"Nerve" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... myomeres); M, notochord as seen through the transparent myotomes, the thin double-lined spaces being the connective-tissue septa and the broader spaces the muscular tissue of the myotomes; N, position of brown funnel of left side (atrio-coelomic canal); O, nerve tube ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... call to your recollection what you did me the honour to remark of my letters from Italy. Those were written with her by my side. Every other woman vexed me. This one alone gives me peace, and nerve to work. If I did not desire to work, should I venture to run the chances of an offence to you? Your girls of society are tasteless to me. And they don't makes wives to working barristers. No, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... generous spirit withered by the unkindness, as it had been soiled by the favours, of this evil beauty. [113] The life which began in rapturous devotion ends in hopeless gloom. The poet whose every nerve was strung to the delights of an unselfish though guilty passion, now that the spell is broken, finds life a burden, and confronts with relief the thought of death which, as he anticipated, soon came ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... remained due to his troops. In point of numbers he was still far inferior to the enemy; no computation swelling them higher than three thousand horse, two of them light cavalry, and nine thousand foot. The strength of his army lay in his Spanish infantry, on whose thorough discipline, steady nerve, and strong attachment to his person he felt he might confidently rely. In cavalry, and still more in artillery, he was far below the French, which, together with his great numerical inferiority, made it impossible for him to keep the open country. His only resource was to get possession of ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... traffic; and 007 had hauled the old Mogul over a small pavement of ties, inch by inch, till his flanges bit the rail once more, and he settled down with a clank. But his spirit was broken, and his nerve was gone. ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... the nerve or brain cell whereby one experiences the sensation of amazement was numb. If Paragot had informed me that he had been a boon companion of King Qa and had built the pyramids of Egypt I should not have been surprised. I could only record ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... of will, she would conjure up some recollection of the loved one's appearance, which she saw as if from a great distance. Then, after eternities of torment, she was possessed by a culminating agony. Sweat ran from her pores. Every nerve in her being vibrated with suffering, as if the accumulated pain of the ages was being conducted through her body. More and even more pain. Then, a supreme torment held her, which made all others seem trifling by comparison. The next moment, a new life was born into the world—a new life, with ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... genuine appreciation of literature—and of so much else—to be also an exceptionally bold and hardy sportsman. He is still altogether too reckless; but by my hen-with-one-chicken attitude, I think I shall get him out of Africa uninjured; and his keenness, cool nerve, horsemanship, hardihood, endurance, and good eyesight make him a really good wilderness hunter. We have become genuinely attached to Cunninghame and Tarleton, and all three naturalists, especially ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt
... the principal honors in the battle of Messines Ridge to the guns and the gunners who served them. For about a fortnight the gunners had worked incessantly with scarcely any sleep in the midst of nerve-racking noises and with death constantly hovering around them. The number of shells used in this battle by the British was incredible. One division alone fired over 180,000 shells with their field batteries and over 46,000 ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... with the growth of the body, proves, as has been shown by Paget, that the organic element of the part does not forget the impression it has received. What has been said about the different nervous centres of the body demonstrates the existence of a memory in the nerve cells diffused through the heart and intestines; in those of the spinal cord, in the cells of the motor ganglia, and in the cells of the cortical substance of ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... see an energetic heroic age, in the hardy North which steels every nerve. The precise duration of the action cannot be ascertained,—years perhaps, according to the story; but we know that to the imagination the most crowded time appears always the shortest. Here we can hardly conceive how so very much ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... its name of "pitcher plant" from the fact of its possessing the following curious characteristics: The median nerve is prolonged beyond the leaves in the manner of a tendril, and terminates in a species of cup or urn. This cup is ordinarily three or four inches in depth, and one to one and a half inches in width. The orifice ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various
... of the greatest of nerve-destroyers. He deals in superlatives. He views everything emotionally. He talks feelingly of trifles, and ecstatically of friends. He gushes. He flatters. To him everything is "wonderful," "prodigious," "superb," ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... not only that I could not go to sleep, but that I could not even close my eyes. I was wide awake, and in a high fever. Every nerve in my body trembled—every one of my senses seemed to be preternaturally sharpened. I tossed and rolled, and tried every kind of position, and perseveringly sought out the cold corners of the bed, and all to no purpose. ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... that door!" Mexicans assume a threatening attitude. "Back, all of you!" Lieutenant Overton draws his sword. His life hangs on a thread. Greasers cowed by his nerve. Grimmer work ahead. ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock
... licked to a frazzle, And Fritzie is clipped in the comb, We're holding a big razzle-dazzle To welcome our soldier boys home. They bore themselves brave in the battle They kept themselves clean on parade, They herded the Bosches like cattle In many a nerve-racking raid. ...
— War Rhymes • Abner Cosens
... at cards, for the sake of Old Virginia he must not draw back. Mr. Harry found his new acquaintances ready to try him at all these sports and contests. He had a strong head, a skilful hand, a firm seat, an unflinching nerve. The representative of Old Virginia came off very well in his friendly ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sleep. Every nerve in his body jangled. The interview with young Boland, for reasons which will be apparent to the reader later, had aroused in him a smouldering anger. He tossed ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... obviously different from most of the cells that make up the finished product, the body. The latter are highly differentiated and specialized for different functions—blood cells, nerve cells, bone cells, muscle cells, and so on, each a single cell but each adapted to do a certain work, for which the original, undifferentiated germ-cell was wholly unfit. It is evident that differentiation began to take place at ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... his eyes with his hand. The visualising sense, stimulated by the nerve strain of the preceding weeks, beheld with ghastly clearness the face of Melrose in death, with the blood-stain ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... all that I had seen—the submarine shelling the open boats and all the rest of it. She thought it marvelous that we should have been spared in so providential a manner, and I had a pretty speech upon my tongue's end, but lacked the nerve to deliver it. Nobs had come over and nosed his muzzle into her lap, and she stroked his ugly face, and at last she leaned over and put her cheek against his forehead. I have always admired Nobs; but this was ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... slightest wishes will be anticipated and fulfilled in a manner for which thou wilt vainly seek to account,—and, as thou provest thy talents or thy valor, so will promotion open its doors to thee with such rapidity that thou wilt strain every nerve to reach the highest offices in the state—for then only may'st thou hope to receive my hand, and behold the elucidation of the mystery which up to that date will ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... his position in the matter, and that this belief encouraged him to send the French troops into Western Africa. But, with the assistance of Mr. Chamberlain, who is a shrewd diplomatist as well as a man of nerve, Lord Salisbury held firmly to ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 2, No. 10, March 10, 1898 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... was mighty close they swept to a fellow, whistling, shrieking, low overhead; falling to tear out great gouges in the earth. It was enough to wreck one's nerve utterly; but the fellows that drove were all nerve. Just part of the day's work to them! And that was Nat too. Nat hadn't known what fear was—he'd eaten it alive. The adventurer in him had gone ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... for these years' delay. The contrivances and hardships of his Manchester life had been, after all, enjoyment. Without them and the extravagant self-reliance they had developed in him his pride and ambition would have run less high. And at this moment the nerve and savour of existence came to him ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a few feet and comes to a halt again, or slips from the track and turns over in the deep snow. But it is at such times, too, that one appreciates at his full value such a noble puller as our wheel dog Nanook. He spares himself not at all; the one absorbing occupation of every nerve and muscle of his body is pulling. His trace is always taut, or, if he lose footing for a moment and the trace slacken, he is up and at it again that the sled lose not its momentum if he can help it. When the lead line is pulled back that the sled may be started by ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... and take up position to form a most dangerous ambuscade, and half a mile away, straggling through the woods, running or striding, were the men in the colours he loved. They had swept the enemy before them, so far, but trained troops speedily recover from a panic, if they have a leader of nerve, and seeing a noble chance in the angle of this deep-sunk road, the British fugitives turned like boars at bay. Not a sign of them was visible to the Americans. The latter were suffering from too much success. Their usual caution seemed to have deserted them, and trotting in a body ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... in that garage. Had he really intended to steal the car, he would not have had the nerve to take the chances he had taken. He shivered when he recalled how he had slid under the car when the owner came in. What if the man had seen him or heard him? He would be in jail now, instead of splashing along the highway ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... all walked around the valley floor and got stung one at a time. The things did it so quietly that none of us knew what was going on until we got hit ourselves. When we had all been enslaved, we were ready to do their bidding. They can't talk, but they can communicate by means of nerve messages when that ...
— The Judas Valley • Gerald Vance
... The girls, and Molo himself, had described what we would find: a main route leading to the control room where the delicate mechanisms which operated all this were centralized, the nerve center of Wandl. It seemed that we were following ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings
... aura from the brilliancy of its flashes of colour may often be more conspicuous, the nerve-ether and the etheric double are really of a much denser order of matter, being strictly speaking within the limits of the physical plane, though invisible to ordinary sight. It has been the custom in Theosophical literature to describe ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater
... one of the men, fixing his eyes on my father's face, bent forward and suddenly struck his hand violently on the hilt of his broadsword and, rattling the weapon, half drew it from its sheath. This nerve-trying experiment was a complete failure, its only effect being to make my father smile up at the man even more pleasantly than before, as if the little practical joke had ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... and the energy of her joy embraced Aminta, that she might nerve all her powers to gain the half-minute for ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... had gained her object, for Stoke was visibly relieved. He told her many things which he had withheld from other inquirers. He cleared Dixon's good name from anything but that liability to error which is only human, and spoke of the captain's nerve and steadiness in the hour of danger. Insensibly they lapsed into a low-voiced discussion of Dixon as of the character of a lost friend ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... shook it off. Was he mad? Life was worth more to him than to other men, he thought; and perhaps he was right. He went slowly through the cool dusk, looking across the fields, up at the pale, frightened face of the moon hooded in clouds: he did not dare to look, with all his iron nerve, at the dark figure beyond him on the road. She was sitting there just where he had left her: he knew she would be. When he came closer, she got up, not looking towards him; but he saw her clasp her hands behind her, the fingers plucking weakly at each other. It was an old, ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... opening for the Blues Their floods of moral influence diffuse, And each of seven its blameless nectar sheds To nerve the spirits of ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... displayed his characteristic qualities, Je ne sais pas being the usual answer to any topographical inquiries with a total absence of nerve, and a general conviction that distances were very great and that the weather would be bad. However, we got on very well, and I was sorry to part ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... was the command ship of the fleet, the nerve center of the entire operation, it was still hardly more than a prison ship for the cadets. In direct contrast, the space liner was bright, gay, and full of life. Everything imaginable for the convenience of the colonists ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... wildly, and a thrill of rapture rushed through every nerve and fibre of his being. He sprang up and peered through the gloom, and moved forward in the direction from which the voice seemed to have come. At this moment he did not stop to consider how Dolores could have got there. It was enough that she really was there, and all other feelings were ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... soaring to the skies, Intent "the topmost arch" of heaven to scale, When heeding naught that would oppose its rise, It breaks with fearless nerve the tempest-gale— And spreads its wings like a majestic sail, Full on the bosom of the raging blast, Thy spirit soar'd—but ah! too like us frail, When the same breeze which bore it from the dust Wing'd home the fatal shaft that tore its ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 565 - Vol. 20, No. 565., Saturday, September 8, 1832 • Various
... up, in a small court, among low operators. Such a man as this is unfit for this commercial sphere. He would have been unfit for a pilot, unfit for military command, unfit for any place that demands steady nerve, ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... my teeth were clenched as if in the throes of lockjaw. Had I paused to think for a single instant, all my nerve would have oozed away. But I had no time to spend on thought; I had to work on, to save Miss Falconer. The whole ghoulish business would be futile if the inn servants found the body. The mere flight of all the guests would certainly stir suspicion; let the murder ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... pray" began to straighten their backs a little, the while they wrestled with the kinks that were bothering them from too much stooping. It was a sort of chiropractic process for the alleviation of growing pains—the discovery of the proper nerve to ask and receive, to seek and find. As the People grew more accustomed to the sound of their own Voice it was only natural that the quaver of timidity began to disappear from the tones of it and that their speech grew stronger ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... stranger,' Cleinias addresses him—'inhabitant of Attica I will not call you, for you seem to deserve rather the name of Athene herself, because you go back to first principles.' Thus complimented, the stranger lets himself go. Yet somehow he would seem to have lost speculative nerve. ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... the Northern Commune, remained in Petrograd when the Government moved to Moscow. He is neither an original thinker nor a good orator except in debate, in answering opposition, which he does with extreme skill. His nerve was badly shaken by the murders of his friends Volodarsky and Uritzky last year, and he is said to have lost his head after the attack on Lenin, to whom he is extremely devoted. I have heard many Communists attribute to this fact the excesses which followed ...
— Russia in 1919 • Arthur Ransome
... through her teeth. "Even for that, there are things I haven't the nerve to stand. I have thought I could stand them. But I can't. It does not matter why. I am going to tell you the truth. You represent too much. You have been too great a temptation. Nobody meant anything or planned anything at first. It ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... that steady light in her blue eyes, but they felt by some instinct that she was young and unstable of nerve. At this unexpected move on their part the girl stopped short, suddenly undecided whether to ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... over M. de Pontverre's and again returned to mine, which she read through and would have read again, had not the footman that instant informed her that service was beginning—"Child," said she, in a tone of voice which made every nerve vibrate, "you are wandering about at an early age—it is really a pity!"—and without waiting for an answer, added—"Go to my house, bid them give you something for breakfast, after mass, I will speak ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... the most remarkable stories of this Wagon Mound country dealt with the nerve and bravery exhibited by John L. Hatcher in defence of his life, and those of the men in ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... the battle— I would arm him for the fight; I would give him to his country, For his country's wrong and right! I would nerve his hand with blessing From the "God of battles" won— With His helmet and His armor, I ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... make over two thousand in order to secure the one hundred needed for the present series? The slightest imperfection is enough to render an otherwise perfect record useless. Even the artists themselves would sometimes become discouraged at the enormous difficulties. It is nerve-racking work, for one must be on ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... workman only lighted his pipe. His mind was busy and he needed a nerve-quieter. The train of thought in which he had just indulged was strange, and rather disquieting—altogether he needed ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... Evelyn, with shining eyes, "to think that all the time we were worrying about you and feeling sure you were lost, you were having the time of your life! Oh, if I'd only had the nerve to follow you!" ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... all the forenoon and all the way to Orham on the train and most of that night. And when he heaved anchor, Jonadab had agreed to put up a thousand and I was in for five hundred and Peter contributed two hundred and fifty and experience and nerve. And the "Old Home House" was ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... nothing of the writer, but recognised the name of the vessel as being that in which his son had sailed for the Southern Seas, for our hero had written to tell of his departure, although he had not asked or waited for advice. Mr Jack was a man of strong nerve. Rising quietly from the table, he left the room, but his wife noticed the expression of his face, and followed ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne
... in the very extremity of his apprehensions, there fell of a sudden a knock upon the door, sounding so loud and so startling upon the silence of the room that every shattered nerve in our hero's frame tingled and thrilled in answer to it. He stood petrified, scarcely so much as daring to breathe; and then, observing that his mouth was agape, he moistened his dry and parching lips, and drew his jaws ...
— The Ruby of Kishmoor • Howard Pyle
... those days. There rose within me a feeling that I, too, could do anything—if I only wanted. There was so much to be seen and experienced—and the flow of life was irresistible. Nothing would be needed but a little more nerve, a little more self-assurance, and then to plunge in. ... Yes, that was what I felt while you were talking. ... And then Gabrielle came toward us along the narrow road from the village, between the acacias. She carried her straw hat in her hand, and she nodded to ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... appealing plaintiveness in their expression which drags at your sympathies like the look in the eyes of a hunchback. It means that, with your opportunities, you might have done more with your life. Your mother looks at you that way sometimes in church, when the sermon touches a particularly raw nerve in your spiritual make-up. I always feel like apologizing when a ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... nerve in him strained toward the back of the tambo. Something was there! He had not heard it—seen it—smelled it—but he felt it; a nameless thing that did not belong there. With smooth speed he pivoted, looked, listened. ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... now in his 78th year, thin of face, spare of frame, his body all sinew and nerve, his eyes brilliant with unextinguished fire. I loitered near to hear what he would say to Douglas. He seemed to have a paternal pride in the young Congressman. He entwined his arm with Douglas', patted Douglas on the knee, looked into his ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... so grave that her nerve, normally strong, was fairly shaken; only that morning her husband had said: "Old Mr. Forsyte must be worth well over a hundred ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... nerve-racking or explosive than an occasional hilarious whoop punctuated the melody. For once, at any rate, it seemed likely to go the distance; but no sooner did the chorus, which had been taken up, to a man, by the motley crowd and was rip-roaring ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... marriage is perfectly legitimate. You are as free in your ideas as I am, and, happily, there can be no disagreement between us on that point. As for our future, that ought not to alarm you. I'll work in the sweat of my brow, I'll work day and night— in fact, I will strain every nerve to make Zina happy. Her life will be a splendid one! You may ask, am I able to do it. I am, brother! When a man devotes every minute to one thought, it's not difficult for him to attain his object. But let us go to Zina; it will be a joy to her ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... through which a novice must pass before being admitted to holy orders is a severe tax upon nerve and endurance. In the process of a long ritual, at least three, or even so many as nine, pastilles are placed upon the bald scalp of the head. These are then lighted, and allowed to burn down into the skin until permanent ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... if I lost my nerve I was beaten! If I had lost my nerve no protecting of Marie, no defiance of Semyonov—and, far beyond these, abject submission to my enemy in the forest. If I had lost my nerve!... Had I? Was it only weariness the other night? But twice now I had been properly beaten, ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... climbing up the hill, nor is there any fear of any one attacking him; all he hath to do is on no account to look behind him." And after a short pause she presently added, "O Fakir, albeit a woman yet I have both nerve and thews to carry me through this adventure. I shall not heed the Voices not be enraged thereat, neither will they have any power to dismay me: moreover, I have devised a device whereby my success on this point is assured." ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... that strong stimulation of the gluteal region may, especially under predisposing conditions, produce or heighten sexual excitement, by virtue of the fact that both regions are supplied by branches of the same nerve. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... England will once more open in a response to the necessary comforts which her brave sons call for at her hands, and for which they will not call in vain. Let me give a few hints: Tobacco and cigarettes are, of course, always in demand, and under the peculiar circumstances of this nerve-racking campaign, are more or less of a necessity. Socks, too, are needed, for whether the weather is hot or cold, socks will wear out. The men dearly love sweets, such as toffee, chocolate, peppermints. Cardigan jackets—not too heavy—are largely called for; a packet containing ...
— With The Immortal Seventh Division • E. J. Kennedy and the Lord Bishop of Winchester
... grim rocks rising close beside his vessel, realized that naught could keep her from them now. He saw death peering close to his face. He felt the icy breath of the Grim Reaper upon his brow. A coward at heart, he lost every vestige of his nerve at this crucial moment of his life. Leaping from the wheelhouse to the deck he ran backward and forward shrieking at the top of his lungs begging and entreating someone to save him, and offering fabulous rewards to the man who carried him ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... far greater importance than even the preservation of social order, will believe that Mr. Eyre has committed one of the greatest crimes of which a person in authority can be guilty, and will strain every nerve to obtain a declaration that their belief is in accordance with ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... harder than ever to stand pressed there against the panelling, watching the coming of the stalwart guard, and it took all the doctor's nerve and self-command to stand there so absolutely still of body, while his nerves and thoughts were moving with ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... which he turns out year after year?' said a journalist, who was smoking beside him, an older man than the rest of them. 'I have a hundred things I want to say—but H. is popular—I like him himself—and I haven't the nerve. But what the devil do we want with the Greeks—they painted their world—let us paint ours! Besides, it is an absurdity. I thought as I was looking at H. 's things this morning of what Preault used to say of Pradier: "Il partait tous les matins pour la Grece et arrivait tous les soirs Rue ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... thus proceed from the spine, branch out, like the limbs and twigs of a tree, till they extend over the whole body; and, so minutely are they divided and arranged, that a point, destitute of a nerve, cannot be ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... moment. The swift-footed Army of Northern Virginia was racing for its life, and Grant, inspired with more than his habitual tenacity and energy, not only pressed his enemy in the rear, but hung upon his flank, and strained every nerve to get in his front. He did not even allow himself the pleasure of entering Richmond, which surrendered to Weitzel early on the morning ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... Phebe, but she did not move. It was the voice of one long since dead that rang in her ears—dead, and faithfully mourned over; and every nerve tingled, and her heart seemed to stay its beating. Roland Sefton's voice! She did not doubt it or mistake it. The call had been too real. She had answered to it too many times to be mistaken now. In those days of utter silence, when dumb signs only had passed between her ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... step came, till I saw in the half dark the pretty figure of one of the parlour maids. On tip-toe she crept up to the study door, and then stooping down, listened at the keyhole. Instantly I was on the alert, every nerve strained to watch her. For nearly five minutes she stood there, and then with a glance round, tiptoed quietly along the passage again, closing the baize door ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... at the supper-table he had one nerve-racking fear dispelled and another confirmed by his mother's reply to a question ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... resolved, I became anxious in his behalf, strained every nerve, rode in all directions night and day, and so effectually exerted myself in enquiring who were the independent men likely to be influenced by honest motives, that I procured him above ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... him were priests, naked to the waist, and armed with knives. Behind them again stood the little band of Settlement men, trembling with terror. Nor were their fears groundless, for there among them lay one of their number, dead. This was the man whose nerve had broken down, who shrieked aloud in the darkness, and in reward had been ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... wanting nerve," grinned Weary. "I guess I can stand it if you can." And a very efficient assistant ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... through some nerve-testing experiences, but, as he went to his room, he realized that the severest ordeals often occur in ...
— The Prodigal Father • J. Storer Clouston
... each nerve, they bend them to the oar. The bronze poop reels, so lustily they row, And from beneath them slips the watery floor. The parched lips quiver, as they pant and blow, Sweat pours in rivers from their limbs; when ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... replaced by a fibrous cicatrix. It would appear that portions of muscle transplanted from animals to fill up gaps in human muscle are similarly replaced by fibrous tissue. When a muscle is paralysed from loss of its nerve supply and undergoes complete degeneration, it is not capable of being regenerated, even should the integrity of the nerve be restored, and so its function ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... astonished; once more he was humiliated—and as for his anger, it rose to summer-heat. He arranged the balls again, grouping them carefully, and said he would win this time, or die. When a client reaches this condition, it is a good time to damage his nerve further, and this can always be done by saying some little mocking thing or other that has the outside appearance of a friendly remark—so I employed this art. I suggested that a bet might tauten his nerves, and that I would offer ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... Then Roxy took her place, and Heman bent over his bass-viol. The rehearsal began. Heman forgot all about his keeper sitting by the stove, as the old, familiar tunes swelled up in the little room, and one antique phrase after another awoke nerve-cells all unaccustomed nowadays to thrilling. He could remember just when he first learned The Mellow Horn, and how his uncle, the sailor, had used to sing it. "Fly like a youthful hart or roe!" Were there spices still left on the hills of life? Ah, but only for youth to smell and gather! Boldly, ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... and pure to allow him to desecrate the trust reposed in him to personal ends. Hence the influence derived from the patronage of the General Government was turned against the administration rather than in its behalf; and the singular spectacle was presented of men exerting every nerve to overthrow Mr. Adams, who were dependent upon him for the influence they wielded against him, and for their ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... his report of the affair the work of art which he boasted should come from his hand. It was really a space-man's masterpiece; and it appealed to every nerve in the reader's body, with its sensations repeated through many columns, and continued from page to page with a recurrent efflorescence of scare-heads and catch-lines. In the ardor of production, all scruples and reluctances became fused in a devotion to the interests of the Events and its ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... detrimental to eyesight? How large must be the type in textbooks in order that young children may easily read it? What variations from the present school program are necessary in order to make adequate provision for change in the use of different sets of muscles, and relief from nerve strain? ...
— Health Work in the Public Schools • Leonard P. Ayres and May Ayres
... Bohemia that War is coming back. Nobility all making off, some to Vienna or the intermediate Towns lying thitherward, some to their Country-seats; all out of Prag. Willing mind on the part of the Common People; which the Government strains every nerve to make the most of. Here are fasts, processions, Prayers of Forty-Hours; here, as in Vienna and elsewhere. In Vienna was a Three Days' solemn Fast: the like in Prag, or better; with procession to the shrine of St. Vitus,—little likely to help, I should ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the pipe dropped from his hand. A minimum of sleep and a maximum of tobacco do not tend to steady a man's nerve. ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... words blood and bloody punctuate the largest poem of G.K.C. to the virtual obliteration in our memory of the fine imagery, the occasional tendernesses, and the blustering aggressiveness of some of the metaphors and similes. Not many men would have the nerve, let alone the skill, ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... They were men of nerve, both of them. Neither flinched. Rochester's question had been asked in an absolutely matter-of-fact tone, and Saton's reply was entirely casual. Yet he knew very well that it was only since the coming of the great judge that Rochester had suddenly realized that amongst the ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... so there was the danger of the vessel coming to grief on my account. And, as though to spite me, the closing verse of Psalm 104 reads, "Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth and let the wicked be no more." I strained every nerve to keep Matilda out of my thoughts, but ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... figured that numbers, names, and individual variations didn't count for much, just then. They were a crowd with an overall personality—often noisy, sometimes quiet like now, always a bit grim to sustain their nerve before all they had to learn in order to reduce their inexperienced greenness, and before the thought of all the expensive equipment they had to somehow acquire, if they were to take part in the rapid adaptation of the ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... Arizona. The scenes go on all day and all night in different forms. A number of dogs are being broken in by being tied up to stakes. These keep up a heart-rending and peculiar crying, beginning with a short bark which melts into a yowl and dies away in a nerve-racking wail. This ceases not day or night, and half a dozen of these prisoners are within a ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... my supper and lights, my nerve was utterly gone; and, had the lad been such as I was used to seeing him, I should have kept him (even by force had that been necessary) to take off the edge from my distasteful solitude. But on Felipe, also, ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... just lighted the big lamp in the hall—electricity had not yet found its way into the old house—and the warm cheerfulness of the homely scene went far to rehabilitating Simon's convalescent nerve. Ghosts did not fit into this atmosphere. Bates did—Bates was almost as satisfying as a cabbage. Of course, Ocky would promptly do her best to spoil it—! He could have dispensed willingly with the examination to which she ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... of his so spurred me on, that I Strained every nerve, behind him scrambling up, Until the circle was beneath ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante
... The brilliance and nerve with which she carried through the trick, roused the enthusiasm it deserved, and Arithelli passed out panting and triumphant to the accompaniment of music and cheers, and ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... clouds of smoke over his head and watched it curl itself away around the chandelier, for notwithstanding the fact that he knew, or should have known, the effects of nicotine on the human system, this aspiring young member of the medical profession wasted money and nerve force in his slavery ...
— The Daughter of a Republican • Bernie Babcock
... sort of a bashful boy. Dave was just the opposite. Dave was full of nerve. Bud kept a 'hemming and hawing' trying ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... to listen to you! Half an hour from now you'll be ashamed of yourself... wishing that nobody had heard you! You'll be begging me not to mention it! You... Jim Hegan... the traction king! To lose your nerve over a little thing like this! What's come over you, anyhow... after all the things we've been through ...
— The Machine • Upton Sinclair
... him! Since the night he had flung himself out of her house, tortured in every nerve, she had not for a moment left him. When he walked through the house, she followed him, her stealthy footfall sounding just the merest fraction of a second after his. He avoided the bare polished floors and walked on the rugs whenever possible, that he might not ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... nerve to fire and the Lynx walked back to the woods. How well I remember that man. A kind-hearted, good fellow, but oh! so timid. His neighbours guyed him about it, until at last he sold out his ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... lady Feng was, it is true, much cut up at heart; but she strained every nerve to preserve an exterior of total indifference. Noticing that there was no one present in the apartment, she drew P'ing Erh to her. "I drank yesterday," she smiled, "a little more wine than was good for me, so don't bear me a grudge. Where did I ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... teach that preposterous ignoramus something worth knowing about Sennacherib. Besides I am a bachelor and would sooner spend Christmas, as to whose irritating and meaningless annoyance I cordially agree with you, among strangers than among my married sisters' numerous and nerve-racking families." ...
— A Christmas Mystery - The Story of Three Wise Men • William J. Locke
... which had attacked the steel girders of our civilization even before the work of building was completed, has brought about what Gilbert Murray in speaking of Greek thought calls the failure of nerve. In the seventeenth century men still had the courage of their egoism. The world was a bad job to be made the best of, all hope lay in driving a good bargain with the conductors of life everlasting. By the end of the nineteenth ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... Danaans and full of fury against the Trojans, who, being now no longer in a body, filled all the ways with their cries of panic and rout; the air was darkened with the clouds of dust they raised, and the horses strained every nerve in their flight from the tents and ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... bank, and in the evening the little shops on either side started playing nasty, cheap European phonographs the noise of which was most disagreeable. Most of the records were of Chinese music, the harsh quality of which was magnified tenfold by the imperfections of the instruments. When the nerve-wracking concert became intolerable, they were always good enough to stop it ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... the adjoining room for another light, and had the satisfaction to penetrate the mystery on the spot. Rats abounded in the ancient building she inhabited, and one of these had managed to ensconce itself within her favourite memento mori. Though thus endowed with a more than feminine share of nerve, she entertained largely that belief in supernaturals, which in those times was not considered as sitting ungracefully on the grave and aged of her condition; and the story of the Magic Mirror was one for which she vouched with ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... battles of King Sudas, may have a historical basis. He is represented as a gigantic being of enormous size and vigour and of gross passions. He feasts on the flesh of bulls and buffaloes roasted by hundreds, his potations are counted in terms of lakes, and not only nerve him for the fray but also intoxicate him[150]. Under the name of Sakka, Indra figures largely in the Buddhist sutras, and seems to have been the chief popular deity in the Buddha's lifetime. He was adopted into ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... grave which should be our landmark has not been entirely obliterated by the jungle, as I had thought most likely. Second, we know that it is on this side of the island, for the reason that this chap Tubbs hasn't nerve to go much beyond shouting distance by himself. Third, as Tubbs has tried this hold-up business I believe we should consider the agreement by which he was to receive a sixteenth share null and void, and decide ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... wearying form of nerve trouble which mostly affects the arms and legs. It can, however, originate in any other part of the body through the spinal nerve centres. It may sometimes be due to injury, but the usual cause is some form of thickening or misplacement ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... the resolute nerve of a man, And a voice which he holds as serene as he can, Takes quietly from her the ...
— Beechenbrook - A Rhyme of the War • Margaret J. Preston
... Ryan very intimately and had seen him in action when his temper was up. Bill adjusted an extra horn which he happened to have in stock. One of those terrific things that go far toward making the life of a pedestrian a nerve-racking succession of startles. Casey tried it out on himself before he would accept it. He walked several doors down the street with the understanding that Bill would honk at him when he was some little distance away. Bill waited until Casey's attention was drawn to a lady with thick ankles ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... this rough peasant Hand! Confessed 'Art is null and study void!' So sayest thou? So said not I, Who threw the faulty pencil by, And years instead of hours employed, Learning the veritable use Of flesh and bone and nerve beneath Lines and hue of the outer sheath, {70} If haply I might reproduce One motive of the mechanism, Flesh and bone and nerve that make The poorest coarsest human hand An object worthy to be scanned A whole life ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... her glance or let her eyelids fall, but a change came over her face—that subtle change in nerve and muscle which will sometimes give a childlike expression even to the elderly: it is the subsidence ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... interesting idea, or a strong twinge of recollection, it made him, for the moment, rather heartless. Just now he felt that Gerhardt's flash of high spirits was in some way connected with him. Was it because he had gone in with Willy? Had David doubted his nerve? ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... indignantly. "When I show signs of fear it is time for you to be afraid. Those who have the nerve to load the guns come with me; the rest go and remain with Bertha Eswick and the children. She will shame you, I doubt not, by ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... with a fresh flood of tears, that he should never do wrong when she was by. Then came the apology. It was most necessary, and he owned that it would be much better to be able to tell his father that his grandmother had forgiven him; but he really had not nerve to set out alone, and Albinia, who had begun to dread having him out of sight, consented to go ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with the scalpel, a glance with a lens, and their secret is betrayed. The eyes are a mockery. Externally they are organs of vision—the front of the eye is perfect; behind, there is nothing but a mass of ruins. The optic nerve is a shrunken, atrophied and insensate thread. These animals have organs of vision, and yet they have no vision. They have eyes, ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... out of politics is a vast undertaking, for in politics lies their strength. If they resist, as doubtless they will, it will call for nerve, endurance, and sacrifice on the part of the people. It will be no child's play, for the power of privilege is great. But the power of our people is greater still, and their steadfastness is equal to the need. The task is a tremendous one, both in the demands it will make and the rewards ...
— The Fight For Conservation • Gifford Pinchot
... minutes she felt her soul being crucified. While Jack stood talking in the hall or on the steps, she tried to conceal from herself what she had done and, when that was impossible, to nerve herself to make reparation. Then she was blinded by the glare of the head-lights and opened her eyes to find that the car had swept beyond reach of ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... [Doyle goes abruptly into the bedroom, slamming the door and shattering the last remnant of Tim's nerve. The poor wretch saves himself from bursting into tears by plunging again into his role of daredevil Irishman. He rushes to Broadbent; plucks at his sleeve with trembling fingers; and pours forth his entreaty with all the brogue ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... a voice which made every nerve within me quiver with deep emotion, "my strength is unequal to my burden; I bend beneath it. I need a helper, a friend. Will ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... deep leather chair. He was tall, handsome, and elegant. The iron gray head pressing the chair-back was one to draw the second glance from a stranger as a matter of course. The clear, blue-gray eyes took in the walls lined with books. The white hands, clasped in front of the broad chest, showed nerve force and strength. ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock
... appalling silence, and among all these staring windows, I am lost in terrors—oh, lost in them!' she cried, her face blanching at the words. 'I beg you to lend me your arm,' she added with the loveliest, suppliant inflection. 'I dare not go alone; my nerve is gone—I had a shock, oh, what a shock! I beg of you to ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... well known, Mr. Speaker, that there is a LARGE, RESPECTABLE and INTELLIGENT PARTY in Kentucky, who will exert every nerve and spare no efforts to dislodge the subsisting rights to our Slave population, or alter in some manner, and to some extent, at least, the tenure by which that species of property is held."—Speech of the Hon. James T. Morehead in ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... "She 'asn't got the nerve to send young Nugent about 'is business," explained Mr. Kybird; "she feels sorry for 'im, pore fellow; but 'e's got a loving and affectionate 'art, and she can't bear 'im making love to 'er. You can understand what it is, ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... had been times when he had fancied that Garret possessed the stronger spirit, because his words were more full of fire, and he was ever a man of action and strife. But when Garret had been brought face to face with peril his nerve had given way. He had struggled after courage, but all the while he had been ready to fly. He had spoken of coming martyrdom with loftiness of resolution; but he had wavered, and had been persuaded that the time had not ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... he jokes with his three sisters; with what inexhaustible volubility he pours out quotations from his favourite poets, applying them to the lovely scenes around him; and with what a mischievous delight in his superior nerve and mettle, he attempts the feats of charioteering, which fill the heart of the youngest of the party with sudden terrors! Beside him, in a dress of marvellous plainness, and ugliness, stamped with ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... the cafe concert, Sidonie's husband had had a moment of frantic excitement. He leaned on Planus's arm, every nerve in his body strained to the utmost. At that moment he had no thought of going to Montrouge to get ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... began to feel terribly tired and sleepy. At first he fought off the feeling, realizing that his only hope of freedom lay in keeping awake, with all his senses alert. Then he thought of the nerve-racking hours through which he had just passed; the many more which were likely to follow, and decided that he must have rest at any cost. He threw himself upon the floor, his head pillowed upon his arm, and ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks
... and, in fact, naturally are, in sympathy with one or the other form of New-measurism and revivalism; but Lutherans, who believe in a Gospel of real pardon and power—never. If the Lutheran doctrine of grace and the means of grace is Scriptural, then the work-nerve-and-emotion Christianity of New-measurism is wrong, and vice versa. Not Lutheranism, but Arminianism, Enthusiasm, and Reformedism are the premises of revivalism. The fact that New-measurism was ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... renders even transient sensations permanent, by fondly retracing them. I cannot without a thrill of delight recollect views I have seen, which are not to be forgotten, nor looks I have felt in every nerve, which I shall never more meet. The grave has closed over a dear friend, the friend of my youth; still she is present with me, and I hear her soft voice warbling as I stray over ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... de Bouille could not nerve herself to the commission of so great a crime; but it seems more probable that the steward prevented the destruction of the child under the orders of M. de Saint-Maixent. The theory is that the marquis, mistrustful of the promise made him by Madame de Bouille to marry him after the death of her ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Steno began to interest herself in Lincoln, it was solely for the work of the latter, so much the more as for a year he had perceived not a decline but a disturbance in the painting of that artist, too voluntary not to be unequal. Then Florent had seen, on the other hand, the nerve of Maitland reawakened in the ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... cuddies, ports, spars, levers, hatches, stancheons, floating trunks, bibulous boxes heavy with drink, and the awful, mysterious gloom of the water, which is not night or darkness, but the absence of any ray to touch the sensitive optic nerve. The sense of touch the only reliance, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... resolution was at once taken. He dropped the lighted paper as if by accident, and extinguished it by setting his foot upon it. He knew that if his companion caught so much as a single momentary glimpse of the short but frightfully perilous passage she would have to make, her nerve would utterly fail her, and too probably a dreadful catastrophe would happen. So he resolved upon the hazardous attempt to get her ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... some of the nerve centres controlling the organs of speech became affected, but not sufficiently to compel him to remain absent from the International Theosophical Congress held that year in Paris under the presidency of Colonel Olcott. It was on this occasion that Dr. Pascal received from ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... lads, give way," shouted our skipper, though the men were straining every nerve to the utmost. "Give way, and we shall soon be up ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... experience of the thing, by receiving back the Rebels on their own conditions. Mr. Lincoln has already proclaimed an amnesty wide enough to satisfy the demands of the most exacting humanity, and they must reckon on a singular stupidity in their hearers who impute ferocious designs to a man who cannot nerve his mind to the shooting of a deserter or the hanging of a spy. Mr. Lincoln, in our judgment, has shown from the first the considerate wisdom of a practical statesman. If he has been sometimes slow in making ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell |
