"Sinewy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was standing with his head up, his eyes looking out over the abysmal scene below. Behind his back he had gripped tight together his long and sinewy hands. He was a lean and broad man, so she thought. He stood in the uniform of his country, made for manly men, and beseeming only such. The neatness of good rearing even now was apparent in every line of him. Dust seemed not to have touched him. He was clean and trim and fine, a picture ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... a crew on the point of mutiny into a set of rollicking, good-natured souls who—until the wind veered again—would not hurt a fly. So with these. They spread themselves into a circle, squatting or kneeling or standing upon the white sand in the bright sunshine, their sinewy hands that should have been ingrained red clasped over their knees, or, arms akimbo, resting upon their hips, on their scoundrel faces a broad smile, and in their eyes that had looked on nameless horrors a pleasurable ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... itself happened suddenly. One moment he was peering out into the darkness in an effort to locate his enemy; the next strong sinewy hands were around his throat choking the life out of him. With that clarity of vision that comes to a man perhaps once in a lifetime, he saw, even in the all-pervading darkness, the shadowy face that ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... and the sinewy strength of his young shoulders he began to be afraid of the man who had come to him out of the storm. There was something strangely disconcerting, even sinister, in the ceaseless movements of his pale hands and the sudden lightning dart of his eyes, as they ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... continually determining the distribution of the antagonist's forces, directing the fire of continually shifting great guns upon the apparatus and supports in the rear of his fighting line, forecasting his night plans and seeking some tactical or strategic weakness in that sinewy line ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... casually on any part of his person without its coming into contact with a deadly weapon ready for instant use. Cap'n Abernethy picked up a cutlass, "hefted" it thoughtfully, rolled his sleeve back upon a lean and sinewy old arm that was tanned until it looked like a piece of weathered oak, spat upon his hand and whirled the weapon till it whistled in the air. "I come of a seafarin' fambly," ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... provisional commander, was, according to tradition, a tall man with sun-burnt features, erect, spare, very sinewy and strong, and of a bold and resolute temper. He had need to be so, for counting every man in the fort, lay and clerical, sick and well, he was beset by more than thirty times his own number; or, counting ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... about to act as his official judge. In the second place, by putting himself so close to Bull, he made himself appear a trifle ludicrous. Also, if he expected to throw Bull out of the poise with this blustering, he failed. It was not that Bull did not feel fear, but he had seen a curious thing—the sinewy, long neck of the sheriff—and he was wondering what would happen if one of his hands should grip that throat for a single instant. He grew so fascinated by this study that he forgot his fear ...
— Bull Hunter • Max Brand
... very old, though hale and sinewy. "The Lord help us!" he soliloquised in an undertone as he ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... smith, a mighty man is he With large and sinewy hands; And the muscles of his brawny arms Are strong as iron ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... spare fellow, the man who spoke; and amongst other labels on his baggage was one marked Khartoum. His hands were sinewy and his face was bronzed, while his eyes, brown and deep-set, held in them the glint of the desert places of the earth: the mark of the jungle where birds flit through the shadows like bars of glorious colour; the mark of the swamp where the ague mists lie dank and stagnant in ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... inches, or ten and a half; but my first impression, or feel of the man, was not of this, but of his strength. And yet, while he was of massive build, with broad shoulders and deep chest, I could not characterize his strength as massive. It was what might be termed a sinewy, knotty strength, of the kind we ascribe to lean and wiry men, but which, in him, because of his heavy build, partook more of the enlarged gorilla order. Not that in appearance he seemed in the least gorilla-like. What I am striving to express is this strength itself, more as a thing apart from ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... pleasant river, in the month of ripe berries, when he beheld, by the light of the moon, a forest-chief in all his pride enter the lodge. The step of the stranger was noiseless as the fall of snow, and of word or sound uttered he none. The chief of the Tuscaroras arose, and took down his sinewy bow, and drew from his quiver a sharp and barbed arrow—the figure faded away like a morning mist before the beams of the sun, and was gone from his eyes. Tetontuaga woke his comrades, who lay scattered about in careless slumber—nothing had they seen, heard, or dreamed of. He ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... high spirits—every man of them having a colored 'kerchief tied about his head, and sporting bare, sinewy arms calculated to awe the beholder. Don was quite superb. So were Ben Buster and young Outcalt. Many a girl was deeply impressed by their air of gravity and anxiety, not suspecting that it was assumed for the occasion, ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... look at him now, sitting in my office-chair, the smoke of the cigar curling about his bronzed, weather-tanned face, my eye taking in his slim waist, slender thighs, and long, sinewy arms and hands that have served him so well all his life, I can hardly believe that twenty years have passed over his head since we worked together on Shark Ledge. But for the marks chalked on his temples by the ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... prairie country, there moved a tall and sinewy youth astride a vicious looking buckskin. This time, however, it was very early in the morning. The rider moved slowly, his eyes on the ground. His outfit was more elaborate than on the former journey. A heavy blanket and a light camp kit were ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... expressive of consciousness, as if surprised in a conversation which they wished to keep secret from him. This did not escape Allan's observation; he stopt short at the door of the apartment—his brows were contracted—his eyes rolled; but it was only the paroxysm of a moment. He passed his broad sinewy hand across his brow, as if to obliterate these signs of emotion, and advanced towards Annot, holding in his hand a very small box made of oakwood, curiously inlaid. "I take you to witness," he said, "cousin Menteith, that I give this box and its contents to Annot Lyle. ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... were taller than in the old High School days, but they had not quite reached the height of Dick and Greg. Both of the young civil engineers, besides being heavily bronzed, were thin and sinewy looking. Thin as they were, both looked the pictures of health. Though Tom and Harry did not "advertise" their tailors as well as did the two West Point cadets, nevertheless the pair of young civil engineers looked prosperous. ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... asleep, Stretched upon the bank, all torn, Sinewy though she be; love-lorn Convolvuluses cease ...
— Silverpoints • John Gray
... in her might, I 1 The Queen of soft delight Still ranges onward with triumphant sway. What she from Kronos' son And strong Poseidon won, And Pluto, King of Night, I durst not say. But who, to earn this bride, Came forth in sinewy pride To strive, or e'er the nuptial might be known With fearless heart I tell What heroes wrestled well, With showering blows, and dust ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... many points of resemblance and difference between the two comrades. Each was in middle life, embrowned, hardened, and toughened by years of exposure and the wild life of the border; but Tom Hardynge was taller, more sinewy and active than Dick Morris, who was below the medium stature, with a stunted appearance; but he was a powerful man, wonderfully skillful in the use of the rifle, and the two friends together made the strongest possible ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... deeply set under the thick eyebrows that they looked smaller than they really were; and I remember, even at that early age, their expression, when angered, was any thing but pleasant to meet. His dress was well adapted for displaying his deep square chest and sinewy arms—a close-fitting jersey, and white trowsers girt by a broad black belt; the cap, orange velvet, fronted with ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... celebrities), almost all of the lean, rather ragged form which characterizes, more or less, all American-bred "fast horses." The ground was too hard frozen to allow of anything beyond gentle exercise; but even at quarter-speed, that wonderful hind-action was very remarkable. Watching those clean, sinewy pasterns shoot forward—well outside of the fore hoof-track—straight and swift as Mace's arm in an "upper-cut," you marvel no longer at the mile-time which hitherto ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... this time did not look a year older than when first introduced, was as tough and sinewy as ever, and was at the head of the cascarilleros; and many a coceada did Guapo afterwards enjoy with his mountain friend the "vaquero" while passing backward and forward between Cuzco ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... bay-brown, whose slender limbs and sinewy form declared him also to be descended from an oriental race. The ease with which his rider managed him, and his firm graceful seat in the saddle, betokened a horseman of ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... nobody; he must himself be carried. The doctor ordered that Logan should take him on his back and convey him as far as the poor little house they had passed on the way. A good lift it was, for Sam was a well grown, stout fellow; but Logan was a long-limbed, sinewy, brawny Scotchman, and he made no difficulty of the job. The doctor in the first place deposited his gun against a tree, and did what was needful for ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... filled with a city crowd. The usual types of a racecourse appeared in force. Here and there were to be seen the dog-grooms leading in leash single Greyhounds or couples, shrouded in blankets, but showing their sinewy legs, their snaky necks, their shapely heads with long reptilian jaws, and their quick, nervous yellow eyes—hybrids of natural force and human ingenuity, the most wonderful running-machines ever made of flesh ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... of incongruity in Levi's dress; a pair of heavy gold earrings and a dirty red handkerchief knotted loosely around his neck, beneath an open collar, displaying to its full length the lean, sinewy throat with its bony "Adam's apple," gave to his costume somewhat the smack of a sailor. He wore a coat that had once been of fine plum color—now stained and faded—too small for his lean length, and furbished ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... sinewy, active, and powerful. Three stained eagle feathers were fastened on his crown in the long black hair, and his hunting shirt, leggings, and moccasins were bright with different colored beads and fringes. ...
— The Daughter of the Chieftain - The Story of an Indian Girl • Edward S. Ellis
... wiped the perspiration from his forehead with a bare, sinewy arm. "Now," he said, "enough time's been wasted. We must keep those toughs on the move, or they'll find leisure to think, and be starting ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... charge was ineffectual for their purpose. A throng of far more resolute and more sinewy people swept them aside, and seized every vacant place on the top of the vehicle. Only with much struggle did they obtain places within. In an ordinary mood, Nancy would have resented this hustling of her person by the profane public; as it was, she ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... which he had diligently surveyed, a place where the stones were less entire, or the slope less perpendicular, or the guard less vigilant. Seven of the stoutest Saracens mounted on each other's shoulders, and the weight of the column was sustained on the broad and sinewy back of the gigantic slave. The foremost in this painful ascent could grasp and climb the lowest part of the battlements; they silently stabbed and cast down the sentinels; and the thirty brethren, repeating a pious ejaculation, "O apostle of God, help and deliver ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... between the above-mentioned knobs and the inner bone of the womb, which receives the penis like a sheath, and so that it may be more easily dilated by the pleasure of procreation, the substance is sinewy and a little spongy. There are several folds or pleats in this cavity, made by tunicles, which are wrinkled like a full blown rose. In virgins they appear plainly, but in women who are used to copulation they disappear, so that the inner side of the neck of the womb ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... ember in its dusky depths. The only radical dissimilarity was the hue of the prince's complexion. It was a strange, un-Egyptian pallor, an opaque whiteness with dark shadows that belied the testimony of vigor in his sinewy frame. ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... with original vigour of constitution, yet betrayed itself in the veins on the hands and temples, the occasional quiver of the upper lip! His was the frame above all others the most alive to pleasure—deep-chested, compact, sinewy, but thin to leanness—delicate in its texture and extremities, almost to effeminacy. The indifference of the posture, the very habit of the dress—not slovenly, indeed, but easy, loose, careless—seemed to speak of the man's manner of thought ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... this small but proud array of Spanish chivalry, as it paraded, with that stateliness possessed only by Spanish cavaliers, through the renowned gate of Elvira. They were struck with the stern and lofty demeanor of Don Juan de Vera and his sinewy frame, which showed him formed for hardy deeds of arms, and they supposed he had come in search of distinction by defying the Moorish knights in open tourney or in the famous tilt with reeds for which they were ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... countenance of the savage, leaving in its place another so kind and amicable as to prove he not only was aware of the benefit he had received, but that he was deeply grateful for it. He drew near to Mrs. Willoughby, took her still white and soft hand in his own sinewy and dark fingers, then dropped the blanket that he had thrown carelessly across his body, from a shoulder, and laid it on a mark left by the disease, by way of pointing to her good work. He ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... a laundress, entered, in a short blue cotton wrapper, wiping the suds from her shrunken but sinewy arms with her apron, and on seeing the captain, her countenance, which was ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Francisco Examiner had been worn to the softness of an old rag and the thinness of tissue. Under Dillon's sinewy fingers pinching up the gold the ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... replied Penelope, "real shame comes on him who robs a good man and brings trouble to his family. This beggar claims to be of good blood, and his arm is sinewy. Let him try the bow. I make a solemn promise that if Apollo grant him the honor of bending the bow, I shall do no less than bestow upon him a tunic and a cloak, and sandals, and I will give him a sword with ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... forced the pace: he lifted his great hairy sinewy hand, brought it down heavily on Jules' shoulder, and in a changed voice, harsh, rough, ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... abbeys. Indefatigable navigator of the faith, he drifted casually in the miraculous trough of stone from coast to coast and from island to island along the northern seas. At the age of eighty-four his high stature was bowed by his long labours, but his sinewy arms preserved their vigour and his rude eloquence had ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... great and god-like thing to do! 'Tis a great thing, I think, to be a man. Man fells the forests, plows and tills the fields, And heaps the granaries that feed the world. At his behest swift Commerce spreads her wings, And tires the sinewy sea-birds as she flies, Fanning the solitudes from clime to clime. Smoke-crested cities rise beneath his hand, And roar through ages with the din of trade. Steam is the fleet-winged herald of his will, Joining ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... order was a tall, sinewy man, middle-aged apparently, and of grave demeanour. His dress was similar to that of the other firemen, but there was an air of quiet unobtrusive authority about him, which showed that ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... bared sabre stuck in the ground before him, a revolver in either fist. Around him lay his men, flat on the ground, eyes focussed on the turn in the road below. Their eyes glowed like the eyes of caged beasts, their sinewy fingers played continually with ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... man's son inherit? Stout muscles and a sinewy heart, A hardy frame, a hardier spirit; King of two hands, he does his part In every useful toil and art; A heritage, it seems to me, A king might wish to hold ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... eyes she saw the big stars above her and felt a sinewy arm beneath her head. Compton was fanning her with his hat and calling upon her to speak, his voice agonized with ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... evening we were visited by several friendly Arabs, short and thin, but strong and sinewy people. Their complexion was yellowish-brown, their eyes were small and vivacious. An assumed dignity barely disguised their native vivacity, and their guttural speech reminded us very strongly of the Jews. Their dress consisted of a rough cotton shirt, a white woolen cloak ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... awkward shame and misery drove all personal grief from Nehal's mind. He drew forward a chair and seated himself opposite his companion, clasping his sinewy, well-shaped hands ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... and clad in a light summer dress that appeared to Cowperwood to be all flounces, and the more graceful in its lines for the problematic absence of a corset. Her face and hands, however—a face thin, long, and sweetly hollow, and hands that were slim and sinewy—gripped and held his fancy. He was reminded in the least degree of Stephanie; but this girl's chin was firmer and more delicately, though more aggressively, rounded. Her eyes, too, were shrewder and less evasive, though ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... out of the room with great loftiness of demeanour, just as the operator was being introduced-a tall, sinewy man, with one of those strong yet meek faces often to be found among the peasantry. He came in after the old farmer, pulling his forelock to the lady, and waiting for orders as if he had been sent for to mend the grate; but Caroline ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... powerful, unrelaxing grasp of allegory is found in the American genius as in Bunyan, and there likewise comes to light in his mind the same delight in art for art's sake that added such a grace to Milton's sinewy and large-limbed port. In special cases the allegorical motive has distinctly got the upper hand, in Hawthorne's work; yet even in those the artistic integument, that marvellous verbal style, those exquisite fancies, are not absent: on the contrary, in the very instances ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... riding-whip in the other, the attorney stepped out on the colonnade, and pausing involuntarily, at sight of the stranger, they looked at each other. A man, perhaps, more, certainly not less than thirty years old, of powerful and impressive physique; very tall, athletic, sinewy, without an ounce of superfluous flesh to encumber his movements, in the professional palaestra; with a large finely modeled head, whose crisp black hair closely cut, was (contrary to the prevailing fashion) parted neither in the middle, nor yet on the side, but brushed straight ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... "tomorrow, at this time, you will be Madame Montlivet." She did not stir, and I laid my hand on her shoulder where it rose slim and sinewy as a boy's from the low neck of her squaw's dress. I bent lower. "You strange woman," I went on, marveling at her calm. "You strange woman, with the justice of a man and the tempers of a child. Have you a woman's heart, I wonder? I do not ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... that live darkness, hideous With stir of crouching forms that wait to kill? Ah, look! See there! and there! and there again! Great yellow, glassy eyes, close to the ground! Look! Now the clouds are lighter I can see The long slow lashing of the sinewy tails, And the set quiver of strong jaws that wait—! Go there? Not I! Who dares to go who sees So perfectly ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... those great ministers were agreed that it was time to do so. And, O scion of Kuru's race, king Dasaratha was greatly pleased to behold his son,—that enhancer of Kausalya's delight—possessed of eyes that were red, and arms that were sinewy. And his steps were like those of a wild elephant. And he had long arms and high shoulders and black and curly hair. And he was valiant, and glowing with splendour, and not inferior to Indra himself in battle. And he was well-versed in holy writ and was ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... rose slowly, holding his stick, which I now saw to be a knotted staff of formidable proportions, and at length reared his figure to its full height. It was a tall and majestic figure which he revealed—thin, yet sinewy, and towering over the heads of the roaring ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... rites the Indians, according to Adair, cut out the sinewy part of the thigh; in commemoration, as he says, of the ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... began—and then was silent, looking down at the wheel. The hands of Huldricksson were lashed fast to the spokes by thongs of thin, strong cord; they were swollen and black and the thongs had bitten into the sinewy wrists till they were hidden in the outraged flesh, cutting so deeply that blood fell, slow drop by drop, at his feet! We sprang toward him, reaching out hands to his fetters to loose them. Even as we touched them, Huldricksson ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... polished brass lamps and flashed upon the wainscot, while even an odd cross-cut saw had been skillfully impressed into the scheme of ornamentation. But there was nothing pinchbeck or tawdry about them. Whirled high by sinewy hands, or clenched in hard brown fingers while a steady eye stared down the barrel, that a bridge might span a ravine where no bridge had been, or venison help to cut down the grocery bill and leave the more for the breaking of ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... sinewy man, his face rendered hideous by streaks of yellow and red, wearing a high crown of eagle feathers, with a scalp of long light-colored hair, still bloody, dangling at his belt. For a moment he and Captain Wells looked sternly ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... Sinewy, spare, and wiry, with keen gray eyes under straight brows, narrow temples, a sunburnt face, and alert, upright bearing and quick step, William Ferrars was every inch a soldier; but nothing so much struck Mr. and Mrs. Kendal as the likeness to their ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... pleasure in visiting the Indian Reservation, and talking to Sun-in-the- North, the only good Indian chief she knew, or that anyone else on the prairies knew. She loved all that was strong and untamed, all that was panting with wild and glowing life. Splendidly developed, softly sinewy, warmly bountiful, yet without the least physical over-luxuriance or suggestiveness, Jen, with her tawny hair and dark-brown eyes, was a growth of unrestrained, unconventional, and eloquent life. Like ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the entire scene at a glance. Here were weapons in plenty! Here were sinewy red warriors ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... escape, shall await you at the great Waterfall; and so, farewell." And, with one vigorous bound, he sprang through the ring of his foes, overthrowing some three or four of them to the earth. And bravely did he stretch away his sinewy limbs in the flight for life and liberty; and though fifty active runners followed in pursuit, yet soon did he outstrip them ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... the world, men of more hardy frame, and better calculated to make good soldiers, than those composing many of the Carlist battalions. Amongst them the Navarrese and Guipuzcoans were pre-eminent; sinewy, broad-chested, narrow-flanked fellows, of prodigious activity and capacity for enduring fatigue. The Guipuzcoans especially, in their short grey frocks and red trousers, their necks bare, the shirt-collar turned back over their shoulders, with their bronzed faces and ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... and blue—his coat of one color—his nether garments of another! He advances boldly toward the house, and the lady scrutinizes the intruder. The result of her examination shows her visitor to be a slight, but sinewy young man, with a frank and honest expression, and seemingly not more than eighteen years of age. The motley stranger drew near, and bowing gracefully saluted her ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... Daniel Boone. As it was, she felt no less foreign than she looked, for the strangeness of the land and of the people still possessed her so that her native shyness had sunk to depths that were painful. She had a new ordeal before her now, for in her sinewy little hands were a paper bag, a first reader, and a spelling-book, and she was on her way to school. Beneath her the white turnpike wound around the hill and down into a little hollow, and on the crest of the next low ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... sinewy, long-armed, hatchet-faced chap, who looked like an Indian. He had "traveled in fast company" for years, but was said to be a hard man to handle, having jumped more than one contract and being of a sullen ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... spreading chestnut-tree The village smithy stands; The smith, a mighty man is he, With large and sinewy hands; And the muscles of his brawny arms Are ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... going bald in front, to the cold damp strip of drugget on the draughty floor. He read the psalm old Father Pimon had told him warded off temptation. He easily raised his light and emaciated body on his strong sinewy legs and tried to continue saying his prayers, but instead of doing so he involuntarily strained his hearing. He wished to hear more. All was quiet. From the corner of the roof regular drops continued to fall into the tub below. Outside was a mist and fog eating into the snow that lay on ...
— Father Sergius • Leo Tolstoy
... the meantime Tarzan had dragged the struggling Horta to the limb beside him. Sinewy fingers completed the work the choking noose had commenced. The ape-man had no knife, but nature had equipped him with the means of tearing his food from the quivering flank of his prey, and gleaming teeth sank into the succulent flesh while the raging lion looked on from below as another ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... falls on the old woman's face, neck, and breast—a face worn away to a skeleton, with shrivelled skin and sunken eyes, red and watery with smoke, dust, and working by lamplight—a long goitre neck, wrinkled and sinewy—a hollow breast covered ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... for his acute and sinewy mind; but he had, too, a strong feeling for art in all its expressions, and it was his gift of imagination,—the ability to forecast the enemy's strategy and then strike his weakest point,—that had made him a great lawyer and diplomat. Shirley had played chess with her father until she ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... and gave him a patriarchal aspect. His pants were stuffed in the legs of his long boots, and he wore a kind of hunting frock, which reached nearly to his knees. He was lean and lank, but, annealed in the hardships of backwoods life, he was wiry and sinewy. He was about fifty years old, though his gray hair and beard alone appeared to betray his age. He was from the south; a fine specimen of the real Kentucky hunter—"half horse and ...
— Field and Forest - The Fortunes of a Farmer • Oliver Optic
... bare, would have struck a phrenologist by reason of the strange intertexture of contradictory propensities. His little, ever restless, black eyes seemed as if they were endeavouring to fathom your thoughts. Taste and neatness were to be observed in his dress. His small, lean, sinewy hands flaunted themselves in bright-yellow gloves. His frock-coat, cravat and waistcoat were invariably of black. The young men dubbed him Mephistopheles; he pretended to be angry at the nickname, but in reality it flattered his vanity. Werner and I soon understood each other ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov
... six feet; and his frame was strongly knit, and compactly built. His right leg was shrunk from his boyhood, and required support by a staff. Mr. Cunningham describes the personal habits of Sir Walter with his usual characteristic force: "his arms were strong and sinewy; his looks stately and commanding; and his face, as he related a heroic story, flushed up as a crystal cup when one fills it with wine. His eyes were deep seated under his somewhat shaggy brow;[15] their colour was a bluish grey—they laughed more than his lips did at a humorous ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 571 - Volume 20, No. 571—Supplementary Number • Various
... not yet thirty, but yesterday, as he drove past her, he had looked like a surly misanthropist of more than middle age. To-day how young he seemed! Did he owe it to the laurel crown which rested on his head, or to the white toga which fell about him in ample folds, leaving only the sinewy arm bare by which ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... hand shake? When Sam cried out for war His potent hand spread many a coat of tar, That sinewy hand the feathers scattered o'er Till Tories' jackets made their bellies sore. Say, for whose sake has Time, that Barber gruff, O'er his wise noddle shook his powder puff? Was the task hard to hear the sage's noise? Perhaps the awful sound had frightened ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... stopped involuntarily to look at and admire him. As he sat, I judged him to be upwards of six feet in height—(I afterwards learned that he stood six feet two,)—he was stout and well-proportioned—his chest broad and magnificent—his frame altogether muscular and sinewy. The face was full of authority and command—every feature handsome, including even the well drawn lip, in which there seemed to lurk scorn enough to wither you, if roused. The brow was full, prominent, and overhanging—the eye small, blue, and beaming with benevolence. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... the lythe agile vigor, all the unrivalled speed, and concentrated fierceness of that tremendous beast of prey, he dashed upon his victim! But at the first slight movement of his sinewy form, the dimly seen shape vanished; impetuously he rushed on among the piles of scattered brick and rubbish, and, ere he saw the nature of the place, plunged down a deep descent into the cellar ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... portion designed to be cooked in a certain manner shall have wasteful appendages which that mode of cooking will spoil. The French soup-kettle stands ever ready to receive the bones, the thin fibrous flaps, the sinewy and gristly portions, which are so often included in our roasts or broilings, which fill our plates with unsightly debris, and finally make an amount of blank waste for which we pay our butcher the same price that we pay for what ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... of the country, hastily collected and soon to be disbanded, and the independent nobility and gentry who composed the cavalry service, were alike difficult to be brought within the strict curb of military rule. The severe trials, which steeled the souls, and gave sinewy strength to the constitutions, of the Spanish soldiers, impaired those of their enemies, introduced divisions into their councils, and relaxed the whole tone of discipline. Gonsalvo watched the operation of all this, and, coolly waiting the moment when his weary and disheartened adversary should ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... the iron fence of the small green triangle cut off from Washington Square by the slant of Columbus Avenue, and peered at the fine bronze figure of a sinewy old man stooping to drink from his hand on the edge of ...
— The Lure of San Francisco - A Romance Amid Old Landmarks • Elizabeth Gray Potter and Mabel Thayer Gray
... pebbles rattling over stones and falling into water flowed from the singsong lips of Chuan Kai. The waiter went away and came back with a broad-shouldered Chinaman whose sleeves were rolled up, revealing sinewy yellow muscles. Campbell and Bassett guessed that he came from the kitchen where he had been cutting meat, for his hands were red and the apron he wore was stained. Chuan Kai spoke to these two hench-men at some length; they replied ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... rain-curtain, favourably disposed for a background to her joyful optimism. A little nibble of hunger within, real hunger, unknown to her of late, added to this healthy view, without precipitating her to appease it; she was more inclined to foster it, for the sake of the sinewy activity of mind and limb it gave her; and in the style of young ladies very light of heart, she went downstairs like a cascade, and like the meteor observed in its vanishing trace she alighted close to Colonel De Craye and entered one of the rooms ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... boy!" The foreman's joy was almost like that of a big dog at sight of his master. "By the great horned toad, I knew it!" With his sinewy hands he tore the blanket into strips as easily as though the wool had been paper. "Now for ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... you say, we cannot fight empty air, Tars Tarkas," I replied, "neither, on the other hand, can empty air fight us. I, who have faced and conquered in my time thousands of sinewy warriors and tempered blades, shall not be turned back by wind; nor no more shall ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... no resemblance to one another, although they were second cousins. Eric Marshall, tall, broad-shouldered, sinewy, walking with a free, easy stride, which was somehow suggestive of reserve strength and power, was one of those men regarding whom less-favoured mortals are tempted seriously to wonder why all the gifts of fortune should be showered on one individual. He was not only clever and ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... in a fertile soil. Keen were their spears of steel. Hardy was he who dared to encounter their rage. Fillan the great was there. Thou Oscur wert there, my son! Fingal himself was there, strong in the grey locks of years. Full rose his sinewy limbs; and wide his shoulders spread. The unhappy met with his arm, when the pride of ...
— Fragments Of Ancient Poetry • James MacPherson
... bony scarecrow shaking an hour-glass—all that could alarm and repel has been gathered round this rightly-named King of Terrors. Milton, who has done so much with his stately rhythm to mould the popular conceptions of modern Christianity, has used all the sinewy strength of his magnificent diction to surround with horror the ...
— Death—and After? • Annie Besant
... His case had several serious difficulties, and the orders allowed of a discretion. The punishment could scarcely be less than death, and, in addition to the loss of a stout, sinewy man, it involved questions of natural right, that were not always pleasant to be considered. Although the impressment of American seamen into the British ships of war was probably one of the most serious moral as well as political wrongs that one independent nation ever received at the hands of ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Bishop proceeded to propound a series of questions, which the minister answered with portentous glibness. In the midst of an estimate of the value of a living in a sweet-scented parish a face looked in at the window, and a dark and sinewy hand laid before Audrey ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... built on heroic lines. He was tall and rangy, and the spirit of a long line of thoroughbred ancestors was in him. It showed in the clear white of his gleaming, indomitable eyes, in his thin, sensitive nostrils and long, shapely muzzle; in the contour of his head and chest, and in his slender, sinewy legs. ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... strong, active, and sinewy. The position in which he had been placed had given him the habit of command, and the heavy responsibility which had devolved upon him had added two or three years to his apparent age. He was taller than most of his countrymen, broad across the shoulders, and a match ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... as being a very trustworthy man. He looked not unlike myself; his gaunt, sinewy frame betokened severe practicability, and his calm blue eyes and large straight mouth combined to give his face an unmistakable and convincing expression of candor. Of speech he was monosyllabic, and this peculiarity pleased me, for I have ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... well matched. The pistol had fallen at the first onset, and for a few minutes it seemed doubtful which should prove the victor, as they swayed to and fro, straining their dark and sinewy forms in deadly conflict. At last the strength of Talaloo seemed to give way, but still he retained a vice-like grasp of his ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... boiled soup-beef, garnished with haricot beans, and served up on a plate damp with dish-water. However, it was still too good, he thought, for a brute unable to earn his bread. Whenever his work miscarried, he undervalued himself, ranked himself lower than a common labourer, whose sinewy arms could at least perform their appointed task. For an hour he lingered in the tavern brutifying himself by listening to the conversation at the tables around him. Once outside he slowly resumed his walk ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... with pride at his column. Like most of the regiments at that period of the war it was small, three hundred sinewy well-mounted young men, who had endured every kind of hardship and who could endure the like again. All of them were wrapped in heavy overcoats over their uniforms, and they rode the best of horses, animals that Colonel Winchester had been allowed ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... they became aware that a fierce struggle was going on in the direction of the room occupied by the late Colonel, and hurrying there, it was to find two men locked together, one of whom was succeeding in holding the other down, and wresting his neck from the sinewy hands which had torn off his ...
— The Dark House - A Knot Unravelled • George Manville Fenn
... large sage bush on the brow of the hill. He bent his bow and the sinewy string twanged. Now an arrow stuck above the ear of Double-Face. It was a poisoned arrow, and the giant fell dead. Then Manstin took the little brown baby and hurried away from the ravine. Soon he came to a teepee from whence loud wailing voices ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa
... grace of the cowboy who seemed so literally a part of his horse. His seat in the saddle was so secure, so easy, and his bearing so unaffected and natural, that every movement of the powerful animal he rode expressed itself rhythmically in his own lithe and sinewy body. ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright |
