"Wrench" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... grave.' My soul was filled with conflicting thoughts, and for a moment even my faith seemed at a low ebb. I could hear my children's stifled sobs, and my darling wife shed silent tears. The thought of parting from them gave me the bitterest wrench. With my fleeting breath I gasped these words, 'That mercy I showed others, that show thou me.' The darkened room grew darker, and after that I died. In my sleep I seemed to dream. All about were refined and heavenly flowers, while the most delightful sounds and perfumes ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... himself did not comprehend America, he was an unsound teacher and made his youthful readers see her through a false medium. And I am further informed that in mature life it cost an effort, a mental wrench, so to speak, to get rid of this influence and see things as they really were, which was necessary for usefulness in lives cast in America. The United States was our country; she was entitled to our love and service; and yet ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... again to adjust the chair and make himself comfortable! The executioner then arranged the rope round his neck, tied his legs and his arms, and retired behind the post. At a word or a look from the priest the wrench was turned. For a single instant the limbs of the victim were convulsed, ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... irritating way of taking things for granted; but, when it came to the point, no one with eyes in his head could be really indifferent to that superb young creature. Kenwick glanced at the slender figure perched at the extreme prow of the boat, and straightway he experienced an awkward wrench somewhere in the neighbourhood of that organ to which is attributed so large a share in our emotional embarrassments. And it was at this juncture that Kenwick had recourse to a curious befooling of himself in which long practice had made him ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... ribs. "Ah! You go armed, I see. A shoulder holster, as I suspected. I knew you had nothing on this side." Seizing his victim's upstretched right hand with his own left, he gave it a sudden fierce wrench that all but snapped the wrist, and at the same instant he reached across and snatched the concealed weapon from its resting place. He flung the chauffeur's body away from him; there was a sharp click as he swiftly ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... how hard it would be to you in either case. On the one hand, what a cruel wrench it will give your heart to ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... Probably that of the Colorado is, as a whole, the most sterile and forbidding of any valley of equal size on earth, unless it be that of one of the usually frozen rivers in or near the Arctic circle. Even Mormon energy, industry, frugality and subservience to sacerdotal despotism, barely suffice to wrench a rude, coarse living from those narrow belts and patches of less niggard soil which skirt those infrequent lakes and scanty streams of the Great Basin which are susceptible of irrigation; mines alone (and they must be rich ones) ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... tones of resignation. "It was rather a wrench, parting with them, especially the baby. He got his first tooth the day ...
— Deep Waters, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... this last movement, however, and he picked up Gum roughly, and proceeded to wrench open its jaws. He felt all round his mouth, but the nugget was not there. He held the senseless body up by the tail and shook it, but no gold appeared. He took his head between his knees, and sounded all over its throat, but ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... a moment!" Taffy's ankle pained him, but the wrench was not serious. The cliff shelved easily. He slid down, clutching at the tamarisk boughs which whipped his face. "Where are you? I ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... them to abandon their wicked practice of private warfare and take up arms, instead, against the infidel. "Christ Himself," he cried, "will be your leader, when, like the Israelites of old, you fight for Jerusalem.... Start upon the way to the Holy Sepulcher; wrench the land from the accursed race, and subdue it yourselves. Thus shall you spoil your foes of their wealth and return home victorious, or, purpled with your own blood, ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... apples and candy hearts when he was in the third grade and she learning her A, B, C. So she felt a heartache to see him go like this. Their friendship was shattered, too. Nor had she experience enough to know that this could not have endured, save as a form, after the wrench he had given it. Yet she knew him well enough now to be sure that it was his vanity and self-esteem that were hurt, and not his love. He would soon find consolation among the other ranch girls, upon whom he had been ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... over the counter and wrench the threatening weapon from Mr. Bailey's grasp with one hand, while he throttled him with the other? We are obliged to say that he did not. He stood quite still, for something told him it would be dangerous to do anything ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... admiral, who laid the case on his desk, and took out his keys. None of them would turn in the ancient lock. With an impatient gesture, which escaped the others, the secretary seized Mr. Donovan's hammer, inserted the claw between the lock and the catch, and gave a powerful wrench. The lid ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... of the month. But they would not hear of that, and said it would be much better if they had it then, because otherwise the interest would accumulate so. I got quite cross with them after a bit, and told them what I thought of them, and then they gave the gimlet such an excruciating wrench that ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... the royal bench Of British Themis, with no mean applause, Pronounced, and in his volumes taught, our laws, Which others at their bar so often wrench, To-day deep thoughts resolve with me to drench In mirth that after no repenting draws; Let Euclid rest, and Archimedes pause, And what the Swede intend, and what the French. To measure life learn thou betimes, and know Toward solid good ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... a moment, and her brother turned idly back to his tractor and fitted a small end wrench to a bolt-head and gave it a twist. He seemed to think that as long as Marian and I were talking, he could well afford to get along with his work. I agreed with him. I wanted information, but I did not expect the entire world to stop progress to help me. He spun the bolt and started on another, ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... sovereign. To the hilt of the sword of France the keys of St. Peter were henceforth so firmly bound that, though there have been great kings, and conquerors, and statesmen who have wielded that sword, not one to this day has been able, though many have desired, to wrench ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... the house, you remember, one passed on one's left a gate, on the other side of which was the golf-course. There Manderson said he would get down, and I stopped the car. "You've got it all clear?" he asked. With a sort of wrench I forced myself to remember and repeat the directions given me. "That's OK," he said. "Goodbye, then. Stay with that wallet." Those were the last words I heard him speak, as the car ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... left her lips when they were followed by a cry of alarm. For the car had taken a sudden turn from the road and plunged into a growth of young poplars that fringed the hillside. The oldish man at the wheel gave it a violent wrench, but left his motor in gear, and the car half slid, half plowed its way into semi-vertical position among the young trees. The two occupants were thrown from their seat; the girl fell clear, but ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... of Jarvis and Max, working with one tool after another, to effect an entrance. Clearly this was not an ordinary closet lock which barred the way. But at last, with a vigorous wrench, Jarvis held the yielding door under his hand. From the top step he waved his free arm at the company, ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... was close at his heels he threw down his cap. The bear at once pulled up, smelt it all round, tossed it into the air with his snout, pawed it once or twice, then tore it to pieces with one wrench, and continued the chase. Very little time was lost in this operation. He was soon up with the man again; then a mitten was thrown down for his inspection. After that the other mitten went, the cravat ...
— Fast in the Ice - Adventures in the Polar Regions • R.M. Ballantyne
... tried to edge past Clint, but the latter swung in front of him. Then he was on the ball, and up again with it tucked against his stomach, and was plunging toward the goal line, a scant six yards away! A Claflin man dived at him and strove to pinion his knees, but with a wrench Clint tore one leg free and staggered on another stride. Arms clutched him about the shoulders and it seemed that he was pulling a ton of weight with him. Then there was a shock, his legs went from under him and ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... them as a young Indian would have been of an equal number of the scalps of his enemies. They proved that he was a brave. Every man would like to be a brave, though every man dare not. I confess I never had much ambition to wrench knockers, but that may have been because I was perfectly content with the world as it is without making it any more dangerous. I often think that people who put their heads into lions' mouths do not realise what a dangerous place the planet is ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... pugnacity, which it would be harsh to restrain, and at worst he dies fighting like a gentleman. A Tenerifan would shudder at the horror of our fashionable sport, where ruffians gouge or blind the pigeon with a pin, squeeze it to torture, wrench out its tail, and thrust the upper ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... the momentary efflorescence of pale light at the bend in the passage before him. And he realized that he was unarmed. He had not even a crowbar, not even a chisel or wrench, with which to defend himself. He knew he stood there ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... Chester, flinging down his wrench and passing his hand through a mop of curly hair; ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... you, now!" he exclaimed in reply, as I tried to wrench myself free. "Don't cry, my little pet, you haven't got your mammy here to ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... bundle was dragged from him, and the woman ransacked his pockets but they contained but a few shillings, Larry having hidden the wages of his treachery to his confederates in the folds of his neck-cloth. To pluck this from his throat, many a fierce wrench was made by the woman, when her attempts on the pockets proved worthless; but the handkerchief was knotted so tightly that she could not disengage it. The approach of some passengers along the quay alarmed the assailants of Larry, who, ere the iron grip released him, ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... his inventive faculty in overcoming certain obstacles raised by the wilderness in the path of comfort, Bud went to work with what tools he had, and with the material closest to his hand. Crude tools they were, and crude materials—like using a Stilson wrench to adjust a carburetor, he told Lovin Child who tagged him up and down the cabin. An axe, a big jack-knife, a hammer and some nails left over from building their sluice boxes, these were the tools. He ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... allowed to remain on the waistband of his overalls, boastfully alleging their indestructibility, my sympathies flew back to Mrs. Effie. There was a cartoon emblazoned on this placard, depicting the futile efforts of two teams of stout horses, each attached to a leg of the garment, to wrench it in twain. I mean to say, one might be reduced to overalls, but this blatant emblem was not a thing any gentleman need have retained. And again, observing his footgear, I was glad to recall that I had included a plentiful supply of ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... this a Christian country," she said, "and you haven't got a screwdriver, nor a bradawl, nor a monkey-wrench, nor a rat-tail file, nor no kind of a useful tool to bless yourselves with; and my Miss Peabody, that's worth ten dozen of you put together, has got to stay home from the Castle and eat warmed-up scraps served in courses, with twenty minutes' wait between 'em. Now you do ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... he had given his ultimatum, and was resolved to abide by it. At the same time he knew that it would be a terrible wrench to give up the girl. The very difficulty of winning her had stimulated to the utmost his passion for attainment. She was the best that existed in his superficial world, and fulfilled his ideal. Her delicate yet somewhat voluptuous beauty completely ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... would smile and tell him the wondrous news, and would put into his hands an unstamped letter to post, which he, with a wrench of the heart, would add to ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... a mighty wrench Sir Lavaine drew the spear forth from Sir Lancelot's side; whereat he gave a marvellous great shriek and ghastly groan, and all his blood leaped forth in a full stream. Then he sank swooning to the earth, with a visage pale ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles
... unutterable bitterness of former days.") which the loss of our poor dear Annie caused. And this seems to me perfectly natural, for one knows for years previously that one's father's death is drawing slowly nearer and nearer, while the death of one's child is a sudden and dreadful wrench. What a wonderful deal you read; it is a horrid evil for me that I can read hardly anything, for it makes my head almost immediately begin to sing violently. My good womenkind read to me a great deal, but I dare not ask for much science, and am not sure that I could stand it. ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... States, by a fluke as it were, and has made up his mind to be an American for the rest of his life and carve out a political career in this country. I'd have done the same thing, by Jove! First-class solution...although it's a pretty hard wrench to give up your own country. But when a man is too active to stagnate—there you are....I wish I had known where to find him to-day, but he lives on his ranch and I've only seen him once since. Lady Victoria took me to a ball night before last—Good God! Was ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... the purposes of the ceremony I become Jean de Courtois. By singular chance, the change of name is not such a wrench as it might be if I didn't happen to be called John ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... core. Again and again did the two friends press one another's hands in silence as they gazed into one another's tear-filled eyes. Indeed, Manilov COULD not let go our hero's hand, but clasped it with such warmth that the hero in question began to feel himself at a loss how best to wrench it free: until, quietly withdrawing it, he observed that to have the purchase completed as speedily as possible would not be a bad thing; wherefore he himself would at once return to the town to arrange matters. Taking up his hat, therefore, he ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... as I wrote those words. The oyster-cellars,—what do they do when oysters are not in season? Is pickled salmon vended there? Do they sell crabs, shrimps, winkles, herrings? The oyster-openers,—what do they do? Do they commit suicide in despair, or wrench open tight drawers and cupboards and hermetically sealed bottles for practice? Perhaps they are dentists out of the ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... praises the deep devotion to their Emperor which, marked the French at Waterloo. Never, indeed, had the national bravery of the French people been more nobly shown. One soldier in the French ranks was seen, when his arm was shattered by a cannon-ball, to wrench it off with the other; and throwing it up in the air, he exclaimed to his comrades, "Vive l'Empereur jusqu'a la mort!" Colonel Lemonnier-Delafosse mentions in his Memoirs, [Page 388.] that at the beginning of the action, a French soldier who had ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... of other apparently well-authenticated cases, possessed the "psychic force" which Maxwell, Richet, and Lombroso recognized? The hypothesis, difficult as it was, profoundly inexplicable from every point of view, was, after all, less of a wrench to the reason, came closer to the frame of his philosophy than the claims of Crookes and Wallace. To accept the spiritist faith even as a "working hypothesis" was impossible to his definite ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... deadly stroke, As falls on Mount Alvernus a thunder-smitten oak. Far o'er the crashing forest the giant arms lie spread; And the pale augurs, muttering low, gaze on the blasted head. On Astur's throat Horatius right firmly press'd his heel, And thrice and four times tugg'd amain, ere he wrench'd out the steel. "And see," he cried, "the welcome, fair guests, that waits you here! What noble Lucumo comes next ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... from the bench as he spoke. "It does; but it is more a matter of knack really. A great tuner named Clark taught me, and he learned it from Jonas Chickering himself. Old Jonas wouldn't allow any of his grand pianos to be tuned with an L head wrench." ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... bones cracked and his joints came loose; with wrists pinioned behind his shoulder-blades and walking on his toes he was propelled into the street. Since this was his first arrest, he did not know enough to go quietly, and when one of his captors released his grip he tried to wrench himself loose. Cossacks could not mistreat a prisoner more brutally than these policemen mistreated poor, cringing, spineless Jimmy Knight. He reached the station-house more dead than alive, and then when he saw a loaded revolver removed from his own pocket he utterly ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... plants at a time as required, cut or wrench off the foliage, and pack the roots, crown upwards, in boxes with moist leaf-mould or soil. They must be stored in absolute darkness in some cellar or Mushroom-house which is safe from frost, but a forcing temperature ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... turn the plug to get water in their dinner pails and found that the plug had rusted and would not turn. While they worked the fire grew. It was impossible to send a man back through it, so Grant sent a man speeding around the air course, to get a wrench from the pump room, or from some one in the main bottom to turn on the water. In the meantime he and the other two men worked furiously to extinguish the fire by whipping it with their coats and aprons, but always the flames beat ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... old he made a shaft-straightener of a piece of reindeer horn. He carved the head of the reindeer upon it, and made a hole for the shaft. Then he thrust the crooked stick through the hole and turned the shaft-straightener round and round as we turn a wrench, until he ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... back out into the river and fished around in the locker under the seat. You had a few old wrenches there, and some rags. Well, I owe you a wrench. It was the biggest one, which means it isn't used very ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin
... fergit the basque? Er what hez happened to it?" cried Sary, sympathetically, while Barbara struggled vainly to wrench herself free from the ill-smelling wrap that ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... on the bench, Forsook their ploughs on hill and plain, And tore themselves, with piteous wrench Of heart and hope, from love and gain, And trooped in ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... was a great gray ledge. There was a crack in the ledge big enough for a boy's foot. Billy was the boy to have his foot caught in it! He tried to pull it out, but the sudden wrench was not good for his foot, and there he stood yelling—he was ky-eying now in ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.
... over from his drugstore to join them. "Dammit," he said plaintively, dusting off his store jacket, "I been in the basement the last hour looking for an old pipe wrench. I swear ...
— The Invaders • Benjamin Ferris
... Mahommed's ears endured a wrench, and for a time he heard nothing; but he was too intent following the flight of the ball to mind whether the report of the gun died on the heights of Galata or across the Bosphorus at Scutari. He saw ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... street. She tried to turn back but a clanging trolley car cut in between her and the curb, a wheel of the junk-cart caught in the smooth steel track and skidded as if it were alive with a stupid will of its own. "It ain't so easy," she admitted. With a wrench she extracted the wheel, narrowly avoided an elevated post and crashed head on into a push-cart, laden with green bananas resting on straw. An Italian swore in two languages and separated ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... let us forget, either, that John's unwavering firmness wavered; that over the clear heaven of his convictions there did steal a cloud; that he from whom no violence could wrench his faith felt it slipping out of his grasp when his muscles were relaxed in the dungeon; and that he sent 'from the prison'—which was the excuse for the message—to ask the question, 'After all, art Thou He ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... barrack, and returned with it. To wrench by their united efforts, one bar from its place, and to fasten the rope to another, was the work of an instant. Space was just left them to creep through the aperture. Sir Henry was the first to breathe the confined air of the sepulchre. A voice warned him in what direction to ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... all human melancholy is in the sentiment of farewells. There are people roving about the world, to-day here, to-morrow afar, who cheat fate and avoid the most poignant wrench of this common experience by letting no root of their affection strike into a home or a heart Self-contained, aloof, unloved, and unloving, they make their campaign through life in movable tents that they strike as gaily as they pitch, and, beholding ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... tangled underbrush; rising swift on one side of a windfall without knowing what lies on the other side till he is already falling; driving like an arrow over ground where you must follow like a snail, lest you wrench a foot or break an ankle,— finds himself asking with unanswered wonder how any deer can live half a season in the wilderness without breaking all his legs. And when you run upon a deer at night and hear him go smashing off in the darkness at the same reckless speed, over ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... opposition to an opponent at once too delicate, too unreasoning, and too beloved to encounter. It seemed as if the absurdity of it would drive him mad, and yet he was held to it. He tried to give a desperate wrench aside from the main point of the situation. He leaned over Ellen, so closely that his lips ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Gregory was to pull off his large yellow whiskers and scatter them on the breeze with an air of considerable relief. Then he joined the flight of Turnbull, and even as he did so, with one wrench of his powerful hands rent and split the strange, thick stick that he carried. Inside it was a naked old-fashioned rapier. The two got a good start up the road before the whole town was awakened behind them; and half-way up it a similar transformation was ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... would spurn your offer as I would the proffered hand of Satan himself or of the vilest imp in the loathsome pit of night where he reigns! You have your answer. As well try to pluck the sun from his place in the heavens or wrench the sparkling stars from the firmament as to ...
— Ellen Walton - The Villain and His Victims • Alvin Addison
... not Flemming's intention to throw Merriwell too suddenly. He wanted a little time to wrench Frank's back, and then he would cast his foe writhing and ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... is true, it is true. But the knife? I cannot loose the knife if I would. How to wrench it from my own hold? Thou God of Victory be ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... he said. "I had not much faith in the patriotism of the Young Turks. I wonder how much the Sultan has offered. It must be a severe wrench for him to dip his hands into his money-bags, and Dubois will certainly demand a handsome figure before he disgorges his booty. However, we must possess our souls in peace until Talbot comes here and tells us all what he has learnt. At this ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... the sight of the bruised flowers caused him a fresh wrench. Lying there they were like a public advertisement of his betrayed heart. He picked them up and thrust them as far as he could reach up the ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... that pass whereat the boldest blench, The "aching time" will quickly turn to bliss, When, having borne the devastating wrench, I hear you murmur, "Rinse ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 26, 1920 • Various
... door she asked if at my leisure I would empty and bring in from the window-sill, around on the garden side of her patient's room a saucer containing the over-sweetened remains of some orange-leaf tea, that "D.V." had made "for to wrench out de nerves." She ...
— Strong Hearts • George W. Cable
... treasures, the coasts of Africa, where ships laden with gold-dust plough the sea, where the negro kings sleep on golden sand and the negro warriors fight with golden weapons. We will plunder these ships, dig the golden sand from under the sleeping kings, and bury them in it, wrench the precious weapons from the negroes' hands and give them cheaper ones of iron in ...
— The Corsair King • Mor Jokai
... to do this, clapping his knife into his mouth as he used to do when preparing a sheep for the shambles, he fell to ransacking the gentleman's pockets. He had hardly got his hand into one of them, but the gentleman snatched the knife out of his mouth and in the wrench almost broke his jaw. Lewis hereupon took to his heels, but the country being raised upon him, he was apprehended just as he was going to take water at Gravesend. But his pride in refusing the ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... thought of a final dying effort at a hand-to-hand struggle with his captor, but the power of the grip on the back of his neck induced him to abandon that idea in despair. Then he thought of a sudden wrench and a desperate flight, but as that implied the leaving of Snorro to his fate, he abandoned that idea too in disdain. Suddenly, however, he recurred to it, reflecting that, if he could only manage to make his own escape, he might ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... the amateur machanic, rising up with a wrench in one hand and an oil can in the other. "Whew! That mare has been traveling some. And such a beauty! You're from Bill Candace's I'm sure. Did she run away with you? Here, ...
— Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp • Alice B. Emerson
... speak to Mrs. Talbert—" He walked so inconclusively away that I was not surprised to have him turn and come back before I left my place. "Why, certainly! Make the announcement! It's got to come out. It's a kind of a wrench, thinking of it as a public affair; because a man's daughter is always a little girl to him, and he can't realize—And this ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... up. An immense rift soared above him, stretching its tortuous ramifications, at different points, into every part of the wall that was immediately visible. The whole structure seemed, at this place, to have received a sudden and tremendous wrench. But for the support of the sounder fortifications at each side of it, it could not have sustained itself after the shock. The Pagan gazed aloft, into the fearful breaches which yawned above him, with ungovernable awe. His small, fitful light was not sufficient to show him any ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... even while neither thought the disappointment would go very hard with their son. Richard could never divest himself of the instinctive prejudice with which soft words inspire men of his nature, and Susan's maternal heart was all in revolt against the inevitable, not merely grieving over the wrench to her affections, but full of forebodings and misgivings as to the future welfare of her adopted child. Even if the brightest hopes should be fulfilled; the destiny of a Scottish princess did not seem ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... whose 1st Battalion was fighting, the total given below is a proud achievement. It was always a wrench to part with candidates, but the figures prove that the strictures, often heard, that Commanding Officers refused to part with their best men were unfounded in the case of the London ...
— Short History of the London Rifle Brigade • Unknown
... she cast her eyes around As if his words had been but empty sound. 70 Then look'd to Heav'n, like one that would deny That such a thing could be beneath the sky. Again he ask'd her if she knew my name, And instantly an anguish wrench'd her frame, And left her mind imperfect. No delight 75 Thenceforth she found in any cheerful sight, Not ev'n in those time-haunted wells and groves, Scenes of past joy, and birth-place of her loves. If to her spirit any sound was dear, 'Twas the deep moan that spoke the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... They were treating me as best they could. Then when we came to a sharp rise over which the road curled and crawled, they halted suddenly, stretched out their hands, and bade me good-bye. They meant it to be a sharp wrench—to be over quickly. Just on the rim of the horizon stretched the grey of the fading Tartar Walls with their high-pitched towers. The sun sinking behind the western hills threw some last flames of golden fire, but the air remained chill. It was becoming cold, ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... of the tin box that Alan wore upon his back, and since there was no time to find the key and unlock it, seized the little padlock with which it was fastened between his finger and thumb, and putting out his great strength, with a single wrench twisted ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... by one of those rude iron padlocks which had been used in Asia since the times of Alexander. Gilbert had heard wonderful tales of the gardens at Constantinople, and he resented the idea of being so near them and yet so effectually excluded. He tried to wrench the boat's chain from the bows, and, failing, he tried to force the lock, but the iron was solid and the lock was good; moreover, the chain was too short to allow the skiff to float to the end of the wall, if he had launched ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... he could rise, reaching for the young man's throat with his heavy hands. Roy recognized the fatal "strangle hold," and, seizing his enemy's wrists, endeavored to tear them apart, but his left hand was useless, so with a mighty wrench he freed himself, and, locked in each other's arms, the men strained and swayed about the office till their neck veins were ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... not easy. The thing which had taken hold of him was as strong as he was and seemed to be watching him, grip for grip, hold for hold, wrench for wrench. It had not beaten him yet, but he knew that to yield a hair's breadth would mean a fall, and a bad one. He had almost relaxed his strength that little, last night, when he had ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... unite with me in prayer, for I have much to fear from a powerful enemy." I answered him, "Have compassion on your own weak subjects, that you may not see disquiet from a strong foe. With a mighty arm and heavy hand it is dastardly to wrench the wrists of poor and helpless. Is he not afraid who is hardhearted with the fallen that if he slip his foot nobody will take him by the hand?—Whoever sowed the seed of vice and expected a virtuous produce, pampered ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... as they lie, and I stand still thereto: 'Knowing that Satan can make any of God's ordinances a PEST and plague to his people, even baptism, the Lord's table, and the holy scriptures; yea, the ministers also of Jesus Christ may be suffered to abuse them, and wrench them out of their place.' Wherefore I pray, if you write again, either consent to, or deny this position, before you proceed in ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the turns of speech; and the little mannerisms, that every woman has, of gait and gesticulation, were absolutely and identically the same. The turn of the head was the same; the tired look in the eyes at the end of a long walk was the same; the stoop-and-wrench over the saddle to hold in a pulling horse was the same; and once, most marvelous of all, Mrs. Landys-Haggert singing to herself in the next room, while Hannasyde was waiting to take her for a ride, hummed, note for note, with a throaty quiver of the voice in the ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... answered back The Snider's snarl and the carbine's crack, And the blithe revolver began to sing To the blade that twanged on the locking-ring, And the brown flesh blued where the bay'net kissed, As the steel shot back with a wrench and a twist, And the great white bullocks with onyx eyes Watched the souls of the dead arise, And over the smoke of the fusillade The Peacock ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... swathed by a towel, in her own room; for another, the bursting of a hot-water pipe on the same floor as the nursery required the prompt attention of a man in a greasy cap and Johnnie Blake overalls, who, as he hammered and soldered and coupled lengths of piping with his wrench, discussed various grown-up topics in a loud voice with Jane, thus levying on her attention. Miss Royle's temporary incapacity set aside the program of study usual to each forenoon; and Jane's ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... heart and more than a little courage to wrench ourselves loose from the grip of our times and return to Biblical ways. But it can be done. Every now and then in the past Christians have had to do it. History has recorded several large-scale returns led by such men as St. Francis, Martin Luther and George Fox. Unfortunately ...
— The Pursuit of God • A. W. Tozer
... hearthstead by the pitchfork, the tines of which were stuck in the oak lintel of the chimney-piece, so that a ring of steel encircled his throat like the neckhole of a pillory, and held him there helpless and roasting. When I first caught sight of him he was making a frenzied attempt to wrench the prongs out, but, finding it hopeless, drew his tuck, and lashed out at the woman. She calmly shifted out of reach along the handle of the fork. He then hacked fiercely but without much effect on the wooden handle, and finally, in his despair and agony, poised the tuck and cast it at ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... was reclining in a deck-chair, wrapped around with rugs, and with a book lying in his lap. He was less drawn and pinched than when he first returned, but the change in him was still great enough to give her a sudden wrench at ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... this barren age of ours? Here are the men, the women, and the flowers, The seasons, and the sunset, as before. What does it mean? Shall not one bard arise To wrench one banner from the western skies, And mark it with ...
— The Children of the Night • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... glutinous with infusoriae and the oily consistence of the sea. Here a nail, there a block or lever, shaped out mentally by the touch, theorized, studied upon and thrown down. Now a hatchet, monkey-wrench, monkey's-tail, or gliding fish or wriggling eel, companions of his imprisonment. At last the cold touch of iron: the hand encloses and lifts it; its weight betrays its length; he feels it to the end—blunt, square, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... weakly tried to wrench himself free. "Huh," he said vacantly. He stared at the youth for a moment. At last he spoke as if dimly comprehending. "Oh! ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... cave and, unable to climb out again, had been the cause of an all-day search by his distracted parent and every neighbour for miles around. The elder Windom had blocked the bottom of the hole with a huge boulder, shorn from the side of the cave by some remote wrench of nature. Then he had half filled the cavity from the top by casting in all of the loose stones to be found on the crest of the rock, together with a quantity of earth. The work had never been completed. There still remained a hole ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... give our antiquaries a little wrench towards taste—but it was in vain. Sandby and our engravers have lent them a great deal—but there it stops. Captain Grose's dissertations are as dull and silly as if they were written for the Ostrogoth maps ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... am not," he answered in the same tongue, "but I am afraid that with those high heels you will wrench your ankle." ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... stretched downwards to take them. Just as he was doing so, he heard the root on which his foot rested give a great crack, and with a violent start he made a spring for one of the lower branches. The motion caused his whole weight to rest for an instant on his arms; unable to sustain the wrench, the heather gave way, and with a wild shriek he fell headlong down the surface ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... order of things should have come to them at once. The total overturning of the whole labor system of a country, accomplished suddenly, without preparation or general transition, is a tremendous revolution, a terrible wrench, well apt to confuse men's minds. It should not have surprised any fair-minded person that many Southern people for a time clung to the accustomed idea that the landowner must also own the black man tilling his land, and that any assertion ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... I have contrived to wrench out of Charles's black hands 50 pounds for Spencer, by watching the opportunity of his play, and should have got from anybody but himself one thousand of the 1,500, for he had won that, and more, the other night, and it was to have been paid to ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... put on a suit of greasy overalls, and went into the grimy vitals of the destroyer, a wrench in one hand, a chisel in the other. In about ten minutes he had solved the problem, explained it to the mechanics gathered about him, and then demonstrated just how simple the remedial measures were. All torpedo boat officers do this more often than not. It explains the blind ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... trying to see better. If it were Boyd, he had to wrench him out of that line and get the boy back. A hot emotion close to panic boiled ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... door they went on around Machinery hall. Some working men were passing by singly or in twos and threes. One had a wrench in one hand and a queer looking bottle in the other. The ludicrous side of the exposition now began to appear. Nothing can become so great that amusing things will not occur. They are the relaxations of mental life. One of the guards saw the man and ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... just as he thought he was up to her, she slipped away by a quick turn round trees. Mischief incarnate, but something deeper than mischief, too! He came up with her at last, and leaned over to seize her rein. With a cut of her whip that missed his hand by a bare inch, and a wrench, she made him shoot past, wheeled in her tracks, and was off again like an arrow, back amongst the trees—lying right forward under the boughs, along the neck of her little horse. Then out from amongst the trees ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... removed and replaced by means of the wrench, but it will not become accidentally loosened, and the bolt to which it is applied will always remain tight, as the nut possesses a certain amount of elasticity. The action of this nut is such as to prevent stripping the threads of either ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various
... After working all day on a bulletin paper whose city editor is constantly shouting: 'Boil it now, fellows! Keep it down! We're crowded!' it is too much of a wrench to find myself seated calmly before my own typewriter at night, privileged to write one hundred thousand words if I choose. I can't get over the habit of crowding the story all into the first paragraph. Whenever I flower ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... forward with a furious bound He wrench'd a rocky fragment from the ground By far more ponderous, and more huge by far Than what Phaeacia's sons discharged in air. Fierce from his arm the enormous load he flings; Sonorous through the shaded air it sings; Couch'd to the earth, tempestuous as it flies, The ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... thought—Viggo, his chief! Viggo, his idol! Viggo, his general! He must save him or die with him. One end of the rope was hanging on the branch and was within easy reach; but he did not venture to seize it, lest the wrench caused by his motion might detach ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... came from behind a bulkhead door at one end of the control room. I listened, and again the sound was repeated. With the lighter still flickering in my hands, I got to my feet. The bulkhead door was jammed, but I found a heavy telargeium spanner-wrench on the floor, and with a strength which frightened me—a strength which could have come only by some upset condition of gravitation—I soon crashed the door open. I had no sooner done it, however, than I forgot about the moan which ...
— The Winged Men of Orcon - A Complete Novelette • David R. Sparks
... and his limbs beating the air. He wore the mask of one about to die. What a breakdown! He bumped up against the window, then retired backwards, beating time with his arms and shaking his hands as though he were trying to wrench them off and fling them in somebody's face. One meets with buffoons in low dancing places who imitate the delirium tremens, only they imitate it badly. One must see this drunkard's dance if one wishes to know what it ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... as he gazed again and again up the track, watching for the train. Gaylord's impatience was not less than his own; these two, who had grown so close, had now become painful and impossible to each other, and longed for the wrench of farewell. ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... ships in co-operation on the Belgian coast were increasingly great owing to the powerful fortifications erected by the Germans, and the presence of enemy submarines at Zeebrugge. Whilst, therefore, those risks might well be run in support of a real, strenuous, and powerful endeavour to wrench the coast-line from the enemy's grasp, the Admiralty felt that the Navy could not afford to sacrifice strength in hanging about day after day exposed to such risks, in the sole hope of rendering some slight help to an attack which had no great or decisive object in view. ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... were exhausted? It looked that way. Bending down, he examined this sorry relic of humanity—examined it long and carefully. No bone was broken, the skeleton was almost complete; where it was not, the joints had fallen asunder without wrench, and the smooth round cranium showed not the slightest ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... together to wrench it into shape, but worked without avail. In the end they lashed it, put Nan on the Lady, and walked behind while the team pushed into the pitiless wind. Morgan wanted to cut the wagon away and take to ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... a few moments to wrench his head round and gaze up the slope toward the savages' camp, then turning to Jack he laid the blade flat upon the back of his hand, and forced it under the thin cane which bound his wrists, having hard work to do it in his hampered position ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... a panic. He felt as though he were about to lead the charge of the Light Brigade. He wanted a stiff drink. (But dentists may not drink.) If he failed to wrench the monument out at the first pull the result would be absolute disaster; in an instant he would have ruined the practice which had cost him so dear. And could he hope not to fail with the first pull? At best he would hurt her indescribably. ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... who had anticipated his intentions. As the blow was struck The Sky Pilot had risen; and now he sprang forward, for all his age and bulk as nimble as a cat, and seized Soup Face by the wrist. A quick wrench brought a howl of pain to the would-be assassin, and the knife fell to ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... last match. I have now to rely on cordite, which, however, only acts as a spill. You get a rifle cartridge (there are plenty to be got, the infantry seem to drop them about by hundreds), wrench out the bullet and wad, and find the cordite in long slender threads like vermicelli. You dip this in another man's lighted pipe, when it flares up, and ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... The wrench to the fisherman's knee proved more serious than he had anticipated. The doctor pronounced it out of the question that he should be moved for some days ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... despair, waiting for further developments. I clung to Mrs. Delaney like my own mother, not knowing what to do. The cause of the stampede we were told was that they had heard the report of a gun. That report was fortunate for us, as it was the intention of the Indians to wrench us from our half-breed ...
— Two months in the camp of Big Bear • Theresa Gowanlock and Theresa Delaney
... a stoppage and readjustment of the traces. There are no reins, the dogs being fastened two abreast on either side of a long rope. To start off you seize the sled with both hands, give it a violent wrench to one side, and cry "Petak!" when the team starts off (or should start off) at full gallop, and you jump up and gain your seat as best you may. To stop, you jab an iron brake into the snow or ice and call out "Tar!" But the management of ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... beautiful as the hills in spring, frowning eyes as clear as the streams in autumn, a face, with transparent skin, and a slim waist, was elegant and beautiful and almost the very image of Lin Tai-yue. Pao-yue could not, from the very first, make up his mind to wrench himself away. But as he stood gazing at her in a doltish mood, he realised that, although she was tracing on the ground with the gold hair-pin, she was not digging a hole to bury flowers in, but was merely delineating characters ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... the proper place to remark of our author, that the same strong self-hood, which led him to measure strength with Mr. Covey, and to wrench himself from the embrace of the Garrisonians, and which has borne him through many resistances to the personal indignities offered him as a colored man, sometimes becomes a hyper-sensitiveness to such assaults as men of his mark will meet with, on paper. Keen and unscrupulous opponents have ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... These perpetual embarrassments became at length very wearying, and in order to relieve the tedium of our progress I requested the Doctor to remove one of my teeth. This he did with the greatest ability—a wrench to starboard,—another to port, and up it flew ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... as he was, the doctor felt that he could ill bear to quarrel with Greshamsbury. A man past fifty cannot easily throw over the ties that have taken twenty years to form, and wrench himself away from the various close ligatures with which, in such a period, he has become bound. He could not quarrel with the squire; he could ill bear to quarrel with Frank; though he now began to conceive that Frank had used him badly, ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... lined up behind the wagon, and the boys, accompanied by Lolo, rushed for the door. It was but the work of a moment to wrench the bars away, and without waiting for any ceremony George and ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Conquest of the Savages • Roger Thompson Finlay
... the world had builded foolishly; for with early manhood, they fell in love with the same round-cheeked school-teacher. Jonathan married her, after what wrench of feeling I know not; and the other fled to the town, whence he never returned save for the briefest visit at Thanksgiving or Christmas time. The stay-at-home lad is a warm farmer, and the little school-teacher a mother whose unlined face shows the record ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... who intended destroying a dog would take the trouble to wrench the name-plate off his collar," I pointed out. "The dog is alive, and not unconscious. They need his collar to keep him in hand, but they are afraid the plate might give them away. Mr. Garnesk is right, I'm sure, and if we find the thief we find ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux |
