"Strained" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wild, pure, ethereal notes thrilled like a voice from some clear region where earthly defilement had been overcome, and earthly sorrows had lost their power. Between whiles, the little song sparrows strained their throats with rejoicing; but that was the joy of hilarious nature that sorrows and defilement had never touched. The cat-birds spoke of business, and sung over it, ambitious and self-gratulatory, and proud. And then by turns ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... of Gladstone's 'aim and object' may now appear strained. It was, however, certainly held, at the time, by many who argued that Gladstone's character was itself a direct contradiction to the charge of his proposed measure being one of spoliation and robbery. [Footnote: See post.] It is, perhaps, more probable that he was greatly influenced ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... Before or since that period, had I held you At so much price as to require your absence, A word of mine had set such spirits to work As would have made you nothing. But in all things I have observed the strictest reverence; Not for the laws alone, for those you have strained 250 (I do not speak of you but as a single Voice of the many) somewhat beyond what I could enforce for my authority, Were I disposed to brawl; but, as I said, I have observed with veneration, like A priest's ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... by his own act and direction, the major had still further strained the situation. The discovery of Blakely's watch, buried loosely in the sands barely ten feet from where the sentry fell, had seemed to him a matter of such significance that, as Graham maintained an expression ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... While I am rushing forward, surpassing myself in an elan vital, suddenly the awful check grips my back wheel, or my front wheel, or both. Suddenly there is a fearful arrest. My soul rushes on before my body, I feel myself strained, torn back. My fibers groan. ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... any in my own home; there was never anything in my home life but painful memories of domestic trouble and financial stress. I was for a while asked to the homes of schoolmates, but could offer no hospitality in return. Sensitiveness and humiliation have strained the better qualities out of me. ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... altogether free from settled conditions, altogether the ignorant creators of each moment's vision. Such a career evidently affords all sorts of possibilities, except perhaps the possibility of being a career. But when a man has strained every nerve to maintain an absolute fluidity and a painful fidelity to the immediate, he can hardly be blamed if he lapses at last into some flattering myth, and if having satisfied himself that all science is fiction he proclaims ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... Corfu or Crete in place of Malta; but he confessed that the suggestion was quite unauthorized, and that the First Consul was so enraged on the Maltese Question that he dared not broach it to him.[252] Indeed, all through these critical weeks Napoleon's relations to his brothers were very strained, they desiring peace in Europe so that Louisiana might even now be saved to France, while the First Consul persisted in his oriental schemes. He seems now to have concentrated his energies on the task of postponing the rupture to a convenient date ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... His face was deathly white, and he shuddered whenever there was a cry from the burning building. "Poor souls—God help them. Oh, this is awful," he said; and then he turned his eyes from the great sheets of flame and strained the little boy to his breast. At last there were wild shrieks that I knew came from no human throats. The fire must have reached the horses. Mr. Morris sprang up, then sank back again. He wanted to go, yet he could be of no use. There were hundreds of men ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... same. For fine, fancy shirts, which can be made in one day of eighteen hours, 6d. is paid. The weekly wage of these sewing-women according to this and according to testimony from many sides, including both needle-women and employers, is 2s. 6d. to 3s. for most strained work continued far into the night. And what crowns this shameful barbarism is the fact that the women must give a money deposit for a part of the materials entrusted to them, which they naturally cannot do unless they pawn a part of them (as the ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... Carlyle's wife the latter would doubtless have been welcome enough at the Grange. Being much cleverer than Lady Ashburton, she seemed to dispute a supremacy which had not hitherto been challenged, and the relations of the two women were strained. Carlyle, on the other hand, had become, so Froude discovered from his wife's journal, romantically, though quite innocently, attached to Lady Ashburton, and this was one cause of dissension at Cheyne Row. There was nothing very dreadful in the disclosure. Carlyle was a much safer acquaintance ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... make mistakes," urged Mr. Wotton, after a long silence, "and Ben's sight ain't wot it used to be. He strained it looking out for a sail when we was on ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... assigned to the two women in a room which was to be occupied by them alone afforded a view of the entire courtyard, and from the arm-chair which Frau Traut had had brought for her Barbara gazed down into it with strained attention. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... been suggested that the reason our compatriots have such a strained and anxious look is because they are all trying to remember the numbers of their streets and houses, the floor their office is on, and the combination of their safes. I am inclined to think that the hunted look ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... almost ruined by the repeated naval victories of the Venetians, an overture was made to the English ambassador, Lord Winchilsea, for permission to hire the services of a number of British vessels; but this strange request being evaded, the expedition was postponed for a year, while every nerve was strained in the building and equipment of galleys; and at length, in the autumn of 1666, the fleet set sail from Monembasia in the Morea, under the command of the Capitan-pasha Mustafa, surnamed Kaplan, or the Tiger, the brother-in-law of Kiuprili, and anchored ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... serve the purposes of Mary's enemies; a circumstance which increased the difficulty, and exposed any forgery the more to the risk of a detection. 3. They are not so gross and palpable as forgeries commonly are, for they still left a pretext for Mary's friends to assert that their meaning was strained to make them appear criminal. See Goodall, vol. ii. p. 361. 4. There is a long contract of marriage, said to be written by the earl of Huntley, and signed by the queen, before Bothwells acquittal. Would Morton, without any necessity, have thus doubled the difficulties of the forgery, and the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... needed his attention. I found that the speed we were making against the wind closed my eyes, for there is very little protection on the conning tower of a submarine; and that alone might have given the commander that tired look. But I gathered afterwards that the eyes are strained a good deal in looking for enemy craft. There, in the distance, was the port whence we had emerged, and we now were out on the breast of the sea in war time. Two miles off our port bow was a grey vessel, to ...
— Some Naval Yarns • Mordaunt Hall
... him at home, the tender mother got his saddlebags, and filled his flask with brandy, and packed up a huge piece of Yorkshire pie, and even stuffed in a plaid shawl. And she strained her anxious eyes after him as ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... were watching for the coach,—the late light ebbing in golden tides over the grass at her feet, and touching her face now and then through the branches of trees, her head bent a little, with eager, parted lips, and the girlish color on her cheeks, her hand shading her eyes as they strained for a sight of the lumbering coach. She must have been a magnificent woman when she was young,—not unlike, I have heard it said, to that far-off ancestress whose name she bore, and whose sorrowful story has made ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... but an attitude, an empty hand for grasping an environing Presence. And when we feel the need of a power by which to overcome the world, how often do we not seek to generate it within ourselves by some forced process, some fresh girding of the will, some strained activity which only leaves the soul in further exhaustion? To examine ourselves is good; but useless unless we also examine Environment. To bewail our weakness is right, but not remedial. The cause must be investigated as well as the result. And yet, because we never see the other half of ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... sauce. The principles of manufacture surely are alike. Garum, like our anchovy sauce, is the puree of a small fish, named garus, as yet unidentified. The fish, intestines and all, was spiced, pounded, fermented, salted, strained and bottled for future use. The finest garum was made of the livers of the fish only, exposed to the sun, fermented, somehow preserved. It was an expensive article in old Rome, famed for its medicinal properties. Its mode of ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... like smooth red iron. Slone had never seen such hard rock. It took him long to realize that it was marble. His heart seemed a tense, painful knot in his breast, as if it could not beat, holding back in the strained suspense. But Nagger never jerked on the bridle. He never faltered. Many times he slipped, often with both front feet, but never with all four feet. So he did not fall. And the red wall began to loom above Slone. Then suddenly he seemed brought to a ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... to me in the woods at Abinger in a windless, sunny week at Easter. The gipsies gave me food once or twice. And I ate the scraps that the trippers left after their picnics at the top of Leith Hill where the tower is. And I lay in the sun by day and I slept in a stack of bracken by night, and my strained life relaxed. And I, who had become so hard and bitter, saw at last what endless love and compassion had been vainly lavished on me, and I was humbled. I had somehow got it rooted into my warped mind that I ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... of the States now began to prepare for war. The Congress was made permanent, the militia drilled and prepared for fighting, and everywhere the position grew more and more strained. Massachusetts was the headquarters of disaffection, and here a total break with the mother country was openly spoken of. At times the more moderate spirits attempted to bring about a reconciliation between the two parties. Petitions were sent to the Houses of Parliament, and ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... they kept their places, every ear strained to catch the faintest sound. They had only to watch one side of the ground floor where they stood. Three of the walls were solid and very strongly built; the fourth was pierced by the windows and the door, and here they had taken their ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... blue vapour becomes like smoke. Burnt fat has an unpleasant smell, and is apt to give a disagreeable taste to the articles fried in it. With ordinary care fat need not get overheated. Next to oil, fat rendered down (see Rendering down Fat), is best for the purpose. If strained after each time of using, and not allowed to burn, it will keep good for months, and may be used for fish, sweets, or savouries, and no taste of anything previously fried in it will be given to the articles cooked. For this kind of frying, a kitchener, or gas stove, ...
— The Skilful Cook - A Practical Manual of Modern Experience • Mary Harrison
... story from Aunt Trudy, thought it her duty to lecture Rosemary during breakfast—at which Aunt Trudy did not appear—and Rosemary, whose nerves were already strained to the breaking ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... me, smelling along like a wolfhound until he had tracked me to a standstill. Should I wait for him? I looked at the kneeling figure. So absorbed was the strange young Indian in the document on the floor that I strained my eyes to make out its script, but could not decipher even the corner of the paper exposed to my view. Then it occurred to me that it was a strange thing for an Indian to read. Scarce one among the Iroquois, save Brant ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... filled the room, and rested at last just before me. I strained my eyes to assure myself that I was not dreaming, and looked upon all your faces to assure myself that I was of the earth, and not a spirit. Then my eyes seemed to be fastened upon the light. In vain I tried to remove them; I could not; and only hoped ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... clasped together and his heart beating wildly, Fred Davis strained his eyes to see it all. To him every moment seemed an hour of acute agony ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... it. The nurse generally prepared this herself, as she said all depended on the care in making. She put a 1/4lb. of suet in a pint of milk, and simmered it gently, stirring frequently, till the milk was as thick as good cream. She then strained it carefully, and flavoured it with almond or lemon, which so effectually disguised the taste of the suet in it, that it became a favourite dish with ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII. No. 358, November 6, 1886. • Various
... with esteem and kindness, and did not like to have one smile at the recital. 'This man (said he, gravely) was a very sensible man, who perfectly understood common affairs: a man of a great deal of knowledge of the world, fresh from life, not strained through books[309]. He borrowed a horse and ten pounds at Birmingham. Finding himself master of so much money, he set off for West Chester[310], in order to get to Ireland. He returned the horse, and probably the ten pounds too, after ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... votes; but, what answered their purposes just as well, 4408 Missourians had cast their ballots for them, making their total constituency (if by discarding the idea of a State line we use the word in a somewhat strained sense) 5427. This was at the March election, 1855. Of the remaining 2286 actual Kansas voters disclosed by Seeder's census, only 791 cast their ballots. That summer's emigration, however, being mainly from the free States, ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... Cleve seemed long in grasping its significance. His face was half averted. Then he turned slowly, all strung, and his hands clutched quiveringly at the air. No man of coolness and judgment would have addressed him or moved a step in that strained moment. All expected some such action as had marked his ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... and like his military officers essentially interchangeable. His humor is almost invariably labored and tedious. He occasionally allowed long passages of description or long speeches by some minor character to clog the progress of his action. Now and then, in inventing his plots, he strained his readers' credulity somewhat. Finally, as a result of his rapid writing, his work is uneven and without style in the sense that a careful craftsman or a sensitive artist achieves it. He is even guilty of an occasional error in grammar or word use which the young ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... Henry was briefer than his name would indicate, but to a certain two-room dwelling on Jackson Street he made up in importance what he lacked in height; and it was his overwhelming sense of this importance which made every thin muscle taut and strained every nerve as he stood in the forefront of the crowd, his bare feet planted on the cold asphalt, one hand gripping his remaining stock of papers, the other ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... round, and at the sight of her white, strained face a sudden light leapt into his eyes—the light of a great incredulity with, back of it, an unutterable hope and longing. In two strides he was at her side, his hands ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... beloved mother in such a situation stirred up daring thoughts in the bosom of the heroic boy, but he lay powerless in the naked and brawny arms of the brother of his mother. He tried to disengage himself, but, at the slightest movement, Mecumeh, though still sleeping, seemed conscious, and strained him closer to him. At last the strong sleep that, in the depth of the night, steeps the senses in utter forgetfulness, overpowered him—his arms relaxed their hold, and dropped lifeless beside him, and ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... "Poverty," he writes, "that old mediator between man and evil, tore me from my solitude devoted to meditation, and placed me before a public on whom not only my own but my own mother's existence depended. Young and over-strained, I suffered painfully under the contact with external things which my vocation as a musician brought with it, and which wounded me all the more intensely that my heart at this time was filled entirely with the mystical ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... and machinists attended to the dynamos, motors, and auxiliary cylinders that worked the turrets, pumps, and ammunition-hoists. All boilers were hot and hissing steam; all fire-pumps were working; all fire-hose connected and spouting streams of water. Perspiring men with strained faces deluged one another while ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... the day had overcast, nor is this the most favourable road for entering Mexico. The innumerable spires of the distant city were faintly seen. The volcanoes were enveloped in clouds, all but their snowy summits, which seemed like marble domes towering into the sky. But as we strained our eyes to look into the valley, it all appeared to me rather like a vision of the Past than the actual breathing Present. The curtain of Time seemed to roll back, and to discover to us the great panorama that ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... imagination in the past of his island;[1118] he recounts its history, his mind dwells upon it for many years, and he dedicates his work to Paoli. Unable to get it published, he abridges it, and dedicates the abridgment to Abbe Raynal, recapitulating in a strained style, with warm, vibrating sympathy, the annals of his small community, its revolts and deliverances, its heroic and sanguinary outbreaks, its public and domestic tragedies, ambuscades, betrayals, revenges, loves, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... and desires that fairly electrified the place. Eva ardently craved her father's recovery at all costs. Flint's avaricious mind wavered between a scheme nearing success and the possibility of failure and the fear of the Automaton. Balcom strained to hear the purport of the message that Locke ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... child fell over the rail of a staircase and was obliged to lie for some ten days on her back, so that the strained but not broken little body might recover itself. Every movement was, in a measure, painful; and there was a long captivity, a helplessness enforced and guarded by twinges, a constant impossibility to yield ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell
... did he begin to see the changing lights in her eyes. Not until he had finished did he notice that most of that vivid flush of joy had gone from her face and that she was looking at him in a strained, tense way. He felt then the reaction. She was not looking at the thing as he was looking at it. He had offered to her another woman's tragedy as THEIR opportunity, and her own woman's heart had ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... heavy, and powerful but my earthly sinews and greater agility, in conjunction with the deathly strangle hold I had upon him, would have given me, I think, an eventual victory had we had time to discuss the merits of our relative prowess uninterrupted. But as we strained and struggled about the tree into which Tars Tarkas was clambering with infinite difficulty, I suddenly caught a glimpse over the shoulder of my antagonist of the great swarm of pursuers that now were fairly ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... a long neck, terminating in a flat head acting as a peg-box and bent back slightly at an obtuse angle from the neck. There are five, six or nine strings to the banjo; they are fastened to a tail-piece as in the violin, pass over a low bridge, on the body, and are strained over the nut or ridge at the end of the neck, where they are threaded through holes and wound round the tuning-pegs fixed in the back of the head in Oriental fashion, as in the lute (q.v.). The ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... begin with and revert. Bella Westerveld was and had. So there she lay, asleep. Old Ben wasn't and hadn't. So there he lay, terribly wide-awake, wondering what made his heart thump so fast when he was lying so still. If it had been light, you could have seen the lines of strained resignation in the sagging muscles of his ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... wrists and tied them together in this position. I twisted and wrenched till I stretched the linen of the handkerchief, and strained the knot enough to permit me to pull my hands through my bonds, and free them. The darkness was gloomy and oppressive, even after I had been only half an hour in the dungeon. I felt that, for Kate's sake, as well as my own, I must get out. For the present she was safe, ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... back as far as 1843. In 1846 Messrs. Boutron and Fremy, in a Memoir on lactic fermentation, published in the Annales de Chimie et de Physique, strained the conclusions deducible from it to a most unjustifiable extent. They asserted that one and the same nitrogenous substance might undergo various modifications in contact with air, so as to become successively ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... but he did not resign, nor did the Prime Minister request him to do so. His foreign policy had hitherto vigorously befriended liberty on the Continent, and although the Queen and Prince Consort never strained the constitutional limits of the prerogative, these limits are elastic and there was a general feeling among Liberals that the Court might acquire an overwhelming influence in diplomacy, and that certainly at the moment the ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... Christ himself, come back to earth in this most unbelieving Nineteenth century; a construction which seems to have been as far as possible from anything that was in the novelist's thought. Another finds the plot weak and the motif—it is the custom to use French in this connection—strained; and can endure nothing in the book but Glory, who is "altogether delightful." Still another is furious because of the "nurses' ball," and thinks it is reflection upon the whole sisterhood of trained nurses; and there are others who cannot recover from that still further ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... was passed without trouble. The second was rougher, and the men strained at the oars to give the yawl ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... and it is a ripping good tale from Chapter I to Finis—no weighty problems to be solved, but just a fine running story, full of exciting incidents, that never seemed strained or improbable. It is a dainty love yarn involving three men and a girl. There is not a dull or trite situation ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... the room, entered the place and closed the door tightly after him. He well knew that the ears of all would be strained to the utmost to hear what he was saying. It took him only a short time to call up Central in the city and to get into communication with Mr. Westcote. His message ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... the children in her class, "What was the sin of the Pharisees?" "Eating camels, ma'am," was the reply. The little girl who answered had read that the Pharisees "strained at gnats and swallowed camels." "In what condition was the patriarch Job at the end of his life?" questioned a teacher of a stolid-looking boy. "Dead," was ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... winnowed away by it, glitter and confusion and glare of color, inconsistency or absence of thought, forced expression, evil choice of subject, over accumulation of materials, whether in painting or literature, the shallow and unreflecting nothingness of the English schools of art, the strained and disgusting horrors of the French, the distorted feverishness of the German:—pretence, over decoration, over division of parts in architecture, and again in music, in acting, in dancing, in whatsoever art, great or mean, there are yet degrees of greatness or meanness entirely dependent ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... and sat up on their haunches washing their faces, and the need for inaction had passed. With a mighty effort Tom strained at the ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... DOGS' did the work! They were well trained, swift, fresh, keen-scented, 'excellent' men-hunters, and though the poor fugitive in his frenzied rush for liberty, strained every muscle, yet they gained upon him, and after dashing through fens, brier-beds, and the tangled undergrowth till faint and torn, he sinks, and the blood-hounds are upon him. What blood-vessels the poor struggler burst in his ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... a genius!" observed Staniford at his first opportunity with Dunham. "I knew there must be something the matter. Of course she's going out to school her voice; and she hasn't strained it in idle babble about her own affairs! I must say that Lu—Miss Blood's power of holding her tongue commands my homage. Was it her little coup to wait till we got into that hopeless hobble ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... billow, as it groaned along the hollow shore. The same thought occurred to us both at once. "Those brave boys are all in their coffin together," slowly murmured my companion. There was neither shout nor even word among the crowd; while every eye and ear was strained, and the men began to run along the water's edge to find a fragment of the wrecks, or assist some struggler for life in the surge. But the cloud, which absolutely lay upon the water, suddenly burst open, with a roar ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... I strained my eyes to discover the object he strove to indicate, but I failed to do so. I could just discern something flitting away into the darkness, but I could give ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... into the witness-box, a wave of suppressed excitement ran all over the court-room. Every nerve was strained to its tensest pitch, every ear eager for the slightest syllable he might utter. What could be done for a man who had confessed, and what would be the solution of the crime which had so long defied the authorities? The explanation was ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... substances, from a limpid liquid, too light to burn, to one that is thick and tarry. These differ widely also in chemical composition: some yielding much asphalt by distillation, resembling a solution of asphalt in turpentine; some containing so much paraffine that a considerable quantity can be strained out in cold weather. The asphalt in its natural form is a solid rock, to which the term "gum beds" has been applied in Canada. These differences in constitution have originated in the differences in the bituminous shales from which the petroleum, ozokerite, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... Tagalog story (c) the three men are not brothers. They are given the magic objects as a reward for kindness. The sentimental denouement reads somewhat smug and strained after all three men have been represented as equally kind-hearted. The shooting-contest with arrows to decide the question, however, may be reminiscent of the "1001 Nights" version. For the resuscitating flute in droll ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... brigantine standing close in under the Essex shore. At times she was invisible; again he could catch merely the glint of her canvas, white against the dark loom of the littoral, toned by a mist of flying spindrift. He strained his eyes, watching for the chance which would take place in the rake of her masts and sails, ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... strained my utmost sense to catch this truth, and mark: "There are families out grazing like cattle in the park." "A pair of peasants must be saved even if ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... it was she who accompanied the priestesses—moved on, she drew her cloak lightly around her, for the night-winds were chill, and her spirit nature was strained to its highest point. They stopped in front of the great altar. The moon threw off her veil of clouds, and the light from her glorious body shone forth, illuminating the veil that hid ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... whole:—Set some mulberries over the fire in a skillet, and draw from them a pint of juice, when 'tis strained. Then take three pounds of sugar, beaten very fine; wet the sugar with the pint of juice; boil up your sugar, and scum it, and put in two pounds of ripe mulberries, and let them stand in the syrup till they are thoroughly warm; then set them ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... to the system when the interpretation is not strained, but is plausible, consistent, and productive of the same results as in the instance of Mount Calvary: all that I contend for is, that such interpretations are modern, and that they do not belong to, although they may often be deduced ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... too is no less conspicuous; this is shown in the gentle, earnest, kind-hearted tone of every Sermon in the book. There is no scolding, no asperity of language, no irritation of manner about them. At the same time there is no over-strained tenderness, nor affectation of endearment; but there is a considerate, serious concern, about the peculiar sins and temptations of the people committed to his charge, and a hearty desire and determined ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 56, November 23, 1850 • Various
... strained her mind out to the very edge of things and tried to think! What endeavor she made to get out of her mind that which was not in it! She could not but feel that it was all because she was "such a fool"—for she could hardly believe ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... silence fell—a strained, premonitory silence that had in it a hint of imminent tragedy. The sitting man stiffened, divining the promise of violence; the standing man shrank back a little and looked downward at the ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... But, though he strained his eyes to catch some indications of the shadowy figure he had seen only a moment or two before, he could not do so; it had vanished. This did not add anything to the big athlete's quietude of mind; for the footsteps of Nora, dulled by springy ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... lovingly entertained at the pale virgin's identification of herself with those who "walk in the way of luxuries and pleasures," and "set themselves up as an example of sin and vanity." But Catherine's use of the first person in this connection, strained though it may appear, is more than a figure of speech, to soften the severity of her rebuke. We learn from the legend that till the end of her life she never ceased to repent, bitterly and with tears, for having at the age of twelve allowed an older sister to dress ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... by leaving our luggage, all duly marked and ready, standing on the track. We soon began to greet familiar sites as we flitted by: the last we made out plainly was Borghetto, a handful of houses, with a ruined castle keeping watch on a hill hard by: then twilight gathered, and we strained our eyes in vain for the earliest glimpse of Mount Soracte, and night came down before we could descry the first landmarks of the Agro Romano, the outposts of our excursions, the farm-towers we knew by name, the farthest fragments of the aqueducts. But it was not so obscure ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... same as it always was; but there has been a great change in the opportunities and facilities offered for the development of the faculties most desired in men-of-war's men. All reform—using the word in its true sense of alteration, and not in its strained sense of improvement—has been in the direction of securing perfect uniformity. If we take the particular directly suggested by the word just used, we may remember, almost with astonishment, that ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... days, but they do not stand out to the eye of admiring communities in such prominence as they did among our ancestors. Who stops and turns back to gaze reverentially on a poet or a scholar whom he passes by unconsciously, as both men and women strained their eyes to see an Abelard or a Dante? Even a Webster now would not command the homage ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... reading boy the position is one of instinct, like that of the bicycle racer. His eyes are strained, his nerves and muscles at tension—everything ready for excitement—and the book, lying open, leaves his hands perfectly free to drum on the sides of the chair, slap his legs and knees, fumble in his pockets or even scratch his head as emotion or interest ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... leopards, strained and lean, The treacherous Russian knows so well, With gaping blackened jaws are seen Leap through the hail ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... locked my door and threw myself down upon the floor in an agony of shame, anger, and physical exhaustion. I did not know how large a part of what seemed mere childish ill-temper was really the cry of exasperated nerves, that had been on too strained a tension, and silent too long, and Ernest did not know it either. How could he? His profession kept him for hours every day in the open air; there were times when his work was done and he could take entire rest; and his health is absolutely perfect. But I did not ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... the situation at that moment was decidedly strained. But Risler's good-humor banished all constraint. He apologized to his partner for not being at home, and insisted upon showing Frantz the house. They went from the salon to the stable, from the stable to the carriage-house, the servants' quarters, and ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... all of this out of the way, dear," apologized Mrs. Paget, with a gesture that included cakes in the process of frosting, salad vegetables in the process of cooling, soup in the process of getting strained, great loaves of bread that sent a delicious fragrance over all the other odors. "But we didn't look ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris
... the strap, laughing, and threw her hat, the hat of a Canadian trooper, on to the floor. His mouth moved over her face, over her hair, pressing hard into their softness; his arms clasped her shoulders; they slipped to her waist; he strained her slender body fast to him, straight against his own straightness, till the passion and the youth she had denied and destroyed ...
— The Tree of Heaven • May Sinclair
... towing the heavy-laden barges was wearisome in the extreme. All took a share in the toil. In many cases the river had overflowed its banks, and the troops had to struggle through the water, up to their waists, while they tugged and strained ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... to have strained my leg, and I was sitting in the garden, dozing, Egbert by my side, when I was awakened by a hoarse bark from my faithful companion, and, looking down, I perceived him hopping rapidly towards the pond, pursued by an enormous oojoobwa ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 1, 1914 • Various
... downright abuse. They would have called our more sober reticence by the name of feebleness: their truculence we stigmatize as slander and Billingsgate. Wilson was an extremist in everything; yet he strained but a point or two beyond his fellows. When the tide of party began gradually to subside, he fell with it. Mrs. Gordon has given a very correct picture of the state of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... slow restlessness, stopped short and cast a quick, suspicious glance at the physician. The sweat broke out on his forehead as the fear leaped into his heart that Dr. Annister had guessed the truth. He had to grope among his panic thoughts for a moment before he could reply. His voice was a little strained ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... of marriage has its power. He had lived with this woman, she believing herself his lawful wife. Their half-year together had been the loftiest period of his life. The old feeling, smothered as it was under resentment and a new passion, stirred in him. He strained her to his breast and called her the pet names he used to call her. The diminutive being upon his knee heard them without response. When she ...
— Old Kaskaskia • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... had already become strained. It was soon obvious that General Prim—whether, as was alleged by the French, from personal motives,* or from a clearer insight into the true condition of the country—would side with Sir Charles Wyke, ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... great effort and sat up, looking at the actor with strained eyes, yet striving to force ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... recovered. "A month will see you fit again," his father had said; but?—perhaps he had been wrong—perchance the affection had been deeper than he had suspected; and now this endless carnival of supernatural happenings had strained the weakened cells, so that he was become as a ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... and Young instantly followed him. In truth, a more gallant feat of arms had not been essayed, nor carried to a more triumphant conclusion, since the Roman gate was held by Horatius; and in my admiration of it I shouted until the muscles of my throat were strained and aching. Our boat already was near the wall—having pulled in that the soldiers aboard of it might spear such of the enemy as came up to the surface alive—and we had the three out of the water and safe among us in very short order; and then we pulled away towards the other ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... anyway? While the daylight lasted, a thousand pairs of eyes swept the horizon, and the intervening spaces of tossing, blue-grey water, for the sight of a sinister periscope, or for the smudge of a friendly cruiser, and when night fell, a thousand pairs of ears listened with strained intentness for the impact of the deadly torpedo or for the signal ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... pulverized and sifted most carefully, so there will be no particles in it, and so it will readily dissolve. After the clay mixture has had this mauling—for I can call it nothing else—the blunged compound, or slip, flows in liquid form into the sifter machines where it is strained through silk gauze or else a mesh of fine ...
— The Story of Porcelain • Sara Ware Bassett
... men outside tried to batter down the car walls with a broken tree limb. Inside, they strained feverishly at the heavy timbers. Vain efforts all, at which the crackling flames, crawling always ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... indiscretions of an incumbent being rarely forgotten, may be impediments to the efficacy of his ministry for the remainder of his life. The same observations would apply with equal force to doctrine. A young minister is liable to errors, from his notions being either too lax or over-strained. In both cases it would prove injurious that the error should be remembered, after study and reflection, with advancing years, shall have brought him to a clearer discernment of the truth, and better judgment ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... the largest private banks operated under tight restrictions limiting the private sector's access to formal credit. Moreover, the September 2007 crackdown on prodemocracy demonstrators, including thousands of monks, further strained the economy as the tourism industry, which directly employs about 500,000 people, suffered dramatic declines in foreign visitor levels. In November 2007, the European Union announced new sanctions banning investment ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... meet or understand each other again. It is so of all the poor links whereby we try to bridge the impassable gulf between soul and soul. Oh! we spin something, I know, but it is very gossamer, thin and strained, and even if it does not snap time will at last ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... tremendous bang. I started to my feet in terror; the book fell from my hands. In the very same moment, however, all was still again, and I began to be ashamed of my childish fears. The door must have been burst open by a strong gust of wind or in some other natural manner. It is nothing; my over-strained fancy converts every ordinary occurrence into the supernatural. Having thus calmed my fears, I picked up my book from the ground, and again threw myself in the arm-chair; but there came a sound of soft, slow, measured ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... is easily acquired. Mr. Smith, a broker, finds himself in an environment of "schemes" and "deals" in which the quality of mercy is strained, and the wind is decidedly not tempered to the shorn lamb. After all, business is business. He shrugs his shoulders and takes his part. But his unexpended fund of native idealism—if, as is most probable, he has his share—seeks its due ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... No doubt the most strained political situation may unexpectedly admit of a peaceful solution. The death of some one man, the setting of some great ambition, the removal of some master-will, may be enough to change it fundamentally. But the great disputes in the life of ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... north once more. As well go that way as another, but the man was mad indeed if he thought that such a horse as Pommers was at the end of his spirit or his strength. He would soon show him that he was unconquered, if it strained his sinews or broke his heart to do so. Back then he flew up the long, long ascent. Would he ever get to the end of it? Yet he would not own that he could go no farther while the man still kept his grip. He was white with foam and caked with mud. His ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a long time with her clasped in his arms; then giving her one or two passionate kisses, he strained her closer to him and abruptly left the house, leaving Little Birdie startled and alarmed by ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... spring and early summer Rosecrans resisted, with a great deal of spirit and on various grounds, these frequent urgings, and out of this grew up an acrimonious correspondence and strained feeling between him and General Halleck. Early in June, however, stores had been accumulated and other preparations made for a move forward, Resecrans seeming to have decided that he could safely risk an advance, with the prospect of good results. Before finally deciding, he ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... impedimenta, as an example of hardihood and endurance for the benefit of my young adherents; but such was the number of parcels and their awkwardness of shape and bulk that at the final moment, after I had painfully strained my arms in an effort to raise the largest pack to my back, and after I had been repeatedly tripped by the handle of my woodsman's axe, which I wore in my belt, I suffered Mrs. Dorcas to summon a hired hack or conveyance. Seated on the rear seat of this vehicle, carrying some of my equipage ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... Porrenger of French-Barley, that hath been boyled in a nine waters, put in some large Mace and a little Cinamon, boyling it a quarter of an hour; then take two quarts of Almonds blanched, and beat it very small with Rose-water, or Orange-water, and some Sugar; and the Almonds being strained into the Liquor, put it over the fire, stirring it till it be ready to boyle; then take it off the fire, stirring it till it be halfe cold; then put to it two spoonfuls of Sack or White-Wine, and when it is cold, serve it in, remembring to ...
— The Compleat Cook • Anonymous, given as "W. M."
... preparations were complete. The pail was full of water; the rope was tightly strained over the top of the bed, and across the windowsill to ...
— The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter • Beatrix Potter
... some one of his instructions. He could put the whole matter in some absolutely new light—take it from an utterly different point of view; so that, while giving another chance to the slow-witted, he did not keep his whole class waiting. The quality of teaching is not strained. It is doubtful if it is capable of being learnt, if not in the first instance, in some measure, innate. Lying dormant in a man's being—even if, perhaps, its presence is unrecognized by its owner—it can certainly be developed by him when he is conscious ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... Blake stood up abruptly and followed her down to their pew. She knelt at once; but he caught up his soft hat, and holding it before his face, bent down close to her ear. He spoke in a strained whisper: "Excuse me. I've ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... bore of that big rifle ready to cough sixteen chunks of lead in half as many seconds, any one of them hitting hard enough to drill through them, man by man, down to the last head in the line. So their arms went up and strained high above their heads, as if eager to show their desire to comply without reservation to the unspoken command. Morgan had ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... in torment, for him. It seemed as if they would never be over, so that he might face the truth by himself, with Strong out of the picture, and decide what must be done. Bambi noticed his strained politeness to their guest, but set it down to the same inconsistency he had shown before, of being jealous of what he did ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke
... they looked like the little horse-like things, no higher than a man's waist and heavily maned and bearded, that had been one of their most important sources of meat. For the ten thousandth time, Dard wished, as he strained his eyes, that somebody had thought to secure a pair of binoculars when they had abandoned the rocket-boat. He studied the grazing ...
— Genesis • H. Beam Piper
... expectation, and, listening wonderingly, I was aware of slow, heavy footsteps coming up from the river, now two or three steps together, then a pause, then another step or two, and as I bent towards the approaching thing, staring into the darkness, my strained senses were conscious of another approach, as like as could be, coming from behind me. On they came, making the very ground quake with their weight, till I judged that both were about on the edge of the clearing, two vast rat-like shadows, but as big as elephants, and bringing ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... side with George or Richard Cely he must often have strained his eyes from the quay, with the salt wind blowing out the feather in his cap, and breathed a thanksgiving to God when the ships hove in sight. 'And, Sir,' he writes once to Stonor from London, 'thanked be the good Lord, I understand for certain that our ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... a pain in his right hand. He withdrew his eyes from his enemy and looked at it. He was grasping the hilt of his drawn sword so tightly that it hurt him. He observed, too, that he was leaning forward in a strained attitude— crouching like a gladiator ready to spring at the throat of an antagonist. His teeth were clenched and he was breathing hard. This matter was soon set right, and as his muscles relaxed and he drew a long breath ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... pathway, and as she turned, the hush of the sleeping garden was stirred by a vibrant voice which spoke the one word, "Mary!" With wildly beating heart she paused. The voice seemed to have come from under the olive tree where the old stone bench stood empty and wrapped in gloom. When she had strained her vision for a moment she saw a form in the shadows, at first misty and gray as the morning, but taking distinct shape before her bewildered eyes until a face looked toward her with ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... touched the preacher in the most sensible part; and Burley deemed, therefore, he should find little difficulty in moulding his opinions to the support of his own views, more especially as they agreed exactly in their high-strained opinions of church government. ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... at her bedside, constant and loved and loving. But there was one whose presence inspired a deeper joy, for whom her dying eyes watched—dying eyes wistful in their watch for him. How she had watched during the past months! How those eyes had strained themselves through the throngs of passers-by at Florence, while, day by day, the light of hope grew dimmer! Now they waited for his coming, and his approach never failed to bring to them the kindling light ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... across the deck, and had another vessel been overtaken, the Ouzel Galley might have run her down before she could have been perceived. The canvas had been reduced to a single close-reefed fore-topsail, which so tugged and strained at the mast that every instant it seemed as if about to be torn out of the bolt-ropes. As long as the wind blew from the westward or south-west, the ship could run on with safety till she had got ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... to feel each impact as the opposing lines strained against each other. He cringed inwardly as he heard the smack of Drake's collision with Barley, who brought the big fellow to earth. Canton's first down on Trumbull's eighteen ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman
... beyond the cane swamp, and the slightest grasses hardly moved, but stood there with their feathery plumes bathed in sunshine, while with strained eyes I counted the knots on every ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... came at times to see me in my chamber, noticing the wax which I was using, recognised it at once and exclaimed: "It is true that this poor fellow Benvenuto has suffered a most grievous wrong; yet he ought not to have dealt thus with me, for I have ever strained my sense of right to show him kindness. Now I shall keep him straitly under lock and key, and shall take good care to do him no more service." Accordingly, he had me shut up with disagreeable circumstances, among the worst of which were the words ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... neither the voice of justice nor the cry of distress that moved the Government; it was the alarm of external danger. The strength of England was then strained as it has never been before or since in an unequal war with the combined forces of France, Spain, and America, and it was no time either to feed or to neglect discontent at home. Ireland had already sent many recruits to the revolutionary army in America, and at this very moment ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... the horses and the sledge lurched forward with its chocolate-colored load. The other teams strained at the chains; there was a beat of hoofs, and the row of sledges moved noisily away. Osborn waited for a few moments, but his face was very red when he went back to the butts. The farmer's refusal to dispute ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... the right, and the naturalist and his labours were no longer regarded. I was looking upon the loveliest object that ever came before my eyes, and my heart bounded within me, as I strained forward in the intensity of ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... said O'Connor, looking at his watch. Then he turned quickly and put his hand to his ear in a listening attitude. At first the boys could not distinguish the sound that his quick ear had caught, and then indistinctly a faint, hollow clatter came over the plain from behind them. They strained their eyes but could see nothing ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... brought an action against one Proust for an error in weights of two millions in a total of ten million pounds' weight of rags, worth about four million francs! The manufacturer washes the rags and reduces them to a thin pulp, which is strained, exactly as a cook strains sauce through a tamis, through an iron frame with a fine wire bottom where the mark which give its name to the size of the paper is woven. The size of this mould, as it is called, regulates the size ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... and harsh face that peered forth on him through the iron grating of the door before he obtained admittance; and when he entered, he heard the sound of voices in loud altercation. Among the rest, the naturally dulcet and silver tones of Lucilla were strained beyond their wonted key, and breathed the accents ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Things looked ominous, and I was delighted to feel that my hands were so far free that I could easily slip them through the cords if I wished. But with my ankles I feared that I could do nothing, for when I strained it brought such pain into my lance-wound that I had to gnaw my moustache to keep from crying out. I could only lie still, half-free and half-bound, and see what turn things were ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the people of every country have strained the nature of the soil on which they lived by forcing it to produce that which it seemed destined ever to refuse them. Such food as human industry was unable to obtain from any particular soil or from any particular climate, commerce undertook to ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... observation and reflection. She wondered if the mother who called down the narrow alley had ever been in love, if she had ever deceived her husband, if her father had reproved her about the young man she kept company with. The milkman presented to her strained mind some sort of problem, and the sight of the railway embankment told her she was nearing Dulwich. Then she saw the cedar at the top of the hill, whither she had once walked to meet Owen. ... Now it was London nearly all ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... withdrawn with methodical deliberation, in order that it may not be strained or bent. The egg-chamber closes of its own accord as the woody fibres which have been displaced return to their position, and the Cigale climbs a little higher, moving upwards in a straight line, by about the length of its ovipositor. It ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... some attention prior to his attack in July, and had not really left it alone, so that the civilians had made a rather hurried departure. A few had elected to remain, and were to be seen walking furtively about the streets with that curious strained look that the war-driven peasantry of France and Belgium always wore. Here we met the 2nd battalion of the Manchesters, and were glad of the opportunity to make their acquaintance. A 7th officer, then Capt. L. Taylor, was amongst them and ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... our disposal it would seem to the uninitiated that the accommodation of the homestead must have been strained to bursting point; but "out-bush" every man carries a "bluey" and a mosquito net in his swag, and as the hosts slept under the verandah, and the guests on the garden paths, or in their camps among the forest trees, spare rooms would ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... could go. Believe me, I didn't wait for no old shoes or rice to be threw after me. I got into their old amberlance-carriage, as happy as a blushin' bride bein' led to the halter, an' Francie an' me come away reji'cin'. Say, but what ails you? You look sorter—sorter like a—strained relation or somethin'. What you been doin' to yourself to get so white an' holler-eyed? ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... Everybody strained his ears for the sentence. The Administration had threatened to "get" the leader. Would ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... itself has a church-like character, almost "sacred." This is due to the first harmonic step from tonic to subdominant and back again, in the manner of the "Amen" cadence so well known in anthems. In the second period there is an intense and almost strained expression due to the chord of 4-2, the seventh low in the bass. The first variation plays the melody in the same place as in the theme, and in the same chords; but the bass enters a half beat later and holds over, so that a restless and searching expression results. The ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews
... observed in the gallery of the statues of the kings, carved directly above the arches of the portal, a strange spectator, who had, up to that time, observed everything with such impassiveness, with a neck so strained, a visage so hideous that, in his motley accoutrement of red and violet, he might have been taken for one of those stone monsters through whose mouths the long gutters of the cathedral have discharged their ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... he cheerily asked me, over my shoulder; but it seemed to me there was a strained, nervous note in his voice. "A bit ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... Divine transformation". With his keen vision the poet sees things in a glance and paints them in a single line, and in the poem as a whole you get the sense of beauty beyond beauty, as though the seer had looked into a world that underlay the world of form. And yet there is nothing strained, no peering through telescopes to find new worlds or magnify the old; the eyes need only be lifted for a moment, and the great power is not the power of ...
— A Lute of Jade/Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China • L. Cranmer-Byng
... Diane strained her ears for possible re-transmission of the Niccola's signals, which would indicate the Plumie's willingness to try conversation. But she suddenly raised her hand and pointed to the radar-graph ...
— The Aliens • Murray Leinster
... wine is generally the stake; and round the osterias, of a festa-day, when the game is played after the blood has been heated and the nerves strained by previous potations, the regular volleyed explosions of "Tre! Cinque! Otto! Tutti!" are often interrupted by hot discussions. But these are generally settled peacefully by the bystanders, who act as umpires,—and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... three days relations were strained between the two officers. Bones was a man who admitted at regular intervals that he was unduly sensitive. He had explained this disadvantage to Hamilton at various times, but the Houssa stolidly refused to ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... Hawk had planned well. It seemed hardly possible to hope for a chance passer-by in this deserted spot. And even if she heard the sound of guns or even heard footsteps in the leaves, what chance had she of making known her whereabouts? But she strained her ears, listening, only to hear the twittering of the birds, the chattering of squirrels and the moaning of the wind in the tree tops. How near was freedom and yet how difficult of attainment! She wriggled gently in her bonds but each motion seemed to make them ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... scoured with sand and water, applied with a bundle of rice-straw or grass. The garments to be washed are laid in the water, generally in a little pool near to the main spring or beside the stream. Ashes from rice-straw are then mixed with water and, after being strained through a bunch of grass, are applied to the cloth in place of soap. After being thoroughly soaked, the cloth is laid on a clean stone, and is beaten with a stick or wooden paddle. The garment is again rinsed, and later is hung up on the fence ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... abashed by the exorcism of that name; her bringing it in was too strained, would have been amusing if passion were not devoid of the sense of humor. "She does care for me!" he was thinking dizzily. "And I can't live without ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... relaxed at length the arms that strained his child to his heart. Clare looked up with white, luminous face. He gazed at his father, cried like little Ann, "You're come!" and slid to his feet. He clasped and kissed and clung to them—would hardly let ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... child"—he said, in low, strained tones, "I am sorry you have done this! It is powerful—so powerful that it is painful as well. It cuts me to the heart that you should find it necessary to select such an example of the priesthood, though of course I am not in the secret of your aims—I do not understand your purpose ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli |
