"Strait" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 'tis believed, A stratagem right well conceived. The wretch, when in the utmost strait By dogs of nose so delicate, Approach'd a gallows, where, A lesson to like passengers, Or clothed in feathers or in furs, Some badgers, owls, and foxes, pendent were. Their comrade, in his pressing need, Arranged himself among the dead. I seem ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... from Bois Blanc, on the opposite side of the strait, and passed echoes from island to island to the shutting down of the horizon. Choppers detailed to cut wood were getting boatloads ready for the leachers, who had hulled corn to prepare for winter rations. One pint of lyed corn with from two to four ounces of tallow ...
— The Black Feather - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... Coming in a state of exaltation from a meeting of which he had been the eloquent hero, such light as was within him flashed from his face freely; all the capacity and the vigour which impelled him to strain against the strait bonds of his lot set his body quivering and made music of his utterance. At the same time, his free movements passed easily into swagger, and as he talked on, the false notes were not few. A working man gifted with brains and comeliness ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... probably was a sea-lioness. It certainly bore much resemblance to the drawing in Lord Anson's voyage; our seeing a sea-lion when we entered this sound, in my former voyage, increaseth the probability; and I am of opinion, they have their abode on some of the rocks, which lie in the strait, or ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... invented an exquisite torment; 'but what is this in respect of hell, when each body of the damned is more loathsome and unsavoury than a million of dead dogs, and all those pressed and crowded together in so strait a compass? Bonaventure goes so far as to say that if one only of the damned were brought into this world, it were sufficient to infect the whole earth. Neither shall the devils send forth a better smell; for, although they ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... vessels. The pilots were Luis Botim, Goncalo de Oliveira, and Francisco Rodriguez or Roiz. Abreu left Malacca in November, 1511, at which season the westerly monsoon begins to blow. He steered a south-easterly course, passed through the Strait of Sabong, and having arrived at the coast of Java, he cast anchor at Agacai, which Valentijn identifies with Gresik, near Sourabaya. At Agacai, Javan pilots were engaged for the voyage thence to the Banda Islands. Banda was, however, not ...
— Essays on early ornithology and kindred subjects • James R. McClymont
... island (Talim) and Halahala point extends a strait a mile wide and a league long, which the Indians call 'Kinabutasan,' a name that in their language means 'place that was cleft open'; from which it is inferred that in other times the island was joined to the mainland ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... once for all, walk round to the other side and take a header a la hussarde off those lofty bulwarks, and kill myself for good and all? Alas! I should only blur the dream, and perhaps even wake in my miserable strait-waistcoat. And I wanted to see the mare once ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... honest penny. And naturally, ordinary trials of boarding-house life were aggravated by circumstance. Discomfort of the hotels was great enough; but, desiccated into the boarding-house can, it became simply unendurable. In this strait many private families were induced to open their doors to the better class of strangers; and gradually the whole dense population settled down, wedged into comparative quiet. Happily, my lines fell in these pleasanter places; and, ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... in order to get beyond these terrible rocks, forming a narrow strait, was an undertaking only to be thought of if the case were desperate. I believed that there must be a path somewhere running up the cliff, and after going back a little I found one. It led me four or five hundred feet up the side of the gorge; but on looking down the distance seemed much less, ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... dilemma and strait an accident in the way of a "wind fall" (or I might more appropriately say, "bread fall") came to our regiment's relief. Jim George, a rather eccentric and "short-witted fellow," of Company C, while plundering around in some old out-buildings in our rear, conceived the idea to investigate ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... not lose their large profits without a struggle. Accordingly, what do we find them doing? They were refused admittance into the city, so they set up their stalls outside the walls. If the Jerusalem people could not buy of them, because of that strait-laced, narrow-minded Nehemiah, still the country people who came in to attend the temple services could purchase at their stalls on their way home. They might thus maintain a certain amount of their Sabbath ...
— The King's Cup-Bearer • Amy Catherine Walton
... restoration of Charles II. took the strait waistcoat off the minds and morose religion of the Commonwealth period, and gave a loose rein to the long-compressed spirits of the people, there still remained a large section of society wedded to the former ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... been for many years set apart for the use of the people of Romsey as a parish church, and was known by the name of St. Laurence; in the year 1333 the abbess endowed a vicarage. As the town increased in size the north aisle became too strait for the parishioners, and at times of great festivals they used to encroach on the nuns' church. This led to disputes, and the matter was referred to William of Wykeham, the celebrated Bishop of Winchester, remodeller of his cathedral church, and founder ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: A Short Account of Romsey Abbey • Thomas Perkins
... course, it was the business of the spies to blacken the character of Charles; and there can be little doubt that, in spite of his poverty and loose morals, he was well liked by the citizens of Bruges, who, notwithstanding a great deal of outward decorum, have at no time been very strait-laced. 'Charles,' we learn from a local history, 'sut se rendre populaire en prenant part aux amusements de la population et en se pliant, sans effort comme sans affectation, aux usages du pays.' During his whole period of exile he contrived to amuse himself. ...
— Bruges and West Flanders • George W. T. Omond
... in a sore strait. She did not much care to what conclusion the House came as concerned Edward: he was the prime mover in the affair, and richly deserved any thing he might get, irrespective of this proceeding altogether. But that any harm should come to Richard was ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... we would as we would, drives us to look for help. And this brings us to a new point of departure. Everything difficult indicates something more than our theory of life yet embraces, checks some tendency to abandon the strait path, leaving open only the way ahead. But there is a reality of being in which all things are easy and plain—oneness, that is, with the Lord of Life; to pray for this is the first thing; and to the point of this prayer every difficulty hedges and directs us. But if I try to set ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... very friendly, Robert did not for a moment doubt that he would be willing to help him in his strait, and he was almost as delighted to see him as he would have been to see Herbert himself. There would be no need now of the raft, and he gladly suspended ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... e'er, heir; oar, ore, o'er; in, inn; four, fore; vain, vein; vale, veil; core, corps; their, there; hear, here; fair, fare; sweet, suite; strait, straight. ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... dog tried to bound towards them, but he had overestimated his strength. He toppled forward, whereupon Stair ran to him and carried him down in his arms. There was a bullet-hole behind his shoulder, but in spite of that the dog had swam the strait ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... through Jonas and Cynthy Ann, August found himself in a desperate strait, and with an impatience common to young men he unhappily had recourse to Betsey Malcolm. She often visited Julia, and twice, when Julia was not at meeting, he went home with the ingenuous Betsey, who always pretended to have ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... be carried into execution," he said, Congress must be allowed the discretion which "will enable that body to perform the high duties assigned to it, in the manner most beneficial to the people." In short, the Constitution of the United States is not a strait jacket but a flexible instrument vesting in Congress the powers necessary to meet national problems as they arise. In delivering this opinion Marshall used language almost identical with that employed by Lincoln when, standing on the battle ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... sectarian is a Pharisee. There were the sects of the Herodians, of the Alexandrians, and of the Sadducees, with many others; but to be a Pharisee, was to be of the straitest sect: "After the most straitest sect of our religion, I lived a Pharisee." That, therefore, of all the sects, was the most strait and strict. Therefore, saith he, in another place, "I was taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers." And again, "Touching the law, a Pharisee;" Acts xxii. 3; xxvi. 4-6; Phil. iii. 5. The Pharisee, therefore, did ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... them," said Tomboy, showing the garment that she had held under her arm, "they clap 'em into the strait-waistcoast." ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... classification of mental diseases, methods of diagnosis, and treatment, was a perfect Elborus in comparison with what had been in the past. They no longer poured cold water on the heads of lunatics nor put strait-waistcoats upon them; they treated them with humanity, and even, so it was stated in the papers, got up balls and entertainments for them. Andrey Yefimitch knew that with modern tastes and views such an abomination as Ward No. ...
— The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... of fact, his presence would only make things worse for Everyman, for love of riches is a sin. Finally Everyman seeks out poor forgotten Good-Deeds, only to find her bound fast by his sins. In this strait he turns to Knowledge, and under her guidance visits Confession, who prescribes a penance of self-chastisement. The administration of this has so liberating an effect on Good-Deeds that she is able to rise and join Everyman and Knowledge. To them are summoned Discretion, Strength, Beauty and ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... and presently, turning into the Belle Isle Straits, they came to summer skies and softer weather. At this point, under the guidance of an old male who had followed the southward track before, they forsook the Labrador shore-line and headed fearlessly out across the strait till they reached the coast of Newfoundland. This coast they followed westward till they gained the Gulf of St. Lawrence, then, turning south, worked their way down the southwest coast of the great Island Province, past shores still basking in the amethystine light of ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... you, Madam," said Lord Roos, wholly unmoved by what was said. "I am not in the strait you suppose; and have not the slightest intention of soliciting Lady Roos's pardon, or making any ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... cutting the throats of the rest; but the effect of that influence is reduced to an absolute certainty, and is found, even as a means of restraint, to say nothing of it as a means of cure, a hundred times more efficacious than all the strait-waistcoats, fetters, and handcuffs, that ignorance, prejudice, and cruelty have manufactured since the creation ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... yowr Lo. agane; for so is the fassone I grant. And I pray yowr lo. rest fully perswaded of me and all that I hew promesed; for I am resolved, howbeit it ver to dy the morne. I man intreit yowr lo. to expede Bowr, and gif him strait directioun, on payn of his lyf, that he tak never ane vink sleip, qhill he se me agane; or ellise he vill vtterly vndo vs. I hew alredy sent an other letter to the gentill man yowr lo. kennis, as the berare vill informe yowr lo. of his answer and forvardness vith yowr ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang
... went merrily as the proverbial marriage bell. The ladies were not too strait-laced; dull care was banished. Food and drink without stint; music and lights and laughter; bright eyes and pretty faces. Champagne corks popped; toasts were offered; jests were cracked; and ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... real ones, but he was wise enough to know this, as he once said: "The trials of life are all of one size—imaginary pains are as bad as real ones, and men who have no actual troubles usually conjure forth a few. Thus far, happily, I am not reduced to this strait." ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... some of them carrying carbines slung at their backs. A general huzza followed: the two persons who had gone to the rear, each with seven or eight followers, ran severally to the right and left at right angles from the road strait up the steep hills which rose on each side; then making a short circuit they descended like a torrent in the rear of the revenue officers; swarmed with the agility of cats over their waggons, and from these upon the turnpike gate—whence they threw themselves with ease on the horses, ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... In their arctic homes they long carried on war with the Ongkilon (Ang-kali) aborigines, gradually merging with the survivors and also mixing both with the Kusmen Koryaks (q.v.) and the Chuklukmuit Eskimo settled on the Asiatic side of Bering Strait. Their racial characteristics make them an ethnological link between the Mongols of central Asia and the Indians of America. Some authorities affiliate them to the Eskimo because they are believed to speak an Eskimo dialect. But this is merely a trade jargon, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... of a dim, far-off time when he had been a "Methody." But he had shown scant perseverance in the road which, strait and narrow though it be, has now become easy to trace, being well marked by the tread of countless bleeding feet. Instead of continuing therein, he had "leapt over the wall" into the surrounding waste, and struck out, by a path of his own devising, ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... eat and sleep till it is fair weather again. I always keep within a few miles of the shore, on a long cruise. If I can get away for two or three weeks this summer, I intend to make a voyage up to the strait, and down on the ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... and The Wild Olive has in the new book dealt with a financial man's case of conscience. The story, which is laid for the most part in Boston, illustrates the New England proverb, 'By the street called straight'—should it not be strait?—'we come to the ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... heard her words and that wherewith she threatened him, he sprang up and went out, perplexed and unknowing what he should do, and there met him a Jewish man, which was his neighbour, and said to him, "How cometh it that I see thee, O Shaykh, strait of breast? Eke, I hear in thy house a noise of talk, such as I am unwont to hear with thee." Quoth the Muezzin, "'Tis of a damsel who declareth that she is of the slave-girls of the Commander of ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... I am not like to have many companions if I thus young begin to serve God, am I?—A. 'Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it' (Matt 7:14). Yet some companions thou wilt have. David counted himself a companion of all them that love God's ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... south-eastern promontory of our island, where the land of Kent shelved almost imperceptibly into the Wantsum Strait, Ruim Island—the Holm of the Headland—stood out with its white wall of broken cliffs into the German Sea. The greater part of it consisted of gorse-clad chalk down, the last subsiding spur of that great upland range which, starting from the central boss of ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... be said that Macbeth was a philosopher as well as a murderer, and might have thought these thoughts in the terrible strait in which he then was, surely nothing but this marvellous peculiarity of Shakespeare’s temperament will explain his making Macbeth stop at Duncan’s bedroom door, dagger in ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... had his horse, saddle, and surveying instruments seized by the sheriff and sold at public auction, thus sweeping away the means by which, as he said, he "procured bread and kept soul and body together." Even in this strait his known honesty proved his salvation. Out of pure friendliness, James Short bought in the property and gave it back to the young surveyor, allowing him time ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... and blood-thirsty rascal!" he remarked to the guard. "It would, perhaps, be advisable to put him in a strait-jacket!" ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... perhaps, certainly fired by his work, till he who had played in the streets of Florence decided that he must be a painter. It is characteristic of his whole method that from the very beginning the cloister was too strait for him; he had the passion for seeing things, people, the life of the city, of strange cities too, for we hear of him vaguely in Naples, but soon in Florence again, where he painted in S. Ambrogio for the nuns the Coronation of the Virgin, now in the Accademia. It was this picture ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... "preaching of the cross which is to them that perish foolishness, but unto them that are saved the power of God, and the wisdom of God." The poor are not liable to be puffed up by the intoxicating fumes of ambition and worldly grandeur. They are less likely to be kept from entering into the strait and narrow way, and when they have entered to be drawn back again or to be retarded in their progress, by the cares or the pleasures of life. They may express themselves ill; but their views may be simple, and their hearts humble, penitent, and sincere. It is as in other ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... front of him, but a little to the right, comes rushing down the impetuous Bosphorus, that river which is also an arm of the sea. Lined now with the marble palaces of bankrupt Sultans, it was once a lonely and desolate strait, on whose farther shore the hapless Io, transformed into a heifer, sought a refuge from her heaven-sent tormentor. Up through its difficult windings pressed the adventurous mariners of Miletus in those early voyages which opened up the Euxine to the Greeks, as the voyage ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... off, and the crew set about repairing damages. While thus engaged, the great, blunt head of a whale was seen in the narrow channel; and, after blowing a column of water high in the air, the monster swam lazily through the strait. "If a whale can go through that channel, I can," quoth "Cap'n Nat." And he forthwith did so. Quick of observation, and prompt of action, the sailors of the United States became the foremost seamen of ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... to Ahura-Mazdao, to the immortal saints, the golden throne, and Paradise" (Ibid, p. 834). From these notions the writer of the story of Jesus drew his idea of the "narrow way" that led to heaven, and of the "strait gate" through which many would be unable to pass. Cicero (bk. vi. "Commonwealth," quoted by Inman) says: "Be assured that, for all those who have in any way conducted to the preservation, defence, and enlargement of their native country, there is a certain ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... Queequeg sought a passage to Christian lands. But the ship, having her full complement of seamen, spurned his suit; and not all the King his father's influence could prevail. But Queequeg vowed a vow. Alone in his canoe, he paddled off to a distant strait, which he knew the ship must pass through when she quitted the island. On one side was a coral reef; on the other a low tongue of land, covered with mangrove thickets that grew out into the water. ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... Whitehall; and so the matter was arranged. Obed sailed in July on board the Discovery; shared the dangers of that voyage, in which the ships followed up the N.W. Coast of America and pushed into Behring's Strait beyond the 70th parallel; was a witness, on February 4th, 1779, of his commander's tragical end; and returned to England in October, 1780. Eleven years later he made another voyage to the same N.W. American Coast; this time as master's mate under Vancouver, who had kept an ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... after so long waste, I should not send thee a child to bring thee charge; but consider he is the fruit of thy womb, in whose face regard not the father, so much as thy own perfections: He is yet green, and may grow strait, if he be carefully tended, otherwise apt enough to follow his father's folly. That I have offended thee highly, I know; that thou canst forget my injuries, I hardly believe; yet I perswade myself, that if thou sawest my wretched estate, thou ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... of the basins. The largest share of the tide effects its return journey in other ways. Some portion of this remainder sets equatorward in local cold streams, such as that which pours forth through Davis Strait into Baffin Bay, flowing under the Gulf Stream waters for an unknown distance toward the tropics. There are several of these local as yet little known streams, which doubtless bring about a certain amount of circulation between the polar regions ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... said Davies; 'let's look into it,' and a minute or two later we were drifting through a dainty little strait, with a peep of open water at the end of it. Cottages bordered either side. some overhanging the very water, some connecting with it by a rickety wooden staircase or a miniature landing-stage. Creepers and roses rioted over the walls and tiny porches. For a space on one side, a rude quay, with small ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... so of more efficient ways. I was reported. I was given the dungeon and the starvation of light and food. I emerged and tried to work in the chaos of inefficiency of the loom-rooms. I rebelled. I was given the dungeon, plus the strait-jacket. I was spread- eagled, and thumbed-up, and privily beaten by the stupid guards whose totality of intelligence was only just sufficient to show them that I was different from them ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... dear fellow, should I have hid the story from you, for from the first to the last you have been the means, under God, of my finding him; and, Mallery, one of the longest strides I ever took toward the 'strait gate' was that evening when you almost made me sign the pledge. Oh, we have a new name to our roll. Did ...
— Three People • Pansy
... after I came to one Captain Sands, which he and his wife if they could have had the world and truth they would have received it. But they was hypocrites and he a very light chaffy man, and the way was too strait for him.'—G. FOX. ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... close of the last chapter. By this time the brig had got within the influence of the trades; and, it being the intention of Spike to pass to the southward of Cuba, he had so far profited by the westerly winds, as to get well to the eastward of the Mona Passage, the strait through which he intended to shape his course on making the islands. Early on that morning Mrs. Budd had taken her seat on the trunk of the cabin, with a complacent air, and arranged her netting, some slight passages of gallantry, on the part of the captain, having induced her to propose netting ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... a heavy west wind was blowing in through the strait. Under lowered top-sails they were compelled to beat up and down under the shelter of the rocks. A large fleet of weather bound vessels kept the George company. It is too deep to anchor here, so the vessels are compelled to keep moving ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... said, "of this little house. Strait are the walls of it, and narrow the windows, and from them always the same things to see. I must be free; I must fly, or of what use ...
— The Silver Crown - Another Book of Fables • Laura E. Richards
... foul child. The asphalt burns. The garrulous sparrows perch on metal Burns. Sing! Sing! they say, and flutter with their wings. He does not sing, he only wonders why He is sitting there. The sparrows sing. And I Yield to the strait allure of ...
— Silverpoints • John Gray
... soon entered a strait so narrow that often the ends of her yards were grazed by the drifting mountains, and her booms seemed about to be driven in. They were even forced to trim the mainyard so as to touch the shrouds. Happily these precautions did not deprive, the vessel of any of its speed, for ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans (after the Pacific Ocean, but larger than the Indian Ocean, Southern Ocean, and Arctic Ocean). The Kiel Canal (Germany), Oresund (Denmark-Sweden), Bosporus (Turkey), Strait of Gibraltar (Morocco-Spain), and the St. Lawrence Seaway (Canada-US) are important strategic access waterways. The decision by the International Hydrographic Organization in the spring of 2000 to delimit a fifth world ocean, the Southern Ocean, removed the ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... admiral, the Marquis de Niza, to assume the blockade, as the most important service to be rendered the common cause. When the frigate reached its destination, Niza had come and gone, and Nelson then headed him off at the Strait of Messina, on his way to Naples, and sent him to blockade Malta. It may be added that this squadron remained under his command until December, 1799, and was of substantial utility in the various operations. Nelson professed no great confidence in its efficiency, which was ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... Aye Master! fine old trees! My grandfather could just remember back When they were planted there. It was my task To keep them trimm'd, and 'twas a pleasure to me! All strait and smooth, and like a great green wall! My poor old Lady many a time would come And tell me where to shear, for she had played In childhood under them, and 'twas her pride To keep them in their beauty. Plague I say On their new-fangled whimsies! we shall have A modern shrubbery ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... lakes, Tezcuco and Chalco, which are situated in the valley of Mexico, one is of fresh water, and the other salt. They are separated by a narrow range of mountains, which rise in the middle of the plain; and their waters mingle together, in a strait between the hills. On both these lakes there are numerous towns and villages, which carry on their commerce with each other in canoes, without ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... trap, and as eager to take the fugitives, rowed smiting the waters fast and incessantly. For the ships of Erik could not be clearly distinguished, looking like a leafy wood. The enemy, after venturing into a winding strait, suddenly saw themselves surrounded by the fleet of Erik. First, confounded by the strange sight, they thought that a wood was sailing; and then they saw that guile lurked under the leaves. Therefore, tardily repenting their rashness, they tried to retrace their incautious ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... Richard, I have a boon to beg. I am in this strait for no better reason than because my kinsman, Sir Clarence Poltwhistle, one of the Secretaries of State, has charged me with sorcery, in order that he may succeed in my estate, which devolves to him provided I ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... conventicles—had he assisted his sovereign in burning heretics and hunting rebels, it would not then have become necessary "to treat him like a Turk." This is unquestionable. It is equally so that there would have been one great lamp the less in that strait and difficult pathway which leads to the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... weak, the ignorant and the vulgar and the patrician and the princess, and though professedly all brought on the footing of sisterly equality, we are not to suppose any Utopian degree of perfection among them. The way of pure spirituality was probably, in the convent as well as out, that strait and narrow one which there be few to find. There, as elsewhere, the devotee who sought to progress faster toward heaven than suited the paces of her fellow—travellers was reckoned a troublesome enthusiast, till she got far enough in advance to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... from the eastern parts came to a strait or sound, on the other side of which was a ferryman with his ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... Atlantic in June, and afterwards on our way up Davis’s Strait, we threw overboard daily a strong copper cylinder, containing the usual papers, giving an account of our situation. We also took every opportunity afforded by light winds, to try the temperature of the sea at different depths, as compared with that ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... accounts. But the other charges, far less plausible than that of embezzlement, which were heaped upon the head of the fallen favourite, are evidence of an intention to crush him at all costs. He was dragged from the sanctuary at Bury St Edmunds, in which he had taken refuge, and was kept in strait confinement until Richard of Cornwall, the king's brother, and three other earls offered to be his sureties. Under their protection he remained in honourable detention at Devizes Castle. On the outbreak of Richard Marshal's rebellion (1233), he was carried off by the rebels ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... condition, not displaying our weakness to the enemies, but rather giving them and all the neighboring peoples to understand, even with a few ships, that your Majesty is lord of these seas—except of the strait of Sincapura, where the Dutch keep all their forces—no little will be accomplished—even if your Majesty do not, as I said above, send one thousand Spanish soldiers. I do not mention the money, for neither can your Majesty send it; and I am ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Various
... Africa are intimately allied. Africa most distinct, especially most southern parts. And the Arctic regions, which unite N. America, Asia and Europe, only separated (if we travel one way by Behring's St.) by a narrow strait, is most intimately allied, indeed forms but one restricted group. Next comes S. America,—then Australia, Madagascar (and some small islands which stand very remote from the land). Looking at these ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... horrible, I dare at times imagine to my need Some future state revealed to us by Zeus, Unlimited in capability For joy, as this is in desire for joy, —To seek which, the joy-hunger forces us: That, stung by straitness of our life, made strait On purpose to make prized the life at large— 330 Freed by the throbbing impulse we call death, We burst there as the worm into the fly, Who, while a worm still, wants his wings. But no! Zeus has not yet revealed it; and alas, He must have done ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning
... King was surrounded at Conway, his provisions intercepted, and his road barred by a flood; but his men could not prevail on him to drink out of the one cask of wine that had been saved. "We will all share alike," he said, "and I, who have brought you into this strait, will have no advantage of you in food." The flood soon abated, and, reinforcements coming up, the Welsh were dispersed. Faithful to his policy of mercy, the King spared the people everywhere, but hanged three of their captains who were taken prisoners. Madoc lost ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... Hormisdatscirus, turning to Maharnarsces, said: "By our delays we affront the king. These men regard neither words nor torments." They therefore agreed that he should be beaten with sharp-pointed rushes; then that splinters of reeds should be applied to his body, and by cords strait drawn and pulled, should be pressed deep into his flesh, and that in this condition his body, pierced all over with sharp spikes, armed like a porcupine, should be rolled on the ground. After these tortures, he was put into the screw or press, and boiling pitch and brimstone were poured ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... was instantly put hard a-port, and immediately after the order was given "hard a-starboard," for it was discovered that the sound of breakers came from both sides of the vessel. They were, obviously, either running in a narrow strait between two islands, or into a bay. In the first case the danger was imminent, in the second ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... enemy appeared in considerable force in Queenstown, and on its heights; that four of the enemy's fleet had arrived during the preceding night, and were then lying near Fort Niagara, and that a number of boats were in view moving up the strait. Within a few minutes after this intelligence had been received, I was further informed by Captain Denmons, of the quarter-master's department, that the enemy was landing at Lewistown, and that our baggage and stores at Schlosser, and on their way ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... world. (Compare "Seven Lamps," chap. ii.) All the Gothics in existence, southern or northern, were corrupted at once: the German and French lost themselves in every species of extravagance; the English Gothic was confined, in its insanity, by a strait-waistcoat of perpendicular lines; the Italian effloresced on the mainland into the meaningless ornamentation of the Certosa of Pavia and the Cathedral of Como (a style sometimes ignorantly called Italian Gothic), and at ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... anxious to serve the Revolution, invented his telegraph; but in doing so he subjected himself to the suspicions of the more ignorant, and on one notable occasion was brought into a strait place—both he and his invention. The story of this affair is given by Carlyle in the second volume of his "French Revolution." One knows not whether to smile or weep over the graphic account which the crabbed philosopher gives of Chappe and his ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... to be done?" he asked—"surely the government cannot abandon us?—cannot allow us to perish utterly, which we must do, if left to the mercy of our enemies? No, certainly it cannot desert us in such a strait as this, unless it wishes to surrender the established church to the dark plots and designing ambition of popery. No, no—it cannot—it must not—it dares not. Some vigorous measure for our relief must be taken, and that speedily;—let us not ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... property which he now, standing face to face with the greatest issue of this life, recognised to be unjust, and which was certainly contrary to the promptings of nature as experienced by most men. And yet in this terrible strait in which he found himself, and notwithstanding the earnest desire which grew more intense as his vital forces ebbed, he could find absolutely no means of carrying out his wish. At length, however, this plan of tattooing his will upon the living flesh on a younger and stronger person ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... the gate is strait and the way narrow that so few get into the kingdom of the Out-of-Doors. The gate is wide and the way is broad. The difficulty is that most ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... to Corfu and Missolonghi in quest of information, he resolved, while waiting their return, to employ his time in a journey to Ithaca, which island is separated from that of Cephalonia but by a narrow strait. On his way to Vathi, the chief city of the island, to which place he had been invited, and his journey hospitably facilitated, by the Resident, Captain Knox, he paid a visit to the mountain-cave in which, according to tradition, Ulysses deposited ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... them too. And where good wine to quaff is And maids to kiss, doff life's gray garb of woe; For soon that tavern's reached, that inn, you know, Where wine and love are not, where, sans disguise, Each one must lie in his strait bed apart, The thorn of sleep deep-driven in his heart, And dust and darkness in his mouth ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein
... officers as usual began to be upset, and as with Medina-Sidonia, they decided to keep company till they reached the Isle of Wight and remain there till they could get touch with Saxe and pilots for the Dover Strait. They were beset with the nervousness that seems inseparable from this form of operation. Roquefeuil explained to his Government that it was impossible to tell what ships the enemy had passed to the Downs, ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... eagerly. "I had the money, and it made no difference to me; and Mr. Allen told me that Mr. White was in a great strait for money, so I was very glad to give it to him. Such a mother is a terrible burden on a young man," and Mercy continued talking about Mrs. White, until she had effectually led ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... which obtained with a Sacramento audience; but it was certain that her charming presence, so effective at short range, was not sufficiently pronounced for the footlights. She had admirers enough in the greenroom, but awakened no abiding affection among the audience. In this strait, it occurred to her that she had a voice—a contralto of no very great compass or cultivation, but singularly sweet and touching; and she finally obtained position in a church choir. She held it for three months, greatly to her pecuniary ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... truthfulness was tacitly held to be lower: she was the subject creature, and versed in the arts of the enslaved. Then she could always plead moods and nerves, and the right not to be held too strictly to account; and even in the most strait-laced societies the laugh was always ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... In this strait the Assyrian king deemed it necessary to divide his forces and to send a portion against the enemy which was advancing from the south, while with the remainder he himself awaited the coming of the Medes. The troops detached for the former service he placed under the command of a certain ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... was but the will of a girl, and must be broken. All my world was with the King; I, who stood alone, was but a woman, young and untaught. Oh, they pressed me sore, they angered me to the very heart! There was not one to fight my battle, to help me in that strait, to show me a better path than that I took. With all my heart, with all my soul, with all my might, I hate that man which that ship brought here to-day! You know what I did to escape them all, to escape that man. I fled from England in the ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... was ordered, and it was also suggested that the explorations be extended beyond the forty-second degree of north latitude, it being held that the coast was a part of the same continent as that of China, or only separated therefrom by the narrow strait of Anian, which was believed ...
— The March of Portola - and, The Log of the San Carlos and Original Documents - Translated and Annotated • Zoeth S. Eldredge and E. J. Molera
... out of the territory of the Republic. Our warehouses were filled, and France abundantly supplied; but this was not the case in England, and the scarcity of it was beginning to be felt there. It was never known how it happened; but the larger part of this grain passed the Strait of Calais, and it was stated positively that the sum of twenty millions was received for it. On learning this, the First Consul took away the portfolio of the interior from his brother, and ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... ascertain more clearly what it was that Columbus had discovered. Immediately after Columbus's third, voyage, in 1498, and after the news of Vasco da Gama's successful passage to the Indies had made it necessary to discover some strait leading from the "West Indies" to India itself, a Spanish gentleman, named Hojeda, fitted out an expedition at his own expense, with an Italian pilot on board, named Amerigo Vespucci, and tried once more to find a strait to India near Trinidad. They were, of course, unsuccessful, but they coasted ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs
... and Edmund went to take measures for his being obeyed. Meantime, the Prince grasped Richard by the wrist, and looking him through with the keen blue eyes that seemed capable of piercing any disguise, he said, "Boy, hast thou aught that thou wouldst tell to thy kinsman Edward in this strait, that thou couldst not say to the ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... making the fog luminous, but not rendering the coast any more visible. I knew that before me, somewhere, lay the reef of Norman's Woe. The huge rock on the inside of the reef, separated from the shore by a narrow strait, I judged must be right ahead, but not knowing how near, I kept on, cautiously looking behind, every few strokes, and began to think I must have passed it in the fog, when suddenly, as if it had stepped in the way, it rose before me, its top lost in the mist, and with the sullen drip and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... approaching a town in size and the number of inhabitants, from the Falls along the shores of Lake Erie for a great distance, beyond even Grand River, is Chippewa, situated on the river Welland, or Chippewa, which empties itself into Niagara Strait, just where the rapids commence and navigation terminates. One or more steamers run between Chippewa and Buffalo. Chippewa is still but a small village, but, as it lies directly on the great route from the Western States of the Union to the Falls of Niagara and ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 1, October, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... looked at this, and she thought upon the rich man in the parable, who, though he was himself in torment, prayed that his brother might be saved, and she said to herself, "Our dear Lord would never leave him there who could think of his brother when he was himself in such a strait." And when she looked at the painter he smiled upon her, and nodded his head. Then he led her to the other corner of the room where there were other pictures. One of them was of a party seated round a table and an angel ...
— A Little Pilgrim - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... Sailing through the Strait of Dover into the English Channel, our good ship Albion landed us in three days at Havre, the port town at the mouth of the river Seine, leading on to Rouen and up to the ancient city ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... of water, bounded in the distance by mountains of fantastic forms. At length I arrived at Quinaboutasan—this is a Tagal word, which signifies "that which is perforated." Quinaboutasan is situated on a strait, which separates the island of Talem from the continent. We stopped for an hour in the only Indian hut there was in the place, to cook some rice and take our repast. This hut was inhabited by a very old fisherman and his wife. They were ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... strait and no escape was possible. Olaf sent his spears hurtling on Erik's crowded deck, but he saw that his men were scarce able to hold ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... been a man in a sair strait for many a year. I hae not indeed hid the Lord's talent in a napkin, but I hae done a warse thing; I hae been trading wi' it for my ain proper advantage. O dominie, I hae been a wretched man through it all. Nane ken better than I what a hard master ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... will not dwell upon the arts, the infamous arts, used to induce me to comply with his wishes—neither will I dwell upon the desperate measure I had determined to resort to, if driven to the last strait—nor would I mention the subject at all, except to assure you I escaped contamination where few ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... all points very deep; there is, indeed, a channel of as much as 2500 fathoms depth; while south of Spitzbergen and Franz Josef Land it is remarkably shallow—not more than 160 fathoms. As has been stated, a current passes northward through Bering Strait and Smith Sound, and the sounds between the islands north of America, though here, indeed, there is a southward current, are far too small and narrow to form adequate outlets for the mass of water of which we are speaking. There ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... overlooking a town called Algeciras, you could look right into Africa, only twelve miles away. You would also see the Rock of Gibraltar—a giant rock rising out of the sea and turned into a fort to guard the narrow passage between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. This passage is the Strait of Gibraltar, and all ships must go through it to get from ...
— Getting to know Spain • Dee Day
... faith, they presume only on such works as seem good to themselves, thinking by them to get to heaven. But Christ said, "Enter in at the strait gate, for I say unto you, many seek to enter in, and can not." Why is this? because they know not what this narrow gate is; for it is faith, which altogether annihilates or makes a man appear as nothing in his own eyes, and requires ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... not refuse you. Had it not been for you this man would not have known his father. He could not have won this woman. You have power. You'll not desert an old comrade in his extremity? Think, we have stood together sword in hand and fought our way through all obstacles in many a desperate strait. Thou and I, old shipmate. By the memory of that old association, by the love you once bore me, and by that I gave to you, ask them for my ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... evidently had no intention of stopping. Instead of circling the town, as he would have done had he intended to land, he swept straight over and kept on his southward course, heading across Florida Strait. ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... things may easily excite a laugh: but in the first place they are continually occurring with couples who love each other, or where one of them loves the other: besides, in a woman so strait-laced, so reserved, so worthy, as this lady, these acknowledgments of affection went beyond the limits imposed upon her feelings by the lofty self-respect which true piety induces. When Madame de Fischtaminel narrated this little scene in ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... it may not be snowing so hard a few miles away from here. I discovered when I was up in the air with Philip that the air moves in eddies and gusts and currents like the ocean, and that it has bays and straits, and this may be a narrow strait of snow that envelops us here. Hear that! Guns to the south, too! One side is shelling the other's trenches. You remember how it was in all the long fighting that we call the Battle of the Marne. Day and night, night and day the guns thundered and crashed. I seemed when I slept to hear 'em in my ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... are not very different from other men. One wants in a Prime Minister a good many things, but not very great things. He should be clever but need not be a genius; he should be conscientious but by no means strait-laced; he should be cautious but never timid, bold but never venturesome; he should have a good digestion, genial manners, and, above all, a thick skin. These are the gifts we want, but we can't always get them, and have to do without ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... after us, it had become plain that we must be taken before long, unless we could hit upon some means of escaping from the garden. In this strait I bethought myself of the trees whose boughs I had noticed from outside overhanging the wall, when we passed it earlier that night. I reminded Rupert of this, who ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... Edward I. filled the Tower with many distinguished prisoners, among whom were the Earls of Ross, Athol, and Menteith, and the famous Sir William Wallace. They seem to have experienced a varying degree of severity: some were ordered to be kept in a "strait prison in iron fetters," as were the Bishops of Glasgow and St. Andrew's (though they were imprisoned elsewhere); others are to be kept "body for body," that is to say, safely, but not in irons, with permission to hear mass; while a few ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... so, and, bidding them farewell, allowed his eyes to be bandaged, but immediately afterwards uncovered them again, and looking tenderly and tearfully on those in the garden, bade them help him in his present strait with plenty of Paternosters and Ave Marias, that God might provide some one to say as many for them, whenever they found ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... keep a straight face. "Better call someone with a strait jacket—or a butterfly net!" he said, quaking with laughter. "I'm afraid he's just pulling your ...
— Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X • Victor Appleton
... Torres Strait separates Australia from Papua or New Guinea; and connects the Arafura Sea on the west, with the Coral Sea on the east. Its current is swift and the waters from time immemorial have been dangerous to ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... feel, in reading these books and tracts, that such writers are more to be pitied than to be blamed. Confined in the strait-jacket of an austere theology; steeped to the lips in Calvinism; working painfully all his life in sectarian harness; with an angry heaven over his head, and a ruined earth about his feet; his friends and neighbors dropping into hell ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... now reached by the river; wave-like sweeps of water-worn materials still higher up are no less conspicuous. In both these are found the Turritella terebra, and other shells of modern seas, identifying them with the period when a marine strait extended the whole distance from the Dee to the Bristol Channel. The cutting near Coalbrookdale has yielded a rich harvest of these marine remains, sufficient satisfactorily to indicate the true position of the beds, and to associate them with others ...
— Handbook to the Severn Valley Railway - Illustrative and Descriptive of Places along the Line from - Worcester to Shrewsbury • J. Randall
... Dover and Calais is only twenty-one miles. Learn: A narrow passage of water joining two seas is called a strait. The word strait means "narrow." This strait is ...
— Highroads of Geography • Anonymous
... this same that deafes our eares With this abundance of superfluous breath? King Lewis, determine what we shall doe strait ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... principle, it is owing to their good sense, which regulates and chastises their imaginations. The vast conceptions which enable a true genius to ascend the sublimest heights, may be so connected with the stronger passions, as to give it a natural tendency to fly off from the strait line of regularity; till good sense, acting on the fancy, makes it gravitate powerfully towards that virtue ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... been lang your care, Your counsels guid ha'e blest me; Now in a kittle case ance mair Wi' your advice assist me: Twa lovers frequent on me wait, An' baith I frankly speak wi'; Sae I 'm put in a puzzlin' strait Whilk o' ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various |
