"Wrest" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to wrest the initiative from their opponents, without, however, succeeding to any extent. On the Posina front on the evening of June 12, 1916, after violent artillery preparation, they attacked Monte Forni Alti, the Campiglia (both southwest of Posina), Monte Ciove and ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... position over night, shifting as expediency demanded until most of his colleagues, particularly the irreconcilables, were exasperated beyond endurance. At one of the most critical periods Senator Borah appealed to Senator Knox to wrest the leadership from the Massachusetts Senator, with intimations that he would have the support of the "bitter enders" at the forthcoming convention at Chicago. Mr. Knox does not love Mr. Lodge but he refused to consider the proposal. He was indifferent. His last great political opportunity ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... of ending the murder in Cuba. One of the very earliest things I had to do with as a reporter was the Virginius massacre, and ever since it had been bloodshed right along. It was time to stop it, and the only way seemed to wrest the grip of Spain from the throat of the island. I think I never quite got over the contempt I conceived for Spain and Spanish ways when I read as a boy, in Hans Christian Andersen's account of his travels in the country of the Dons, that the shepherds ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... fine-spun metaphysical cobwebs. They at length collected all these quodlibetical questions into enormous volumes, under the terrifying form, for those who have seen them, of Summaries of Divinity! They contrived, by their chimerical speculations, to question the plainest truths; to wrest the simple meaning of the Holy Scriptures, and give some appearance of truth to the most ridiculous and ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... the Spaniards frequently call it." Even after the occupation and settlement by the Spaniards, so feeble were their establishments that, as Vancouver reports to the Admiralty, it would take but a small force to wrest from Spain this most valuable possession. But though the growing feebleness of Spain presaged the time when her hold upon America would be loosened, the standard of individual heroism was not lowered, and the achievements of Portola and of Anza rank with ...
— The March of Portola - and, The Log of the San Carlos and Original Documents - Translated and Annotated • Zoeth S. Eldredge and E. J. Molera
... was thy doom deserved; thou didst not spare Life's tenderest ties, but cruelly didst part Husband and wife, and from the mother's heart Didst wrest her children, deaf to shriek and prayer; Thy inner lair became The haunt of guilty shame; Thy lash dropped blood; the murderer, at thy side, Showed his red hands, nor feared the vengeance due. Thou didst sow earth with crimes, and, far and wide, A harvest ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... talents, woman, the moment she escapes from the despotism of brute force, and is suffered to unfold and exercise her powers in her own legitimate sphere, shares with man the sceptre of influence; and without presuming to wrest from him a visible authority, by the mere force of her gentle nature silently directs that authority, and so rules the world. She may not debate in the senate or preside at the bar—she may not read philosophy in the university or preach in the sanctuary—she may not direct ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... was given to him and to his company to plan and initiate,—he declines to be held any longer responsible for the blind, demoniacal, irrational spirit, that would seize on his great instrument of science, and wrest it from its nobler object and intent, and debase it into the mere tool of the senses; the tool of a materialism more base and sordid than any that the world has ever known; more sordid, a thousand-fold, ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... with swords drawn, wrest his glass out of his hand, and break it against the ground: his rout make sign of resistance, but are all driven in. The ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... in defiance of statute laws grown weak and impotent, the white man will wrest from whatsoever hand may hold it, the right to protect the integrity of his race, the safety of his women, the sanctity of his two-fold temple ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... sudden movement he threw himself upon the officer, and attempted to wrest the tin case from his hands. Christy, who was standing behind him, seized him by the collar with both hands, and hurled him to the deck. A moment later two seamen, by order of Mr. Carlin, took him each by his two arms, and held ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... of one of England's great naval victories. These rocks, so still and peaceful now, have resounded to the din of deadly strife, when, in the year 1797, a Spanish fleet, of twenty-seven sail, tried to wrest the dominion of the seas from its lawful holders, the English fleet, under Sir John Jervis, numbering only half that of ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... "The Freshman Full-Back" is that of character. The action has real dramatic quality and is staged with the local color of a college contest. But the great value of the action is ethical, for it shows that one may "wrest victory from defeat" and that it is a shameful thing to be ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... hindered?" / outspake Siegfried then; "Whate'er in friendly fashion / I cannot obtain I'll yet in other manner / take that, with sword in hand. I trow from them I'll further / wrest both their vassals and ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... I exclaimed, "you are not made for a mortal, and I do not believe that you will ever be mine. At the very moment of possessing you some miracle will wrest you from my arms. Your divine spouse, perhaps, jealous of a simple mortal, will annihilate all my hope. It is possible that in a few minutes ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the Lord does not here intend to intimate that all the priests and Levites were cruel, and all Samaritans tender-hearted: to apply them so would be to wrest his words. This teacher grasps his instrument by the extremity, first one extremity and then the other, that his lesson may reach further than if he had grasped it by the middle. The honourable office, and even the generally high character, of priest and Levite will not cover the sin ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... Little nations? They hinder the advance of Germany. Trample them in the mire under the German heel. The Russian Slav? He challenges the supremacy of Germany and Europe. Hurl your legions at him and massacre him. Britain? She is a constant menace to the predominancy of Germany in the world. Wrest the trident out of her hands. Ah! more than that. The new philosophy of Germany is to destroy Christianity. Sickly sentimentalism about sacrifice for others—poor pap for German digestion. We will have a new diet. We will force it on the world. It ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... his body at the cost of tremendous effort. Blake was like a leader commanding troops which had begun to retreat. But more power came to him under the spur of action and the pressing realization that he must give Margherita a chance to get safely away. If he could not wrest the weapon from Maruffi's hands he knew that he must receive those four remaining bullets in his own body. He rather doubted that he could take that ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... Tartars was in the dust. Hitherto deemed invincible, they had been beaten by a handful of foreigners. Was not this a sure sign that their divine commission had been withdrawn by the Court of Heaven? If so, might it not be possible to wrest the sceptre from their feeble grasp, and ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... faithless wife! Is there sin in thy knowledge, Zanoni? Sin must have sorrow: and it were sweet—oh, how sweet—to be thy comforter. But the child, the infant, the soul that looks to mine for its shield!—magician, I wrest from thee that soul! Pardon, pardon, if my words wrong thee. See, I fall on my knees ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... famous Bottle Conjurer hoax, were incited by the Culloden Duke of Cumberland to pull down the house! The royal prince stood up in his box waving his drawn sword, which someone, however, ventured to wrest from his grasp. The interior fittings of the theatre were completely destroyed; the furniture and hangings being carried into the street and made a bonfire of, the curtain surmounting the flaming heap like a gigantic flag. A riot ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... those who make a sudden invasion on the enemy early in the morning and therein raise the dust, and therein pass through the midst of the adverse troops . . . . by the Message of the Great Book and by my love will I wrest ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... parley, when some of the men from each side approached the line of demarcation. Joe McKay was the interpreter, and while he was speaking, an Indian, named Little Chief, grabbed at his revolver and tried to wrest it from him. A struggle ensued in which the Indian was worsted. Then raising his weapon McKay fired at the red skin, who dropped dead. This was the signal for battle. The voice of Dumont could be heard ringing through the hollow ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... the day she attempted to wrest a promise from Beatrice that she would hold no further communication with the prohibited lover. But Beatrice would give no ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... returning. They too had walked eighty-five miles in forty-eight hours, and had had but one fowl between them. They had in fact got out of the village almost immediately after Charles, but closely beset with natives armed with bows and poisoned arrows. Some tried to wrest Mr. Procter's gun from him, and even got him down, when he defended himself with his heels, until Mr. Scudamore, who was a little in advance, fired on his assailants, when they gave back; but an arrow aimed at him penetrated the ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... when later in the night Makrisi brought Mahi de Vernoil, disguised as a mendicant friar. This outlaw pleaded with Sire Raimbaut to head the tatters of Lovain's army, and showed Raimbaut how easy it would be to wrest Venaissin from Prince Guillaume. "We cannot save Lovain," de Vemoil said, "for Guillaume has him fast. But Venaissin is very proud of you, my tres beau sire. Ho, maker of world-famous songs! stout champion of the faith! my men and I will now make you Prince of Orange in place of the fiend who rules ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... awe; but now they were more especially apprehensive of danger, because there was a provocation for seeking vengeance. They knew he had every means to involve them in a more signal overthrow than that which awaited himself. The only alternatives were, either to wrest the weapons of destruction from his hands, or render the possessor incapable of wielding them. They were driven almost to desperation, when they reflected on their deeds of wickedness reaching through many ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... in the history of the United States of America are loyal citizens called upon to throw themselves into the breach of municipal affairs, and wrest from the hands of ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... down by ignoble commonness, thy high birth is impaired by the estate of thy husband! But thou, if any pith be in thee, if valour reign in thy soul at all, if thou deem thyself fit husband for a king's daughter, wrest the sceptre from her father, retrieve thy lineage by thy valour, balance with courage thy lack of ancestry, requite by bravery thy detriment of blood. Power won by daring is more prosperous than that won by inheritance. Boldness climbs ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... ye, with honest rage, devoted pour Your inmost bosom's gore!— Yet give one hour to thought, And ye shall own, how little he can hold Another's glory dear, who sets his own at nought O Latin blood of old! Arise, and wrest from obloquy thy fame, Nor bow before a name Of hollow sound, whose power no laws enforce! For if barbarians rude Have higher minds subdued, Ours! ours the ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... protection of the Marshal de DURAS,[8] her lover, she prevailed over her formidable rival, who, however, had on her side the public, and the sublimity of her talent. This quarrel arose from Madame VESTRIS wishing to wrest from Mademoiselle SAINVAL the parts for which she was engaged. A memoir, written by an indiscreet friend, in favour of the latter, which she scorned to disavow, and in which the court was not spared, caused her to ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... the Latin!" exclaimed he. "I forbid thee to read or learn the same, for I well know thou wouldst wrest it to thine ...
— Mistress Margery • Emily Sarah Holt
... look down with mercy's eye On sin's accurst abuses, And seek to wrest from charity Some ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... Malta, there setting free seasoned troops for operations in South Italy. The hardihood of Pitt in sending forth this expedition has often provoked criticism. But it was worth while to run serious risks to save Sicily from the grip of Napoleon, and to wrest from him the initiative which he had hitherto enjoyed unchallenged. Besides, the Czar insisted on that effort, and made it almost a sine qua non of his alliance. In a military sense the results were contemptible; in the diplomatic sphere ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... that heavenly power seems to be coming to his relief. For nearly half a century he has been holding in his hand the keys of the great pathway from southern Russia to the East, despite the utmost efforts of the czar to wrest them from him. In vain did the emperor Nicholas visit the Caucasus to cheer on his troops; in vain did the grand-duke Alexander, the present emperor, take part in the campaign of 1850; or Prince Baratinksky in 1852 attempt by his bravery to overawe ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... and his eyes always drew her nearer and nearer to him; and the forest and its strange voices seemed a dark, opposing influence, which strove to take possession of her heart and to wrest her away from him forever; she helplessly clung to him; every thought and emotion of her soul clustered about him, and every hope of life and happiness was ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... troubles of the day, attempted to force his way through the line of armed men which had been formed at each side of the street. The guard very properly refused to let him pass. In his drunken fury he tried to wrest a gun from one of them, which, being accidentally discharged in the struggle, inflicted a severe wound upon a Mr. Oxley, and shattered in the most dreadful manner the thigh of Senor Pizarro, a man of high birth and breeding, a porteno of Buenos Aires. This frightful accident ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... carried away Frances by force, Lady Elizabeth made an effort to recover her by a similar method. Gerrard wrote to Carleton[20] that Lady Elizabeth, having heard that Frances was to be taken to London, determined to meet her with an armed band and to wrest her from Coke's power. ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville
... themselves, they were only too ready to be convinced that the denunciations of the abolitionists were the first presage of the storm that was presently to overwhelm them, to reduce their States to provinces, to wrest from them the freedom they had inherited, and to make them hewers of wood and drawers of water to the detested ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... your will, And then you sware you well know how, Though now you swerve, I know how ill. But thus this world his course doth pass, The priest forgets a clerk he was, And you that have cried justice still, And now have justice at your will, Wrest justice wrong ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... administration, and especially the fatal treason of Stanley and of York, made it seem important for the true lovers of their country to wrest from the state-council, where the English had two seats, all political and military power. And this, as has been seen, was practically but illegally accomplished. The silent revolution by which at this epoch all the main attributes of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... flood of youth, seeking almost in vain to re-discover the spring that moved me then. Yet, though I can not feel it again, I know dimly what it was, that high, strange, noble, ludicrous ideal of my office which so laid hold on me as to scatter passion's forces and wrest me from the arms of her I loved. I can not now so think of my kingship, so magnify its claim, or conceive that it matters so greatly to the world how I hold it or what manner of man I show myself. I come to the conclusion (though it may seem to border on paradox) ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... more entered into the national spirit. French fur-traders, wood-runners, voyageurs had drifted North and West, men of infinite resources, as much at home with a frying-pan over a camp-fire as over a domestic hearth, who could wrest a living from life anywhere. English adventurers of similar caliber had drifted in from Hudson Bay. These little lords in a wilderness of savages had scattered west as far as the Rockies, south to California. They knew no law but the law of a strong right arm and kept peace among ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... Hindenburg established his headquarters at Forest Hills, where, less than a year before, his gallant countryman, the great Fraitzheim, had made an unsuccessful effort to wrest the Davis cup from the American champion and ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... final resting place, I readily admit; but the hardship consists in this—that they are driven from particular positions to which their early associations lend a preference. What was it that stirred into a flame, the fierce hostility of Tecumseh but the determination evinced by your Government to wrest, from the hands of his tribe, their last remaining ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... follow from securing the possession of this country, combined with the evidence of the value set upon it by our enemies, who, during the war which terminated at that period, had, at an immense expence, attempted to wrest it from us, induced that plan, for the settlement of Novia Scotia, to which we have before referred; and which, being prosecuted with vigour, though at a very large expence to this kingdom, secured the possession of that province, and formed ...
— Report of the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations on the Petition of the Honourable Thomas Walpole, Benjamin Franklin, John Sargent, and Samuel Wharton, Esquires, and their Associates • Great Britain Board of Trade
... peace as she had grown by war.... The warfare of tariffs and premiums skilfully conducted by him tended to reduce within just limits the exorbitant growth of commercial and maritime power which Holland had arrogated at the expense of other nations; and to restrain England, which was burning to wrest this supremacy from Holland in order to use it in a manner much more dangerous to Europe. The interest of France seemed to be peace in Europe and America; a mysterious voice, at once the voice of the past and of the future, called for her ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... dead muscles contract, it must mean that some external force has penetrated them." This was the simple argument of the "genius," the "great discoverer." And seeking this force, Volta, by means of his piles, was able to wrest from the earth electricity, which is, literally as well as figuratively, the "gleam" of an immense progress. Laying due weight upon a little fact, such as that of a dead being having moved, considering it soberly without any fanciful additions, and fixing the mind upon the ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... answer would be, Peter had not the faintest idea. To him personally the answer was indifferent. From his point of view, the worst had already happened, and no further disgrace could affect him much. But Hilary desperately cared, so he must do his best; he must walk into the fire and wrest out of it ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... voice, Lord Moranzone. Madam, it were a precedent most evil To wrest the law from its appointed course, For, though the cause be just, yet anarchy Might on this licence touch these golden scales And ...
— The Duchess of Padua • Oscar Wilde
... and sheltered her mother, who sat all day slowly making beautiful baby linen for one of the big shops, and cemented Henrietta's friendship with the lachrymose Mrs. Banks. To be faced with a mutton bone and a few vegetables, to have to wrest from these poor materials an appetizing meal, was like an exciting game, and she played it with zest and with success. She had the dubious pleasure of hearing Mr. Jenkins smack his lips and seeing him distend his nostrils with ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... misrule, from his inability to persuade his widowed mother to resign the power willingly into his hands. He often tamely submits to see his country ruined, and his family dishonoured, as at Jhansi, before he can bring himself, by some act of desperate resolution, to wrest it from her grasp.[3] In order to prevent his doing so, or to recover the reins he has thus obtained, the mother has often been known to poison her own son; and many a princess in India, like Isabella of England, has, I believe, destroyed her husband, ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... Milton vainly now implore, And Powell prosper as he did before, Yet 'twere too much that, making no ado, Thy saints be slaughtered and be slandered too. So, Lord, make Knight his weapon keep in sheath, Or do Thou wrest ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... is in no man's hands. The choice is only and occasionally in the manner. All must die. To a few, and only a few, is granted the opportunity of dying martyrs. They rush on to meet the King of Terrors. They wrest the crown from his awful brow, and set it on their own triumphant. They die, not from inevitable age or irresistible disease, but in the full flush of manhood, in the very prime and zenith of life, in that ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... triumphs more brilliant than those of most other sciences. But if it has done much in the direction of satisfying man's straining and thirsting mind and his noble aspirations for knowledge, physical as to its most important particulars, it has ever laughed at man's puny efforts to wrest the great secrets of Infinitude by the help of only mechanical apparatus. While the spectroscope has shown the probable similarity of terrestrial and sidereal substance, the chemical actions peculiar to the variously progressed ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... of King Solomon the Jews made an attempt to wrest from the Phoenicians at least a part of the world's trade. Solomon built ships and imported Phoenician sailors for his fleet. For a time it seemed as if the Israelites might become the rivals of their teachers in the art of navigation ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... Carleton's army, which was to have taken Crown Point and Ticonderoga, gained possession of the upper Hudson, and invaded the province of New York from the north. After the Americans were chased out of Canada, Carleton's operations were stopped by the lack of a fleet to wrest the command of Lake Champlain from the rebels. During the summer he devoted himself with extraordinary energy to collecting and building vessels. Ships sent out from England were taken to pieces, carried overland to St. John's and put together again, little gunboats and transports were ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... deeper than the hoe could scratch, and opened the veins where the coal slept its unstirring sleep. The old man had not set such store by learning as had Samson's father, and the little shaver's education ended, except for what he could wrest from stinted sources and without aid. His mission of "killing Hollmans" was not forgotten. There had years ago been one general battle at a primary, when the two factions fought for the control that would insure the victors safety against "law trouble," and put into their hands ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... generally intelligible example—what noble-minded man does not wish and aspire to repeat his own life in better wise in his children and, again, in their children, and still to continue to live upon this earth, ennobled and perfected in their lives, long after he is dead; to wrest from mortality the spirit, the mind, and the character with which in his day he perchance put perversity and corruption to flight, established uprightness, aroused sluggishness, and uplifted dejection, and to deposit these, as his best legacy to posterity, in the spirits of his survivors, ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... whether reasonable or lunatic. The strangest wishes—yet most incident to men who had gone deep into scientific pursuits, and attained a high intellectual stage, though not the loftiest—were, to contend with Nature, and wrest from her some secret, or some power, which she had seen fit to withhold from mortal grasp. She loves to delude her aspiring students, and mock them with mysteries that seem but just beyond their utmost reach. To concoct new minerals, to produce ...
— The Intelligence Office (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... corporation who recognized the influence of his old family upon their particular line of business; but it was a line that his father and his grandfather had scorned to touch, and he had grown up with an honest contempt for it. He just could not bring himself to wrest the living from the poor and needy, and plunder the unsuspecting, and he knew that was what it would be if he closed with this offer. Not yet had he been reduced to such depths, he told himself, shutting his fine lips in a firm curve. "No, not if ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... Peter; "nay, then, I must no longer withhold the dreaded secret from Luke, or Ranulph may, indeed, wrest his possessions from him." ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Alsace and Lorraine. The French peasantry have never been able to accept the loss of Alsace and Lorraine as an accomplished fact; they look on the retention of those provinces by the Germans as a temporary arrangement until France can at the right moment wrest them out of her powerful ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... done to all other countries; that is, duplicate her rival's fortification plans, her total military and naval strength; and so forth, and so on. The United States is not an enemy, but there are possibilities of her becoming so. Some day she must wrest Cuba from Spain, and then she may become a recognized quantity ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... cold and hunger he sought shelter amidst the ruins of Carthage. Carthage, whose fallen towers lay in crumbling masses around him, was once the rival city of imperial Rome herself, and, under the able leadership of Hannibal, threatened to wrest from the queen of the Seven Hills the rule of the world. Now its streets are covered with grass; the wild scream of the bird of solitude and the moanings of the night-owl mingle with the sobs of a fallen demigod who once made the ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... by men speaking the language in which his own thoughts found shape. He looked slowly from end to end of the ill-kept burial ground, crowded with the bones of the nameless and insignificant dead, who, after a life passed in the daily struggle to wrest a sufficiency of food from a barren soil, or the greater struggle to hold their own against a greedy sea, had faded from the memory of the living, leaving naught behind them but a little mound where the butcher put his ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... ardent. ardor m. ardor, heat. arena sand. arenal m. sandy ground. argentino silvery. argumento argument. arma arm, weapon. armar to arm, to dub (a knight). armonia harmony. arnes m. harness, trapping. arcancar to pull up, wrest, force out. arranque m. pulling up, impulse, vehemence. arrastrar to drag. arrebatar to snatch, carry off, fling. arrepentir vr. to repent. arriba up, above. arriero muleteer. arrimar ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... asked Portia. Bassanio then offered the Jew the payment of the three thousand ducats as many times over as he should desire; which Shylock refusing, and still insisting upon having a pound of Antonio's flesh, Bassanio begged the learned young counselor would endeavor to wrest the law a little, to save Antonio's life. But Portia gravely answered, that laws once established must never be altered. Shylock hearing Portia say that the law might not be altered, it seemed to him that ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... and iron; in the present day the iron very much preponderating. It will be at once evident that the object of the framing is to keep the ends of the strings apart. The near ends are wound round the wrest-pins, which are inserted in the wooden bed, called the wrest-plank, the strength and efficiency of which are most important for the tone and durability of the instrument. It is composed of layers of wainscot oak and beech, the direction of the grain being alternately longitudinal and lateral. Some ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... fourth prophet, also of our race and of our blood, only that this one has two faces and two names. On the obverse he is called Rothschild, and is the captain of all who lay up money; on the reverse he is Carl Marx—the apostle of those who wish to wrest ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... him to his duty. If he remained there, his pursuers would soon discover him, and wrest from him the letter with which he had been entrusted. Falcon was dead. He could do no good by remaining. To make good his escape, no time must be lost. By God's good help, he might yet succeed in ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... bungling and botching the faults which this comparison hath discovered to me in them. A man had need have a strong backe, to undertake to march foot to foot with these kind of men. The indiscreet writers of our age, amidst their triviall [Footnote: Commonplace.] compositions, intermingle and wrest in whole sentences taken from ancient Authors, supposing by such filching-theft to purchase honour and reputation to themselves, doe cleane contrarie. For, this infinite varietie and dissemblance of lustres, makes a face so wan, so il-favored, and so uglie, in respect of theirs, that they lose much ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... ring, and cylinder; To nature's portals ye should be the key; Cunning your wards, and yet the bolts ye fail to stir. Inscrutable in broadest light, To be unveil'd by force she doth refuse, What she reveals not to thy mental sight Thou wilt not wrest from her with levers and with screws. Old useless furnitures, yet stand ye here, Because my sire ye served, now dead and gone. Old scroll, the smoke of years dost wear, So long as o'er this desk the sorry lamp hath shone. Better my little means hath squandered quite ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... strong armies, yet hath he alwaies need of the favor of the inhabitants in the Countrey, to enter thereinto. For these reasons, Lewis the twelfth, King of France, suddenly took Milan, and as soon lost it; and the first time Lodwick his own forces served well enough to wrest it out of his hands; for those people that had opened him the gates, finding themselves deceived of their opinion, and of that future good which they had promised themselves, could not endure the distastes the new Prince gave them. True it is, that Countreys that have rebelled again ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... There's a step ladder on the back porch. I noticed it the last time we were over here." Elfreda hurried from the room to wrest the ladder from its lowly haunt. Returning she set it in place before the painting and climbed the four steps to the top ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... salvation of many. Religion has been invariably connected with that acute sentiment ever present in the minds of Irishmen for their country; and it is, doubtless, that holy and supernatural feeling which has preserved a country which enemies strove so strenuously to wrest ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... dispensation the literary occupations, which are in general the highroads to the Establishment of Public Support and Uniform Apparel, are held in the highest veneration. Agriculture, from which it is possible to wrest a competency, follows in esteem; while the various branches of commerce, leading as they do to vast possessions and the attendant luxury, are very justly deprived of all the attributes of dignity and respect. Yet observe, O justice-loving Mandarin, ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... Don tried to wrest some comfort from the captain's words—and failed. True, Tim couldn't hurt him, but he could make things mighty unpleasant, and that ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger
... the attempts to settle these disputed claims should weary, antagonize, or anger the King.[88] Many of the old charges were renewed, and Connecticut was no longer regarded as a "dutiful" colony, but rather as one altogether too independent, from whom it might be wise to wrest her charter, subjecting her to a royal governor. As early as 1715, her colonial agent had been advised to procure a peaceable surrender of the charter. To this proposal, Governor Saltonstall had returned a courteous and dignified refusal. But the danger was ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... almost borders on servility. Notwithstanding this, however, it is quite plain that it was always thoroughly understood who was master in Italy, and that any attempt on the part of the Senate to wrest any portion of real power from Theodoric would have been instantly ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... the lowest depth; not even an honourable burial is to be bestowed upon him. No one weeps or laments over him; like a trodden down carcass, he lies outside the gates of Jerusalem, the city of the great King, which he attempted to wrest from him, and make his own. Then follows a parenthetical digression, vers. 20-23. Apostate Judah is addressed. The judgment upon her kings is not one with which she has nothing to do, as little as their guilt belongs to them as individuals only. It is, at the same time a judgment upon the people ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... wrest some spoil from his unwilling hands would be an exquisite pleasure, to my thinking. But of all sweet favours the sweetest to my notion is the free-will offering of a man's beloved. For instance, how sweet the responsive glance of love for love; how sweet the questions ...
— Hiero • Xenophon
... Ferraud, and the dangers to which the Assembly was exposed, had made no impression. The dismay became general; and in a few hours the aristocrats themselves collected together a force sufficient to liberate the Assembly,* and wrest the government from ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... Balder's temple. Unable to suppress his rage, Frithiof advanced toward Helge and thrust Angantyr's tribute into the very face of the king. Then, finding that Helge's wife was wearing the magic ring that Ingeborg had been forced to give up, Frithiof tried to wrest this from its wearer, and in doing so caused the queen to drop into the fire an image of the god Balder. In the effort to avert this disaster Halfdan's wife let fall a second image, and immediately the temple burst ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... land? It is in that great continent to whose distant shores Europe has sent forth her adventurous sons, to wrest for themselves a habitation from the wild inhabitants of the forest, and to convert the neglected soil into fields of exuberant fertility. It is, reader, in Louisiana that these bounties of nature are in the greatest perfection. It is there that you should listen to the love-song ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... your thought, my honourd Lord, To wrest the hazardous fortune of the warre Into the bloudyer censure of the Law. Was it my fault that in the first assault The Canoniers were slayne, whereby our strength, Our mayne offensive strength, was quite defeated And our defensive part so much enfeebled That possibility to ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... never dreamed the little minx would dare openly defy me in that manner. I shall keep her in the belfry-room, under lock and key, until she asks my pardon on her bended knees; and what is more, I shall wrest the secret from her—the secret she has ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... enthusiasms had gushed forth with a vigor at which the Virginian marveled. For him ambition blazed like an oriflamme and he had dared to gamble everything on his belief in himself. With scant savings out of a reporter's salary in the West he had come to wrest success from the town where all is possible, but now a shadow of disappointment was stealing into his eyes. A fear was lurking there that, after all, he might have mistaken the message of the Bow Bells which had rung to him the Dick Whittington message ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... Ahab was now entirely conscious that, in so doing, he had indirectly laid himself open to the unanswerable charge of usurpation; and with perfect impunity, both moral and legal, his crew if so disposed, and to that end competent, could refuse all further obedience to him, and even violently wrest from him the command. From even the barely hinted imputation of usurpation, and the possible consequences of such a suppressed impression gaining ground, Ahab must of course have been most anxious to protect himself. That protection could only consist in his own predominating brain and heart and ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... d'Estaing, who had orders to bring back to France the ships of the line with which he had sailed from Toulon in 1778, resolved to go first upon the American coast, off South Carolina or Georgia. Arriving with his whole fleet at the mouth of the Savannah, August 31st, he decided to attempt to wrest the city of Savannah from the British. This would have been of real service to the latter, had it nipped in the bud their ex-centric undertaking; but, after three weeks of opening trenches, an assault upon the place failed. D'Estaing ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... the nymphs, watch their merry evolutions, and overhear them repeatedly admonish each other to keep watch over the gleaming treasure, which their father, the Rhinegod, has intrusted to their keeping, warning them that just such a dark and misshapen creature as the dwarf would try to wrest it from their grasp:— ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber
... His ambition is to wrest it from the hands of the blacks, and then to attempt the work of elevating its fallen peoples to the high estate from which ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... were suddenly diverted to another channel, by the opening of the door and the entrance of one of those gaunt sons of the forest who were wont to hang on the skirts of civilisation, as it advanced to wrest ...
— Wrecked but not Ruined • R.M. Ballantyne
... unjustly accused of sedition and mischief. Lest any one should suppose that these our complaints are unfounded, you yourself, Sire, can bear witness of the false calumnies with which you hear it daily traduced; that its only tendency is to wrest the sceptres of kings out of their hands, to overturn all the tribunals and judicial proceedings, to subvert all order and governments, to disturb the peace and tranquillity of the people, to abrogate all laws, to scatter all properties and possessions, and, in ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... external divine authority of the Bible rather than the church. The creation of the order of the Jesuits, though directed more against Protestantism than against unbelief, was a witness, like the previous reactionary movement of the scholastic writers in the thirteenth century, to the wish to wrest the use of learning out of the hands of the opponents of the church, and to employ the weapons of ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... indebtedness, as you have had. Shall I say that you, like the South, repudiated? No! that is a slander of our adversaries. But the parallel holds good in that we found ourselves abandoned by the world. Nations abroad gave us no sympathy; our neighbors at home laughed at our affliction. They would wrest from us that bulwark of our ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... can break him utterly," he said slowly. "I can wrest from him the thing which he took brutally with bloody hands. Because I am to profit where he loses must I hold back? The law may never reach him. Is it right then that he should go unpunished? The fortune which one day I shall leave to Wanda will ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... every one assumed from merit. The daring hopes of ambition were set loose from the salutary restraints of law and prejudice; and the meanest of mankind might, without folly, entertain a hope of being raised by valor and fortune to a rank in the army, in which a single crime would enable him to wrest the sceptre of the world from his feeble and unpopular master. After the murder of Alexander Severus, and the elevation of Maximin, no emperor could think himself safe upon the throne, and every barbarian peasant of the frontier might aspire to ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... the contest in which the two youths were engaged was one not destined to end before time was up. I pointed to within half a minute of the fated hour—and it would take far longer than that for even so powerful a champion as Jim to wrest the ball from Charlie's defiant grasp. The timekeeper turned away from the rivals and held me up. On went my hand, ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... the life of a man who had been a striking figure in Europe for forty years. His most fervent dream, indeed, had never been fulfilled. All his pompous vows to wrest the Holy Land from the invading Turks had proved vain. Many years had passed since he had had military success of any kind, and even in his earlier life his successes had been owing to diplomacy and to a happy conjunction of circumstances ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... like one of Scribe's or of George Sand's. It should be endued with devotion, self-abnegation, greatness of soul, tenderness; and fine words. Her pliant nature almost rejoiced in this new attitude. She pondered almost till evening what she should do, wondering how she should manage to wrest the truth ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... a kind of lethargy; at a time that the enemy were rapidly pursuing their victories in Spain, which might one day be turned against them. They would have been very well pleased to attack them by open force, and to wrest their conquests out of their hands; but the fear of another (not less formidable) enemy, the Gauls, whom they expected shortly to see at their very gates, kept them from showing their resentment. They therefore had recourse to negotiations; and concluded a treaty with Asdrubal, in which, ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... luckily but one among them), advanced upon me. I had just light to see the thrust and parry it. Another second, and we had closed in the midst of that strange atmosphere, striking and sneezing at each other across the pike shaft, as we each strove to wrest it to himself. My antagonist was a lusty fellow, and tugged me stoutly, while I kept him between me and the main fight, now raging through the water and the fire: this I could just distinguish among the vapour and smoke, dashed about in red showers of embers, as each new tramp and whirl of ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... station, which his valour had attained. Deeply wounded in spirit, Arthur Stanhope retired from the service of his country, but he carried with him, to a distant land, the affection and esteem of his brother officers,—a solace, which misfortune can never wrest from a noble and ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... I see that good lives never can secure Men from bad livers. Worst men will have best 40 As ill as they, or heaven to hell they'll wrest. ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... the golden fleeces of the sea in wrecks, in golden sands like the beaches of Nome, and that these amphibious boats will be ready along all the dangerous coasts to rush to the rescue of noble ships and wrest them from the ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... responsibility and—Come! this history of a house must not run into the history of a government. It is a fact in our story, however, that in the "Conservative" party there sprung up the "White League," purposing to wrest the State government from the "Radicals" ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... campaign with considerable vigour. He was reinforced by some fresh Austrian regiments, under the command of General Devins, and having collected the mass of their forces on the maritime Alps, they resolved to make a descent into the country of Nice, in order to wrest it from the French republicans, it being wholly in their hands. Before they descended, fortified camps were to be made, and sundry fortresses improved or reconstructed, to render it impossible, even in case of a reverse, that the French should force the passes of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... the vacant lots known as the "sand lots," in front of the City Hall of San Francisco, and advised the discontented ones to "wrest the government from the hands of the rich and place it in those of the people." On September 12, 1877, he rallied a group of unemployed around him and organized the Workingman's Trade and Labor Union of San Francisco. On the 5th of October, at a great public meeting, ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... village had seen, prior to the late war, a good deal of rebuilding; relative unattractiveness is the consequence. This seems to be the almost inevitable result of the establishment of a railway junction. The church stands on the site of a Wrest Saxon building, and is partly Norman with much Perpendicular work. Cattistock, a long mile north, is unspoilt and pretty both in itself and its situation. It has a fine church, much rebuilt and gaudily decorated, with a tower containing no less than thirty-five bells and ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... possible date in The Army's history, The General took steps to get its constitution and rights so legally established that it should be impossible for any one, after his death, to wrest from it or turn to other purposes any of the property which had been acquired for its use by a Deed Poll enrolled in the High Court of Chancery of England, August 7, 1878. The construction, aims and ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... of the day. "To the king my lord," she writes in one of them, "my gods, my Sun-god, thus says Nin, thy handmaid, the dust of thy feet. At the feet of the king my lord, my gods, my Sun-god, seven times seven I prostrate myself. Let the king my lord wrest his country from the hand of the Bedwin, in order that they may not rob it. The city of Zaphon has been captured. This is for the information ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce
... that these paths do not lead to happiness; they cannot guide anyone to the promised goal. Now, I will very briefly show what serious evils are involved in following them. Just consider. Is it thy endeavour to heap up money? Why, thou must wrest it from its present possessor! Art thou minded to put on the splendour of official dignity? Thou must beg from those who have the giving of it; thou who covetest to outvie others in honour must lower thyself to the humble posture of petition. Dost thou long for power? ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius
... feet slipping, knees and hands locking, eyes staring, no word spoken and breathing hard, the two struggled in the middle of the cooped-up room—Hawk striving to free and kill himself; Laramie determined to wrest ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... this full absolution was granted because it had been brought to the knowledge of His Holiness that this noble lady had entered the cloistered life owing to a wicked and malicious plot designed to wrest her castle and estates from her, and also to part her from a valiant Knight, at that time fighting in the Holy Wars, to ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... "dreamest thou I fear this bloody God of Israel, or all the gibbering, incense-sniffing, pedestal-cumbering gods of earth? I will show thee, thou ranting rabble spawn! See which of us hath the yellow-haired wanton when I return. For I go to wrest spoil and fighting men from Israel. Then, by all the demons of Amenti! then, I say! look to thy crown, ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... where Dorothy met her importunate lover, was the seat of Anthony Grey, Earl of Kent. There is said to be a picture there of Sir William Temple,—a copy of Lely's picture. Wrest Park is only a few miles ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... that St. Paul meant by them what working-men mean by them in the affairs of daily life. No doubt St. Peter says that there are many things in St. Paul's writings difficult to be understood, which those who are unlearned and unstable wrest to their own destruction; and, most true it is, so they do daily. But what does "wresting" a thing mean? It means twisting it, bending it, turning it out of its original straightforward, natural meaning, into some new crooked meaning of their own. This is the way ...
— Twenty-Five Village Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... her in amazement. Never before had he seen such a cold, steely determination in her eye—such a cruel look of indifference. She seemed a thorough master of her mood—thoroughly confident and determined to wrest all control from him. He felt that all his resources could not defend him. He ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... in Christianity was apparently, as I have said, an effort of the human soul to wrest itself free from the entanglement of physical lust—which lust, though normal and appropriate and in a way gracious among the animals, had through the domination of self-consciousness become diseased ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... descendants of pioneers, or, in a sense, pioneers themselves; of men winnowed out from among the nations of the Old World by the energy, boldness, and love of adventure found in their own eager hearts. Such a Nation, so placed, will surely wrest success ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Newport Street, within a few doors of Reynolds, where he remained until his visit to Italy, in 1773. Meanwhile his friends were loud in their laudation of the prodigy who, in historical works, they declared, promised to rival the great masters, and in portraiture threatened to wrest the palm from Reynolds himself. He now raised his prices again, charging twelve guineas for a three-quarter portrait, and found no lack of sitters at the increased rate. Whether or not he sought for academic honours is not clear; certain it is they were not conferred upon him: ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... not need the medium of a flogging to produce that effect on the master. He tried to wrest the key from Catherine's grasp, and for safety she flung it into the hottest part of the fire; whereupon Mr. Edgar was taken with a nervous trembling, and his countenance grew deadly pale. For his life he could not avert that excess of emotion: mingled anguish and humiliation ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... would not satisfy this holy man. "The Lord said,—Go, but David replied, Whither shall I go? and he said unto Hebron" (1 Sam 2:1). Oh! it is safe to regard the word of the Lord; this makes us all come safe to land. When men wrest themselves from under the hand of God, taking such opportunities for their deliverance, which are laid before them only for trial of obedience to the word: they may, it is probable, have a seeming success; the end will be as with Zedekiah king of Judah, affliction with addition. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... then be set aside? This to affirm were ignorance or pride. Are there not many points, some needful sure To saving faith, that Scripture leaves obscure? Which every sect will wrest a several way, For what one sect interprets, all sects may. 310 We hold, and say we prove from Scripture plain, That Christ is God; the bold Socinian From the same Scripture urges he's but man. Now, what appeal can end the important suit? Both parts talk loudly, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... require it. What would we not do to pull a neighbor out of the water, or out of the fire, or to deliver him from Algerine captivity, or wrest him from the hand of a pirate or midnight assassin? But what captivity, what pirate, what murderer so cruel ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... hand in an effort to wrest the already charred and smoldering garments from The Wolf. He evidently intended to take matters strictly into his own hands and obey orders to the letter, regardless of Jimmie's ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... wave, from shore to shore. Be thou our great protector, gracious youth! 20 And if in future times, some envious prince, Careless of right and guileful, should invade Thy Britain's commerce, or should strive in vain To wrest the balance from thy equal hand; Thy hunter-train, in cheerful green arrayed, (A band undaunted, and inured to toils,) Shall compass thee around, die at thy feet, Or hew thy passage through the embattled foe, And clear thy way to fame; inspired by ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... apart; but on ascending the hill, I found nothing but a lonely spot and a wood. I wished to turn back, but the fellow paid no attention to my desire, and continued walking towards the wood. I then snatched my portmanteau from him, and refused to proceed any further. He endeavoured to wrest it from me, when, luckily, I saw in the distance two English soldiers, who hastened up in answer to my cries, and, on seeing this, the fellow ran off. I related my adventure to the soldiers, who congratulated me on the recovery ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... Florea," the voice in the box answered. "As it seems to me, they are trying to wrest the scepter from him and the old monarch says that they are not yet ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various
... will not soon be exterminated. A Malay, the only hunter in Sampit, told me that some are so old that they can no longer climb trees. When wounded an orang-utan cries like a child in quite an uncanny manner, as a Dutch friend informed me. According to the Dayaks, it will wrest the spear from its attacker and use it on him. They also maintain, as stated elsewhere, that orang-utans, contrary to the generally accepted belief, are able to swim. Mr. B. Brouers, of Bandjermasin, has seen monkeys swim; the red, the gray, and the black are all capable ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... certain proportion of the product of the estate. I do not mind telling you that the smallness of that proportion does away with the argument that the agreement was the ordinary 'rotas' of the Baleares. We know nothing—we can prove nothing. If you claimed the estate I might possibly wrest it from you—not by proof, but merely because the insular prejudice against a foreigner would militate against you in a Majorcan court of law. I cannot legally force you to hold the estate of the Val d'Erraha. I can only ask you as the daughter ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... only is he called to treat in a healing ceremony. It requires a particularly capable Indian to attain the position of head medicine-man, for to do so he must not only make the people subservient to his will, but must wrest the leadership from some other and usually older medicine-man who is himself an influential character. Unfortunately it is apt to be the most crafty, scheming man who gains ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... war-vessels, one of them carrying twenty-four guns and two of them twenty guns each, while there was a large following of smaller vessels. A host of men in uniform crowded the decks of these vessels, and the gleam of arms gave lustre to the scene. It was a strong Spanish fleet, sent to wrest the province of Georgia from English hands, and mayhap to punish these intruders in the murderous way that the Spaniards had punished the French ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... sympathy with the energies of the living system. Could we recover the hand from the Cross, or from the custody of the Black Douglas, I would be pleased to observe this wonderful operation of occult sympathies. But, I fear me, one might as safely go to wrest the joint from the talons of an ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... fitted to foment popular insurrection, and convert the war on the Belgian provinces into revolution; for to rouse Belgium in favour of French liberty, and to render its independence dependent on ours, was to wrest it from the power of Austria, and turn it against our foes. The Belgians, according to Dumouriez's plan, were to conquer Belgium for us; for the germs of revolt had been but imperfectly stifled in these provinces, and were destined ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... was loosened. He had restored order—this had been a work which required perseverance, patience, and energy; and he had neither slept nor waked but for the good of his country.—Would they dare wrong him thus? Would they wrest his hard-earned reward from him, to bestow it on one, who, never having mingled in public life, would come a tyro to the craft, in which he was an adept. He demanded the place of deputy as his right. Ryland had shewn that he preferred him. Never before had he, who was born even to ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... thousand pounds. There was to be a lawsuit about them. She did not for a moment doubt that they were her property. She had been very careful about the diamonds because of the lawsuit. Fearing that Mr. Camperdown might wrest them from her possession, she had caused the iron box to be made. She had last seen the diamonds on the evening before her departure from Portray. She had then herself locked them up, and she now produced the key. ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... were the tales that reached Europe that men came to think that it would be a good deed truly, to wrest the sepulchre of the Lord from the hands of these heathens. Pope Urban was the first to give authority and strength to the movement, and at a vast meeting at Claremont of 30,000 clergy and 4000 barons, it was decided that war must be made against the infidel. From all ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... lesson life had taught her was that, if she wanted anything, screams generally produced the desired object. The second lesson was that, when screams failed, one must scramble down from one's high chair and go after the prize and wrest it from table or sideboard or high eminence, no matter how much hard climbing or ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... for his watch was in his hand, and the game had only the life of a few seconds to live, when the ball fell into the hands of Heady. The desperate boy realized that now he had the final chance to retrieve the day and wrest victory from defeat. He was far, far from the basket, but he did not dare to risk the precious moment in dribbling or passing the ball. The only hope lay in one perfect throw. He held the ball in his hands high over his head, and bent far back. He ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... to be cast to project explosive shells beyond the reach of the eye. She hath taught you at once the beauty of nature and the folly of man. Truly she is a great queen; therefore let not her son Omar who hath returned from over the great sea, wrest from her hand the regal sceptre. Already hath our queen perceived the haughtiness and the vicious principles of her son, and maketh no doubt but that he will soon aspire to her throne. This causeth the prudent ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... for himself will carry forward his History to the time of the English Revolution, thus embracing our annals during the vitality of our first Charter. That Charter, its origin, transfer, and subsequent service as the basis of government, the reiterated efforts to wrest it, and the persistent resolution to hold it, give to it a symbolic significance which warrants the dating of an epoch by it. Dr. Palfrey regards our local political existence as commencing from the hour in which that document, with its official representatives, reached these shores. We have ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... can do not what he wills, should try To will what he can do; for since 'tis vain To will what can't be compassed, to abstain From idle wishing is philosophy. Lo, all our happiness and grief imply Knowledge or not of will's ability: They therefore can, who will what ought to be. Nor wrest true reason from her seat awry. Nor what a man can, should he always will: Oft seemeth sweet what after is not so; And what I wished, when had, hath cost a tear. Then, reader of these lines, if thou wouldst still Be helpful ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... considerable portion of the inhabitants in some of the frontier fortresses of Brabant, in order to induce then on the first favourable opportunity to surrender them to the French arms. The unpopularity of the Dutch authorities in those towns, and the open pretensions which they put forth to wrest them from the Emperor, and deliver them over at a general peace to the hated rule of Protestant Holland, rendered those advances peculiarly acceptable. Vendome's instructions were to act on the offensive, though in a cautious ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... seek to uncover the buried capitals of Assyria and Babylonia. Scholarship was devoted to books, to old manuscripts in convent libraries, to recovering what the wise men of Greece and Rome had written, and trying to wrest new facts out of their blundering old compilations of ancient history. It did not occur to them that a hundred kings and ten thousand merchants and priests might have left the stories of their conquests or contracts or liturgies, unrotted ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... he thinks, that can be said on either side has been said long ago. But he is ready to join issue with Priestley on the historical question. This he feels it practically necessary to do, for 'the whole energy and learning of the Unitarian party is exerted to wrest from us ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... his eyes had almost started from their sockets. His voice was lost within the vizor, and his friend affected not to understand his meaning when he made signs with his gauntlets, and endeavoured to close with him, that he might wrest the cudgel from his hand. At length he desisted, saying, "I'll warrant the helmet sound by its ringing"; and taking it off, found the squire in a cold sweat. He would have achieved his first exploit on the spot, had his strength permitted him to assault Dawdle; but what with want ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... had closely clasped both her hands; but, with the quickness of thought, the latter were again clenched round the naked blade, and without any other evident motive than what originated in the obstinacy of her madness, the unfortunate woman fiercely attempted to wrest it away. In the act of doing so, her hands were dreadfully cut; and Clara, shocked at the sight of the blood she had been the means of shedding, lost all the energy she had summoned, and sunk senseless at the feet of the maniac, who now began to ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... 'Not only do they attempt to make their demonstrations from the Evangelical and Apostolic [writings] by perverting the interpretations and falsifying the expositions [Greek: exegeseis], but also from the law and the prophets; as ... being able to wrest what is ambiguous into many [senses] by their exposition' [Greek: ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... darted forward and tried to wrest it from his grasp. Finding his strength too great, she straightened swiftly and lifting one foot, brought her riding boot down fiercely with all her strength on Lynch's hand. With a smothered grunt his fingers laxed, and she caught up the ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... the great Godfrey and his brother Baldwin, the first Christian Kings of Jerusalem, once lay buried by that sacred sepulchre they had fought so long and so valiantly to wrest from the hands of the infidel. But the niches that had contained the ashes of these renowned crusaders were empty. Even the coverings of their tombs were gone —destroyed by devout members of the Greek Church, because Godfrey and Baldwin were Latin princes, and had been reared ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... small hand on the sheets as though to wrest them from his grasp; but he lifted her fingers aside with a ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... neck and down his spine erect, uttering low growls and baring his fighting fangs, for who might say whether Zu-tag came in peace or otherwise? The old king had seen other young apes come thus in his day filled with a sudden resolution to wrest the kingship from their chief. He had seen bulls about to run amuck burst thus suddenly from the jungle upon the members of the tribe, and ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs |
