"Tighten" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... white and supple wood, such as poplar; which are to form the ribs or curves, and are fastened on the outside with three poles, one at bottom and two on the sides, to form the keel; to these curves two other stouter poles are afterwards made fast, to form the gunnels; then they tighten these sides with cords, the length of which is in proportion to the intended breadth of the canoe: after which they tie fast the ends. When all the timbers are thus disposed, they sew on the skins, which they ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... tighten his grip came a tremendous shock, and he was flung off the other as if by a giant's hand. As he rolled across the floor, followed a crash as though the very heavens were falling. The whole ship seemed to lift beneath him, at the same time stopping ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... tighten between me and Petrak, Thirkle prodded me with the point of a knife, and, as I was faint with hunger and thirst, and utterly worn out, I frequently stumbled and fell, when they both set upon me and beat me to my feet. Petrak pulling me up with the rope, ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... out of him, and to nerve himself for the encounter he summoned to mind all the evidence, which gathered in a cloud of witnesses, to prove her treachery. Once it occurred to him that after a few minutes of waiting he might tighten the screw upon his nerves and so pluck up the audacity, if not the resolution, to ascend the stair boldly and denounce her in the presence of his grandfather. But the memory of Fletcher's face wagged before him, and, quaking with terror, he huddled with open palms above the stove. ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... you? Yes, my fun is over. I tried to tighten my strap, to make a new hole; and this botheration of a knife has cut ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... second stage is the more peaceful. A man does not make so many articles towards the end, nor does he laugh aloud; but the purely animal pleasures, the sense of physical wellbeing, the delight of every inhalation, of every time the muscles tighten down the thigh, console him for the absence of the others, and bring him to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... crooked involvements and double- dealing of the law. He despised the butterfly life of a soldier; and as to the other side of a soldier's life, again he thought, what is it for? to humour the arrogance of the proud, to pamper the appetite of the full, to tighten the grip of the iron hand of power; and though it be sometimes for better ends, yet the soldier cannot choose what letters of the alphabet of obedience he will learn. Politics was the very shaking of ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... picked her up, and started rapidly for his boat. Stepping on a smooth stone he nearly fell, and her arm did tighten decidedly. ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... she whispered. She was afraid this perfect moment would be spoiled; a kiss, even, would have done it. But he seemed to understand, and except to tighten slightly the pressure of his arms he kept profoundly still. She could hear his low, uneven breathing and the faint, regular ticking of his watch. They seemed enclosed in a silence vast as space, and sweeter than thought could fathom. A great ...
— A Beautiful Alien • Julia Magruder
... the hand, he thought. Bones and ugly tight-stretched hide spotted with brown. Bulging knuckles with yellow cigaret stains. My hand. He tried to tighten it, tried to squeeze Martha's thin one in return. He watched it open and contract a little, but it was like operating a remote-control mechanism. Goodbye, hand, you're leaving me the way my legs did, he told it. I'll see you again in hell. How hammy can you ...
— Death of a Spaceman • Walter M. Miller
... scarred violin, with roughly shaped pegs and lacking a string. He motioned Harry Baggs to follow him and proceeded to the brow of the field, where he settled down against a fence, picking disconsolately at the burring strings and attempting to tighten an ancient bow. Baggs dropped beside him. Below them night flooded the winding road and deepened under the hedges; a window showed palely alight; ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... Hiawatha Felt the loose line jerk and tighten; As he drew it in, it tugged so That the birch canoe stood endwise, Like a birch log in the water, With the squirrel, Adjidaumo, Perched and frisking ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... BATH.—As the jars are filled, they must be prepared for the water bath. Therefore, proceed to place the rubber and cover on the jar. Adjust the rubber, as shown in Fig. 12, so that it will be flat in place. Then put the cover, or lid, on as in Fig. 13, but do not tighten it. The cover must be loose enough to allow steam to escape during the boiling in the water bath and thus prevent the jar from bursting. If the cover screws on, as in the jar at the left, do not screw it down tight; merely turn it lightly until it stops without pressure being ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 5 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... falling, felt the slender fingers within his own tighten convulsively; felt her lips against his hand—an instant only; then she turned and ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... 'What's the good of it? You just throw away the past, as though it had never happened, as though it were only a dream, and start life afresh. Don't listen to the devil,' I said, 'he won't do you any good, and he will only tighten the noose. You want money now, but in a little while you will want something else, and then more and more. If,' said I, 'you want to be happy you must want nothing. Exactly.... If,' I said, 'fate has been hard on you and me, it is ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... of negative blessing to us, you see, Benjy," said Alf, as he stooped to tighten a rope. "It's not so much what you do, as what you don't do, that ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... revenues come mainly from import duties. Economic development is hindered by dependence on relatively few commodity exports, vulnerability to natural disasters, and long distances from main markets and between constituent islands. In response to foreign concerns, the government has promised to tighten regulation of its offshore financial center. In mid-2002 the government stepped up efforts to boost tourism through improved air connections, resort development, and cruise ship facilities. Agriculture, especially livestock farming, is a second target for growth. Australia and New Zealand are ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... to tighten our belts before we came to the wood wherein cross-roads meet, from north, south, and east, within five miles of the town of Chinon. There was not a white coin among us; night was falling, and it seemed as if we must lie out under the stars, and be fed, like the wolves we heard ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... the two men jerked their heads up to listen; Tressa felt their arms tighten about her. Through the darkness they strained down the track to the east, their hearts ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... century in our spirited town, and with a general loosening of party ties on the occasion, until the War of 1812, when the parties conducted separate celebrations, though the orators were always only too apt to tighten them again by untimely political allusions, in the narrower sense of ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... profound aboriginal urgencies. He thought, indeed, very little as he lay in his berth or sulked on deck; his mind lay waste under a pitiless invasion of exasperating images that ever and again would so wring him that his muscles would tighten and his hands clench or he would find himself restraining a snarl, the threat of the beast, in ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... consented to serve out a small piece of biscuit to each of us, just to stay our appetites; but that produced a very transient effect. At first I saw him tightening his waist-belt; then I had to tighten mine, as Harry did his. Poor Tom was suffering too much pain to care about eating, and Aboh was well accustomed to ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... further need of service until Betty should ring. Everything was arranged for an uninterrupted tete-a-tete. Prosper stood near an ebony table, his shoulder brushed by tall, red roses, and felt his nerves tighten and his pulses hasten in their beat. "The tall child ... the tall child ..." he had called her by that name so often and never without a swift and stabbing memory of Joan, and of Joan's laughter which he ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.' Peter, indeed, is not thinking of the soldier's belt, but he is, no doubt, remembering many a time when, in the toils of the fishing-boat, he had to tighten his robes round his waist to prepare for tugging at the oar, and he feels that such concentration is needful if a Christian life is ever to be sober, and to have its hope set perfectly ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... boldly forward and let Stewart put the loop of a lasso round her and tighten it. He waved his ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... country. Smith and Davis agreed with the train captain, Jondo, in taking no chances, but most of the one hundred sixty bull-whackers stampeded like cattle against precaution, and rebelled at his rigid ruling. He had begun to tighten down upon us as we went farther and farther into the heart of a savage domain. The night guard was doubled and every precaution for the stock was demanded, giving added cause for grumbling and muttered threats which no man had the courage to speak openly to Jondo's face. I knew why he had ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... tighten upon hers, till the pressure was almost more than she could endure. "You never felt a spark of love for him!" he said. "You married him—curse ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... their lives, the penitentiary, or a prison sentence the stakes against which each one played, the role of Larry the Bat, clever as was the make-up and disguise, was fraught now more than ever before with danger and peril. It seemed as though slowly the net was beginning at last to tighten ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... can one, if one's mind be full of abstractions and images created not for their own sake but for the sake of party, even if there were still the need, find words that delight the ear, make pictures to the mind's eye, discover thoughts that tighten the muscles, or quiver and tingle in the flesh, and stand like St. Michael with the trumpet that ...
— Synge And The Ireland Of His Time • William Butler Yeats
... fashion for about 150 yards, when I heard a shell come shrieking in my direction. With a plunk it fell, and exploded about forty feet away, choking me with sand and half blinding me for about five minutes. The acrid fumes, too, which came from it, seemed to tighten my throat, making respiration very difficult for some ten minutes afterwards. Cautiously looking round, I tried to locate the other scouts, but nowhere could they be seen. I crawled for another thirty yards ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... allow anyone to sing a part that is obviously too high. But in addition to this general treatment of the matter, it will often be possible for the director to urge upon his chorus the necessity of relaxation in producing tone, thus reminding those who tighten up unconsciously that they are not singing properly, and conveying to those who are ignorant of the matter at least a hint regarding a better use ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... the fingers of Keith's hand twitch and tighten. Otherwise there was no answer. After a moment ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... thus eventually be settled in money. This cannot fail to affect the general level of prices in both countries, tho this is brought about often only in indirect and gradual ways. The flow of money out of a country causes the loan market of a country to tighten (interest and discount rates to rise) in proportion as the reserves of the banks are reduced. Then "general prices" begin to fall.[10] When prices fall, imports decline, as the country is not so good a place in which to sell: when prices rise, imports increase, ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... length been able to turn westward, keeping the river trees in view when, the rain continuing, we began to experience the effects of moisture on the felloes of the wheels. The heat and contraction had lately obliged us to tighten and wedge them to such a degree that now, when the ground had become wet, the expansion of the whole broke the tirering of the wheel. Having no forge we could only attempt the necessary repairs with a common fire, and for this ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... stretcher, with wedges to force the corners open and so tighten the canvas when necessary, is the only proper one to use. For convenience of use many kinds have been invented, but you will find the one here illustrated the best for general purposes. The sides may be used for ends, ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... was attached a rope extending through the partition and forming a loop or noose on the other side. The purpose of this device was only too apparent. Once the neck of a victim was in the noose, a few turns of the wheel, the noose would tighten, and the victim would be inevitably strangled to death. In a slightly changed form it was the ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... can't have him." Without a move toward his pistol Hale stepped forward, and June saw her father's big right hand tighten on his huge pistol, and with a low cry ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... his friend lead the red-haired lady away to dance. For a while there lingered about him the air of unctious submission that had revolted Anna. Then it vanished. His face as he sat alone seemed to tighten. The flabbiness of his eyes became something else. Diners at other tables caught glimpses of him while they ate. A commanding figure, rugged, youthful-faced. Features that made definite lines, compelling lines, in the blur of other features. A man of certainties, yet with something ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... his men to tighten their saddles and otherwise prepare for action. Soon all was excitement among the officers and soldiers, every one being anxious to charge the village. I now changed my horse for old Buckskin Joe, who had been led ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... detachment, were holding festival on the occasion. We had previously been informed that the Agah was absent on duty, and had left the command to his ancient—and this we were ready to suppose was not calculated to tighten the reins of discipline. Drinking and jollity were such natural associates, that we feared terribly these men would be getting at spirits—and then what did we not fear for the fair companions of our adventure? However, to make a long story short, the men did not ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... "but I am his daughter, and am come in his place, as he is detained by company. He bade me deliver a message to you alone and then hasten back." With this the girl almost whispered in the ear of the old soldier a few words that caused his teeth to clench and his heartstrings to tighten. She had hardly concluded, when an approaching step from the direction of the fort caused her to spring aside and fly with the swiftness ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... got to tighten up some of those guy wires. They are loose and need attention. They might order a flight any time," ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis
... with every appearance of honesty and good faith. But I had reason to remark, by what happened to myself, that the tickets had been registered beforehand. The young Queen, who felt her garter slipping off, came to me in order to tighten it. She handed me her ticket to hold for a moment, and when she had fastened her garter, I gave her back my ticket instead of her own. When the Cardinal from his dais read out the numbers in succession, my number won a portrait of ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... perspiration from his face with his sleeve, and Jones moistened his lips again. I felt Billie's grasp tighten, and her ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... makes them both unfriendly toward children and very bad for children. These young creatures ought to go along through their days rather dreamily and altogether serenely. Every turn of the screw to tighten their nerves makes more certain some form of early nervous breakdown. They ought to have work to do, of course,—enough of it to occupy both mind and body—but it should be quiet, systematic, regular work, much of it performed automatically. Only occasionally should they be ...
— Study of Child Life • Marion Foster Washburne
... to front, run ribbon in the spaces made for it and tighten slightly, and finish with ties and bows ...
— Handbook of Wool Knitting and Crochet • Anonymous
... contemptuous and grilling comment. Thus to Mr. Itzky he was most unkind. He would look over all most cynically, examining the saddles and bridles, and then say, "Oh, I see you haven't learned how to tighten a belly-band yet," or "I do believe you have your saddle hind-side to. You would if you could, that's one thing sure. How do you expect a horse to be sensible or quiet when he knows that he isn't saddled right? Any horse knows that much, ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... brought many a locomotive to a standstill, and thrown out of order every train on the division. Lives have been lost, business houses wrecked, private fortunes laid in the balance, just because some one did not tighten ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... government be safely or rightly agitated as a national question. Its agitation as such has done more to alienate and embitter the two sections of our Union—more to rouse the spirit of slavery aggression and extension, and to tighten the bonds and increase the burdens of the slave, than it has done to effect emancipation. Slavery is an evil permitted by Providence for ends that time will reveal. From this form of social evil, he is still educing good, far more good to the slaves, as a class, than to the masters as a class. ...
— The Relations of the Federal Government to Slavery - Delivered at Fort Wayne, Ind., October 30th 1860 • Joseph Ketchum Edgerton
... a yell of dismay as he felt the coil of the horrible thing tighten round him, and the next instant screamed, in a voice ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... diabolical arts, she had not allowed me to pass out of a condition of hypnotic trance. Now, for some reason, the cord was loosed. Possibly her absorption in her religious duties had caused her to forget to tighten it. Anyhow, as she approached me, she approached a man, and one who, for the first time for many a day, was his own man. She herself seemed wholly unconscious of anything of the kind. As she drew nearer ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... giving a tentative squeeze to one bicep. "It should be enough time, though. Tomorrow I start mild exercise and that will tighten me up again. Now—tell me more about Dis and what ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... slow, regretting fingers, the hands fell apart, to tighten eagerly again into the clasp that made ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... some minutes, his hand, which rested in that of Tom's, would suddenly tighten with incredible strength, and he would rise in bed and begin a wild, incoherent rambling, which filled the hearts of the ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... into a ball in the air, and lashed out, flinging itself into a bow. It really seemed demoniacal. Gudrun saw Gerald's body tighten, saw a sharp blindness come into ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... the side-drum, beneath its cracked brown varnish, I could hardly trace a royal coat-of-arms and a legend running, "Per Mare Per Terram"—the motto of the marines. Its parchment, though black and scented with woodsmoke, was limp and mildewed; and I began to tighten up the straps—under which the drumsticks had been loosely thrust—with the idle purpose of seeing if some music might be got out of ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... giant's home, At the chink'd fields of ice, the waste of snow. And he must fare across the dismal ice Northward, until he meets a stretching wall Barring his way, and in the wall a grate. But then he must dismount, and on the ice Tighten the girths of Sleipner, Odin's horse, And make him leap the grate, and come within. And he will see stretch round him Hela's realm, The plains of Niflheim, where dwell the dead, And hear the roaring of the streams of Hell. And he will see the feeble, shadowy tribes, And Balder ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... would buy. They are gone. Can you buy them back? or the decency, honesty, cleanliness, youth, I pawned, for filth and more filth? I am saturated with it. I reek with it. It embraces me with octopus arms. Every kopeck, every rouble, has gone to tighten that embrace. It is not to be loosened. I am hell-bound for eternity. And you speak to ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... liked. Agesilaus granted a pass to the embassy, but, at the same time, he was so angry at their setting his personal authority aside, that he sent to his friends at home and arranged that the fate of Phlius should be left to his discretion. Meanwhile he proceeded to tighten the cordon of investment, so as to render it impossible that a single soul inside the city should escape. In spite of this, however, Delphion, with one comrade, a branded dare-devil, who had shown great dexterity in relieving the besieging parties of their arms, ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... the door set his nerves tingling afresh and made him tighten his grasp on the pistol. The steel was cold and slippery in his moist fingers. What an awful noise it would make when he pulled the trigger! If the door were to open how close he would be to the figure ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... to tighten the clumsy wrappings of rags which served him for shoes, and hurried on after the little, shouting mob which had followed the butcher down to the steep hillside of Valley Forge, where he stood at bay with his back to ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... question. Until the river traffic began the purchase of food was almost an impossibility. She saw Jim's face tighten, as it had tightened every time she had broached the subject. A week before he had insisted that the remaining food be equally divided, since they now both engaged in the search for gold—that eternally elusive mineral that seemed as far away as ever. The beans and flour and canned ...
— Colorado Jim • George Goodchild
... the library, "You're going off the last few days, Miss Agnes." And when I made no reply: "You're sagging around the chin. There's nothing shows age like the chin. If you'd rub a little lemon-juice on at night you'd tighten ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... with pity for a being in whom such sadness was possible. It may have been this secret complacency that Helen detected in his face and fancied it a sign of relenting. She put out her hand and took hold of the morocco case. Arthur did not release his hold, yet neither did his grasp tighten, and she drew the dangerous ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... three or four men dodging from shadow to shadow under the masthead lights and circling wide to tighten the ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... indomitable, ghost-gray in the moonlight, a mark no tyro could miss. A cherry branch intervened, obscuring the foresight of the Hunter's rifle. The Hunter shifted his position furtively. His crooked finger was just about to tighten on the trigger. At this moment, when the very night hung stiller as if with a sense of crisis, the giant bull turned, exposing his left flank to the full glare of the moonlight. Something gleamed silver down his side, as if it were a shining ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... with impotent rage. This range-rider always had interfered with his affairs from the first moment he had met him. If ever he got the chance again to stamp him out—! The strong fingers of the man worked with the nervous longing to tighten on the throat of the gay youth who had worsted him in the duel the prizefighter had forced upon him. The cowpuncher had introduced himself by knocking him down. A few hours later he had turned a bruised and bleeding face up to him and laughed without fear ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... on a still day—not a quiver in ary twig. The Clarke boy was a leetle pale an' when he raised his pistol I could see a twitch in his lips. He looked kind o' stiff. I see they was one thing' 'bout shootin' he hadn't learnt. It don't do to tighten up. I were skeered—I don't deny it—'cause a gun don't allus have to be p'inted careful to ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... an entrancing speaking voice. She spoke on a low note, and having trained the muscles of the throat to relax or tighten at will, she was able to throw all manner of inflection into the words, and all shades of tone and melody into the chords of the beautiful musical instrument which is so terribly neglected ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... who ruled in the end of the fifteenth century and the first quarter of the fourteenth, the Egyptian peace was observed and Pharaoh's claim to Syria was respected. Moreover, an interesting experiment appears to have been made to tighten Egypt's hold on her foreign province. Young Syrian princes were brought for education to the Nile, in the hope that when sent back to their homes they would be loyal viceroys of Pharaoh: but the experiment ...
— The Ancient East • D. G. Hogarth
... broken stem. This identity of age could not but cause comparison of lots. "Suppose it had been Sally!" was the thought that would sometimes spring on her mother's mind; and then the girl would wonder what mamma was thinking of that she should make her arm that was round her tighten as though she feared to lose her, or bring her ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... position it bulges upwards in the middle, like a cloth swollen out by the wind, and thus occupies a portion of the chest at the expense of the lungs. When air has to be admitted, its fibres tighten and bring it flat again, as you and your brother brought the handkerchief flat ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... his scalp tighten and his mouth go dry while his heart seemed to stop for an instant and then pound furiously, ...
— The Boy Inventors' Radio Telephone • Richard Bonner
... tiny flash of light such as might have been thrown off a bright crystal of feldspar, and without pause now he held his rifle more firmly, laid the sight upon the flashing light, and the next moment he would have pulled the trigger. But ere he could tighten his finger upon the little curved piece of steel within the guard of his piece, there was a flash, a puff of smoke, and a sensation as if a wasp had whizzed by his ear. He did not move, only waited while one might have counted ten, and ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... forms a final inspection before concreting to check line and level, to close open joints and to tighten up clamps and wedges. Finally clean each form and wet it down thoroughly before placing the concrete—do this just before ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... revolver that lay in its holster under the live oak. Every moment he expected to see Mac jump up, but the figure stretched beside the cholla never moved. Flandrau felt the muscles round his heart tighten. He had seen sudden death before, but never had ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... constant use the boy's strength was daily increasing until he was becoming a veritable young giant? With no small satisfaction he beheld the muscles of his arms tighten and stand out; and when he swung his axe and brought down a sturdy sapling it was with a glow of pleasure that he heard it crash to the ground. Certainly there were compensations in hard work! Moreover was not every French boy who was too young to serve ...
— The Story of Silk • Sara Ware Bassett
... at night after washing up in the cook-house she would say: "You must come out and tighten the tent ropes with this gale blowing, it won't be funny if the whole thing blows over in the night." But none of the horrors she depicted ever persuaded me to turn out once I was safely tucked ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... ears. Much of what had occurred since his departure from Paris he already knew. France having destroyed root and branch the tyranny of feudal privileges, the whole social edifice was slack in every joint, and there was no strong hand to tighten the bolts; for the King, in dallying with foreign courts, had virtually deserted his people. The monarchy had therefore fallen, but not until its friends had resorted to the expedient of a foreign war as a prop to its fortunes. The early victories won by Austria and Prussia had stung the nation ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... appreciate or perceive it. To many it seems no great virtue or wisdom, no great and splendid thing, in some small issue of feeling or opinion, in the family or among friends, to withhold a little, to tighten the rein upon some headlong propensity, and await a calm for fair adjustment. Such a course is not usually held to be a proof of wisdom or virtue; and men are much more ready to praise and think well of smartness, and spirit, and readiness for an encounter. To leave off contention before it is ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... pressure nearly destroyed the victory she had won, for the strong grasp snapped the slender guard-ring Moor had given her a week ago. She heard it drop with a golden tinkle on the hearth, saw the dark oval, with its doubly significant character, roll into the ashes, and felt Warwick's hold tighten as if he echoed the emphatic word uttered when the ineffectual gift was first bestowed. Superstition flowed in Sylvia's blood, and was as unconquerable as the imagination which supplied its food. This omen startled her. It seemed a forewarning that ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... will not at once dispute their interpretation of the Act, and appeal to the Education Department to settle that dispute? And if so, do they suppose that any Minister of Education, who wants to keep his place, will tighten boundaries which the Legislature has left loose; and will give a "final decision" which shall be offensive to every Unitarian and to every Jew in the House of Commons, besides creating a precedent which will afterwards be used to the injury of every Nonconformist? ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... and a quick cry of "Hold on!" warned him. With face pressed against the ice, he made a supreme sticking effort, felt the rope slacken, and knew Carson was slipping toward him. He did not dare look up until he felt the rope tighten and knew the other had again ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... Another said: "It is a great satisfaction to die by the hand of a brave warrior, although I would like better if I were allowed a chance of first striking a blow at him." And a third: "I shall at least die in good company; but first, let me tighten my belt." One of them said: "I like very well to die, but strike me quickly; I have my cloak clasp in my hand, and I will thrust it into the earth if I wot of anything after my head is off." So the head was smitten from him, and down fell the ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... never snap. The heart itself breaks under the tension of love and grief, grieved and grieving love. But the strings only strengthen and tighten under ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... of foundation, and I call upon you all to beware you give credence to the malicious inventions of this ramshackle slander-mill that has been doing its best to destroy my character for years, and will grind up your own reputations for you next. I got off to tighten my saddle-girth—I wish I may die in my tracks if it isn't so—and whoever wants to believe it can, and whoever don't ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... several companions. My horse had never been in that part of the country before. We left our inn at daybreak, and proceeded through a mountainous district to visit some beautiful scenery. On our return evening was approaching, when I stopped behind my companions to tighten the girths of my saddle. Believing that there was only one path to take, I rode slowly on, but shortly reached a spot where I was in some doubt whether I should go forward or turn off to the left. I shouted, ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... you. They square their shoulders vulgarly; they hold the reins in their hands as if they were driving, and they draw the reins to their waists in a coarse, absurd way. They tighten both these reins equally, and saw the poor devil's mouth with the curb and the snaffle at one time. Now you know, Mary, the snaffle is a mild bit, and the curb is a sharp one; so where is the sense of pulling away at the snaffle when you are tugging ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... going out with Tibbie, and this the Colonel ascribed to her fancying herself too old to be under the charge of a nurse. It was trying to laugh her out of her dignity, but without eliciting an answer, when, one afternoon just as they were entering together upon the esplanade, he felt her hand tighten upon his own with a nervous frightened clutch, as she pressed ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a tremor in her voice which made Neil tighten the clasp of his arm around her, while he bent his head so low that his hair touched her forehead, as ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... Bobby felt the net tighten. If that evidence was conclusive to the others, how much more so was it for him! He recalled how, after awaking in the empty house, he had searched unsuccessfully in all his pockets for his handkerchief, intending to brush the ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... your needle in again still on the same edge, and bring it out, immediately below, on the lower one. You then, before drawing the thread quite through, put your needle into the loop from behind, and tighten it upwards. ...
— Art in Needlework - A Book about Embroidery • Lewis F. Day
... pours out on poverty was death to Athanase; the enervating heat of solitude, without a breath or current of air, relaxed the bow which ever strove to tighten itself; his soul grew weary in this painful effort without results. Athanase was a man who might have taken his place among the glories of France; but, eagle as he was, cooped in a cage without his ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... and she was fairly sick with anxiety and did not hear half of what he was saying. She was nervously careful about choosing her steps so that she would not stumble and jolt her father. She did not believe that he was wholly unconscious, for she had seen his eyelids tighten and his lips twitch several times, when she was waiting for Swan. He had seemed to be in pain and to be trying to hide the fact from her. She felt that Swan knew it, else he would have talked of her dad, would at least have tried to reassure her. But it is difficult ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... Had she cried—poor little soul! He looked down at her eyelashes. Her cheek had been of the same colour and texture then. That came back to him too. The impulse to tighten his arms ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... sense to know that the first necessity was to stop the bleeding; so, quieting the little sister by a word or two, she inserted the stick in the bandage above the ankle, and turned it more than once, so as to tighten the ligament materially. Looking at the pallid features, another ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... fingers began to tighten in the grip of death; relax, tighten, each successive clutch growing longer, harder. The joy of his strength, the pleasure in the agony that spoke from his victim's face, gleamed for a moment in Carlson's ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... are in opposite mechanical conditions. On one side of the dark band we have strain, on the other side pressure, the band marking the neutral axis between both. I now tighten the vice, and you see colour; tighten still more, and the colours appear as rich as those presented by crystals. Releasing the vice, the colours suddenly vanish; tightening suddenly, they reappear. ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... they had graduated to ponies, and while yet ten years old, it was only by a constant watch that they were kept off unbroken broncos—horses that made the toughest vaqueros throw down their hats, tighten their belts, ...
— Crooked Trails • Frederic Remington
... us, to the men, the very jet of their pleasure, I owed, it seems, to a happy habit of body, juicy, plump and furnished, towards the texture of those parts, with a fullness of soft springy flesh, that yielding sufficiently, as it does, to almost any distension soon recovers itself so as to re-tighten that strict compression of its mantlings and folds, which form the sides of the passage, wherewith it so tenderly embraces and closely clips any foreign body introduced into it, such as my ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... lips tighten. 'My husband goes with me,' she replied quickly and stopped, flushing as she realised that she had meant ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... 'That is Aklis! and it is ablaze, knowing a visitant near. Tighten now the hairs of Garraveen about thy wrist; touch thy lips with the waters of Paravid; hold before thee the Lily, and make ready to enter the mountain. Lo, my betrothed, thou art in possession of the three means that melt opposition, and the fault ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... sound, like the sound of a tolling bell: faint, as if infinitely far; muffled, as though heard through thick swathings of darkness: a deep, vibrating resonance, with vast gulfs of silence between each stroke. And the Hand appeared to tighten on the rod. And I saw far above the Hand, towards the apex of the darkness, a circle of dim phosphorescence, a ghostly sphere whence these sounds came throbbing; and at the last stroke the Hand vanished, ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... striking instance of this is recorded by Tacitus; and though he questions the wisdom of relieving personal indignation by a vain invective, which must bring death and ruin on the speaker and all his family, and in the end only tighten the yoke it tries to shake, yet the intractable pride of these representatives of the old families has something about it to which, human as we are, we cannot refuse our sympathy. The only other prose-writer we need mention is AUFIDIUS BASSUS, who described the Civil Wars ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... collar tighten. His jaw stuck out. "I don't know as that is anybody's business but my ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... cherries. Can sweet cherries as berries. Blanch sour cherries 1/2 minute, in boiling water. Dip in cold water; drain and pack closely into hot sterilized jars. Cover with boiling water or boiling medium syrup. Loosely seal. Sterilize 16 minutes in boiling water bath. Remove jars at once, tighten covers, invert to test ...
— The New Dr. Price Cookbook • Anonymous
... it is, Geoffrey. That last one is——' Suddenly Jean bent forward as he was trying to extricate her from the crowd, and she looked in his face. Something that she found there made her tighten ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... have tried to catch me, and found that they had a Will-o'-the-Wisp to deal with; but this was an easy task, and nothing to boast of." Hans was saying this while he was assisting Berthold to replace the bit in the horse's mouth, and to tighten the girth of his saddle, the landlord rendering the same service to Captain Van der Elst. The next moment they were in the saddle and pushing full speed through the village to the southward. Should they be discovered, they ...
— The Lily of Leyden • W.H.G. Kingston
... of the gearing question, it was decided to employ belts instead of the friction-pulleys." Accordingly, Edison installed on the locomotive a system of belting, including an idler-pulley which was used by means of a lever to tighten the main driving-belt, and thus power was applied to the driven axle. This involved some slipping and consequent burning of belts; also, if the belt were prematurely tightened, the burning-out of the armature. This latter ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... red spot came to each cheek as he leaned forward. At his last word Dingan, who had been standing abstractedly listening as it were, swung round on him with a muttered oath, and the skin of his face appeared to tighten. Watching through the crack of the door, Mitiahwe saw the look she knew well, though it had never been turned on her, and her heart beat faster. It was a look that came into Dingan's face whenever Breaking Rock crossed his path, or when one or two other names were mentioned ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... back and forth on the plank as each basket is put into it in order to settle the fruit firmly in place; lastly, arrange a layer of apples stems up and apply the press, using a hatchet to get the head in place and to drive on and tighten the hoops. ...
— Apple Growing • M. C. Burritt
... growled the hunter in a stern soliloquy as he stopped a moment to tighten his belt. "Well, well, I little thought, Van Dyk, that you'd be brought to such a miserable fix as this, in such a stupid way too. But he mustn't be left to ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... They were reaping the Gate Field close to the house—the hum of the reaper came to her, and seemed in some mysterious way to be the voice of Ansdore itself, droning in the sunshine and stillness. She felt her throat tighten, and winked the ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... a noose at the end of the line—not a slipnoose, for that would tighten and hurt anybody bearing upon it. This he dropped down to the boat ...
— Hiram The Young Farmer • Burbank L. Todd
... and Zeb exulting as the days passed and they saw the American lines tighten about the hesitating enemy, hesitating only to be lost. Conrad, true to the manners of his adopted people, sat in stolid silence, seeing much and saying nothing, while his wound quickly healed. And there is Gates, so anxious for glory—he thinks now that ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... with a coldly scientific precision. Human nature could not endure it. In his extremity, the beach comber attempted the same ruse that had been so successful for Brice. He slumped, in pseudo-helplessness. The only result was to enable Gavin to tighten his hold, unopposed by the tensing of the ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... to tighten and cease their eager quivering for a kiss. For Teresita twitched her shoulders pettishly and her reins dexterously, and so removed herself some distance from ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... kissed her sweetheart face: His heart found neighbors in great hills and trees And streams and clouds and suns and birds and bees, And throbbed with neighbor-loves in loving these. But oh, the poor! the poor! the poor! That stand by the inward-opening door Trade's hand doth tighten ever more, And sigh with a monstrous foul-air sigh For the outside heaven of liberty, Where Nature spreads her wild blue sky For Art to make into melody! Thou Trade! thou king of the modern days! Change thy ways, Change thy ways; ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... wait his time. They would come together later. An opportunity would certainly present itself. The first links in a curious chain had already caught; soon the chain would tighten, pull as though by chance, and bring their lives into one and the same circle. Wondering in particular for what kind of a companion the second cover was laid, Henriot felt certain that their eventual coming together was inevitable. He possessed this kind of divination from first impressions, and ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... to crush the independence of the Greek cities of the west, Darius was influenced not only by the desire to destroy a dangerous rival on the sea and an obstacle to further advances by the Persian empire, but also to tighten his hold on the Greek colonies of Asia Minor. Helped by the Phoenician fleet and the treachery of the Lesbians and Samians, he had succeeded in putting down a formidable rebellion in 500 B.C. In this rebellion the Asiatic Greeks had received help from their Athenian brethren ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... is the work of some nerves to tell the muscles of the small arteries to tighten, or contract, when too much blood is coming into them. Alcohol so paralyzes these nerves that they do not carry their message; the arteries let in the blood, and become swollen and enlarged. They tell the mischief done to them, by causing the skin to be red or flushed. If people ...
— Object Lessons on the Human Body - A Transcript of Lessons Given in the Primary Department of School No. 49, New York City • Sarah F. Buckelew and Margaret W. Lewis
... little gobbet of bread, or sipping his cup of thrice-watered wine, is enough to make a man feel shame at his own hunger. Yet war and glory, my good friend, though well enough in their way, will not serve to tighten such a belt as clasps ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... quite as tightly with the right hand as with the left. Personally I grip quite as firmly with the right hand as with the other one. When the other way is adopted, the left hand being tight and the right hand simply watching it, as it were, there is an irresistible tendency for the latter to tighten up suddenly at some part of the upward or downward swing, and, as surely as there is a ball on the tee, when it does so there will be mischief. Depend upon it the instinct of activity will prevent the right hand from going through ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... moment to think upon how long it should be ere the King came to her door. Then she raised her chair, and sat down at her mirror. For one minute she set her face into her hands; then she began to straighten herself, and with her hands behind her to tighten the laces of ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... have remarked in your presence once before, there is extreme probability that the State of California will have passed additional anti-Jap legislation, designed to tighten the present law and eliminate the legal loop-holes whereby alien Japanese continue to acquire land despite the existing law. If I stand pat no Jap can set foot in the San Gregorio valley for at least one year from date and by that time this legislation may ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... listened, Frank made a discovery that caused him to tighten his grip on that reliable repeating rifle. There were two of the pursuers! And he anticipated that the leader must come in sight ere another dozen ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson
... remembering her father's good-night kiss. But a baby's sorrow, happily, is shorter than its remembrance; and Rosy-Lilly soon learned to repeat her phrase: "Poor Daddy had to go 'way-'way-off," without the quivering lip and wistful look which made the big woodsmen's hearts tighten so painfully beneath their homespun shirts. Conroy's Camp was a spacious, oblong cabin of "chinked" logs, with a big stove in the middle. The bunks were arranged in a double tier along one wall, and a plank table (rude, but massive) ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... walked down the station approach to their wagonette, among quite a crowd of other people, Betty felt Jan's collar suddenly tighten—his height, even now, allowed her to hold the young hound's collar easily without using a lead, for he stood over thirty-one inches at the shoulder—and, glancing down, saw the hair all about his neck and shoulder-bones rise, stiffly bristling. In ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... and hooked the stirrup over the horn so that she could tighten the cinch, the eyes of Robert Grant Burns glistened at the "picture-stuff" she made. He glanced eloquently at Pete, and Pete gave a twisted smile and a pantomime of turning the camera-crank; whereat Robert Grant Burns shook his head ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... nigger—like a nigger is supposed to work, but doesn't. No one—whatever we paid him—would do half as much. I don't want to make your head more swollen than it is, young woman, but you have talent; I am not sure it is not genius." Peter felt the little hands tighten upon ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... work. We paid a hundred and ten dollars for him from the bottom of our sack, and he wouldn't work. He wouldn't even tighten the traces. Steve spoke to him the first time we put him in harness, and he sort of shivered, that was all. Not an ounce on the traces. He just stood still and wobbled, like so much jelly. Steve touched him with the whip. ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... I said. "Tighten up the axle, and go on with one sprocket only. We can get into the town that way, ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... wood, which happened to have in it a little hole that had evidently suggested to her the idea of sticking in another fragment that might figure as a mast and make the thing a boat. This second morsel, as I watched her, she was very markedly and intently attempting to tighten in its place. My apprehension of what she was doing sustained me so that after some seconds I felt I was ready for more. Then I again shifted my eyes—I faced what ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... was compassionate. Bart felt his throat tighten, and had the awful feeling that he was going to cry. He reached with his good hand for hers, seeking the comfort of a human touch, but she flinched ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... invisible arms up above me; Still, wheresoever I swing, wherever to shore, or to shelf, or Floor of cavern untrodden, shell-sprinkled, enchanting, I know I Yet shall one time feel the strong cord tighten about me,— Feel it, relentless, upbear me from spots I would rest in; and though the Rope sway wildly, I faint, crags wound me, from crag unto crag re- Bounding, or, wide in the void, I die ten deaths ere the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... herself as a semi-belligerent, the Tokio Government would not hesitate to use any opportunity which presented itself in China for selfish ends; and by insisting that as she is on the spot she is the most competent to insure the effectiveness of Chinese co- operation, attempt to tighten her hold on the country. It is a fact which is self-evident to observers on the spot that ever since the coup of the Twenty-one Demands, many Japanese believe that their country has succeeded in almost completely infeodating China ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... rounding out my record of service in a manner most gratifying to my family and friends. Not only this, but I feel sure, when the orders of yesterday are read on parade to the regiments and garrisons of the United States, many a young hero will tighten his belt, and resolve anew to be brave and true to the starry flag, which we of our day have carried safely through one epoch of danger, but which may yet be subjected to other trials, which may demand similar ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... wiser people as if he were an equal or even a superior. The attempt to treat a child at adolescence as you would treat an inferior is instantly fatal to good discipline."[2] Parents still think of their offspring as mere children, and tighten the rein when they should loosen it. Many young people feel that they have the best of homes and yet that they will go crazy if they must remain in them. If the training of earlier years has been good, guidance by ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... fine open face wore traces of annoyance. It was plain that there had been here some business not very pleasing to this honourable man. When I told him we had come for the cattle, the muscles of his jaw seemed to tighten. He stopped and looked me ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post |
