United States or Malaysia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Such news that Lennard had was, of course, even more terrible than the news of war and invasion, which was now thrilling through England like an electric shock, and he kept it to himself, thinking quite rightly that the people of England had quite enough to occupy their attention for the immediate present, and so he replied as he raised the glass which Denis had filled for him: "I am afraid that I have no news except this: that from all I have heard in the States, if it does come to death-grips, the States will be with us.
"I ain't going to stay here by myself, Dan. I'll go crazy, I tell you! I don't want to live and I am afraid to die. What sort of a God is He to let a person suffer like this?" And poor old Dan, at death-grips with his own life problem, wrestled in vain with hers; arguing, reassuring, affirming, trying with an almost fanatic zeal to conquer his own doubts in conquering hers.
Their productive capability is the marvel even of this age of industrial miracles. And yet, with every nerve strained to its utmost tension; toiling, saving at very death-grips with destiny they are sinking year by year deeper into the Slough of Despond into that most frightful of all Gehennas, the hell of want! Nor is this all.
And whilst the days that are dead are embalmed in costliest spices, and lie in the most holy place of the temple of memory, the soul discovers with surprise that it has surmounted the cruel shock of earlier shipwreck, and can once more greet the sea. I am writing in days of war. The situation is without precedent. A dozen nations are in death-grips with each other.
I had seen an instance both of his spell-bound cowardice and of his almost degrading craft in extrication. That in itself repelled me. But it lost its value in the light that he had cast on the never-ceasing torment that consumed him. At any rate he was at death-grips with himself, strangling the devils of fear and dishonour with a hand relentlessly certain.
For a short time it was doubtful whether the stiff-necked old Rajah would not put his fate to the touch, and come to death-grips with British power acting in the name of the Durbar, but wiser counsels prevailed. Partab Singh paid his tribute, with no more deduction than could be accounted for by the ever-ready plea of a bad harvest, and gave no excuse for marching troops into his territory.
Thus the party which had slain his brother found itself again at death-grips with an even abler and more implacable foe. His first speech had been received by the people with wild delight. He was already the greatest orator in Rome. His importance is shown by the Senate's actually prolonging the consul's command, in order to keep his quaestor longer abroad.
Valori and friend have great news: "Tournay fallen; siege done, your Majesty!" They hasten to salute his Majesty with the glorious tidings, Hmph! thinks Friedrich: and we are at death-grips here, little to be helped by your taking Pekin! However, he lets wit of nothing.
'Most wayward of men! cried Synesius, half peevishly; 'you seem to take some perverse pleasure in throwing yourself into the waves again, the instant you have climbed a rock of refuge! 'Pleasure? Is there any pleasure in feeling oneself at death-grips with the devil?
Living in Paris during the early months of the cataclysm, witness of the mobilization, the rape of Belgium, and the turn at the Marne, the heroic struggle for national existence in the winter trenches, he saw with a poet's vision what France was at death-grips with, what the Allies were fighting for, was not territorial gains or glory or even altogether selfish self-preservation, but rather, more deeply, for the existence of a certain humanity.
Word Of The Day