"Unstrung" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... little dry knoll in the centre of which stood an enormous bean-tree, and there, a long way up, was the "bees' nest." With a piece of cane from a creeping palm and a stone tomahawk he slowly ascended the tree, for he was weak and his nerves unstrung. But he joyed when he reached the "bees' nest," for it was large and full of honey and brood comb—a feast in prospect for the whole camp. Then, as he set to work to chop out the comb, he heard, to his astonishment, voices below, and peering down, saw ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... whose diameter was but little over the length of his own feet—he found it exceedingly difficult to keep his balance. Had he been on the ground, there would have been no difficulty about it; but, perched as he was full twenty-feet aloft, the thing was quite different; and, with nerves unstrung by the fearful danger that threatened him below, it was just as much as he could ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... Seymour, already unstrung by the fearful strain he had gone through and the frightful decision he would have to make later on, nay, had made after Bentley's words, was in ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... for him to reply. His shoulders quivered, but he remained silent. She went on soothingly: "You are all unstrung. The shock was too sudden. It must have been a terrible one! Won't you tell me about it? Perhaps that will make ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... so, feeling curiously weak and unstrung. He put his arm around her, and led her into the dim ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... her head on the lap of her mother, who like Mrs. Altman, sat with her back against the splintered ash, and with little appreciation of the fearful shadow that rested upon all, soon sank into unconsciousness. The mothers were so nervous and unstrung that though they occasionally shut their eyes, the slumber was ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... and yourself. Ah! you think that no answer. Will you have a medical simile? Self-examination notes the symptoms and combats them; self-contemplation does as I did when I was unstrung by that illness at Poonshedagore, and was always feeling my own pulse. It dwells on them, and perpetually deplores itself. Oh, dear! this is no better—what a wretch I am. It is always studying its deformities in ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... particularly St. John, who, with a tender yet impassioned gesture, bends his countenance towards her, languid with the depth of his emotion. At her feet lie various instruments of music, broken and unstrung. Of the colouring I do not speak; it eclipses nature, yet has all ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... her save a canter round Jakko. With my nerves still unstrung from the previous night I feebly protested against the notion, suggesting Observatory Hill, Jutogh, the Boileaugunge road—anything rather than the Jakko round. Kitty was angry and a little hurt: so I yielded from fear of provoking further misunderstanding, ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... dungeon's darkness, pale and sapless, which no kindness of the sun, no softness of the summer breeze, can ever restore to life and vigor? It must not, shall not be! Oh, were Regulus what he was once, before captivity had unstrung his sinews and enervated his limbs, he might pause; he might think he were worth a thousand of the foe; he might say, "Make the exchange, Rome shall not lose by it!" But now, alas, 'tis gone,—that impetuosity of strength which could once make him a leader indeed, ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... ought to whisper when I speak and every night the minute I get to sleep I find myself diggin' in first one outlandish place and then another. And if I'm not diggin' in my sleep, your father is, with jerks and starts and grunts enough to wake the dead. I'm all unstrung. So far as I can see the only thing we're findin' is nerves. One thing I will say: It was dull and lonesome before Mr. O'Neill came and I missed him when he went but dear knows, it was peaceful. It's been one thing right after the other. Who upset Mr. Abbott in the river, ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... these weeks, her lifework was utterly undone. And then, in the terrible loneliness of her room, with the darkness on the world and round her bed and at her heart, she wept—terrible, tearless sobbing that left her in the morning weak, unstrung, utterly ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... criticisms, and heated words of his opponents trickle off from him as easily as water does from a duck's back, which is the proper legal mental attitude in regard to such things. He told us that sharp, harsh, or bitter words entered his soul like barbed iron and he was upset and unstrung for hours afterward. A man with such an emotional nature as his and such an intellect is especially qualified for literature, and we are glad to say that he is now making a very flattering success ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... some way I felt that things were not the same as they used to be. Jack was the same kindly brother I had always known, and yet there seemed in his manner a tinge of something different. I did not know what. I only knew that I felt very nervous and unstrung. ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... proposal with a sudden realization of what a desperately brutal thing this unstrung creature was about to do, with a terrible arraignment of self-reproach because she had made no effort to dissuade him or place an obstacle in the way of accomplishing his design. It was not strange, thought she, with a revulsion of self-loathing, that he accepted her as a willing accomplice ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... his nerves had been quite unstrung, the knife fell, the ice and warm water were applied, and Diamond could not choke back the cry of horror that ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... the strength of desperation; her nerves were unstrung by fear, and every joint weakened so that she could hardly support herself. She had not however spoken in vain; one or two convulsive shudders passed over her aunt, and then Mrs. Rossitur suddenly rose turning her face from Fleda; ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... gory weapon on the greensward, and returned it to the sheath. He then sprang to the side of his wife, and, with the help of the foreman and two brakemen, raised her. She said her nerves were all unstrung, and she 'never could walk home in the world;' so she was placed on the box of the hose carriage ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Virgin be with us, said Panurge. Holos, alas, I drown; be be be bous, be bous, bous; in manus. Good heavens, send me some dolphin to carry me safe on shore, like a pretty little Arion. I shall make shift to sound the harp, if it be not unstrung. Let nineteen legions of black devils seize me, said Friar John. (The Lord be with us! whispered Panurge, between his chattering teeth.) If I come down to thee, I'll show thee to some purpose that the badge of thy humanity dangles at a calf's breech, thou ragged, horned, cuckoldy ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... seven days that was the last heard, by the garrison, at least, of these most recent captives of the Sioux. Gentle and sympathetic women, however, who called on Mrs. Hay, were prompt to note that though unnerved, unstrung, distressed, she declared again and again her faith that the Indians would never really harm her husband. They might hold him and Nanette as hostages for ransom. They might take for their own purposes his wagon, his mules and that store of money, ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... pale, tired face for a moment, and then shook his head. "You must take care of yourself," he said. "You are unstrung. Get a good rest and—and forget certain things if you can. Everything will come out all right in ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... make use of a fire to warm themselves; whereas the Germans and Dutch live in an atmosphere of stove-heat and smoke and seldom like to stir abroad in the open air during winter, unless necessity obliges them. Hence they become half-baked, as it were; their nerves are unstrung, their flesh flabby and they become so chilly, as to suffer from the smallest exposure to the atmosphere. In the houses in Germany, on account of the stoves, the cold is never felt, whereas it is very severely in Italy and Spain where many of the houses have no fireplaces. On this account I prefer ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... and found himself kneeling beside the sofa, holding the bottle to her nose. After a while she recovered sufficiently to tell him that she had not slept at all during the night, and felt extremely unwell and quite unstrung in consequence. Another fit of immoderate and tearful laughter followed, and Hyacinth, embarrassed and alarmed, fetched a tumbler of soda-water from the syphon on the sideboard. The lady refused to swallow any, and, just as he had made up his mind to risk an external application, recovered again. ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... carried his new weapon proudly, hungering for the love and admiration of this girl of his, and eager to show her its powers and to exhibit his own skill. At his back hung his quiver of mammoth bone. His bow, unstrung, was in his hand. In front of the cave was a bare area of many yards in extent, then came a few scattering trees and, at a distance of perhaps two hundred yards, the forest began. Across the open space of ground, with its great ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... warder's raiment on him, and done on him the said warder's coat and sallet over all; and there stood the man of worship, waked up now, as it seemed, but looked before him as if he saw naught, even as a man who walks in sleep. Stephen the meantime unstrung his fiddle and began to play a slow sweet tune thereon, and let his big but melodious voice go with it, and thus they brought the lordship of Deepdale to the door, and still he seemed of no avail, save to walk on ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... compelled to stop, and that at once. I had reached a point where my will had to capitulate to Unreason—that unscrupulous usurper. My previous five years as a neurasthenic had led me to believe that I had experienced all the disagreeable sensations an overworked and unstrung nervous system could suffer. But on this day several new and terrifying sensations seized me and rendered me all but helpless. My condition, however, was not apparent even to those who worked with me at the same desk. I remember trying to speak and ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... the birth of one of my children I was left in a weak, run-down condition; it seemed to me that my nerves were unstrung very bad: I did not suffer much pain, but I think I suffered everything any one could suffer with nervousness; my life was a misery to me. I doctored with seven different doctors and got no relief; then I took almost all kinds ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... discussing, almost wildly she thought, the possibility of a bird's flying against such a gale; and after everyone else had settled down again for the night she could hear Ellen pacing the floor of the living-room. Poor Ellen, thought the girl, she was all unstrung over Shane's accident and frightened at the thought of ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... did not take the Englishman's view, they were all anxious to go. They were quite unstrung by what had occurred, this combat between the living and the dead. They looked with horrified awe at the spot where it had taken place. There stood the living combatant, still full of the fire of battle. Him whom he had fought was gone on ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... to his little room in the Rue Stanislaus, where, at any rate, he could read, meditate, or make plans for the future without being every moment tormented by miserable, petty annoyances. His temper was becoming soured, his nerves were unstrung, and his mind was so disturbed that he fancied he had none but enemies around him. A cloudy melancholy seemed to invade his brain; he was seized with a sudden fear that he was about to have an attack of persecution-phobia, and began to feel his ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... unstrung with the din of the guns, and it was an hour before he could be calmed down. The wildcat was skinned, and it was days before the orang could be reconciled to the sight of the pelt or ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... getting so unstrung by all these alarms and watchings that I began to wish that the pirates would come once for all that we might have done with them. For I had confidence in our side and the certainty of its winning which ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... long. Her ill-nature had quickly vanished; she was, in her way, provoking, charming. I was sitting close to her. The moonlight played upon her daring, wilful face through the leaves of the grape-vines. It was unpremeditated; my nature was, most probably, unstrung at the instant by ungratified longings for Georgiana; but suddenly I ...
— Aftermath • James Lane Allen
... sat down and smiled upon each other largely and vacuously. We were all a little unstrung that night, I think. After all, it seems rather unreasonable to lavish one's time, labour, and money on an electoral contest, and then laugh when you lose, and say it doesn't matter, just because a child isn't going to die. Oh, I am glad Mr Cash was ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... insanity in chronic form which escapes asylum care and custody except in its exacerbations; it is the insanity of organism which gives so much of the erratic and unstable to society, in its manifestations of mind and morals; it is the form of unstable mental organism which, like an unstrung instrument jangling out of tune and harsh, when touched in a manner to elicit in men of stable organisms only concord of sweet, harmonious sounds; it is the form of mental organism out of which, by slight exciting causes largely ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... rubbed them angrily, but they were wet the next moment again. Here, here they had driven last summer—only a few months ago—with hay and flowers on the wagon, and had been so gay. And now? His lips trembled, he felt unstrung. At last he had really seen that things ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... an easy prey to the methodist; her sensibility and acute fears rendered her accessible to every impulse; her love for her child made her eager to cling to the merest straw held out to save him. Her mind, once unstrung, and now tuned by roughest inharmonious hands, made her credulous: beautiful as fabled goddess, with voice of unrivalled sweetness, burning with new lighted enthusiasm, she became a stedfast proselyte, and powerful auxiliary to ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... longer, trying to compose his nerves, which had been sadly unstrung, both by the wine he had drank in much larger quantities than usual, and the incidents that had just occurred, and then sought his own room, where he rang for a brandy-and-soda, and after taking it, went below to attend to ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... examined the boat, which was but a small craft that had been unstrung the day before, in order that the ship's carpenter might examine some fancied defect in the rudder. Fortunately a pair of oars had been left in her, and these Pharaoh now took in hand, bidding me steer for the ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher
... many Crescent Moons a Full; And, all alike Intent upon the Game, Salaman still would carry from them all The Prize, and shouting "Hal!" drive Home the Ball. This done, Salaman bent him as a Bow To Shooting—from the Marksmen of the World Call'd for an unstrung Bow—himself the Cord Fitted unhelpt, and nimbly with his hand Twanging made cry, and drew it to his Ear: Then, fixing the Three-feather'd Fowl, discharged. No point in Heaven's Azure but his Arrow Hit; nay, but Heaven were ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... which, however, Lady Locke, Tommy, and Lord Reggie fitfully took part; and after tea had been munched with trembling delight in the largest of the tents, and more games had been got through, Mr. Smith distributed small presents to all the children, some of whom were quite unstrung by the effort they had to make not to seem too happy in the presence of "the quality." The curate then took his leave, as he was obliged to visit a sick parishioner, and, as the sun was evidently on the point of beginning to imitate Turner's later pictures, Mrs. Windsor directed that the children ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... instant as his hereditary foes,—the one breed that had not yet learned to give him right-of-way on the trail. They were tall, fearful forms, and something in their eyes sent a shudder of cold clear to his heart, yet he was not in the humor to give ground. His nerves were jumpy and unstrung from the fall of the tree, his jaw wracked him; a turn of the hair might decide whether he would merely stand and let them pass, or whether he would launch into that terrible, death-dealing charge that most grizzly hunters, sooner or later, come to know. His mental processes did not ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... loved her mother, she had given her whole life into Lord Arthur's hands, and nothing that Lady Julia could say could make her waver in her faith. As for Lord Arthur himself, it took him days to get over his terrible disappointment, and for a time his nerves were completely unstrung. His excellent common sense, however, soon asserted itself, and his sound, practical mind did not leave him long in doubt about what to do. Poison having proved a complete failure, dynamite, or some other form ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... beloved wife and mother dying by inches of a painful, lingering, loathsome disease. Not a sound of music had been heard in the house for many days. The violin, guitar, and dulcimer had lain utterly neglected and unstrung. Now a change has occurred that must have delighted the angels of God. Through the unselfishness, skill, and noble-heartedness of one man, has come so unexpectedly, as if dropped from the very skies, in the heart of one of the most inhospitable portions of the earth, sweet hope ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... of an owl outside made Joyce start nervously. She was unstrung and superstitious—the fun of the game died in her, and she felt weak and nauseated. She spoke as if she wanted to finish the matter and have done with ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... thought, finding it more and more difficult to co-ordinate my thoughts, "he seems to be as unstrung as I." ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... harps unstrung, On Babylonian willows hung, And mute their songs—with sorrow wrung, They ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins
... half- way between Pillnitz and the border of what is known as 'Saxon Switzerland.' Frequent excursions to the Porsberg, to the adjacent Liebethaler, and to the far distant bastion helped to strengthen my unstrung nerves. While I was first planning the music to Lohengrin, I was disturbed incessantly by the echoes of some of the airs in Rossini's William Tell, which was the last opera I had had to conduct. At last I happened to hit on an effective means of stopping this ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... child, was quite unstrung, and for two or three days the very mention of school brought on a fit of hysterical crying, and she begged that she might be allowed to go to some boarding-school at a distance, anywhere—away from Busyborough. Mrs. Woburn was inclined to yield to ...
— Ruth Arnold - or, the Country Cousin • Lucy Byerley
... Vickers, "I won't refer to the subject. She's been very unwell ever since. Nervous and unstrung. ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... claimed to be an agent of the gas company, in search of a rumoured leak. Eliza immediately spotted Priapus, and indignantly ejected him by force of arms. In the scuffle a dish pan and several chairs were overturned. Mary, whose nerves were rather unstrung by the sustained comedy she was witnessing, uttered an obbligato of piercing yelps which soon brought Kathleen to the scene. Eliza received a severe rating, and so admired the angry sparkle in Kathleen's eyes that she ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley
... to stagger to his feet, but his nerves were too terribly unstrung to allow him that escape. He sunk back upon his chair in a state of partial syncope, aware that the terrible fellow was talking, and that he must be lying, but that there might be truth enough at the base ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... globe unstrung, Unstrung in the frittering light Of a moon that knows no day, Of a day that knows no night! Diving away in the crowd Of sparkling frets in spray, The bratticed wrackers are singing aloud, And the throngers croon ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... steadily for a moment, but he saw only rigid resolution and determination in her eyes; he was too unstrung and broken to protest, or to insist on his right as head of the house, and so—he yielded. Later in the day, however, a compromise was effected. It was agreed that he should accompany his daughter and his daughter-in-law to New York, aid them in securing passage, passports and credentials, and ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... weak hand; but the girl's eyes were no longer closed; they were open and fixed on his face. The great fellow was trembling like a leaf. The past hour had been almost more than he could bear. He was entirely unstrung. ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Unstrung, unmanned, almost bereft of reason, his old dissatisfaction with himself and the world overtook him—a longing to be out of it all, for forgetfulness, for peace, yea, even the peace of the ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... afternoons in summer and evening parties in winter. So much tea, such frequent use of an infusion of the herb, upsets our nerves, impairs healthful digestion, and brings on sleeplessness. I have several patients—old ladies, and those in middle life—whose nerves are so unstrung that I am obliged to dose them with opium occasionally, to ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... her daughter a happier fate. It may, however, be expected that destiny will save Mademoiselle Ada from that kind of happiness. From being a chubby, rosy child, she has changed into a pale, weak-chested girl, and her nerves are already unstrung. The number of Varvara Pavlovna's admirers has diminished, but they have not disappeared. Some of them she will, in all probability, retain to the end of her days. The most ardent of them in recent times has been a certain Zakurdalo-Skubyrnikof, a retired ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... view he has plenty of support): God; road; last, waste; taught, not; break, cheek (two instances); ground, moaned; both, youth; rise, arise; song, stung; steel, fell; light, delight; part, depart; wert, heart; wrong, tongue; brow, so; moan, one; crown, tone; song, unstrung; knife, grief; mourn, burn; dawn, moan; bear, bear; blot, thought; renown, Chatterton; thought, not; approved, reproved; forth, earth; nought, not; home, tomb; thither, together; wove, of; riven, heaven. These are 34 instances of irregularity. The number of stanzas in Adonais is 55: therefore ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... monopolies, encouragements, prohibitions, restrictions, cramped the national energy. Mistress of the Indies, Spain swarmed with beggars. Yet, verging to decay, she had an ominous and appalling strength. Her condition was that of an athletic man penetrated with disease, which had not yet unstrung the thews and sinews formed in his days of vigor. Philip the Second could command the service of warriors and statesmen developed in the years that were past. The gathered energies of ruined feudalism were wielded ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... marriage, this second leap in the dark? No, she could not honestly pretend that she did; yet it had its sufficiently sinister side, its occasional admixture of sheer horror. But this was only when the mysteries which encompassed her happened to prey upon nerves unstrung by some outwardly exciting cause; it was then she would have given back all that he had ever given her to pierce the veil of her husband's past. Here, however, the impulse was more subtle; it was not the mere consuming curiosity which one in Rachel's position was bound to ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... if you got any coffee you kin lend," the shrill voice of Portia sounded unexpectedly at his elbow. Casey jumped,—an indication that his nerves had been unstrung. ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower
... her husband's voice asking where Drake was, and what in the world was the matter with him. Captain Le Mesurier replied, and the reply rang boisterously. 'He's behind. He's a bit unstrung, I fancy, and reason enough too, after all his work, eh? You see, Drake's not in the habit of taking holidays,' and the Captain grew hilarious over ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... destruction for a few minutes; and these minutes were precious, for they afforded time for Captain Montague and his officers to cut their way to the spot where he fought, just as a murderous club was about to descend on his head from behind. Montague's sword unstrung the arm that upheld it, and the next instant the ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... the passengers greeted the capsizing of the fox- terrier and the good-natured gravity of Michael. But not alone at this did they laugh, for at the moment of the snap and the turning over, Captain Duncan's unstrung nerves had exploded, causing him to jump as he ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... unto Thee mine eyes did show Why I am silent, and my lute unstrung; Else it were better we should part, and go, Thou to some lips of sweeter melody, And I to nurse the barren memory Of unkissed ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... to her and unstrung the bow, putting it away in its niche. But from the same place he produced ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... timid; but thou needs not fear us; we would as soon send one of our own daughters into slavery as thee; so thou mayest make thyself quite at ease!" These soft and soothing words fell like balm upon my wife's unstrung nerves, and melted her to tears; her fears and prejudices vanished, and from that day she has firmly believed that there are good and bad persons ...
— Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom • William and Ellen Craft
... in the days—fourteen years ago now—when the very streets of the city in which she lived were hallowed ground. He had supposed that emotion dead. Probably it was dead. It must be dead. It was merely that, owing to the constraint of the voyage, his nerves were unstrung, inducing the frame of mind in which people see ghosts. Yes, that was it; he had been seeing ghosts. It was not a living thing, this renewed yearning for a sight of her. It was only the reflex of something past. It could be explained psychologically. It was the sort of evanescent ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... savages advanced I retreated, resolving to make a stand at my tent door. At the same time I tried to show by signs that I could, if I liked, kill two or three of them, but that I was ready for peace if they were. At last I lowered my rifle from my shoulder, and they unstrung their bows and advanced with outstretched hands towards me. Knowing their treacherous character, however, of course I could not depend on them. I bethought me that the best way to win their friendship was to offer ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... did right, after all—at least, you thought you did. I am sure of that. I do not know why I was so angry at you. I am unstrung, and nervous, I suppose. Did I say very dreadful things to you, dear? I do not know what ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... YOU it would be dangerous. Your health is weak, your nerves unstrung. That elixir is a powerful vivifying tonic, acting with great rapidity on the entire system, and rushing through the veins with the swiftness of ELECTRICITY. I am accustomed to it; it is my daily medicine. ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... her mind, and her efforts were not useless she appeared less agitated than could have been expected, and talked of her voyage with composure. On great occasions she was generally calm and collected, her resolution would brace her unstrung nerves; but after the victory she had no triumph; she would sink into a state of moping melancholy, and feel ten-fold misery when ...
— Mary - A Fiction • Mary Wollstonecraft
... with your nerves all unstrung, and your head full of this theory of yours. Some gaunt, half-famished tramp steals after you, and seeing you run, is emboldened to pursue you. Your fears and imagination ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... them with inexorable jaw: The luscious fat distilled upon his chin, Exuded from his nostrils and his eyes, While still like hungry death he fed his maw; Till every minor crocodile being dead And buried too, himself gorged to the full, He slept with breath oppressed and unstrung claw. O marvel passing strange which next I saw: In sleep he dwindled to the common size, And all the empire faded from his coat. Then from far off a winged vessel came, Swift as a swallow, subtle as a flame: I know not what ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... us! Cease your mirth! Damned be a friendship that so shames my worth! Never may I set eyes on one so low! I fling you off, an unstrung, ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... morbid, unstrung state that the least thing startled her. But imagine if you can her wonder and terror as she saw Dennis Fleet—the dead and buried, as she fully believed—enter, carrying a picture as of old, and looking as of old, save that he was paler and thinner. Was it an apparition? ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... it?" I whispered to Denviers, as my nerves seemed to be almost unstrung at the unknowableness of the ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... Aylward, having unstrung his bow, had remounted his horse during this conversation, and the two rode swiftly past the little squat Chapel of the Martyr and over the brow of the hill. From the summit they looked back. The injured archer lay upon the ground, with several ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... cry of Fouchette seemed yet to linger in the misty morning air, thrilling the distant ear, vibrating upon the unstrung nerves of the outcasts beneath the far-away bridges, borne upon the surface of the waters, when it was answered out of the darkness by a sharp, shrill ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... onto the trivial piece of paper had braced her unstrung nerves for a final effort: that, and the terror of ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... [Fitch's] last effort. He had, up to that period, been patronized by a few stout-hearted individuals, who had subscribed a small capital, in shares, I think, of six pounds Pennsylvania currency; but this last disaster so staggered their faith and unstrung their nerves, that they never again had the hardihood to make other contributions. Indeed, they already rendered themselves the subjects of ridicule and derision for their temerity and presumption in giving countenance to this wild projector and visionary madman. The company thereupon ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... wasting his time trying to stay in the turmoil, and abruptly left his father's home. Going to town he obtained a boarding-place and settled down to work. This course again failed to bring the desired results; and he found himself as restless and unstrung as when he was at home. He was not happy, could not feel he was doing his duty, and carried about with him an atmosphere of despondency that gave his friends alarm. They sympathized with him in his difficulties, ...
— The Hero of Hill House • Mable Hale
... by this sense of impotency, and now, after the stormy excitement of the last few hours, the deepest depression took possession of his mind. Exhausted, unstrung, full of loathing of himself and life, he sank down on a stone, and thought over the occurrences of the last few days ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... arrived at the edge of the mesa, the storm had increased to a steady dull roar of rushing rain. He hesitated to face the open and reined up beneath a spruce. He was drenched and shivered. The fever of drink had died out leaving him unstrung and strangely fearful of the night. His horse stood with lowered head, its storm-blown mane whipping in the wind like a wet cloth. A branch riven from a giant pine crashed down behind him. Corliss jerked upright in the saddle, and the horse, ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... so; but I am out of sorts this afternoon. I have sent my model away because I am too much unstrung to work." ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... He was thoroughly unstrung. The cold, desperate mood had passed. In its place came the old feeling of desolation. He was a child, aching for sympathy. He wanted to tell his troubles. Punctuating his narrative with many gestures and an occasional gulp, he proceeded to do so. ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... inhabited, and the people with whom he must now commune. The Great Seal indeed! It was the wild excitement of despair, the frenzied hope that blends inevitably with absolute ruin, that could alone have inspired such a hallucination! His unstrung heart deserted him. His energies could rally no more. He gave orders that he was at home to no one; and in his morning gown and slippers, with his feet resting on the fireplace, the once high-souled and noble-hearted Coningsby delivered ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... Wisdom down the gulf Of all-devouring night. As long immured In noontide darkness, by the glimmering lamp, Each Muse and each fair Science pined away The sordid hours: while foul, barbarian hands Their mysteries profaned, unstrung the lyre, And chain'd the soaring pinion down to earth. At last the Muses rose, [Endnote L] and spurn'd their bonds, And, wildly warbling, scatter'd as they flew, 20 Their blooming wreaths from fair Valclusa's [Endnote M] bowers To Arno's [Endnote N] myrtle border and the shore Of soft ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... would stop to think," said Henry, "you would know that your trouble is mostly physical. Your nerves are unstrung. The public is not so willing to believe any story that Brooks may tell. The Colossus will not be injured. But I know that you place very little faith in what I say." The merchant looked at him. "But mark my words: Your standing will not be lowered—the Colossus will not show any ill effect. ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... her superior position, and one evening that fellow Elmendorf got in there and threatened her with exposure or something of the kind and insulted her, so that she slapped his face, and two of those library girls heard it. It happened just before Forrest came in, and he found her all quivering and unstrung. She was to have finished some work for him that evening, and he was to have dined at Allison's, but she was so broken up it was some time before she could go on with it. Neither could she tell him the cause. Well, it was one of these very girls whom, all unthinkingly, I had put in her ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... as the plough went through the earth, who had no physical father or physical mother. Who should wed the peerless maiden, the incarnation of Shri, Lakshmi, the consort of Vishnu? Who should wed Her save the Avatara of Vishnu Himself? So the mighty bow remained unstrung, for who might string it until the boy Rama came? And He takes it up with boyish carelessness, and bends it so strongly that it breaks in half, the crash echoing through earth and sky. He weds Sita, the beautiful, and goes forth with Her, and with His brother Lakshmana and his bride, and with His ...
— Avataras • Annie Besant
... no doubt, boys. We just want—oh, I don't know what we want!" exclaimed Mollie, who was excited and unstrung ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge - or, The Hermit of Moonlight Falls • Laura Lee Hope
... loud sobs and rushed from the room, bitterly denouncing the electrocution as savagery, and refusing to witness the proceedings any further. With the exception of the condemned man, everybody was completely unstrung. But John Convert, in the shadow of death, did not lose his wonderful self-control for a moment, but sat with perfect equipoise in that murderous chair, calmly watching with apparent interest the work of fastening him in. "'You have that strap around the abdomen ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... let the slipper fly too far out and hit the edge of the overhanging eaves. It was a task of the nicest judgement for the muscles of those round arms, still quivering from the deadly wrestle with a man, for that brain, tense with the excitement of the situation and for the unstrung nerves flickering darkness before her eyes. At last the slipper left her hand. As soon as it passed the opening, it was out of her sight. She listened. She did not hear it strike anything; it just vanished, as if it had wings to fly on through the air. ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... that she knew by heart, and flirting over the pages of the French magazines she had read a dozen times. Usually she was thankful for his silent moods. To-night with a woman's perversity she wanted him to speak. She was unstrung, and the utter silence oppressed her. She glanced over her shoulder at him once or twice, but his back looked unapproachable. Yet when he called her, with a swift revulsion of feeling, she wished he had kept silent. She went to him slowly. She was too unnerved to-night ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... mind—a tragedy of thought. It contains the deepest philosophy, and most profound wisdom; yet speaks the language of the heart, touching the secret spring of every sense and feeling. Here we have no ideal exaltation of character, but life with its blended faults and virtues,—a gentle nature unstrung by passing events, and thus rendered ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... folly," she went on, "I don't believe it. Good heavens, what is that?" she added, as a footstep crunched in the hall-way. "You've got me all unstrung, ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... liked familiarities; but the slap, coming on him when his nerves were unstrung, startled him. He turned sharply; but the stern and indignant face wreathed into amiable smiles, when he saw that the lively gentleman behind him was only Wesley Tiffles. Everybody liked Wesley Tiffles; even those who bore the burden of his unlucky financial ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... dinner-giving—and that too in the country, where men sit, talk, talk, talking, sip, sip, sipping, and 'just another bottle-ing'; more, we believe, from want of something else to do than from any natural inclination to exceed; the exertion, we say, of such parties had completely unstrung our fat friend, and ill-prepared his nerves for such a shock. Being a great man for his little comforts, he always breakfasted in his dressing-room, which he had fitted up in the most luxurious style, and where he had his newspapers (most ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees |
