"Strait" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... monument to the memory of a certain Sir Wilfred Altham, of the time of James II., in raising the woodwork of a pew occupied by Mr Sparks's family, the rage of Sir Laurence was so excessive as to be almost deserving of a strait-waistcoat. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... was wounded, when he perceived his shoulder exposed in this effort, pierced the breast of Polynices with his lance, and gave joy to the citizens of Cadmus, but he broke the point of his spear. But being come to a strait for a spear, he retreated backward on his leg, and taking a stone of marble, he hurled it and crashed his antagonist's spear in the middle: and the battle was on equal terms, both being deprived of the spear in their hands. Then seizing ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... and zealous as well as able services, and at length becoming in fact nearly as great a knave as the knaves (Duke of Buckingham for example) whose favor and support he had been conciliating,—till at last in some dilemma, some strait between conscience and fear, and increased confidence in his own political strength, he opposes or hesitates to further some too foolish or wicked project of his patron knave, or affronts his pride by counselling a different ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... "Your speech is unbridled and unseemly. I am not worthy to be likened to that holy man of old, for whose sake the Lord well nigh saved Sodom, nor am I placed in so sore a strait. You spoke of nothing worse than kissing. The girl will not be the worse, I trow, for a buss or two. Women are not so mighty tender. So long as girls like not the kissing, be sure t'will do them no harm, eh, Desire?" and ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... whether his brother-monarch enjoys the aid of such counsellors as will make an attack on him dangerous; in the later, with the demand that he shall acquit himself satisfactorily, or suffer a forfeit: and the king is delivered from a serious strait by the sagacity either of a minister . . . or of the daughter of his minister, who came to her father's assistance .... These tasks are always such as require ingenuity of one kind or another, whether in devising practical experiments, ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... said Harry, "after whom Flinders Street was named. He was a daring explorer who accompanied Captain Bass when the latter discovered Bass's Strait, that separates Australia from Tasmania. There is also a range of ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... to a fresh strait. He had sought for a new teacher to instruct his children in the Latin tongue, as the old had done in the English, but had not yet found one. Wherefore one evening, as we sat together by the fire in his bed-chamber (which for want of health he kept), he asked me, his wife ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... Rollo, who neither of them liked to be seasick, determined to go another way. They concluded to go down by railway to Dover, and then to go to Calais across the strait, where the passage is the shortest. Mr. and Mrs. Parkman had set off several days before them, and Mr. George supposed that by this time they were far on their way towards Holland. But they had been delayed by Mrs. Parkman's desire to go to Brighton, which ...
— Rollo in Holland • Jacob Abbott
... these beds. It is thought that the descendants of this creature, and of the other "Old-World" forms above referred to, found their way to Asia, probably, as suggested by Professor Marsh, across a bridge at Bering Strait, to continue their evolution on the other hemisphere, becoming extinct in the land of their nativity. The ape-man fossil found in the tertiary strata of the island of Java in 1891 by the Dutch surgeon Dr. Eugene Dubois, and named Pithecanthropus erectus, may have been ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... was more interested in religion than in astronomy. He wrote The Strait Gate; or, the true scripture doctrine of salvation clearly explained, London, 1843, and Tractatus de magis et Bethlehemae stella et Christi in deserto tentatione, privately printed ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... a strait of easy access and safe navigation, cutting the island nearly in half, thus making two islands of what had before been imagined but one. This strait bears his name, and is often traversed by vessels from New South Wales returning home ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... restoration of Charles II. took the strait waistcoat off the minds and morose religion of the Commonwealth period, and gave a loose rein to the long-compressed spirits of the people, there still remained a large section of society wedded to the former state of things. The elders of this ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... cannot help myself save by force, which I were unwilling to use towards you, Master Tressilian; not that I fear your weapon, but because I know you to be a worthy, kind, and well-accomplished gentleman, who would rather help than harm a poor man that is in a strait." ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... of Nashoba, and run Westerly by many old mark'd Trees, to a Pine Tree standing on the Southerly End of Brown Hill mark'd N and those marked Trees had been many times marked or renewed, tho they do not stand in a direct or strait Line to said Pine Tree on said Brown Hill; And then from said Brown Hill we turned a little to the East of the South, & run to a white Oak being an old Mark, & so from said Oak to a Pitch Pine by a Meadow, being an other old Mark; ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume I. No. VI. June, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... was the reason of that dolorous voice? Well, do you know,' with an engaging air of frankness, 'I am afraid we shall have a bad time with Gage; she will want me put in a strait-waistcoat and fed on a cooling diet of bread and water. Father will have to assure her that there is no insanity in the family; and as to Percival—oh, Percival's face, when he hears the news, will ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... servants of Lot and the servants of Abraham quarrelling," Mrs. Evelyn went on in the same undertone of delight,—"because the land was too strait for them—I should be very sorry to have anything of the sort happen again, for I cannot imagine where Lot would go to find a ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... cards, I know, yet they never asked us to their party this week, and now seem to have missed us again. I wished particularly to go, for one is sure to meet all that is worth seeing, your knight among the rest. They are prim, strait-laced, exclusive people themselves; but it is a house worth ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... The shatter'd mast, The syrt, the whirlpool, and the rock. The breaking spout, The stars gone out, The boiling strait, the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... lessons studied his father's German atlas, and there was not a name in it north of Spitzbergen which he had not got by heart. He transferred them all to Ellan, so that the Sky Hill became Greenland, and the Black Head became Franz Josef Land, and the Nun's Well became Behring Strait, and Martha's Gullet became New Siberia, and St. Mary's Rock, with the bell anchored on it, became the pivot ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... butt, absently, as we talked. He might have missed me, and then.... Or he might have shot me dead. But surely there was some justice in Cuba. It was clear enough that he did not wish to kill me himself. Well, this was a desperate strait; to force him to do something he did not wish to do, even at the cost of my own life, was the only step left open to me to thwart his purpose; the only thing I could do just then for the furtherance of my mission to save Seraphina from his intrigues. I was oppressed by the ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... Our warehouses were filled, and France abundantly supplied; but this was not the case in England, and the scarcity of it was beginning to be felt there. It was never known how it happened; but the larger part of this grain passed the Strait of Calais, and it was stated positively that the sum of twenty millions was received for it. On learning this, the First Consul took away the portfolio of the interior from his brother, and appointed him ambassador ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... humoured. Dance upon nothing for an idea! Well, it's not without plenty of parallels in history!—I wonder whether his one idea would give way now, if it were brought to the actual test of hanging! It is a pity it couldn't be tried, just for experiment's sake. But a strait-waistcoat ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... camp by a small stream, the Pendele, a few miles below the gorge. The Palabi mountain stands on the western side of the lower end of the Kariba strait; the range to which it belongs crosses the river, and runs to the south-east. Chikumbula, a hospitable old headman, under Nchomokela, the paramount chief of a large district, whom we did not see, brought us ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... though fallen, great! Who now shall lead thy scattered children forth, And long accustomed bondage uncreate? Not such thy sons who whilome did await, The helpless warriors of a willing doom, In bleak Thermopylae's sepulchral strait— Oh! who that gallant spirit shall resume, Leap from Eurotas' banks, and call ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... Rumbold's escape to the corrupt assistance of Rigby; who, in 1782, found himself, by Lord North's retirement, deprived of his place in the Pay Office, and called upon to refund a large amount of public moneys unaccounted for. In this strait, Rigby was believed to have had recourse to Rumbold. Their acquaintance had commenced in earlier days, when Rigby was one of the boldest "punters" at White's, and Rumbold bowed to him for half-crowns as waiter. Rumbold is said to have given Rigby a large sum of money, on condition of the ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... altogether hopeless—for I possessed a very fair share of pluck and resource; but I felt that before I could effect my escape from my watchful custodians, and obtain these necessities, I might find myself in so dire a strait as to render them and all else valueless to me. Yet I would not suffer myself to feel discouraged, for I recognised that to abandon hope was to virtually surrender myself tamely to the worst that fate might have in store for me, and this was by no means ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... rose on the water, and began to pull it over my head—for it was wide, and that was the easiest way, I thought, in the water. But when I had got it right over my head, there it stuck. And there was I, blind as a Dutchman in a fog, and in as strait a jacket as ever poor wretch in Bedlam, for I could only just wag my flippers. Mr Walton, I believe I swore—the Lord forgive me!—but it was trying. And what was far worse, for one moment I disbelieved in Him; and I do say that's worse than swearing—in a hurry ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... American continent is a cluster of islands, which are dark, sterile, rocky, and most of the year covered with snow. Evergreens relieve the aspect of sterility, in places that are a little sheltered, and there is a meagre vegetation in spots that serve to sustain animal life. The first strait which separates this cluster of islands from the main, is that of Magellan, through which vessels occasionally pass, in preference to going farther south. Then comes Tierra del Fuego, which is much the largest ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... 516 B.C. that the Persian king, with the ostensible purpose—invented to excuse his invasion—of punishing the Scythians for a raid into Asia a century before, but really moved only by the thirst for conquest, reached the Bosphorus, the strait that here divides Europe from Asia. He had with him an army said to have numbered seven hundred thousand men, and on the seas was a fleet of six hundred ships. A bridge of boats was thrown across this arm of the sea,—on which Constantinople now stands,—and ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... distant horizon somewhat like a low blue cloud, which gathered distinctness and strength of outline by degrees. It was the land, beyond doubt; the coast of New Holland itself, as the captain informed Eleanor; and going on and passing through Bass's Strait the vessel soon directed her course northward. Little remained then ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... the rope, and whoever jumps the highest, without falling, succeeds in the office. Very often the chief ministers themselves are commanded to show their skill, and to convince the emperor that they have not lost their faculty. Flimnap, the treasurer, is allowed to cut a caper on the strait rope at least an inch higher than any other lord in the whole empire. I have seen him do the somerset several times together, upon a trencher fixed on the rope, which is no thicker than a common packthread in England. My friend Reldresal, principal secretary for private affairs, ...
— The Junior Classics, V5 • Edited by William Patten
... and province of Mindoro lies in the strait of its name and south of Luzon. It has in the center an elevated plain, we quote from the military notes issued by the War Department, from which many sierras extend in different directions to the coast, ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... of Torres Strait, Haddon states, "the men were formerly nude, and the women wore only a leaf petticoat, but I gather that they were a decent people; now both sexes are prudish. A man would never go nude before me. The women would never voluntarily expose their breasts to white men's gaze; this applies to quite ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... always thought him sane enough until to-day, but you can take it from me that either he or I ought to be in a strait-jacket. What's the matter with me, anyhow? You've lived near me for some weeks, Watson. Tell me straight, now! Is there anything that would prevent me from making a good husband to a woman ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle
... nose, an' snub nose, an' seventeen Deuks o' Wellington out o' my puddins? Will your castor oil, an' your calomel, an' your croton, do that? D'ye ken a medicamentum that'll put brains into workmen—? Non tribus Anti-cyrus! Tons o' hellebore—acres o' strait waistcoats—a hall police-force o' head-doctors, winna do it. Juvat insanire—this their way is their folly, as auld Benjamin o' Tudela saith of the heathen. Heigho! 'Forty years lang was he grevit wi' this generation, an' swore in ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... in a granary which became, after a while, the frequent resort of a Cat. The Mouse was in great fear and did not know what to do. In her strait, she bethought herself of a Rat who lived not far away, and who had said in her hearing a hundred times that he was not afraid of any cat living. She resolved to visit the bold Rat and ask him to drive ...
— Aesop's Fables - A New Revised Version From Original Sources • Aesop
... man must have turned round to look before Israel had done so. Frozen to the ground, Israel knew not what to do; but next moment it struck him that this very motionlessness was the least hazardous plan in such a strait. Thrusting out his arm again towards the house, once more he stood stock still, and again ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... alluded to as an apparent exception to the doctrine of a residence in the lower land of ghosts intervening between death and the ascension, occurs in the Epistle to the Philippians: "I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better; but that I should abide in the flesh is more needful for you." There are three possible ways of regarding this passage. First, we may suppose that Paul, seeing the advent of the Lord postponed longer and longer, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... With ruddy Lips, round Cheeks, her Forehead lay Archt like a snowie Bank, which did uphold Her natvie Tresses, that did shine like Gold; Her azure Veins, which with a well sharp'd Nose, Her whiter Neck, broad Shoulders to compose: A slender Waste, a Body strait and Tall, With Swan-like Breasts, long Hands, and Fingers small, Her Ivory Knees, her Legs were neat and clean, A Swelling Calf, with Ancles round and lean, Her Insteps thin, short Heels, with even Toes, A Sole most strait, proportion'd Feet, she goes With ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses from Men • Various
... perchance arose from the intimate friendship and intercourse that he held with Cimabue, seeing that, by reason either of their conformity of blood or of the goodness of their minds, finding themselves united one to the other by a strait affection, from the frequent converse that they had together and from their discoursing lovingly very often about the difficulties of the arts there were born in their minds conceptions very beautiful and ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Volume 1, Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi • Giorgio Vasari
... Bhanavar was borne over the lustre of the sea, that was as a changing opal in its lustre, even as a melted jewel flowing from the fingers of the maker, the Almighty One. The ship ceased not sailing till they came to a narrow strait, where the sea was but a river between fair sloping hills alight with towers and palaces, opening a way to a great city that was in its radiance over the waters of the sea as the aspect of myriad sheeny white doves breasting the wave. Hitherto ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... quarterly allowance three days in advance, for it was due on Tuesday. But what jarred against her proud, honest spirit was the implication that such a request gave of taking as a right that which had been so long bestowed as a favor. Nothing but the great strait they were in could ever have driven her to consent that Mr. Ascott should be applied to at all; but since it must be done, she felt that she had better do it herself. Was it from some lurking doubt or dread that Ascott might not speak the entire truth, as she had insisted ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... from the making of bricks, and from the harsh and deadly ruler of the darkness of this world, and that he showed me the short and easy road whereby I shall be able, in this earthen body, eagerly to embrace the Angelic life. Seeking to attain to it the sooner, I chose to walk the strait and narrow way, renouncing the vanity of things present and the unstable changes and chances thereof, and refusing to call anything good except the true good, from which thou, O king, art miserably sundered and alienated. Wherefore also ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... light of the beach fires followed her till they too faded, and only the phosphorescence of the sea attended her into the night. Rough and stormy weather followed this fair start, and only two more dredgings were possible before reaching the Strait of Magellan. One was off the Gulf of St. George, where gigantic star-fishes seemed to have their home. One of them, a superb basket-fish, was not less than a foot and a half in diameter; and another, like a huge sunflower of reddish purple tint, with straight arms, thirty-seven in ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... point, subtle point, knotty point; vexed question, vexata quaestio [Lat.], poser; puzzle &c (riddle) 533; paradox; hard nut to crack, nut to crack; bone to pick, crux, pons asinorum [Lat.], where the shoe pinches. nonplus, quandary, strait, pass, pinch, pretty pass, stress, brunt; critical situation, crisis; trial, rub, emergency, exigency, scramble. scrape, hobble, slough, quagmire, hot water, hornet's nest; sea of troubles, peck of troubles; pretty kettle of fish; pickle, stew, imbroglio, mess, ado; false ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... books, which filled the greater sort with envy, and lesser with rage; and made the way and progress of this blessed testimony strait and narrow, indeed, to those that received it. However, God owned his own work, and this testimony did effectually reach, gather, comfort, and establish the weary and heavy-laden, the hungry and thirsty, the poor and needy, the mournful ...
— A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers • William Penn
... of their wanderings, the discomforts of shipboard and of stations in the colonies, bad servants, and unwonted sicknesses, the Captain's tenderness never failed. If the life was rough the Captain was ready. He had been, by turns, in one strait or another, sick-nurse, doctor, carpenter, nursemaid and cook to his family, and had, moreover, an idea that nobody filled these offices quite so well as himself. Withal, his very profession kept him neat, well-dressed, and active. In the roughest of their ever-changing quarters he was ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... need of today was 2l. As only 1s. had been left in hand yesterday, and no more than 6s. had come in, we were again in a strait. But I was not looking at the little in hand, but at the fulness of God. I sent off the little which I had. In the afternoon we met for prayer. I then found that 2s. 6d. had been taken out of the box in the Infant-Orphan-House, and that 4s. more had come in by the sale ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself. Second Part • George Mueller
... on the 12th. Scully noted in his diary: "He [Pitt] wore dirty boots and odd-fashioned, lank leather breeches, but otherwise well dressed and cleanly, his hair powdered, etc. He was very courteous and cordial in words and looks, but his carriage was stiff and strait, perhaps naturally so. His face cold and harsh, rather selfish, but acute and sensible. We took our seats after much reciprocal ceremony." Pitt declined Fingall's request that he should present the Catholic petition, ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... turning into the Belle Isle Straits, they came to summer skies and softer weather. At this point, under the guidance of an old male who had followed the southward track before, they forsook the Labrador shore-line and headed fearlessly out across the strait till they reached the coast of Newfoundland. This coast they followed westward till they gained the Gulf of St. Lawrence, then, turning south, worked their way down the southwest coast of the great Island Province, past shores still basking ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... readily changed her name to Clifton if the chance should present itself. As we may not have occasion to refer to her again, it may be as well to state that Mr. Clifton's pecuniary affairs came to a crisis some months afterwards. He had always been in the habit of laughing at Miss Peyton; but in his strait he recollected that she was mistress of a few thousand dollars over which she had absolute control. Under these circumstances he decided to sacrifice himself. He accordingly offered his heart and hand, and was promptly accepted. Miss Peyton informed him that ...
— Fame and Fortune - or, The Progress of Richard Hunter • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... themselves with wine, and been guilty of fornication with the Saracen women, and other women that followed the camp from France, incurred the penalty of death. What more shall we say? When Charles had safely passed the narrow strait that leads into Gascony, between the mountains, with twenty thousand of his warriors, Turpin, the Archbishop, and Ganalon, and while the rear kept guard, early in the morning Marsir and Beligard, rushing down from the hills, where, by Ganalon's advice, they had lain two days in ambush, formed ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... sixth) the wooers in Ithaca learned that Telemachus had really set out to I cruise after his father.' They sent some of their number to lie in ambush for him, in a certain strait which he was likely to pass on his return to Ithaca. Penelope also heard of her son's departure, but was ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... in certain amours of theirs and other small matters, and afterward, the city and the usages of the folk pleasing them, they determined to abide there always. Accordingly, they contracted great and strait friendship with certain of the townfolk, regarding not who they were, whether gentle or simple, rich or poor, but solely if they were men comfortable to their own usances; and to pleasure these who were ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... of August 10 Captain Church was home, also, visiting his wife. He lived on the island of Rhode Island, in Narragansett Bay and separated by only a narrow strait from Mount Hope, on ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... the coast of Africa, where the calms and currents carried him away from the squadron, which, at the break of day, was six leagues west of Cadiz. The day before yesterday the British ships were descried from the coast, and a French ship in the Strait; but the latter did not appear to be captured. This may give us some hope, if the signals are correct. Nothing remains to me but uncertainty, with a great deal of fear; I do not ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... Wild Olive has in the new book dealt with a financial man's case of conscience. The story, which is laid for the most part in Boston, illustrates the New England proverb, 'By the street called straight'—should it not be strait?—'we come to the house ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... rascality was now easily explained. Finding himself in a desperate strait, and feeling that his salvation was certain if he could only gain a little time, he had yielded to temptation, saying to himself, like unfaithful cashiers when they first appropriate their employers' money: "I will pay it back, and ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... unique teaching: it is very hard to obey, and it makes no spectacular demands. Its only claim to acceptance is its truth. It did not conquer the world. Nor did Jesus—the Jesus of history—think that it would do so. "Strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto Life, and few there ...
— Landmarks in the History of Early Christianity • Kirsopp Lake
... to come. Hence from the ice-bound chain of Caucasus thou shalt roam into the Scythian land and the regions of Chalybes. Thence thou shalt come to the dwelling-place of the Amazons, on the banks of the river Thermodon; these shall guide thee on thy way, until at length thou shalt come to a strait, which thou wilt cross, and which shall tell by its name forever where the heifer passed from Europe into Asia. But the end of ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... family, whose women had ever been distinguished for their virtue as its men for their valour, the Chelsea infant was destined to shock Society by the laxity of her morals as she dazzled it by her beauty and charm, and to make herself conspicuous, in an age none too strait-laced, as an adventuress of rare skill and daring, and ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... waters, which are distributed along the course of the Amazon, and which often have no communication with the river. One of these, bearing the name of the Lagoon of Oran, is of fair size, and receives the water by a large strait. In the middle of the stream are scattered several islands and two or three islets curiously grouped; and on the opposite bank Benito recognized the site of the ancient Oran, of which they could only ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... depths is astonishing, but none can get down, and if any could they would be devoured by the serpents which abound there. This country is inhabited by pygmies and giants. The giants, who are by far the largest men to be seen in this strait, are ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... sting of this wrestle through which he had been passing! It was not merely religious dread, religious shame; that terror of disloyalty to the Divine Images which have filled the soul's inmost shrine since its first entry into consciousness, such as every good man feels in a like strait. This had been strong indeed; but men are men, and love is love! Ay, it was to the dark certainty of Catherine's misery that every advance in knowledge and intellectual power had brought him nearer. It was from that certainty ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... abreast; and, in some places, the way ran so close by the precipice that the traveller had great need of a steady eye and foot. Many years later, the first Duke of Athol constructed a road up which it was just possible to drag his coach. But even that road was so steep and so strait that a handful of resolute men might have defended it against an army; [355] nor did any Saxon consider a visit to Killiecrankie as a pleasure, till experience had taught the English Government that the weapons by which the Highlanders could be most effectually subdued ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Tom, with Ned to help him, worked feverishly to repair the break. They were in a serious strait, for with the airship practically helpless they were at the mercy of the natives. And as Tom glanced momentarily from the window, he saw scores of black, half-naked forms slipping in and out among ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton
... Norwegian Church as it then existed. The controversies on the ministry, on predestination, on conversion and synergism, while expressive of deep conviction and loyalty to the Truth, do not form a chapter in our history of which Lutherans can feel proud. When orthodoxy becomes so strict and strait-laced and legalistic, when it stands up so erect as to lean backward, both the interests of the Truth and of the Church are bound to suffer. The cause of unity is harmed, and union or cooperation is rendered impossible." However, if the paramount object of the Lutheran ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... exact position of channels through the outer reef by slow triangular measurements, and generally preparing for the safety of the commerce of all nations. The ship went first up to Port Curtis in Brisbane; then fetched back to Sydney. Its next trip was south to the strait between Tasmania and Australia, then back to Sydney; then again along the Barrier Reef right up to the Torres Straits. After work there, it returned again to Sydney, and then set out for the Louisiade Archipelago, which stretches through the coral sea south-eastward from New ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... royal captivity, or have demanded the surrender of her claims as the price of her release. Instead of seizing the occasion, as a Henry or a William would certainly have done, he was filled with chivalrous pity for his cousin's strait, and sent her with an escort under Henry of Winchester and Waleran of Meulan to join her brother at Bristol. The writers of the time explain his conduct by his own chivalrous spirit, and by the treasonable ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... place, and the water of the harbour is very shallow. The distance from Pictou to Charlotte Town, Prince Edward Island, is sixty miles, and by this route, through Nova Scotia and across Northumberland Strait, the English mail is transmitted ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... escapes, we arrived at Spitzbergen on the 23d of June, and anchored at Wijade Bay for a short time, where we were quite successful in our catches. We then lifted anchor and sailed through the Hinlopen Strait, and ...
— The Smoky God • Willis George Emerson
... and Wyandots were gathered from their own villages on opposite shores to the Ottawas on the south bank, facing Isle Cochon. Their women and children squatted about huge fires to see the war dance. The river strait, so limpidly and transparently blue in daytime, that dipping a pailful of it was like dipping a pailful of the sky, ...
— Heroes of the Middle West - The French • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... well in advance of all. Thereupon the St. Philip, St. Matthew, St. Andrew, and St. Thomas, all mighty galleons, sailed into the strait of the harbour towards Puerto Real. They moored under the fort of Puntal, with a fringe of galleys, three about each, to assist. The Warspright was cannonaded on her way by the fort and by the galleys, which she esteemed but as wasps in respect of the powerfulness of the others. ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... talked very freely of his affairs, and seemed to be weighing in the balances his duty to himself and family. His patriotic feelings gained the mastery, however, every time, and he talked earnestly of the matter,—protesting that our duty to the government in its sore strait ought to outweigh all other considerations. It was clear that a struggle had been going on in his mind, and that he had resolutely determined to go on and meet his fate, whatever it might be, and when he was killed a few weeks afterwards at Gettysburg, I recalled the conversation of that ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... "let not her boast of gain, In that by her contrivance this noble chief was slain. Though to sore strait he brought me, let ruin on me light, But I will take full vengeance for Trony's ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... young lady said, in surprise. "Yes, and now that I look close at you, I recognize your face. Poor boy, how have you got into a strait ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... this account which you have just given me of Mary Leavenworth's secret marriage and the great strait it put her into—a strait from which nothing but her uncle's death could relieve her—together with this acknowledgment of Hannah's that she had left home and taken refuge here on the insistence of Mary Leavenworth, is the groundwork ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... would go back to that country with him, and confess to every man the thing she had done. She prayed him that he would take her. But he will not. He says it would be shame; and the name of his wife that died shall never be shamed. It is a narrow strait for a man who loves a woman. I cannot say that it is clear to me what my own will would be in such a case. I am much moved by each when I hear them talk of it. Ah, but she has the grand honesty! Thou shouldst have heard her cry out when he said that ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Helen Jackson
... the first lecture, of the limits of depth in the rose-color cast on snow, I ought to have noted the greater strength of the tint possible under the light of the tropics. The following passage, in Mr. Cunningham's 'Natural History of the Strait of Magellan,' is to me of the greatest interest, because of the beautiful effect described as seen on the occasion of his visit to "the small town of Santa Rosa," (near Valparaiso.) "The day, though clear, had not been sunny, so that, although ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
... fixed look in his eyes, that he saw Lupin, that he felt Lupin's shadow prowling around and seeking an inlet through which to get to him. And never was anything more touching than the sight of that stripling—clad in the strait-jacket, with his arms and legs bound, guarded by thousands of men—whom the executioner already held in his inexorable hand and who, ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... of kindred or belief." And, further, "You will find them the firm friend of the Russian, because that Russian is likely to become your enemy in Herat, in Cabul, in Kashgar, in Constantinople. Nay, even should any woman-killing Sepoy put you to sore strait by indiscriminate and ruthless slaughter, he will be your cousin's friend for the simple reason that he is your enemy." Without accepting the gallant Colonel's dictum, it is as well ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... has one of the most magnificent harbors on the globe, far surpassing in natural grandeur the bay of Naples. The approach to the stupendous mountain coast is inexpressibly grand. The entrance to the capacious roadstead is through a narrow strait of great depth of water unobstructed by rock or shoal, flanked on the North by the huge fortress of Santa Cruz; on the South the "Sugar Loaf" rock proudly rears its lofty cone near one thousand feet above the surface of the deep. The entire ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... allow me to suggest that, if the earth is a sphere, the same laws of adhesion and motion must operate at every point on its surface; and the objection of Don Gomez would be quite as valid against our being able to return from crossing the Strait of Gibraltar. ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... determination a dash of romance as well as of keen desire to do something to help her grandfather in his sore strait. ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... the stranger urged. 'I am in a strait, and can refuse a helper nothing; such inquiry ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... Turkey, however, thereupon acceded to all of Italy's demands. Foreign affairs were overshadowed entirely throughout 1909 by the frightful destruction wrought by a series of violent earthquakes which shook the Strait of Messina on December 28, 1908, killing over 50,000 people. King Edward, Emperor William, and Czar Nicholas again visited Italy at different times ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... won and grew very tender; he kissed her hands many times, called her his dear heart, became, in a word, the clumsy gallant he claimed to be. All this too she endured: she began to gabble at random, sprightly as a minion, with all the shifts of a girl in a strait place ready at command. Her fear was double now: she must learn the trend of the singer and his horse, and prevent Galors from hearing either. This much she did. The sound came steadily on. She heard the horse's hoofs strike on a flint outside the quarry, she heard Prosper, ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... through the Strait of Magellan as far as Cape Monday, with a Description of several Bays and Harbours, formed by the Coast on ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... the door a fly and pair, with three keepers from an asylum kept by Burdoch, a layman, the very opposite of the benevolent Suaby. His was a place where the old system of restraint prevailed, secretly but largely: strait-waistcoats, muffles, hand-locks, etc. Here fleas and bugs destroyed the patients' rest; and to counteract the insects morphia was administered freely. Given to the bugs and fleas, it would have been an effectual antidote; but they gave ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... Government did not submit to the advantage thus gained by its commercial rival without an effort. It listened to the representations of one Ferdinand Magellan, that India and the Spice Islands could be reached by sailing to the west, if only a strait or passage through what had now been recognized as "the American Continent" could be discovered; and, if this should be accomplished, Spain, under the papal bull, would have as good a right to the India trade ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... despair of ever pulling the vessel through, when we suddenly entered a narrow strait. I knew that I was in a waterway between two islands—Apsley Strait, dividing Melville and Bathurst Islands, as I have ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... supported alone; and not many hundred yards away his greatest friend was sitting at supper - ay, and even expecting him. Was it not in the nature of man that he should run there? He went in quest of sympathy - in quest of that droll article that we all suppose ourselves to want when in a strait, and have agreed to call advice; and he went, besides, with vague but rather splendid expectations of relief. Alan was rich, or would be so when he came of age. By a stroke of the pen he might remedy this misfortune, and avert that dreaded interview with Mr. Nicholson, from which John ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Edward strait, And kneel'd low on his knee; "I wad hae leave, my lord," he said, "To ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... brought him the earliest intelligence of the Burke-and-Hare revolution in the art, went mad upon the spot; and, instead of a pension to the express for even one life, or a knighthood, endeavored to burke him; in consequence of which he was put into a strait waistcoat. And that was the reason we had no dinner then. But now all of us were alive and kicking, strait-waistcoaters and others; in fact, not one absentee was reported upon the entire roll. There were also many foreign ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... at the strait gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat; because strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... my dominions. And I applied to the council of my country to know what should be done concerning them; for of their own free will they would not go, neither could they be compelled against their will, through fighting. And [the people of the country,] being in this strait, they caused a chamber to be made all of iron. Now when the chamber was ready, there came there every smith that was in Ireland, and every one who owned tongs and hammer. And they caused coals to be piled up as high as the top of the chamber. And they had ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 3 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... liberal fates. It is the trouble of the wide house we hear of, clamorous of its disappointments and desires. The narrow house has no echoes; yet its pathetic shortcoming might well move pity. On that strait stage is acted a generous tragedy; to that inadequate soul is intrusted an enormous sorrow; a tempest of movement makes its home within that slender nature; and heroic happiness seeks that ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... clansmen slew or subdued the tribes they found in possession of the soil, and the lands were all parcelled off among the chief's kinsfolk, the indigenous proprietors being subjected to payment of a land tax, but not otherwise degraded. When the land grew too strait for the support of the chief's family or of the sept—that is, when there were no vacant allotments, a landless son of the chief would assemble a band, and set forth to make ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... had not seemed very friendly, Robert did not for a moment doubt that he would be willing to help him in his strait, and he was almost as delighted to see him as he would have been to see Herbert himself. There would be no need now of the raft, and he gladly ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... not go scot-free," the others reply'd; So strait they were seizing him there, To duck him likewise; but Robin Hood cries, "He is ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... others had sent a glimmering ray of truth through the fog of ignorance concerning insanity. The belief was growing that insane people were really not possessed of devils after all. Yet still, the cell system, strait jacket and handcuffs were in great demand. In no asylum were prisoners allowed to eat at tables. Food was given to each in tin basins, without spoons, knives or forks. Glass dishes and china plates were considered especially dangerous; they told of one man who ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... and hard, our little State Is scant of soil, of limits strait; Her yellow sands are sands alone, Her only mines ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... 5th we entered the strait between the greater and lesser Ki, the shores on both sides of which are lined with small patches of cultivation. During the day we observed several small detached reefs, and at sunset anchored on a reef, extending from the north end of the ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... he would answer; 'If, with their magic birds and flowers, they are indeed but the baseless fabric of a dream? If your ship, amidst the ravings of the storm and the darkness of the tortured night, should founder once and for ever in the dark strait which leads to the gateways of that Dawn—those gateways through which no traveller returns to lay his fellows' course for the harbours of your ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard |
