"Straining" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he gave to her. She struck it carefully, cupped the tiny flame with her hands, and strove to see what lay about her. The little light gave but poor assistance to her straining eyes; but she did see that there was a litter of dead limbs about her feet. She began gathering up some of the smaller branches, groping for others as her match burned out. Again Gratton searched his ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... still, straining her eyes which were growing more accustomed to the darkness, to discover one of the temples at the end of the alley of sphinxes, suddenly and unexpectedly at her right hand a solemn and many-voiced hymn of lamentation fell upon her ear. This was from the priests of Osiris-Apis who were performing ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... to scorch the tallow—that meant smelly and ill-colored candles. After straining it clear of cracklings, it was caked in something deep, then turned out and laid on the highest shelf in the lumber house to await molding time. Cakes of beeswax were kept in the Jackson press, so children, white and black, could not ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams
... window was as if some woeful spirit of the melancholy scene were calling him. With head bowed, and face turned a little to one side, he listened intently as one listens to voices that are muffled and indistinct. He pressed his face close to the glass, and with straining eyes tried to see more clearly the ghostly trees, the sombre hills, and the gloomy river. Three times he turned from the window to pace to and fro in the darkened room, and every time his steps brought him again to the casement, as if in obedience to some insistent ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright
... silent colonnade, Over against the slates that hold Marie in lines of slender gold, A token wrought by fictive fingers, A garland, last year's offering, lingers, Hung out of reach, and facing north. And lo! thereout a wren flies forth, And Gertrude, straining on toetips, Just touches with her prayerful lips The warm home which a bird unskilled In grief and ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... phone. Her voice was excited; she was obviously straining to keep it at a low level. "I'm telling you, he's here! Right in our living room. And he insists I know somebody named Carolyn ... Yes, that's right. But do hurry ... Please. He's acting much odder ...
— Next Door, Next World • Robert Donald Locke
... out his hands. Once more, for the last time, that devil's cry broke the deep stillness of the August morning, throbbing a little as though with a new fear, dying away as though the fingers which crushed it back down the straining throat had indeed crushed with it the last ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a few feet from the boy's hiding place and came to a halt beside the prostrate pony. His straining ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... black speck against the golden sunset. She watched until she had seen the distant vessel put about, making for the open sea. Ah, now she knew that he was safe aboard,—no need had they to come farther into shore. Yet still she waited, straining her eyes to see the ship sink slowly beneath the horizon. One last glint of sunlight against a white ...
— Their Mariposa Legend • Charlotte Herr
... getting the cargo straight. Just imagine a black rolling dungeon full of great packing cases weighing about half a ton each all gone murderous mad. Just imagine getting down among them, as practically all hands had to do, save the engine-room, and sweating and fighting and straining and lashing for hour after hour. And half the time the port side of the lame old duck under water. How she didn't turn turtle is known only to Allah and Maturin; and One is great and the other's a damned fine sailor. Of course, I had to go down into the inferno of the ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... his jalousies, but his windows were closed, and now as he entered he found his apartment flooded with sunshine and filled with that equable warmth that comes of straining sunbeams ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... lookt for, as in sooth A man will do. So then they all fell to't To hale with cords and lever foot by foot The portent; and as frenzy frenzy breeds, And what one has another thinks he needs, So to a straining twenty other score Lent hands, and ever from the concourse more Of them, who hauled as if Troy's life depended On hastening forward that wherein it ended. So came the Horse to Troy, so was filled up With retribution that sweet loving-cup Paris had drunk to Helen overseas— ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... that spiritual condition which follows being repudiated your muscles will probably be seeking, straining, to express your mind and the direction will probably be to avenge your ...
— Clair de Lune - A Play in Two Acts and Six Scenes • Michael Strange
... wistaria and valerian, and the handsome wild caperplant; and against the wall stood rows of tall golden sunflowers late in their blooming; the sun they seldom could see for the wall, and it was pathetic always to me, as the day wore on, to watch the poor stately amber heads turn straining to greet their god, and only meeting the stones and the cobwebs, and the peach-leaves ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... tons, and we might well apologise, like the Athenian, for so diminutive a corpse. But she is our own; and they never saw her with jackyarder spread, or spinnaker or jib-topsail delicate as samite—those heavenly wings!—nor felt her gallant spirit straining to beat her own record before a tense northerly breeze. Yet even to them her form, in pure white with gilt fillet, might tell of no ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and his wrath had been long demanding expression. They closed with a jar that rocked the electric lamp on the desk. There was a second of straining and uncertainty. Then with a jerk Gard lifted his adversary clear off his feet, and shook him, shook him with the fury of a bulldog, and as relentlessly. Then, as if the temptation to murder was more than he could longer resist, he flung ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... life employed as a clerk in an attorney's office may be correct. At Stratford there was by royal charter a Court of Record sitting every fortnight, with six attorneys, besides the town clerk, belonging to it, and it is certainly not straining probability to suppose that the young Shakespeare may have had employment in one of them. There is, it is true, no tradition to this effect, but such traditions as we have about Shakespeare's occupation between ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... daily acquired greater ascendency. It is true that still as formerly the chariot races formed the brilliant finale of the national festivals; and a poet of this period describes very vividly the straining expectancy with which the eyes of the multitude were fastened on the consul, when he was on the point of giving the signal for the chariots to start. But the former amusements no longer sufficed; there was a craving for new and more varied spectacles. Greek athletes now made their appearance ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... before every citizen's daughter and every female servant, will have them!" Such in all times has been the rise and decline of fashion; and the absurd mimicry of the citizens, even of the lowest classes, to their very ruin, in straining to rival the newest fashion, has mortified and ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... stout Norse rowers; tighter and tighter pulled the cables; fast down upon the straining war-ships rained the Danish spears and stones; but the wooden piles under the great bridge were loosened by the steady tug of the cables, and soon with a sudden spurt the Norse war-ships darted down the river, while the slackened cables towed astern the captured piles of London ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... Panjandrum's suite (who had by this time returned, having been assured that the creatures which had so alarmed them had been rendered harmless) soon succeeded in overthrowing Cupid from his pedestal, and after a great deal of pulling, pushing, and straining, the Dodo, still posing in his grotesque attitude, was stuck ...
— Dick, Marjorie and Fidge - A Search for the Wonderful Dodo • G. E. Farrow
... man, not only did I dislike intercourse with people who thought themselves above me, but such intercourse was, for me, an unbearable torture, owing partly to my constant dread of being snubbed, and partly to my straining every faculty of my intellect to prove to such people my independence. Yet, even if I failed to fulfil the latter part of my father's instructions, I felt that I must carry out the former. I paced my room and eyed my clothes ready disposed ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... plentifully more excusable. So they take all the strength from the wine, leaving the palatableness still: as we use to deal with those with whose constitution cold water does not agree, to boil it for them. For they certainly take off all the strength from the wine, by straining of it. And this is a great argument, that the wine deads, grows flat, and loses its virtue, when it is separated from the lees, as from its root and stock; for the ancients for very good reason called wine lees, as we use to signify a ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... the first stage, tremolo the second; a third and last, and much more hopeless, shows itself in flat singing on the upper middle tones of the register. Referable in the same way to the overburdening of the vocal cords is the excessive straining of the throat muscles, which, through continual constriction, lose their power of elastic contraction and relaxation because pitch and duration of the tone are gained in an incorrect way, by forcing. Neither should be forced; pitch should be merely maintained, as it were, soaring; strength ...
— How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann
... pippins, boil them quite tender in a pint and a half of spring water, and strain the pulp through a cullendar. To every pint add a pound of fine sugar, with grated orange or lemon peel, and then boil the whole to a jelly. Or, having prepared the apples by boiling and straining them through a coarse sieve, get ready an ounce of isinglass boiled to a jelly in half a pint of water, and mix it with the apple pulp. Add some sugar, a little lemon juice and peel; boil all together, take out the peel, and put ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... and a fourth. By their light he saw there was but one small keyhole to the door, and he judged from that that it was fitted with some patent mechanical lock. There was no way by which he could open it, of course, and though he stood for a long time listening with straining ears against it he could not detect the slightest sound from whatever chamber or recess lay behind it. If there really was a man in there, thought Neale, he must surely feel himself to be in a living tomb. And after a time, taking ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... ever-increasing force; the lightly ballasted ships made bad weather, rolling deep in the seas, straining heavily, and leaking badly through the opening seams and the hastily-stopped shot- holes. Water was extremely scarce, and at a signal from the admiral all the horses and mules were thrown overboard in order to husband the supply. ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... hesitating silence. Straining his eyes upward, Thor could dimly make out a white face leaning over the highest banister. When the question came at last it was as ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... would not have understood some of them (for the most part I understood them weil enought), nor some of them us. Ether we or they most be right, but I dout not to affirm but that the accent they give it, straining it to the pronuntiation of their oune language, is not natural, but a vicious accent, and that we have the natural. My reason is, because if their be any wayes to know what was the Accent the ancient Romans ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... Mayhew lies helpless in his box; while next to him Gilbert a Beckett is prone upon his face, leaving his barrister's wig upon the "block-head." Jerrold, as a wasp, is gazing ruefully at the baton which has dropped from Punch's feeble hands; and Mark Lemon, dressed as a pot-boy, is straining himself in the foreground to reach his pewter-pot. Around float many of Punch's butts, political and social. Wellington on the left and Brougham on the right play cup-and-ball with him. Louis Philippe has him on a toasting-fork, ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... Sumacing: A liquor is made from 12 lb. sumac with water, and after straining from undissolved sumac leaves the liquor is made to stand at 2 deg. Tw., this is kept at about a 100 deg. F., and the cotton is well worked in it and allowed to steep for four hours, after which it ...
— The Dyeing of Cotton Fabrics - A Practical Handbook for the Dyer and Student • Franklin Beech
... apparently, who has just made a clean-up in city real estate and bought his wife a Detroit Electric and built a home for himself that cost forty thousand dollars. I reminded Dinky-Dunk, when he had finished, that we really must have a new straining-mesh in the milk-separator. He merely looked at me with a sour and morose eye as he got up and went out ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... which hardly a trace survives. But there, in a nettle-grown corner of a ruinous quarter, lay hidden till yesterday the Chapel of the Tombs: the last emanation of pure beauty of a mysterious, incomplete, forever retrogressive and yet forever forward-straining people. The Merinid tombs of Fez have fallen; but those of their destroyers linger on in precarious grace, like a flower on the ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... thought about her and her silks and satins at all, it was to compare her and them with the pale sorrow he had left behind him, sitting motionless, with bent head and folded hands, in a room where the stillness was so great that you might almost fancy the rush in your straining ears was occasioned by the spirits of the dead, yet hovering round their beloved. For, when Mr. Bell had first gone up-stairs, Mrs. Shaw lay asleep on the sofa; and ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Then fell her straining topmasts, Hanging tangled in the shrouds, And her sails were loosened and lifted, And ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... no straining for effect—no outburst of emotion. The impression which reached the audience was the sense of restraint and the consciousness of his unlimited reserve power. Back of the simple clean-cut words which fell in musical ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... length, where smoother waters flow, Emerging from the abyss below, The hapless youth they gained, and bore Sad to his own forsaken door. There watched his dog, with straining eye, And scarce would let the train pass by, Save that with instinct's rushing spell, Through the changed cheek's empurpled hue, And stiff and stony form, he knew The master he had loved so well. The kitten fair, whose graceful wile So oft had won his musing smile, As round his slippered ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... midnight, on the high ground, they reined up, straining their ears at a rumbling sound borne up to them from the valley road below—the sound (though they knew it not) of two cannon ploughing through ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... for it was my very first, and I was going out into the unknown. I remember how, at the foot of the slope at the top of which the old home stood, we plunged into the river, and there was more noise and shouting and excitement until the straining animals brought us safely out on the other side. Gazing back, the low roof of the house was lost to view before long, but the trees—the row of twenty- five giant ombu-trees which gave the place its name—were ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... What were they to do? In fact, there was to some extent reason for despondency. The fathers of the city became faint-hearted; they allowed matters simply to take their course, knowing well that a war protracted without object or end was more pernicious for Italy than the straining of the last man and the last penny, but without that courage and confidence in the nation and in fortune, which could demand new sacrifices in addition to those that had already been lavished in vain. They ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... roll in each pocket, straining the cloth to get them in. Manton opened a book on the little table, making an entry of the delivery of the rolls and adding his ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... mill-yard that it glistened in the sunlight; at the moving groups of men, the figure of Peterson standing out above the others on a high girder, his arms knotted, and his neck bare, though the day was not warm; at the straining hoist, trembling with each new load that came swinging from somewhere below, to be hustled off to its place, stick by stick; and then out into the west, where the November sun was dropping, and around at the hazy flats and the strip of a river. ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... some sudden demonstration of tenderness, for the revelation of super-human poetry, and she felt such a softening at her heart, and relaxation of her nerves, that she began to cry, without knowing why, and now the young man was straining her close to him, and she did not remove his arm; she did not think of it. Suddenly the nightingale stopped, and a voice called out ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... was straining every nerve to prevent the Federalists from indorsing the man who stood in the way of his own ambition and whom he believed to be a dangerous and unprincipled character. Some vestige of prudence kept the party from committing itself ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... in a bad way; there was no doubt of it. Something, one of the turnips, presumably, had lodged in her throat, and would move neither way, despite her attempts to dislodge it. Her breathing was labored, and her eyes bloodshot from straining and choking. Once or twice they succeeded in getting her mouth partly open, but before they could fairly discover the cause of trouble she had ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... and the animal began to whimper. The Brazilian vanished. Hozier still held Iris in his arms; his heart was beating tumultuously; his throat ached with the labor of his lungs. His straining ears caught rustlings among the grass and roots, but otherwise a solemn peace brooded over the scene. Just beyond the hut, which was shielded from the arid hill by a grove of curiously contorted trees, the inner heights of the island rose abruptly. ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... of Europe. This latter part of the description is a little too polite. Kings do not criticise each other too keenly in works that are meant for publication. But the words form, on the whole, an epitaph for George which might be inscribed on his tomb without greater straining of the truth than is common in the monumental inscriptions that adorn the graves of ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... the head bobbed and the eyes blinked. The gurgle became a half-strangled gasp. It whined unsteadily a few moments then broke off completely. The cast in the wings began to stir nervously. Crawford was obviously straining. A vein throbbed in the center of his forehead and his lips ...
— The Second Voice • Mann Rubin
... soldier who shall be put in arrest shall continued in confinement more than eight days, or until such time as a court-martial can be assembled." It was a direct violation of the spirit of this article, and a cruel straining of its letter, to consign General Stone to endless or indefinite imprisonment. Any man of average intelligence in the law—and Secretary Stanton was eminent in his profession—would at once say that the time beyond the eight ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... the wall, when he was arrested by a muffled sound of voices. Louise was talking to some one, and, at the noise he made outside, she raised her voice—purposely, no doubt. He could not hear what was being said, but the second voice was a man's. For a minute he stood, with his key suspended, straining his cars; then, afraid of being caught, he went downstairs again, where he hung about, between stair and street-door, in order that anyone who came down would be forced to pass him. At the end of five minutes, however, his patience was spent: he remembered, too, that the person might be as likely ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... all his energy into these details, and he brought to them a keen intelligence, due to the constant straining of the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... India. The reader naturally understands all the lands around Egypt, since they only could come thither for corn. So when it is said in the account of the deluge that "all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered" (Gen. 7:19), it is straining the sacred writer's words to give them a rigid geographical application, as if they must needs include the mountains about the North pole. "All the high hills under the whole heaven" were those where man dwelt, and which were ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... on the rock, looking out towards the lovely island, and straining his eyes to see the white sail once more, when frightful shrieks from the wood a little way off caused him to hasten with all his speed in that direction. He soon perceived a knight on horseback with a bow slung to his back, struggling to lift ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... of the dissolved juices of the meat and gelatine of the bones, cleared from the fat and fibrous portions by straining. The grease, which rises to the top of the fluid, may ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... things fell out—but things have a habit of turning out strangely in field trials, as well as elsewhere. When Larsen reached the town where the National Championship was to be run, there on the street, straining at the leash held by old Swygert, whom he used to know, was a seasoned young pointer, with a white body, a brown head, and a brown saddle spot—the same pointer he had seen two years before turn tail and run in that terror ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... Punch's correspondents on active service steadily grows. Some of them are at the Western front; others are still straining at the leash at home; another of the Punch brigade, with the very first battalion of Territorials to land in India, has begun to send his impressions of the shiny land; of friendly natives and unfriendly ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... with ears straining for the slightest sound, the two men descended to the first floor of the house. They heard nothing to alarm them as they crept down, and not until they paused on the first landing to reconnoitre did they even catch the murmur of voices issuing from the guardroom below. So muffled was ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... to things is sometimes just what we fail to give, even when we think we are straining every nerve to surround the child with pleasures. For children really want to do the very same things that we want to do, and yet have constantly to be thwarted for their own good. They would like to share all our pleasures; keep the same hours, eat the same food; but they are met on every ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... morning on a squirrel and a couple of birds shot among the vanished streets of San Gavan, a disagreeable incident supervened. The wild Indians had disappeared over-night. But now, seemingly born instantaneously from the trees, a throng of Siriniris burst upon the scene, rushing up to the travelers, straining them repeatedly in a rude embrace, then leaving them, then assaulting them again, and accompanying every contact with the eternal cry, Siruta inta menea—"Give me a knife." Each member of the troop had now six savages at his heels, and they were not those of the day before, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... stood trembling in the utmost confusion — At sight of this object he was fixed motionless to the floor, and, gazing at her with the utmost eagerness of astonishment, exclaimed, 'Sacred heaven! what is this! — ha! wherefore —' Here his speech failing, he stood straining his eyes, in the most emphatic silence 'George (said his father), this is my friend Mr Loyd.' Roused at this intimation, he turned and received my salute, when I said, 'Young gentleman, if you had trusted me with your secret at our last meeting, we should have parted ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... afternoon they kept up their innocent little games by Muriel's bed-side; she sometimes sharing, sometimes listening apart. Only once or twice came that wistful, absent look, as if she were listening partly to us, and partly to those we heard not; as if through the wide-open orbs the soul were straining at sights wonderful and new—sights unto which HER eyes were the clear-seeing, and ours the ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... all the spirits are roaming at once," cried Teddy, straining his eyes to see through the darkness as the humming of the motor ...
— Billie Bradley and Her Inheritance - The Queer Homestead at Cherry Corners • Janet D. Wheeler
... always like a pack of hounds on the leash, each straining in a different direction. Wall-like barriers, holding them apart for centuries, make them almost incapable of concerted action, and restive under any authority but their own. Clan and tribal societies, ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... company of merchants and others, who on their part could raise the funds for the voyage. But though Raleigh executed this patent in the spring of 1589, it was not until more than a year afterward that the expedition was ready to sail. White went with them, and we may imagine with what straining eyes he scanned the spot where he had last beheld his daughter and grandchild, as the ship glided up ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... silent. She was straining against his arms, and yet he held her, not fiercely, not passionately, but with a mastery the greater ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... to comfort her and straining metaphor to the utmost, said that if the finger of Providence had not made her oversleep herself she would undoubtedly have shared ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... and the old bell-wether Looked up in terror and pushed together; And still with a grim unbroken pace The men moved on to their battle-place. Softly, silently, all tip-toeing, With their lips drawn tight and their eyes all glowing, With gleaming teeth and straining ears And the sunshine laughing on swords and spears, Softly, silently on they go To the hidden lair of the fearful foe. They have neared the stream, they have crossed the bridge, And they stop in sight of the rugged ridge, ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... that old oak so venerable! That rock—how often have we sat upon it, evening and morning, and mused strange, wild, sweet fancies! It is an effort to tear one's self away—it is almost like tearing away from life itself; so many living affections feel the rending and the straining—so many fibres that have their roots in the heart, are torn ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... The Blowell stood straining at its cable at Round River dock when the scouts, numbering a troop, scampered aboard. Julia's cousins, Mae and Eugenia Westbrook, prided themselves on their nautical skill, and nothing could possibly be more promising for a day's sport than a ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... While economic management has been good, there remain important economic vulnerabilities. The most significant are debt-related: the government's largely domestic debt increased steadily from 1994 to 2003, straining government finances, while Brazil's foreign debt (a mix of private and public debt) is large in relation to Brazil's modest (but growing) export base. Another challenge is maintaining economic growth over a period of time to generate employment ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... the old finger-post,' thought Tom, straining his eyes, 'where I have so often stood to see this very coach go by, and where I have parted with so many companions! I used to compare this coach to some great monster that appeared at certain times to bear my friends away into the world. And now it's bearing me away, ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... would accompany him to his castle. But the resolute maiden had secretly vowed to die rather than submit to such degradation. Choosing her fleetest steed, she vaulted nimbly into the saddle and galloped away. Her persecutor pursued close behind, straining every nerve to come up with her. Shuddering at the very thought of becoming his bride, she chose death as the only alternative. So she spurred her horse onward to the edge ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... no topsy-turvy straining after new effects, which is so wearisome to those who love the racy naturalism of Parson Adams and Edie Ochiltree. But let us have no pessimism also. The age is against the romance of colour, movement, passion, and jollity. ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... very politically inclined, applied all the loyal speeches with fervor, and called for "God save the King" after the play. The town is illuminated, too, and one hopes and prays that the "Old Heart of Oak" will weather these evil days, but sometimes the straining of the tackle and the creaking of the timbers are suggestive of foundering even to the most hopeful. The lords have been vindicating their claim to a share in common humanity by squabbling like fishwives and all but coming to blows; the bishops ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... astern and buried the poop. Kit felt the steamer lift and turn, as if on a pivot at the middle of her length. The after-deck was full of water, but the bows were high and going round, and he was conscious of a curious shiver that ran through the straining hull as she shook herself free from the sand. She crawled forward, stopped, and moved again with a staggering lurch. The next sea swept her on, but she did not strike, and after a few moments Kit knew she had crossed the top of ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... opening was made in the hedge, because the upland with its bordering wood and clump of ash-trees against the sky was a pretty sight. Presently there came along a wagon laden with timber; the horses were straining their grand muscles, and the driver having cracked his whip, ran along anxiously to guide the leader's head, fearing a swerve. Rex seemed to be shaken into attention, rose and looked till the last quivering trunk of the timber had disappeared, and then walked once or twice along ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... dreamy way, as if they struck some chord in her heart, and she were listening to its echo; and so it was. His pitiful look, or his words, reminded her of the childish days when she knelt at her mother's knee, and she was only conscious of a straining, longing desire to recall ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... labour, he affected an extreme severity, and was too much inclined to cruelty; his behaviour was rude and rough; and he was little imbued with skill either in war or in the liberal arts. He willingly sought profit and advantage in the miseries of others, and was more than ever intolerable in straining ordinary offences into sedition or treason; he cruelly encompassed the death or ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... clung To what he thought the right; of how he died, Perchance, at last, doing some desperate deed Few men would care do now, and this is gain To me, as ease and money is to you. Moreover, too, I like the straining game Of striving well to hold up things that fall; So one becomes great. See you! in good times All men live well together, and you, too, Live dull and happy: happy? not so quick, Suppose sharp thoughts begin ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... caused them to shift their quarters. The little inlet or creek in which we now found ourselves, was entirely new to us, and we were indebted to Lizzie for the discovery of such a quiet retreat. With straining eyes, our novel pilotess stood at the heel of the bowsprit, extending an arm in the direction she wished the vessel to go, and, her task completed, she wrapped her blanket round her active little body, scarcely shrouded in the striped ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... to take a life, and unconsciously I was sticking at that, perhaps from no higher instinct than distrust of my aim. Our pursuer, however, was on the steps when I clapped my free hand on top of those little white straining ones, and by a timely effort bent both them and the key round together; the ward shot home as Jose hurled himself against the door. Eva bolted it. But the thud was not repeated, and I gathered myself together between the door and the nearest window, for by now I saw there ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... after individuality disappears, and ere long, if we are consistent, nothing will remain but one universal whole, one true and only atom from which alone nothing can be cut off and thrown away on to something else; if, on the other hand, we are in a subtle philosophically accurate humour for straining at gnats and emphasizing differences rather than resemblances, we can draw distinctions, and give reasons for subdividing and subdividing, till, unless we violate what we choose to call our consistency somewhere, we shall find ourselves with ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... had, in confirmation, called Germain, whom all the inhabitants of the place had known to be a girl till two-and-twenty years of age, called Mary. He was, at the time of my being there, very full of beard, old, and not married. He told us, that by straining himself in a leap his male organs came out; and the girls of that place have, to this day, a song, wherein they advise one another not to take too great strides, for fear of being turned into men, as Mary Germain was. It is no wonder if this sort of accident frequently ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... managers vainly strive to attain. The scenery is exquisite and natural, the dresses are perfect—the toilettes of the ladies being famed for their elegance, and the acting is true to nature. There is no ranting, no straining for effect here. The members of the company talk and act like men and women of the world, and faithfully "hold the mirror up to nature." It is a common saying in New York that even a mean play will be a success at Wallack's. It will be so well put on the stage, ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... ribbons on a breast where the life-blood is trickling slowly from a little wound? The crowd looked anxious; the hero came on, but more slowly, with his dim eyes straining for the old coach; and Melchior stood with his arms held out in silent agony. But just when he was beginning to hope, and the brothers seemed about to meet, a figure passed between—a figure in ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... were I not to devise it. So you may even embrace and kiss me to your heart's content, and I will embrace and kiss you with the best of good wills." There needed no further parley. The lady, all aflame with amorous desire, forthwith threw herself into his arms, and straining him to her bosom with a thousand passionate embraces, gave and received a thousand kisses before they sought her chamber. There with all speed they went to bed, nor did day surprise them until again and again and in full measure they had satisfied ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... Motor Maids slept in the sacred wood on the mountain two others rested in one of the bedrooms of the villa straining their ears for sounds of the returning search party. It was only eight o'clock, but Miss Campbell, worn out with excitement and fatigue, had already dropped off to sleep in the ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes
... age of sentiment: its ideals and ambitions are mainly emotional; what it chiefly loves is romance or the affectation of romance, passion, self-conscious solemnity, and a certain straining after picturesque effects. In Fielding's time there was doubtless a good deal of sentimentalism, for his generation delighted not only in Western and Trunnion and Mrs. Slipslop but in Pamela and Clarissa and the pathetic Le Fevre. But for all that it was—at ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... Nutter, straining her to her bosom. "Oh, my child!—my dear child!" she cried. "The voice of nature from the first pleaded eloquently in your behalf, and I should have been deaf to all impulses of affection if I had not listened to the ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... phenomenon, breaking through its fair reserve and discretion only at rare intervals, is the habitual guise of the nineteenth, breaking through it perpetually, with a feverishness, an incomprehensible straining and excitement, which all experience to some degree, but yearning also, in the genuine children of the romantic school, to be energique, frais, et dispos—for those qualities of energy, freshness, comely order; and often, ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... as pleasantly as he could, straining his coarse features into the unaccustomed position of a smile. "I didn't come to get money out of you. I know all about the will. What I came for was to help you and give you a tip. You and I can make a lot of easy money together. You've got ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... youngest champion of reform in the building, was putting on a bold front. He laughed and he talked and he whistled. He took people up and down with as much nonchalance as if he did not know that up at the top of that shaft angry eyes were straining themselves for a glimpse of the car, and terrible curses were descending, literally, upon his stubby ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... Fenwick realized that was actually the case. Ellerbee wanted desperately to have someone believe in him, believe in his communication device. Not only had he used all the reasoning power at his command, he had been straining physically to ...
— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones
... Acres," we must mange to do something with it, and what so profitable to a large family as making butter? So, when we had collected sufficient cream, we tried again, and this time with great success. We commenced as before, by straining the cream, and then taking the handle of the churn we turned it more equally than we had done before; in half an our we heard the welcome sound which proclaimed that the "butter was come." This time ...
— Our Farm of Four Acres and the Money we Made by it • Miss Coulton
... leaves, the bare grey limbs of these seem strangely restless. These trees, reaching so eagerly upward, have an odd resemblance to the weird figures of horror in which William Blake delighted—arms, hands, hair, all stretch intensely to the zenith. They seem to be straining away from the spot to which they are rooted. It is a Laocoon grouping, a wordless concentrated struggle for the sunlight, and disagreeably impressive. The trippers longed to talk and were tongue-tied; they looked now and then over their shoulders. They were glad when the eerie influence was passed, ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... in position now by the pressure on one side, but as Dale sprang up to Saxe's side, it began to rise again, and they had hard work to preserve their balance, as they stood straining their eyes to where they could see a man mounted upon some animal riding slowly across the green level lying in a ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... The straining vision saw nothing but the darkness and snow in the direction of the stream already crossed, but they could never feel relieved of the dreadful fear until safely within the military post ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... he uttered the words when all the scouts of the little group were at the railing craning their necks and straining their eyes trying to see across the water. But the wind and rain beat in their faces and the driving downpour formed an ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... road, the top was covered with passengers who never got down, even at the steepest ascents. These seats on top were very breezy and comfortable. Well up out of the dust, their occupants could enjoy the scenery at their leisure, or critically discuss the merits of the straining team. Naturally such places were in great demand and the competition for them was keen, every one seeking as the first end in life to secure a seat on the coach for himself and to leave it to his child after ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... they wallowed in the bloody mire Of dead and dying thousands,—sometimes gaining A yard or two of ground, which brought them nigher To some odd angle for which all were straining; At other times, repulsed by the close fire, Which really poured as if all Hell were raining Instead of Heaven, they stumbled backwards o'er A wounded ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... By dint of straining, we discovered a little animal—or so it looked—crawling forward on the far side of the Hindenburg Line. Already it was doing a left incline in accordance with its instructions, so as to enfilade a communication trench which ran ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh
... often repeated, and upon such inadequate occasions, that we are perpetually reminded of the tremendous puerilities of the Della Cruscan versifiers, or the ludicrous grand eloquence of the Spaniard, who tore a certain portion of his attire, "as if heaven and earth were coming together." In straining to reach the sublime, he perpetually takes that single unfortunate step which conducts him to the ridiculous —a failure which, in a less gifted author, might afford a wicked amusement to the critic, but which, when united with such undoubted genius as the present work ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... murmured between his teeth, with a smile that might have been a little sceptical. At the same time he noticed that Clementine, in her agitation, had forgotten the presents he had brought her. He made a bundle of them, looked at his watch, and concluded that there would be no indiscretion in straining a point to go ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... near by set up a low, meditative croaking. Uncle Bill raised his head abruptly. Their straining ears caught the sound of someone running, stumbling along the uneven track that wound in from the shore. A whistle cut the stillness like ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... such extreme range any offensive beam could be driven with such unthinkable power—power requiring for its neutralization almost the full output of the prodigious batteries of accumulators carried by the Sirius! Yet for five, ten, fifteen, twenty minutes that beam drove furiously against their straining screens, and even Brandon's face grew tense and hard as that frightful attack continued. At the end of twenty-two minutes, however, the pointer of the meter snapped back to the pin and every man there breathed an explosive sigh of relief—the almost unbearable bombardment ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... the Maid coming with two couple of great hounds in the leash straining against her as she came along. He ran lightly to meet her, wondering if he should have a look, or a half-whisper from her; but she let him take the white thongs from her hand, with the same half- smile of shamefacedness still set ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... mind by the unnatural forcing of its mechanical instrument. In all our studies on these lines we must remember that development is always by perfectly natural growth and is not brought about by unduly straining ...
— The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... at our breakfast-table.—We're very free and easy, you know; we don't read what we don't like. Our parish is so large, one can't pretend to preach to all the pews at once. One can't be all the time trying to do the best of one's best if a company works a steam fire-engine, the firemen needn't be straining themselves all day to squirt over the top of the flagstaff. Let them wash some of those lower-story windows a little. Besides, there is no use in our quarrelling now, as you will find out when you get through ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... good a way as any to oppose slavery. They allow themselves to be persuaded easily, in accordance with their previous dispositions, into this belief, that it is about as good a way of opposing slavery as any, and we can do that without straining our old party ties or breaking up old political associations. We can do so without being called negro-worshipers. We can do that without being subjected to the jibes and sneers that are so readily thrown out in place ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... he took a cab, and was driven up the hill. Under a clouded sky, dusk had already changed to darkness; the evening was warm and still. Impatient with what he thought the slow progress of the vehicle, Hugh sat with his body bent forward, straining as did the horse, on which his eyes were fixed, and perspiring in the imaginary effort. The address he had given was Mrs. Fenimore's; but when he drew near he signalled to the driver: 'Stop at the gate. Don't ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... Still straining her thought towards the worst, 'Then, perhaps, the first Mrs. Manston was not his wife,' she returned; 'and then I should be his wife just the same, ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... Boy Orator of the Rio Grande took his good chance. I forgot his sallow face and black, unpleasant hair, and even his single gesture—that straining lift of one hand above the shoulder during the suspense of a sentence and that cracking it down into the other at the full stop, endless as a pile-driver. His facts wiped any trick of manner from my notice. Indians? ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... few dollars it will come out all right. We expect to be back here on Sunday but may stay out later. Don't worry if you don't hear. It is grand to see the line of battleships five miles out like dogs in a leash puffing and straining. Thank God they'll let them slip any minute now. I don't know where "Stenie" is. I am now going to take a nap while ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... thirty-six who presented no literal death ideas, the psychosis was characterized essentially by apathy and mild confusion, a larval stupor reaction. It began with a fear of fire, smelling smoke and a conviction that her house would burn down. It is surely not straining interpretation to suggest that this phobia was analogous to a death fear. When one considers the incompleteness of anamneses not taken ad hoc (for these are largely old cases) and that the rule in stupor is silence, the consistence with which this ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... parting with his wife and children for ever. At all events, he was leaving them for months, perhaps for years—he knew not how long—and who can wonder that tears stood in his eyes? Each man shouldered his rifle, shot-bag, powder-horn, and knapsack, and off they started—every neighbor straining his eyes after them as far as he could see, as the men upon whom he was looking for ...
— The Adventures of Daniel Boone: the Kentucky rifleman • Uncle Philip
... stretching their sweaty necks away from their burdensome collars, and then stand hipshot, thankful for the brief rest. She saw the driver descend stiffly from the seat, walk around to the back of the vehicle and, with some straining, draw out what appeared to be a box the size and shape of a case of tinned kerosene. He carried it with some labor to the mail box, tilted it on end behind the post, and returned to the rig for two other boxes ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... Peter who denied and Judas who betrayed our Lord,—the hammer and the nails, the cross, the five sacred wounds, the crown of thorns, the cords which bound Him, are all, by an exaggerated symbolism and straining after analogy, supposed to be represented by its various parts. It was discovered by early Spanish settlers in America, and was welcomed by them as useful in teaching Christianity to the Indians. It is the one ...
— The Worship of the Church - and The Beauty of Holiness • Jacob A. Regester
... merry enough at the commencement of the game, all joining chorus in a song, and straining their lungs to such a degree, that hoarseness soon ensues, when they continue their amusement in silence. When the game is ended, some of them present a sad spectacle; coming forth, their hair ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... was, as he leant on his staff, straining every nerve to bend his body so as to fall on his knees and pay his respects to them, and express his sense of obligation for the trouble they had taken, when madame Hsing and the other ladies hastily called Pao-y to raise him up, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... knight-heads, threatening to wash everything overboard. In the lee scuppers it was up to a man's waist. We sprang aloft and double reefed the topsails, and furled all the other sails, and made all snug. But this would not do; the brig was laboring and straining against the head sea, and the gale was growing worse and worse. At the same time the sleet and hail were driving with all fury against us. We clewed down, and hauled out the reef-tackles again, and close-reefed the fore-topsail, and furled the main, and hove her to on the starboard tack. ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... Conscious of straining every nerve to reinforce the great armies in the field, Mr. Davis naturally asked what it meant when the army in Georgia was said to be so weak. General Bragg assisted him with an analysis of Johnston's last returns. Writing on June ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... took the barrier in a flying leap, straining themselves for the race beyond. When we had pulled them down to a foot pace we were safely out of rifle shot and there was space to ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... stood by her patiently, with more and more of that wistful desire to be recognized. She put her hand timidly upon the woman's arm, who was thinking of nothing but her boys, and calling to them, straining her eyes in the fading light. "Don't be afraid, they are coming, they are safe," she said, pressing Catherine's arm. But the woman never moved. She took no notice. She called to a neighbor who was passing, to ask if she had seen the children, and the two stood ...
— Old Lady Mary - A Story of the Seen and the Unseen • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... smoothly and happily, somebody proposed that they should make a "train;" that is, bind all the sleds together, and so go down: it would be more delightful than ever by moonlight. No sooner said than done. Only Pussy's sled was not tied to her brother's, for he feared lest the straining and shocks that often took place in this kind of coasting might prove dangerous to her. She followed, therefore, as usual; but Otto could not stop his sled if she was delayed, for he had to go on with the "train." Off they ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... the summons leaps At limit of its straining tether, Where the fresh western sunlight steeps In ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... may know them by their diligence and curiositie in lighter matters joyned with omission and neglect of greater, wise in circumstance, and carelesse in substance, tithing mint, straining at gnats, &c. In all cheape and easie duties, prodigall: niggardly & slothfull in the waighty things of the Law: these have at command good words, countenance, yea teares from their eyes, sooner ...
— A Coal From The Altar, To Kindle The Holy Fire of Zeale - In a Sermon Preached at a Generall Visitation at Ipswich • Samuel Ward |
