"Clammy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and everything that first comes to hand. Khaki has certainly done us very well; twill at first during the heat, and serge or cord later on when the cold came on; but it is well to avoid khaki twill in cold weather as it becomes clammy and uncomfortable. Personally I should say that a serge or cord, thin for heat and thick for cold weather, is much the best for ...
— With the Naval Brigade in Natal (1899-1900) - Journal of Active Service • Charles Richard Newdigate Burne
... bullocks had not advanced two miles, because the stiff clay so clogged the wheels that it could not be easily removed. Seeing the cattle so distressed I was compelled to encamp, and await the effect of the sunshine and the breeze on the clammy surface. ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... with such indescribable visions of glory, would have been closed in death, and the brow on which the sea-wind was beating in such cool and refreshful perfume would have been crumbling under the clammy sod. Surely it must be for some great thing that his life had been saved: it was his own no longer; it must be devoted to mighty purposes of love and toil. Kennedy began to long for some work of danger and suffering as his portion upon earth: he longed ambitiously for the ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... rude seat, improvised out of an empty gin-case. Without the tempest shrieked and howled, the great wind shook the Kaffir hut of grass and wattle, piercing it in a hundred places till the light of the lantern wavered within its glass, and the sick man's hair was lifted from his clammy brow. From time to time fierce squalls of rain fell like sheets of spray, and the water, penetrating the roof of grass, streamed to the earthen floor. Leonard crept on his hands and knees to the doorway of the hut, or rather to the low arched opening ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... things. There was no chance of reaching the abodes of men by any other route. We were booked till the gale chose to ease—at any rate till morning; and for myself, I contemplated a moist bivouac under streaming Jove, with one clammy elk-skin for a ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... before the plant shoots into flower, and is washed, sliced and dried! it is then roasted until it is of a chocolate color. Two pounds of lard are roasted with each hundredweight; and afterwards, when ground and exposed to the air, it becomes moist and clammy, increases in weight, and smells like licorice. When put into cold water it gives a sweetish ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... three or four more sitting on the grass under a rose-bush. As soon as I came within sight of them, I saw them all in a bustle; and when I came up to them, though I did not see them eating anything, yet their mouths were so clammy that it was with difficulty they could answer me. As I had then no reason to suspect anything, and finding myself an unwelcome guest, I left them and ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... before, over-apt to sit and dream of the doing of grand things instead of putting out a hand to do them. In Glascow the one thing that I had to grumble most about next to the dreary hours of schooling was the clammy air of street and close; in Germanie it was worse, a moist weakening windiness full of foreign smells, and I've seen me that I could gaily march a handful of leagues to get a sniff of the salt sea. Not that I was one who craved for wrack and ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... of Sunday to the crew, they are allowed on that day a pudding, or, as it is called, a "duff.'' This is nothing more than flour boiled with water, and eaten with molasses. It is very heavy, dark, and clammy, yet it is looked upon as a luxury, and really forms an agreeable variety with salt beef and pork. Many a rascally captain has made up with his crew, for hard usage, by allowing them duff twice a week on ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... Custom, Constitution, &c. should be inquir'd into; especially, when we compare the Antediluvians mention'd Gen. 1. 29—the whole Fifth and Ninth Chapters, ver. 3. confining them to Fruit and wholesom Sallets: I deny not that both the Air and Earth might then be less humid and clammy, and consequently Plants, and Herbs better fermented, concocted, and less Rheumatick, than since, and presently after; to say nothing of the infinite Numbers of putrid Carcasses of Dead Animals, perishing in the Flood, (of which I find few, if any, have taken notice) ...
— Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets • John Evelyn
... in Simon's Bay, and she was bad, even for a flat-iron gunboat strictly designed for river and harbour defence. She sweated clammy drops of dew between decks in spite of a preparation of powdered cork that was sprinkled over her inside paint. She rolled in the long Cape swell like a buoy; her foc's'le was a dog-kennel; Judson's cabin was ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... light touch on the bosom of his inner vestment, and suddenly he stood alone beside the gruesome abbey. Clammy with fear, he knew not why, he drew his mantle round him and sped home as one speeds in a fearsome dream. And that it was a dream he half-believed, when later, in the hall, he served at meat those gathered round the ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... creeping through her veins. There was something clammy in Jim's touch, something more than menacing in his eyes. She knew that her strength was nothing to be pitted against his—she knew that in any sort of a struggle she would be easily subdued. And yet she knew that ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... took certain herbs and bound the leaves, after he had moistened them, over the wound. Soon Pocahontas, crouching at her sister's side, could see that the blood had ceased to flow. But no sign of life could be detected in the little body lying there. The hands and feet were clammy and though Pocahontas rubbed them vigorously, she could feel no ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... sake," cried the prince, pressing his icy hands upon his clammy brow, "do not play with me! I have no need to be a king to be the ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... me as being frightened just then; nevertheless, he had a clammy face, the pallid look of a man who had just gotten over a shock. He peered into my face, then into that of the cowboy next to me, then into Wright's and if ever in my life I beheld relief I saw ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... walls, the outer approaches of the Sanctuary were choked with the dying and the dead. David sat absorbed, elbows on knees, his face framed in his hands. Suddenly the descent of something cold and clammy on his bent neck roused him with a ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to her lips: she would not touch it. She said I oppressed her by leaning over the bed, and again demanded water. As I laid her down—for I raised her and supported her on my arm while she drank—I covered her ice-cold and clammy hand with mine: the feeble fingers shrank from my touch—the glazing eyes ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... suspected it never would arrive. And yet, despite those leaden-footed oxen, the minutes, arrive it did, in very fact. The eve of that day was a happy bed-time; but over his ardent reveries, over the vista of future achievements, there suddenly, darkly loomed another thought, a foretoken and clammy shroud, which smote the young prince with trembling. For would not the day of his death, however far away also, sometime be the present, passing moment, as surely, just as surely, as this anniversary of his birth? Here was a ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... Notch the rim handsomely with a very sharp knife. Fill the dish with the mixture of the pudding, and bake it in a moderate oven. The paste should be of a light brown colour. If the oven is too slow, it will be soft and clammy; if too quick, it will not have time to rise as high as it ought ...
— Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry Cakes, and Sweetmeats • Miss Leslie
... hand, she hesitated, and then she took the coin. The fingers which for a moment brushed lightly against her palm were icy cold—cold and clammy. Mr. ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... There was a clammy silence. A mouse, emboldened by the quiet, scuttled across the hearth. One mighty paw lightly moved; a lightning tap, and the tiny beast ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... a passage six feet in height and about three feet broad, which seemed to lead on indefinitely into clammy darkness. The dewy stone walls sparkled in fantastic and ghostly iridescence under the rays from the lantern. The dank air lay ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... until they reached a place in the opposite wall where a single very tall step led up to another iron door, square-cut and narrow, back of which lay the cellar used by the Wellanders. Lena lighted a candle that burned with difficulty in the clammy air. ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... i' famous glee All stickified an' clammy, Then licked him clean an' sent him hooam To get lick'd ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, Second Series - To which is added The Cream of Wit and Humour - from his Popular Writings • John Hartley
... some shining Worms in Oysters; M. Auzout, being made acquainted with it, did first conceive, they were not Worms (unless they were crushed ones) that shin'd, as having not been able then to discern any parts of a Worm; but only some shining clammy moysture; which appeared indeed like a little Star of a blewish colour, and stuck to the Oyster-shell; being drawn out, shone in the Air its whole length (which was about four or five lines,) and when put upon the Observers hand, continued ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... apples the moss'd cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease; For Summer has o'erbrimm'd their clammy cells. ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... and yet so altered was that form, that were it not for a consciousness of guilt, with difficulty he would have recognised her whom he had once idolized. Gomez Arias thrilled as he gazed on the nocturnal visitor; in her pale features could be traced no sympathy with life; a clammy dampness bedewed her brows; a chilling apathy sat upon her countenance. One of her hands now mechanically fell on the feverish breast of Don Lope, and the cold, cold touch imparted ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... before the retiring hour. As the antecedent of the modern American electric blanket, they enticed the drowsy to bed. Retreating from the cheerful hearth, the would-be sleeper, then as now, had no fear of being aroused by the clammy chill of ...
— Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century - Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet Number 17 • Annie Lash Jester
... detect it at all. At length, after marking for some time longer, with intense interest, the features of the sufferer, my conviction becoming every moment stronger and stronger, and my agitation in consequence extreme, I bent my head close to the dying man, and, taking his cold and clammy hand in mine, asked him, in a whisper, if his name was not Digby. His eyes were closed at the moment, but I saw he was not sleeping. On my putting the question, he opened them wide, and stared wildly ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... the most bitter loss of all—that, if he could have had these things, even the ruddy-haired, golden-eyed children of his dreams might go. He knelt by Hazel's bed and laid his dark head on the pillow, torn by physical and spiritual passion. His hair was clammy, and a new line marked his forehead from that day. Anyone seeing him would have thought that he was praying; he was so still. It was Edward's fate to be thought 'so quiet,' because the fires within him made no sound, burning at ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... we had a merry evening. The rain poured down with quiet persistency. Everything in the boat was damp and clammy. Supper was not a success. Cold veal pie, when you don't feel hungry, is apt to cloy. I felt I wanted whitebait and a cutlet; Harris babbled of soles and white-sauce, and passed the remains of his pie to Montmorency, who declined ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... turned away. Doom sounded in his words. The hand of Death laid clammy fingers on us. Edith Metford's strength failed at last. It had been sorely tested. She sank into ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... any rate, he took another and better way. Depositing the remains of Marut with the most tender care beside me, as though the nurse were putting the child to bed, he unwound his yards of trunk and began to feel me all over with its tip, commencing at the back of my neck. Oh! the sensation of that clammy, wriggling ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... down the line, and presently we begin to creep forward, stooping low. Sometimes we halt; sometimes we swing back a little; but on the whole we progress. Once there is a sudden exclamation. A highly-strung youth, crouching in a field drain, has laid his hand upon what looks and feels like a clammy human face, lying recumbent and staring heavenward. Too late, he recognises a derelict scarecrow with a turnip head. Again, there is a pause while the extreme right of the line negotiates an unexpected barbed-wire fence. Still, we move on, with enormous caution. We are not certain where ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... the other way as not so likely to slip, there being a little more hold or resistance. Anyhow, the raw wood cannot be left simply glass-papered, this would be speedily followed in use by an accumulation of dirt and grease unpleasant to the eye, and to the touch, clammy and unwholesome. It will therefore be as well to consider the two modes of treatment. In either case the parts of the graft near the insertion in the socket and at the other end where the peg-box is fitted will require ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... yet seen. The sky was banked full of slate-gray clouds scudding low before a northeast wind that droned its melancholy song in the swaying spruce tops, a song older than the sorrows of men, the essence of all things forlorn in its minor cadences. A gray, clammy day, tinged with the chill breath of coming snow. Thompson missed the sun that had cheered and warmed those hushed solitudes. Just to look at that dull sky and to hear the wind that was fast stripping the last sere leaves from willow and maple and birch, and to feel that indefinable ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... black, clammy fur. He felt the utter futility of even being afraid. He would simply remain as he was, and soon he would cease ...
— The Memory of Mars • Raymond F. Jones
... my right hand from the left, for the smoke; but I groped round and round, though the reek mostly cut my breath, and made me cough at no allowance, till at last I catched hold of something cold and clammy, which I gave a pull, not knowing what it was, but found out to be the old wife's nose. I cried out as loud as I was able for the poor creature to hoise herself up into my arms; but, receiving no answer, I discovered in a ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... do you know what that is in a town of iron-works? The sky sank down before dawn, muddy, flat, immovable. The air is thick, clammy with the breath of crowded human beings. It stifles me. I open the window, and, looking out, can scarcely see through the rain the grocer's shop opposite, where a crowd of drunken Irishmen are puffing Lynchburg tobacco in their pipes. I can detect the scent through all the foul ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... from his lips, but he knew not what he said. Does the crater know that it throws forth burning lava? He told her his love. She stood there, surprised, insulted, proud, yes, scornful; with an expression on her face as though a damp, clammy frog had suddenly touched her. Her cheeks coloured, her lips grew pale, her eyes were on fire, and still black as the ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen
... death that's coming nearer? how clammy grows my brow; Yes, I'm going home for promotion, the battle's over now. Comrades, I often fancy, how upon yon blessed shore, In that land of recognition, we may yet all meet once more. Colonel, we'll gather round you then, as in the days of old; Why do whisper, comrades, ...
— Victor Roy, A Masonic Poem • Harriet Annie Wilkins
... together. Mr. Girth displayed all his fascinating prizes with generous good nature, and George grew excited. The palms of his hands were clammy with agitation. All round the room, encased in scarlet slip-covers of tooled morocco, on fireproof shelves, were the priceless booty of the collector. Here was Charles Lamb's "Essays of Elia," inscribed by the ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... walk about the streets with a sullen and malignant scowl always on his face, which at the best would be a very ugly one? Why should another walk with his nose in the air, and his eyes rolled up till they seem likely to roll out? And why should a third be always dabbled over with a clammy perspiration, and prolong all his vowels to twice the usual length? It is, indeed, a most woful thing, that people who evince a spirit in every respect the direct contrary of that of our Blessed Redeemer should fancy that they ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... was old Rippenger's best theological scholar—always got the prize for theology. Well, he was a confirmed sneak. I've taken him into a corner and described the torments of dying to him, and his look was disgusting—he broke out in a clammy sweat. "Don't, don't!" he'd cry. "You're just the fellow to suffer intensely," I told him. And what was his idea of escaping it? Why, by learning the whole of Deuteronomy and the Acts of the Apostles by heart! His idea of Judgement Day was old Rippenger's half-yearly ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... disappearing. The whispering ceased, and the voices and the sounds, anal a solemn stillness followed. I waited and listened. I felt that I must have light or die. I was weak with fear. I slowly raised myself toward a sitting posture, and my face came in contact with a clammy hand! All strength went from me apparently, and I fell back like a stricken invalid. Then I heard the rustle of a garment it seemed to pass to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... he's two-thirds Scotch mother,—that sturdy soul who would have saved his father if death hadn't tricked her. And I'm rather a radical about heredity, anyway, Carter. It's gruesomely overrated, I think. What is it?—Clammy hands reaching out from the grave to clutch at warm young flesh—and pollute it? Not while there are living hands to beat them off!" He began to get vehement and warm. There was to be a chapter on heredity in that book of his, one day. "It's a bogy. It goes down before environment ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... "Stinks! Hi, stinks! Clammy ones!" McTurk gasped as he regained his place. "And"—the exquisite humor of it brought them sliding down together in a tangle—"it's all for the honor of ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... with him. As he went back he heard a musical humming in the tops of the pines and a lump of wet snow, slipping from a branch, struck his face. The humming grew louder until the wood was filled with sound, and he began to feel clammy and hot. A warm Chinook wind from the Pacific was sweeping up the valley, ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... a big, beautiful doll, in a dress of faded pink, and a pink hat and feather. Dick had never seen such a fine lady before; she quite fascinated him. He leaned gently forward and touched the waxen hand. It was cold and clammy; Dick did not like the feel, and retreated. The unwinking eyes of the doll followed him as he sidled away, and ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... had been somewhat squally, and the royals and topgallant-sails were stowed; but the weather was now clearing, and as "three bells" chimed out musically upon the clammy morning air, Mr Seaton, the first lieutenant, who was the officer of the watch, having first scanned the heavens attentively, gave orders to loose and set ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... pace. Dull reports and a vague clangor were audible. These sounds were so deadened by the clammy mist that they might have proceeded from some gnome's workshop deep in the bowels of the earth. The blows of a pile-driver at work on the Surrey shore suggested to Kerry's mind the phantom crew of Hendrick Hudson at their game of ninepins in ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... cold and freezes in his veins, His heart sinks, and upon his lips the breath Curdles, as if in death! Vainly he strives in flight, His trembling knees deny—his strength is gone! As one who, in the depth of the dark night, Groping through chambered ruins, lays his hands On cold and clammy bones, and glutinous brains, The murdered man's remains— Thus rooted to the dread spot stood the chief, When, from the tomb of ages, came the sound, As of a strong man's grief; His heart denied its blood—his brain spun round— He ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... damp. His hands were clammy. His hair ends dripped. His face was running with water. He spread his palms ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... hideous, deathly, pallid face, cold and clammy, was pressed upon his, the faint light seemed to fade into darkness, ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... truth was that, except for a few raw recruits, no reliefs were forthcoming from any quarter. The promised regulars had left Gibraltar so late that they had to be sent to Virginia for the winter, lest the sudden change to cold and clammy Louisbourg should put them on the sick list. The two new regiments, Shirley's and Pepperrell's, which were to be recruited in the American colonies and form part of the Imperial Army, could not be ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... were dropping on the soft, smooth hair that was growing clammy; she felt the cold breath on her face—"never mind, little ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... paint the nauseating horror of that moment. Fear—cold, abject, awful fear—ran through my veins like a drug; my face was clammy with the sweat of utter terror; my hands clutched wildly at some drapery, which tore from its fastenings and came ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... continually digging the coach out of bogs. At dark one evening I walked on to lessen the load, and on crossing a plain I saw a log on the side of the road on which I decided to have a rest. I sat on it in the dark, and feeling something move, I put my hand down on the cold, clammy tail of a snake. His lordship evidently had his head in a hole, or might have bitten me. The shock gave me increased energy, and I reached the groom's change at 10.30 p.m. The coach arrived an hour later. We were all thoroughly done up, and had a supper of stewed galahs. The stage-keeper ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... hunger and fatigue, the young man, no longer able to proceed, fell down at the foot of a spreading beech, and gave way to an agony of grief; drops of cold sweat stood upon his brow; the clammy feeling of fear took possession of his heart, and though, perhaps, he would have had no objection to try the fortune of the pistol or the sword, in any college broil or senseless riot of the populace, the circumstances under which he then stood were so new to him, that he ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... right hand flying to his breast. There was a sudden pain there; such a pain as he had never experienced before. It was near his heart. With each heartbeat there came a twisting stab of agony. Presently the spasm passed, and he sank back, pale, shaking, his forehead damp with clammy moisture.... He tried to pull himself together. Perhaps it would be best to summon some one, but he did not want to do that. To have an employee find him so would be an invasion of his dignity. Nobody must see him. Nobody must ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... the danger to himself! It was not any of those that had unnerved her! It was that other awful thing he had said: that ghostly, ghastly, uncanny, dreadful story of a Presence! She almost shrieked again as she said it, and she shivered away from him, as if still there were something cold and clammy in his touch that gave her ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... thrusting your hand inside and seeing if there is anything stored away? I don't think it very nice of me to ask you because I am afraid of touching something spooky or clammy. Do ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook
... country, between the level bank and the hills, consisted of heavy sandy ridges, a good deal covered with scrub; but we now found more grass than we had seen during the whole journey before. In the night I was taken ill again, with violent pains, accompanied by cold clammy sweats; and as the air was cold and raw, and a heavy dew falling, I suffered a ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... and astounded at the words of the judge. It was like a lightning-stroke. His knees became weak. He felt sick at heart. Great drops of cold and clammy sweat stood upon his forehead. Arrested! What would his mother say? Her son accused of stealing! What would everybody say? What would Azalia think? What would Rev. Mr. Surplice say? What would his class ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... Laddie, the same as he'd have talked to Leon. "You can't stuff me on that, and you needn't try. Being dead is a cold, clammy proposition, that all of us put off as long as we can. You know you want to see Pamela in her own home. You know you are interested in how I come out with those horses. You know you want the little people you spoke of, around ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... chamber in the dungeons of the castle. The ghost appeared only once, and it went by very dim to the sight and floated noiseless through the air, and then disappeared; and we scarcely trembled, he had taught us so well. He said it came up sometimes in the night and woke him by passing its clammy hand over his face, but it did him no hurt; it only wanted sympathy and notice. But the strangest thing was that he had seen angels—actual angels out of heaven—and had talked with them. They had no wings, and wore clothes, and ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... essayed to enter, but a cold hand grasped mine and prevented me. A woman's figure, slight and youthful, with white face, great sad eyes, and long yellow hair, stood in the arched doorway and pressed me back with her clammy hand. I started up from my pillow in alarm to find myself alone; the pale moonbeams streaming through the looped curtains of the window and glancing upon my forehead, I thought, probably accounted for the cold hand of my dream. I slept, and dreamed again. The scene was changed: a field of stubble ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... as fond of frogs as you used to be? Last week, some people were dining with us. I had just helped the soup, and, letting my hand fall upon my lap, picked up one of your friends who had settled himself there. Not knowing at first what the cold clammy thing was, I jumped up, and everybody else jumped up too, to see what was the matter; for it might have been ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... Graydon, dropping his bag and coming toward the old man, his hand outstretched. Droom's clammy fingers rested lifelessly ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... quarter of a mile from the castle, melting glue, it being evening, and only four of his men with him, he perceived a gentleman in mourning passing the lathe where the men were at work. He was immediately seized with a violent trembling and weakness, his hair stood on end, and a clammy sweat spread over his forehead. The lights were put out, he knew not how, and at last, in fear and terror, he was obliged to return home. On his arrival at the castle, as he was passing up the stairs, he heard a footstep ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various
... watch and anticipate his wishes, till first one and then another is overcome by her emotion, and steals away to give it vent. The wife, like a ministering spirit, silently wipes the clammy brow and moistens the parched lips. But now the sick man speaks: "Brother, will you bring mother's portrait! I would take my leave of that—O, how soon shall I join her now." It is brought, and the heavy window curtains are thrown back, and it is placed at the foot of the bed with reverend ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... however, both she and her little daughter were untouched by his tricks, though every one else had some complaint. Peas were shot from unknown recesses at venerable canons, mice darted out before shrieking ladies, frogs' clammy forms descended on the nape of their necks, hedgehogs were curled up on their chairs, and though Peregrine Oakshott was not often caught in the act, no mischief ever took place that was not attributed to him; and it was popularly believed in the Close that his father flogged ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... (the end of October and beginning of November) came. The Nile had fallen a distance equaling the stature of a man, and one-half in addition, uncovering daily new strips of black clammy earth. Wherever the water withdrew a narrow plough appeared drawn by two oxen. Behind the plough went a naked ploughman, at the side of he oxen a driver with a short club, and behind him a sower, who, wading to his ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... endeavored to restore circulation by sucking the wound. "What are you doing?" exclaimed the duke. "For God's sake stop! Perhaps the poniard was poisoned." Respiration was now very difficult, and the hand of the duke was clammy with the damp of death. As a last resort, the surgeon, with his knife, opened and enlarged the wound. The duke, grasping the hand of the duchess, patiently bore the painful operation, and then said, "Spare me ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... why the Voice doth at last quite cease in those who have made too long Harrangues, in speaking, and whose Jaws are quite dried with an immoderate Heat; for in both these cases the top of the Wind-pipe is covered over with a clammy Tenacious Phlegm. ...
— The Talking Deaf Man - A Method Proposed, Whereby He Who is Born Deaf, May Learn to Speak, 1692 • John Conrade Amman
... done well; and, what they did Being perfect, it shall triumph. Let them slumber: No king of Egypt in a pyramid Is safer from oblivion, though he number Full seventy cerements for a coverlid. These Dead be seeds of life, and shall encumber The sad heart of the land until it loose The clammy clods and let out the Spring-growth In beatific green through every bruise. The tyrant should take heed to what he doth, Since every victim-carrion turns to use, And drives a chariot, like a god made wroth, Against ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... men looked at each other dubiously, though each had an earnest desire to please. They groped for human understanding, and suddenly that clammy, discouraged feeling spread its muffling wall between them. Billy was the ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... hung from the lower portions of the timber-work, or ran in and out between the upright supports, humming tunes, with bread-and-dripping in their hands; or they sat on the ground and pushed themselves forward across the sticky flagstones. The air hung clammy and raw, as it does in an old well, and already it had made the little voices husky, and had marked their faces with the scars of scrofula. Yet out of the tunnel- like passage which led to the street there blew now and again a warm breath ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... nothing, and a careless observer might have thought that she cared nothing, as it became each day more and more evident that Alice was dying. But these knew not of the long nights when with untiring love she sat by her sister's cradle, listening to her irregular breathing, pressing her clammy hands, and praying to be forgiven if ever, in thought or deed, she had wronged the little one now ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... trickling at the mouth and drawing back from their own shadows to the wives they once went a-maying with, or the mothers who had such travail at the bearing of them, as if for great ends. Out of this, the drunkard's hour, rose the wan face of Tommy, who had waked up somewhere clammy cold and quaking, and he was a very little boy, so he ran ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... great sword of the hurricane cleaveth The forested fells that the dark never leaveth— By fierce-featured crags, in whose evil abysses The clammy snake coils, and the flat adder hisses— Past lordly rock temples, where Silence is riven By the anthems supreme of the four winds of heaven— It speeds, with the cry of the streams of the fountains It chained to its sides, and dragged ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... with professional charity, or with any sort of commercialized humanitarianism. The moment human helpfulness is systematized, organized, commercialized, and professionalized, the heart of it is extinguished, and it becomes a cold and clammy thing. ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... shine Thus like the stars in heaven?"' As Sebert stood, The sweetness of the morning more and more Made way into his heart. The pale blue smoke, Rising from hearths by woodland branches fed, Dimmed not the crystal matin air; not yet From clammy couch had risen the mist sun-warmed: All things distinctly showed; the rushing tide, The barge, the trees, the long bridge many-arched, And countless huddled gables, far away, Lessening, yet still descried. A voice ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... only a small stunted boy; and a few years later my brothers David and Daniel and my older sisters had to endure about as much as I did. In the harvest dog-days and dog-nights and dog-mornings, when we arose from our clammy beds, our cotton shirts clung to our backs as wet with sweat as the bathing-suits of swimmers, and remained so all the long, sweltering days. In mowing and cradling, the most exhausting of all the farm work, I made matters worse by foolish ambition in keeping ahead of ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... Joe through all. No more warm rooms and comfortable evenings beside the fire with mother, no more suppers made ready for the boys, and jokes and laughing when they came home; there was no more a house to call home, no mother nor boys, only something cold and clammy under the muddy ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... the meal was quickly finished; they passed into the drawing-room, and took comfortable chairs on either side of the hearth. May had brought cold, clammy weather; a sky of billowing grey and frequent gusts against the window made it pleasant here by this bright fireside. Lashmar stretched his legs, smiled at the gimcracks shelved and niched above the mantelpiece, and began talking. His description of Lady Ogram was amusing, ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... a living thing. It crushed down upon the summerhouse with huge, downy black wings. A very faint rustling started up in the dry leaves of the creeper on the roof and clammy little draughts of air came twisting through the cracks. All the languorous glamour of the night had passed. It was merely autumn moonlight, and too late in the year to be sitting out in a summerhouse mouthing inconsequentialities—two people ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... seem to change. Mile after mile we encountered the same impenetrable blanket of clammy moisture. I was huddling as tight as possible to the bottom of the seat, taking advantage of the least bit of cover from the biting, rushing swirl of icy-cold air. Mile after mile; it seemed hours up there in the solitude. I watched the regular dancing up and down of ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... early days of the emancipation agitation in the North the agitators got but small help or countenance from any one. Argue and plead and pray as they might, they could not break the universal stillness that reigned, from pulpit and press all the way down to the bottom of society—the clammy stillness created and maintained by the lie of silent assertion—the silent assertion that there wasn't anything going on in which humane and intelligent people ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... after impatiently knocking it away, something seemed to be making its way up my sleeve, to be succeeded by something else in the leg of my trousers, while I had hardly got rid of this sensation when a peculiarly clammy cold touch taught me that either a lizard or a snake was crawling over ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... running back five miles to reach a harbour, or of anchoring off an exposed lee-shore. Preferring the latter course, even at the risk of losing our boat altogether, we cast anchor, and leaving a man in the boat, waded ashore. Here things looked very wretched indeed. Everything was wet and clammy. Very little firewood was to be found; and when it was found, we had the greatest difficulty in getting it to light. At last, however, the fire blazed up; and though it still rained, we began ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... on to find Gozo lying at full length where they had left him. His eyes were open, but staring meaninglessly. Denis called him by name. He made no reply. He lifted his hand, it felt cold and clammy, and fell as he let it go; his heart had ceased to beat. Notwithstanding this, he pressed some of the juice from the flesh they had brought, into his mouth. They lifted up his head, they rubbed his feet, but all in vain. They saw with sorrow that they had been too late ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston
... of religion, the only basis for morality; not a suggestion of a sense of responsibility to God—nothing but cold, clammy materialism! Darwinism transforms the Bible into a story book and reduces Christ to man's level. It gives him an ape for an ancestor on His mother's side at least and, as many evolutionists believe, on His Father's ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... am nearly well," returned the youth, pausing a moment, while a struggle of the most painful interest seemed to engross his thoughts. As it passed away, he drew his hand feebly across his clammy brow, and, smiling faintly, resumed his speech,—"on the brink of the grave, at a moment when all thoughts of me must be connected with the image of death, there can no longer be any necessity for silence. You have been kind to ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... there to 'do it up' they found the interior of the house in a state of indescribable filth: the ceilings discoloured with smoke and hung with cobwebs, the wallpapers smeared and black with grease, the handrails and the newel posts of the staircase were clammy with filth, and the edges of the doors near the handles were blackened with greasy dirt and finger-marks. The tops of the skirtings, the mouldings of the doors, the sashes of the windows and the corners of the floors were thick ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... continuous, as of drops falling through infinite space on to deep water, came upon his ear; and he saw that the sides of the abyss were covered with slime; and the damp air made him cough, and the cap had got over his spectacles and nearly blinded him; and he was perspiring with a cold, clammy sweat. ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... his hand upon the starting handle, French with the steering wheel of the police car already in his hand. And then the little party seemed suddenly turned to stone. For a few breathless seconds not one of them moved. Out into the clammy night air came the echoes of a hideous, inhuman, blood-curdling scream. Quest was the first to recover himself. He leaped from his seat and rushed back across the empty hall into the study, followed a little way behind by French and the others. ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... man fell back in his chair, nodding his "yes" dumbly like a marionette when the string has been jerked a thought too violently, and his weasel face was moist and clammy. I know not what double-dealing he would have been at before this, but it was surely something with the promise of a rope at the ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... and customary devotions for the brighter and newer chapels of the fashionable churches in Ravenna. So the old monk is left alone to sweep the marsh water from his church floor, and to keep the green moss from growing too thickly on its monuments. A clammy conferva covers everything except the mosaics upon tribune, roof, and clerestory, which defy the course of age. Christ on His throne sedet aternumque sedebit: the saints around him glitter with their pitiless uncompromising eyes and wooden gestures, as if twelve ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... who had taken a great dislike for the sanctimonious speaker, and who could scarcely repress a shudder as he shook Mr. John Heron's cold and clammy hand. ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... while I sleep. Perhaps I'll never wake again," grandpa said, and clasping Maddy's hands he fell away to sleep, while Maddy kept her watch beside him, herself falling into a troubled sleep, from which she was aroused by a clammy hand pressing on her forehead, and Uncle Joseph's voice, which said: "Wake, my child. There's been a guest here while you slumbered," and he pointed to the rigid features of the ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... his life was trembling on its frailest chords, and its delicate machinery almost wound up, Charles Romaine returned, sober enough to take in the situation. He strode up to the dying child, took the clammy hands in his, and said in a tone of bitter anguish, "Charlie, don't you know papa? Wouldn't you speak one little word to papa?" But it was too late, the shadows that never deceive flitted over the pale beauty ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... the verification of all our speculative hypotheses, and with slow and cautious progress making good our steps as we proceed. Thus we may hope to reach out further, and ever further, into the unknown, sure that as we grope in the darkness we shall encounter no clammy horror, but shall receive the assistance and sympathy which it is legitimate to symbolize as a clasp from the hand of ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... soul!" He looked at Louis Trudel, silent and morose, the clammy yellow of a great sickness in his face and hands, but his mind only intent on making a waistcoat—and the end of all things very near! The words he had written the night before came to him: "Therefore, wherefore, tailor-man? Therefore, wherefore, God? . . . Show me a sign from Heaven, tailor-man!" ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... but a brief sojourn in this region of sorrow. Ere another sun, her head hung lifeless on Lord William's bosom;—he had pressed her to his heart in token of forgiveness; but he held only the cold and clammy ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby |
