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Wrestle   Listen
verb
Wrestle  v. i.  (past & past part. wrestled; pres. part. wrestling)  
1.
To contend, by grappling with, and striving to trip or throw down, an opponent; as, they wrestled skillfully. "To-morrow, sir, I wrestle for my credit, and he that escapes me without some broken limb shall acquit him well." "Another, by a fall in wrestling, started the end of the clavicle from the sternum."
2.
Hence, to struggle; to strive earnestly; to contend. "Come, wrestle with thy affections." "We wrestle not against flesh and blood." "Difficulties with which he had himself wrestled."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Wrestle" Quotes from Famous Books



... during a thunder-storm. The education of the son was perhaps the noblest portion of his varied and variously honourable activity. True to his maxim, that a ruddy-checked boy was worth more than a pale one, the old soldier in person initiated his son into all bodily exercises, and taught him to wrestle, to ride, to swim, to box, and to endure heat and cold. But he felt very justly, that the time had gone by when it sufficed for a Roman to be a good farmer and soldier; and be felt also that it could not but have an injurious influence on the mind of his boy, if he should ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... man, and for an heirloom keep, In mem'ry of Patroclus' fun'ral games, Whom thou no more amid the Greeks shalt see. Freely I give it thee; for thou no more Canst box, or wrestle, or in sportive strife The jav'lin throw, or race with flying feet; For age with heavy hand hath bow'd ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... much company forced on their accustomed solitary habit, roared defiance at each other until the air fairly trembled. Occasionally two would clash foreheads. Then the powerful animals would push and wrestle, trying for a chance to gore. The decision of supremacy was a question of but a few minutes, and a bloody topknot the worst damage. The defeated one side-stepped hastily and clumsily out of reach, and ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White

... ashes,—a far hour shall wreak The deep prophetic fulness of this verse, And pile on human heads the mountain of my curse. That curse shall be forgiveness. Have I not,— Hear me, my Mother Earth! behold it, Heaven,— Have I not had to wrestle with my lot? Have I not suffered things to be forgiven? Have I not had my brain seared, my heart riven, Hopes sapped, name blighted, life's life lied away, And only not to desperation driven, Because not altogether of such clay As rots into ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... signs of what our voyage would be when the 'barefoot days' were done. Out beyond the clear sky and tender clouds, the old hands saw the wraith of the rugged Cape that we had yet to weather. The impending wrestle with the rigours of 'the Horn' sent them to their preparations when we had scarce crossed the Line. Old Martin was the fore hand. Now, his oilskins hung out over the head, stretched on hoops and broomsticks, glistening in a brave new coat of oil ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone

... herself on her knees and was praying aloud: praying to the Virgin with sighs and sobs and all her soul: wrestling so in prayer with a dead saint as by a strange perversity men cannot or will not wrestle with Him, who alone can hear a million prayers at once from a million different places,—can realize and be touched with a sense of all man's infirmities in a way no single saint with his partial experience of them can realize and be touched by them; who unasked suspended the laws of nature that ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade

... see one of these entertainments. Do you ever have a ladies' night? If you do, and the ladies are not supposed to wrestle with the laundresses in the early light, ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore

... the room. "This house is a sight for one maid to wrestle with," said she; and her brother, beyond a glance of the utmost indifference around the chaotic room, did not seem to notice her remark at all. However, that she did not resent. Indeed, she herself was so far from taking the matter to heart that she laughed a little as she continued ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... it pleasing and cute for young men and young women—fourteen to sixteen, or even seventeen—to wrestle and roll around on the floor like two huge kittens; but it is unwise and ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler

... suddenly and, seizing a fresh sheet of paper, he began to write. At the second stanza he paused, planned out his rhymes and hurried on again, but just as his poem seemed finished, he halted at the last line. Wrestle as he would he could not finish it—the rhymes were against him—it would not come right. Ah, that is what sets the artist apart from all the under-world of dreamers—his genius endures to the end; but the near-poet ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge

... is good luck; it is eternity; it is wealth. Nothing can withstand us; nothing injure us; it is inexhaustible riches. So felt Ferdinand Armine, though on the verge of a moral precipice. To-morrow! what of to-morrow? Did to-morrow daunt him? Not a jot. He would wrestle with to-morrow, laden as it might be with curses, and dash it to the earth. It should not be a day; he would blot it out of the calendar of time; he would effect a moral eclipse of its influence. He loved Henrietta Temple. She ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli

... comrades went to Joetunheim in quest of adventures: and we remember the goblet which he could not exhaust because of its mysterious connection with the inexhaustible Sea; the race with Hugi, which in the end proved to be a race with Thought; and the wrestle with the old nurse Elli, who was no other than Time herself, and therefore irresistible. So do we all get us mallets ingeniously forged by the dark elves;—we try a race with human thought, and look ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various

... entered the churchyard gate he suddenly met a carriage drawn by coal-black horses, which vomited fire. So terrified was he that he shrieked aloud, whereupon the carriage vanished, and the princess flew away moaning: "For ever lost!" In a case where a prince had been enchanted, the feat was to wrestle with him three nights ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland

... of this opportunity to mop her forehead with her blue and white pocket handkerchief, and wrestle with her bonnet's unconquerable tendency to slip off behind, and the clergyman passed the question on to her husband, who fixed his eye on a bluebottle buzzing in one of the windows, and jerked out ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker

... deal, but that they never go beyond that. I have lived a great deal among the people and observed them, and have often seen anger and quarrelling, but never fighting. Indeed, when their anger lasts long, they sit down together. The children never wrestle or pull each other about, either in sport or earnest. I only once saw two boys engaged in earnest quarrel, when one of them so far forgot himself as to give the other a box on the ear, but he did this as carefully as if he received the blow himself. The boy who was struck ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... and turn in the desperate life-and-death wrestle, and Jack's face was turned towards the opposite side of the gulf. But this was only to show him that a new danger hung over him with fearful menace. He looked straight down a gun-barrel. On the farther brink knelt one ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore

... flock to Needley in response to a newspaper publicity and endorsement that had been beyond his wildest dreams, was quite another matter. Madison viewed the first arrivals—brought in from the station on cot beds to the Waldorf Hotel—and retired to his room in the Congress Hotel to wrestle with the niceties and minutiae ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard

... from invaded settlements for arms and assistance, were met with cold indifference or positive refusal. The men and women who, in face of such discouragement, cast their lot beyond the mountains, must have been a hardy set indeed, and made of stuff not likely to yield in a wrestle with wild nature ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann

... bearing it to him through the concourse of Argives, and stood by him and said: "Lo now for thee too, old man, be this a treasure, a memorial of Patroklos' burying; for no more shalt thou behold him among the Argives. Now give I thee this prize unwon, for not in boxing shalt thou strive, neither wrestle, nor enter on the javelin match, nor race with thy feet; for grim old ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)

... my Saviour is near, And for my relief will surely appear. By prayer let me wrestle and He will perform; With Christ in the vessel I ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth

... and one of the boys would pretend to come on a valuable find—a big silver coin perhaps, a patacon, and there would be a great gabble over it and perhaps a fight for its possession, and they would wrestle and roll on the grass, struggling for the imaginary coin. That finished, the dead ostrich would get up and place himself among the hunters, while the boy who had captured him with his bolas would then play ostrich, and the chase ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson

... wife's—for your own sake—for the love of Him in whose image you were made—wrestle with the devil that possesses you,' said John Jardine, when they had risen to leave the room, laying his hand affectionately upon Brian's shoulder. 'Believe me, ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... strength for which he was noted in his youth, and displayed his wonderful skill as a wrestler. In addition to being six feet four inches high he now weighed two hundred and fourteen pounds. And his strength and skill were so great combined that he could out-wrestle and out-lift any man in that section of ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure

... every-day Plato as Davy Crockett. Had the old Colonel never uttered a better idea than that everlasting good motto—"Be sure you're right, then go ahead!" his wisdom would stand a pretty good wrestle with tide and time, before his standing, as a man of genius, would pass to oblivion—be washed out in Lethe's waters. We remember hearing Col. Crockett relate, during a "speech," a short time before he lost ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... will afterwards speak of, and of the manner in which they came. Within, with these maidens, they say that there are twelve thousand women; for you must know that there are women who handle sword and shield, and others who wrestle, and others who blow trumpets, and others pipes, and others instruments which are different from ours; and in the same way they have women as bearers (BOOIS) and washing-folk, and for other offices inside their ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell

... never end, and Dexter felt as if he were getting the worst of it, consequent upon an inherent dislike to inflict pain, and his having passed over again and again opportunities for administering effective blows. At last they joined in what became little more than a wrestle, and Dexter felt the ground giving way beneath his feet; the back of his neck hurt him terribly, and he was about to give in, when the boys began to cheer, Mr Sibery ran up with the cane, and the doctor came looking stern and frowning, while ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn

... "universities" to-day it is quite pathetic to hear the professors wrestle with geology and Genesis, and cut their astronomy to fit Joshua. If in one of these institutions for the petrifaction of the human mind there is a teacher who is either not nimble enough to escape the ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener

... an earthly affection, which made me anxious and careful about what should befall myself. For in all other affection I had been content with any small return, or with none; but my heart was beginning to hunger after an equal love from you. And I had no doubt that I must wrestle against that as a great temptation, and the command was clear ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... shines now On no peace but the dead, On reek of trenches thunder-shocked, Tense fury of wills in wrestle ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke

... Sudden Death,' and 'Dream Fugue.' The last named is the most perfect in its conception, the most powerful in its execution. It is too long to quote, too sublime to be marred by abbreviation. If any one desires to see what can be done with the English language in an 'effort to wrestle with the utmost power of music,' let him read that dream. We shall, meanwhile, present one from the year 1820, and leave the reader to form his own ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... with and commanding other men. He, the novice, the beginner, to talk of "commanding!" Yet already he felt his foot upon the ladder. Fontenoy consulted him, and confided in him more and more. In spite of his engagement, he was informing himself rapidly on a hundred questions, and the mental wrestle of every day was exhilarating. Their small group in the House, compact, tireless, audacious, was growing in importance and in the attention it extorted from the public. Never had the whole tribe of factory inspectors shown a more hawk-like, a more ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... among them the thirty-six world-rulers of the darkness, whom Solomon commanded to fetch water to the Temple. Some of these demons he condemned to do the heavy work on the construction of the Temple, others he shut up in prison, and others, again, he ordered to wrestle with fire in the making of gold and silver, sitting down by lead and spoon, and to make ready places for the other demons, in which they should ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... black bear. In his scuffle with the serpent he had lost his bundle of clothes and had nothing but a large knife, which was buckled around his waist. Drawing his knife, he rushed forward and was met by the bear, when a regular hand-to-hand fight was commenced. He did not wrestle long before he found an opportunity to use his knife, and plunging it up to the hilt, he soon had the bear lying prostrate at his feet. Having lost all his clothes, it became necessary that he should do something in his nude state. The bear's skin was the only thing ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold

... without end. His life might have been so much easier if he had taken his chances. He should never have left Italy; or he ought to have stayed in England. 'But an immoderate love of liberty caused me to wrestle long with faithless friends and inveterate poverty.' Elsewhere he says more resignedly: 'But we are ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga

... hands. The objects of the game are to make the opponent (1) move one or both feet, or (2) touch the floor with any part of the body. A point is scored for the opponent whenever a player fails in one of these ways. After a trial has been made with the right hand and foot, the wrestle should be repeated with the left hand and foot ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft

... world's a holiday! Laugh away, and roar and shout Till thy hoarse tongue lolleth out! Bloat thy cheeks, and bulge thine eyes Unto bursting; pelt thy thighs With thy swollen palms, and roar As thou never hast before! Lustier! wilt thou! peal on peal! Stiflest? Squat and grind thy heel— Wrestle with thy loins, and then Wheeze thee whiles, and ...
— Riley Songs of Home • James Whitcomb Riley

... value of my drugs. I do not give my sick the mere ink in which a charm is written, but hot and rending drugs which descend and wrestle ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling

... occasion of almost every visit he would be compelled to wrestle with this doubtfulness of his companion before he could induce him to converse upon the matters that would naturally be considered of the utmost importance to him, but after long and arduous labor, he usually left him more cheerful and hopeful ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton

... into hell. Now that I have myself set foot there, I feel art and love, and life itself, shrivel in the relentless chill—for it is icy cold and drearily bright in hell, not dark and fiery, as poets have sung! I feel that I could wrestle better with the loss of health, of wealth, of love, for there would be something to bear, some burden to lift. Now there is nothing to bear, except a blank purposelessness which eats the heart out of me. I am in the lowest place, in the ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson

... dear fatherland. Your hand has girt it round about with cliffs and peopled it with a peaceful race. It is my last refuge, and thither I am carrying my bride. With your strong arm restore me to my beloved home. I will wrestle with you, fight with you; you cannot shake me off. I will not let you go ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai

... good field for sport. Let us have some of the old games that we used to play at home. Who will wrestle with me?" ...
— Viking Tales • Jennie Hall

... Dubourgay, "we shall have a War, then,"—universa1 deadly tug at those Italian Apanages, for and against an insulted Kaiser,—"War; and then all that is crooked will be pulled straight!" So spake Friedrich Wilhelm on the New-Year's morning; War in Italy, universal spasm of wrestle there, being now the expectation of foolish mankind: Crooked will be pulled straight, thinks Friedrich Wilhelm; and perhaps certain high Majesties, deaf to the voice of Should-not, will understand ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... it comprised five exercises. The competitors were to leap, run from one end of the stadion to the other, make a long throw of the metal discus, hurl the javelin, and wrestle. ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos

... most sisters. One day there was a wrestling match at court, and Rosalind and Celia went to see it. Charles, a celebrated wrestler, was there, who had killed many men in contests of this kind. Orlando, the young man he was to wrestle with, was so slender and youthful, that Rosalind and Celia thought he would surely be killed, as others had been; so they spoke to him, and asked him not to attempt so dangerous an adventure; but the only effect of ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten

... provoked to use a little more severity than he wished to do, it might well be justified on account of the ferocious and rebellious behaviour of his scholars, some of whom cursed and swore at him, and even went so far as to wrestle with him, in which case he was under a necessity of subduing them as he best could.' Scotch Appeal Cases, xvii. p. 214. The judgment of the House of Lords is given in Paton's Reports of Cases upon Appeal from Scotland, ii. 277, as follows:—'A schoolmaster, appointed by ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... heroic defender of Leyden; De Gryze, Hersolte, Francis Maalzoon, and three legal Frisians of pith and substance, Feitsma, Aisma, and Jongema; a dozen Dutchmen together—as muscular champions as ever little republic sent forth to wrestle with all comers in the slippery ring of diplomacy. For it was instinctively felt that here were conclusions to be tried with a nation of deep, solid thinkers, who were aware that a great crisis in the world's history had occurred, and would put forth their most ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... horse enough for both to ride on, And neither feller rides behind. Some sez we put a pile of side on. Well, where's the single-handed brace Will take us on? We'll put the peg in, Train fine, 'n' jump, or box, or race, Or wrestle them; 'n' more than that To clinch a match, so 'elp me cat, We'll ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson

... ignore the rules so carefully mapped out by the present Marquess of Queensberry's grandfather, and revert to the conditions of warfare under which Cribb and Spring won their battles. Kennedy and Walton, having clinched, proceeded to wrestle up and down the room, while Jimmy Silver looked on from his eminence in pained surprise at the sight of two men, who knew the rules of the ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse

... so as to fit them to "serve God in Church and State." Accordingly, he gave much attention to religious instruction and also set a high value on athletics. The sixty or seventy young men under his care were taught to hunt and fish, to run and jump, to wrestle and fence, to walk gracefully, and above all things to be temperate. For intellectual training he depended on the Latin classics as the best means of introducing students to the literature, art, and philosophy of ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... the young at play. There were two of them, nearly full-grown, with the mother. The most curious thing was to see them stand up on their hind legs and cuff each other soundly, striking and warding like trained boxers. Then they would lock arms and wrestle desperately till one was thrown, when the other promptly seized him by throat or paw, ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long

... concerned that the life of a rowdy was the life of a fool. Alcibiades had expected Socrates to lose his temper, but it was Alcibiades who gave way, and blurted out that he could not hope to beat his antagonist talking, but he would like to wrestle with him. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard

... brausend!" And looked at Captain Lewis, Who calmly stood and blew his Cigar in all the bustle, And scorned the tempest's tussle. And oft we've thought thereafter How he beat the storm to laughter; For well he knew his vessel With that vain wind could wrestle; And when a wreck we thought her And doomed ourselves to slaughter, How gaily he fought her, And through the hubbub brought her, And, as the tempest caught ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray

... their Christmas Who wrestle still with life? Not grandsires, youths, or little folks, But they who wage the strife— The fathers and the mothers Who fight for homes and bread, Who watch and ward the living, And bury all the dead? Ah! by their side at Christmas-tide The ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various

... I can with-hold no longer; you are too rough, And wrestle against nature with a violence More than becomes a Father; wherein would ye Come nearer to the likeness of God, Than in your being entreated? Let not thirst Of Honour, make you quite forget you are A Man, and what makes ...
— The Laws of Candy - Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... perhaps, to despise wealth, if he and his had never possessed it, and if his lack of it were not the first and sufficient barrier which divided him from Marcia Coryston. But his nature was sound and sane; it looked life in the face—its gifts and its denials, and those stern joys which the mere wrestle with experience brings to the fighting spirit. He had soon reconquered cheerfulness; and when Arthur returned, he submitted to be talked to for hours on that young man's tangled affairs, handling the youth with that mixture of sympathy and satire which both soothed and ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... said the caller, blandly. "And as for the capable young woman: do I or do I not recollect a dark night on the German frontier when she was glad enough to call on a sleepy fellow pilgrim to help her wrestle with a particularly ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde

... looking on with great array of lords and ladies. Then, for ten days, the two sovereigns fought five combats every day, and always beat their polite adversaries; though they do write that the King of England, being thrown in a wrestle one day by the King of France, lost his kingly temper with his brother-in- arms, and wanted to make a quarrel of it. Then, there is a great story belonging to this Field of the Cloth of Gold, showing ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens

... great thews and sinews in heavy grips—when the mighty hands of the other had held him, the huge limbs embraced him; and his eyes would grow full of the passion of fight and the desire of battle. None other would satisfy him to wrestle with but his dead rival, and indeed he in common with the country people thought that no other might be found ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan

... stepping aside to let her pass, which she did, making room for me to sit down beside her on the narrow plush-covered seat. But I didn't care to sit. I was so crushed, it seemed that, if once I sat down I shouldn't have courage to rise up again and wrestle with the ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... few days after having secured my tormentors, I enjoyed something like comparative ease: but the ugly imps that haunted me, in fiercer crowds again are swarming round me. I am too miserable to exist in this state; it must be ended. It is a turmoil that surpasses mortal sufferance! If she will wrestle against fate, it is not my fault. I have no wish to practise more upon her than is necessary. But the thing ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... your teeth are sharper than mine. Can you hear a robber's footstep when he's kneeling before murder? or can you listen to the snow falling on Midsummer's day? If so, your ears are finer than mine. Can you run with a chamois? can you wrestle with a bear? can you swim with an otter? If so, I'm your match. How many cities have you seen? how many knaves have you gulled? Which is dearest, bread or justice? Why do men pay more for the protection of life than life itself? Is cheatery a staple at Constantinople, ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... of the city, a sceptre, a sword, and a cap, are borne before him, and he is followed by the principal aldermen in scarlet gowns, with gold chains; himself and they on horseback. Upon their arrival at a place appointed for that purpose, where a tent is pitched, the mob begin to wrestle before them, two at a time; the conquerors receive rewards from the magistrates. After this is over, a parcel of live rabbits are turned loose among the crowd, which are pursued by a number of boys, who endeavour to catch them, with all the noise they can make. ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton

... wins the foot-race. Lycon of Sparta is second. Moerocles of Mantinea drops from the contest. Glaucon and Lycon, each winning twice, shall wrestle for the final victory." ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... and I could have cried out aloud with envy and vexation, at having to stand there in my ragged sheep-skin excluded from all competition. If Pachomius had not just then come up, by the Lord I must have sprung into the arena, and have challenged the strongest of them all to wrestle with me, and I could have thrown the disk much farther than the scented puppy who won ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... in his heart and the Gospel in his hand hath no fear of the machinations of man or devil," the missionary answered stoutly. "I will see this man and wrestle with him. One backslider returned to the fold is a greater victory than a thousand heathen. He who is strong for evil can be as mighty for good, witness Saul when he journeyed up to Damascus to bring Christian ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London

... plans will so much depend on circumstances, that I shall not venture to lay down an opinion on the subject. My prospects are not very promising, but I suppose we shall wrestle through life like our neighbours; indeed, by Hanson's last advices, I have some apprehension of finding Newstead dismantled by Messrs. Brothers,[1] etc., and he seems determined to force me into selling it, but he will be baffled. ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero

... was good, as usual; in Elizabeth's eyes, monstrously good. There was to her something repellent in such luxurious fare enjoyed by strangers, on this tourist-flight through a country so eloquent of man's hard wrestle with rock and soil, with winter and the wilderness. The blinds of the car towards the next carriage were rigorously closed, that no one might interfere with the privacy of the rich; but Elizabeth had drawn up the blind beside her, and looked occasionally ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... leave hyear ter day. "Deze chil'en, Lord; deze chil'en, Lord, O keep dey little feet Er gwine straight ter hebn, Lord, Fur ter walk dat golden street. "O bless us, Lord! O bless us, Lord! O come in all yer might; Unless yer'll come an' bless us, Lord, We'll wrestle hyear all night. "Deze niggers, Lord; deze niggers, Lord, Dey skins is black, hit's true, But den dey souls is white, my Lord, So won't yer bless dem too? "O bless us, Lord! O bless us, Lord! O bless us mo' an' mo'; Unless yer'll come an' bless us, Lord, We'll keep yer hyear fur sho. "All folkses, ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle

... part. A sexual motive occasionally underlies the wrestling so common among boys—in such cases it is the manifestation of a desire for intimate physical contact with the beloved boy. According to Sanford Bell, a boy and a girl may also wrestle with one another with the same end in view of attaining intimate contact; and he states that children lift one another with the same object. Moreover, children are induced to wrestle by sexual motives of a somewhat ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll

... the churning flood at the foot of the falls, sometimes remaining under water what seemed a long while, and always coming to the surface with a delicacy for the nestlings. They were able to dip into the swift, white currents and wrestle with them without being washed away. Of course, the water would sometimes carry them down stream, but never more than a few inches, and never to a point where they could be injured. They were perfect masters of the situation. They simply slipped in and ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser

... expected. Rebecca is not blessed until after some years of probation; and the same discord, which, in Abraham's double marriage, arose through two mothers, here proceeds from one. Two boys of opposite characters wrestle already in their mother's womb. They come to light, the elder lively and vigorous, the younger gentle and prudent. The former becomes the father's, the latter the mother's, favorite. The strife for precedence, which begins even at birth, is ever going on. Esau is quiet and ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... and asked, of course, about his hurt, which Tandy explained as the result of "a wrestle he had had with an axe," meaning that he had cut his foot in chopping wood. He tarried but a moment with Sam, excusing himself for his hurried departure on the ground that he had been sent for by General Jackson. Having heard Sam's story and plans Tandy limped on, and was soon ushered ...
— Captain Sam - The Boy Scouts of 1814 • George Cary Eggleston

... themselves as the military majesty of the Republic, governed themselves. He reduced their officers to the ranks; he treated them harshly, made them run, leap, ascend the declivity of Byrsa at a single burst, hurl javelins, wrestle together, and sleep in the squares at night. Their families used to come to ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert

... together rose up in fierce embrace, while the foam and spray of their contention was blown by the keen east wind into the children's faces. But the force of the tide was spent, and the second wave, though victorious in the wrestle, scarce survived the conflict, and did not even flow over the children's feet. Elsie, therefore, sprang forward almost to the spot where the wave had broken, and brought down her rake into the midst of a huge and tangled mass. The retiring wave struggled ...
— A Child of the Glens - or, Elsie's Fortune • Edward Newenham Hoare

... again!" screamed Claus in triumph a second time. "Already have I seen her cheek grow pale, her head bow down like a blighted flower, her walk become weary with faintness. Hast thou already been at thy filthy machinations? But Black Claus, the witchfinder, is there to wrestle with the powers of evil. And hear me! That fair sweet girl is the only comfort of my wretched life. My soul grows calm and soothed when I look upon that lovely face. A ray of sunshine gleams upon the darkness ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various

... into their poverty, no ears to hear of it, no tongue to tell thereof, and point them out "as the poor ladies that once were rich." This was a great relief, though it came of pride, and she knew it; and she said within herself, When health strengthens my body, I will wrestle with this feeling, for it is unchristian. She never even to Mabel alluded to what was heaviest on her mind—the loss of the old furniture; though she cheered her niece by the assurance that, after a few months, if the Almighty blessed the exertions they must ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... wife of his when he was not away. I went out to see him a day or two afore he died. I asked him if there was anything I could do for him. He said no, his squaw would get on well enough there. She had been alone most of her time, and would wrestle on just as well when he had gone under. He had a big garden-patch which she cultivated, and brought the things down into the town here. They always fetch a good price. Why more people don't grow them I can't make out; it would ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty

... fight with himself. He could not turn away abruptly and leave her standing there; if the victory were to be won, it must be by sheer wrestle with the temptation, for her sake as well as his own. To let her so much as suspect his feeling were as bad as to utter it; nay, infinitely worse, for it would mean that he must not see her after to-night. He and she would then be ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing

... finally prevailed. It was forgotten in the fever and turbulence of the moment, that Mr. Lincoln, who was never an obstinate man, and who in the matter of his Proclamation of Emancipation had surrendered his own judgment under the pressure of public opinion, would not have been likely to wrestle with Congress and the country in a mad struggle for ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian

... sooner than it had expected, for bouncing round the corner, and passing Toby, it would suddenly wheel round again, as if it cried 'Why, here he is!' Incontinently his little white apron would be caught up over his head like a naughty boy's garments, and his feeble little cane would be seen to wrestle and struggle unavailingly in his hand, and his legs would undergo tremendous agitation, and Toby himself all aslant, and facing now in this direction, now in that, would be so banged and buffeted, and to touzled, and worried, ...
— The Chimes • Charles Dickens

... the white, semi- tropical sun, by night in the light of locomotive headlights that gleamed strangely over the dark swirling floods, the trestles were forced further and further out into the plunging current that wrenched and twisted and tugged with terrific strength in a mad wrestle with those who dared attempt to check its sullen destructive will, while steadily, irresistibly, the canyon-cutting falls drew nearer and nearer. It was not alone the magnitude of the task directed by Willard Holmes that made the work heroic. It was that this seemingly impossible work must be accomplished ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright

... crude attempts of these and other writers, stern events contributed to rear from tedious research and fruitless conjecture the true genius of history; for it is as a people begin to struggle for rights, to comprehend political relations, to contend with neighbours abroad, and to wrestle with obnoxious institutions at home, that they desire to secure the sanction of antiquity, to trace back to some illustrious origin the rights they demand, and to stimulate hourly exertions by a reference ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... many sections; continues to maintain a territorial dispute with Kyrgyzstan in Isfara Valley area; ongoing talks with China have failed to resolve the longstanding dispute over the indefinite boundary; Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan wrestle with sharing limited water resources and the regional environmental degradation caused by the shrinking of ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government

... clutching him fiercely by the throat and shouting for assistance. No one was, however, near, and for a few moments we struggled desperately. He was unarmed, and I, having unfortunately dropped my sword in the encounter, our conflict resolved itself into a fierce wrestle for the possession of the weapon which must give victory to the one into whose hands it fell. Once Samory, wiry and muscular like all Arabs, notwithstanding his age, stooped swiftly in an endeavour to snatch up the blade, but seeing his intention, ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux

... telegraphs, and did his notable pioneer work in wireless telegraphy. As the reader knows, it had been a master passion with Edison from boyhood up to possess a laboratory, in which with free use of his own time and powers, and with command of abundant material resources, he could wrestle with Nature and probe her closest secrets. Thus, from the little cellar at Port Huron, from the scant shelves in a baggage car, from the nooks and corners of dingy telegraph offices, and the grimy little shops in New York and Newark, he had now come to the proud ownership of an establishment ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... there is no better way to discover what you can do best than to try your 'prentice hand at a great variety of topics and mediums. The post-graduate course of every school of journalism is a roped arena where you wrestle, catch as catch can, for ...
— If You Don't Write Fiction • Charles Phelps Cushing

... need to tell me how you came to be out at Shonoho when I thought I'd left you tied hand and foot right here in the hotel." Then, with the quizzical smile wrinkling at the corners of the grave eyes: "How does the political wrestle strike you by this ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... powerful than all the kings on earth put together; a man who, like Satan, could wrestle with God Himself; leaning against one of the pillars in the Church of Saint-Sulpice, weighed down by the feelings and thoughts that oppressed him, and absorbed in the thought of a Future, the same ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... Thine enemies be scattered. Dip me deeper in Jordan. Wash me in the laver of regeneration. Give me courage to wrestle with ill-doers. Let ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell

... was not armed to wrestle with the storm, To fight for homely truth with vulgar power; Grace looked from every feature, shaped his form,— The rose of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... nor his inspirations were robust, but they were evenly matched, and they must have wrestled obstinately and often in the course of his life, and pushed each other about and exchanged slaps and tense bloodless pinches. But whenever Mr. Patmore felt it his duty to wrestle, ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.

... place, and come here like a human vulture to feed upon ships and men? There have been many Edmond Czernys in the world; but this man I name chief among them, and others will name him also. We set ourselves against a hand in a million; stiff backs we need to wrestle with that; but we'll do it, old comrade, we'll see ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton

... peevishness and passion. Who shall measure the influence of one kind and blameless life? His wife, in her gustier moments, thought it sheer weakness, this persistent turning away from evil, this refusal to investigate and dissect, to take sides, to wrestle. The evil was there, and it was making an ostrich or a vegetable of one's self to go on being calm in the face of it. With the blindness of wives, who are prevented from seeing clearly by the very closeness of the object—the same remark exactly applies to husbands—she did not ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim

... the way he walks and holds himself, the action of his hand, his smile, his frown, his general outlook, as clearly as in any phrenological development. John Hammond had a noble outlook: bold, without impudence or self-assertion; self-possessed, without vanity. Yes, assuredly a man to wrestle with difficulty, and to ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... would not coddle the child. No, Sir, the hardy method of treating children does no good. I'll take you five children from London, who shall cuff five Highland children. Sir, a man bred in London will carry a burthen, or run, or wrestle, as well as a man brought up in the hardiest manner in the country.' BOSWELL. 'Good living, I suppose, makes the Londoners strong.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, I don't know that it does. Our Chairmen from Ireland, who are as strong men as any, have been ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... self-justification, the whole of what follows may be said to hinge. And here I find myself in a perplexing dilemma. Either, on the one hand, I must exhaust the reader's patience by such a detail of my malady, or of my struggles with it, as might suffice to establish the fact of my inability to wrestle any longer with irritation and constant suffering; or, on the other hand, by passing lightly over this critical part of my story, I must forego the benefit of a stronger impression left on the mind of the reader, and must lay myself open to the misconstruction of having slipped, by the ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey

... which charmed her, became to him Cowper's dejection and despairing sadness, perplexing enough to his young brain. Where she took up and fed her soul upon John Wesley's conclusions, the boy found himself involved in John Wesley's perplexities, and struggling in desperate wrestle with the haunting shapes to which John Wesley had given successful battle. Thus prepared, no wonder my eager little friend plunged headlong into the sea of doubts, impatient to cry, "Eureka!" and plant his foot upon the Islands ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... suites of private apartments, have gas introduced into all the rooms, but as a general thing it is confined to the public rooms, and the unfortunate wight who longs to see beyond the end of his nose is forced to wrestle with dripping candles and unclean lamps, known only by tradition in our native land. The gaslight, which is a common necessary in the simplest private dwelling in an American city, is here a luxury scarcely attainable save ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various

... that for the women. Here, however, was a new religion—one that did touch him, that took hold of every fiber of him; and with all the zeal and fury of a convert he went out as a missionary. There were many nonunion men among the Lithuanians, and with these he would labor and wrestle in prayer, trying to show them the right. Sometimes they would be obstinate and refuse to see it, and Jurgis, alas, was not always patient! He forgot how he himself had been blind, a short time ago—after the fashion of all crusaders since the original ones, who set out to spread the gospel of ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... of our enemies may be on our victorious armies, the army of those who are praying at home will wrestle all the more earnestly in prayer, praying ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various

... mankind unto like damnation; such is their malice. And though they hang in the air, or fall in a garden or other pleasant place, yet have they continually their pain upon their backs. Against these we wrestle, and "against spiritual wickedness in coelestibus," that is, in the air; or we fight against spiritual wickedness ...
— Sermons on the Card and Other Discourses • Hugh Latimer

... the evening's discussion produced in me? In the one case, Mrs. Wellesdon taught me what general conversation might be how nimble, delicate, and pleasure-giving; in the other, there was the joy of the intellectual wrestle, mingled with a glad respect for one's opponents. Perhaps nowhere, except on some such ground and in some such circumstances as these, could a debate so earnest have taken quite so wholesome a tone, so wide a range. We were equals—debaters, not controversialists—friends, ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... retired to her room in the loft after supper on Sunday to wrestle with her labours; but as her mother grew into years, the girl had adopted the habit ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant

... possession of a new principle of life, derived from Him, and like His own. That real, perfect, immortal life, which hath no kindred with evil, and flings off pollution and decay from its pure surface, will wrestle with and finally overcome the living death of obedience to the deceitful lusts. Our weakness will be made rigorous by His inbreathed power. Our gravitation to earth and sin will be overcome by the yearning of that life to its source. An all-constraining motive ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren

... thoughts had begun to work upon this, he threw away his burden and went towards it and began to wrestle with it. And it was not a long time before he began to tear its covering in pieces; the flesh on it was not bigger than a thumb. Then he went away from it, and took up his burden again on his head, and went wandering ...
— Eskimo Folktales • Unknown

... noon-time with their open dinner-kettles, and their wives waiting, The female soothing a child, the farmer's daughter in the garden or cow-yard, The young fellow hosing corn, the sleigh-driver driving his six horses through the crowd, The wrestle of wrestlers, two apprentice-boys, quite grown, lusty, good-natured, native-born, out on the vacant lot at sundown after work, The coats and caps thrown down, the embrace of love and resistance, The upper-hold and under-hold, the hair rumpled over and blinding the eyes; The march ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... Antoinette been uncontrolled in the exercise of her judgment, she would have shown a spirit in emergency better adapted to wrestle with the times than had been discovered by His Majesty. Certain it is she was generally esteemed the most proper to be consulted of the two. From the imperfect idea which many of the persons in office entertained of the King's capacity, few of them ever ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... feature of the conflict between two modern great States is that it is a struggle for existence, or, at any rate, a wrestle to a fall. The mark of the modern State is that it is identified with the population which it comprises, and to such a State the name "nation" properly belongs. The French Revolution nationalised the State and ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson

... me! Why am I not loth To look that, even that in the face too? Why is it I dare Think but lightly of such impuissance? What stops my despair? This;—'tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what man Would do! See the King—I would help him but cannot, the wishes fall through. Could I wrestle to raise him from sorrow, grow poor to enrich, To fill up his life, starve my own out, I would—knowing which, I know that my service is perfect. Oh, speak through me now! Would I suffer for him that I love? So wouldst thou—so wilt thou! So shall crown thee the topmost, ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps

... national domain. Neither could he agree with Eastern statesmen who deplored the gratuitous distribution of lands, which by sale would yield large revenues. His often-repeated reply was the quintessence of Western statesmanship. The pioneer who went into the wilderness, to wrestle with all manner of hardships, was a true wealth-producer. As he cleared his land and tilled the soil, he not only himself became a tax-payer, but he increased the value of adjoining lands and added to the sum total of the ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... one, too, for this part of the coast! 'Twill be a study how to have it cooked. Now sit here, in the shadow of this rock. Your father's name was Albert Percival? So I supposed. I've often heard my wife Speak of him as of one she knew was wronged Most foully in his wrestle with the law. Have you not met with Harriet Percival?" "Once only, and our interview was brief. Is she not married?"—"No, nor like to be, Although her fortune is a pretty one, Even for these times,—two millions, I believe; All which her mother may inherit soon; For Harriet is an invalid, but ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent

... Calais and the release of the unpaid ransom of King John. However, on June 27, 1375, a truce for a year was signed at Bruges, which was further extended until June, 1377, just long enough to allow the old king to end his days in peace. France had once more to wrestle with the companies set free by the truce, so that England could still enjoy possession of Calais, Bordeaux, Bayonne, Brest, and the other scanty remnants of the cessions of the treaty of Calais. Satisfied at putting an end to the war, Gregory XI betook himself to Rome. Thus the truce ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout

... best virtue. Is the earth's mouth full? Is the grave satisfied? Discrown me then, For life is lord, and men may mock the gods With immortality." "I sue no more, But I command thee spare this woman's life, Or wrestle with Alcides." "Wrestle with thee, Thou puny boy!" And Death laughed loud, and swelled To monstrous bulk, fierce-eyed, with outstretched wings, And lightnings round his brow; but grave and firm, Strong as a tower, Alcides waited him, And these began to wrestle, ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus

... I thought for a minute that, after all, there was a little fair play in the game—that I had a decent, fair, blue-eyed man in front of me. He looked hard at me; I hard at him; it was as if we were going to wrestle for a belt. The young girl on the bench had her lips parted and leant forward, her head a little ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... he was settled on to uphold the honour of the paleface against the dark-skinned Indians. Eight competitors entered the lists, so there were four pairs of wrestlers, and the conquerors in each bout would have to wrestle with each other, until eventually the prize winner would have to ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young

... know whom to go to; I did not dare to go to my father; I had no mother that I ever went to at such a time; I did not feel like going to my brother; and I did not go to anybody. I felt that I must try to wrestle ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various

... devoted to labor was given to the practice of arms and the acquisition of instruction in all departments of military science; so that many a soldier was there fitted for the position he afterwards acquired, of officer, colonel, or general. To fence with the mounted bayonet, to wrestle, to leap, to climb, to run for miles, to swim, to make and to destroy temporary bridges, to throw up earth-walls, to carry great weights, to do, in short, what Indians learn to do, and much that they do not learn,—these ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... for L100 a year more than they brought last year. Poor Abbotsford will come to good after all. In the meantime it is Sic vos non vobis—but who cares a farthing? If Boney succeeds, we will give these affairs a blue eye, and I will wrestle stoutly with ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... of the State should not wrestle with this hereditary disposition of our Tartars, and with a ...
— The Querist • George Berkeley

... the man was concentrated upon this wrestle with the gale for the ownership of the Willing Mind; and he imparted his energy to his companion. They lived upon deck, wet and starved and perishing with the cold—the cold of December in the North Sea, ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason

... some of these people: "Where are there any other people? I want to visit all the people." They said to him: "There is a camp to the westward up the river, but you must not take the left-hand trail going up, because on that trail lives a woman, a handsome woman, who invites men to wrestle with her and then kills them. You must avoid her." This was what K[)u]t-o'-yis was looking for. This was his business in the world, to kill off all the bad things. So he asked the people just where this ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell



Words linked to "Wrestle" :   move, wrestling, fight, wrench, combat, contend, struggle, worm, wrestler, moot, mud-wrestle, squirm, twist, grappling, consider



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