suggesting one of his own. It is not a logical ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Jerry heartily. "I was just the same at your age. I used to scamp at school and shirk at college until I found myself so far behind fellows I despised that I was ashamed. Then I went after them tooth and nail until I caught them up and ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... endless friction and has strained the resources of two great Empires; but the allegation of Russian perfidy in the Merv affair may be left to those who look at facts solely from the insular standpoint. In the eyes of patriotic Russians England was the offender, first by opposing Muscovite policy tooth and nail in the Balkans, secondly by seizing Egypt, and thirdly by refusing to withdraw from that commanding position. The important fact to notice is that after each of these provocations Russia sought her revenge on that flank of the British Empire to which she was guided ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... father tooth and nail, was compelled to a reluctant admiration of his courage. But there was no cordiality between them. They were in accord again, as to the strike, although from different angles. Both of them knew that they ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... two bodies came together. Simultaneously the rifle descended, but for all its effectiveness it might have been a dead weed-stalk in the hands of a child. It was not a time for artificial weapons, but only for nature's own; a war of gripping, strangling hands, of tooth and nail. Nearly of a size were the two men. Both alike were hardened of muscle; both realized the battle was for life or death. For a moment they remained upright, clutching, parrying for an advantage; then, locked each with each, they went to the ground. Beneath and about them the fresh snow flew, filling ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... if you have. I'll fight for the ownership of my own children tooth and nail; and so will a good many other fellows, ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... etc.—In 1818, in a small town in the north, the Comte de—dining with a bourgeois sub-prefect and placed by the side of the mistress of the house, says to her, on accepting the soup, 'Thanks, sweetheart,' But the Revolution has given the lower class bourgeoisie the courage to defend themselves tooth and nail so that, a moment later, she addresses him, with one of her sweetest smiles, 'Will you take some chicken, my love?' (The French expression 'mon coeur' means both ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... child and the deep baying of a wolf, attracted their notice, and on running in the direction whence the cries sounded, they found a little girl defending herself against a monstrous creature, which was attacking her tooth and nail, and had already wounded her severely in five places. As the peasants came up, the creature fled on all fours into the gloom of the thicket; it was so dark that it could not be identified with certainty, ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... been numerous schemes for a second railway from London to Brighton in the course of the last twenty-five years. The present railway company has (they are not to blame for it) opposed each scheme tooth and nail. They have shown that they themselves satisfy the requirements of the public, and at the same time do not make a very high dividend. If a new grocer required an Act of Parliament to set up as a tea-retailer in Canterbury, could not all the existing tea-retailers there prove most ...
— Speculations from Political Economy • C. B. Clarke
... again, and made overtures to Preston and the Moderates. Rinucini, whose only policy was to hinder any union between the Catholics and Royalists, thereupon fled to O'Neill, and together they opposed the Moderates tooth and nail. The latter were now seriously anxious to make terms with the Royalists. The king's trial was beginning, and his peril served to consolidate all but the most extreme. Ormond himself returned late in 1648 from France; Prince Rupert arrived early the following year with ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... "Treating" that of "The Portrait" amounted to never forgetting, by any lapse, that the thing was under a special obligation to be amusing. There was the danger of the noted "thinness"—which was to be averted, tooth and nail, by cultivation of the lively. That is at least how I see it to-day. Henrietta must have been at that time a part of my wonderful notion of the lively. And then there was another matter. I had, within the few preceding ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... REPORT OF THE SENATE ON THE SUNDAY MAILS. The Portsmouth Advertiser has attacked this Report, "tooth and nail," imputing to it an influence as disastrous as that which attends the writings of Tom Paine or Citizen Brisset. The writer states, that the Senate by adopting it, "has virtually declared, that the laws of Almighty God ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 3: New-England Sunday - Gleanings Chiefly From Old Newspapers Of Boston And Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks
... Harold ought to fall in love with." I felt sure he would fall in love with you. I brought you here on purpose. I saw you had all the qualities that would strike Harold's fancy. So I had made up my mind for a delightful regulation family quarrel. I was going to oppose you and Harold, tooth and nail; I was going to threaten that Marmy would leave his money to Kynaston's eldest son; I was going to kick up, oh, a dickens of a row about it! Then, of course, in the end, we should all have been reconciled; ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... I have taken tooth and nail to the Bible, and am got through the five books of Moses, and half way in Joshua. It is really a glorious book. I sent for my bookbinder to-day, and ordered him to get me an octavo Bible in sheets, the best paper and print in town; and bind ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... if she thought I had any right to say how he must be brought up, it would mean nothing but perfectly hideous controversies all the time! So long as she thinks she has the upper hand, she'll be generous; she doesn't mind his being fond of me, you know. But she'd fight tooth and nail if she thought I had any rights! You see ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... R.A.M.C. men and their volunteer helpers were bringing in the wounded and the dead, that Emigration Jane saw a face upon a stretcher that was being carried through the rejoicing crowd, and screamed at the sight, and fell tooth and nail upon the human barrier that interposed between herself and it, and got through—how, she ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... I sat next him, in London, a month ago, at dinner, and that he then told me he was working, tooth and nail, at what he called the wonderful modern science of Connoisseurship—which is upsetting, as perhaps you're not aware, all the old-fashioned canons of art-criticism, everything we've stupidly thought right and held ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... with these "singeries." "All the world is so sick of her hands, that her very kinsfolk will not venture themselves anigh them." He concluded with something like a sigh, "The 'Tete d'Or' was a thriving hostelry under my old chum her good father; but she is digging its grave tooth and nail.' ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... to have pleased me better out of the pulpit than in it, for I find that "he called in the afternoon and chatted amusingly for an hour. He fell tooth and nail upon the Oxford Tracts men, and told us of a Mr. Wackerbarth, a curate in Essex, a Cambridge man, who, he says, elevates the host, crosses himself, and advocates burning of heretics. It seems to me, however," continues ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... bitter revulsion from gratitude to fierce enmity, I was determined to defend myself tooth and nail. At one stroke Abel Geddis had cancelled all my obligations to him. At the very moment when I was promising his daughter to help cover up his criminality, he had been deliberately plotting to ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... her. He always slept on these occasions at Mr. Ness's; but he was at Ford Bank the greater part of the one day between two nights that he allowed himself for the length of his visits. And even these short peeps were not frequently taken. He was working hard at law: fagging at it tooth and nail; arranging his whole life so as best to promote the ends of his ambition; feeling a delight in surpassing and mastering his fellows—those who started in the race at the same time. He read Ellinor's letters over and over ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... strictly true: whatever subject may turn up is laid hold on, tooth and nail, by the Ins and Outs of the day, who, dividing upon it, lift banners, and under the chosen war-cry, be it "Masonry," "Indian treaties," or "Bank charter," fairly fight it out; a condition of turmoil, which, viewed on the surface, may appear anything but desirable to a man ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... principle, Horace Vanney must have," remarked Jim Maitland. "He's fighting Laird, tooth and nail, and certainly he represents one phase of ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... lady publicly to transfer herself to the artistic plane and compete with men for laurels....But when it came to stripping off the delicate badges that only the higher civilization could confer, and struggling tooth and nail with the mob for no reason whatever—it ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... society had heaped upon its author. Its liberal opinions, which the Conservatives of to-day would pronounce milk-and-water, fluttered the dove-cotes of Toryism under the regime of Lord Liverpool, and provoked Wilson Croker, the "Rigby" of Lord Beaconsfield's "Coningsby," to fall upon it tooth and nail. Lady Morgan revenged herself by putting her scurrilous attache into her next novel, "Florence Macarthy," where he figures as Crawley. In 1819 the book-making couple repaired to Italy, and, of course, a sojourn in Italy meant a book ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... will tolerate and encourage, crowding the street car on a little fall in the temperature or the appearance of an inch or two of snow, packing up to overflowing, dangling to the straps, treading on each other's toes, breathing each other's breaths, crushing the women and children, hanging by tooth and nail to a square inch of the platform, imperiling their limbs and killing the horses,—I think the commonest tramp in the street has good reason to felicitate himself on his rare privilege of going afoot. ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... and his tail ridiculously insignificant. Nor could he cover the ground with the easy swinging jump that makes one suspect relationship between the red vole and the wood-mouse. Still for a common, vulgar, agrarian vole, he was passable enough, and could hold his own, tooth and nail, with ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... chance, my only one. I want those two young men. They're the right combination nation for me, to give real distinction to my undertaking. I have money, but they ain't the sort you can buy with money. There must be an incentive. If I get what they want, perhaps I can get them.' So I went into the job tooth and nail. Neither you nor Fenton was on the spot. I was—very much on it. Nothing was definitely fixed up between the Government and Fenton for the right to excavate at the Mountain of the Golden Pyramid, as they call the little old molehill, and I ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... is courteous deed, But I to thee repeat more plain and clear, Thou ill wouldst aught design against that steed, For, while I an avenging sabre rear, This I prohibit thee, and, should it need, And every better means of battle fail, With thee for this would battle, tooth and nail." ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... am convinced was the most meritorious act of my whole pilgrimage, as it was certainly the most zealously performed, was a remembrance I gave the squat fellow, who visited me in the early part of the night. He was engaged, tooth and nail, with another man, at a De Profundis, and although not asleep at the time, yet on the principle that prevention is better than cure, I thought it more prudent to let him have his rap before the occasion for it might come on: he accordingly got full payment, at compound interest, for ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... into the enclosure, and went to the door, but he looked cautiously round when he reached the threshold. Linda was just boiling soup over the fire when he rushed in, and, without saying a word, seized her by the girdle and dragged her away to his boat. She resisted him with tooth and nail, but he muttered spells which unnerved her strength and overpowered her feeble efforts, and her prayers and cries for help were unheard by men. But she cried to the gods for protection, and the Thunder-God himself came ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... them. It will be your turn next, Master Mercer. Yours after him, Master Ironmonger, however hard of digestion may be your wares. You will come third, Master Fishmonger. You fourth, Master Grocer. And when they are surfeited with spiceries and fish, they will fall upon you, tooth and nail, Master Goldsmith." ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... brown, with half a dozen round, unbroken, perfect geodes hanging from the ceiling like oriole nests. The geode taken proved on opening to be especially fine, being filled with pearly white calcite crystals of both the dog-tooth and nail-head forms, and was kindly presented to be added to the collection of cave specimens already purchased in town, to which were also added handsome pieces of "drusy" quartz, cave coral, ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen
... should be any at all I cannot explain, except by reference to that mysterious personal equation which modifies all conditions here. You will have made your reflection that the servants, as they are cruelly called (I have heard them called so in their hearing, and wondered they did not fly tooth and nail at the throat that uttered the insult), form really no part of the house, but are aliens in the household and the family life. In spite of this fact, much kindness grows up between them and the family, and they do not always slight the work that I cannot ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... added: "Germany stands for nearly everything we Americans are opposed to, tooth and nail. We just loathe militarism. Conscription's a thing we abominate. And feudalism is more dead over here than in ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... tooth and nail against the Wabash and Erie Canal that's projected to run from Lake Erie to the mouth of the Tippecanoe, Mr. Gwynne," said one of the citizens. "But it's coming through in spite of him and all the ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... rose, and fell upon her brother tooth and nail. She was a powerful child, and at the shock of her onset, the seat of Phil's chair gave way, and he "sat through" like little Silver-hair, and came suddenly to the floor, his head and legs sticking up helplessly ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... present time, therefore, any American manager who may have the sense and honesty to treat with me will be quite secure from the competition of English copies. I have licked old Conquest, and the lawyers are now fighting tooth and nail over the costs. The judges gave me one hundred and sixty pounds damages, but, as I lost the demurrer with costs, the balance will doubtless be small. But, if the pecuniary result is small, the victory over the pirates and the venal part ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... Swedes followed up their fire by leaping the counterscarp, and falling tooth and nail upon the foe with curious outcries. And now might be seen prodigies of valor, unmatched in history or song. Here was the sturdy Stoffel Brinkerhoff brandishing his quarter-staff, like the giant Blanderon his oak-tree (for he scorned to carry any other weapon), ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... of du Tillet's guests who had demolished Madame Marneffe tooth and nail, were seated round her table an hour after she has shed her skin and changed her name for the illustrious name of a Paris mayor. This verbal treason is one of the commonest forms ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... his throat he was swearing an inflexible persecution of Nora Black. The old expression of his sex came to him, " Oh, if she were only a man ! " she had been a man, he would have fallen upon her tooth and nail. Her motives for all this impressed him not at all; she was simply a witch who bound him helpless with the pwer of her femininity, and made him eat cinders. He was so sure that his face betrayed him that he did not dare let her see it. " ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... boys in full chase, but were suddenly brought to a stop by the main body of the Liberty Boys under Mark Morrison. Mark had heard the firing, and was out looking for Dick and the Liberty Boys at the same time, and now, seeing their danger, fell upon the enemy tooth and nail and ...
— The Liberty Boys Running the Blockade - or, Getting Out of New York • Harry Moore
... so pugnacious an animal, that even the quakers, who in all other things seem effectually to have subdued this part of their animal nature, carry on controversy, whenever they engage in it, tooth and nail.—Quarterly Rev. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 348, December 27, 1828 • Various
... returned, 'it's a bitter pill for you to swallow, and, as I have said, I am sorry for you. It will not be easy for you to be on terms of intimate friendship with a man who is compelled to fight your father tooth and nail, and there is nothing else for it at this moment but for you and me to say good-bye. Things may right themselves, but I see no use in mincing matters, and I tell you the honest truth when I say that I don't believe it, and that for the moment I don't even hope for it. There are some men,' ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... did nothing but laugh. "I've seen a few passages of arms," he said. "By Jove, you don't know what war is till you see two —— at it tooth and nail. Two—what, Lucy? Oh, I mean fine ladies; they have no mercy. Her Grace will set her claws into the fair countess. And as ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... program, for it merely substitutes the more deadly competition of nations for that of the individual, or even "trust" competition now existing, while Humanism, or Marxism, tends to a uniform condition of humanity which the American proletariat would fight tooth and nail because they would rightly believe that for them it would at present be a leveling ...
— The Inhumanity of Socialism • Edward F. Adams
... the next way to win her love is to linger her leisure. I measure my mistress by my lovely self: make a promise to a man, and keep it. I have but one fault—I ne'er made promise in my life, but I stick to it tooth and nail. I'll pay it home, i' faith. If I promise my love a kiss, I'll give him two; marry, at first I will make nice, and cry Fie, fie; and that will make him come again and again. I'll make him break his wind ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... it may perhaps be worth giving some additional glimpses from his letters of 1838. "I was thinking about Oliver till dinner-time yesterday," he wrote on the 9th of March,[15] "and, just as I had fallen upon him tooth and nail, was called away to sit with Kate. I did eight slips, however, and hope to make them fifteen this morning." Three days before, a little daughter had been born to him, who became a little god-daughter to me; on which occasion ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... suggested, unchained the woman, and she took a spear and went to meet the giant. The latter was angered, and he swallowed her, tooth and nail. This frightened ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... off for Hastings, Neb., where we were scheduled to play the next day. Arriving there Clarence Duval was taken out, given a bath, against which he fought with tooth and nail, arrayed in a light checked traveling suit with a hat to match, new underwear and linen, patent leather shoes and a cane. When he marched onto the field that afternoon he was the observed of all observers, and attracted so much attention ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... himself to believe that what was legal was right; and he knew how to stretch legalities to the utmost. As a convert, Mr. Keegan was very enthusiastically attached to the Protestant religion and the Tory party, for which he had fought tooth and nail at the ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... "Fight us tooth and nail though you may, we intend to have you married. You have happened upon us by chance, and you shall have no reason to repent of it. We are in ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... course." He did not dare look back, to see if her gaze was following him, but he thought: 'Chance or no chance, I'm going to fight for her tooth and nail.' ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... orgasmic. spasmodic, convulsive, explosive; detonating &c. v.; volcanic, meteoric; stormy &c. (wind) 349. Adv. violently &c. adj.; amain[obs3]; by storm, by force, by main force; with might and main; tooth and nail, vi et armis[Lat], at the point of the sword, at the point of the bayonet; at one fell swoop; with a high hand, through thick and thin; in desperation, with a vengeance; a outrance[obs3], a toute outrance[Fr][obs3]; headlong, head foremost. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... upon him, screaming, and in a moment they were at it, tooth and nail, heaping up old scores, producing fact after fact to prove, the one to the other, false friendship, lying manners, deceitful promises, perjured records. Vera tried to interrupt, Markovitch said something, I began a remonstrance—in a moment we were ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... first saw it, he jumped up and down like any Merry Andrew. He was not so patient as to wait till they could let him have a knife, but fell upon it tooth and nail. He ate and ate till school began, and after school was over he ate again; at night, too, it was the same thing till bedtime—nay, a little fellow that Henry had for a playmate told me that he put the ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... his own and his son's fate on the last cannon?"—Let Napoleon, then, accept the allied proposal by sending a counter-project, differing only very slightly from theirs, and peace would be made.[432] Caulaincourt needed no spur. "He works tooth and nail for a peace," wrote Stewart, "as far as depends on him. He dreads Bonaparte's successes even more than ours, lest they should make him ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... whom he had to deal, promised himself to avoid the steward, or to fight him, if need be, with tooth and nail. ...
— The Story of a Cat • mile Gigault de La Bdollire
... weeks I will say little, but my admiration and sympathy went out unfeignedly to Mary Cavendish. She ranged herself passionately on her husband's side, scorning the mere idea of his guilt, and fought for him tooth and nail. ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... busy. Once he became stirred up, and he proved a valuable helper. He went for the flames tooth and nail, smothered them with his coat, regardless of consequences, after he had slipped that article of wearing apparel off; kicked and tore and fought until it became evident that between them they were certainly making a decided impression ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... the Workers. We had several hot debates on the subject with a section of the Socialist League which called itself Anti-State Communist, a name invented by Mr. Joseph Lane of that body. William Morris, who was really a free democrat of the Kropotkin type, backed up Lane, and went for us tooth and nail. Records of our warfare may be found in the volumes of the extinct magazine called 'To-day,' which was then edited by Hubert Bland; and they are by no means bad reading. We soon began to see that at the debates the opposition to us came from members of the Socialist League, who were present only ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... there's no think like breakin' off short, there's nothink like turnin' the corner sharp, and fightin' the devil tooth and nail. It's an awful tussle at first, an' I thought I was goin' to knuckle under more'n once. So I would ef it hadn't 'a ben fer you, but you give me this little ban', Miss Amy, an' looked at me as if I wa'n't a beast, an' ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... down a slope from the Barrier edge in the hope of getting the ponies up it. Scott knew more about ice than any of us, and realizing the danger we didn't, still wanted to abandon things. I fought for my point tooth and nail, and got him to concede one article and then another, and still the ice did not move till we had thrown and hauled up every article on to the Barrier except the two ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... 5th of December. Jules Favre proposed a vote of censure on the Ministry for their Roman policy. The most distinguished speaker who followed him was Thiers, who said that though in opposition, he would support the Government tooth and nail in their defence of French interests at Rome. The debate was wound up by the memorable declaration of the Prime Minister, Rouher, that 'never' should Italy get possession of Rome. 'Is that clear?' he asked. It was quite clear. ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... in silver or wood, should be of one distinctive style and material. Tooth and nail brushes should never have silver handles, but hair and clothes brushes with silver backs are very smart. They should be kept polished with a chamois cloth, and occasionally a little silver polish or whiting. Your bureau or dressing table is the place for the hair and clothes ...
— The Complete Bachelor - Manners for Men • Walter Germain
... ready at a moment's notice to take up the cudgels in opposition to anything that savoured of an evangelical bearing. He was great in sermons, great on platforms, great at after-dinner conversations, and always pleasant as well as great. He took delight in elections, served on committees, opposed tooth and nail all projects of university reform, and talked jovially over his glass of port of the ruin to be anticipated by the Church and of the sacrilege daily committed by the Whigs. The ordeal through which he had gone in resisting ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... I am prepared by every logical and honest means to legislate for labour. I am prepared to legislate in such a way that the prosperity of the manufacturer, all the manufacturers in this country, must be shared by the workpeople. I am prepared to fight, tooth and nail, against twenty per cent dividends on capital and twenty-five shillings a week wages for the operative. There are others in the Cabinet of my point of view. In a couple of years we must go to the country. I am going to the country to ask for a people's government. Go to Manchester, if ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... lie 10 In this state-chamber, dying by degrees, Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask "Do I live, am I dead?" Peace, peace seems all. Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace; And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought 15 With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know: —Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care; Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner South He graced his carrion with, God curse the same! Yet still my niche is not so ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... imagine the schoolmaster hanging on to his share of the glory, tooth and nail," the Squire said with a grim laugh. "But old Hingston, good old soul, he ought to have let go, if you ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... running along the road, hid in a thicket, near which his victim would have to pass on his way home. As the boy came unsuspectingly along, young Crockett, with the leap of a panther, sprang upon his back. With tooth and nail he assailed him, biting, scratching, pounding, until the ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... Shelley, and Keats explored than I fell tooth and nail upon Swinburne, Morris, and Rossetti, and every other possible poet of my generation. I forget the exact date on which I became enamoured of the Elizabethan dramatists, but it was some time between fourteen and sixteen, ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... two cents!" shrieked the insulted "Sally", the Little Patti of the Vaudeville, and proceeded to carry out her threat. Whereupon Freckles, as she was known in the Asylum, set up a howl that was heard all along the line and turned upon her antagonist tooth and nail. At that moment the bell clanged a second time. A hush fell upon the multitude, broken only by a suppressed shriek that came from the vicinity of Freckles. A snicker ran down the line. The penalty for breaking silence after the second bell was "no supper", and not ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... dark night, and I found myself hanging over the yard with eleven others, the ship plunging and rearing like a mad horse, till I felt like being jerked off the spar; then, indeed, I thought of a feather-bed at home, and hung on with tooth and nail; with no chance for snoring. But a few repetitions, soon made me used to it; and before long, I tied my reef-point as quickly and expertly as the best of them; never making what they call a "granny- knot," and slipt down on deck by the bare stays, instead of the shrouds. ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... biggest of them—"we'll teach you to lock up ladies, for the indulgence of your vulgar amusement;" and, without one other word, they fell upon Bedos, with incredible zeal and vigour. The valiant valet defended himself, tooth and nail, for some time, for which he only got the more soundly belaboured. In the meanwhile the landlady entered, and, with the same gentle smile as before, begged him to make no ceremony, to proceed with his present amusement, and when he was tired with the exercise, hoped ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... His eyes staring at nothing, his mouth open and frothing, and breathing as one in a cold bath, he went forward demented, while Dan toiled after him. The charge checked at a high mud wall. It was Mulcahy who scrambled up tooth and nail and hurled down among the bayonets the amazed Afghan who barred his way. It was Mulcahy, keeping to the straight line of the rabid dog, who led a collection of ardent souls at a newly unmasked battery and flung himself on the muzzle of ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... the chance that it assailed the Ministry or endangered the purity of England. William Gifford was more than merely the editor of the Quarterly Review, for he was as well a Tory editor whose duty it was to pry into Whiggish roguery. Lockhart and Wilson, who wrote in Blackwood's, were Tories tooth and nail, biting and scratching for party. Nowadays, literature, having found the public to be its most profitable patron, works hard and even abjectly for its favor. Although there are defects in the arrangement, it must be confessed ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... says that second-classers 'ain't allowed abaft o' this'; An' there ought to be a notice for the fellows from abaft — But the smell an' dirt's a warnin' to the first-salooners, aft; With their tooth and nail-brush, aft, With their cuffs 'n' collars, aft — Their cigars an' books an' papers, an' their ...
— In the Days When the World Was Wide and Other Verses • Henry Lawson
... he exclaimed. "Look at those crawling lines of men, Jim, and think for a moment of the millions like them on the surface of the earth, each one fighting tooth and nail for his own kennel and the bone that he claims. Think of the centuries of stupid history back of each generation of those crawling things—their selfish habits, as fixed as the colour of hair and eyes, their pride, their little prejudices of race and ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... there's no doubt of it," answered Thorne, "but the point is, they've been fighting tooth and nail from the start. We had felt out their strength from the first, and it ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... becomes dear, not so much for its own sake, as because it is a trophy. Such a child knows not the joy of sharing; he knows only the joys of wresting victory against odds. This is indeed an evil that grows with the years. The child who holds onto his apple, his Candy, or toy, fights tooth and nail everyone who wants to take it from him, and resists all coaxing, is liable to become a hard, sordid, grasping man, who stops at no obstacle to ...
— Study of Child Life • Marion Foster Washburne
... I have been ever so foolish. Just now I can hear Daddy and Mr. Barnett saying good night, and I know that they have been fighting tooth and nail over that chess board. And I hear Mr. Barnett thanking Daddy, in a voice that is all choked up with emotion. I am so glad to think the dear little man is happy. Isn't it too bad, Aunt Jennie, that we can't all be happy all ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... identical. He said, too, that England wanted to do business with America, and as for this particular contract, not only did the British nation as a whole desire America to secure it, but the chaps who bent over the boards at No. 42-1/2 Threadneedle Street were plugging for her tooth and nail. His hollow-chested companions yelled their approval of this statement, whereupon Mitchell again arose, alternately flushing and paling, and apologized for what had happened in 1776. He acknowledged himself ashamed of the 1812 affair, moreover, and sympathized with his ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... Bridgeford and the Musical Banks for the first three years fought tooth and nail to blind those whom it was their first duty to enlighten. I was a Professor of the hypothetical language, and you may perhaps remember how I was driven from my chair on account of the fearlessness with which I expounded the ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... Whitely, an early inventor and manufacturer of harvesting machinery, who was for many years the king of the reaper business, and who fought the Hussey extension "tooth and nail," on January 8, 1897, wrote to the "Farm Implement News" upon the subject of McCormick's portrait on the silver certificates, then about to be issued, in which he refers also to ...
— Obed Hussey - Who, of All Inventors, Made Bread Cheap • Various
... "And you disapprove—tooth and nail?" she queried gently. "I hoped you were different. You don't know how tired we are of eternal disapproval from people who simply ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... man forgotten of God. That fight against slavery was a beautiful, a joyful thing to me, with all its penalties of compassion and guilty feeling afterward. I think the best thing a man or boy can do is to find out how far and to whom he is a slave, and fight that servitude tooth and nail as I fought Ace. It would make this ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... growing and growing, and you're not content with half. You want everything,—all the new states must abolish slavery. And after a while you will overwhelm us, and ruin us, and make us paupers. Do you wonder that we contend for our rights, tooth and nail? They are ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... service, and good-tempered except when excited to passion. She was fonder of joining with the boys, when they would let her, in their games, and, when angered, was ready to hold her own against them with tooth and nail. ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... the night's operations, he found the sty amazingly scratched and gnawed in many places, proving the strength of tooth and nail and the ferocity of his jailors. Several long deep gashes on one of the pigs showed where a panther had thrust in his paw by a crack and tried to seize ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.
... know, Jerry's muscles were like iron, and his first surprise over, he went for Crosby tooth and nail. ...
— The Young Oarsmen of Lakeview • Ralph Bonehill
... culprits; but that was only reasonable self-defence in the powers, since How to do it must obviously be regarded as the natural and mortal enemy of How not to do it. In this was to be found the basis of the wise system, by tooth and nail upheld by the Circumlocution Office, of warning every ingenious British subject to be ingenious at his peril: of harassing him, obstructing him, inviting robbers (by making his remedy uncertain, ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... tooth and nail. I took Ottilia's part; Gurli called her an old maid; I continued to champion her. On this afternoon Ottilia did not turn up. She wrote a chilly letter, making excuses and winding up by saying she could see that she was not wanted. I protested and suggested ...
— Married • August Strindberg |
