"Relax" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... self-confident, and began to relax her vigilance: it was so long since her temper had got decidedly the better of her, that she thought it conquered, or so nearly so that she need not be continually ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... on the brink of defeat, and might have fallen if General Ott's men had arrived in time to take part in the action. The First Consul, who feared that he might see them appear at any moment, was very anxious, and did not relax until our cavalry and the infantry of General Desaix, of whose death he was still unaware, had ensured victory by overwhelming the Grenadiers of General Zach. Seeing that the horse which I was riding was slightly wounded ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... write a romance than an epic poem. I could not sit seriously down to write a serious romance under any other motive than to save my life; and if it were indispensable for me to keep it up and never relax into laughing at myself or at other people, I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the first chapter. No, I must keep to my own style and go on in my own way; and though I may never succeed again in that, I am convinced that I should ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... able to realise in my own muscles, on my own chest, with my own arms and legs, the life that is in him as he is making his supreme effort! What a pleasure, as I look away from the representation, to realise in the same manner, how after the contest his muscles will relax, and rest trickle like a refreshing stream through his nerves!" All this I shall be made to enjoy by the artist who, in representing any one movement, can give me the logical sequence of visible strain and pressure in the ...
— The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance - With An Index To Their Works • Bernhard Berenson
... at the door was answered instantly by a young maid in Alsatian costume. Her fresh complexion and her long eyelashes, lowered demurely at the sight of the tall officer, caused Lieut. D'Hubert, who was accessible to esthetic impressions, to relax the cold, severe gravity of his face. At the same time he observed that the girl had over her arm a pair of hussar's breeches, blue ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... midnight. The flotilla was sweeping through a calm sea miles from the point of debarkation, and tense nerves were beginning to relax. The sky was cloudy and the moon obscured, but the phosphorescence of water common in these latitudes at this season marked the prow and wake of the advancing ships with lines of smoky flame. It was this, perhaps, that saved us from disaster—this and the keenness of American eyes, and ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... one light to another, greenish and golden, like the eyes of a cat. And there was something catlike in all her nature, in her apparent torpor, her semi-somnolence, with eyes wide open, always on the watch, always suspicious, while suddenly she would nervously and rather cruelly relax her watchfulness. She was not so tall as she appeared, nor so slender; she had beautiful shoulders, lovely arms, and fine, long hands. She was very neat in her dress, and her coiffure, always trim and tasteful, with none of the Bohemian ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... tame enough. There was no common ground upon which they could meet. To her father's death—no doubt an old matter even before her rescue—she made no allusion. Her attitude toward Wilbur was one of defiance and suspicion. Only once did she relax: ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... passed, but she was very tired, overwhelmingly so. Very soon her senses became dulled to the turmoil. She suffered herself to relax, certain that the first sound of a step outside would recall her. And so, as night spread over the town, she sank into sleep, lying back in the cane-chair like a worn-out child, her burnished hair vivid ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... sound of his rapidly advancing footsteps, caused the man to relax his hold, when the female figure glided away with wind-like fleetness. The man hesitated an instant; but, before Perkins reached the spot where he stood, ran off in an opposite direction to that taken by ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... Merritt managed to get one hand free, and recalling what he had read of what to do under such conditions, struck the other boy a terrific blow between the eyes. It stunned Sam completely, and, to his great relief, Merritt felt the imprisoning grip relax. He could then handle Sam easily, and as they shot to the surface he saw the Flying Fish bearing down on them, with four white, strained faces searching ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... advisedly—among our latter-day cries? None shares more heartily than the writer the aspiration for the day when nations shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks; but is European civilization, including America, so situated that it can afford to relax into an artificial peace, resting not upon the working of national consciences, as questions arise, but upon a Permanent Tribunal,—an external, if self-imposed authority,—the realization in modern policy of the ideal of ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... appears generally to have acted only with those who opposed the measure of the Court,' is not, I venture to think, wholly accurate. It is true that on one occasion, no doubt memorable in his own life, he incurred the displeasure of the government. When James VII. on his accession proposed to relax the penal laws against Roman Catholics, while enforcing them against Presbyterians, Lauder, who had just entered Parliament, opposed that policy and spoke against it in terms studiously moderate and respectful to the Crown. The result, however, was that he became a suspected ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... to reassure us. Said he: "Oh, no, boys, I couldn't do that; last year I promised Bok to write some articles for his journal, and I didn't have any fun all summer." His two words, "boys" and "fun," were the magic ones that caused the tension to relax and generated the emotion of elation. We then sat back in our chairs and, possibly, crossed our legs—I can't be certain as to that. At any rate, in a single sentence this man had made us his co-ordinates and caused the negative self-feeling to vanish. ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... mufflings a voice crying as if commanding them to stay; and again she heard it, but it had grown fainter, and wider from the track they were pursuing, and now nothing was heard but the sound of their impetuous course through the wood. This was soon cleared, when their speed seemed to relax, and the hard breathing of the overstrained beasts, proclaimed how much the chase had told upon them; and at last the veil was slightly raised, a large, coarse visage peered under it, and the hoarse voice enquired mockingly: "How fares my bird? We will let a little light ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... one, hence there is a strong incentive to attend to the lesson. It is also desirable to call on a pupil occasionally the second time very soon after he has previously been called upon. This prevents him from thinking that as soon as he has recited once he can then safely relax ...
— The Recitation • George Herbert Betts
... the State were extreme; that liberty, property, religion, national independence, were all at stake; that many Englishmen were engaged in schemes of which the object was to make England the slave of France and of Rome; and that it would be most unwise to relax, at such a moment, the laws against political offences. It was true that the injustice with which, in the late reigns, State trials had been conducted, had given great scandal. But this injustice was to be ascribed to the bad kings and bad ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... "Relax, Ned," I said. He was still holding the salute. "At ease. You'll get a hernia of your exhaust pipe if you stay so tense. Anyways, I'm just the sergeant here. That's the Chief ...
— Arm of the Law • Harry Harrison
... and victorious as he had become, he was never tempted to presume upon his genius, or relax in his application. He allowed himself but little holiday. He spent a good deal of such time as he could spare at Holwood, a property he had bought near Bromley; and occasional visits to Brighton, and to his mother's residence ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... if he made them in pure taste, and not in Tom's snip-snap taste of the lower empire,—all won't avail against a rotten morality. The first and most sacred duty of a public man, and, above all, an author, is to keep by honest and true doctrine—never to relax—never to countenance vice—ever to hold fast by virtue. What? Are we gravely to be told, at this time of day, that a set-off may be allowed for public, and, therefore, atrocious crimes, though he admits that a common felon pleads it in vain? Gracious God, where is this to end! What horrors ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... a rapid pace, he swung himself from his horse almost before the animal came to a full stop. He removed his hat, mopped his forehead, stamped about a little to relax his limbs and turned to answer the enquiry with which ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... and the blazing hearth, (While loud without the blast of winter sung), Now thrill'd with awe, and now relax'd with mirth, Paris, I've roam'd thy varied haunts among, Loitering where Fashion's insect myriads spread Their painted wings, and sport their little day; Anon, by beckoning recollection led To the dark shadow of the stern ABBAYE, Pale Fancy heard the petrifying ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... did not occur to Harrison Smith to worry over his failure to read what she had written, since he regarded the action as symptomatic of mere nervousness, but he noted with surprise that after this little episode the girl seemed to relax and her face assumed lines almost of contentment. After all, no one could blame him for failing to realise the true significance of that hurried, transient scrawl. One does not expect to find the map reference of probably ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... future youthful travels, often as they were repeated, I listened to eagerly, the more so as they always led to accounts of Italy, and at last to a description of Naples. His otherwise serious and dry manner seemed on these occasions to relax and quicken, and thus a passionate wish awoke in us children to participate in the paradise ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... to a t—; But still, though fix'd among the stars, Does sympathize with human a—. Thus, when you feel a hard-bound breech, Conclude love's bow-string at full stretch, Till the kind looseness comes, and then, Conclude the bow relax'd again. And now, the ladies all are bent, To try the great experiment, Ambitious of a regent's heart, Spread all their charms to catch a f— Watching the first unsavoury wind, Some ply before, and some behind. My ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... faces pressed against the windows outside. Mrs. Trounce took the photograph. The severity of her face did not relax, nor did it soften when, looking from the photograph, she saw the words beneath it, "With love and ...
— The Hero of Garside School • J. Harwood Panting
... tribunes and commons and his own trial. Neither the threats of the commons, nor the entreaties of the senate, could ever persuade him not only to change his garb, or address persons as a suppliant, but not even so far as to soften or relax any thing from the usual asperity of his style, when his cause was to be pleaded before the people. The expression of his countenance was the same; the same stubbornness in his looks, the same spirit of pride ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... to the Congregation to relax. He can sit back passively and draw inspiration from the service. But a Menorah meeting is virtually a class-room lacking a few formalities. There the student must actively discuss the problems placed before him; he must ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... great sex problems." The present writer is one of those old-fashioned enough to believe that it matters a great deal what young people read. We are all hygienists nowadays, and very particular as to what enters our children's mouths. But what is the value of these precautions if we relax our care as ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... the man is gone,—hanged justly, if you please; and that it did so happen,—luckily for Mr. Hastings,—it so happened, that the relief of Mr. Hastings, and the justice of the court, and the resolution never to relax its rigor, did all concur just at a happy nick of time and moment; and Mr. Hastings, accordingly, had the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... its grossness and its baser qualities, in deference to the improving tastes of its patrons, and in alarm at the sound strictures of men like Jeremy Collier. The plagiarist, the adapter, and the translator did not relax their hold upon it; but eventually it obtained the aid of numerous dramatists of enduring distinction. The fact that it again underwent decline is traceable to various causes—among them, the monopoly enjoyed by privileged persons under ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... helped transform it into the world's largest gaming center. In 2006, Macau's gaming revenue surpassed that of the Las Vegas strip, and gaming-related taxes accounted for 75% of total government revenue. The expanding casino sector, and China's decision beginning in 2002 to relax travel restrictions, have reenergized Macau's tourism industry, which saw total visitors grow to 27 million in 2007, up 62% in three years. Macau's strong economic growth has put pressure its labor ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... of being attached to the bones, they usually form a distinct layer in the walls of small cavities or of tubes (Fig. 111). Since they are controlled by the part of the nervous system which acts independently of the will, they are said to be involuntary. They contract and relax slowly. ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.
... curtains she stood a moment, shaking all over, her face hidden in her hands, able to relax a little the hold she was keeping on herself. Yes! She understood, plainly enough. The understanding had already been forced upon her. It was an order from one who was prepared to compel his commands, to make ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... Majesty's Guards. I then crossed the street and took a good look at my man. He and his companion-sentry under the other arch were aware of officers in "mufti" on the opposite sidewalk, and kept their eyes immovably to the front. Evidently nothing much short of an earthquake could cause either to relax a muscle. The little circle of admiring beholders which is always on hand inspecting these splendid horsemen was present, of course, with varying elements, and I had to wait a few minutes until a small number of innocuous spectators ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... 'Ah, sir! behold how Heaven, moved by my tears and prayers, has ordained that Rosinante cannot go,' and then warned him not to set Providence at defiance. Still Sancho was much too frightened by the infernal clatter to relax his hold of the knight's saddle. For some time he strove to beguile his own fears with a very long story about the goatherd Lope Ruiz, who was in love with the shepherdess Torralva - 'a jolly, strapping wench, ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... side of the street, near the gateway of the castle; and making friends, as he has a marvellous tact in doing, with the bookseller, the latter offered to take in his card to the housekeeper, and see if Lady Webster would not relax her rule in our favor. Meanwhile, we went into the old church of Battle, which was built in Norman times, though subsequently to the Abbey. As we entered the church door, the bell rang for joy at the news of peace, which had just been announced ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... cabbage leaves fried in bacon fat. The slugs will be attracted by the cabbage leaves and, having eaten their fill, will enter the hose-pipe to rest. Now hold the hose-pipe perpendicularly over a pail of water and pour into it a few drops of chloroform. This will cause the slugs to faint and relax their hold. They will then fall through the pipe into the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 9, 1919 • Various
... struggle to wrench the hands away. But they remained clutched into his flesh, choking his life out of him. There was a thin, guttural, sawing noise mixed in with the sobbing. Then all in a moment the sobbing ceased, he felt the hands relax, and then an avalanche of darkness crashed down on him, ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... third act to Miss Harper to-morrow, the gods and the lady permitting. This is the third third act. I trust it will be 'three and out,' or, rather, three and on. My regards to the Professor and you. It is very hot here, and I relax by thinking myself in the arithmetical garden. It seems years ago since I was there. Has the Professor laid out any new figures? I think the 'X' bed ought to be wild ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke
... your chosen niche With a steady purpose to nerve you; Let nothing men say who pass your way Relax your courage or swerve you. The idle will flock by the Temple of Art For just the pleasure of gazing; But climb to the top and do not stop, Though they may ...
— Poems of Sentiment • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... not relax his wariness. He knew that one of the gang had shot Wadley, but he did not yet know how badly the man was hurt. From his place behind the horse he took a couple of left-handed shots across the saddle at the helpless man. The cattleman raised himself on an elbow, but fell ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... appreciated by the recipient): "I could not sit down to write a serious romance under any other motive than amusement to save my life; and if it were indispensable for me to keep it up, and never relax into laughter at myself and other people, I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the first chapter. No, I must keep to my own style and go ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... you to take a red-hot bath as hot as you can bear it, and just relax your nerves. You can read in the tub ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... his tenacious floating, struggling against the drowsiness that was urging him to relax from his drifting support and let himself go to the bottom, to sleep ... to sleep forever! His shoes and clothing were continuing to pull and tug with even greater force. They became an undulating shroud, growing ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... although very fanatical and greater proselyters than the Christians of Rome, seem now and then to relax in favor of general utility, as we find Bajazet II writing to the Pope, Alexander VI, supplicating his Holiness to confer a cardinal's hat on the Archbishop of Arles as a special favor to the Turkish emperor, ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... Moscow, Kiev, Kharkov, and other forbidden centers. The effect of these expulsions upon the commercial life of the country was so disastrous that the big Russian merchants of Moscow and Kharkov appealed to the Government to relax the restrictions surrounding the visits of ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... followed by a triumphant glance toward the chaperone, who seemed to relax a little and lose her hostile attitude. And for the first time she smiled upon the captain with her mouth of bluish-rose color, her white skin sprinkled with yellow, and ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... of Grace—make a bargain with God that you will keep your being free from wrong thought—lie low in His hand. Let His spirit play through you, relax, cease wrestling for a blessing, and realize that you already have it. Then for you all of the harassing details of life become simplified. What you shall say, what you shall do, how you shall dress, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... versatility of his former years; yet we know not whether the contrast between his bodily weakness and his mental power does not leave a deeper and more solemnly affecting impression, than his most triumphant displays in youth could ever have done. To see the pain-stricken countenance relax, and the contracted frame dilate under the kindling of intellectual fire alone—to watch the infirmities of the flesh shrinking out of sight, or glorified and transfigured in the brightness of the awakening spirit—is an ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... to the point that the constant inhibition, blocking and balking of desires and wishes, though in part socially necessary and ethically justifiable, is decidedly wearisome, at times to all, and to many at all times. It seems so easy and pleasant to relax in purposes, in morals, in thought, to be a vagrant spirit seeking nothing but the pleasures right at hand; to be like a traditional bee flitting from the rose to rose of desire. (Only the bee is a decidedly purposive creature, out for business not pleasure.) "Why all ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... look at them as they bent over him, and the tail was perceptibly agitated in a vain effort to wag. Weedon Scott patted him, and his throat rumbled an acknowledging growl. But it was a weak growl at best, and it quickly ceased. His eyelids drooped and went shut, and his whole body seemed to relax and flatten out upon ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... Jarve, at that, and I'm one of the few who know what kind of a job you're doing, so I'll relax." She flashed him a gamin grin and they went on into the ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... and over his Congress, was the one leader powerful enough to direct his party to accept this reform. But he was busy gathering his power to lead them elsewhere. Again we would have to compete with pro-war anti-war sentiment. But it was no time to relax. ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... be expected in Orientals, considering among other things the light in which they are accustomed to regard the female part of society." Whether the great ministers of state, who have daily intercourse in the different tribunals, sometimes relax from the stiff and formal deportment observed towards each other in public, I am not able to say, but when at Court they invariably observe certain stated forms and expression as studied and ceremonious as if they had never met before. It appeared ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... Flesh in a good pasture, eats tenderer, seems to be this: That in a very lean Beast the Vessels designed for admitting and distributing the nourishing Juice, are so near contracted, and lye so close together; that, when once they are relax'd; by fresh and unctuous nourishment, they extend every way in all extensive parts, until in a short time the whole Creature is, as it were, created a new, having got new flesh upon old bones. And the necessity of extreme extension makes all those ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... Punishments, the readiest instruments of control, were inflicted on calculation: there was, perhaps, no anger in the breast of the accuser—the defaulter he would have readily forgiven, had he stood alone; but impunity would relax the reins of authority, and the lash was invoked because most convenient. The published documents of the House of Commons illustrate the perseverance of masters, in repeating their prosecutions; and the resistance ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... in all that I have now said which it is not easy for any one who shall carefully consider it, to discern by the natural light; but when I allow my attention in some degree to relax, the vision of my mind being obscured and as it were blinded by the images of sensible objects, I do not readily remember the reason why the idea of a being more perfect than myself must of necessity have ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... For you it's dieting, now and from now on. You may be able to relax your diet in time, but you can never altogether forego it. Give us this day our daily diet—that's your proper prayer. And you'd better start ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... under these conditions they were to receive a certificate, allowing them to reside, and were promised the protection of the laws. The administrators of the departments, who perceive that they become odious by executing the decrees of the Convention, begin to relax much of their diligence, and it is not till long after a law is promulgated, and their personal fear operates as a stimulant, that they seriously enforce obedience to these mandates. This morning, however, we were summoned by the Committee ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... necessity were to be suddenly taken away, those whose income is regulated by their efforts would relax in exertion; that is to say, the productive labourers of the country would relax, while those whose incomes are fixed, that is principally [end of page 167] the unproductive labourers, would become comparatively more opulent, and their luxury ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... ventilating system. So that when we glance at the face we are looking first at the automatically controlled intake openings of the two most important systems in the body, the alimentary and the respiratory, whose muscles contract and relax, ripple in comfort or knot in agony, in response to every important change that takes place throughout ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... video before Hart could interrupt, and started for the door. The rain hit him, as he stepped out, with a wave of cold wet depression, but a cab slid up to the curb before him and he stepped in. Sinking back he tried to relax, to get his stomach to stop complaining, but he couldn't fight the feeling of almost physical illness sweeping over him. He closed his eyes and sank back, trying to drive the ever-plaguing thoughts from his mind, trying ...
— Bear Trap • Alan Edward Nourse
... the belief in these respects; I am only saying that human nature appears more true to itself in the last. And so notorious is all this, that the corruptions of Christianity, as years rolled on, have ever been to assimilate it to the other religions of the earth; to abate its spirituality; to relax its austere code of morals; to commute its proper claims for external observances; to encumber its ritual with an infinity of ceremonies; and, above all, to uncover the future and invisible, on which it left a veil, and add a purgatory into the bargain! Thus, whether contrasted with other religions ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... to relax the discipline of the Roman armies. Its extreme severity was, perhaps, one of those causes. In the days of their grandeur, when no enemy appeared capable of opposing them, their heavy armour was laid aside as unnecessarily burdensome, their laborious exercises ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... when those who really do care for these matters should be watchful to make the most of the tide in their favour, and should not suffer themselves to relax their efforts because there is no originality now ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... Guards marched on the right of the carriage, and Harry was able to watch the President-elect all the time. The face held his attention. Its sternness did not relax. It was the face of a man who had seen the world, and who believed in ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... proprietor. And when at length the religious wars died out it was, as far as Catholic countries were concerned, because the lay mind had become thoroughly disgusted with the whole thing, and men's minds were turning in other directions—not because the clerical rulers showed the slightest desire to relax their efforts or ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous
... far as this party was concerned, had disappeared, Bob was by no means inclined to relax his vigilance. He stationed his men in the positions he had originally intended they should occupy, supplied each of them with a generous lunch, with the addition of hot coffee, and even gave a portion to the solitary officer at the well, when he had originally ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis
... night, perhaps, or some faint aftermath of sentimentality born of Sonia's emotion—tempted him during those few moments to relax. He threw aside his mask and breathed the freer for it. Once more he was a human being, treading the streets of a real city, his feet very much upon the earth, his heart full of the simplest things. All the scheming of the last few days was ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... it!" cried Pocket bitterly, and told the whole truth about himself in a series of stertorous exclamations. It scarcely lessened the austerity of the eyes that still ran him through and through; but the hard mouth did relax a little; the lined face looked less deeply slashed and furrowed, and it was a less inhuman voice ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... while they gazed and held each other, that she had felt his arm relax, and heard a sharp "Hullo!" that made her turn to glance ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... what had happened, and why she was in such misery and pain. Sometimes she knew that he was her father and that she was at home in that wretched shack up Lone River, and an ineffable satisfaction would relax her cramped mind; sometimes, just as clearly, she knew that he was Pierre who had taken her away to some strange place, and, in this certainty, she was even more content. But always the horrible flame on her shoulder burnt her again to the confusion of half-consciousness. ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... by the various institutions designed to foster their individual taste. To beautify humanity is the great problem of humanity. It must be done; man must be elevated by one long and unwearied effort, or he will relax into barbarism. Christianity presents us, in the purest way, ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... by no means anxious to take a hand in the game: he spurred his horse in order to free himself, and tried to strike the ploughman's hands with his stick and make him relax his hold; but Germain eluded the blow, and, taking him by the leg, unhorsed him and brought him to the heather, where he knocked him down, although the farmer was soon upon his feet again ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... Elsa did not relax in the matter of six daily repasts. Breakfast at half-past seven. Bread, slices of cold meat and something in addition, at eleven. Luncheon at one, hearty enough for a dinner. At half-past four helles beer and tea with Butterbrods. Dinner at seven. And on going to bed a fortifying ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... the ear, an incessant vibration, due to the contraction of the muscles of the ear, can be heard. When the muscles contract, they become shorter; but what is lost in length is gained in breadth and thickness, so that their actual volume remains the same. Muscles alternately contract and relax, and thus act upon the bones. The economy of muscular power thus displayed is truly remarkable. In easy and graceful walking, the forward motion of the limbs is not altogether due to the exercise of muscular power, but partly to the force of gravity, and only a slight assistance of the muscles ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... Miss POTTS, then, although looking up from her trying worsted occupation at the servant who entered with a rather snappish expression of countenance, was guilty of no particularly hypocritical assumption in at once suffering her features to relax into a sweetly pensive smile upon learning that there was a gentleman to see her in ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2., No. 32, November 5, 1870 • Various
... early in November, now, after four months, I repeat today. We have not relaxed nor shall we relax in the pursuit of every one and all of the aims which I have described. These are great purposes, and to achieve them we must draw upon all our resources, both material and spiritual. On the one side, the ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... ambition nor the pretension to be one, madame. Only, when I return to my mother after a day's toil, and often, even while forging my iron, in order to divert and relax my attention, I amuse myself with rhymes, sometimes composing an ode, sometimes ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... not so much as touch upon the dispute about Tabago, Santa-Lucia, or any of the Leeward islands, which are not, however, of small consequence. In short, the war must, in all human probability, be a much longer one, than is commonly believed. Neither nation can materially relax of its claims, without such a thorough sacrifice of its interest in America, as nothing but the last extremities ...
— An Account Of The Customs And Manners Of The Micmakis And Maricheets Savage Nations, Now Dependent On The Government Of Cape-Breton • Antoine Simon Maillard
... of the navy, as well as the common seamen, may also derive some useful lessons from the events of this history. They will see the melancholy results of affording the least encouragement for seamen to depart from their strict line of duty, and to relax in that obedience to the orders of superiors, by which alone the discipline of the service can be preserved; they will learn how dangerous it is to show themselves careless and indifferent in executing those orders, by thus setting a bad example ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... must have been the loneliest for her. The summer evenings in our little town are filled with intimate, human, neighborly sounds. After the heat of the day it is pleasant to relax in the cool comfort of the front porch, with the life of the town eddying about us. We sew and read out there until it grows dusk. We call across lots to our next-door neighbor. The men water the lawns and the flower boxes and get together in little, quiet groups to discuss ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... sprite; and was no longer to be awed away by a curt syllable or a contracted brow. And Darrell, at first submitting reluctantly, and out of compassionate kindness to the flute-player's obtrusive society, became by degrees to welcome and relax in it. Fairthorn knew the great secrets of his life. To Fairthorn alone on all earth could he speak with out reserve of one name and of one sorrow. Speaking to Fairthorn was like talking to himself, or to his pointers, or to his favourite doe, upon which last he bestowed a new collar, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... avoiding him; and as to all opportunity of private speech, entirely shunning him. For some time, in the vanity of his experience, he never doubted that these were only feminine arts, or that when she judged him sufficiently punished, she would relax the severity of her behaviour and begin to make him amends. But this demeanour of hers endured so long, and continued so uniform, that at length he began to doubt the universality of his experience, and to dread lest the maiden should actually ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... for a moment relax his exertions; he knew too well the subtlety of the poison of the rattlesnake, but while the rest were active in building a soft couch of boughs and leaves on which to lay her, he continued extracting the antidote with as much energy as at the ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... was pleased with Dawn, and felt glad. It was almost a relief to feel the strong tension of his love for her relax a little. It is not often that sisters have thus to complain, but Basil Bernard knew what love was, and how to enfold his object in an atmosphere of delight. It was protective and uplifting, refining and broadening, to ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... present crisis stood for a probable absoluteness in any decree of the writer. He looked at Sarah's name and address, in short, as if he had been looking hard into her mother's face, and then turned from it as if the face had declined to relax. But since it was in a manner as if Mrs. Newsome were thereby all the more, instead of the less, in the room, and were conscious, sharply and sorely conscious, of himself, so he felt both held and hushed, summoned ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... before. He stood a moment watching the rising glow, then stretched himself. Unconsciously he was asking of limbs and muscles as to their fitness; as he drew in deep breaths of the soft air and let the tautened sinews relax again there was no alien note in the symphony of his being—all felt as sound and strong as ever; now he was standing the twinge did not bother him—he told himself that in every inch of him he was still ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... was altogether irresistible. He reached out his arms and would have taken her in them, but she thrust her hands in his and held herself back. She turned the diamond deliberately to his eyes. She could feel his grip relax and apparently grow suddenly cold. He stood speechless, ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... and haunted by wild and direful shapes, 'murdering ministers,' spirits of remorse, and maddening visions of peace lost and judgment to come. The way to be untrue to Shakespeare here, as always, is to relax the tension of imagination, to conventionalise, to conceive Macbeth, for example, as a half-hearted cowardly criminal, and Lady Macbeth as a ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... a bump like an egg over his ear last night," Aunt Selina insisted, glaring at Flannigan's unconscious back. "I don't think it's safe to leave him. It is my time to relax for thirty minutes, or I would watch him. You will have to stay," she said, fixing me with her ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... in the following fifty minutes it rose 17 Cent. This remarkable increase took place without any vigorous movements on the part of the weasel. Even its breathing showed no increase in proportion to the rise. These cases show that though, at certain seasons, animals relax as it were and lie dormant, and recover, seemingly at the will of the weather, yet, in point of fact, the rise and fall of temperature has no direct effect upon them. The cause is an internal one, awaiting discovery.—C. F. HOLDER, in Forest ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... the moment, she felt barely mouse-sized again. "Just relax!" she told Delquos in a shaky ...
— Novice • James H. Schmitz
... fathers and mothers and sisters of our brave soldiers continue to send their clothing and provisions. They do not relax in the ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... towards the house door, and went spinning down the half-dozen steps of the inn. Jaffers cried in a strangled voice—holding tight, nevertheless, and making play with his knee—spun around, and fell heavily undermost with his head on the gravel. Only then did his fingers relax. ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... difficulty," says Lord Macaulay, "that he was induced to stoop from speculation to practice. He was half ashamed of those inventions which were the wonder of hostile nations, and always spoke of them slightingly, as mere amusements, as trifles in which a mathematician might be suffered to relax his mind after intense application to the higher parts of ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... through with yearning. Around the jut of rook appeared a bicycle girl, a golf girl, and a youth in knickers having his stockings laid in correct folds below the knee. They passed without noticing us. To see his looks dim and his eagerness relax was too painful. I watched the water ridging against the horizon like goldstone and changing swiftly to the blackest of greens. Distance folded into distance so that the remote drew near. He was certainly waiting ...
— The Blue Man - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... valiantly the neighbors had served them during Jack's long illness, Mary gladly did her part, and a very large one towards relieving the stricken household. When she saw Mr. Downs' anxious face relax, at some evidence of her thoughtfulness, and heard Sara's tearful thanks poured out in a broken voice, she was glad that fate had kept her in Lone-Rock to play the good angel in this emergency. If she had not been at home, Mrs. Ware could not have been free to take charge of the invalid, ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... amongst the lovers of bull-dogs, that when once exasperated by an opponent or encouraged by the owner, no pain or punishment will induce him to swerve from his purpose, or in the least relax the violence of his endeavours to subdue whatever may be the object of his dislike or resentment. Amidst the many instances which might be adduced in support of this assertion, we shall notice one which is well-authenticated. ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... and punctual, that I will complain no more of your silence, unless you are silent. You must not relax, especially until you can give me better accounts of your health and spirits. I was peevish before with the weather; but, now it prevents your riding, I forget hay and roses, and all the comforts that are washed away, and shall only watch the weathercock for an east wind in Yorkshire. ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... chair, and forced himself to relax, soaking up the shock as he had soaked up so many others. His mind faced the facts, accepted them, and then sickly ...
— Victory • Lester del Rey
... signed articles of agreement, made treaties of international comity. Francesca stays over here as a kind of missionary to Scotland, so she says, or as a feminine diplomat; she wishes to be on hand to enforce the Monroe Doctrine properly, in case her government's accredited ambassadors relax in ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... exertions, was tired. The seven, including the eighth, had been traveling at a great pace for more than twenty hours. While the Indians ate their food, warmed over the fire, he ate his cold from his pocket. Then the great figure began to relax. His back rested easily against the bushes. The tenseness and strain were gone from his nerves and muscles. He had not felt so comfortable, so much at peace in a long time, and yet not three hundred yards away burned a fire around which sat seven men, any one of ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... it is at the other end of day, when sleep comes over the garden and all the flowers that have been basking in sun vigour relax and their colours are subdued, blended by the brush of darkness, and the night wind steals new perfumes from them, and wings of all but a few night birds have ceased to cleave the air. As you walk among ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... reasonable audience will, if necessary, endure a certain amount of exposition, a certain positing of character and circumstance, before the tension sets in; but when it once has set in, the playwright must on no account suffer it to relax until he deliberately resolves it just before the fall of the curtain. There are, of course, minor rhythms of tension and resolution, like the harmonic vibrations of a violin-string. That is implied when we say that a play consists of a great crisis worked out through a series of minor crises. But ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... an acute attack, when the child is struggling for breath, is to relax quickly the spasm of the larynx which interferes with the breathing. The simplest way is to give the child a teaspoonful of the fresh syrup of ipecac. If the child does not vomit in fifteen minutes, give another teaspoonful ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague
... posture, straining forward there on his seat, became suddenly painful and absurd. He tried to relax, but the effort was more than it was worth, and he sat forward ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... while I speak," Ahmad Din went on. Langur grew silent as commanded, but his thoughts were flowing backward twenty years, to days at the elephant lines in distant hills. Muztagh was the one living creature that in all his days had loved Langur Dass. The man shut his eyes, and his limbs seemed to relax as if he had lost all interest in the talk. The evil one took hold of him at such times, the people said, letting understanding follow his thoughts back into the purple hills and the far-off spaces of the jungle. But to-night he was only ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... Thomas make any statements to the officers and clerks, or either of them, belonging to the War Office, as to the rules and orders of Mr. Stanton or of the War Office which he, Thomas, would make, revoke, relax, or rescind, in favor of such officers or employes when he had control of the affairs therein? If so, state as near as you can when it was such conversation occurred, and state all he said, ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... I observed he seemed about to relax into a morbid condition again. To prevent this, I seized him kindly by the shoulder and exclaimed, "Friend, you must come with me. Your life, your future welfare is imperiled. You are like one shut up in a vault, breathing his own exhalations. You ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... learn to take a reprimand from the representative of Republican Law. Seriously, mon cher, thou must be sober for the next three or four days; after the crisis is over, thou and I will drink a bottle together. Come, Dumas relax thine austerity, and shake hands with our ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... "to die working" was the fate he envied. His mind would not give in, but his poor body was forced to yield, and a sever attack of hemorrhage—bleeding from both lungs and stomach—compelled him to relax in his labors. "For a month, or some forty days," he wrote—"a dreadful Lent—the wind has blown geographically from 'Araby the blest,' but thermometrically from Iceland the accursed. I have been made a prisoner of war, hit by an icicle in the lungs, and have shivered and ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... will sympathise? Like the Shepherd at Awmrose's, the testy public may now and then rebel, and rail for a season at "the cawm, cauld, clear, glitterin' cruelty in the expression of his een,"—but who can keep up a quarrel with North? Again, like the Shepherd, they relax into a broad good humour, and, before they know it, are drinking with all the honours, "Long live King Christopher!" So then, in spite of Cockneys, chartists, coxcombs, rebels, radicals, and rascally reformers, yea, and the whole alphabetical list of what is whiggish, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... an eternity before I saw the rigid lines of her white, set face relax—before I marked the play of human, if not womanly, emotion break up the misery of her look and soften her youthful lips into some semblance of their old expression. Love might be dead—friendship, even, be a thing of the far past—but consideration was ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... upon his breast, advanced slowly towards the bulldog, keeping his eyes steadily fixed on those of the animal, and when he thought he had disconcerted him by his undaunted gaze sufficiently to make him relax his grip upon the prize, he suddenly tore the glove from him and waved it in the air with his right hand. At the same moment Vorace, with a howl of rage, bounded up to leap at the throat of his despoiler. Gilbert sprang back, covering ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... in his glorious course. It is certain, that if we do not advance we go back, and oh, how sad it is that redeemed sinners, called by so holy a name as that of Christian, should, in any degree, forget to whom they owe all their might to do well, as well as their final salvation, that they should relax, in the least, their prayers, their efforts in the strength of the Holy Spirit to press forward towards the mark of the prize of their high calling. It is not that all those who thus sadly backslide are allowed to fall into open sin. Many, by the great mercy of their Lord, are preserved from thus ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... admirable manner; though I doubt not that they felt, in the fullest extent, the true character of the awful circumstances in which we were placed. Such was the state of things, as Guert's blacks began sensibly to relax in their speed, for want of wind. They still galloped on, but it was no longer with the swiftness of the wind; and their master became sensible of the folly of hoping to reach the town ere the catastrophe should arrive. He reined in his panting horses, ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... us to wriggle, and strain, and stammer, and we do not recognize the root of the trouble and shun it, and learn to yield and quietly relax our nerves and muscles, of course the strain becomes worse. Then, rather than suffer from it any longer, we keep away from people, just as the blushing man is tempted to do. In that case, the strain is still in us, in the back ...
— The Freedom of Life • Annie Payson Call
... degree. Like the rest of us, however, they have their faults as well as their virtues; they are born freebooters, and in unsettled times, when the Turkish Government, being handicapped by weightier considerations, is compelled to relax its control over them, they seldom fail to promptly respond to their plundering instincts and make no end of trouble. They still retain their hospitableness, but after making a traveller their guest for the night, and allowing him to depart with everything ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... Association sent up petitions to the House and to the King, couched in language the wildness of which was hardly consistent with the respect due to Parliament or to the sovereign. Apparently in the hope of mitigating its opposition, the Houses the next year passed an act, similar in principle, to relax some of the restrictions still imposed on Protestant dissenting ministers by some of the subscriptions which were required of them. But, as in the reign of Charles II., the Presbyterian hatred of the Roman Catholics was too uncompromising to ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... temples with their blue veins, and the beautiful hair glistening in the half-shaded light, the long lashes resting, tired out, upon her cheek. Soon I noticed at irregular intervals a nervous twitching pass over her face; the brow would knit and relax wearily, the mouth droop. These indications of extreme exhaustion occurred constantly, and alarmed me. Unchecked, they would result in an alarming form of nervous prostration. A sudden lurch dislodged ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... nor relax his smile. Falkner, without speaking, slid his hand along the coverlet. Lee grasped it, and their hands remained clasped together for a few ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... beautiful dream which I believe all good mothers have: that her son might be the savior of the world. As he grew to manhood, her faith in him did not relax. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... a good deal,' said Spurstow to the unconscious form. 'And now, my friend, sleeplessness of your kind being very apt to relax the moral fibre in little matters of life and death, I'll just take the ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... have not written to you so long, is the intensely anxious time we have had. I feel, however, that it is high time now to address you; for, if our friends in England relax their efforts, my conviction is, that freedom will be more in name than in reality, in this slave-holding Island. There is nothing to be feared, if the noble band of friends who have so long and ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... and fastened his strong grip on the astonished Jotun. Never before had Grendel felt such a grip of steel. He straightened his mighty back and flung the clinging Beowulf toward the door, but never for a moment did the brave champion relax his fierce grip, and the ogre was thrown back into the center of the hall. Together they fell upon the beautiful pavement and rolled about in their mighty struggles till the walls of the palace shook as in a hurricane and the very pinnacles toppled from their secure foundations. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... instrument of music, Juve slipped his hands into the leather holders, wishing to relax the bellows, which were at full stretch.... To his surprise the ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... that beyond Wadi Haifa, the Second Cataract, this would not be a very difficult matter as he foresaw that as they drew nearer to their destination the Arabs' vigilance would relax. The thought that he would have to kill the Sudanese, the Bedouins, and even Chamis, always caused him to shudder, but after the murder which the Bedouins had committed, he did not have any scruples. He said to ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... to his bedroom to wait a little. Teresa's vigilance might relax if Carmina fell asleep. She might go downstairs for a gossip with ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... turning-point of the day, and is served English fashion, in the evening. The passengers "dress" a little for it, eat the meal leisurely and with relish. People who perhaps have exchanged no conversation during the day, now relax, and fraternize with ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... his fear over and over and did not let his wife out of his sight. Not until it had all grown quiet around him, till his wife had put the children to bed and laid herself to rest, till he no longer saw any light in Apollonius' windows, did the talons relax their hold and the chains draw the stronger. He locked the back door which separated Apollonius from the rest of the house, he even bolted it as well, and locked the door of the stairs leading to the piazza and finally the door at which he went out. He had cause for ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... Evelyn turned pale, and gave him a glance like that of some pretty, little, harmless animal which has nothing except love and devotion in its heart, and whose very mistakes are those of love and over-anxiety to please. Wollaston was struck to the heart by the look, but he did not relax one muscle of his ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... is hoped that the decision of the Mexican Congress, to which our last overture has been referred, may result in a speedy and honorable peace. With our experience, however, of the unreasonable course of the Mexican authorities, it is the part of wisdom not to relax in the energy of our military operations until the result is made known. In this view it is deemed important to hold military possession of all the Provinces which have been taken until a definitive treaty of peace shall have been concluded and ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Polk • James Polk
... not relax; he strove to push past her without a word, but Fanny stood before him. "Now, look at here, Andrew," said she, "you 'ain't goin' to walk off with a face like that, unless I know what the matter is. ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... give the child her finger to suck—a finger so white, so clean, so soft in the last week that she was lost in admiration of it. And the child would take hold, all its small body set rigid in lines of desperate effort. Then it would relax suddenly, and spew out the finger, and the quiet hospital air would be rent with shrieks of lost illusion. Then Annie Petowski or Jennie Goldstein or Maggie McNamara would watch the Nurse with open hostility and defiance, and her rustling exit from the ward would be followed by swift cessation ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... cultivating the arts of peace, they were not unmindful of making fresh preparations for war; intervals of ease seemed to give fresh vigour for new designs, rather than relax their ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... by his grief-stricken consort, was striving to draw together an army in his eastern provinces. Some overtures with a view to peace had been made after Jena; but Napoleon finally refused to relax his pursuit unless the Prussians retired beyond the Vistula, and yielded up to him all the western parts of the kingdom, with their fortresses. Besides, he let it be known that Prussia must join him in a ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... men look more oddly at one another than Mr. Jaggers and Wemmick did after this apostrophe. At first, a misgiving crossed me that Wemmick would be instantly dismissed from his employment; but it melted as I saw Mr. Jaggers relax into something like a ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... Judas laughed at being so unexpectedly exposed in his deception, and all the others laughed too, and even Thomas allowed his pointed, grey, overhanging moustache to relax into a smile. ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... placed the fatal magic statue, he was now entirely convinced that Mignon had discovered the secret charm on which his power depended; for he already found the magic of the fillet round his neck fully to operate, his sinews all relax, his joints all tremble; and when he would by his own hand have tried to free himself, his shivering limbs he found refused obedience to their office. Thus bereft of all his strength, and well nigh motionless, in this ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... the awful pressure began to relax, for the half-dozen streams were setting steadily out of the main street, while in several spots where dragoons had sat wedged in singly two had drifted together. Then there were threes and fours, and soon after ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... "I appreciate the compliment, but must you deliver it in that parade-ground voice, and glare at me to boot? Relax, captain." She cocked her head, studying him. Then: "Several of the girls don't get this business of the critical point. I tried to explain, but I was only an R.N. at home, and I'm afraid I muddled it rather. Could you put it in words of ...
— The Burning Bridge • Poul William Anderson
... enables me to understand. "Spare the rod and spoil the child" was the maxim which flamed in the air before every father and mother of that New England, and my mother's physical vigor at sixty, when her conception of authority began to relax,—I being then a lad six feet high and indisposed to physical persuasion,—satisfied me that when her duty had required her to assume the responsibility bequeathed her by her mother, she was ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... is large and more massive than the moon, the tides raised by the moon are but small and weak, and the earth has not yet completely succumbed to the tidal action. But the tides are constant, they never for an instant relax the effort to control, and they are gradually tending to render the day and the month coincident, though the progress ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... in earnest. And it will be almost inevitable that the Curate, under even the most wise, considerate, and unselfish of Incumbents, should find "work" threatening rapidly to absorb so much, not of time only but thought and heart, that the temptation is to abridge and relax very seriously indeed secret devotion, secret study of Scripture, and generally secret discipline ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... left the stand without a word to Tom, Roger, or Astro. The three cadets looked at each other, feeling the tension in the air suddenly relax. Strong was busy talking to someone on the portable intercom and had missed the ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman
... To all appearances everything was clear. He placed his arm about Eva and they started to steal out. Well they knew that, with such enemies, not for a moment would they dare relax their caution. For them every angle and nook was a temporary haven. Slowly they drew away from the dread spot, and soon came to a more populous locality where the lights of honest shops and peaceful homes gave them a sense of greater security ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... forgetful of his bloody mission, permitted the fingers of his spear hand to relax a little their grasp upon the shaft of his formidable weapon. It slipped, almost falling; but the occurrence recalled The Killer to himself. It reminded him of his purpose in slinking stealthily upon the owner of the voice ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... him through and through with its unexpected deluge. A moment later, he was dimly conscious that his companion had slipped from his grasp, and was nowhere visible. The violence of the shock, and the slimy nature of the sea water, had made him relax his hold without knowing it, in the tumult of the moment, and had at the same time caused Muriel to glide imperceptibly through his fingers, as he had often known an ill-caught cricket-ball do in his school-days. Then he saw he was on his hands and knees on the deck. The wave had knocked him down, ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... which nothing is particularly to be distinguished from anything else unless it is announced with a thunderclap. So long as he is physically imprisoned in crowds by day and even by night his attention will flicker and relax. It will not hold fast and define clearly where he is the victim of all sorts of pother, in a home which needs to be ventilated of its welter of drudgery, shrieking children, raucous assertions, indigestible food, bad air, ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann |
