"Unstring" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at least such as no man ever survived to tell of—and the six hours of deadly terror which I then endured have broken me up body and soul. You suppose me a very old man—but I am not. It took less than a single day to change these hairs from a jetty black to white, to weaken my limbs, and to unstring my nerves, so that I tremble at the least exertion, and am frightened at a shadow. Do you know I can scarcely look over this little cliff without ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... The irritation caused by the gases in the mines, by the dirty work in the blackness, by the squalor in which the company houses are built, turns men to drink for reaction and lamplight and comradeship. The similar fevers and exasperations of factory life lead the workers to unstring their tense nerves with liquor. The habit of snuggling up close in factories, conversing often, bench by bench, machine by machine, inclines them to get together for their pleasures at the bar. In industrial America there is an anti-saloon minority in moral sympathy with the temperance wave brought ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... unstring thy reason, Ione,' said Arbaces, attempting in vain his usual calmness of tone. 'I forgive thee. Thou wilt find me now, as ever, thy surest friend. But the public streets are not the fitting place for us to confer—for me to ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... from the rapid destruction which too frequently overtook those who to the exciting influences of gambling added the maddening stimulus of alcohol. But the constant mental fever under which he laboured was beginning to undermine a naturally-robust constitution, and to unstring the nerves of a well-made, powerful frame. Sometimes, when fortune favoured him, he became suddenly possessor of a large sum of money, which he squandered in reckless gaiety, often, however, following the dictates of an amiable, sympathetic disposition, he gave the most of it away to companions ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... dexterity by other means to make success secure. His liveliest sallies, his bitterest jests, were all reserved for these occasions, so that mirth or anger was forever unstringing the nerves of his competitors, and diminishing their chance of gain. It was difficult to unstring the nerves of Parson Whymper, who ran him very close in skill, and sometimes divided the spoil with him; but on the present occasion he had a wordy weapon to baffle even that foe. This consisted in constant allusion to the latter's ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn |
