"Unstrung" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... we not to know our neighbors the English, the Germans, the French? I for one consider that not to know German and Germany, for example, is nowadays not to be fully educated. Most of us, however, have had our nerves unstrung by the speeding-up process that has gone on all over the world of late. We have lost somewhat the power to know people and to let them alone at the same time. Goethe, one of the coolest and wisest of men, maintains: "Certain defects are necessary ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... said warder's coat and sallet over all; and there stood the man of worship, waked up now, as it seemed, but looked before him as if he saw naught, even as a man who walks in sleep. Stephen the meantime unstrung his fiddle and began to play a slow sweet tune thereon, and let his big but melodious voice go with it, and thus they brought the lordship of Deepdale to the door, and still he seemed of no avail, save to walk on as Steelhead would ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... of a bird's flying against such a gale; and after everyone else had settled down again for the night she could hear Ellen pacing the floor of the living-room. Poor Ellen, thought the girl, she was all unstrung over Shane's accident and frightened at the thought of ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... sprung from the furrow as the plough went through the earth, who had no physical father or physical mother. Who should wed the peerless maiden, the incarnation of Shri, Lakshmi, the consort of Vishnu? Who should wed Her save the Avatara of Vishnu Himself? So the mighty bow remained unstrung, for who might string it until the boy Rama came? And He takes it up with boyish carelessness, and bends it so strongly that it breaks in half, the crash echoing through earth and sky. He weds Sita, the beautiful, and goes forth with Her, and with His brother Lakshmana and his bride, and ...
— Avataras • Annie Besant
... fever-wasted frame,—this weed, whitened in a dungeon's darkness, pale and sapless, which no kindness of the sun, no softness of the summer breeze, can ever restore to life and vigor? It must not, shall not be! Oh, were Regulus what he was once, before captivity had unstrung his sinews and enervated his limbs, he might pause; he might think he were worth a thousand of the foe; he might say, "Make the exchange, Rome shall not lose by it!" But now, alas, 'tis gone,—that impetuosity of strength which could once make him a leader indeed, to penetrate ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... she interrupted. "I scarcely know how I could feel differently if I were parting with my twin brother. You have been such a true, generous friend! Oh, I am all unstrung. Papa has been sent for from Washington, and we don't know when he'll return or what service may be required of him. I only know that he is like you, and will take any risk that duty seems to demand. I have so learned to lean upon you and trust you that if anything ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... nothing." He checked the impending confession hastily. He guessed that it had some hearing upon her marriage with Trenby. If so, it would be better left unsaid. Just now she was tired and unstrung; later, she might regret her impulsive confidence. He wanted to save ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... not content me nor gazing upon thee assuage the fire of my heart, nor will the love of thee, that hath mastered my soul, leave me, but with the passing away of my life.' So saying, he wept and the tears ran down upon his cheeks, like unstrung pearls. When Shemsennehar saw him weep, she wept for his weeping; and Aboulhusn exclaimed, 'By Allah, I wonder at your plight and am confounded at your behaviour; of a truth, your affair is amazing and your case marvellous. If ye weep thus, what while ye are yet ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... now, in these weeks, her lifework was utterly undone. And then, in the terrible loneliness of her room, with the darkness on the world and round her bed and at her heart, she wept—terrible, tearless sobbing that left her in the morning weak, unstrung, utterly unequal to ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... light. The lyre was his, and his the breathing might Of the immortal marble, his the play Of diamond-pointed thought and golden tongue. Go seek the sunshine race. Ye find to-day A broken column and a lute unstrung. ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... up and brushed tears from her eyes; the struggle had unnerved her. Very helplessly against her swayed the man she had laughed at half an hour before. And he had been crushed saving her! But that was not why the tears came—not at all. She was unstrung. "And he's got grit," she kept muttering to herself; "he has never ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... haste,—supposing that the parents have at all time to rush home, which, in thousands of cases is impossible, owing to the shortness of the hour of recess, and the distance of the shop from the home. Tired out and unstrung, both return home in the evening. Instead of a friendly, cheerful home, they find a narrow, unhealthy habitation, often lacking in light and air, generally also in the most necessary comforts. The increasing ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... unstrung," said the captain. "He is under the delusion that we deliberately deserted him and, later, found the gold he speaks of. The first charge is nonsense. We did all that was possible in the frightful weather. We barely ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... and custody except in its exacerbations; it is the insanity of organism which gives so much of the erratic and unstable to society, in its manifestations of mind and morals; it is the form of unstable mental organism which, like an unstrung instrument jangling out of tune and harsh, when touched in a manner to elicit in men of stable organisms only concord of sweet, harmonious sounds; it is the form of mental organism out of which, by slight exciting causes largely imaginary, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... parents. I stand up only for the aged poor, because, be they good or wicked, they cannot help themselves. If a man fell down in the street, struck with some dire disease that shrunk his muscles, unstrung his nerves, made his heart tremble, and his skin shrivel up, would you look upon him and then pass him ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... wanton wind. Ah little he thought of the leagues of snow He trod on the trail of the buffalo; And little he recked of the hurricanes That swept the snow from the frozen plains And piled the banks of the Bloody River.[40] His bow unstrung and forgotten hung With his beaver hood and his otter quiver; He sat spell-bound by the artless grace Of her star-lit eyes and her moon-lit face. Ah little he cared for the storms that blew, For Wiwaste ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... door. At the same time I tried to show by signs that I could, if I liked, kill two or three of them, but that I was ready for peace if they were. At last I lowered my rifle from my shoulder, and they unstrung their bows and advanced with outstretched hands towards me. Knowing their treacherous character, however, of course I could not depend on them. I bethought me that the best way to win their friendship was to offer them food, as is practised in civilised ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... taken even that on trial—without knowing what it so dazzlingly masked; for a social relation it had become with a vengeance when it drove him about the place as now at his hours of freedom (and he actually and recklessly took, all demoralised and unstrung and unfit either for work or for anything else, other liberties that would get him into trouble) under this queer torment of irreconcilable things, a bewildered consciousness of tenderness and patience and cruelty, of great evident mystifying facts that were as little to be questioned as to be conceived ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... if I ought to whisper when I speak and every night the minute I get to sleep I find myself diggin' in first one outlandish place and then another. And if I'm not diggin' in my sleep, your father is, with jerks and starts and grunts enough to wake the dead. I'm all unstrung. So far as I can see the only thing we're findin' is nerves. One thing I will say: It was dull and lonesome before Mr. O'Neill came and I missed him when he went but dear knows, it was peaceful. It's been one thing right after the other. ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... "You need a physician, Fairley. You're unstrung," he suggested. "Perhaps a drop of brandy would help. I think ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... don't know how it is, Sadie, but I feel a bit unstrung, and that beast caterwauling over yonder was just more than I could put up with. There's one consolation, we are scheduled to be on our way home to-morrow, after we've seen this one rock or temple, or whatever it is. I'm ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... small prison room restlessly. Anything to get away from her own thoughts. For forty-eight hours she had heard nothing from the outside world. She had not closed her eyes the night before, and Friday found her weary and unstrung ...
— The Lost Despatch • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... in the hot sunlight, reaction had set in. Hodder was suddenly unstrung, and the kindly old gentleman beside him seemed for the instant the only fixture in a chaotic universe. It was not until later reflection that he realized Mr. Bentley might, by an intuitive sympathy, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... to be heard along the road. Bathsheba's nerves were still unstrung: she crouched down out of sight again, and the pedestrian came into view. He was a schoolboy, with a bag slung over his shoulder containing his dinner, and a book in his hand. He paused by the gate, and, without looking up, continued murmuring words in tones quite ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... fiercely. It was only a brief line, bidding him come to her, but it bore her name. With instant, bodiless clarity which had marked all her mental processes so far, its purport was hers. She had not written—the hand that had traced her signature had been unstrung for once. She understood, though such knowledge seemed ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... memory in their free hours, when they ought to be enjoying the fresh air. But when are they then to have their piano lessons? After they have escaped from the school-room, and consequently when the children are exhausted and their nerves unstrung. What cruelty! Instead of bread and butter and fresh air, piano lessons! The piano ought to be studied with unimpaired vigor, and with great attention and interest, otherwise no success is to be expected. Besides this, much writing, in itself, makes stiff, inflexible ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... would be wiser, Alice, for you to leave Sally and me alone for a little time; she is tired and unstrung. If you and the other girls have been unfair, you will have an opportunity to apologize later. Then Sally herself will feel ...
— The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor • Margaret Vandercook
... gives me a horrible sense of guilt." She shuddered again. Then suddenly, with the nervous quickness of a woman unstrung, thrust a small black golliwog into ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... have been working hard of late, and my nerves are unstrung. And—I cannot, I cannot forget her! And what is more awful and terrible to me than anything is that I cannot forgive God!" He uttered these words in an awed whisper. "I cannot! I bear the Almighty a grudge for wrenching her life away from mine! Of what use was it to be so cruel? Of what purpose ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... I'm all upset and unstrung. That's the reason I came in here. I've got to get my wits about me again, ...
— The Talking Leaves - An Indian Story • William O. Stoddard
... for this the Spanish maid, aroused, Hangs on the willow her unstrung guitar, And, all unsexed, the anlace hath espoused, Sung the loud song, and dared the deed of war? And she, whom once the semblance of a scar Appalled, an owlet's larum chilled with dread, Now views the column-scattering ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... so long since I wrote that I must write, I must ruffle your thoughts with a little breath from my side. Listen to me, my dear friend. That I have not written has scarcely been my fault, but my misfortune rather, for I have been quite unstrung and overcome by agitation and anxiety, and thought that I should be able to tell you at last of being calmer and happier, but it was all in vain. I do not leave England, my dear friend. It is decided that I remain on in my prison. It was my full intention to go. I considered it to be a clear ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... will had to capitulate to Unreason—that unscrupulous usurper. My previous five years as a neurasthenic had led me to believe that I had experienced all the disagreeable sensations an overworked and unstrung nervous system could suffer. But on this day several new and terrifying sensations seized me and rendered me all but helpless. My condition, however, was not apparent even to those who worked with me at the same ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... and the Crows make the best bows, although the Apaches come close in the rank. When the Sioux bow is unstrung, it is a straight piece of wood, while the Apaches and the Southern Indians make a perfect Cupid's bow. The Crows often use elk horns as material, and carve them beautifully. The Sioux, to make the straight piece of wood more elastic, string the backs with sinews. Often these ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... ordinarily his nerves were of steel; but to be at the mercy of some unknown and nameless horror, to be unable to defend himself—it was these things that almost unstrung him, for at best he was only human. To stand in the open, even with the odds all against him; to be able to use his fists, to put up some sort of defense, to inflict punishment upon his adversary—then he could face death with a smile. It was not ...
— Out of Time's Abyss • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... they went to the front. The meeting broke up reluctantly and the men drifted out and away, expecting soon to be called to go. But something happened that they did not go that night. Meantime, a company had just returned from the front, weary, hungry, worn and bleeding, with their nerves unstrung, and their spirits desperate from the tumult and horror of the hours they had just passed in battle. They needed cheering and soothing back to normal. The girls were preparing to do this with a bright, cheery entertainment, when a deputation of boys from the ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... voice simulated sudden alarm; he scuffled his feet on the floor. The men jumped with fright; nerves unstrung, ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... different meaning than for the ordinary run of their readers. Their God is not a Being, their religion is not a worship, their duty is not a law, their immortality is not the hope of a world to come. Amidst these equivocations and contradictions thought is blunted, and the sinews of the intellect are unstrung. The public, bewitched by talent and captivated by success, is deluged with writings which have the same effect as the talk of a frivolous man, or the showy tattle of a woman of the world. They give an agreeable exercise to the mind, without ever allowing it to form either ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... precise,—was bolting right across the clearing. After the manner of hares where objects directly in front of them are concerned, the fugitive entirely failed to perceive Excalibur and, indeed, ran right underneath him on its way to cover. Excalibur was so unstrung by this adventure that he ran back to where he had left Eileen ...
— Scally - The Story of a Perfect Gentleman • Ian Hay
... tumult, Pain, and the shadow of pain, sorrow in silence endured; Fighting, at last I have fallen, and sought the breast of the Mother,— Quite cast down I have crept close to the broad sweet earth. Lo, out of failure triumph! Renewed the wavering courage, Tense the unstrung nerves, steadfast the faltering knees Weary no more, nor faint, nor grieved at heart, nor despairing, Hushed in the earth's green lap, lulled to slumber ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... them behind her and die in bitterness less bitter for its solitude. But Maya fled not from herself: the winds wailed like the crying of despair in her harp-voiced pines; the shining oak-leaves rustled hisses upon her unstrung ear; the timid forest-creatures, who own no rule but patient love and caresses, hid from her defiant step and dazzling eye; and when she knew herself in no wise healed by the ministries of Nature, in the very apathy of desperation ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... remarked Eugene to Lightwood, 'are considerably unstrung. And I deem it on the whole expedient ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... which further reflection on the subject threw her came very near making her ill and finally decided her to learn the truth if possible. She addressed a note to Mr. Francis Grimke. The answer she received confirmed her worst fears. He and his brothers were her nephews. Her nerves already unstrung by the dread of this cruel blow, Angelina fainted when it came, and was completely prostrated for several days. Her husband and sister refrained from disturbing her by a question or a suggestion. Physically stronger ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... presume that the mechanical skill I once possessed in the art has suffered by the unavoidable neglect. I may possibly recover this skill, and if anything will tend to this end, if anything can tune again an instrument so long unstrung, it is the kindness and liberality of my Cousin Edward. I would wish, therefore, the matter put on this ground that my mind may be at ease. I am at present engaged in taking portraits by the Daguerreotype. ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... The Baby's nerves were unstrung with the din of the guns, and it was an hour before he could be calmed down. The wildcat was skinned, and it was days before the orang could be reconciled to the sight of the pelt or the smell of ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... enmity between us! Cease your mirth! Damned be a friendship that so shames my worth! Never may I set eyes on one so low! I fling you off, an unstrung, broken bow. 41 ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... touching all unconsciously the strings of my lute which was lying in my hands suddenly a thought came into my mind of its own accord. And I took the lute and unstrung it, and chose from among its strings one, which I rolled like a bangle on my wrist. And I said to the lute aloud: Old love, we will work together: for if indeed she is my enemy, she is thine as well. And if, as those assassins ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... to thy glowing song, And dwell with rapture on each vivid line, Shall round thy lyre, neglected and unstrung, Of sweetest ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... house in the Place de la Madeleine. Thuillier's irritation was quieted, but frightful consternation had taken its place. If the executioner were coming in half an hour to lead him to the scaffold he could not have been more utterly unstrung and woe-begone. When la Peyrade entered Madame Thuillier was trying to make him take an infusion of linden-leaves. The poor woman had come out of her usual apathy, and proved herself, beside ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... "Don't you see, I am sick with an infernal cold," he said. "Got it tramping in the rain without my overcoat, and that fight I told you of has unstrung me. It was a regular battle. But you go yourself, and perhaps Eloise will come to see me. I shall show her the Colonel's confession, and she can do as she pleases about ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... Dishevelled, fatigued, and unstrung, he formed a sinister contrast to Hugo, fresh from repose, cold water and music, and also to the spirit of the beautiful summer morning itself, which at that unspoilt hour seemed always to sojourn for a space in the belvedere. The sun ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... me your arm that I may lean upon it, for I grow tired. It is the heat, not that I am ill or weaker; the heat, the heat, and I grow tired. And yet I must walk: I cannot rest; no, not for a moment; this—this horror has unstrung me." ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... rocky aperture. He could see nothing for the moment. The taint was oppressive at the first breath of the still air. There were kittens—no doubt of that. He heard their scurrying; he felt their eyes and the sort of melting panic in the place that would have utterly unstrung any but a perfectly ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... the bowels costive, the urethra, by being pressed, becomes irritable and burns and smarts whenever the urine is evacuated. The sleep is disturbed and unrefreshing, and the whole nervous system is unstrung. ...
— An Epitome of Homeopathic Healing Art - Containing the New Discoveries and Improvements to the Present Time • B. L. Hill
... think," said Henry, "you would know that your trouble is mostly physical. Your nerves are unstrung. The public is not so willing to believe any story that Brooks may tell. The Colossus will not be injured. But I know that you place very little faith in what I say." The merchant looked at him. "But mark my words: Your standing will not be lowered—the ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... he was discouraged and unstrung. He knew that his arrest, which was imminent, was, in part, due to the assertions of the medium and the Ouija Board. These secrets had leaked out somehow, and though the detective, Weston, would have scorned to acknowledge ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... of Dolly, and too full of grief to spare him after that. Unstrung as she was, her reproach burst forth from her without a softened touch. "Dolly has done with earth. Dolly's life is over," she sobbed. "Do you know that she is dying? Yes, dying,—our own bright Dolly,—and you—you ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... not seem so; but I am out of sorts this afternoon. I have sent my model away because I am too much unstrung to work." ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... aback by the suddenness of this outburst. He tried to stop it, for he felt almost indecent in listening—it was not fair to take a man off his guard like this. But the stranger could not be stopped—he was completely unstrung, and his voice ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... course possible that my nerves were somewhat unstrung during the days that followed. I wakened one night to a terrific thump which shook my bed, and which seemed to be the result of some one having struck the foot-board with a plank. Immediately following this came a sharp knocking on the antique bed-warmer which hangs beside ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... criticisms, and heated words of his opponents trickle off from him as easily as water does from a duck's back, which is the proper legal mental attitude in regard to such things. He told us that sharp, harsh, or bitter words entered his soul like barbed iron and he was upset and unstrung for hours afterward. A man with such an emotional nature as his and such an intellect is especially qualified for literature, and we are glad to say that he is now making a very flattering success ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... their tameness as shocking as did Alexander Selkirk that of the brute subjects of his else solitary kingdom. It was a sort of tame familiarity, a perfect indifference to the approach of strangers, such as I never noticed in other children. I accounted for it partly by their nerveless, unstrung state of body, incapable of the quick thrills of delight and fear which play upon the lively harp-strings of a healthy child's nature, and partly by their woful lack of acquaintance with a private home, and their being therefore destitute of the sweet homebred shyness, which is like the sanctity ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... fell back into the same death-like stupor; but of all this, I did not retain the least knowledge. On the morning of the second day, after a sleep of thirty hours, I awoke again to the world, with a system utterly prostrate and unstrung, and a brain clouded with the lingering images of my visions. I knew where I was, and what had happened to me, but all that I saw still remained unreal and shadowy. There was no taste in what I ate, no refreshment in what I drank, and it required a painful effort ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... activity and vigor averted his own destruction for a few minutes; and these minutes were precious, for they afforded time for Captain Montague and his officers to cut their way to the spot where he fought, just as a murderous club was about to descend on his head from behind. Montague's sword unstrung the arm that upheld it, and the next instant the pastor was ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... thrown in his path through life, no matter how high or how steep the mountain may be, but which often forsakes him the moment the summit is gained, the point of difficulty passed; and leaves him prostrated, with energies gone, nerves unstrung, and a feeling of incapacity pervading the entire frame that renders the most trifling effort ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... unpretending man—and may be said to have collected rather from the pleasure and reputation attached to such pursuits than from a thorough and keen relish of the kind of taste which it imparts. He had an ample purse, and it was most liberally unstrung when there was occasion for effectual aid. This observation may equally apply to matters out of the bibliomaniacal record; but as a book-purchaser he was considered among the most heavy-metalled and determined champions ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... "You're unstrung, Barbara," said Deveny slowly, coolly, a faint smile on his face. "I know nothing about it. I merely repeated to Gage the word Laskar brought. Laskar said this man Harlan shot your father. It happened about a day's ride out—near Sentinel Rock. If Laskar lied, he was paid ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... proximity had made him feel as he had felt in the days—fourteen years ago now—when the very streets of the city in which she lived were hallowed ground. He had supposed that emotion dead. Probably it was dead. It must be dead. It was merely that, owing to the constraint of the voyage, his nerves were unstrung, inducing the frame of mind in which people see ghosts. Yes, that was it; he had been seeing ghosts. It was not a living thing, this renewed yearning for a sight of her. It was only the reflex of something past. It ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... are unstrung. Perhaps the conclusion of my story 'll steady them. Well, the venture that was planned was no less than to take the goods in under Black Rock, and have them hauled up the face of the cliff. In the end 'twas safely done—to all but my father. He had been lowered down ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... she knew how strongly he felt from the way he had misbehaved when she introduced him to Mr. Durgin, but that she supposed he had been at the club and his nerves were unstrung. Was that the reason, perhaps, why he could not make his latchkey work? Mr. Durgin might be a cad, and she would not say he was not a jay, but so far he had not sworn at her; and, if he had been suspended and come back, there were some people who had not been suspended or ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... framed in a green trellis. When seated at the table, consulting the bill of fare, they conversed with less restraint than heretofore. He told her that the emotions and worries of the past three days had unstrung his nerves, but he no longer thought about it, and it would be absurd to worry about the matter any further. She spoke to him of her health, complaining that she could not sleep, save for a restless slumber full ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... and revealed to herself and to him as a creature whose whole life had been founded on illusion, to strive not only against his ironic authority but, worst of all, against a longing, unavowed, unlooked at, a longing that crippled and unstrung her, and that ran under everything like a hidden river under granite hills—she would die, she ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... these outside impressions often lose, I think, their sharp savours. One is preoccupied with one's own happy schemes and merry visions; the bird sings shrill within its cage, and claps its golden wings. But on such soft and languorous days as these days of early spring, when the body is unstrung, and the bonds and ties that fasten the soul to its prison are loosened and unbound, the spirit, striving to be glad, draws in through the passages of sense these swift impressions of beauty, as a thirsty child drains a cup of spring-water on a sun-scorched day, lingering over the limpid ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... We will not waste our time in discussing impossibilities. And I am really so depressed and unwell that I must return to my room. I hope to hear you are better in the morning, and I think you will be. The excitement of this night and your anxiety about the girl have unstrung your nerves, and you have lost that courage and endurance which ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... He was thoroughly unstrung. The cold, desperate mood had passed. In its place came the old feeling of desolation. He was a child, aching for sympathy. He wanted to tell his troubles. Punctuating his narrative with many gestures and an occasional gulp, he proceeded to do so. ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... already, and Ezra, with his hands folded behind him, paced twice or thrice along the room. Pausing before one of the green baize bags, he lifted it from its nail, and having untied the string that fastened it, he drew forth with great tenderness an unstrung violin, and, carrying it to the light, sat down and turned it over and over in his hands. Then he took the neck with his left hand, and, placing the instrument upright upon his knee, caressed ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... grave is laid, Untuned, unstrung, it will lie there long, If you bring flowers alone dear maid Without ...
— Verses and Rhymes by the way • Nora Pembroke
... he could have given any real reason for his emotion. But he was somewhat unstrung by the event. And a number of tumultuous feelings were stirring deeply in him. He turned hot and cold at the thought of his own possible cowardice. And then he felt a reaction of shame in the thought that after this, Van Shaw and ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... thy much-loved lyre awhile unstrung Till health again invigorate thy frame; With brain renewed, with vigorous heart and lung Take up thy work once more, and greater fame— A richer man by far than e'er before, For thou hast ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant
... must say that I can't help being surprised." He saw her lips quiver and her bosom heave. "Marcia, do you blame me for feeling hurt at your coldness when I came here to tell you—to tell you I—I love you?" With his nerves all unstrung, and his hunger for sympathy, he really believed that he had come to tell her this. "Yes," he added, bitterly, I will tell you, though it seems to be the last word I shall speak to you. ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... as it antagonized or attracted its readers. Buckle became the intellectual hero of the hour. The second volume appeared in May, 1861. And now, worn out by overwork, his delicate nerves completely unstrung by the death of his mother, who had remained his first and only love, he left England for the East, in company with the two young sons of a friend. In Palestine he was stricken with typhoid fever, and died at Damascus on May ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... Dick," she answered. "I am unstrung to-night. I said more than I meant. I swear to you ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... the turmoil, and abruptly left his father's home. Going to town he obtained a boarding-place and settled down to work. This course again failed to bring the desired results; and he found himself as restless and unstrung as when he was at home. He was not happy, could not feel he was doing his duty, and carried about with him an atmosphere of despondency that gave his friends alarm. They sympathized with him in his difficulties, but none could help him. ...
— The Hero of Hill House • Mable Hale
... Care and kindness were lavished on the delicate woman, who would scarce have needed either in her present delight; every luxury that could add to her slowly increasing strength, every attention that could quiet her fluttering and unstrung nerves, was showered on her, and for a time her brightest hopes seemed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... to rise With song of praise, unto that tuneful choir Whose harps are ne'er unstrung, and have ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... name appears, The weeping verse a sad memento bears; Ah! what avail'd the enormous blaze between Thy dawn of glory and thy closing scene! When sinking nature asks our kind repairs, Unstrung the nerves, and silver'd o'er the hairs; When stay'd reflection came uncall'd at last, And gray experience ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... smelling-salts from the chimney-piece. He hastened to obey, and found himself kneeling beside the sofa, holding the bottle to her nose. After a while she recovered sufficiently to tell him that she had not slept at all during the night, and felt extremely unwell and quite unstrung in consequence. Another fit of immoderate and tearful laughter followed, and Hyacinth, embarrassed and alarmed, fetched a tumbler of soda-water from the syphon on the sideboard. The lady refused to swallow any, and, just as he ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... in the group when the eye look'd around, And miss'd by the ear was thy voice in the sound; Thy chamber was darksome, thy bell was unrung, Thy footstep unheard, and thy lyre unstrung: A stillness prevail'd at the mournful repast; In tears was the eye on thy vacant seat cast. Each scene wearing gloom, and each brow bearing care, Too plainly denoted that death ...
— Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 475 - Vol. XVII, No. 475. Saturday, February 5, 1831 • Various
... morbid, unstrung state that the least thing startled her. But imagine if you can her wonder and terror as she saw Dennis Fleet—the dead and buried, as she fully believed—enter, carrying a picture as of old, and looking as of old, save that he was paler and thinner. Was it an apparition? or, as she had ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... sir," says poor Vickers, "I won't refer to the subject. She's been very unwell ever since. Nervous and unstrung. Go in ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... The unstrung heart to others leaves The music of a feebler woe, Her numbers are the sighs she heaves, Her off'ring tears that ever flow. Where could I gather fancies now? They 're with'ring on thy lowly tomb,— My summer ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... whispered Jim. Utterly unstrung, he gazed at that mighty, loathsome mass, listening to its snapping jaws as it took on the tons of nourishment needed for its machinelike ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... All unstrung though I was, I yet had the desperate courage to resolve that I'd not leave, defeated in the eyes of the one person whose opinion I really cared about. "Very well," said ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... all unstrung. Why couldn't you have let him come in and talk awhile? It would have been the best way to get me quieted down. But no; you must always have your own way Don't twitch me, my dear; I'd rather undress myself. You pretend to be ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... unit lying next to us, the Seventeenth Battalion, was quarantined with that terrible disease, cerebro-spinal-meningitis. For a few days we buried our lads by the dozen. Speaking for myself, my nerves were absolutely unstrung, and I am sure that most of the men were in the same condition. It can be easily understood then that when drafts were asked for, to bring up the regiments leaving for France to full strength, there was a mad ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... just now," said that lady, making an effort to smile; "forgive me, dear friends, but I am really unstrung. The thought of being hunted by that man is too horrible, after ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... spoken with anger and excitement. My nerves were all unstrung by the events of the past two days; and as I finished, my tears burst forth. I wept with passionate sobs. My father made no effort to comfort me. He sat with his chin resting on his breast, weary ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... times he tried and failed, And still that lean, persistent dog At distance, like some spirit wailed, Safe in the cover of a fog. His nerves unstrung, with many a shout He strove to frighten it away, It would not go—but roamed about, Howling, as ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... fresh misfortune, Elma sat down on the footboard with her face in her hands, and began to sob bitterly. The artist leaned over her and let her cry for a while in quiet despair. The poor girl's nerves, it was clear, were now wholly unstrung. She was brave, as women go, undoubtedly brave; but the shock and the terror of such a position as this were more than enough to terrify the bravest. At last Cyril ventured on ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... Unstrung, unmanned, almost bereft of reason, his old dissatisfaction with himself and the world overtook him—a longing to be out of it all, for forgetfulness, for peace, yea, even the peace of the ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... come out with your nerves all unstrung, and your head full of this theory of yours. Some gaunt, half-famished tramp steals after you, and seeing you run, is emboldened to pursue you. Your fears ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... as the dead body fell splashing into the pool, and Alric quietly unstrung his bow again and remounted to be ready. Then Gilbert would have ridden on, but ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... went in an uncertain mood to see either Sir Douglas or Sir William left with a sense of stalwart conviction. Both had the gift of simplifying any situation, however complex. When a certain general became unstrung during the retreat from Mons, Sir Douglas seemed to consider that his first duty was to assist this man to recover composure, and he slipped his arm through the general's and walked him up and down until composure ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... banish'd harps, unstrung, At Babylon upon the willows hung; Yours sounds aloud, and tells us you excel No less in courage, than in singing well; While, unconcern'd, you let your country know They have impoverish'd themselves, not you; 10 Who, with the ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... address with the bantering, half-apologetic, supercilious tone of those other elderly persons who had heretofore deigned to enlightened him. He was flattered and pleased at being taken seriously and bidden to think in this straightforward, manly fashion; it unstrung his reserve and medicined to his ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... connectedly; she did not realise her fears; she was almost wholly unstrung. But she had procured the fifty pounds her husband required and she waited for the night with a dull hope that all might yet be well—as well as anything so horrible could be. If only her husband were not caught in Billingsfield it would not be so bad, perhaps. ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... that look of rage in the Texan's eyes, Newt Copley was not at all disposed to repeat the trick with him. Apparently Grant's nerves had been somewhat unstrung, for when the game was again resumed he missed one of Sanger's shoots by something like a foot, and the second strike was called by the umpire. Then Rod smiled; it was barely a faint flicker, but Sanger saw it and wondered. His ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... empty now. Groups of shivering, unstrung people stood about, utterly incapable of thinking what to do next. But Peter was not there—nor ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... of a dismal night we sat waiting for the mail-boat—unstrung by anxious expectation: made wretched by the sadness of ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... were only six men, all told now, including Folsom (of course not counting Hal, who was defenseless), altogether too small a number to successfully protect so large a knot of buildings against an insidious and powerful foe, and even of these six there were two who seemed so unstrung by tidings of the massacre as to ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... and raised his clenched hand. He seemed to be nervously unstrung and for a moment to have lost ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... To this end I had chosen a peasant's house in the village of Gross-Graupen, which is half- way between Pillnitz and the border of what is known as 'Saxon Switzerland.' Frequent excursions to the Porsberg, to the adjacent Liebethaler, and to the far distant bastion helped to strengthen my unstrung nerves. While I was first planning the music to Lohengrin, I was disturbed incessantly by the echoes of some of the airs in Rossini's William Tell, which was the last opera I had had to conduct. At last I happened to hit on an effective means ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... the unusual circumstances of the last few days. The blizzard, Sir Christopher's death, Lionel's coming and terrible experience in the storm, and now this extraordinary ringing of my door-bell, which even the neighbors have heard and are inquiring about—altogether I—I am quite unstrung." ...
— Divided Skates • Evelyn Raymond
... proposal with a sudden realization of what a desperately brutal thing this unstrung creature was about to do, with a terrible arraignment of self-reproach because she had made no effort to dissuade him or place an obstacle in the way of accomplishing his design. It was not strange, thought she, with ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... has happened him. No, I'm really too unstrung by my fall to walk." She sank again to the bowlder on ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... against the wooer's suit; and she privately spoke to her daughter in order to search her mind. The daughter warmly praised her suitor for his valour; whereon the mother upbraided her sharply, that her chastity should be unstrung, and she be captivated by charming looks; and because, forgetting to judge his virtue, she cast the gaze of a wanton mind upon the flattering lures of beauty. Thus Alfhild was led to despise the young Dane; whereupon she exchanged woman's ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... its darkness hold for him, Familiar with all anguish, but with fear Still unacquainted? On his martial bier They laid a sword, a helmet, and a crown— Meed of the warrior, but not these among His voiceless lyre, whose silent chords unstrung Shall wait—how ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... permissible, and even right—and in this view he has plenty of support): God; road; last, waste; taught, not; break, cheek (two instances); ground, moaned; both, youth; rise, arise; song, stung; steel, fell; light, delight; part, depart; wert, heart; wrong, tongue; brow, so; moan, one; crown, tone; song, unstrung; knife, grief; mourn, burn; dawn, moan; bear, bear; blot, thought; renown, Chatterton; thought, not; approved, reproved; forth, earth; nought, not; home, tomb; thither, together; wove, of; riven, heaven. These are 34 instances of irregularity. The number ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... that the smallest of bows should sometimes be unstrung, and that if my little arrows are flimsy and light they will, ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... on the flat-topped division of the seat, a pistol lay; but the fingers of the small white hand which held it were nerveless. In his bearing was no menace—only the unstrung droop ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann |
