"Bent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... too large, as may be readily understood, though it did not seem at a casual glance that the members had become deformed. The hands were dry and angular, but the nails, although a little bent inward toward the root, had preserved all their freshness. The only very noticeable change was the excessive depression of the abdominal walls, which seemed crowded downward to the posterior side; at the right, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... against the lurching, and he found a relief in the roar as the great train swept across a foaming river. They had been detained at a junction during the afternoon, and the engineer was evidently bent on making ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... the question of his admissibility to the charge had hung all that while between the Walloon Synods of the United Provinces and the French Protestant Church Courts, the latter on the whole favouring him, the former more and more bent on disgracing him. In April of the present year a Walloon Synod at Tergou had actually passed on him a sentence of suspension from the ministerial office and from the holy communion "until by a sincere repentance of his sins he shall have repaired so many scandals ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... the most elementary precautions, and unconsciously assumed false generalisations. Even now most young students would, if left to themselves, fall into the old errors. For criticism is antagonistic to the normal bent of the mind. The spontaneous tendency of man is to yield assent to affirmations, and to reproduce them, without even clearly distinguishing them from the results of his own observation. In every-day life do we not accept indiscriminately, without any kind of verification, ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... bare ground and mount to the clouds. As it came nearer, and the figures became more discernible, it was seen that the caravan was headed by a band of armed horsemen. The animals were jaded and fatigued, and walked with their heads low down and their knees bent out of shape and form. Their riders seemed as exhausted as the animals themselves, and they carried their dust-begrimed guns in anything but military fashion. Behind them came hundreds, nay, thousands, of wagons, of all shapes and builds, ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... Napoleon was bent solely on the invasion of England, why should he in June, 1805, have offered to Russia and Austria so gratuitous an affront as the annexation of the Ligurian Republic? He must have known that this ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... The student bent over Delphine and said in her ear, "Do you want to know? Very well, then, you shall know. Your father has nothing left to pay for the shroud that they will lay him in this evening. Your watch has been pawned, for ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... the wall; she is poorly dressed; her age is between forty and fifty; her forehead is bound with a red checkered handkerchief, from which hang meshes of uncombed hair. The face is red and the eyes blurred, and she moves with her look bent down on the ground. Her right hand is in her pocket, or in the bosom of her half-unbuttoned dress; in the other hand she holds one of the high, narrow tin cans in which milk is carried in Paris, but which now, in ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... posted on the circuit of it would have been four rods distant from his neighbor. Besides, the store of powder in the fort, as well as in the city, was small. No relief or assistance could be expected, while daily great numbers on foot and on horseback, from New England, joined the English, hotly bent upon plundering the place. Savages and privateers also offered their services against us. Six hundred Northern Indians with one hundred and fifty French privateers, had even an English commission. Therefore upon the earnest request ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor
... youngster stood in the door and bent an approving gaze on the big pinto as he swung out across the pasture lot. The boy's face was small and quizzical, a shaggy mop of tawny hair hanging so low upon his forehead that his mild blue eyes peered forth from under the fringe of it and gave him the air of a surprised ...
— The Settling of the Sage • Hal G. Evarts
... wife; and I am sure I set her the example of moderation myself in being satisfied with the old Butler. If the part is trifling she will have more credit in making something of it; and if she is so desperately bent against everything humorous, let her take Cottager's speeches instead of Cottager's wife's, and so change the parts all through; he is solemn and pathetic enough, I am sure. It could make no difference in the play, and ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... of a bear, the raccoon, comes out of his den in the ledges, and leaves his sharp digitigrade track upon the snow,—traveling not unfrequently in pairs,—a lean, hungry couple, bent on pillage and plunder. They have an unenviable time of it,—feasting in the summer and fall, hibernating in winter, and starving in spring. In April I have found the young of the previous year creeping around the fields, so reduced by starvation ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... chin on his hand and looked across the vales and hills, where the feathery gray of leafless hardwoods was mingled with the sturdy, unfailing green of the conebearers. He was a tall, bent man, with thin, gray hair, a lined face, and deeply-set, gentle brown eyes—the eyes of one who, looking ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... morrow," said Gaston with flashing eyes. "We will rise with the sun — or before it — and go to him ere his day's work is begun. He will surely find time to talk with us when he hears the errand upon which we come. I trow now that when he has sat at our board, and has bent upon our faces those glances I have not known how to read aright, he has been wondering how long it would be ere we should awake to the knowledge that this peasant life is not the life of the De Brocas race, guessing that we should come to him for counsel and instruction ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... knowing the home condition of his pupils; but it is important here, in passing, to emphasize the point that even though a child were never to live with its parents it could be understood by the teacher acquainted with the peculiar traits of those parents. "Born with a bent" is a proverb of such force that it cannot be ignored. To know the parental heritage of a boy is to anticipate his reaction to stimuli—is to know what approach to ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion
... maintained a silence as impassive as the dead on his left, a gravity as inscrutable as that of the newly born on his right. Only one incident occurred to break the monotony of the curious procession. As Kentuck bent over the candle-box half curiously, the child turned, and, in a spasm of pain, caught at his groping finger, and held it fast for a moment. Kentuck looked foolish and embarrassed. Something like a blush tried to assert itself in his weather-beaten cheek. "The damned little cuss!" he said, ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... the Gods that heard not, By fits that found no favor in their sight, By faces bent above the babe that stirred not, By nameless horrors of the stifling night; By ills foredone, by peace her toils discover, Bid Earth be good beneath ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... a distinct, hollow, metallic, and clangorous, yet apparently muffled reverberation. Completely unnerved, I leaped to my feet; but the measured rocking movement of Usher was undisturbed. I rushed to the chair on which he sat. His eyes were bent fixedly before him, and throughout his whole countenance there reigned a stony rigidity. But, as I placed my hand upon his shoulder, there came a strong shudder over his whole person; a sickly smile quivered about ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... fortunes he still took a friendly interest. During the whole of that solemn and anxious period each individual of the tribe kept his place, in the most self-restrained patience. When the old man spoke, all bent their heads to listen; and when his words were uttered, they seemed to ponder ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... qualification. He was bent on something more important than the satisfaction of his own personal honour. "And now," he said, with deliberate purpose, "I am going to have a ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... the waiting-room came to the door, and gazed after them as they moved away towards the carriage which stood in waiting. They made a handsome pair, and Hugo looked particularly lover-like as he gave the girl his arm and bent his head to listen to what she had to say. But Kitty's words were not loving; they were only ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... hair like a boy's. And the two sported in the distance, under the stairs, on the stairs, and up in the gallery. Old Jolyon begged for Chopin. She played studies, mazurkas, waltzes, till the two children, creeping near, stood at the foot of the piano their dark and golden heads bent forward, listening. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... she passed out and into another bar. Here sat a military man drinking with his wife. 'Will you buy a "War Cry"'? she asked. 'No,' came the rough answer. Then turning to the wife, an appeal was made. In a nervous, confused way the woman bent her head low, and sought for a penny for the paper. The husband seemed touched by his wife's action which may have called to mind their better days. 'Well, miss, I couldn't buy a "War Cry," as I like my beer, and I don't want to be a ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter
... nothing at all to do with it? Is it not considered rather the correct thing to be 'High' in views, and even to manifest an Ultramontane tendency? There is a rather too evident determination to go to the extreme—the girls are clearly bent upon thrusting themselves to the very front of the parish, so that no one shall be talked of but the Misses ——. Anything is seized upon, that will afford an opening for posing before the world of the parish, whether ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... Seeing that she was bent on staying, Mr. Pelz prepared to sleep by putting a few chairs next to the trunk, and Hanneh Breineh was invited to share the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... a laboring oar, that toils in the surf of the ocean, Bent, but not broken, by age was the form of the notary public; Shocks of yellow hair, like the silken floss of the maize, hung Over his shoulders; his forehead was high; and glasses with horn bows Sat astride on his nose, with a look of wisdom supernal. Father ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... lay over harder than she had yet done, it seemed as though the mast were bent on touching the water. Halstead had to halt in his climbing, satisfied to hold on ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock
... presence, and was admitted to sup at the royal table; as if, even at the very moment when he might have been expected to conduct himself with some degree of respectful decency to the pure-minded young girl whom he was receiving into his family, Louis XV. was bent on exhibiting to the whole world his incurable shamelessness in its most ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... She bent over the man who belonged to the woman alone in her and whose power over her would be exerted as ruthlessly as her own should be over herself. He looked a very gallant gentleman as he lay there, and he had been a very brave soldier. His own place was ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... breakfast for a breath of garden air, they saw John March a short way off, trying to lift the latch of Parson Tombs's low front gate. He tried thrice and again, but each time he bent down the beautiful creature he rode would rear until it seemed as if she must certainly fall back upon her rider. The pastor had come out on his gallery, where he stood, all smiles, waiting for John to win in the pretty strife, which the ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... childhood and youth I try to define to myself wherein I differed from my brothers and from other boys in the neighborhood, or wherein I showed any indication of the future bent of my mind. I see that I was more curious and alert than most boys, and had more interests outside my special duties as a farm boy. I knew pretty well the ways of the wild bees and hornets when I was only a small lad. I knew the ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... figure tore loose from gripping claws. Chet saw it; he freed himself for an instant to leap to her side. She was tugging at a bar of gold, a scepter in the hands of a sculptured figure in the wall. It would have been a serviceable weapon, but it bent slowly. Another of the beasts was upon ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin
... impressive in this ghastly spectacle was the fact that each of the skeletons, though deprived of every rag of clothing, still wore a gold ring, too wide now that the flesh had disappeared, but held, as in hooks, by the bent joints ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... the other; and then laughing again, in his own vacant and unmeaning manner, he bent his eyes with a species of stupid wonder on Faith, in whose appearance there was far less change, than in the speaking but wasted countenance of her ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... how the wrist-band was puckered and bent back a trifle so that the contents of the sleeve would not pass out so easily, suppose you now pucker the wrist-band rather tightly, and suppose there is a forcible descent of sand in the sleeve, the natural result would be a bulging out ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... the Iroquois warriors, instead of turning their steps homewards, flocked, in large numbers, into the village of the Illinois. They were evidently bent upon picking a quarrel. They swaggered through the streets, insulted the women, trampled the corn-fields, and went even so far as to disinter, and knock about the ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... among the branches, was screened from his view by the light leafage, and the pale greenish tones of her cotton gown helped her to escape notice. Accordingly, she bent forward and peeped through the leaves, laughing to herself as she saw his eyes turned upward, ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... She bent her head and blushed. He tried again to look at her beaming eyes and golden complexion, and for sheer joy of being followed up she ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... years. Corn is scarce, there is a lack of herbage, and nothing is left to eat: when any one calls upon his neighbours for help, they take pains not to go. The child weeps, the young man is uneasy, the hearts of the old men are in despair, their limbs are bent." ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... knotted, his right fist occasionally striking his left palm. Finally he comes to a stand in front of her.) Winifred, I—— (He raises his arms slowly at right angles to his body and lets them fall heavily down again.) I can't. (In a low, hoarse voice) I—can't! (He stands for a moment with bent head; then with a jerk he pulls himself together.) Good-bye! (His hands go out to her, but he draws them back as if frightened to ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... he knew from the first he would do, braced himself in the aperture, and sang the one verse that he knew of the song again and again—his voice rough and unmusical as that of a crow, echoing and re-echoing in the narrow space—bent over at last, touched his bearded lips softly to the winsome, motionless brown face, climbed, an irresistible catch in his breath, silently to the surface, sent one swift glance sweeping the bare earth around him, and returned ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... reason for wishing to change thy master's livery for the dress of a common boatman. Thou art far more comely with those silken flowers than in this faded velveteen; and if I have ever said aught in commendation of its appearance, it was because we were bent on merry-making, and being one of the party, it would have been churlish to have withheld a word of praise to a companion, who, as thou knowest, does not dislike a civil ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... (though it can well be sung by a mezzo), and Adriano, son of a patrician, a mezzo-soprano (almost a contralto part)—which would be amazing did we not know Wagner's aim. A woman-man carries us back to the days of Handel and Gluck, and shows how little sincere Wagner was at the time, how absorbingly bent he was on tickling the ears of the Parisians. The villains of the piece, Colonna and Orsini, with their patrician followers, are true stage-villains of melodrama in some situations—proud, determined, unsparing; but in other situations they whine in a very ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... Shakespeare's genius, as everyone knows) should have taken so deep an impression from the play that its theme possessed him and he longed to transfer it to Epic, is credible enough. That he, with his classical bent, should choose to attempt in Drama an improvement upon the most "classical" of all Shakespeare's tragedies seems to me scarcely credible. But if the credibility of this be granted, then I can only conceive Milton's designing to ...
— Poetry • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... made a mistake," the boys heard her say. She gazed along the road but no one was in view. Retracing her steps she bent over the baskets. ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... movement was afoot, and more than once his new friends asked him its nature, but he replied truthfully that he did not know. In the throb of great action Winchester disappeared from his thoughts. Every faculty was bent upon the plans of Jackson, ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... greater part of the alienation of feeling which underlay the Revolution was due not to political causes, but to the economic policy already described, by which American commerce and industry were bent to the interests ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... homeward in the faint twilight glow. He left her at the church gate, and himself turned away, back toward the house of Nicodemus, walking with bent head and broad shoulders bowed. But his face was not all sombre; something of the courage he had given her remained to him, and his eyes were softened with the new tenderness which still lived. For it is one of the compensations as well as of the penalties of life, ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... man's bent face quite curiously, and, judging from its rather heavy but still not unprepossessing outline, I could not really call it a bad face, or even a sulky one. And yet both managers and hands had given me a bad account of Tim Hibblethwaite. "Surly Tim," they ...
— "Surly Tim" - A Lancashire Story • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of chromous chloride must therefore be freed from the zinc by filtration in the absence of air. For this purpose the reduction is carried on in a flask fitted up like a washing bottle. The long tube is bent down outside the flask, and is here provided with a small bulb tube containing glass wool or asbestos. The hydrogen gas liberated during reduction is at first let escape through this tube; afterward its outer end is closed, and it is pressed ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... amongst the gorgeous uniforms of Cossack Atamans and Russian generals. They seemed to take not the slightest interest in the proceedings except for a few moments when certain of my words were being translated. All seemed bent on the business of the evening and a good dinner, indicating a return to normal conditions. A Social Revolutionary representative of the town delivered a furious tirade, which I could get my officer to translate only in part, but ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... you no of any firm or corporation who need a good reliable man please notify me I want get out of the south. I cant live on the salary I am getting I am not so bent on coming to Chicago. But anywhere up that way where there is an opening for labor please attend to this matter at once. I can do any kind of common labor please let me hear from you at your earliest convenience. I take the Defender every week I see where southern people ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... himself, and returning to his work with an ill will, Rob went on with the word. As he bent his head down, the person for whose information he so unconsciously laboured, moved from the door behind him to within a short stride of his shoulder, and looked eagerly towards the creeping track of his hand upon the table. At the same time, Alice, from her ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... rebel leaders. This the old man opposed, when the feeling against him became so intense that he was compelled to retire. He counselled mercy, good faith, and forgiveness. To-day, the men who had called him a traitor, saw him among the family mourners, bent with grief. All these are waiting in solemn lines, standing erect, with a space of several feet between them and the coffin, and there is no bustle nor unseemly curiosity, not a whisper, not a footfall—only the collected nation looking with ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... defeat Though it hath come upon him, Conrad met The sentence of the law. But its full force He fail'd to estimate; the stern restraint On liberty of movement, coarsest fare, Stripes for the contumacious, and for all Labor, and silence. The inquiring glance On the new-comer bent, from stolid eyes Of malefactors, harden'd to their lot, And hating all mankind, he coldly shunn'd Or haughtily return'd. Yet there were lights Even in this dark abode, not often found In penal regions, where the wrath of man ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... would be out of proportion to the decrease in the power of Thebes which our interests demand. For it is, of course, out of the question that we should desire merely to substitute the rivalry of Sparta for that of Thebes: that is not the object upon which we are bent. Our object is rather that neither people shall be capable of doing us any injury. That is what will best enable us to live ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... ivory, bronze, glass and other substances. Sometimes, the ends were decorated by various ornaments. As a rule only one side of the material was written upon. This was due largely to the fact of its brittle character which would cause it to break if rolled or bent ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... education, at the Charterhouse School and at Cambridge, was neither a happy nor a profitable experience, as we judge from his unflattering picture of English school life in Pendennis. He had a strongly artistic bent, and after leaving college studied art in Germany and France. Presently he lost his fortune by gambling and bad investments, and was confronted by the necessity of earning his living. He tried the law, but gave it up because, as he said, it had no soul. He tried illustrating, having ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... answer. Germain bent over her. She was sleeping. She had fallen back, overcome, stricken down, as it were, by slumber, as children are who sleep before ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... time I saw in the corridor leading to our old ship, where the darkness was only partially broken by our lights, a dark-headed grinning man who was bent nearly double with ...
— The Winged Men of Orcon - A Complete Novelette • David R. Sparks
... This was in Puna, Hawaii; the performance was by women only and was without instrumental accompaniment. The actors were seated in a half-reclining position, or kneeling. Their arms, as if in imitation of a maimed person, were bent at the elbows and doubled up, so that their gestures were made with the upper arms. The mele they cantillated went ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... unconscious cadet clear and laid him on the ground. Dropping the limb, Connel bent down to examine the boy. He ran his fingers along Roger's spine, feeling the bones one by one through the skin-tight jungle suit. Finally he straightened and shook his head. "I can't tell anything," he said. "We'll have to take him back to Sinclair's right away." ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell
... cranial capacity of the creatures was not small, as was evidenced by enormous bulges at the back of their heads. They walked on two legs but with a peculiar slouch, the torso inclined forward from the hips, and their eyes bent perpetually on the ground. Their arms were long and at times they bent forward so much that it appeared almost as though they were going on all fours. A close examination of their hands would have shown that it was impossible for them to hold a needle between the ...
— B. C. 30,000 • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... duration in the history of the world's kingdoms, we shall find in their rulers a remarkable contrast of varying policy and temper. Few governments, indeed, last so long. But in the few which have so lasted we find one sovereign bent on war, another on peace, another on accumulating treasure, another on spending it; one given up to selfish pleasures, here and there a ruler who reigns only for the good of others. But in Gregory's more than sixty ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... when the field Is sown with wrong the ripened fruit is death So this seer Of temper'd wisdom, of unsullied honour, Just, good, and pious, and a mighty prophet, In despite to his better judgment join'd With men of impious daring, bent to tread The long, irremeable way, with them Shall, if high Jove assist us, be ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... hair: his beard was prematurely blue; and he would have liked to let it grow, that, as a comic mask, he might always keep the company laughing. For the rest, he was neat and nimble, but insisted that he had bandy legs, which everybody granted, since he was bent on having it so, but about which many a joke arose; for, since he was in request as a very good dancer, he reckoned it among the peculiarities of the fair sex, that they always liked to see bandy legs on the floor. His cheerfulness was indestructible, ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... carancho and a skunk. Riding home one afternoon, he spied a skunk "shuffling along in the erratic manner usual to that odoriferous quadruped;" following it at a very short distance was an eagle-vulture, evidently bent on mischief. Every time the bird came near the bushy tail rose menacingly; then the carancho would fall behind, and, after a few moments' hesitation, follow on again. At length, growing bolder, it sprung forward, seizing the threatening tail with its claw, but immediately after "began staggering ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... came to him, swept him away in a fierce tide of madness; he bent suddenly down and whispered into her ear. They were words that never in Thyrsis' life had ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... one with bent brows, and with deep eyes full of visions, he conceived such an ambition as had perhaps never before entered into the heart of man. It was that this child might grow up to achieve some wonderful thing, as he himself had done, for the advancement of his people. Of this baby, child of the woman toward ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... wife an' me, Bent o'er that suff'rin child, Shoo luk'd at mammy, an' at me, Then shut her ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... in again. The boy did not see him as he was partly turned from the opening. He threaded a rusty needle, and proceeded to patch his coat. Joe could see the anxious puckers in his face as he bent ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various
... bent my mind, to see if in any way I could by any certain proof convict the Manichees of falsehood. Could I once have conceived a spiritual substance, all their strongholds had been beaten down, and cast utterly out of my mind; ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... true, a wild brain of his own; Such youth as they cannot see when they are well: He is all bent to travail, that's his reason, And doth not love to eat his ...
— Cromwell • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... instances. I had once an opportunity of inspecting two oxen, a few minutes after they were killed by lightning under a crab-tree on moist ground in long grass; and observed, that they could not have struggled, as the grass was not pressed or bent near them; I have also seen two horses shot through the cerebellum, who never once drew in their legs after they first stretched them out, but died instantaneously; in a similar manner the lungs seem to be rendered instantly inanimate by the fumes ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... pulsation of the earthquake quivered through the ground. A heavy tile, shaken from the roof, fell and struck the old man on the temple. He lay breathless and pale, with his gray head resting on the young girl's shoulder, and the blood trickling from the wound. As she bent over him, fearing that he was dead, there came a voice through the twilight, very small and still, like music sounding from a distance, in which the notes are clear but the words are lost. The girl turned to see if some one had spoken from the window ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... Whilst to take order for the wrongs I went, That here and there his fury had committed. Anon, I wot not by what strong escape, He broke from those that had the guard of him; And, with his mad attendant and himself, Each one with ireful passion, with drawn swords, Met us again, and, madly bent on us, Chased us away; till, raising of more aid, We came again to bind them: then they fled Into this abbey, whither we pursued them: And here the abbess shuts the gates on us, And will not suffer ...
— The Comedy of Errors • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... safe distance William Henshaw turned and looked back. His knees were shaking, and his fingers had grown cold at their tips. He could see her plainly, as she bent over the basket in her lap. He could see even the pretty curve of her cheek, and of her slender throat when ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... of the warriors bent upon annihilating Mike was diverted by the intriguing spectacle of this strange four-armed creature refusing to be clubbed to death. So Mike was able to get in some telling blows that felled three more of ...
— Before Egypt • E. K. Jarvis
... his death he came to Governors Island for the purpose of ascertaining in what line of work he could be most useful in building up sound public opinion in favor of such preparedness as would give us a real peace insurance. His mind was bent on devoting his energies and abilities to the work of public education on this vitally important subject, and few men were better qualified to do so, for he had served as a military ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... Zouaves in the Crimea,—âmes perdus, the most reckless before the enemy, the most licentious in the camp. These were merry fellows, launching witty shafts against Austrians, Pope, and Cardinals,—maladetti tutti, and good-humoured gibes at their comrade, who, standing in an embrasure, bent his back with laudable patience to the right angle for an easel, while my friend was making sketches of the rocky islets and lateen-sail vessels reflected on the mirror-like sea, or of the amphitheatre of mountains at the foot of which ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... a child, and knew not whence My being came, nor where to turn its powers, Up to the sun I bent my wilder'd eye, As though above, within its glorious orb, There dwelt an ear to listen to my plaint, A heart, like ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... packet of letters, he drew out one bearing the imprint of the First National Bank of Little Arcady. The crowd, pressing closer, was cheerfully animated. From down the street on both sides anxious looks were bent upon the scene by many of ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... as essential to his health. We shall make abundant extracts from the letters which begin at this date, convinced that his own words will not only afford the best evidence of the strength of the interior pressure on him, but will show also its unique and constant bent. ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... They went as far as Chalons to see if perhaps all this were true and not a fable; and no doubt stood astonished to see her ride by, to hear all the marvellous tales that were told of her, and to assure themselves that it was truly Jeanne upon whom, more than upon the King, every eye was bent. This small scene in the midst of so many great ones would probably have been the most interesting of all had it been told us at any length. The peasant travellers surrounded her with wistful questions, with wonder and admiration. Was she never afraid among all those risks of ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... blythely bent To mind baith saul an' body, Sit round the table, weel content, An' steer about the toddy. On this ane's dress, an' that ane's leuk, They're making observations; While some are cozie i' the neuk, An' formin' assignations To ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... bound to come; he had tried by every possible means to wake it from its sleep and had failed; and when the great war came as he said it would, he offered no word in the way of reproach or self glorification, but bent all his energies to help his Empire to his utmost in the hour of her greatest need. And although he "passed over" before victory had come to us, he had seen enough to know that the ultimate result would bring security to the Empire and freedom to ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... the swing and easy spring of the dancer, and she reached out to feel the bit lightly with an unspoiled mouth and to feel my hands, and she raised her lean head and sniffed the air for her own kind that we were after. Were we not horse-hunting? She bent her neck and went as delicately as ever Agag went, and then bounded lightly over a hole in the rotten ground of the great horse-paddock. She and I were partners in the morning as the dawn came up. ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... to which the Academician compared her, she lacked statuesque repose. She bent her body like a reed, or spun around like a weather-vane, or danced like a top. Her features possessed even greater mobility, and in consequence were even less statuesque. They were lighted up beautifully by five dimples: two on one cheek, one on the other, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... father, and the young lady visitor bent down and kissed first his hand and then his forehead. Then they greeted the twins, who in their black dresses were looking fresher and sweeter than ever. They had overlooked Paul, who stood at the door and fingered ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... from behind us. Aggie had just time to sit on a bank—and her feet—before it came in sight. It was a long, low, bright-green car and there were four men in it. They were bent forward, looking ahead, except one man who sat so he could see ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Alaric bent his head and was silent for a moment. "It is a fair price," he said, "and I will pay it. Tell me the way to take the city, and I will leave at your command a troop of soldiers sufficient to work your ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... icy cold yet prudent, the laundress returned to Lantier's room. He had gone to sleep again. She bent over him and murmured: ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... So I bent my head quite close to her; and she whispered in my ear, "Goo of a marning, thee girt soft. Her can't get out of an avening now, her hath zent word to ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... two sons were still holding high revelry outside. They met him with impartial violence, but Ned bent forward with a smile of good-humoured defiance, and went on his ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... lady, listening, bent lower over the frame before her. She knew so much more of the Governor than Lael ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... saloon got a-fire when ev'rybody was asleep—how the chief turned out the camp, and after the barkeeper got out the door, how the chief rushed in an' rolled out all three of the barrels, and then went dead-bent fur the river with his clothes all a-blazin'? Whar'd we hev been for a couple of weeks ef it ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... was so true that Margaret did not answer at all. Besides, the buttering process was finished, and it was time for the hot water. She went to the ugly stationary washstand and bent over it, while the maid kept her hair from her face. Alphonsine spoke again when she was sure that her mistress ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... Oxford he had broken away from his studies in 1569 to help the Protestant princes as a gentleman volunteer in France, and he took part in the famous battle of Jarnac. He is supposed to have fought in France for six years. From early youth his mind was "bent on military glory," and always in opposition to Spain. His escape from the bloody Vespers of Saint Bartholomew had given him a deep distrust of the policy of Rome. The Spaniard had "abused and tormented" the wretched inhabitants of Flanders. ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... follows. It was refreshing to be able to sit down every evening with the Makololo again, and tell them of Him who came down from heaven to save sinners. The unmerciful toil of the steamer prevented me from following my bent as I should have done. Poor fellows! they have learnt no good from their contact with slavery; many have imbibed the slave spirit; many had married slave-women and got children. These I did not expect to return, as they were captives of Sekeletu, and were ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... to go they had hardly exchanged a dozen words. As he held, her hand closely, half doubting his right, she raised her face to him simply, and he kissed her white forehead. When he bent over her mother's hand it was ...
— The Courting Of Lady Jane • Josephine Daskam
... isolated, cooped within its own narrow circle of ideas, buoyed up by its own hopes, bent on the attainment of its own special aims. The first step towards amalgamation was negative in character, but superlatively politic. It took the form of a covenant by which it was stipulated that none ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... it seemed to us as if there were really two folk before us: the stern old mother with her hand up like an ear-trumpet, and her flouncing, bouncing daughter. Her great figure danced about with a wonderful lightness, and she tossed her head and pouted her lips as she answered back to the old, bent figure that addressed her. Jim and I had forgotten our tears, and were holding our ribs before she came to ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... among wretches who were pursuing such a course made me feel very wretched. The next morning I accompanied Fairburn down to the vessel. I was indeed surprised with the appearance she presented. Indeed, she required little more than to get her sails bent and her stores on board to be ready for sea. She mounted four carronades, and one long brass gun amidships, besides numerous swivels on her bulwarks, to enable her to contend in every way with any piratical prahus we might encounter. ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... great deal of fun "making believe," all to myself. I made believe my mamma had said I might go somewhere, and off I would go, thinking, as I crept along by the fence, bent almost double for fear of being seen, "Prehaps she'll tie me to the ...
— Aunt Madge's Story • Sophie May
... heart was beating so that he could not speak, but he bent and kissed her. And there they sat for half an hour more, close in each other's embrace, speaking no words, but losing themselves in kisses that ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... profess to adore every pretty woman," Leon added abruptly. "But, my dear sister, what a charming ladies' maid you have!" He approached the corner, where Anielka sat, and bent on her a coarse familiar smile. Anielka, although a serf, was displeased, and returned it with a glance full of dignity. But when her eyes rested on the youth's handsome face, a feeling, which had been ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various
... the bargain rose, greatly awed and pleased by the silence and dignity of the financier who apparently remained for a moment discussing their proposals without gesture and in a tone too low for them to hear, while his manager bent over ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... Morfed," I said, for he had stayed his words on that, and I bent all my mind into that command as it were, so that he knew that I meant to ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... by letting it fall on the stones. But these were the crystals of which Dale was in search, and as he saw that his companion was patiently plodding on and making his way over the sharp, rough masses of stone with which the ravine was floored, he bent to his task patiently, though it seemed as though they would never reach the spot ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... bit of luck, our falling in with that examining magistrate and his Registrar, eh? What did I tell you about that revolver?" His head was bent down, he had his hands in his pockets, and he was whistling. After a while I heard ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... curious, when a man is bent upon play, by what clumsy rogues he will allow himself to be cheated," Dobbin said; and Emmy said, "Indeed." She was thinking of something else. It was not the loss of the money ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... favoured me with a commission to write a comedy for him, and the subject proposed by him is again the French novel of L'Heretiere, which turns out to be a literal translation of The Inheritance. He is quite bent upon having Miss Pratt on the stage. I have not chosen to give Monsieur Laporte any positive answer on the subject without previously applying to yourself to know whether you have any intention or inclination to apply to the stage those admirable talents which ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... supolies us with the first important contributions to aesthetic theory, though these are scarcely, in quality or in quantity, what one might nave expected from a people which had so high an appreciation of beauty and so strong a bent for philosophic speculation. The first Greek thinker of whose views on the subject we really know something is Socrates. We learn from Xenophon's account of him that he regarded the beautiful as coincident with the good, and ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... which Maurice only distinguished an exceedingly pretty bright face, and a quantity of fair hair, together with a sort of soft feminine atmosphere which seemed all at once to brighten the dull room as she went straight up to her grandfather's sofa, and bent down ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... was very much alarmed at his perilous position, when suddenly a Buddhist priest appeared before him, with clasped hands and bent head, who bade him not be alarmed, as with Heaven's assistance he would soon disperse the water. Hereupon the priest recited a short prayer or spell, and the waters receded as rapidly as they had risen, and finally returned to their ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... and serve on hot, toasted Bent's biscuit. Take a quarter of a pound of ripe, dark Roquefort cheese and rub with a piece of butter the size of a walnut until smooth, adding a teaspoonful of Worcestershire sauce and a wineglassful of sherry, with a pinch of paprika, rubbing until it is smooth. This is best mixed ...
— Bohemian San Francisco - Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining. • Clarence E. Edwords
... ribbons flew out behind like the streamers from a mast-head, and the many fancy fixin's she had donned fluttered in the air in gayest mockery. Eventually she was thrown however, but without the least injury to herself, but somewhat disordered in raiment. When I saw Bennett he was standing half bent over laughing in almost hysterical convulsion at the entirely impromptu circus which had so suddenly performed an act not on the program. Arcane was much pleased and laughed heartily when he saw no one was hurt. We did not think the cattle had so much life and so little sense as to waste ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... peculiarities of the group to which A, B, or C belongs? It would never occur to A, B, or C to skulk from shadow to shadow of a night, with paint-pot and brush in hand, and to smear Arabic numerals of bill-poster size on sidewalk or buildings, if "class spirit" did not add stimulus to individual bent. Neither A, B, nor C would go out of his way to flatter and cajole a Freshman, if membership in a fraternity did not make a student something different from an individual. These are merely familiar cases which follow a ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... took place, in which each communed with each, and by words of faith or affection helped to supply the strength which all needed for the approaching conflict. One saw no longer and heard no longer the enthusiastic disputant more bent upon victory than truth, and heedless of the wounds he gave to the heart, provided he convinced the head or silenced the tongue, but instead, those who now appeared no other than a company of neighbors and friends engaged in the promotion ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... understands how much it means to me. And I shall be proud—ah, yes, wherever I am, I shall be proud of Peter. You see, he didn't really care about being a success, for of course he knows that Uncle Larry will leave him a great deal of money one of these days. But I am such a vain little cat—so bent on making a noise in the world, —that, I think, he did it more to please my vanity than anything else. I nagged him, frightfully, you know," Stella confessed, "but he was always—oh, so dear about it, Rob! And he has never ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... mask, and show himself as he was at some time when she had no other trouble to weigh her down. Still she chid his gloomy reserve, his absent air, and mechanical movements. Was he weak, if under such influences his fixed resolves bent?—if his nerves felt the old thrill?—if his voice took a softer tone?—and if he parted from her with something of his former tenderness? He tried to excuse himself to his conscience by the plea, that ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... Lana's hand and bent over it. "I am indebted to you for a charming evening." He stood erect and his demeanor of manly sincerity removed every suggestion of sarcasm from the conventional phrase he had spoken quietly. "The charm, Senator Corson, has outweighed ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... and the natives, who knew too well the devastation that was to follow, fled right and left through the woods in order to save their property, leaving us alone in the midst of the howling storm. The trees around us bent before the blast like willows, and we were about to flee in order to seek shelter, when the teacher ran toward us with a knife in ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... ruffians who watch his every movement, of whom he stands in deadly terror, and whom he dreads as almost divining his most secret thoughts. A direct query as to present politics would fail in every case. As well try to catch Thames trout with a bent pin, or shoot snipe with a bow and arrow. My plan has been to lounge about brandishing a big red guide-book, a broad-brimmed hat, and an American accent; speaking of antiquities, shortest roads to famous spots, occasionally shmoking my clay dhudeen with the ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... mean and dingy room would have seen a Jew with bent body and furrowed countenance, and with every appearance of age, weakness, and disease chained by the arm to a Roman soldier. But it is impossible that, had they deigned to look closer, they should not also have seen the gleam of genius and enthusiasm, ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... In the Belvedere she was in constant dread of Caesar's poison, and it is indeed a wonder that she did escape it. She made an unsuccessful attempt at flight, whereupon Alexander had her removed to the castle of S. Angelo. However, certain French gentlemen in the service of the one who was bent on her destruction—especially Ivo d'Allegre—interceded for her; and the Pope, after she had spent a year and a half in captivity, allowed her to choose Florence for her asylum. He himself commended her to the ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... We are born with a thirst for pleasure; we learn that pain alone is felt. We ask health; and having it, never notice it till it is gone. In the ardent pursuit of enjoyment, we waste our capacity of appreciation. Every sweet we gain is sauced with a bitter. Our eyes forever bent on the future, which can never be ours, we fritter away the present, which alone we possess. Ere we have got ourselves ready to live, we must die. Fooling ourselves even here, we represent death as the portal to joy unspeakable; and forthwith discredit our words by avoiding it ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... brothers were in the Southern army, and women, alas! whose brothers would be in one army, and their sons in another. That was the part of it which was most heartrending in this border land. In New England and New York men's minds at any rate were bent all in the same direction—as doubtless they were also in Georgia and Alabama. But here fathers were divided from sons, and mothers from daughters. Terrible tales were told of threats uttered by one member of a family against another. Old ties of friendship were broken up. Society had so divided ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... kind and unkind to Richard in those next few breathless minutes. An old football player, his bent head and iron shoulder were sufficient for the commissionaires, and, plunging directly Across the pavement and the street, he leapt into a taxi which was crawling along in the direction ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... conscious that its own warmth was permeating hers, would strive to become one with her, and I would awake. The rest of humanity seemed very remote in comparison with this woman whose company I had left but a moment ago: my cheek was still warm with her kiss, my body bent beneath the weight of hers. If, as would sometimes happen, she had the appearance of some woman whom I had known in waking hours, I would abandon myself altogether to the sole quest of her, like people who set out on a journey to see with ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... He penetrated the underbrush, noting where the broken branches had been bent upright after the forced entrance of the car, the better to hide it. The young inventor was, seeking some clew to discover the owner of the machine. To this end he climbed up in the tonneau and ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton
... all that night lay on the face of the water to cleare: so that we might perceiue about a mile from vs, a certaine place cleare from any yce, to the which with an easie breath of wind which our God sent vs, we bent our selues. And furthermore, hee prouided better for vs then we deserued or hoped for: for when we were in the foresaid cleare place, he sent vs a fresh gale at West or at West Southwest, which set vs cleare without all the yce. And further he added more: for he sent vs so pleasant ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt |
