"Nerve" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... my mother had been sadly prostrated by the terrible threefold disaster, and had never had the nerve to re-visit the place where it began. None of the servants would have gone near it of their own free will. A queer, unfamiliar tremor I did not recognize as superstitious dread contracted my heart, and arrested ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... stay in an even temperature until I am strong again. I am going to stick pretty close to him until I know I am. I wouldn't admit it to any one at home, but I was almost gone. I don't believe anything can eat up nerve much faster than the burning of a slow fever. No, thanks, I have enough. I stay with Uncle Doc, so if I feel it coming again he can ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... affair lay forgotten. Looking back on the past six months, Margaret realized the chaotic nature of our daily life, and its difference from the orderly sequence that has been fabricated by historians. Actual life is full of false clues and sign-posts that lead nowhere. With infinite effort we nerve ourselves for a crisis that never comes. The most successful career must show a waste of strength that might have removed mountains, and the most unsuccessful is not that of the man who is taken unprepared, but of him who has prepared and is never taken. On a ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... companions discreetly making a screen, so as to throw the corpse into deep shadow. I heard the key turn in the door after her—if I had ever had any thought of escape it was gone now. I only hoped that whatever was to befall me might soon be over, for the tension of nerve was growing more than I could bear. The instant she could be supposed to be out of hearing, two voices began speaking in the most angry terms to my husband, upbraiding him for not having detained her, ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... enemy, a foe he could see, Frank would have faced with iron nerve; but this strange wailing noise coming from what quarter of the compass he could not judge—was so uncanny that he was really disturbed. He bounded into the chassis and roused Ben and Harry. He had hardly whispered to them the extraordinary ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... of this disease appear years after its initial appearance, when the individual has been lulled into a false sense of security by long freedom from its outward symptoms. Many of the obscure cases of stomach or nerve trouble may be traced to this disease. The results not only affect the man, but, should he marry and have children, his innocent babes may come into the world with an inherited taint. These children seldom live to reach adult life and their ...
— Herself - Talks with Women Concerning Themselves • E. B. Lowry
... close to the upper crease of the neck, just above the cervical vertebrae; and, for the moment, completely paralyzed the large nerve of the spine, causing the creature to drop as quickly as though ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... Prophetic Characters, in our hearts; and leaves us no rest, night or day, till it be deciphered and obeyed; till it burn forth, in our conduct, a visible, acted Gospel of Freedom. And as the clay-given mandate, Eat thou and be filled, at the same time persuasively proclaims itself through every nerve,—must not there be a confusion, a contest, before the better Influence ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... Cedric's want of restraint and childish abandon of grief that he was tempted to give up the struggle. Only Elizabeth's pleading voice was in his ears-"You will bear with him—you will be patient with him, will you not?" and then again he would nerve himself to fresh effort. ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... felt a sort of physical impotence. She struggled desperately against the loss of nerve power which kept her there. She would have given anything in the world to have left him, to have run out of the room with a little shriek, out into the streets and squares she knew so well, to breathe the ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... conviction that the kind of government most suitable, in his opinion, to this extensive country, could be established in no other way.... He trusted, moreover, that in the changes and chances of time we should be involved in some war, which might strengthen our union and nerve the executive. He was of all men the most indiscreet. He knew that a limited monarchy, even if established, could not preserve itself in this country.... He never failed, on every occasion, to advocate the excellence of, ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... Ohio in a ferry boat, and Judy strained every nerve to reach it before them. She did so; and hurrying up the stairs with her baby, she clasped the railings, resolved to stay there, unless compelled by violence to leave the boat. But no one noticed her, and she arrived safely on the other ...
— A Child's Anti-Slavery Book - Containing a Few Words About American Slave Children and Stories - of Slave-Life. • Various
... that our most native and original characters do not yet take to literature. It is, perhaps, too early in the day. Iron and lime have to pass through the vegetable before they can reach the higher organization of the animal, and maybe this Western nerve and heartiness will yet emerge on the intellectual plane. Let us hope that it will indeed be Western nerve and heartiness when it gets there, and ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... such team games as cricket and football not only their success in various competitions but also their success in the sterner warfare of life. This success has been obtained on the tented field and in the work of exploring, mountaineering, and other pursuits that make great demand not only on nerve and muscle but also on strength of character ...
— Youth and Sex • Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly
... nerve was failing her. The convulsive sobs continued, but she ceased to abuse him. He wondered when he should be able to get it out of her. He himself could no more have wept ...
— Bessie Costrell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... odds and patches. The generosity of one of our volunteers, Mr. Francis Sayre, the son-in-law of President Wilson, doubled its capacity. But buildings that are made of green wood, and grow like Topsy, are apt to end like Topsy—turvy. Now we are straining every nerve to obtain a suitable accommodation for the children. We sorely need a brick building, economically laid out and easily kept warm, with separate wings for girls and boys and a creche for babies. Miss Storr was obliged to leave us, and now for over six years a splendid and unselfish English lady, ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... evidently counted on the awakened sympathy of his companion, notwithstanding the difference in their situations, and to be thus thrown off again, unmanned him. He shuddered, and every muscle and nerve appeared about to yield its power. Touched by so unequivocal signs of suffering, Don Camillo kept close at his side, reluctant to enter more deeply into the feelings of one of his known character, and yet unable to desert a fellow-creature ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... unmoved person, squatting down on his heels and thrusting his hand inside David's shirt. "Only a faint. Why, where's your nerve? You're nearly as white ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... that made it very different from clay. He had gone at this piece without any special intent and was shaping it into a cherub merely out of whim, but he was giving to the task every atom of his skill, and his hands worked with every nerve strained to detect and ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... act, and from these individually dead atoms, sensation, thought, and emotion are to rise? Are you likely to extract Homer out of the rattling of dice, or the Differential Calculus out of the clash of billiard balls? ... I can follow a particle of musk until it reaches the olfactory nerve; I can follow the waves of sound until their tremors reach the water of the labyrinth, and set the otoliths and Corti's fibres in motion; I can also visualise the waves of aether as they cross the eye and hit the retina. Nay, more, I am able to pursue to the central organ the motion ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... a plain face, but a strong heart, and when she saw that Amy Holbrook was preferred, with steady hand and unflinching nerve, she wrote to her recreant lover that he was free. And now Amy, to whom the false knight turned, took it into her capricious head that she would not marry a farmer—she had always fancied a physician; and if young B—— ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... you that during her first days of work in the dissecting room she could only sleep when firmly flanked by a friend on each side of her "to keep off the spirits that walk by night." After a few weeks of experience, however, the fascinating search for nerve and muscle, tendon, vein, and artery becomes the dominating state of consciousness, and the scientific spirit excludes all resentment at ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... the belief that Mr. Davis was moving toward military despotism or that he relished the continuance of strife. He saw that the South was in for the war. Desperate situations required desperate remedies. He grasped the government with a strong hand, and lacked neither nerve nor patriotism. The principles of this policy were unsound, but the motives of Jefferson Davis were pure. Nor was there reason to sustain the wholesale denunciation of West Point. That school of soldiers was the backbone of the army, and the ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... mortal man, struggling against such odds, could compass for her comfort and protection. She responded to his appealing glance with a sweet smile, that quickened his pulses and sent a thrill of joy through every nerve. She did not seem at all disheartened or cast down by the greatness of their misery. Her heart was satisfied and happy; why should she be crushed by mere physical suffering and discomforts? She was very brave, although ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... a drink he buys, And there's a fire of red desire within his hollow eyes. And sipping of my Pernod, and a-knowing what I know, Sometimes I want to shriek aloud and give away the show. I've lost my nerve; he's haunting me; he's like a beast of prey, That Spanish man that's watching at the Cafe de ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... Darius had showed skill and energy; and he now for some time encouraged his men, by voice and example, to keep firm. But the lances of Alexander's cavalry, and the pikes of the phalanx now gleamed nearer and nearer to him. His charioteer was struck down by a javelin at his side; and at last Darius's nerve failed him; and, descending from his chariot, he mounted on a fleet horse and galloped from the plain, regardless of the state of the battle in other parts of the field, where matters were going on much more favourably for his cause, ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... "I can't stand what I could once," she confessed, as he aided her into the hotel part of the building. "It's my nerve—seem's like it's all gone. I go to pieces like a ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... observed, for some reason or other the thing was not carried on with spirit, and we soon retired from it; nevertheless, it is a ceremony well worth seeing, and which in truth requires some little nerve to ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... may give us a victory. He who has only learned not to be afraid to die, has not learned much. We have steel and nerve enough in our hearts to dare anything. And after all, it is a triumph so common as scarcely to deserve the name. Felons die on the scaffold like men; soldiers can be hired by tens of thousands, for a few pence a day, to front death in its worst form. Every minute that we live sixty of the human ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... perhaps. He had been on the descent of the path for some little time now, and could not be far from the more level ground which marked the approach to Long Bridge. Determined not to stop or to cast one faltering look to right or left, he hurried on with his eyes fixed upon the ground and every nerve braced to resist the influence of the place and its undying memories. But with the striking of his foot against the boards of the bridge, nature was too much for him, and his resolve vanished. Instead of hastening on, he stopped; and, having stopped, ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... became their enemy, but after much suffering and opposition Gonzales was settled at Potosi, studying the Quichuan language, and hoping to work upon the Indians, while the unwearied Gardiner again returned to England to strain every nerve for the Fuegian Mission, which lay nearest of all to ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... from the Relation of 1647, and the letter of Marie de l'Incarnation to her son, before cited. The woman must have descended the great rapids of Lachine in her canoe: a feat demanding no ordinary nerve and skill. ] ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... to you and to our corps Which we are proud to serve, In many a strife we have fought for life And never lost our nerve; If the army and the navy Ever look on heaven's scenes, They will find the streets are guarded ...
— Rhymes of the Rookies • W. E. Christian
... "Nerve good?" Lanse asked Doctor Churchill, an hour later as they waited in the vestry for the summons ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... is in his heart and hand, The Gaul is in his brain and nerve; Where, cosmopolitanly planned, He ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... an Ash-Colour, inclining to Lead. The Male is easily distinguish'd from the Female, by a black Velvet-Spot on his Head; and besides, his Head is smaller shaped, and long. Their Bite is venomous, if not speedily remedied; especially, if the Wound be in a Vein, Nerve, Tendon, or Sinew; when it is very difficult to cure. The Indians are the best Physicians for the Bite of these and all other venomous Creatures of this Country. There are four sorts of Snake-Roots already discover'd, which Knowledge came ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... sees th' Gull Island Rapids an' I 'most loses my nerve. 'Tis a fearsome torrent at best, as un knows, but now wi' high flood 'tis like ten o' unself at low water. Th' waves ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... colonies had proclaimed their independence, is it just to blame King George, as he often has been blamed, for his steadfast and resolute resistance to that claim? Was it for him, unless after straining every nerve against it, to forfeit a portion of his birthright and a jewel of his crown? Was it for him, though the clearest case of necessity, to allow the rending asunder his empire—to array for all time to come of several millions of his people against the rest? After ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... maddening, nerve racking pace they go. To keep up the gait there is an incessant battle for wealth, and the struggle wears and ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... Williams betimes felt the shock of the strong line of A. P. Hill, which Alexander seconded by opening with his artillery in full action. The Confederates forged ahead with the watchword, "Charge, and remember Jackson!" And this appeal was one to nerve all hearts to ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... the sense of smelling; in the same manner that taste is produced by the particular substance coming in contact with the nerves of the palate. It is thus also that the sensation of sound is produced by the concussion of the air striking against the auditory nerve; and sight is the effect of the light falling upon the optic nerve. These various senses, therefore, are affected only by the actual contact of particles of matter, in the same manner ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet
... of an able sea boat, engined to drive through sea and wind, and by the nerve and endurance to drive her in any weather. There were times when the Gulf spread placid as a mill pond. There were trips when he drove through with three thousand salmon under battened hatches, his decks awash from boarding ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... that be On the sunny side of the Ceylon Sea, Nerve him still to be Good and Strong. Excellent ...
— Tea Leaves • Francis Leggett & Co.
... frequent presence of poisons in the fetal skin demonstrates its physiologic importance. It has probably not a very marked influence on its health. On the contrary, accumulation in the placenta and nerve centers explains the pathogenesis of abortion and the birth of dead fetuses ("mortinatatite") Copper and lead did not cause abortion, but mercury did so in two out of six cases. Arsenic is a powerful abortive agent in the guinea-pig, probably on account of placental hemorrhages. An important ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... is the "bends," or "caisson disease." In the caisson a man works under high air pressure. When he comes out, the pressure on the fluids of the body is reduced, and this sometimes causes the formation of a gas bubble in the vascular system. If this bubble reaches a nerve-center it causes severe pain, similar to neuralgia; if it gets to the brain it causes paralysis. Day after day men will go into the caisson and come out without trouble, but sooner or later from 2 to 8 per cent. of caisson workers are affected. Of 320 "sand-hogs" who ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... right to assume that the Creator works by intellectual powers like those of men? If we must compare the eye to an optical instrument, we ought in imagination to take a thick layer of transparent tissue, with a nerve sensitive to light beneath, and then suppose every part of this layer to be continually changing slowly in density, so as to separate into layers of different densities and thicknesses, placed at different distances from each other, and with the surfaces of each layer slowly changing in form. ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... surrounded rather by a band of demons than of human beings; the walls seemed to drop with blood, and the light tick of the clock thrilled on his ear with such loud, painful distinctness, as if each sound were the prick of a bodkin inflicted on the naked nerve of ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... me!" Flixman interrupted. "Actually the feller is got the nerve to ask me a hundred dollars for drawing a will, and this here feller on Center Street wants only fifty. I bet yer if I would go round there to-morrow or the next ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... their shift-mates and more or less scraped up from the screening-room floor—they were in very bad shape—and carted off to be patched up for questioning. The members of this group had been impractical idealists, and besides, some of them had lost their nerve, as was evidenced by the discovery of abandoned explosives and detonators in the locker room and men's room of ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... long branches are such slender threads that a great number of them together would not be as large as a fine silk thread. A great many of these fine nerve threads are bound up in little bundles which look like white cords. These ...
— First Book in Physiology and Hygiene • J.H. Kellogg
... stealthy movements somewhere. Between them and the doorway, stealthy movements somewhere; but all so still and slow, they stretched the listening nerve almost to the breaking point. Suddenly, a big, hard hand gripped Burleigh's shoulder, and a dead still voice, that Vic could not recognize, breathed into his ear, "Go quick and quiet! I'll stand for ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... from the firm platform of strong scholarship—he was a scholar beyond the rest. It fixed special forms—he the French sonnet. It felt the lives of all things running through it as a young man feels them in the spring woods—he gathered in the cup of his verse, and retains for us, the nerve of all that life which is still exultant in the forest beyond his river. His breeding, his high name, his leisured poverty, his passionate friendship, his looking forward always to a new thing, a creation—all this, was ...
— Avril - Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance • H. Belloc
... Say, an' it ain't easy. I 'lows my nerve's pretty right fer most things, but when you git monkeyin' wi' religion it's kind o' different. 'Sides, ther's allus fellers ter choke you off. Nassy Wilkes, the s'loon-keeper, he'd had religion bad oncet, tho' I 'lows he'd fergot most o't sence he'd been ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... sounder elements in Dehmel, he was largely responsible for destroying such sanity as the amazing genius of Gabriele D'Annunzio had ever possessed. In D'Annunzio the sensuality of a Sybarite and the eroticism of a Faun go along with a Roman tenacity and hardness of nerve. The author of novels which, with all their luxurious splendour, can only be called hothouses of morbid sentiment, has become the apostle of Italian imperialism, and more than any other single man provoked Italy to throw herself into the great adventure ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... regard to the ordinary shark, however, our divers actually sought them. Their method of capturing them was almost incredible in its simplicity and daring. Three or four of our divers would go out in a boat and allow themselves to drift into a big school of sharks. Then one man, possessed of more nerve than the rest, would bend over the side and smartly prick the first one he came across with a spear taken out for the purpose. The moment he had succeeded in this the other occupants of the boat would commence yelling and howling ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... will nerve thine arm, And courage fill thy breast: And having bravely warred on harm, The cries of victory shall charm Thy dying ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... Vane's business, and he struck off to the right directly, to bear through a denser part of the wood, and come to an opening, which struck him at once as being the one where he had had his encounter with the gipsy lads. The very next moment, with every nerve tingling, he was running toward where he could see his two enemies kneeling upon someone they had got down; and, though he could not see the face, he knew it was Distin whom they were both ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... top of the gate. At the first glance it seemed to be absolutely unchanged—the same really beautiful lips, the same nose, the same look in the eyes. Had a decade passed by her and left no trace? He lost his nerve for an instant, and brought the car to a standstill with less than his usual adroitness. ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... made two or three bounds, sending the stones rushing down heavily, as he regained his old level and went on rapidly. Onward still, but what a length that seemed!—and now I was learning from his progress that the only chance of getting across was to keep right on, exercising all the strength of nerve and muscle one possessed to go forward, for to have stood still meant to begin gliding rapidly downward, sinking more and more in a gathering avalanche of stones as others were loosened from above to fill up the vacancy ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn
... hit upon a plan to establish himself in what he believed to be the proper light. "It will require nerve," reflected he, doubtingly, "and not only nerve in itself, but a certain exact quantity of it. Too much nerve would destroy me, and too little nerve would do the same thing. I think, however, that ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... leaving them would be happier far in another world, for never in this had a ray of reason shone upon poor Patsy's darkened mind. We have said there were no tears, and yet, although the waters came not to the surface, there was one heart which wept, as with unflinching nerve the cold, stern woman arrayed the dead girl ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... a matter of common knowledge that in the human being there are not only forms organized of blood vessels and nerve fibres, but also skins, membranes, tendons, cartilages, bones, nails and teeth. These have a smaller measure of life than those organized forms, which they serve as ligaments, coverings or supports. For all these entities to be in the heavenly humanity, which is heaven, it cannot be ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... alligator, and the triumph of his conquerors, who were not long in cutting him into pieces and loading their canoes with his flesh, which they immediately carried to the shore and retailed to their countrymen. The success of the plan depended entirely on the nerve and dexterity of the man who pinned the animal's tail to the ground; and his contortions and struggles to keep his ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... cell remembered by all Leideners with anguish. There I (and thousands before and thousands after) had sat to wait my dreaded turn with the professors behind the green-baize table in the room next door. There I—among those other nerve-shattered ones—had scribbled my name and scrawled a sketch or two. "Here sweated Rudolph Brederode," read out Miss Rivers, with a sweet look, as if she pitied me now for what I suffered then. But Miss Van Buren showed sublime indifference. She wished, ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... he faintly said when he reached the fireside again, "is right nerve-racking. It's like one ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... if their own nervous power were cooperating in the struggle, the gallant ship bore her head round to face the driving waves. From the ten huge, red stacks columns of inky black smoke poured out as the stokers crammed the furnaces beneath. It was man against nature, human nerve and mechanical science ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... a relief not to pretend any more nor fight: to let pain take its way, like a slow tide invading every nerve and flooding every recess of thought, till one is pierced and penetrated by it, married to it, indifferent so long as one can drop the mask of that cruel courage which exacts so many sacrifices. Val was still only twenty-nine. Forty years more of a life ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... position to feed them properly, and it would not be humane or fair to keep the soldiers who had the misfortune of falling into our hands without proper food. This, of course, was a very unsatisfactory state of affairs, for we had to fight fiercely, valuable lives had to be sacrificed, every nerve had to be strained to force the enemy to surrender, and to take his positions; and then, when we had captured them, the soldiers were merely disarmed and sent back to the English lines after a little while, ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... want him,' says Starlight. 'You're losing your nerve, governor. Perhaps you'd like to go ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... London girl, who has been through a dozen air-raids without losing any nerve, is not likely to disturb herself over a possible but improbable bushranger, and indeed Mollie was blissfully ignorant on the subject in spite of Grannie's tales; so she went to bed quite peacefully in the little ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... have ever visited. Though the gloom of the prisoner was not made manifest by his haggard countenance, yet I could not prevent the melancholy reflection, that every heart knew its own sorrow. I have seen much of human depravity in this wicked world—I have felt the sensitive nerve made like an ice-drop by the cold finger of scorn—I know how to sympathize with the child of circumstances—with the heart-broken parent, whose pale, care-worn cheek but too plainly speaks, "We feel trouble, but ye know it not." ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... are Swedes and they haven't got the nerve to fight. They couldn't lick a spoon if they tried. These other men are different, though. There are two of them, the old one and a young fellow. I'm a little afraid to mix it up with them, and if their claim wasn't the best in the district, I'd ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... turn that letter over to Merrick it will give him some idea of our proposed trip," said Mr. Rover, "and more than likely he will strain every nerve ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... during a wild bluster of wind; but always the inevitable kiss had been delayed, had been averted; and only her eager afterthoughts had made romance of their meagre acquaintance. Yet now, when they were alone, together, when every nerve in her body seemed tense with desire for him, he was somehow aloof—not constrained (for then she would have been happy, at the profoundly affecting knowledge that she had carried the day), but unsympathetically and unlovingly at ease. She could not read his face: in his manner she ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... sacculus, the lagena, and the three semicircular canals. The cavity of this membranous labyrinth is filled with a fluid, the endolymph; and within the utriculus, sacculus and lagena are masses of inorganic matter called the otoliths. The auditory nerve terminates in eight sense organs, which contain hair cells. There is no cochlea as in the mammalian ear. The assumption commonly made is that vibrations in the water or air by direct contact cause the tympanic membrane to vibrate; this in turn causes a movement of the columella, which is ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... with you may compromise your respectability or undermine your nerve?" He sprawled imperturbably in his place, crossing again, in another sense, his long black legs and showing, above his low shoes, an absurd reach of parti-coloured sock. "I take your point well enough, but mayn't you be after all quite wrong? If ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... how to model or dispose the hands. They are often unduly big; Michael Angelo started with the same mistake: witness his David and the Madonna on the Stairs. It was a mistake soon rectified in either case. But till late in life Donatello never quite succeeded in giving nerve or occupation to his hands. St. Mark, St. Peter, and St. John all have a book in their left hands, but none of them hold the book; it has no weight, the hand shows no grip and has no sense of possession. Neither did Donatello ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... heaving breast, and every nerve in his body quivering with wrath, the proud, unhappy boy strode through the gay streets. They had betrayed him then, these accursed Beauforts! they circled his steps with schemes to drive him like a deer into the snare of their loathsome charity! The roof was to be taken from his head—the ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... The rest are giving me a stone. Unless the field hides something quite unknown I stand a chance. The going favours me. The ploughland will be bogland certainly, After this rain. If Royal keeps his nerve, If no one cannons me at jump or swerve, I stand a chance. And though I dread to fail, This passionate dream that drives me like a sail Runs in my blood, and cries, that I ...
— Right Royal • John Masefield
... and lastly!—we cannot see more—the mist boils from the ruin of shattered waters and conceals the bottom of the fall. The roar vibrates like thunder in the rocky mountain, and forces the grandeur of the scene through every nerve. ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... Tyrrel, sitting down again, "I will listen to you with calmness, as I would remain calm under the probe of a surgeon tenting a festered wound. But when you touch me to the quick, when you prick the very nerve, you cannot expect me to ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... wherever you go. Of course, all colonels should prevent this, and one of any force and energy could easily do so; but Colonel —— is not of that kind. An excellent company officer, as I judge, he has not the activity and nerve required in the commander of a regiment, and many a wish did I hear expressed in those thirty days that his predecessor, Colonel Martin, were still in command. Confidence in his bravery before the enemy, was universal; but many things ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... spoken already of an atmosphere of warning and aloofness he carried about with him. It is impossible further to analyse the series of little shocks his presence always communicated to my being; but there was that about him which made me instantly on the qui vive in his presence, every nerve alert, every sense strained and on the watch. I do not mean that he deliberately suggested danger, but rather that he brought forces in his wake which automatically warned the nervous centres of my system to be on their guard ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... of every nerve in Ann's body leaping up in frenzy. "God?" she laughed wildly. "Don't drag Him into it! Do you think He cares"—turning upon Mrs. Prescott as if she would spring at her—"do you think for a minute He cares—what kind of ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... you with all this." Selwyn's voice recalled me and the face in the fire vanished. "But there is no one else I can talk to. I should as soon go to a patient in a nerve sanitarium as to Mildred. As a sister Mildred is not a success. She'd first have hysterics and tell me I was brutal to poor Harrie, and then declare that to marry a million dollars was the chance of a lifetime for him. One of the ten thousand ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... you have the nerve to think you are going to report for duty," observed Forgan. "Well, you needn't try. Orders are to sick list you ...
— Ralph on the Engine - The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail • Allen Chapman
... whisper gently to one of the youthful sons of the Sagebrush: "I am afraid to go home in the dark," the gentleman would ring for a messenger boy as an escort, or call a taxi; and if she sighed for sympathy and a stroll by the Truckee, he would think that she needed a doctor, or a nerve specialist. .... The sons of the Sagebrush are not cold-hearted, nor are they lacking in courtesy of any sort, but to use a Western expression, they possess a large percentage of "horse sense!" Meaning, that they are not wearing ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... that price he sot down immovible. They arged, and Josiah Allen even went so far as to use language that grated on my nerve, it wuz so voyalent and vergin' on the profane. But there the man sot, right onto that price, and he had to me the appeerance of one who wuz goin' to sot there on it all night. And so rather than to spend the night out doors, in conversation with him, he a settin' on that price, ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley
... round the little knoll with such dazzling brilliancy that the entire landscape, almost to its uttermost confines, was nearly as fully revealed as at noonday, while the thunder crashed and rattled and boomed with a nerve-shattering violence that effectually drowned all other sounds. And, to add still further to the weird impressiveness of the scene, the storm had scarcely been raging ten minutes when the swamp was seen to be on fire in several places immediately to leeward of the knoll, the dry herbage having ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... rejuvenated not only in mind, but in the very core and marrow of my body. I had put myself in right relation to Nature; I had established contact, as electricians would say; and as a consequence all the electric current of Nature flowed through me, vitalising and quickening me in every nerve. Men who live in cities are but half alive. They mistake infinite contortion for life. Life consists in the efficient activity of every part of us, each part equally efficient, and moving in a perfect rhythm. ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... her own sweet face was turned towards him, as she spoke with an energy equal to her frankness, in a way to show how little embarrassed were her thoughts, and how sincere were her words. Her countenance was a little flushed, it is true; but it was with earnestness and truth of feeling, though no nerve thrilled, no limb trembled, no pulsation quickened. In short, her manner and appearance were those of a sincere-minded and frank girl, making such a declaration of good-will and regard for one of ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... seventy-seven Indian children existed in 1720, and that they could all read and write English; but adds, that the jealousy of traders and land speculators, who feared it would interfere with their business, caused it to be closed. Alas! this people had encountered the iron nerve of Christianity, without reaping the fruit of ...
— Se-Quo-Yah; from Harper's New Monthly, V. 41, 1870 • Unknown
... of her young heart. In both cases the great drawback to happiness was the absence of self-discipline, self-denial and self-conquest. They could overcome difficulties, brave danger, set the world at defiance, if need be, for each other, and not a coward nerve give way; but when pride and passion came between them, each was a child in weakness and blind self-will. Unfortunately, persistence of character was strong in both. They were of such stuff as martyrs were made of in the fiery times of power ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... one kind of hinge that would answer the purpose—the ball and socket joint—and the Former of the eye has hung it with such a hinge, retaining it in its place partly by the projection of the bones of the face, and partly by the muscles and the optic nerve, which is about as thick as a candlewick, and as tough as leather. Most of you have seen a ship, and know the way the yards are moved, and turned, and squared by ropes and pulleys. The rigging of the eye, though not so large, is fully ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... shift but net loss and headlong decay of the spirit; that modicum of forbearance and equity that is requisite to the conduct of life in a community of ungraded masterless men is seen by these stouter stomachs as a loosening of the moral fiber and a loss of nerve. ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... which the olfactory nerves proceed, are large, whilst the optic and muscular nerves of the orbit are singularly small for so vast an animal; and one is immediately struck by the prodigious size of the fifth nerve, which supplies the proboscis with its exquisite sensibility, as well as by the great size of the motor portion of the seventh, which supplies the same organ with its power of movement ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... sound and movement of the forest seeming to spur us forward and add flight-feathers to our speeding feet. For in my Indians, ascendant now, was the dull horror of the supernatural; and as for me my hatred of the Sorcerers was tightening every nerve to the ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... the bows, as a moment since he had so nearly boxed me in the stern. Once so caught, and nine or ten inches of the blood-stained dirk would be my last experience on this side of eternity. I placed my palms against the mainmast, which was of a goodish bigness, and waited, every nerve upon the stretch. ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... not a dishonourable person—at least, he need not be. I saw a monument in Westminster Abbey to a man who was hanged as a spy. A spy must be brave; he must have nerve, caution, and resource. He sometimes does more for his country than a whole regiment. Oh, there are worse persons than spies in ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... he admired nerve. The fact of the Englishman staying alone aboard his wrecked ship appealed to ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... only be liquidated by an absolute cure. He wanted to tie me up and shoot me with an X-ray. He ordered me to wear white socks. He had a long, terrifying look at a drop of my blood. He jerked hairs out of my head to sample my nerve force. He said I was a baffling subject, but that he meant to make me well if it took the last shot in the scientific locker. And he wound up at last by refusing point-blank to be ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... were almost touching him, when suddenly a new sound broke the stillness and set every nerve ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood
... "Nerve! If that's a sample of legal brilliancy of wit, I'm sorry for the defendant who employs ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond |
