"Stroke" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... condition for the production of any great work of art, and especially of religious art. As regards the fact, we need not concern ourselves very long. If Rio and others, presumably biassed by the same theory, are inclined to see Lippi's moral depravity betrayed in every stroke of his brush, yet the more general and truer verdict accords him a place among the great masters of his age, albeit beneath Angelico and some others. Beyond all doubt it must be allowed that even in point of spirituality and heavenliness of expression, ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... impugned, for it was really Calvinist or Zwinglian, and not Anglican. There were hopeful and ambitious theological Liberals, who recognised in that appeal to Anglicanism the most effective counter-stroke to their own schemes and theories. There were many whom the movement forced to think, who did not want such addition to their responsibilities. It cannot be thought surprising that the new Tracts were received with surprise, dismay, ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... after stroke—reaching with strong right arm, thrusting with strong legs. The boat was no nearer.... He kept on, doggedly.... He could feel that his strokes were getting weaker; his mouth was under water more than half the time; he had to raise ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... seems to have been almost as fond of Paris as Socrates was of Athens, should have picked up this intimate knowledge of the hotels of Madrid. The knowledge of music and habit of playing upon the guitar in the front of their houses, is another stroke of Spanish manners which no Frenchman is likely to have thought of adding to his work (1, 2, 7.) Marcelina puts on her mantle to go to mass. This custom prevailed in Spain till the sceptre passed to the Bourbons—in many towns till the time of Charles III., and in small villages ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... The sudden stroke of the impact falling upon men of dissimilar temperament reacted on them diversely. The majority absorbed it by throwing themselves upon the ground on which they stood; others recoiled mechanically upon the companies in ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... trying to explain something to her, that quick little nod would come which meant, 'I understand.' Then she had certain signs for different things. She made those herself; we never taught them to her. She stroked what she liked, as man would stroke a dog; when she disliked anything, she made a feint of throwing her open hand out from her, as though she were pushing it away. She had odd little ways of indicating different persons, by something in them which struck her. Master Russell, the ...
— Our Little Lady - Six Hundred Years Ago • Emily Sarah Holt
... stopped to change horses, the keeper of the ruined inn, recognising my carriage, politely presented me with a bill for damages; so much for a broken glass, so much for a door beaten in, so much for a shattered ladder. I commend to M. de Braimes this brilliant stroke of one of his constituents; it is an incident forgotten by Cervantes in ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... slow; but that the comet before the fire was bright and sparkling, or, as others said, flaming, and its motion swift and furious; and that, accordingly, one foretold a heavy judgment, slow, but severe, terrible, and frightful, as the plague was; but the other foretold a stroke, sudden, swift, and fiery, like the conflagration. Nay, so particular some people were that, as they looked upon that comet preceding the fire, they fancied that they not only saw it pass swiftly and fiercely, and could perceive the motion with the eye, but ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... the wee river Margy, with its half-mile course, often sailed the four white swans, those enchanted children of Lir, king of the Isle of Man, who had been transformed into this guise by their cruel stepmother, with a stroke of her druidical fairy wand. After turning them into four beautiful white swans she pronounced their doom, which was to sail three hundred years on smooth Lough Derryvara, three hundred on the Sea of Erris—sail, and sail, until the union of Largnen, the prince from the north, with Decca, the princess ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Celticists who have any literary gift and any appreciation of evidence is decisive on this point—not only are the most characteristic unifying features—the Graal story and the love of Lancelot and Guinevere—completely wanting, but the great stroke of genius—the connection of these two and the subordination of all minor legends as to the dim national hero, Arthur, with those about him—is more conspicuously wanting still. Whether it was the Englishman Walter Map, the Norman Robert de Borron, or the Frenchman Chrestien ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... carried life back to a period which, as Sir William Logan has observed, is as remote from that during which the Cambrian rocks were deposited, as the Cambrian epoch itself is from the tertiaries. In other words, the ascertained duration of life upon the globe was nearly doubled at a stroke. ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... proud of being exceptionally favoured. It was this last stroke, I am convinced, that rubbed him the right way. A gratified blandness pervaded his countenance. He made no further attempts to dislodge me, and I settled myself into the angles of his shoulder and affected to go ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... be gathered about twelve threads from the top, taking three threads on the needle, and leaving four; and so preceding, alternately, until one quarter is gathered. Fasten the thread, by twisting it round a pin; stroke the gathers, so that they lie evenly and neatly, with a strong needle or pin. You then proceed as before, until all the gathers are gathered. Then take out the pins, and regulate the gathers of each quarter, so as to correspond ...
— The Ladies' Work-Table Book • Anonymous
... now instead of red. When his cousin submitted to him the necessity of having more than two horses for his own use he could listen to him; but when the same monitor talked of the chance of a father's death as a stroke of luck, Frank was too much disgusted to be able to pretend to pass it over with indifference. What! was he thus to think of his father, whose face was always lighted up with pleasure when his ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... appointed for his private meeting with her. He did not wish to see her again. "She's fooling me," he said, throwing his coat on to a chair so that it fell on to the ground where he let it lie. "I've not done a stroke of work for days on her account, and she cares no more for me than she does for ... for anybody. I won't go and meet her to-morrow, damn her! I'll send a messenger to say I can't come, and then I'll drop her. It isn't worth while going through this ... this agony for a woman ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... from the horrible thoughts she had had. Germinie had been spared all the tortures of the death-agony that she had dreamed of. Mademoiselle was grateful for that death by the hand of God which gathers in the soul at a single stroke. ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... eleven, upon my soul! I counted every stroke. This brother of yours would persuade me out of my senses, Miss Morland; do but look at my horse; did you ever see an animal so made for speed in your life?" (The servant had just mounted the carriage and was driving off.) "Such true blood! Three hours and and a half indeed coming only three and ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... Richard continued to stroke her arm without comprehension. "Yes, mother, and Peony, my True Love, insists on calling him Elbert," he said. "Mother, ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... stroke of humor pleased the Colonel, and, further, he felt slightly ashamed of the language he had been using. The Second-in-Command worried him again, and the two sat talking far ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... that word is spoken, there is no appeal. The Jewish people had become sadly unfruitful; but a definite period was to intervene—three years of Christ's ministry and thirty years beside—before the threatened judgment befell. All this while the axe lay ready for its final stroke; but only when all hope of reformation was abandoned was it driven home, and the nation crashed to ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... wooden scabbards, or those of buffalo-horn, admirably wrought. [66] With these they strike with the point, but more generally with the edge. When they go in pursuit of their opponent, they show great dexterity in seizing his hair with one hand, while with the other they cut off his head with one stroke of the bararao, and carry it away. They afterward keep the heads suspended in their houses, where they may be seen; and of these they make a display, in order to be considered as valiant, and avengers of their enemies and of the injuries ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... one of the great military objects of the North. Furthermore, successful work was being done still further West by General Curtis in Missouri, who drove an invading force back into Arkansas and inflicted a crushing defeat upon them there in March. But a great stroke should now have been struck. Buell, it is said, saw plainly that his forces and Halleck's should have been concentrated as far up the Tennessee as possible in an endeavour to seize upon the main railway system of the ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... the hill came the stroke of a single bell; a bird in the garden-walk beyond the paling chirped softly to his mate; then once more silence came down upon the moonlit street, the striped shadows, the tall house and trees, and the bearded face ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... talk; who ate four bananas for his lunch and invariably carried a book in the pocket of his shabby coat. It was said of him that once, during a terrible blizzard, he had been the only clerk to reach the office; that he had worked there stark alone until one o'clock, when at the stroke of the hour he had taken out his four bananas and his book! There were other stories about him of the same kind, not all of them true to fate, but essentially true of the man's nature and of his rigid adherence to routine. He had risen, place by place, to a position that gave him a hundred ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... like a flash of lightning, from the police to desire all the English prisoners to be ready to quit Verdun in forty-eight hours and proceed to Blois. To those who had the misfortune to be married to French women and had children it was a thunder-stroke. The weather had set in with great severity, it being the month of December. Another brother officer and his nephew joined me in purchasing a covered cart and two cart horses; and a captain of a merchant vessel, said to ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... over with turf.[*] The English arrived in sight on the evening, and a bloody conflict immediately ensued between two bodies of cavalry; where Robert, who was at the head of the Scots, engaged in single combat with Henry de Bohun, a gentleman of the family of Hereford; and at one stroke cleft his adversary to the chin with a battle-axe, in sight of the two armies. The English horse fled with precipitation to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... Hoofd, ubi sup. The last words of the Burgomaster as he bowed his neck to the executioner's stroke were, "Voor wel gedaan, kwaclyk beloud,"—"For faithful ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... This was a bold stroke of the wily savage. Instead of flying from us, he pretended to have been merely hurrying after a band of buffalo, which was said to be moving southward, and that he had halted in the chase for a short rest and food. This plan ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... Then Rustem strove to hurl Sohrab from his steed, but it availed him naught, and he could shake him no more than the mountain can be moved from its seat. So they betook themselves again unto clubs, and Sohrab aimed at Rustem with might and smote him, and Rustem reeled beneath the stroke, and bit his lips in agony. Then Sohrab vaunted his advantage, and bade Rustem go and measure him with his equals; for though his strength be great, he could not stand against a youth. So they went their ways, and Rustem fell upon the ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... the after-stroke or touching of the body after he falls. It is so ordered, because oftentimes the touching of an enemy is much more difficult to accomplish than the shooting of one from a distance. It requires a strong heart to face the whole body of the enemy, in order to count the coup on ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman
... whither shall I fly, this stroke to shun? Where turn me, this side death and heaven? Almost I would my course on earth were run, And all to Night and Silence given! I turn to man: can he but with me mourn? Alike we're helpless, and, ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... stroke of a match, and a small wax taper was lighted and held high over Olga's head, showing her tall form enveloped in a cherry-coloured dressing-gown and shawl. Stepping cautiously across the floor, she lighted one of the gas burners, ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... God! You lift up and you cast down; you humble and you exalt the sons of men. You cut off the breath of princes, and are terrible to the kings of the earth. It is then we know your power, when, by the stroke of death, we feel what we are, that our life is but as a shadow that declineth, a vapor dispersed by the beams of the rising sun, or as the grass which loses at noon the verdure it had acquired from the morning dew. It is a truth of which we, are made sensible upon ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... the discoveries of the time was biography. And, by a brilliant stroke of imagination Dicaearchus termed one of his books Bios Hellados, The Life of Hellas. He saw civilization as the biography of the world. First, the Age of Cronos, when man as a simple savage made no effort after higher things; next, ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray
... The first stroke that young Edward gae He struck wi might and main He clove the Maitlen's helmet stout, And near ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... and the man began cutting at him to right and to left, upward from the same direction and downward, as if bent upon cleaving his shoulders; and for every cut Ben showed him how to make the proper guard, holding his weapon so that the stroke should glance off, and laying especial weight upon the necessity for catching the blow aimed upon the forte of the blade toward the hilt, and not upon the faible near ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn
... poised, ready for any chance that might come. The odds were two or three to one, and a gun into the bargain, but the stakes were higher than any ever played for before; and a stroke had to be made, no matter how seemingly hopeless. Through his lashes he watched, turned things over in his mind—and something leaped within him when he saw Kashtanov unbuckle the gun around his waist and lay it down, meanwhile taking off the clothes he was ...
— Raiders Invisible • Desmond Winter Hall
... to whether he should go or not. It is said that Frederick advised him to go, pay court to the Queen, marry her, seize the throne, and get his head cut off for his pains, thus achieving immortality and benefiting the world at one stroke. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... I've played pretty close. You don't lack skill. That stroke of loaning fifteen millions to the bey was very shrewd. Ah! you're a cool one; but you don't hold your cards right. Others ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... hold up; aequam—your mare; in rebus arduis—going up hill. That translation, young ladies, was given by an undergraduate in the University of Oxford. He afterwards rowed stroke in the 'Varsity boat, and was the best billiard player of his year, so it would ill become us to dispute his conclusions. You will observe the valuable moral lessons inculcated in the words, and, I trust, take them ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... jewel-fountains, coming to the palace steps, where stood Abarak leaning on his bar. As they advanced to Abarak, there was a clamour in the halls behind, that gathered in noise like a torrent, and approached, and presently the Master was ware of a sharp stroke on his forehead with a hairy finger, and then a burn, and the Crown that had clung to him toppled off; surely it fell upon the head of the old monkey, the cautious and wise one, he that had made a study of Shibli Bagarag. Thereupon that monkey stalked ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... eyes as her father, although they were not so pale and watery as his, and the same coloured hair, for his must also have had a reddish tinge before it became grey. And that was why Mrs. Tiralla so often turned away when the child had wanted to get on her lap and, with clumsy little fingers, stroke her cheek. ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... had suddenly touched with light for him connections hitherto dim—"only I don't quite see why that very care for him which has carried her to such other lengths, precisely, as affect one as so 'rum,' hasn't also, by the same stroke, made her notice a little more what has been ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... the same time, and went up to Oxford together, but to different Colleges. I rowed in my College Eight, he in his. We were above them on the river, but they made a bump every night until they got behind us, and then bumped us. He was stroke of his boat, and everyone said that success was due to his rowing, and I believe it was. I did not so much mind that, for my line was chiefly sculling. I had won in my own College, and entered for Henley, where it was generally thought that I had a fair chance of winning the Diamonds. ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... came to her first between sleeping and waking, and spake to her in a hollow voice, telling her that if she would serve him she would want nothing. After often solicitations she consented to him. Then he stroke his claw (as she confessed) into her hands, and with her blood wrote the covenant.' Now, as the writer gravely remarks, the subtlety of Satan is to be observed in that he did not press her to deny God and Christ, as he did others, because she was a professor, and he might ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... fire, watch tower; telegraph, semaphore, flagstaff; cresset[obs3], fiery cross; calumet; heliograph; guidon; headlight. [sign (evidence) on physobj of contact with another physobj] mark, scratch, line, stroke, dash, score, stripe, streak, tick, dot, point, notch, nick. print; imprint, impress, impression. [symbols accompanying written text to signify modified interpretation] keyboard symbols, printing symbols; red letter[for emphasis], italics, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... was vexed herself that her friend David should seem possessed with this single idea, as if it shut out all others from his mind. He was consoled fast enough; for Susan, with another great sob, threw down her pen, and coming up to stroke him down with her inky fingers, cried out, "O Davie, Davie, I didn't mean it; I don't know why I said it. You shall have my sixpence, or anything! But, oh dear, I wish the message was come, and we were going to dear Mamma, ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... side-stroke but somewhat languidly. I half regretted that I was unable to go on shore to see the Indian curiosities. Much refreshed after partaking of the contents of ——'s Patent ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 30, 1890. • Various
... States has been glad to encourage and support American bankers who were willing to lend a helping hand to the financial rehabilitation of such countries because this financial rehabilitation and the protection of their customhouses from being the prey of would be dictators would remove at one stroke the menace of foreign creditors and ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... power we shall increase the aggregate capital of the world, and consequently that of England. Again—"Could we suddenly double the productive power of the country, we should double the supply of the commodities in every market, but we should by the same stroke double the purchasing power—every body would bring a double demand as well as supply—every body would be able to buy twice as much, as he would have twice as much to offer in exchange." Also—"A country which produces for a larger market than its own, can introduce a more extended division ...
— A Letter from Major Robert Carmichael-Smyth to His Friend, the Author of 'The Clockmaker' • Robert Carmichael-Smyth
... a circle around the room. One player is selected to be "Pussy" and takes his place in the centre of the group. He takes a position on all fours before each member of the group, in turn saying "Meow". Thereupon the one before whom he is kneeling must stroke the back of his head and say, "Poor pussy". Pussy meows three times and in return for each meow has the back of his head stroked and is addressed, "Poor pussy". Should the one patting pussy laugh during the performance, he must ...
— School, Church, and Home Games • George O. Draper
... afterward it passed the Council by 14 ayes, 10 noes, and its friends counted the victory won. But Gov. Gilbert A. Pierce, appointed by President Arthur and only a few months in the Territory, failed to recognize the grand opportunity to enfranchise 50,000 American citizens by one stroke of his pen and vetoed the bill. Not only did it express the sentiment of the representatives elected by the voters, but it had been generally discussed by the press of the Territory, and all the newspapers but one were outspoken for it. An effort was made to carry it over the Governor's ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... Baresark fit came on. His eyes rolled, foam flew to his lips, his mouth grinned, and he was awesome to see. He let fall the head, and, swinging the great axe aloft, rushed at Eric. But Brighteyes is too swift for him. It would not be well to let that stroke fall, and it must go hard with aught it struck. He springs forward, he louts low and sweeps upwards with Whitefire. Skallagrim sees the sword flare and drops almost to his knee, guarding his head with the axe; but Whitefire strikes on the iron half of the ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... glories of setting suns—some towering aloft with trees sown in the crevices by bird or breeze, and checkering the blue sky—others bare, black, abrupt, grim as volcanoes, and shattered as if by the lightning-stroke. Yet interspersed, places of perfect peace—circles among the tall heather, or taller lady-fern, smoothed into velvet, it is there easy to believe, by Fairies' feet—rocks where the undisturbed linnet hangs her nest among the ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... out ideas of any other sort. Or if, not hurrying, his mind went dreamy, it was still of peasant things that he dreamed. Of what he had been told when he was a child, or what he had seen for himself in after-life, his memory was full; and every stroke of reap-hook or thrust of spade had power to entice his intellect along the familiar grooves of thought—grooves which lie on the surface and are unconnected with any systematized ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... Italian slope, unforseen obstacles and difficulties had to be overcome. Instead of having to encounter the solid rock, they found themselves among a moving soil formed by the deposit of glaciers and broken by streams of water. Springs burst out, like the jet of a fountain, under the stroke of the pick, flooding and driving away the workmen. For twelve months they seemed to be in the midst of a lake. But nothing could damp the ardor ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... Terence, like Congreve, lived into an easy and honoured old age, he would still have rested his reputation on these productions of his early youth. Both dramatists had from the first seen clearly and precisely what they had in view, and had almost at the first stroke attained it: the very completeness of the success must in both cases have precluded the dissatisfaction through which fresh advances ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... is room for folk out there. When one comes to speak about success, courage and patience and strength and hard work are as necessary to ensure it there as they are here in Scotland. But there is this to be said. When a man's land is his own, and he kens that every stroke of his axe and every furrow of his plough is to tell to his own advantage, it makes a wonderful difference." And so on, to the pleasure and profit of ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... wise air with which, perched on Jenny's thumb, he cocked his head now one side and then the other, apparently listening with most critical attention. His confidence in us seems unbounded: he lets us stroke his head, smooth his feathers, without a flutter; and is never better pleased than when sitting, as he has been doing all this while, on my hand, turning up his bill, and watching my ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Demosthenes and Jesus Christ, and likewise Cicero and Julius Caesar. Everybody overstates his case, particularly when he is anxious to do something which he considers useful. I regard it as a real grievance, Eames, not to be allowed to assist you financially. Having never done a stroke of work in my life, I can talk freely about my money. My grandfather was a pirate and slave-dealer. To my certain knowledge, not a penny of his wealth was honestly come by. That ought to allay your scruples about accepting it. NON OLET, you know. Let me write ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... silence was strange. Then Steve started the motor of the runabout and Rick heard the broken rhythm as the motor skipped. He knew that Steve probably had turned the carburetor mixture to too lean or too rich. Either would cause the motor to run rough. He kept moving, his fins keeping a steady stroke. The motor sound grew distant, and finally ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin
... my pipe, and stroke my hair— Bite my pencil-tip and gaze At you, mutely mooning there O'er your "Aprils" and your "Mays!" Equal inspiration in Dimples of your cheek and chin, And the golden atmosphere Of your paintings, ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... and it is the Cure of the Common Weal, which the poet is proposing, and having determined to proceed specially against Caius Marcius, or against him first, he undertakes now to 'delve him to the root.' We are already on the battle field; but before ever a stroke is struck there, before he will attempt to show us the instinct of the warrior in his game,—'he is a lion that I am proud to hunt,'—when all is ready and just as the hunt is going to begin, he steals softly back to Rome; he unlocks ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... enough for this man who was not accustomed to be overthrown. If his temper and his pride were his enemies, he must hold them in bondage. She had struck at both audaciously that night. But the blow, instead of driving him away, had sent him straight to the sick man. That stroke of hers had miscarried. But Isaacson recognized her power as ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... their conduct." So much the worse for the Directory on attempting to revoke their powers. Bertin informs its vice-president that, if it dares do this he will cut off his head. They reply to the Minister's observations with the utmost insolence.[2420] They glory in the boldness of the stroke and prepare another, their march on Aix being only the first halt in the long-meditated campaign which involves ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... he who, at the risk of life, Saved Decius from his foes and endless strife? Who, dying, dealt to Persia stroke of death, And shouted 'Victory!' with his latest breath? His whitening bones, amid the nameless brave, Lie still unfound, unknown, without a grave; Unburied lies his dust amid the slain, While Decius rears an ...
— Polyuecte • Pierre Corneille
... in England. But when he saw the big stick flourished over him he forgot his own advantage, and raised his arm to ward away the blow. Down it came upon the back of his hand, and lo! his sword fell from it to the grass. But I did not spare him because of that, for my blood was up. The next stroke took him on the lips, knocking out a tooth and sending him backwards. Then I caught him by the leg and beat him most unmercifully, not upon the head indeed, for now that I was victor I did not wish to kill one whom I ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... the action of Boston, "was the boldest stroke that had been struck in America." Writing to Sir Francis Bernard, he spoke of it as "an unfortunate event, and what every body supposed impossible after so many men of property had made part of the meetings, and were in danger of being liable for the ...
— Tea Leaves • Various
... the illustrations for the Rubaiyat and the book was published while we were in Rome. It was never long out of his talk. He would tell us the history of every design and of every model or pot in it. He exulted in the stroke of genius by which he had invented a composition or a pose. I have heard him describe again and again how he drew the flight of a spirit from a model, outstretched and flopping up and down on a feather bed laid upon the studio floor, until she almost ...
— Nights - Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... of torment. An instrument resembling a small ladder, consisting of two parallel pieces of wood, and five transverse pieces, with the anterior edges sharpened, was placed before him, so that when the tormentor struck it heavily, he received the stroke five times multiplied on each shin bone, producing pain that was absolutely intolerable, and under which he fainted. Bat no sooner was be revived than they inflicted a new torture. The tormentor tied other cords around his wrists, and having his own shoulders ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... It was a bold stroke, but it succeeded. The country, weary perhaps of the late King's harsh rule, and yet glad to save itself from the horrors of the last few days, and the still further horrors of no rule at all, and having no particular interest ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... had employed, when his affairs were desperate, to treat with the prince of Orange, and moved that the king should be petitioned in an address to remove such persons from his presence and councils. This was a stroke aimed at the earl of Nottingham, whose office of secretary Hambden desired to possess; but his motion was not seconded, the court-members observing that James did not depute these lords to the prince of Orange because they were attached ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... One point is taken off the player's score for every foul stroke. Foul strokes are made by touching a ball with hand or person while it is in play; by playing with a wrong ball; by playing out of turn; by overturning the ring; and by making two or more steps while throwing ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... a-trampin' the streets for a' hour lookin' for flowers for you! You are breakin' my heart, Miss Caarter, with yo' coldness and contempt. Another word and you shall not have a single bud." And the colonel gayly tucked a rose under her chin with a loving stroke of his hand, and threw the others in ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... boat was forced on beneath the line and a whiting and a couple of small plaice were taken off. Then more bait had disappeared, and then the last hook was being hauled up when Will snatched at the hook, made a sharp stroke with it, twisted it round, and held it under water for a minute before dragging out a nasty grey-looking bag, all tentacles, and with a couple of ugly eyes, which dropped from the hook as Will gave ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... death of war. But the fight was not yet over. He heard footsteps on the ladder behind him, and turned just in time to escape a sweeping sword stroke. Next instant he was locked in a deadly struggle with the captain of the Nevski, a brave man, who, it seems, had refused to surrender, and had cut his way through all Sievers's men in the desperate resolve to retrieve the consequences of his own carelessness. Maclean, however, was a practised ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... the time for his stroke. He knew that the horse was conquered, overcome chiefly by his own struggles, and letting him breathe a little he urged him straight forward in the road toward the castle, which was only a few ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... learned to escape into a large world that was fast becoming real to her strong imagination. While her husband was indulging in chimerical visions of boundless prosperity here on earth which he would bring to pass by some lucky stroke of fortune or invention, she also was picturing to herself grander things which God would realize to her beyond time and earth. When alone, in moments of rest from incessant toil, she would take down ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... book, the person, the case of sickness or trouble, the plan, the last shopping, the game, the garment, the new preparation for the table—in a way peculiarly her own. One could never be with her many minutes without hearing some bright fancy, some quick stroke of repartee, some ludicrous way of putting a thing. But whether she told of the grumbler who could find nothing to complain of in heaven except that "his halo didn't fit," or said in her quick way, when the plainness of a lady's dress was commended, "Why, I didn't suppose ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... real stroke, mesdames, it was only a warning!" was the explanation conveyed to us in loud tones, with no reserve of whispered delicacy, when we expressed regret at monsieur's detention below stairs; a partially paralyzed leg, dragged painfully after the latter's flabby figure, ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... the clock in the village strike, each stroke bringing forth a muffled volley of curses on the man who ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... then as he never dared to laugh afterward, and the derisive Scott smiled involuntarily as he heard the hearty peal, which put the finishing stroke to ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... world bustle on With war and trade, with camp and town; A thousand men shall dig and eat; At forge and furnace thousands sweat; And thousands sail the purple sea, And give or take the stroke of war, Or crowd the market and bazaar; Oft shall war end, and peace return, And cities rise where cities burn, Ere one man my hill shall climb, Who can turn the golden rhyme. Let them manage how they may, Heed thou only Saadi's lay. Seek the living among the dead,— ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the scaffold stood erected; and pressing closely around the wooden barriers, stood the anxious crowd awaiting the execution. The culprit knelt with head erect, his neck and shoulders bared for the stroke, while the young headsman stood by his side armed with the double-handed sword, the weapon of his office. At a sign given, he swung the tremendous blade in the air, and aimed a fearful blow at the neck of the condemned; but his skilless ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... increased the merriment of the intruders. One of them threw himself down by her side, forced his head into her lap, attempting to stroke her cheeks. She pushed him from her, and recognized in him the gallant Zashue, Say Koitza's husband. He grasped both her hands. This she ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... wrapped in their saddle blankets, had picked out their beds near the fire, as the night was cold. On concluding the reading of his correspondence, Fremont turned in and was soon sound asleep. All was quiet for awhile, when Kit Carson heard a noise that awaked him; the sound was like the stroke of an axe. Rising to his feet, he discovered Indians in the camp. While in the act of reaching for his rifle, he gave the alarm, to his slumbering companions; but, two of them were already sleeping their ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... deltoid with his left hand and with a swift movement of the right cut through the flesh of the arm and severed the muscle; then, with a deft rearward cut, he disarticulated the joint at a single stroke, and presto! the arm fell on the table, taken off in three motions. The assistant slipped his thumbs over the brachial artery in such manner as to close it. "Let him down!" Bouroche could not restrain a ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... steady stroke, it did not take me very long to reach the object for which I was aiming, and which proved, as I had conjectured, to be a ship's boat, swamped, and floating keel up. And not only so, but when I got ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... along,— As Virgil's nymph o'er ripen'd corn, With such ethereal haste was borne, That every stock, with upright head, Denied the pressure of her tread. But o'er the wretched, oh, how slow And heavy sweeps thy scythe of woe! Oppress'd beneath each stroke they bow, Thy course engraven on their brow: A day of absence shall consume The glow of youth and manhood's bloom, And one short night of anxious fear Shall leave the wrinkles of a year. For me who, when I'm happy, owe No thanks to fortune that I'm so, Who long have learned ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... the Queen's permission to take her portrait. The limner's art is still almost a novelty here; and many persons of rank solicited permission to witness the operation. With the greatest attention, they watched every stroke of the outline, and loudly expressed their admiration as each feature appeared upon the paper. The nose was no sooner traced, than they exclaimed—"Now Nomahanna can smell!" When the eyes were finished—"Now she can see!" They expressed especial satisfaction at the sight of the mouth, because it ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... was coming up into the top. He saw the accident. Almost before the sentry at the gangway could cry out, "A man overboard!" he was in the water striking out to catch hold of the youngster, who couldn't swim a stroke. At that moment the captain came on deck. He was in a great state of agitation when he heard who it was who had fallen overboard. Studden sail-sheets were let fly. No one minded the spars, though they were all cracking away; the helm was put down, the yards were braced ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... substance! sweet, serene; Soothing sorrow's saddest scene: Scent-suffusing, silv'ry smoke, Softly smoothing suffering's stroke;— Solacing so silently— Still so swift, so sure, so sly: Smoke sublimated ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... go in, but sat on a bench in the garden for an hour, not thinking, hardly musing, but in a sort of spell as it were. As she rose at the stroke of six, she was saying to herself: "I never knew life was like that!" And she repeated it as she entered ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... Jack went and got them out. "Where will I try the sword?" says he. "Try it on that ugly black stump of a tree," says the giant. "I see nothing blacker or uglier than your own head," says Jack. And with that he made one stroke, and cut off the giant's head that it went into the air, and he caught it on the sword as it was coming down, and made two halves of it. "It is well for you I did not join the body again," said the head, "or you would have never been able to strike it off again." ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats
... not foreseen this event in Moll's desire to return to Elche, or hit upon the truth in seeking an explanation of her disappearance. 'Twas of a piece with her natural romantic disposition and her newly awaked sense of poetic justice,—for here at one stroke she makes all human atonement for her fault and ours,—earning her husband's forgiveness by this proof of dearest love, and winning back for ever an honoured place in his remembrance. And I bethought me of our Lord's saying that greater love is there none than ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... far too late for the formal vindication of Clifford's character to be worth the trouble and anguish involved. For the truth was that the uncle had died by a sudden stroke, and the judge, knowing this, had let suspicion and condemnation fall on Clifford, only because he had himself been busy among the dead man's papers, destroying a later will made out in Clifford's favour, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... drawn up in line, the knight was about to hurl himself, when a Templar, in armor glittering with jewels and gold, came scouring across a the plain, and mingled in the fight. But instead of of helping the hotly pressed knight, he cleft his morion by a dastard stroke from behind, and but for the thickly plated steel, would have thus ended his life upon the spot. The good knight was hurled dizzy from his steed upon the trodden field, and the Templar spurred against the Moors. His charger was fresh, and his blood was up, so he ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... stroke of three did Gavin turn homeward, with the legs of a ploughman, and eyes rebelling against over-work. Seeking to comfort his dejected people, whose courage lay spilt on the brae, he had been in as many houses as the policemen. The soldiers ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... a straight back and long, flowing strides was bent over, limping along with a cane. She was also 30 pounds overweight and her blood pressure was a very dangerous 210 over 140, just asking for a stroke. ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... the attempt to carry off the earl's daughter had failed, the baron, seeing that his bold stroke to obtain a hostage which would have enabled him to make his own terms with the earl had been thwarted, knew that the struggle ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... stroke, however, fell flat. Mrs. Roughsedge showed no emotion. "Most of my aunts," she said, stoutly, "were never confirmed, and they were good Christians and ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... pounds, and that if we thought this motor would develop enough power for our purpose they would be glad to sell us one. After an examination of the particulars of this motor, from which we learned that it had but a single cylinder of 4-inch bore and 5-inch stroke, we were afraid it was much over-rated. Unless the motor would develop a full 8 brake-horsepower, it would ...
— The Early History of the Airplane • Orville Wright
... me, where I was entangled in a tremendous growth of sea-weed, and with one of my legs hooked, as it were, between and round a piece of rock. By great good fortune he was able to drag me out, and rise with me to the surface, but so overcome that he could hardly take a stroke; and as for me, Doctor Chowne had a long battle before he could bring me back as it were ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... the officers or crew of the Guardian should ever survive to get home, I have only to say their conduct, after the fatal stroke against an island of ice, was admirable and wonderful in everything that relates to their duty, considered either as private men, or in His Majesty's service. As there seems to be no possibility of my remaining many hours in this world, ...
— "The Gallant, Good Riou", and Jack Renton - 1901 • Louis Becke |
