"Sinewy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rude hut was visible, constructed of logs, and covered with the branches of trees. In front of it, sitting on the stump of a tree, which perhaps had been spared for that purpose, sat a tall man, with very brown complexion, clad in a rough hunting suit. His form, though spare, was tough and sinewy, and the muscles of his bare arms seemed like whipcords. A short, black pipe was in his mouth. The only covering of his head was the rough, grizzled hair, which looked as if for months it had never felt the touch ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... form, to indicate the softness of character; bend the head gently forward, in the common attitude of modesty; and awaken our ideas of the slow and graceful movements peculiar to the sex, by limbs free from that masculine and sinewy expression which is the consequence of active exercise?—and such is the Venus de Medici. It would be utterly impossible to place a person so formed in the attitude of the Apollo, without destroying all those amiable and gentle associations of the mind ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... liberty, the flowers, the air, light, the stars, the happiness of going whithersoever the sinewy limbs of one-and-twenty chance ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... weedy world, Where art thou now? In deepest forest shade? Or onward, where the sumach stands arrayed In Autumn splendour, its alluring form Fruited, yet odious with the hidden worm? Or, farther, by some still sequestered lake, Loon-haunted, where the sinewy panthers slake Their noon-day thirst, and never voice is heard Joyous of singing waters, breeze or bird, Save their wild waitings.—(A halloo without) 'Tis Tecumseh calls! Oh Iena! If dead, where'er thou art— Thy saddest grave will be ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... upward, it will soon strike you that a large number of the trees do not seem to bear coconuts at all, but black earthen pots. If your visit should chance to be made early in the morning, or late in the afternoon, the mystery will soon be revealed. You will see a dusky, sinewy figure, not of a monkey, but of a man, ascending and descending those trees with marvellous celerity and ease, grasping the trunks with his hands and fitting his naked feet into slight notches cut in them. The distance between the notches ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... son leaned forward and pressed his mother's knee under the table. A tall, sinewy Engineer Commander was walking across the foyer on his way to the ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... emotion of his visitor, and their hands met in a hearty clasp. Monsieur de la Vallee was a young man, of four or five and twenty, well proportioned, and active and sinewy from his devotion to field sports. He was about the same height as Desmond himself, but the latter, who had not yet finished growing, was larger boned, and would broaden into a much bigger and more ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... her might, I 1 The Queen of soft delight Still ranges onward with triumphant sway. What she from Kronos' son And strong Poseidon won, And Pluto, King of Night, I durst not say. But who, to earn this bride, Came forth in sinewy pride To strive, or e'er the nuptial might be known With fearless heart I tell What heroes wrestled well, With showering blows, and ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... reverence; and as he was conducted to the chair of the Convention, his tall figure, strong face, and patriarchal beard imparted to him something of personal majesty. His speech well illustrated his rugged attributes of character. It was sharp, sinewy, and defiant. At the beginning he hurled out the declaration that "the nation shall not be destroyed;" and referring to the plea which treated the Constitution as the sacred shield of the system that was waging war on the Union and which insisted that it must ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... Like many small men, he was very powerful, as his broad shoulders and sinewy arms would have made evident to a teacher of gymnastics. He clearly understood that this opponent was in deadly earnest, and he put out all the strength which he possessed. The result was that his large-framed antagonist went down once more, striking his head with ...
— Driven From Home - Carl Crawford's Experience • Horatio Alger
... of the doorway, waiting. Beneath his gaze Calcutta paraded its congress of peoples—a comprehensive collection of specimens of every tribe in Hindustan and of nearly every other race in the world besides: red-bearded Delhi Pathans, towering Sikhs, lean sinewy Rajputs with bound jaws, swart agile Bhils, Tommies in their scarlet tunics, Japanese and Chinese in their distinctive dress, short and sturdy Gurkhas, yellow Saddhus, Jats stalking proudly, brawling knots of sailormen from the Port, sleek ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... 'subjects out of sight' no doubt fared worse, in spite of the cane with which he threatened Micromegas. And what a lot there were of them, those house-serfs, in his house! And for the most part sinewy, hairy, grumbling old fellows, with stooping shoulders, in long-skirted nankeen coats, belted round the waist, with a strong, sour smell always clinging to them. And on the women's side, one could hear nothing ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... the guns were extremely young, but, like most artillerymen, alert, sinewy, springing to their appointed tasks with swift, catlike certainty. The sight of the two strangers seemed to surprise them as much as the man in ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... dripping mane, And reeling limbs, and reeking flank, The wild steed's sinewy nerves still strain Up ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... Gaston fastened the long, sinewy fingers of each hand in the submarine boy's hair. He began to tug, gently at first, but gradually increasing the force ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... as a little daughter of Daniel Boone. As it was, she felt no less foreign than she looked, for the strangeness of the land and of the people still possessed her so that her native shyness had sunk to depths that were painful. She had a new ordeal before her now, for in her sinewy little hands were a paper bag, a first reader, and a spelling-book, and she was on her way to school. Beneath her the white turnpike wound around the hill and down into a little hollow, and on the crest of the next low ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... anything more pleasing than this rider of the plains. It was not alone his face, with the likable blue eyes that could say so many things in a minute, but the gallant ease of his bearing. Such a springy lightness, such sinewy grace of undulating muscle, were rare even on the frontier. She had once heard Webb Mackenzie say of him that he could whip his weight in wildcats, and it was easy of belief after seeing how surely he was master of the dynamic power in him. It is the emergency that sifts men, and she had ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... moment both male and female stood together, stretching their bodies out to their full length, and lashing their flanks with their long sinewy tails. Then, uttering another prolonged roar, they bounded simultaneously forward, passing, at a single leap, over a space of full twenty feet. A second spring brought them upon the crest of the ridge, upon which they had scarce rested an ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... more warily through the wood to the edge of the road. There was no one moving in or about the ramshackle little place, but there was one unexpected thing in sight which gave me pause. Hitched by the reins to a staple in the signpost was the finest horse I had ever set eyes on, a slender, sinewy stallion, champing on his bit and pawing nervously on the ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... soon to be disbanded, and the independent nobility and gentry who composed the cavalry service, were alike difficult to be brought within the strict curb of military rule. The severe trials, which steeled the souls, and gave sinewy strength to the constitutions, of the Spanish soldiers, impaired those of their enemies, introduced divisions into their councils, and relaxed the whole tone of discipline. Gonsalvo watched the operation of all this, and, coolly waiting the moment when his weary and ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... slept in an adjoining closet. Up and down the corridor walked the great chasseur, who had announced her arrival, and who acted as a kind of sentinel or guard. He was a dark, stern, powerful-looking fellow, and as the light of a lamp in the corridor fell upon his deeply-marked face and sinewy form, he seemed capable of defending the ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... sinewy man in a serge suit, whom Hartley recognized as Captain Walsh, was standing by him. His attitude was that of an indulgent policeman with a refractory prisoner, and twice Hartley saw him lay hold of the captain by the coat-sleeve, and call his attention to something in the window. ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... elaborately wrought marble tomb, upon which I beheld, stretched at full length, a knight, not of bronze, or marble, or jasper, as are seen on other tombs, but of actual flesh and bone. His right hand (which seemed to me somewhat hairy and sinewy, a sign of great strength in its owner) lay on the side of his heart; but before I could put any question to Montesinos, he, seeing me gazing at the tomb in amazement, said to me, 'This is my friend Durandarte, flower and mirror of the true lovers and valiant knights of ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... does not heed the cruel sting Of his recoiling, twanging string; The mid-day sun, the dripping sweat Affect him not, nor make him fret; His form, though sinewy and spare, Is most symmetrically fair; No mountain-elephant could be More filled with ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... was of a short, thick-set powerful frame, in which, by a happy ordering of nature, a little confirmed perhaps by long habit, the strength was principally seated about the broad and brawny shoulders, and strong sinewy arms, as if, in the construction of the man, the inferior members had been considered of little other use than to transfer the superior to the different situations in which the former were to display their energies. His head was in proportion ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... and squeezed his hand imploringly, while he, holding me tight in one sinewy arm, plucked left-handedly at the knot. I waited, meek as Griselda, till the gag was off, and then I let him have it. Volleying curses, I hammered him ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... not speak to her, did not, she fancied, even look at her; but after a few dumb seconds his hand came out to hers and held it in a close, sinewy grip. Her own was nerveless, cold as ice. She could not have withdrawn it had she wished. But she did not wish. That action of his had a strange effect upon her, subtly calming her reawakened doubts. She felt that he meant to reassure her, and she ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... prowess. He is to drain the drinking-horn of Thor. Then he must run a race with a courser so fleet that he fairly spurns the ground under his flying footsteps. Then he must wrestle with a toothless old woman, whose sinewy hands, as wiry as eagle claws in the grapple, make his very flesh to quiver. He is victorious in them all. But as the crown of success is placed upon his temples, he discovers for the first time that he has ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... unpleasant nearness to a hedge of cactus. The ground was soft, and I was not much bruised; but when I rose the nag had disappeared round a corner, and I was left alone in the African twilight. Presently a sinewy fiery-eyed Moor came with panther-step in sight leading me back the nag. He had a basket of oranges on his back, and gave me one with a respectful salaam as I vaulted on my Arab steed and galloped ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... by a slice of boiled soup-beef, garnished with haricot beans, and served up on a plate damp with dish-water. However, it was still too good, he thought, for a brute unable to earn his bread. Whenever his work miscarried, he undervalued himself, ranked himself lower than a common labourer, whose sinewy arms could at least perform their appointed task. For an hour he lingered in the tavern brutifying himself by listening to the conversation at the tables around him. Once outside he slowly resumed his ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... hung on a wave's crest and slid lightly downward. Woolfolk, with a sinewy, dark hand directing their course, was intent upon the swelling sails. Once he stopped, tightening a ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... Greece, the flash 100 Of gleaming arms, the slayer and the slain. While morning lasted, and the light of day Increased, so long the weapons on both sides Flew in thick vollies, and the people fell. But, what time his repast the woodman spreads 105 In some umbrageous vale, his sinewy arms Wearied with hewing many a lofty tree, And his wants satisfied, he feels at length The pinch of appetite to pleasant food,[8] Then was it, that encouraging aloud 110 Each other, in their native virtue strong, The Grecians through the phalanx ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... that could alarm and repel has been gathered round this rightly-named King of Terrors. Milton, who has done so much with his stately rhythm to mould the popular conceptions of modern Christianity, has used all the sinewy strength of his magnificent diction to surround with horror ...
— Death—and After? • Annie Besant
... Under the Ethiopian rule and during the Ptolemaic period in Egypt itself we find, for the first time, that the goddesses are represented with plump and well-developed outlines. Examination of the mummies shows that the earlier ideal was based upon actual facts, and that in ancient Egypt slender, sinewy forms distinguished both men and women. Intermarriage with other races and harem life may have combined in later times to alter the physical type, and with it to change also the ideal of beauty." (A. Wiedemann, Popular Literature ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... drew back in dismay as the bull drew near: and she was right; for, in his agony and amazement, the unwieldy but sinewy brute leaped the five-barred gate, and cleared it all but the top rail; that he burst through, as if it had been paper, and dragged Uxmoor after him, and pulled him down, and tore him some yards along the hard road on his back, and bumped his head ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... spreading chestnut-tree The village smithy stands; The smith, a mighty man is he, With large and sinewy hands; And the muscles of his brawny arms Are strong ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... nearly black, and so deeply set under the thick eyebrows that they looked smaller than they really were; and I remember, even at that early age, their expression, when angered, was any thing but pleasant to meet. His dress was well adapted for displaying his deep square chest and sinewy arms—a close-fitting jersey, and white trowsers girt by a broad black belt; the cap, orange velvet, fronted with ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... the door; but drunken lethargy was still upon him, and his disinclination to move was stronger than his thirst. His eyes, roving along the wall, fell upon the electric call button. Stretching a sinewy arm to its full length he made dumb show of pressing it, as he said, "One push, one cocktail; two pushes, two cocktails!" Then he shook his head despairingly. "Too far, can't reach it," he muttered. But his face brightened as his hand accidentally touched his revolver. Out it flashed, and there ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... the speaker, and his black eyes were glowing fiercely under their straight bushy brows. His face was the least boyish of any of the four, and his supple, sinewy frame had much of the strength of manhood in it. The free, open-air life that all these lads had lived, and the training they had received in all martial and hardy exercises, had given them strength and height beyond their years. It was no idle boast on the part of Llewelyn to ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... bound over the hand. At first used to add weight to the blow, it was afterwards continued up the fore-arm, and formed also a weapon of defence. Mr. Morrissey, or any other "shoulder-hitter," would hardly need more than a few rounds to settle his opponent, if his sinewy arm were ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... man, about fifty years of age, as gnarled and sinewy as the stem of an old grape-vine. At the first glance one would not have taken him for a scoundrel. His manner was humble, and even gentle; but the restlessness of his eye and the expression of his thin lips betrayed diabolical cunning and ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... the basin the doctor had already ripped up the captain's sleeve and exposed his great sinewy arm. It was tattooed in several places. "Here's luck," "A fair wind," and "Billy Bones, his fancy," were very neatly and clearly executed on the forearm; and up near the shoulder there was a sketch of a gallows and a man hanging from it—done, as I ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was well ordered under the direct supervision of Walter Stone's foreman, "Brand" Williams. Williams was a Wyoming cowman of the old school; taciturn, lean, sinewy. ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... was a tall, sinewy young Englishman, with ruddy hair and beard, grave blue eyes, and an unmistakable air of good breeding. He wore a blue flannel shirt and high boots like Clarence's, yet somehow he made Clarence look a little rough and undistinguished. He was quiet in speech, reserved in manner, ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... shoulders of any man she had ever seen, and they made him appear rather short. But his lithe, powerful limbs proved he was not short. Whenever he moved the muscles rippled. His hands were clasped round a knee—brown, sinewy hands, very broad, and fitting the thick muscular wrists. His collar was open, and he did not wear a scarf, as did the men Ellen knew. Then her intense curiosity at last brought her steady gaze to Jean Isbel's head and face. He wore a cap, evidently ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... over it a yellow blanket with a brown edge. The body proved to be his, Kuzma Vassilyevitch's. He tried to cry out ... no sound came. He tried again, did his very utmost ... there was the sound of a feeble moan quavering under his nose. He heard heavy footsteps and a sinewy hand parted the bed curtains. A grey-headed pensioner in a patched military overcoat stood gazing at him.... And he gazed at the pensioner. A big tin mug was put to Kuzma Vassilyevitch's lips. He greedily drank some cold water. His tongue was loosened. "Where am I?" ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... Gardeur, for your confidence. I hope you will outride this storm!" He held out his hand, nervous and sinewy as that of Mars. Le Gardeur seized it, and pressed it hard in his. "Don't you think it is still able to rescue a friend from peril?" ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... to be led, but straightway followed the awful sounds, until she reached the chamber behind whose door they were shut. Upon the huge disordered bed, Sir Jeoffry writhed, and tried to tear himself, his great sinewy and hairy body almost stark. Two of the stable men were ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... wielded the paddles with a bit more of skill, have kept the course a little straighter, or skimmed the turns a trifle more close; but neither could have put more of life and vim into the strokes. A large, thick-set youth was Harvey, strongly built, with arms bronzed and sinewy—clearly a youth who had lived much out of doors, and had developed in sun ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... One sinewy brown arm was outflung, now almost wholly buried in the growing sand-drift. The hand still gripped a long, gleaming rifle, its stock and barrel elaborately arabesqued in silver ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... spoken a true word when she described Swan as a handsome man. Almost seven feet tall, Mackenzie took him to be, so tall that he must stoop to enter the door; lithe and sinewy of limbs, a lightness in them as of an athlete bred; broad in the shoulders, long of arms. His face was stern, his red hair long about the ears, his Viking mustache long-drooping at the ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... or, snow-blinded and frozen, he "rode line" for hours on end when the thermometer was fifty or more below zero. He was in constant peril of his life from the horns of milling cattle or the antics of a "mean" horse. Roosevelt was immensely drawn to the sinewy, hardy, and self-reliant adventurers; and they ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... inheritance, Richard's muscles grew sinewy and hard, and speedily was he capable of handling a hammer and persuading iron to the full satisfaction of his teacher. When it came to such heavy work as required power and skill at once, the difference between the two men was very evident: ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... and the rough-haired Scotch deer-hound, he can have excellent sport. The greyhounds sometimes do best if they have a slight cross of bulldog in their veins; but this is not necessary. If once a greyhound can be fairly entered to the sport and acquires confidence, then its wonderful agility, its sinewy strength and speed, and the terrible snap with which its jaws come together, render it a most formidable assailant. Nothing can possibly exceed the gallantry with which good greyhounds, when their blood is up, fling themselves on a wolf or any other foe. There does not ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... of that awkward shame and misery drove all personal grief from Nehal's mind. He drew forward a chair and seated himself opposite his companion, clasping his sinewy, well-shaped hands on the table ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... against the blind forces of nature. For this combat the women were armed to the teeth, clad as they were in their skeleton muscular leanness; helmeted with their heads of iron; visored in the bronze of their skin and in wrinkles that laughed at the wind. In these sinewy, toughened bodies there was a grim strength that appeared to know neither ache nor ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... eighteenth century). He was received with enthusiasm, and among those who brought offerings of flowers was the fair Kaala. As she scattered the flowers she was seen by Kaaialii, one of the King's favorite lieutenants. "He was of chiefly blood and bearing" with sinewy limbs and a handsome face, and when he stopped to look into the eyes of Kaala and tell her that she was beautiful, she thought the words, although they had been frequently spoken to her by others, had never sounded so sweetly to her before. ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... literary poverty, a wide range of new subjects for epical treatment,—the life of German peasants, with their simple, healthy, vigorous natures undepraved by a spurious civilization. In painting these sinewy figures, full of a character of their own, he was very felicitous, had an enormous success, and drew a host of less gifted followers after him. Herr Ludwig is one of these. We shall not despair of his becoming, at some future time, a second ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... his seat over the sea, stared absently at the jocose revelers, for he was a stranger in a strange land. He leaned back on the granite railings with the easy indolence of an invalid, though his frame was robust and sinewy as a mountaineer's. The hidden power of his bronzed and Moresque features, if developed, might inspire a certain amount of wonder; but then you would as readily have sought expression in the statues below. ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... one, who sojourn'd not far thence; So were I under shelter now with him! Nor hook nor talon then should scare me more."—. "Too long we suffer," Libicocco cried, Then, darting forth a prong, seiz'd on his arm, And mangled bore away the sinewy part. Him Draghinazzo by his thighs beneath Would next have caught, whence angrily their chief, Turning on all sides round, with threat'ning brow Restrain'd them. When their strife a little ceas'd, Of him, who yet was gazing on his wound, My teacher thus without delay inquir'd: "Who was the spirit, ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... between John Knapp and young Bastow was soon over. The young fellow was lithe and sinewy, but he was no match for the constable, who, indeed, had almost overpowered him before he was ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... sinewy fingers soon clutched the lower part of the primitive window. Being thin and wiry, he had no difficulty in drawing himself up to it. With the skill of an acrobat he swung one leg over the opening. The task of drawing himself through was much harder to accomplish. But the will to do so was paramount. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... than once, simple mortals, men of low order, obtained preference over demi-gods. Her conduct in this respect was the result of long experience. She used to go out alone, and traverse the streets of Paris. She entered the shops, and when her eye rested on a good figure, having wide shoulders, sinewy limbs, and a good looking face, she then called up all the resources of her mind to form and carry on an intrigue, of which the consequences, at first agreeable to him who was the object of it, terminated most frequently fatally. The following adventure ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... but she raised her eyes, and smiled on him as the weeping infant returns the earnest and tender regard of its mother. The effect of that glance on Jacopo was so powerful that his sinewy frame shook, until the wondering Carmelite heard the clanking ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... travel and exposure to the heavy rains which had fallen, the weather having been stormy and uncomfortable, and they had traversed a mountainous wilderness for several hundred miles. The leader of the party was of full size, with a hardy, robust, sinewy frame, and keen piercing hazel eyes, that glanced with quickness at every object as they passed on, now cast forward in the direction they were travelling, for signs of an old trail, and in the next moment directed askance into the dense forest or the deep ravine, as if watching some concealed ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... peering through the indistinct light, we eagerly watched the development of this strange rencontre. The tiger was now crouching low, crawling stealthily round and round the boar, who changed front with every movement of his lithe and sinewy adversary, keeping his determined head and sharp, deadly tusks ever facing his stealthy and treacherous foe. The bristles of the boar's back were up at a right angle from the strong spine. The wedge-shaped head poised on the strong neck and thick rampart of muscular shoulder was bent low, and ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... before him. The renegade was again calm. A tear stood trembling in his eye, and that pitying drop spoke of affections long subdued, but not entirely extinct in the breast of him who had but few tears to bestow. Soon, however, his glassy eyes were fixed, and as Bermudo raised mechanically his long sinewy fingers to his burning forehead, his countenance became the index of a mind engaged in scenes far away. It was a deep though momentary abstraction, for as Caneri gazed in amazement, the renegade awoke from his ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... round the rocks which lie off the Cape Point, and steered into False Bay. Near these rocks were two whales; and one or more of what seamen call thrashers were engaged in a furious combat with them, at a less distance than half a mile from the ship. The sinewy strength of the thrasher must be very great; for besides raising his tail high out of the water to beat the adversary, he occasionally threw the whole of his vast body several feet above the surface, apparently to fall upon him with greater force. Their ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... deluge, or there or here— As at midnight dark, when the flames outbreak In the silent dwelling where none awake; Vain is the hope in weapons or flight, Nor order nor discipline thwart its might. Then struggles the maid in our sinewy arms, But war hath no pity, and scorns alarms. Go, ask—I speak not with boastful tongue— In Bareuth, Westphalia, Voigtland, where'er Our troops have traversed—go, ask them there— Children and children's children long, When hundreds and hundreds ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... brief. A thrust, a parry, and Frank drove his weapon through the shoulder of his opponent. The latter reeled and fell. Frank strove to pull out his weapon, but it stuck fast, and just then a pair of sinewy hands fastened on his throat and he looked into the reddened eyes of the ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... that what Defoe is telling us is true. Notice also that such expressions ("the least capful of wind," "half dead with the water I took in," "ready to burst with holding my breath") without being pretentious may yet be forceful. Notice finally the naturalness and lift of the sinewy idioms ("I fetched another run," "I had no clothes to shift me," "I had like to have suffered a second shipwreck," "It wanted but a little that all my cargo had ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... not separate it from my burning eye-balls!—awake, it was there—asleep, it flickered and blazed before me!—it has been my rock a-head through life, and it will herald me to hell!" So saying, he pressed his sinewy hands upon his face, and buried his head between his knees, till the rock beneath him seemed to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 286, December 8, 1827 • Various
... a woman's face? From women's eyes this doctrine I derive: They are the ground, the books, the academes, From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire. Why, universal plodding poisons up The nimble spirits in the arteries, As motion and long-during action tires The sinewy vigour of the traveller. Now, for not looking on a woman's face, You have in that forsworn the use of eyes, And study too, the causer of your vow; For where is author in the world Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye? Learning is but an adjunct to ourself, ...
— Love's Labour's Lost • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... was standing with his head up, his eyes looking out over the abysmal scene below. Behind his back he had gripped tight together his long and sinewy hands. He was a lean and broad man, so she thought. He stood in the uniform of his country, made for manly men, and beseeming only such. The neatness of good rearing even now was apparent in every line of him. Dust seemed not to have touched him. He was clean and trim and ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... is half vanquished. A single glance at Bog's clear, courageous eye, and his sinewy proportions, assured young Van Quintem that he ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... into a set of rollicking, good-natured souls who—until the wind veered again—would not hurt a fly. So with these. They spread themselves into a circle, squatting or kneeling or standing upon the white sand in the bright sunshine, their sinewy hands that should have been ingrained red clasped over their knees, or, arms akimbo, resting upon their hips, on their scoundrel faces a broad smile, and in their eyes that had looked on nameless horrors a pleasurable expectation as ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... in dark paint there is but a vague, uniform mass of pale colour; the body of the hand is missing, and there remains only its ghost, visible indeed, but unsubstantial, without weight or warmth, eluding the grasp. The difference between this spectre hand of the Giottesques, and the sinewy, muscular hand which can shake and crush of Masaccio and Signorelli; or the soft hand with throbbing pulse and warm pressure of Perugino and Bellini,—this difference is typical of the difference between the art of the fourteenth century and the art of the fifteenth century: the first ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... contrast between the two was perfect. Tom's young, smooth, innocent face, and round boyish figure, and the thorough old sea-dog look of Grampus, with his grizzly bushy hair and whiskers, his long cue, his deeply-furrowed, or I may say rather bumped and knobbed and bronzed countenance, and his spare, sinewy form, having not a particle of flesh ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... little, and, passing his sinewy hand across his brow, lay back exhausted. He was racked by bodily torture, but,—unflinching old hero as he was,—gave no sign of the agonizing pain he suffered. Valdemar Svensen had risen from his knees, and now stood gazing at him with yearning, miserable eyes, his brown, weather-beaten ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... Reservation, and talking to Sun-in-the- North, the only good Indian chief she knew, or that anyone else on the prairies knew. She loved all that was strong and untamed, all that was panting with wild and glowing life. Splendidly developed, softly sinewy, warmly bountiful, yet without the least physical over-luxuriance or suggestiveness, Jen, with her tawny hair and dark-brown eyes, was a growth of unrestrained, unconventional, and eloquent life. Like Nature around her, glowing and fresh, yet glowing and hardy. There was, however, just ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... also is here. They are in thick yellow coats with high collars, bashliks, red shoulder knots, caps with a red border, leather-covered felt boots, and are armed with cutlasses and rifles. They are sinewy and sturdy fellows, neat and ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... Logan should take him on his back and convey him as far as the poor little house they had passed on the way. A good lift it was, for Sam was a well grown, stout fellow; but Logan was a long-limbed, sinewy, brawny Scotchman, and he made no difficulty of the job. The doctor in the first place deposited his gun against a tree, and did what was ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... Joukahainen Paused a moment and reflected, 130 And he pondered for an instant, Though his hands to shoot were ready, One would shoot, and one restrained him, But his sinewy fingers forced him. ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... meet arrived bright and promising. The Grand Stand was filled with a city crowd. The usual types of a racecourse appeared in force. Here and there were to be seen the dog-grooms leading in leash single Greyhounds or couples, shrouded in blankets, but showing their sinewy legs, their snaky necks, their shapely heads with long reptilian jaws, and their quick, nervous yellow eyes—hybrids of natural force and human ingenuity, the most wonderful running-machines ever made of flesh and blood. Their keepers guarded them like ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... the water-skin must have been great at first, but it grew lighter as the man went on; and one moment I was thinking of what strength there was in his thin sinewy legs and arms, the next of the clever way in which the pattern was formed upon the pavement, and lastly of what a clumsy mode it was of watering the place, and how much pleasanter it would be if there were greater power ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... sinewy strength of the Hungarian now stood him in good stead. He must either free himself, or perish there in the hideous carnage of a quarry. He seized with both hands, in a viselike grip, Ortog's enormous neck, and, at the same time, with a desperate jerk, shook free ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... dependent, and the Teuton, whether as Saxon, Angle, Frisian, or Jute, dwelt in his homes and ruled as slaves the former owners of the land. These new-comers were not physically unlike the Celts whom they dispossessed. Tall and fair, grey-eyed and sinewy, the Teuton was a hardier, more sturdy warrior than the Celt: he had not spent centuries of quiet settlement and imitative civilisation under the aegis of Imperial Rome: he had not learnt to love the arts of peace and he cultivated none ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... scratching at the cabin now ceased. But the hungry pack were loth to abandon their prey. Still they scurried here and there. From the opening the boys could see the sinewy bodies and the gleaming eyes. Above the din of yelps and howls ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon
... stones immense trees have taken root, and their broad boughs stretching far over, and interlacing together, support a canopy almost impenetrable to the sun. Overgrowing the greater part of them, and climbing from one to another, is a wilderness of vines, in whose sinewy embrace many of the stones lie half-hidden, while in some places a thick growth of bushes entirely covers them. There is a wild pathway which obliquely crosses two of these terraces; and so profound is the shade, so dense the vegetation, that a stranger to the place might pass along it without ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... was Will's life unendurable; "patience had had its perfect work." He knew that a boy of twelve, however strong and sinewy, was not a match for an almost full-grown man; so, to balance matters, he secreted on his person an old bowie-knife. When next he met Steve, the latter climaxed his bullying tactics by striking the object of his resentment; but he was unprepared for the sudden leap that bore ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... romances in cold water colors must have seemed, without doubt, dull to Madame Sand, after having handled the hammer and chisel of the sculptor so boldly, in modeling the grand lines of that semi-colossal statue, in cutting those sinewy muscles, which even in their statuesque immobility, are full of bewildering and seductive charm. Should we continue long to gaze upon it, it excites the most painful emotion. In strong contrast to the miracle of Pygmalion, Lelia seems a living Galatea, rich in feeling, full of love, ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... thought the night warm. Joan's eyes, dark, solemn, frightened, spurred him on to greater effort. He dug furiously, flinging earth in all directions. Hughie marvelled at his madcap speed and the strength of his sinewy arms. His jaw was set. His face, dark and vivid in the lantern light, shone with a boy's excitement. But when the wind came he looked defiant. They could not know that to him, then, the spirit of Adam Craig seemed to come with a sigh and a ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... The thought of Bob learning manners beneath the tuition of those sinewy brown hands that were about hers was very pleasant to her. But it was a pleasure that must be denied—this she saw clearly as the result of weary tossings throughout the night; and now she set about the task of explaining ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... marched into New Orleans. Clad in hunting-shirts of buckskin or homespun, wearing wolfskin and coonskin caps, and carrying their long rifles on their shoulders, the wild soldiery of the backwoods tramped into the little French town. They were tall men, with sinewy frames and piercing eyes. Under "Old Hickory's" lead they had won the bloody battle of the Horseshoe Bend against the Creeks; they had driven the Spaniards from Pensacola; and now they were eager to pit themselves against the most renowned troops of ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... too much for the captain. With a look of fury on his face, he dashed toward Harry, and there is no doubt that our hero was in serious danger. He paled slightly, for he knew he was no match for the tall, sinewy captain, and was half regretting his independence when he felt himself drawn forcibly to one side, and in his place stood the mate, sternly eyeing ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger
... to release herself from his grasp, but he renewed it with all his sinewy strength, enforcing, with a vicelike gripe, the consciousness, in her mind, of the futility of ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... Urge beat in the veins of the savage from Arizona. He took the poet's advice and followed his Lawless Impulse where it led. Across the table a long arm reached. Sinewy fingers closed upon the flowing neckwear of the fat-faced orator and dragged him forward, leaving overturned glasses in ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... laying her hand gently on his sinewy arm, "they are my friends, and they have treated me well. Look! am I wasted with starvation or broken with torture? Harm them not. I am come to plead with our father to make peace with them. It is as if yon tree should plead with the sky and the earth not to quarrel, since both are dear to it. ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... most, tall, lithe, and sinewy men, but physically in no way superior to the Saxons, from whom they differed very widely in complexion, the Saxons being fair while the Danes were very dark, as much so as modern gypsies; indeed, the Saxon historians speak of them as the black pagans. Upon the other hand ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... the men might enforce their boycott against him. He no longer cared what they might do or say. He felt the warm breath of the friendly animal on his cheek. The remnant of its right ear twitched from time to time and tickled his lip. The long sinewy paws pressed against his neck trembled nervously, as the cat dreamed of stalking fat sparrows, or of stealing fried fish. Its hoarse croupy purr sounded like the sweetest music to the lonely man. ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... and half-undoing, I saw in the chair the sinewy form and honest brown face of Ercole, the heroic lover. He saluted me with a smile and wave of the hand. He was here to encourage me, he said. Every man must make a beginning, and there was nothing like a friendly face. Very much unnerved, I asked him which tooth he proposed to lose. "Whichever ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... their bare, sinewy legs gripping even to the moccasined feet the sides of the ponies. Without saddle or bridle, except for the simple nose rope, they guided their mounts surely, the brown bodies rising and falling in perfect accord with the ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine
... quickly and mercifully puts an end to his fast-ebbing life. His canine teeth seem unusually large and formidable, and the dog bears the marks of them in many deep gashes upon his face and nose. His pelt is quickly stripped off, revealing his lean, sinewy form. ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... Ward at last, and with a few twists, of his sinewy hands brought the couplings into close connection. Munro relaxed, drawing two or three deep breaths. Without the aid of his great strength the task could not ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... pretty picture: the workman, with his superb hand, brown and sinewy, yet elegant and shapely as a duchess's, and the fingers almost as taper, and his black eye that glowed like a coal over the model, which grew under his masterly strokes, now hard, now light: the enchanting girl who sat to him, and seemed on fire with curiosity and innocent ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... sinewy, glistening in the sun, and tinted by the rich red blood within—surveyed it admiringly, and with a thought of the arena; yet the manner was not without effect upon him: there was in the voice a suggestion of life at ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... stranger round him gazed, 560 And next the fallen weapon raised— Few were the arms whose sinewy strength, Sufficed to stretch it forth at length. And as the brand he poised and swayed, "I never knew but one," he said, 565 "Whose stalwart arm might brook to wield A blade like this in battle-field." She sighed, then smiled and took the word: "You see ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... was a sinewy bushman in curiously patched overalls with a bronzed and honest face, and he turned aside with a little gesture of dislike, when a man of a very different stamp pushed by him. The latter wore a black felt hat and a great ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... be no mistaking the man, slow-moving when he dismounted, tall and sinewy, watchful as a battered old eagle upon its crag. With these ruffians at his back, gathered from the sweepings of no knowing how many outlawed camps, he had come in the vengeance that had gathered like a storm in his evil heart, to punish Ascalon and its marshal for ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... the representative of insolent Albion. These favorites of the Prince, each wearing full-brimmed, three-cornered hats, very flat and very wide-spreading, beneath which grinned their swarthy, tanned, and wrinkled faces, lighted by three pairs of twinkling eyes, were noticeably lean, sinewy, and vigorous, like men in whom sport had become a passion. All three were supplied with immense horns of Dampierre, wound with green worsted cords, leaving only the brass tubes visible; but they controlled ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... idea of a sheep-farmer it would be hard to find! I always pictured them stern bearded men, with brick-red faces and sinewy limbs. This lad doesn't look as if he had ever been in a strong sun, and his slender loose-jointed legs and arms do not give the impression of an open-air life spent ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... to the cavity she stopped with a terrible growl. The sinewy body of a great snake—a bushmaster,—was gliding rapidly into the opening; in fact, half its scale-covered length had already disappeared from view. This was an advantage to the Jaguar for the head with its death-dealing fangs, being in the cavity, was rendered ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... flintlocks with arms of iron when the British cavalry rushed upon their bayonets; that their keen eyes flashed a deadly aim along their rusty rifle-barrels; that, with their good swords quivering in their sinewy hands, they urged their horses boldly over the battle-field, shouting brave words to their advancing men; and that they laughed at heat and cold, patiently endured hunger and privation, strode along bravely on the longest marches, and, at last, stood proudly by when Cornwallis ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... change wrought by the contrast of poverty and abundance, enforced asceticism and luxury, presented by the old and new home. The restless, tireless shepherds became a sedentary, agricultural people; the abstemious nomads,—spare, sinewy, strangers to indulgence—became a race of rulers, revelling in luxury, lording it over countless subjects; finally, their numbers increased rapidly, no longer kept down by the scant subsistence of arid grasslands and ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple |
