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More "Nerve" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... If every nerve is not strained to recruit the new army with all possible expedition, I think the game is pretty near up, owing, in great measure, to the insidious acts of the Enemy, and disaffection of the Colonies before mentioned, but principally to the accursed policy of short enlistments, ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... the first time tonight, Mr. Dennis, realized how hard a nerve shock Jim had had in seeing his father killed. He had kept from his mother the horror of the nights that followed the tragedy. She did not know that periodically, even now, he dreamed the August fields and the dying ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... "It requires some nerve for a man to tell a circumstantial story like that to a tableful of gentlemen, about one of ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... became aware of a pursuer, and, indeed, Suttung, having also assumed the form of an eagle, was coming rapidly after him with intent to compel him to surrender the stolen mead. Odin therefore flew faster and faster, straining every nerve to reach Asgard before the foe should overtake him, and as he drew near the gods ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... sacred being. All passion is still in her presence: I cannot express my sensations when I am near her. I feel as if my soul beat in every nerve of my body. There is a melody which she plays on the piano with angelic skill,—so simple is it, and yet so spiritual! It is her favourite air; and, when she plays the first note, all pain, care, and sorrow disappear from me ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... or exposed chest of the "case." When the fit was genuine, as of course it sometimes was, the test had no particular reviving effect; but if the man were shamming, as he probably was in spite of the great consistency of his symptoms, the chances were that, with all his nerve and foreknowledge of what was in store for him, the sudden biting of the fiery liquid into his naked flesh would bring him to his feet dancing with pain and cursing and banning to the utmost extent ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... feeling for design, in the broadest sense of the word, entirely lacking in the former. For we find that although folk song is composed of the same material as savage music, the material is arranged coherently into sentences instead of remaining the mere exclamation of passion or a nerve exciting reiteration of unchanging rhythms and vibrations, as is the case in the music of ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... the mound, he peered in. Below, and immediately under him, was a black hole, about three feet square. Burke was so startled that he almost dropped the lantern. But he was a man of tough nerve, and maintained his clutch upon it. But he drew back. It required some seconds to catch his breath. Presently he ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... may not only have existed, but may have existed in strength sufficient for any test whatever; not the principles of the Seceders, but their Jacobinical mode of asserting them, may have proved the true nerve of the repulsion to many. What is it that we wish the English reader to collect from these distinctions? Simply that the danger is not yet gone past. The earthquake, says a great poet, when speaking of the general tendency ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... should be treated properly and judiciously. Whenever disease shows itself we should apply a suitable remedy—one that is suggested by the pharmacy of mutual brotherhood, and yet powerful enough to reach every nerve in our ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... had the nerve to come back here while we were up at the house? And that his man calmly walked into the radio plant and operated it for him? ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... report that in the Lady Day quarter only ten per cent, of the residents had removed without paying their rates. The inhabitants of the New Cut now accuse Islington residents of losing their nerve. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various
... under its roof, and it afforded quarters for most of the officers' families, who must otherwise have remained in open tents. The enclosure had also one or two stone houses, which furnished accommodations to the quartermaster's and subsistence and medical departments. Every nerve was now directed to fit up the place, complete the enclosure, and furnish it with gates; to build a temporary guard-house, and complete other military fixtures of the new cantonment. The edifice also underwent such repairs ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... impossible. All through the long hours of the night Philippa lay wide awake, every nerve, every faculty of her mind tuned to the highest point of tension, going over and over ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... are now passing through a nerve-wearing time because of our difficulty with Serbia, but by the time this letter reaches you everything will be all right again. The Serbians have been intriguing against us these many years, and this time ...
— Right Above Race • Otto Hermann Kahn
... or how I don't feel hain't got nothing to do with it, Mawruss," Abe retorted. "And furthermore, Mawruss, any motor-cycle policeman which has got the nerve to swear that he could tell inside of two miles an hour how fast somebody is driving, understand me, is guilty of perjury on the face of it, which I told the judge. 'Judge, your Honor,' I says, 'I admit I was going fast,' ...
— Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things • Montague Glass
... brothers Themistocles, Napoleon Zambelli, and Sir Peter Braila, afterwards Greek minister in London. This small band of royal adherents gave Mr. Gladstone all the help they could in preparing his scheme of reform, and after the scheme was launched, they strained every nerve to induce the assembly to assent to it in spite of the pressure from the people. Their efforts were necessarily unavailing. The great majority, composed as usual of the friends of England who trembled for their own jobs, joining hands with the demagogues, was hostile to the changes proposed, and ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... is all right, and don't you worry about that," said Sandlot. "I've got plenty of nerve so I don't have to brace it up with booze, and you ain't. That's what's the matter with you. You saw that feller as well as I did. Didn't you see him ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... 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 ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... Every nerve was tugging for haste, yet the first sign of impatience would ruin everything. He wished inexpressibly that the young woman should appear and that they could start at once without waiting for the pony. But that, from the nature of the circumstances, could ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... exception. There were a great many pretty faces among them, and not one that betrayed "boss-fright" or time-terror. As a class they looked more like normal college students than factory hands. Compared with overworked, nerve-strained, anxious-faced girls in the sweat-shops, and indeed in most shops and factories, these trim, tidy-looking, cheerful and contented women seemed to me the very noblesse ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... heath that is lonely and bare, For each nerve was unquiet, each pulse in alarm; And I hurl'd the mock-lance thro' the objectless air, And in open-eyed dream proved the strength ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the law for once at fault? A swift incision 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
... got the other ready for completing the circuit. The Mugger all the while lying still at the bottom of the nulla with, most likely, a couple of fathoms of water over his head, unconscious of danger, and little dreaming that the two-legged creatures on the bank had got a nerve communicating with his stomach, through which they were going to send a flash of lightning that would shatter ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... his aching body. Though he had seen these fearful monsters on many occasions, yet it was never from such a position as that in which he now found himself. To his ears came a sibilant hissing like that of a thousand serpents; and, quivering in every nerve, he forced his eyes open once again, to discover that the cell which he and his companion occupied was but one of a series of cells surrounding a huge square in which were imprisoned perhaps twenty or thirty of those horrible, gargoylesque creatures which were the ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... forbade, Pelissier was stubbornly determined to accomplish; the siege should be pressed at once, the city taken at any cost, the expedition to Kertch resumed. Once only, under torment of the Emperor's reproaches and the Minister at War's remonstrances, his resolution and his nerve gave way; eight days of failing judgment issued in the Karabelnaya defeat, the severest repulse which the two armies had sustained; but the paralysis passed away, he showed himself once more eager to act in concert with the English general;—when the long-borne ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... roping of the huge wild steers there was much opportunity for the display of skill and nerve. When these big steers had been run out and had passed the line the cowboy on his trained pony followed at racing speed. His pony seemed dowered with full knowledge of the methods, and so watched the lasso thrown over the ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... of town, a young infantryman held us up and asked for a lift. He turned out to be the son of the President of the Court of Appeals at Charleroi. He was a delicate looking chap with lots of nerve, but little strength. His heavy infantry boots looked doubly heavy on him, and he was evidently in a bad way from fatigue. He had to rejoin his regiment which was twelve miles along the road from Diest, so we ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... 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
... "I spent last evening with Alice and I felt like phony money all the time. She's going right ahead with the wedding preparations and I simply hadn't the nerve to tell her that I lost nearly every penny I had. Uncle William Grey tiptoed into the parlor for a few moments and began to congratulate me on the good reports he had had from Alice with regard to my ability to save a bit of money. ...
— You Can Search Me • Hugh McHugh
... twenty-five mile gait, and every few seconds a great blatting devil would honk out of the darkness, and whirl past us, and sometimes we would be abreast of another and the fiendish horns of us would go screaming in chorus as we raced and passed and repassed one another on the broad street. The din was nerve racking—but highly Parisian. One fancied that Paris, being denied its lights, made up its quota of ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... after. On this occasion there was commonly a feast, at the conclusion of which the man gave to the woman, as a pledge, a ring, which she put on the fourth finger of her left hand, because it was believed that a nerve reached thence to the heart, and a day was then named for ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... hemolytic doses produce a sudden drop in pressure owing to liberation of potassium from the erythrocytes. The saponin increases the activity of the isolated frog heart, then stops it in systole. In frog nerve muscle preparations of this saponin reversibly interrupt stimulus transmission; recovery ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Incorporated 39th Annual Report - at Norris, Tenn. September 13-15 1948 • Various
... falls; his ample shield Drops from his arm; his baldric strews the field; The corslet his astonished breast forsakes; Loose is each joint; each nerve with horror shakes; Stupid he stares, and all assistless stands: Such is the force of ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... of India tea; for all physical as well as medical experience proves that vegetable produce afford some that are astringent, and others that are relaxant, of the dead as well as the living fibre. Oak bark is equally astringent, and hardens the fibres of the hide, as well as it braces the living nerve of our bodies; therefore the effect produced by the India tea upon the dead skin only proves, what we have before related, that an infusion of it has a peculiar effect, which, being too frequently applied to the nerves, destroys ...
— A Treatise on Foreign Teas - Abstracted From An Ingenious Work, Lately Published, - Entitled An Essay On the Nerves • Hugh Smith
... land-marks. The young man might have been an hour in the open sea, gradually hauling off the land, in order to keep clear of the coast, when he bethought him of returning. It required a good deal of nerve to run in towards those rocks, under all the circumstances of the case. The wind blew fresh, so much indeed as to induce Mark to reef, but there must always be a heavy swell rolling in upon that iron-bound shore. The shock of such waves expending their whole force on perpendicular ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... 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 stone's throw ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... the cruel nerve to tell that to a man dying of starvation?" demanded Sergeant Noll with heat. "Kelly, it takes me four seconds to get my overcoat off, and only two seconds to get off the ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... the bonde cheerfully, "thou must have found me no light weight, Valdemar! See what a good thing it is to be a man—with iron muscles, and strong limbs, and hardy nerve! By the Hammer of Thor! the glorious gift of strong manhood is never half appreciated! As for me—I am ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... silly, little tangle; and my wife is wretched. Otherwise she is better, steadily and slowly moving up through all her relapses. My knee never gets the least better; it hurts to-night, which it has not done for long. I do not suppose my doctor knows any least thing about it. He says it is a nerve that I struck, but I assure ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the river runs to the sea, we conjure up the chase and recapture of Pip's convict, while poor Pip himself, assisted by his friend Herbert Pocket, is straining every nerve to get him away. As illustrative of the wonderfully careful way in which Dickens did all his work, we also ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... ordinary individual, yes. But then, you see, this was not an ordinary individual. He was—let us suppose—an acrobat, a man of great nerve and courage, accustomed to trapeze work and the use of ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... especially as it is sensibly felt high up in the leg near the tuberosity of the tibia, when pulled by the dangling end, my own impression is that the so-called "Guinea worm" is nothing more than the external saphenus or communis tibiae (nerve) exposed in a peculiar manner, probably by a disease, which, by a curious pathological process, absorbs away the muscular parts, leaving the bare nerve detached at its lower extremity, suspended loose ...
— Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party • Martin Robinson Delany
... at the nerve centers and turned back without their reaching the brain results in ...
— Orthography - As Outlined in the State Course of Study for Illinois • Elmer W. Cavins
... attack was carried through by the cool courage of Decatur and the admirable discipline of his men. The hazard was very great, the odds were very heavy, and everything depended on the nerve with which the attack was made and the completeness of the surprise. Nothing miscarried, and no success could have been more complete. Nelson, at that time in the Mediterranean, and the best judge of a naval exploit as well as the greatest naval commander who has ever lived, pronounced ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... about it, Mr. Brown. I'm trying to forget what hell was like. I was in hospital for four months. It took a lot more nerve to draw a breath then than it did to fly over the German lines with the Boches popping away from all sides. I didn't mind the wounds I sustained,—but the ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... large mastiff, with a dangerous temper, who was chained up at night in the rough lean-to that was built against the side of the cabin. He barked again furiously, dragging at his chain with all his might, and quivering in every nerve of his body. The woman lighted a torch at the dying embers on the hearth, and unfastening the dog, waited to see what would happen. He dashed forward furiously a few steps, then suddenly stopped, sniffed the air, made one or two uncertain darts ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... moat-house. The difference went far beyond externals; there was a wide psychological gulf between them—the difference between a woman of healthy mind and calm, equable temperament, who had probably never bothered her head about the opposite sex, and a woman who was the neurotic product of a modern, nerve-ridden city; sexual in type, a prey to morbid ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... the sincerity, and naturalness of the speaker acted upon Will Phelps with the effect of an electric shock. Never had he been so thoroughly aroused, and every nerve in his body was tingling when he left the chapel and started toward ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... say," Mr Sharp writes, "that at that time"—speaking of his earlier years—"his faculty of observation would not have appeared despicable to a Seminole or an Iroquois." Such activity of the visual nerve differs widely from the wise passiveness or brooding power of the Wordsworthian mode of contemplation. Browning's life was never that of a recluse who finds in nature and communion with the anima mundi a counterpoise to the attractions of human society. Society fatigued him, yet he would not ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... a position to-day only to announce the decision to which the Government have come with respect to the Transvaal. The case of the Transvaal is urgent. It is the nerve-centre of South Africa. It is the arena in which all questions of South African politics—social, moral, racial, and economic—are fought out; and this new country, so lately reclaimed from the wilderness, with a white population of less than 300,000 souls, ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... the lady gasp, and knew my message was received and understood. I waited for no other response. I scuttled away from that perilous spot as fast as caution permitted my legs to travel. Jack Shreve was no Newman; I had not his cool nerve when it came to flouting hell-ship rules. In truth, I was in a blue funk all the time I was aft, for fear I would be discovered. And there was another reason for my haste in getting forward. There was a sudden uproar in front of the ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... closer examination of the prostrate form, while Barnaby, holding the torch as he had been directed, looked on in silence, fascinated by interest or curiosity, but repelled nevertheless by some strong and secret horror which convulsed him in every nerve. ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... part of his task had been accomplished. Could he reach the floor in safety? Gradually he worked himself backward over the rail, in imminent danger of falling; but his nerve never wavered, and I could see a wonderful light in his eyes. With something of a lurch, his body fell against the outer side of the railing, to which he was hanging by his chin, the line still held firmly in his teeth. ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... hidden psychic and economic bonds. At any rate an Englishman who took part in the Conference of Paris and was during those months a member of the Supreme Economic Council of the Allied Powers, was bound to become, for him a new experience, a European in his cares and outlook. There, at the nerve center of the European system, his British preoccupations must largely fall away and he must be haunted by other and more dreadful specters. Paris was a nightmare, and every one there was morbid. A sense of impending catastrophe overhung the frivolous scene; ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... been serious, these men would never have recoiled before the mere danger of a stick of hardwood. The American woodsman is afraid of nothing human. But this was a good-natured bit of foolery, a test of nerve, and there was no object in getting a broken head for that. The reptilian gentleman alone grumbled at the abandonment of the attack, mumbling ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... was not a powerful man, and with Joan Perry near him he seemed to have lost his nerve. Her courage had shaken him badly, and he made no resistance. I was not long in having him ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... making proved an elegant success, since not one of the mess was left. But if the truth were told it would be found that the cook himself accounted for something like three-fourths of the number. And then he had the nerve to declare that he had made only one mistake, which was in limiting the amount of ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... me!" Flixman interrupted. "Actually the feller is got the nerve to ask me a hundred dollars for drawing a will, and this here feller on Center Street wants only fifty. I bet yer if I would go round there to-morrow or the next day he ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... the moment quite overcome, and unable to comply with the proposal of taking an immediate flight from the enemy's country. She soon, however, regains her sober senses, and is able to grasp the reality of the situation, and fully prepared with mental nerve and courage to face the scenes of hardship and fatigue which lay before them. The thought of flight was, indeed, a hazardous one. The journey to the sea board was far and dangerous; roads were miserably constructed, and these, for the most part, ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... sufferings, and that through them they are giving great glory to God. But I compassionate greatly those who are not Saints, and who do not know how to profit by suffering. They indeed awake my pity. I would strain every nerve to help ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... Woman reached over, and, taking the smaller revolver from his belt, handed it to the Angel. "Keep your nerve steady, dear; watch where you step, and shoot high," she said. "Go straight at them from where you are. Wait until you hear Freckles' first shot, then follow me as closely as you can, to let them know that we outnumber them. If you want to save McLean's ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... were by such. But the same are needed to-day to keep us from learning the ways of the world and getting a snare to our souls. Now, as ever, walking with God means walking in the opposite direction from the crowd, and that requires some firm nerve. The home-made idolatry is gibbeted as being according to 'the statutes of the kings.' What right had they to prescribe their subjects' religion? The influence of influential people, especially if exerted against the service of God, is hard to resist; but it is no excuse for sin that ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... dancing in her eyes, she turned away, and Mrs. Spruce, in full possession of restored nerve and vivacity, bustled off on her round of household duty, the temporary awe she had felt concerning the new written code of domestic 'Rules and Regulations' having somewhat subsided under the influence of her mistress's gay good-humour. And Maryllia herself, putting on her hat, called ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... informed that he must either speak to the point or leave. Of course the point was Belgium; if France would abandon her claim to Antwerp she could have compensation in Germany. There was some further futile talk about what both parties then as before, and thereafter to the end, considered the very nerve of their contention. Malmesbury went home toward the close of December, and soon after, Hoche's fleet was wrecked in the Channel. The result of the British mission was to clarify the issues, to consolidate British ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... sorrel went straight up in the air with all four feet, coming down with the legs stiff, giving Wilbur a jar which set every nerve twitching as though he had got an electric shock. But he kept his seat. Then the sorrel began pacing forward softly with an occasional sudden buck, each of which nearly threw him off and at most of which he had to "hunt leather," or in other words, catch hold of ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... and, to tear herself away, ran down the square and round the corner. She was quivering in every nerve from the strain of so much conflict, and she was angry with herself for having taken so high a hand with him. He was more to be respected than any man she had ever met, and yet she had—or so she thought—treated him as though he were another Charles. ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... than a wife. Rose, you know Jack Rupert, who's sheer nerve when we're racing and ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... no harm, to girl or man, in being abroad in this peaceful country at night, if one has the nerve to undertake it. You and I, dear, prefer our beds. Josie is wrapped up in the science of criminal investigation and has the enthusiasm of youth to egg her on. Moreover, she is sensible enough to ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... was severed, the bear made a louder noise than ever, but not knowing the cause, I thought he was nearer me and I strained every nerve and fibre of my body to widen the distance between us, as I almost imagined his teeth clashing down on me, while Johnnie West was yelling: "Run, Willie; run for ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... receive no other pay than what they can squeeze from the prisoners or the prisoners' friends. Poor and friendless, the prisoners fare badly. But I question if the cruelties practised in the Chinese gaols, allowing for the blunted nerve sensibility of the Chinaman, are less endurable than the condition of things existing in English prisons so recently as when Charles Reade wrote "It is Never Too Late to Mend." The cruelties of Hawes, the "punishment jacket," ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... When he had finished his cigar it would be time to join the party in the smoking-room. Cartwright was something of a gambler and liked the American games. They gave one scope for bluffing, and although his antagonists declared his luck was good, he knew his nerve was better. In fact, since he lost his money by a reckless plunge, he had to some extent lived by bluff. Yet some ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... jack-knife bridge began to descend over their very heads. Over where the new bridge was being constructed men stood on slender girders high in the air, catching red-hot rivets that were being tossed them, while an automatic riveting hammer filled the air with its nerve-destroying clamor. Everywhere was bustle and ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... entomologist; I quite agree with the "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table*", that "the subject is too vast for any single human intelligence to grasp." If my life depended upon it I could not give the scientific name of every least organ and nerve of a moth, and as for wrestling with the thousands of tiny species of day and night or even attempting all the ramifications of—say the alluringly beautiful Catocalae family— life is too short, unless devoted to this purpose alone. ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter
... till Scotland's freedom is achieved, or Robert Bruce lies with the slain. Repentance for the past, hope, ambition for the future; a firm heart and iron frame, a steady arm and sober mood, to meet the present—I have these, sweet lady, to fit and nerve me for the task, but not such hast thou. I doubt not thy patriot soul; perchance 'twas thy lip that first awoke the slumbering fire within my own breast, and though a while forgotten, recalled, when again I looked ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... of the Imperial German Navy he was a failure. Only sheer luck had hitherto saved him from the fate that had overtaken scores of his brother officers in that branch of the service. Skilled as he was in the handling of a huge liner, he lacked the iron nerve that is essential to the man who has to risk his life in a steel box that, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, offers no means of escape in the event of ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... study of perception by means of the sense of sight. We see things in the external world through the medium of light which they direct upon our eyes. The light strikes the retina, and causes a sensation. The sensation brought to the brain by means of the optic nerve becomes the condition of the representation in consciousness of certain objects distributed in space.... We make use of the sensation which the light stimulates in the mechanism of the optic nerve to construct representations ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... Love of adventure has much to do with it also. Men feel a fearful joy in pitting themselves against stern natural obstacles and being compelled to exert all their physical energy and endurance, and all their wit and nerve and courage, in order to overcome them. The stiffer the obstacle, the more insistent do they feel the call to measure themselves against it. They thrill to the expectation of having their full capacities and faculties drawn out. By some curious natural instinct they ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... They were heartily clapped, and the Fifth began to look rather blue. Each side now played with extreme caution. They had taken one another's measure, and knew what they had to expect. Hilda Browne kept her nerve well, and her serves were acknowledged to be what the girls called "clinchers". As for Gwen, her arms seemed elastic. This time the Sixth were beaten, and ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... the moon, I'd no thought, love, that mischief would be at her Tricks with my tongue quite so soon; That I should forget fate and fortune Make a difference 'twixt Sevres and delf— That I'd have the calm nerve to importune You, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... as a nerve specialist, and fully qualified to do so, had lived a double life. As a doctor he was respected and was fairly successful; as the head and organizer of a small army of miscreants he had ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... should always be shunned and condemned. When his loss amounts to only 100 or 200, or when, not detecting his purpose, the adversaries fail to double, and the loss is, therefore, smaller, the odds favor his exhibition of nerve. Flag-flying, however, is like dynamite: in the hands of a child or of one unfamiliar with its characteristics, it is a danger, the extent of which none can foretell; but used with skill, it becomes a ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work
... face of bold unconsciousness. She was brought to bay, now; Aunt Roderick could exasperate her, but she could not touch the nerve, as dear Miss ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... scientific instrument, in his experiments. This instrument is so finely adjusted that the faintest current will cause a deflection of the registering needle, which is delicately swung on a tiny pivot. If the galvanometer be attached to a human nerve, and the end of the nerve be irritated, the needle ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... present has passed into other hands. But our spirit and temper is the same as of old. It has found a new world in the air. War in the air, under the conditions of to-day, demands all the old gallantry and initiative. The airman depends on his own brain and nerve; he cannot fall back on orders from his superiors. Our airmen of to-day are the true inheritors of Drake; they have the same inspired recklessness, the same coolness, and the same chivalry to ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... so transparent—this inflicted a wound that his pride found it hard to sustain. Through his lack of caution he had forfeited his own freedom, if not his life, and exposed Dot to a risk from the thought of which even his iron nerve shrank. He told himself repeatedly, with almost fierce emphasis, that Dot would be safe, that Warden could not be such a hound as to fail her; but deep within him there lurked a doubt which he would have given all he had to be able to silence. The ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... back against the wall and his eyes closed. It was plain that the words, together with his previous exertions and pain, had taken the nerve ...
— Boy Scouts in Mexico; or On Guard with Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... steersman lost his nerve, and shrank from the coming shock. The galley's helm went up to port, and her beak slid all but harmless along Amyas' bow; a long dull grind, and then loud crack on crack, as the Rose sawed slowly through the bank of oars from stem to stern, hurling the wretched slaves ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... many another man who succeeds halfway up, failed at the top. He ordered an immediate general retreat which would have changed the hard-won Confederate victory into a Federal rout. But Thomas, with admirable judgment and iron nerve, stood fast till he had shielded all the others clear. From this time on both armies knew him as the "Rock ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... status quo, he voted in 1856, as he told me, for Fremont. In speaking of the candidates then in the field, he said of Fremont, that his comparative youth and inexperience in party-politics were points in his favor; for he thought the condition of the country called for a man of nerve and energy, one in his prime, and unfettered by party-traditions and bargains for "the spoils." His characterization of a more experienced functionary, who had once served in the State Department, was ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... that she would be a great success. That was all. Had I had the instinct that was given to those Emperors in stone, and even to the dog Corker, I should have begged Clio to send in my stead some man of stronger nerve. She had charged me to be calmly vigilant, scrupulously fair. I could have been neither, had I from the outset foreseen all. Only because the immediate future was broken to me by degrees, first as ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... secretions, fathered by Claude Bernard, the idea of a correlation, a mutual influencing of them and of the different organs of the body through them. The nervous system had hitherto been regarded as the sole means of communication between cells, by its telegraphic arrangements of nerve filaments reaching out everywhere, interweaving with each other and the cells. The Brown-Sequard conception inferred the existence of a postal system between cells, the blood supplying the highway for travel and transmission of the post, ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... shock of the strong line of A. P. Hill, which Alexander seconded by opening with his artillery in full action. The Confederates forged ahead with the watchword, "Charge, and remember Jackson!" And this appeal was one to nerve all hearts to ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... in England he found that no man, not even Raleigh, had a thought to spare for Virginia. For Spain was making ready all her mighty sea power to crush England. And the English were straining every nerve to meet and break that power. So John White had to wait with what patience he could. Often his heart was sick when he thought of his daughter and his little granddaughter, Virginia Dare, far away in that great unknown land across the sea. Often he longed to be back beside ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... two hours before dark. Rachael was conscious of every nerve in her body, and paced up and down the long line of rooms which terminated in the library, until Alexander's legs were worn out trotting after her, and he fell asleep on the floor. Twice she went to the roof to look for Hamilton's sloop, but saw not a sail on the sea; and the ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... swing through the wide country in the freshness and fullness of a blossoming, sun-steeped morning in May, breathing the breath of the fields and the taller by inches for the sweep of the hills and the reaches of sky above my head, every nerve in my body is alive with sensation and delight. My joy is in the fragrance of earth, the ingratiating warmth of the fresh morning, the spacious, inclosing air. My pleasure in this direct contact with the landscape is a physical reaction, to be enjoyed ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes
... circumstance, but when my little hand clutched the great knob of the library door and turned it, and when the placid countenance of my step-mother looked up at me from a comfortable easy-chair at the opposite side of the room, I felt that some awful moment had dawned on my existence. With as much nerve and self-control as a child usually displays on such an occasion, I closed the door behind me and walked towards the window where ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... emotion was visible on the prisoner's face, except at the harsh mention of her mother's name; when a shudder was perceptible, as in one where dentist's steel pierces a sensitive nerve. In order to avoid the hundreds of eyes that stabbed her like merciless probes, her own had been raised and fixed upon a portion of the cornice in the room where a family of spiders held busy camp; but a fascination ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... commanded our admiration. Never once did he use his whip for any other purpose than to crack it occasionally, and it did one good to hear his cheery call to the fourteen labouring beasts as they toiled up the steep side of a creek or gully with a heavy load of timber, straining every nerve in their great bodies, while the sweat poured off their coats in streams. He was like one of his own bullocks, patient, cheerful, and strong, and an exclamation of anger seldom passed his lips—an oath never. He took a great pride ...
— "Five-Head" Creek; and Fish Drugging In The Pacific - 1901 • Louis Becke
... rest,—for refreshment of mind and body: I will not have it turned into a time of toil. I know you, Phillis; you would work till your poor fingers got thin, and your spirits were all flattened out, and every nerve was jarring and set on edge; and you would call that duty! No, darling,—never! Dulce shall keep her roses, and we will have battledore and shuttlecock every evening; but, if I have to keep the ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... replied Jack, in a loud, authoritative tone, "and what's more, I will be obeyed, Gascoigne. I have nerve, if I haven't knowledge, and at all events I can steer for the beach. I tell you, give me the helm. Well, then, if ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... when I think that the awful moment may find me speechless, and my consent may be assumed from my silence. Save me from this trial, dearest Edward; for I fear everything now—and fear myself—my unhappy weakness of nerve and spirit more than all. Do not leave me to this trial of my strength—for I have none. Save ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... with Slattery. Homer and a heavily armed posse rode over to the muddy corners on Sunday night, and the sheriff discovered that he might have taken the Skilletts and Johnsons single-handed and unarmed. Their nerve was gone; they were shaken and afraid; and, to employ a figure somewhat inappropriate to their sullen, glad surrender, they fell upon his neck in their relief at finding the law touching them. They had no wish to hear "John Brown's Body" again. They wanted to get inside of ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... him, not only by the internal rebellion of his feelings against the violence which he exercised over them, but by many accidental circumstances, which, in the course of the banquet, and during the subsequent amusements of the evening, jarred upon that nerve, the least vibration of which ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... West, She shall look, and not in vain - For out of its broad and boundless store Come muscle, and nerve, and brain. Let the bards of the East and the South be dumb - For out of the West ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... nerve to stand fire," faltered Christian. "But as to marrying, I own I've asked here and there, though without much fruit from it. Yes, there's some house or other that might have had a man for a master—such as he is—that's now ruled by a woman alone. Still it might ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... his victim. The victim, you know, dying in his sins, goes to hell, and the murderer has the happiness of seeing him there. And if heaven grows dull and monotonous, the murderer can again give life to the nerve of pleasure by watching the agony of his victim. I am opposed to that kind of forgiveness. And yet that is the religion of ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... of such an exploit caused his flesh to creep. But he was not of that class of men who fall back dazed before the face of danger. Again and again, led by an impulse he was unable to resist, he studied that precipitous rock, every nerve tingling to the newborn hope. God helping them, even so desperate a deed might be accomplished, although it would test the foot and nerve of a Swiss mountaineer. He glanced again uneasily toward his companion, and saw the same motionless figure, the same sober ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... faculties and actions of a man, and to impose a perpetual illusion on the senses of his friends and enemies. Articulate sounds vibrated on the ears of the disciples; but the image which was impressed on their optic nerve eluded the more stubborn evidence of the touch; and they enjoyed the spiritual, not the corporeal, presence of the Son of God. The rage of the Jews was idly wasted against an impassive phantom; and the mystic scenes of the passion and death, the resurrection and ascension, of Christ ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... tried to restore Clara to animation, but in vain—the poor young woman was dead. Long had Joergen been buffeting the waves with a corpse—exerting his utmost strength and straining every nerve for ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... all other tonics because it is composed of the nerve-giving principles of the ox brain and wheat germ.) It gives vitality to the insufficient growth of children; feeds the brain and nerves; prevents fretfulness; gives quiet rest and sleep. An ill-fed brain learns no lessons, and is excusable if peevish. Restless infants ...
— The Nursery, No. 169, January, 1881, Vol. XXIX - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... commence operations, and placing myself on my back, with one hand to defend my head, and one foot against the end, I struck out with the other on the part above me. A cracking sound encouraged me to go on. Each time I struck out the planks appeared to move slightly. I used so much force that every nerve in my body was jarred, and I was afraid of laming myself. Notwithstanding that, I persevered, stopping every now and then to listen, lest my captors should return; but as no one came I was satisfied that they had gone ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... went on, without heeding him, "I care nothing, for, as I tell you, I have their antidote at hand. You have known me for many years, tell me, did you ever see my nerve desert me? Do you suppose that I am a woman who would bear failure when I could choose death? No, George, I had rather pass into eternity on the crest of the wave of my success, such as it has been, and let it break and grind me to powder there, or else bear me to greater heights. All that should ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... beside Mrs. Carr, Gabriella soon found out that she was not nearly so rich as her neighbours were, not nearly so rich as her position in society exacted that she should be. She was still not rich enough to be spared the sordid, nerve-racking effort to make two ends meet without a visible break. Her small economies, to Gabriella's surprise, were as rigid as Mrs. Carr's; and though she lived in surroundings which appeared luxurious to the girl, there was almost as little ready money to spend as ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... no question either that nerve strain and monotony accentuate the critical attitude towards food. Here is an extract from Mr. Jackson's report on Senne (September 11, 1915): "There were some complaints, as usual, in regard to the food. ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... broke into ten thousand smiles, laughing and dancing with every ripple, as unconsciously as if no form dear to human hearts had gone down beneath it. Oh! treacherous, deceiving beauty of outward things! beauty, wherein throbs not one answering nerve to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... did; he acknowledged that the union of the Anglican with the Roman communion was the dearest wish of his heart; that he would strain every nerve in the struggle to bring about its fulfilment; that though, no doubt, infidelity was making rapid strides, still churchmen generally united in thinking that before long, and for the common good, petty differences would be sunk in the grand magnitude of the act of the union of ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... wasn't sure of you. I didn't know how you'd take it. And I'd lost my nerve, damn it! the last few years. Thought you might just kick me out, or ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... limb were long and painful. A nerve had been taken up in one of the ligatures at the time of the operation; and the ligature, according to the practice of the French surgeons, was of silk instead of waxed thread; this produced a constant irritation and discharge; and the ends of the ligature ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... great hope" (23rd of January, 1850) "that I shall be remembered by little Em'ly, a good many years to come." "I begin to have my doubts of being able to join you" (20th of February), "for Copperfield runs high, and must be done to-morrow. But I'll do it if possible, and strain every nerve. Some beautiful comic love, I hope, in the number." "Still undecided about Dora" (7th of May), "but MUST decide to-day."[163] "I have been" (Tuesday, 20th of August) "very hard at work these three days, and have still Dora to kill. But with good luck, I may do ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... me by, I suppose, the attraction of repulsion. The muse who guides the dreamings of the Russian artist is a sombre and heavy-lidded lady, but most sombre, I think, when she moves in the brain of the musician. Then she wears the glooms and sables of the hypochondriac. She does not "nerve us with incessant affirmations." Rather, she enervates us with incessant dubitations. It is more than a relief to leave the crowded Promenade, after a Tchaikowsky symphony, to stroll in the dusky glitter of Langham Place, ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... the northern colonies had taken incipient steps for the emancipation of their slaves. Here permit me to say, sir, that, with a prudent regard to what the Senator from Maine (Mr. Hamlin) yesterday called the "sensitive pocket-nerve," they all made these provisions prospective. Slavery was to be abolished after a certain future time—just enough time to give their citizens convenient opportunity for selling the slaves to southern planters, putting the money ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... cell of the county jail. Dixon proved to be a clear-eyed, clean-cut young man. The thing that impressed me most about him, aside from the prepossession in his favor due to the faith of Alma Willard, was the nerve he displayed, whether guilty or innocent. Even an innocent man might well have been staggered by the circumstantial evidence against him and the high tide of public feeling, in spite of the support that he was receiving. Leland, we learned, ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... speaker or writer; and next, that he should employ words and phrases which might convey it in all its truth to the mind of another. The man who entertains such conceptions, will not unfrequently want the steadiness of nerve which is required for their adequate transmission. Suitable words will not always wait upon his thoughts. Language is in reality a vast labyrinth, a scene like the Hercinian Forest of old, which, we are told, could not be traversed in less than sixty ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... boy? What boy? Is 't mine? and have they netted my young fledgeling? Now heaven support me, if they have! He'll own me, And share his father's ruin! But a look Would put him on his guard—yet how to give it! Now heart, thy nerve; forget thou 'rt flesh, be rock. They come, they come! That step—that step—that little step, so light Upon the ground, how heavy does it fall Upon my heart! I feel my child! (Enter Sarnem with Albert, whose ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... addressed. Burke spoke amid the angers and alarms inspired first by the subversive energy, and then by the doctrinaire cruelty of the French Revolution. It was in the process of "diffusing the Terror" that most of his philosophical obiter dicta were uttered. The real nerve of the thinking of a mind so vehement, so passionate, so essentially dramatic is to be sought not in some principle which was the major premise of his syllogisms, but in some pervading emotion. Fanny Burney said of him that when he spoke of the Revolution his face immediately ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... declared Arthur Warren, "but then, he always did have nerve, Jack did. If he didn't he wouldn't have done the things ...
— The Hilltop Boys on Lost Island • Cyril Burleigh
... one hundred and thirty-first Psalm, and the figures "1860." Every word, every letter, and every point, of all these passages was written exquisitely on this minute space; and that old man not only saw every mark he made, but had the delicacy of muscular action and steadiness of nerve to form the letters so beautifully that they abide the test of the highest magnifying power. They were, of course, ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... Space is really full of things we cannot see and as yet do not know? How if all animals and some savages have a cell in their brain or a nerve which responds to the invisible world? How if all Space be full of these landmarks, not material in our sense, but quite real? A dog barks at nothing, a wild beast makes an aimless circuit. Why? Perhaps because Space is made up of ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... are becoming enthusiastic. What did I tell you? The whole of life's an adventure; and nothing but adventure is worth while. At the first breath of coming events, there you are, quivering in every nerve. You share in all the tragedies stirring around you; and the feeling of mystery awakens in the depths of your being. See, how closely you are observing that couple who have just arrived. You never can tell: that may be the gentleman who proposes to do away with his wife? ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... dash, nerve, vim and initiative essential to a successful flier. He is moulded as a cog. He is part of a system—out of that he must not move. It has wrecked his initiative, and the sneer of the greatest German in history, Frederick the ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... off your bricks and mortar, and put out your tentacles toward the great spiritual world around you. Open communications with God. You can not help God. For Him who made the Milky Way you can do nothing. But here are his creatures. Not a nerve, muscle, or brain-convolution of the humblest of these but duplicates your own; you excel them simply in the coordination of certain inherited faculties which have given you success. Widen your heart. Put your intellect to work to so readjust the values of ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... last, and with every nerve throbbing from excitement Murray started up in readiness, for the black had bent over to whisper to him that he was going to try and find a way past the several parties of the enemy who were beleaguering the holders ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... business concerns today who are slowly dying from dry rot because they have not the nerve to break away from the precedent that built up their businesses. They let sentiment outweigh common sense. They maintain the same old lines and follow the same policy because that policy years before things ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... sixth or seventh month; the fore-teeth coming first, then the eye-teeth, and last of all the grinders. The eye-teeth cause more pain to the child than any of the rest, because they have a deep root, and a small nerve which has communication with that which makes ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... have not had an attack yet, though there has been hard fighting on our immediate right and left. We are fairly safe here behind barbed wire entanglements, and this would be an easy job if one could get used to the row and the watching through the night, which is rather nerve-racking. This trench is in a bonnie fir wood, just like bonnie Scotland, but the shell fire has damaged nearly all the trees. Today, being windy, they are falling in all directions. We have not had a hot meal since we came here. We are ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... to loosen his grip, and to enable the besieged to rise against the besiegers and break through. The Confederates, however, had not sufficient forces for such an enterprise. General Lee, in the East, had now undertaken the campaign of Gettysburg, and the Confederacy was already strained in every nerve. General Grant had the way open for supplies and re-enforcements. The siege was pressed with the utmost vigor, and Pemberton was ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... them. Miss Prescott need not know anything of the danger. After all, it may amount to nothing. As for Jess, she has as much, and more, nerve ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... me a bit, if he done that," replied Pete querulously. "The old man ain't lacking in nerve. Back thar was the first time I ever seen him hang back in my ...
— Frontier Boys on the Coast - or in the Pirate's Power • Capt. Wyn Roosevelt
... 'basicranial axis,' while the plane of the tentorium ('i T'.) is inclined at rather more than 90 degrees to the 'basicranial axis'; and so is the plane of the perforated plate ('a d'.), by which the filaments of the olfactory nerve leave the skull. Again, a line drawn through the axis of the face, between the bones called ethmoid and vomer—the "basifacial axis" ('f e'.) forms an exceedingly obtuse angle, where, when produced, it cuts the ...
— On Some Fossil Remains of Man • Thomas H. Huxley
... winning against politeness, "I never dreamed you'd have the nerve to try that fancy corkscrew throw of yours before all that crowd. Why, after two years to get out of practice, you took an awful chance of making a fool of yourself! Y'see, Bill," he explained with a deliberate garrulity, "that throw he made when he caught the horse was the finest ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... spiritual element, then add this temperament, and there follows a certain subtile, penetrative, radical quality of thought, a characteristic percipience of principles. And principles are not only seen, but felt; they thrill the nerve as well as greet the eye; and the man consequently becomes highly amenable to his own belief. The primary question respecting men is this,—How far are they affected by the original axiomatic truths? Truths are like the winds. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... fearful length, thick of girth, vast of crook, and wide in the spiral stripe that seemed to run a living flame before his ravished eyes, beginning at the bottom and winding around and around the whole dizzy height. Fearfully in nerve-braced silence he leaned far out of his bed to bring against this amazing apparition one cool, impartial forefinger of skeptic research. It did not vanish; it resisted his touch. Then his heart fainted with rapture, for he knew the ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... man at the guiding-gear, as the air-ship shot onward and upward, now heading, as directly as was practicable, for the Lost City of the Aztecs. "That was the very lesson I needed. I am steady of nerve, now, and will show no lack,—heaven grant that we may not be ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... crashing down on the table with his fist; "we are merely intellectuals. We cling to a mummified world. But they have the power and the nerve." ...
— One Man's Initiation—1917 • John Dos Passos
... of the story lies west of the Mississippi River, in the days when emigrants made their perilous way across the great plains to the land of gold. There is an attack upon the wagon train by a large party of Indians. Our hero is a lad of uncommon nerve and pluck. Befriended by a stalwart trapper, a real rough diamond, our hero achieves ...
— Slow and Sure - The Story of Paul Hoffman the Young Street-Merchant • Horatio Alger
... scorn; but, all the same, she had been a little longer going to sleep than usual. She felt herself almost as much as ever the guardian of her sisters, and the old sensitive nerve was set quivering. And now there could be no question about it—Rose had changed her ground towards Mr. Langham altogether. Her manner at breakfast was ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... policeman, laconically. "I saw him rob that elderly gentleman," and he pointed to Mr. Bunn. "And then this fellow has the nerve to say he was only ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Rocky Ranch - Or, Great Days Among the Cowboys • Laura Lee Hope
... told no one, but he meant to, unless things got better. 'I haven't the nerve for this job, Davie,' he said; 'I'll have to resign. And it's a pity, for the place suits my health fine. You see I know too much, and I haven't your whinstone nerve and total lack ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... and that is PERSEVERANCE! A few years ago there was a boxing match between Sam Mac Vea and Joe Jeannette that will remain famous in the history of the sport. Mac Vea was a heavy weight, strong, all muscle: a veritable black giant. Joe Jeannette, light, well proportioned, all nerve: a mongrel of the best sort. The match was epic. It went on for forty-two rounds and lasted three hours. At the third round, and again in the seventh, Sam Mac Vea threw Joe Jeannette, and his victory seemed assured. But little by little Joe Jeannette revived, pulled himself together, ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... wall, smashing the glass of one of the pictures, had already recovered his balance and turned around. The little revolver, with whose use Philip was barely acquainted, flashed suddenly out in the lamplight. Even in that lurid moment he kept his nerve. He aimed at the right arm outstretched to strike him, and pulled the trigger. Through the little mist of smoke he saw a spasm of pain in his assailant's face, felt the thundering crash of his ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... muscle is strengthened, the tendons, and the crests of bone to which they are attached, become enlarged; and this must likewise be the case with the blood-vessels and nerves. On the other hand, when a limb is not used, as by Eastern fanatics, or when the nerve supplying it with nervous power is effectually destroyed, the muscles wither. So again, when the eye is destroyed the optic nerve becomes atrophied, sometimes even in the course of a few months.[734] The Proteus is furnished with branchiae ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... and more especially Haeckel, lays on the relationship of the larva of the ascidia to the lancelet fish. Now the important testimony of K. E. von Baer, in his "Memoires de l'Academie de St. Petersbourg," Ser. vii, Vol. 19, No. 2, tells us that the nerve-ganglion {84} of the ascidia lies on the side of the stomach, and on that account can not be homologous with the spine of the vertebrates, but that the cord in the larva of the ascidia is nothing more than a support for the tail in swimming, which ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... got me on the back of it!" cried Miss Hazy, rising hurriedly from the machine and peering over her glasses. "You open it, Mis' Wiggs; I ain't got the nerve to." ...
— Lovey Mary • Alice Hegan Rice
... fleeter game of all kinds now shot past us like arrows; deer were bounding over the ground, in company with wolves and panthers; droves of elks and antelopes passed swifter than a dream; then a solitary horse or a huge buffalo-bull. From our intense anxiety, although our horses strained every nerve, we ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... it,' said I, 'among all the men I know in the wild country I have lived and worked in, I know none more fearless or of more unhesitating nerve.' ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... of his so spurred me on, that I Strained every nerve, behind him scrambling up, Until the circle was beneath ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante
... suitable, in his opinion, to this extensive country, could be established in no other way.... He trusted, moreover, that in the changes and chances of time we should be involved in some war, which might strengthen our union and nerve the executive. He was of all men the most indiscreet. He knew that a limited monarchy, even if established, could not preserve itself in this country.... He never failed, on every occasion, to advocate the excellence of, ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... institutions of truth and love. And, however you will, it is the expression of a solemn responsibility, the exercise of an immeasurable power for good or for evil, now and hereafter. It is the medium through which you act upon your country—the organic nerve which incorporates you with its life and welfare. There is no agent with which the possibilities of the Republic are more intimately involved, none upon which we can fall back with more confidence, ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... a celebrated French surgeon, born at Pierre-Buffiere; he was a man of firm nerve, signally sure and skilful as an operator, and contributed greatly, both by his inventions and discoveries, to the progress of surgery; a museum of pathological anatomy, in which he made important ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... right," he said, looking down at Stevens. "But I am quite sure the young woman is capable of taking care of herself. Quade has a tremendous amount of nerve, setting Slim to follow her, hasn't he? Slim may run up against a husband ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... very likely she did, for she was very quick-tempered. In later years I have not suffered from the fearsome malady, but even now, after fifty years of stage-life, I never play a new part without being overcome by a terrible nervousness and a torturing dread of forgetting my lines. Every nerve in my body seems to be dancing an independent jig on ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... its lilt, would suddenly make me start up, wide awake, with every nerve in my body dancing ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... exertions the first game fell to the Sixth. They were heartily clapped, and the Fifth began to look rather blue. Each side now played with extreme caution. They had taken one another's measure, and knew what they had to expect. Hilda Browne kept her nerve well, and her serves were acknowledged to be what the girls called "clinchers". As for Gwen, her arms seemed elastic. This time the Sixth were beaten, and ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... by voice and example, to keep firm. But the lances of Alexander's cavalry and the pikes of the phalanx now pressed nearer and nearer to him. His charioteer was struck down by a javelin at his side; and at last Darius' nerve failed him, and, descending from his chariot, he mounted on a fleet horse and galloped from the plain, regardless of the state of the battle in other parts of the field, where matters were going on much more favorably for his ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... change in the shape of the ear in animals born of parents in which such a change was the effect of a division of the cervical sympathetic nerve. ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... Then will I ly as calme as doth the sea, When all the winds are lock'd in Aeolus jayle; I will not move a haire, not let a nerve Or Pulse to beat, least I disturbe her! ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... appetite is too powerful; it demands the sordid pleasures which the possession of gold makes possible. Nor will it be satisfied with anything else. A tramp gold-seeker is irreclaimable. His joy lies in his quest and the dreams of fortune which are all too rarely fulfilled Every nerve centre is drugged with his lust, and, like all decadents, he must fulfil the destiny which his own original weakness ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... to commence the attack at once. We were drawn up in three ranks on the shore nearly opposite the fort. Allen then made a short address to us. He was never a man of many words. He said he knew our spirit, and hoped we would remember the cause for which we were about to strike; that would nerve the arm of a coward. He concluded by conjuring us to obey orders strictly, and to commit no slaughter that could be done without. Then, with Arnold at his side, Allen led us stealthily up the rocks to the sally-port. ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... turn his head sharply away when he passed the village tobacco store, for every nerve cried out for the solace of a good pipe, but he felt more than repaid for the sacrifice by Lou's honest rapture over the poor things he had been able ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant
... "I was worried," she confessed. "It's nurse's night out and Victor had to go to a board meeting unexpectedly—and with you away—I lost my nerve. It seemed dreadful to be ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... We conversed in whispers, until Tim, still influenced by his excessive drinking, became sleepy, and slid off the stump onto the ground, where he curled up on a pile of leaves. I let him lie undisturbed, and continued my vigil alone, feeling no inclination to sleep, every nerve throbbing almost painfully. Three or four men straggled into the saloon while I sat there, coming from the direction of the camp, and were doubtless waited upon by Sal. None remained long within, and all I saw of them were indistinct figures revealed ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... and enraged by the interruption, our modern Terpander starts from his seat, and opens the window. This operates as air to a kindling fire; and such a combination of noises burst upon the auricular nerve, that he is compelled to stop his ears,—but to stop the torrent ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... evening she flitted through the woods and across the meadow to the cottage of old Hagar. Sleep had refreshed her and she had dreamed pleasant dreams. She felt stout of heart, and firm of nerve. ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... the communist domain-our politics and our economy, our science and technology against the best they can do—our liberty against their slavery—our voluntary concert Of free nations against their forced amalgam of "people's republics"—our strategy against their strategy-our nerve against their nerve. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... went deadly white, and she sank back in her seat as if every nerve in her body had of a sudden been bereft of power, whilst she of the fair ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... of me, as usuall; and, on entering our Chamber, I found her quite undrest, sitting at the Table, not reading of her Bible, but with her Head resting on it. I should have taken her to be asleep, but for the quick Pulsation of some Nerve or Muscle at the back of the Neck, somewhere under the right Ear. She looks up, commences rubbing her Eyes, and says, "My Eyes are full of Sand, I think. I will give you my new Crown-piece, Deb, if you will read me to ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... the funeral, although his condition was very painful to his friends and he refused to leave the place, and remained there, with great fortitude but little wisdom, for a long time, until his nerve was completely gone. He never was afterwards the same man, and, although Mr. Gladstone put him into his Cabinet in 1881, for friendship's sake, [Footnote: There was another reason: his intimate knowledge ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... beneath his sway the broken fragments of the Celtic race. Mysterious prophecies, the prophecies of Merlin the Wise which floated from lip to lip and were heard even along the Seine and the Rhine, came home again to nerve Wales to its last struggle with the stranger. Medrawd and Arthur, men whispered, would appear once more on earth to fight over again the fatal battle of Camlan in which the hero-king perished. The last conqueror of the Celtic race, Cadwallon, still lived ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... about noon one day, while I was trying to nerve myself to make this hard expedition, that I called a halt in order to eat my dinner—which I knew would be a very little one—being just then come aboard of a great ungainly galleon that from the look ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... throat and head got wrong, and it was with difficulty I could frame my sentences or pronounce my words, and yet I had to meet the great opportunity that was presented. I am paying the price to-day in weariness extreme. There is hardly a bone in my body that does not ache, or a nerve that ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... lively fashion, and everybody expected to see the boy thrown off. But Bayard kept his seat like a man of thirty, spurred on his horse, and galloped round and round the court, as brave as a lion, his eyes sparkling with delight. An old soldier like his father thoroughly appreciated the lad's nerve and spirit, and could scarcely help betraying the pride he felt in him. But the wise Bishop probably thought that the lad had received quite as much notice as was good for him, and announced that he was ready to start, adding to his nephew: "Now, my friend, you had better ...
— Bayard: The Good Knight Without Fear And Without Reproach • Christopher Hare
... "Oh, my brethren, every nerve, fiber, muscle, and 'petty artery of the body,' participates in Love. Love is the conqueror of death, because Love alone perpetuates life. Love is life! Love is religion! Love is the universe! Love is God!" And with this climax he sat down amid ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... was destined to lead his Battery afield for many a long day with unshaken nerve. He was removed, and nursed and petted into convalescence, while the Battery discussed the wisdom of capturing Simmons, and blowing him from a gun. They idolized their Major, and his reappearance on parade brought ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... I'll take his word for it that Almo proved himself the greatest genius for desert fighting that the Republic has produced in a hundred years. And I'll follow my own intuition that a swashbuckler whose own thoughts prompted him to challenge the King of the Grove as a cure for tedium, who had the nerve to carry out the idea and the skill to win a hundred and six fights in ten months must be a good all-round man and a real man clear through. I take it that being put in supreme command of a great expedition will brush the cobwebs ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... cleverest of their number was charged with his instruction, and immediately began with the important art of sitting on the haunches with his tail curled up upon his back. In this, though he strained every nerve to perform it, he made an ignominious failure. He could only maintain the position for a moment, and then pitch forward or fall backward, seeming to rock over on his curved tail, and cutting such a ridiculous figure that ...
— Harper's Young People, May 11, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... It is for ourselves that we worked, and our reward lies in the creation of a race of men who shall surpass us. We amassed their treasury, we hoarded it in a wretched hovel open to all the winds of Heaven: we had to strain every nerve to keep the doors closed against death. Our arms carved out the triumphal way along which our sons shall march. Our sufferings have saved the future. We have borne the Ark to the threshold of the Promised Land. It will reach that Land ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... Only to make me miserable, for it was a waste of golden time while the rich sunlight streamed on hill and plain. There was a wrenching of the mind, a straining of the mental sinews; I was forced to do this, my mind was yonder. Weariness, exhaustion, nerve-illness often ensued. The insults which are showered on poverty, long struggle of labour, the heavy pressure of circumstances, the unhappiness, only stayed the expression of the feeling. It was always there. Often in the streets of London, as the red ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies
... abnormalness, a morbid conception of beauty, a defiant disregard of the fact that a public exists which judges by common sense and the eye, not by a fine-spun confusion of theories and an undefined but omnipotent and deified "aesthetic sense" non-resident in the optic nerve. Mr. Whistler's pictures to-day, cleverly as he can paint if he will, are not pictures—I do not mean in fact, which is certainly true—but in title. They are "Natures in Black and Gold," or "In Blue and Silver," or "In Blue and Gold," or "Arrangements in Black," or "Harmonies ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... down at the girl, trembling, brave, white, beside him; and he felt like gathering her in his arms and hiding her himself, such a frail, brave, courageous little soul she seemed. But the calm nerve with which she had shot the serpent was gone now. He saw she was trembling and ready to cry. Then he smiled upon her, a smile the like of which he had never given to human being before; at least, not since he was a tiny baby and smiled ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... to be Leopold of Lutha," he said, "was but a mad adventurer. He would have seized the throne of the Rubinroths had his nerve not failed him at the last moment. He has fled. The true king is dead. Now I, Prince Regent of Lutha, declare the throne vacant, and announce ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... external jugular vein. 9. That during recovery the lungs are heavily taxed in purifying the vitiated blood, as shown by the excessive amount of organic impurities exhaled. 10. That restlessness and jactitation accompany the restoration of nerve function, and that vomiting occurs with returning consciousness. 11. That pains like those of rheumatism are complained of for some days subsequently, these probably resulting from the sudden arrest ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various
... turn that letter over to Merrick it will give him some idea of our proposed trip," said Mr. Rover, "and more than likely he will strain every nerve to get ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... a woman who is a stranger to you is a sin, and 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 ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... prison-dressed, he might see as many lawyers as he pleased, to be looked at, laughed at, and advised that there was but one way out of the scrape. Higgins was, in his speculations, a regular counterpart of Bailly; but the celebrated Mayor of Paris had not his nerve. It was impossible to say, if their characters had been changed, whether the unfortunate crisis in which Bailly was not equal to the occasion would have led to very different results if Higgins had been in his place: ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... leader, or the man who was called "Bill," cast anxious glances at the inspector, as though desirous of speaking, yet fearing that his remarks would not be received with much cordiality. At length he mustered sufficient nerve ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... little trailing sound along the floor, seemed to her terrifying, as if it were the movement of an animal in the room. She shut her eyes, and the pulse in her head beat so strongly that each thump seemed to tread upon a nerve, piercing her forehead with a little stab of pain. It might not be the same headache, but she certainly had a headache. She turned from side to side, in the hope that the coolness of the sheets would cure her, and that when ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... 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 scars have been formed, ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... wolf would come on till almost within springing distance, when he would stop and lift his great head, wrinkling his chops to show the long white fangs, and rumbling a warning deep in his massive chest. Then the caribou would lose his nerve; he would stamp and fidget and bluster, and at last begin to circle nervously, crashing his way into the scrub as if for a chance to take his enemy in the flank. Whereupon the old wolf would trot quietly along the path, paying no more heed to the interruption; while the ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... back. It seemed as yesterday. And here HE stood grown to manhood. He needed just that reminder to stir his blood and nerve him for the ordeal ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... arable farmer has just the same difficulty to keep his labourers at their work, and unless he is constantly on the watch valuable time is lost daily. In the harvest, however, he has an advantage. The corn is reaped by piece-work, and the labourers therefore strain every nerve to do as much as they can. But then he must be on the lookout to see that they do ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... one of good blood to lack courage, but had you been nervous and flurried the first time you were called upon to play the part of a man, it would have seemed to me but natural; now it gladdens me indeed to know that even in your first essay you should have thus shown that you possess nerve and coolness as well as courage. Anyone can rush into a fight and deal blows right and left, but it is far more rare to find one who, in his very first trial at arms, can keep his head clear, and be able to reply to a question, as Edgar says you did, in a calm and even voice. Now, tell ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... mamillares of the Brain, and some adjoyning glandules, and by the moist steam of the Lungs, with a Liquor convenient for the reception of those effluvia and by the adhesion and mixing of those steams with that liquor, and thereby affecting the nerve, or perhaps by insinuating themselves into the juices of the brain, after the same manner, as I have in the following Observations intimated, the parts of Salt to pass through the skins of Effs, and Frogs. Since, I say, smelling seems to be made ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... and rob you. Fortune befriended me ever after; but the richer I grew, the more keenly I felt how wicked I had been, and the more I foresaw that my victim's vengeance would some day overtake me. Haunted by this thought, I lost my nerve, till one night I beheld your spirit, and from that time forth fell ill. But how you managed to escape, and are still alive, is ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... action. The sharp head nurse wondered if Dr. Sommers had had any wine that evening, but she dismissed this suspicion scornfully, as slander against the ornament of the Surgical Ward of St. Isidore's. He was tired: the languid summer air thus early in the year would shake any man's nerve. But the head nurse understood well that such a wavering of will or muscle must not occur again, or the hairbreadth ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... this plain, unvarnished tale without admiring the stern resolution, the unbending pride, the loftiness of spirit that seemed to nerve the hearts of these self-taught heroes and to raise them above the instinctive feelings of human nature? When the Gauls laid waste the city of Rome, they found the senators clothed in their robes and seated with stern tranquillity ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... There has been much uncalled for satirical comment at the expense of the quartermasters. They were really among the most useful of officers—indispensable in fact. The man who handled the transportation for a cavalry command had a position requiring tact, nerve, energy, endurance and ability of a high order. Mr. Patten was such a man. His wagon trains never failed to reach the front with needed supplies when it was possible to get them there. The white canvas of the army wagon was a pleasant sight to the soldier worn out with marching and ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... of Agriculture is, taken as a whole, a most wonderful institution. I do wish, however, that the Department officials would not always wait until they think they know exactly all the facts about a thing before they publish it. I sometimes wish they had enough nerve to say: "Now, this is what we found out today. We may change our minds tomorrow and if we do we will tell you so," the same as any other honest citizen. Why in the world they collect all the data they do, file it away day after day, month after month and year ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting - Washington, D. C. October 7 AND 8, 1920 • Various
... accurate description of the dinner itself and enclosing a diagram of the manner in which the guests were seated, but without any commentary on the proceedings of the day. It was, after all, one of the nerve-centres of the great world, and an agreeable change from the domestic monotony of the Wayside. Thackeray would have descried rich material for his pen in it, but Hawthorne's studies lay in another direction. Great men were not his ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... Jimmy was up in arms. He had a reserve stock of nerve for occasions like this, which could be ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... his make-up both on and off the stage, and copied, so far as he could, Ling's style of work. His fame reached this country and the New York Clipper published, in its Letter Columns, an article stating that Ling Look was not dead, but was alive and working in England. His imitator had the nerve to stick to his story even when confronted by Kellar, but when the latter assured him that he had personally attended the burial of Ling, in Hong Kong, he broke down and confessed that he was a younger brother ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... 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 ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... because we are separated from some member of the Lord's body, or because there is not the freedom of His love flowing through every organic part. It does not need a blow upon the head to paralyze the brain; a blow upon some nerve may do it; or a wound in some artery at the extremities may be fatal to the heart. Therefore we must stand right with all His children, and meet in the body of Christ in the sweetest, fullest fellowship, if we would ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... much to further the cause of the Liberals in Europe. It was a difficult and a hazardous game to play, but he set about playing it with delighted alacrity. And then, to his intense annoyance, just as he needed all his nerve and all possible freedom of action, he found himself being hampered and distracted at every turn by... those people at Osborne. He saw what it was; the opposition was systematic and informed, and the Queen alone would have been incapable ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... over-culture of the age leads to this shoal, and nothing becomes the cultivated man so much as to escape by a happy victory this twofold and pernicious influence. Of all other European nations, our neighbors, the French, lean most to this extreme, and we, as in all things, strain every nerve ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... which in order to provide a supply of fresh meat for her offspring after her own decease, calls in the science of anatomy to amplify the resources of her instinctive cruelty, and, having made a collection of weevils and spiders, proceeds with marvellous knowledge and skill to pierce the nerve-centre on which their power of locomotion (but none of their other vital functions) depends, so that the paralysed insect, beside which her egg is laid, will furnish the larva, when it is hatched, with a tamed and inoffensive quarry, incapable ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... had believed himself to be while laboring under more serious bodily illness: he was only sad; but that sadness, he believed, would remain during life. Ah, well!—if life and health were still to be his, he must nerve himself to meet whatever of sorrow or disappointment might come, and bear what he could not conquer. So thought he as they rode homeward, when John for a time ceased that constant stream of chat for ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... intent on insects so small as to be invisible to us at a very short distance. These he gathers in the air, he sees what we cannot see, his eyes are to our eyes as his wings are to our limbs. If still further we were to consider the flow of the nerve force between the eye, the mind, and the wing, we should be face to face with problems which quite upset the ordinary ideas of matter as a solid thing. How is it that dull matter becomes thus inexpressibly sensitive? Is not the swallow's eye a miracle? Then his heart, for he ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... feel or how I don't feel hain't got nothing to do with it, Mawruss," Abe retorted. "And furthermore, Mawruss, any motor-cycle policeman which has got the nerve to swear that he could tell inside of two miles an hour how fast somebody is driving, understand me, is guilty of perjury on the face of it, which I told the judge. 'Judge, your Honor,' I says, 'I admit I was going fast,' I ...
— Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things • Montague Glass
... radiated good fellowship and even bandied witticisms with the junior subaltern in an admirable spirit of give-and-take. He had enjoyed excellent sport. Later, in the ante-room, he delivered a useful little homily on the surmounting of obstacles, on patience, on presence of mind and on nerve, copiously illustrated from a day's triumph that will resound on the Murman coast as the unconditional surrender of the intimidated roach. He described how he had cunningly outmanoeuvred the patrols, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various
... Aumia was not genuine. It could not be; it was too dramatic. When they left the house the mourners laughed and lit cigarettes and pipes. If no new visitor came they fell to chatting and smoking, but the sight of a fresh and unharrowed person started them off again in their mechanical, though nerve-racking, cry. ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... a scene of confusion. Exposing himself recklessly, Scott tried to urge the dogs forward, but they had lost their nerve. It needed only this to upset everything. The hunters closed in together, and the critical moment had come; deaf alike to command and entreaty, the two hounds refused to go in, and Scuffy, flying wildly about the bear, seemed unable to check ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... if their own nervous power were cooperating in the struggle, the gallant ship bore her head round to face the driving waves. From the ten huge, red stacks columns of inky black smoke poured out as the stokers crammed the furnaces beneath. It was man against nature, human nerve and mechanical ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... sin," he said. "You have had enough of that already. It will require a steady nerve to meet the girl and carry out the deception, for the eyes of love are quick to discern. If she should for an instant suspect that you are not her lover, Lester Armstrong, the game is up, and you have lost the high ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... a rough affair. For ten minutes the result was doubtful. The Federal cavalry were apparently commanded by an officer of excellent nerve, and he fought his men obstinately. For nearly a quarter of an hour the wood was full of sabre-strokes, carbine-shots, and yells, which mingled with the roll of the storm. Then the ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... said he, "to be among the best you have; and I know very few lines in your language equal to the two first stanzas in his 'Meditation on Napoleon,' or to those exquisite verses called 'Le Lac;' but you will allow also that he wants originality and nerve. His thoughts are pathetic, but not deep; he whines, but sheds no tears. He has, in his imitation of Lord Byron, reversed the great miracle; instead of turning water into wine, he has turned wine into water. ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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
... years. Do you know anything about the philosophy of the hypnotic trance? Well, that was the relation between us—hypnotist and subject. She had been under another man before my time, but no one was ever so successful with her as I. She suffered from tic douloureux of the fifth nerve. She had had most of her teeth drawn before I saw her, and an attempt had been made to wrench out the nerve on the left side by the external scission. But it made no difference: all the clocks in hell tick-tacked in that poor woman's jaw, and it was the mercy ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... all. Making a will is like ordering your grave clothes. Takes nerve. Mrs. Mosely didn't have any. She was merely a little old gray barnacle sticking to her husband's ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... and of the trains and detachments en route to it, would have been hardly less disgraceful than a surrender of the whole. To Burnside's honor and credit it should be recorded that he did not dream of doing it. He strained every nerve to hasten the movement of his troops so as to get through with his little campaign against Jones by the time the Ninth Corps could come from Kentucky, and if he could accomplish it within that limit, he would have ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... along every nerve tingled an exquisite thrill of excitement. He had yearned for wild, border life. Here he was in it, with the hunter whose name alone was to the savages a symbol for all ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... test. And, again, this negative act may be equivocal in a different way; the friendliness may not only have existed, but may have existed in strength sufficient for any test whatever; not the principles of the Seceders, but their Jacobinical mode of asserting them, may have proved the true nerve of the repulsion to many. What is it that we wish the English reader to collect from these distinctions? Simply that the danger is not yet gone past. The earthquake, says a great poet, when speaking of the general tendency ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... an absolutely straight street forms a comparatively easy target, and a cellar is no protection against a 240 lbs. Minenwerfer shell. On one occasion the enemy, starting at one end, dropped a shell on every house in turn down one side, smashing each cellar; it was a nerve-racking performance for those who lived in one of the cellars and had to watch the shells coming nearer, knowing that to go into the street meant instant death at the hands of some sniper. The headquarters of No. 15 Platoon had a direct hit, but fortunately 2nd Lieuts. Brooke ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... How could you pretend When, after Jena, I'd have come to you, "The weather was so wild, the roads so rough, That no one of my sex and delicate nerve Could hope to face the dangers and fatigues." Yes—so you wrote me, ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... her and Howie. The train was late. It was almost the hour for pictures to begin when she got down at that lonely, far-away station. And the town, it seemed, was a mile from the station! There was a bus she must take. Every nerve of her being was hurrying that bus on—until that very anxiety made it seem it was Howie himself she would see if only she ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... against the loss of that blessed sense of well-being and overflowing health, that she used to have, in the old days. She resented the nerve-weariness, the fatigue that she was now more conscious of than ever, with the coming of the spring. The impulse of creative energy broke forth in her. The pearly mornings and the birds' songs stirred every ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... the one hand they restored the estates plundered by the Cromwellians thirty-six years before, and gave compensation to all innocent persons—while they strained every nerve to exclude the English from our trade, and to secure it to the Irish—while they introduced the Statute of Frauds, and many other sound laws, and thus showed their zeal for the peaceful and permanent welfare of the ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... the American manner, crouching, with both arms half extended (and this seems to have entirely bewildered his adversary) and he made no effort to reach the face. He just thumped away steadily below the spot where the ribs part, and where—a doctor informs me—a nerve-center, known as the solar plexus, is situated. He revolved, too, with considerable agility, round his opponent, and gradually drew the battle nearer and nearer to the side lane outside. He knew enough of slum-chivalry by now to be ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... because a Robinson relative had given him the job, and he hadn't the nerve to refuse it. He couldn't well refuse it, because of Thomas. Uncompanioned by Thomas he would probably have chosen instead to sweep a crossing or play a barrel-organ, or stand at a street corner with outstretched hat (though this last would only have done for a summer engagement, as Peter didn't ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... heavy stone close at hand; or to scramble about among crags and precipices, if you felt certain of the steadiness of your head and the strength of your muscles. But he did not realize that "courage" could mean the nerve to speak one ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... drummer was drinking to recover his nerve, Alexandra hurried to the drug store as the most likely place to find Carl Linstrum. There he was, turning over a portfolio of chromo "studies" which the druggist sold to the Hanover women who did china-painting. Alexandra explained her predicament, ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... which should duly flatter the niece of the moment without unduly discounting the aunt that was to come. Privately he doubted more than ever whether these formal visits on a succession of total strangers would do much towards helping the nerve cure which he was supposed ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... the researches of Faraday, Clerk-Maxwell, Hertz, Lodge and Lenard. The human optic nerve is affected by a very small range in the waves that exist in the ether. Beyond the visible spectrum of common light are vibrations which have long been known as heat or as photographically active. Crookes ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... acts on it and induces movement. A bit of hair, 1/50 of an inch in length, and therefore much larger than those used in the above experiments, was not perceived when placed on my tongue; and it is extremely doubtful whether any nerve in the human body, even if in an inflamed condition, would be in any way affected by such a particle supported in a dense fluid, and slowly brought into contact with the nerve. Yet the cells of the glands of Drosera are thus excited to transmit a motor impulse to a distant point, ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin
... blooms revive for May, And, love extinct, all life were dead to God. And what the charm that at my Laura's kiss, Pours the diviner brightness to the cheek; Makes the heart bound more swiftly to its bliss, And bids the rushing blood the magnet seek— Out from their bounds swell nerve, and pulse, and sense, The veins in tumult would their shores o'erflow; Body to body rapt—and charmed thence, Soul drawn to soul with intermingled glow. Mighty alike to sway the flow and ebb Of the inanimate Matter, or to move The nerves that weave the Arachnean web Of Sentient Life—rules ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... the city, in words that are almost pathetic, it never occurred to him that he was prescribing exactly that course of treatment which had done himself much damage[387]. The clear sight and strong nerve of Caesar, as compared with so many of his contemporaries, was doubtless largely due to the fact that between 70 and 50 B.C., i.e. in the prime of life, he spent some twelve of the twenty years in the fresher air of Spain and ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... other misers, in the gathering together of dollars. Their shrewdness may be exceptional, but a quality which consists half in accurate guessing and half in bullying defiance is hardly worthy of the name. As for their "nerve" and "coolness," these are not endowments that in such connection can be admired or praised. For surely the gambler who cannot face bravely those very slings and arrows of variant if not always outrageous fortune which form the chief indices of his dingy profession, cuts a mean enough ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... the thing yourself. Now for a more ecstatic burst. You purposely prolong his suspense; he is all atilt, expecting the delightful surprise. You drawl out each word; you drone the ditty over and over again, till every tiny nerve is tense with expectation. "Boo!" at last, and over he goes, in the complete abandon of baby glee; his cherry lips are wide asunder, his head hangs powerless back, and the "Hicketty-hicks" burst tumultuously from his little, beating throat. And you, sir; what ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... idolaters, surrounded as they were by such. But the same are needed to-day to keep us from learning the ways of the world and getting a snare to our souls. Now, as ever, walking with God means walking in the opposite direction from the crowd, and that requires some firm nerve. The home-made idolatry is gibbeted as being according to 'the statutes of the kings.' What right had they to prescribe their subjects' religion? The influence of influential people, especially if exerted against the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... battle, as conceived and put into action by General Cleburne, was one of the boldest conceptions, and, at the same time, one of the most hazardous that ever occurred in our army during the war, but it only required nerve and pluck to carry it out, and General Cleburne was equal to the occasion. The Yankees had fortified on two ranges of hills, leaving a gap in their breastworks in the valley entirely unfortified and unprotected. They ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... ours again. Whereupon we go heavily to hard beds of despair, having eaten the cake we bought, and now must pay for unto Penalty, the dark inordinate creditor. And anon the morning comes, and then, at last, the evening when the triste bazaars open again, and the strong of heart and nerve move not from their doorways, but sit still in the dusk to watch the grim world go by. But mostly they hurry out to the bazaars once more, answering ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... one. Heading for the sea-coast, with a haste several sheriff's posses might possibly have explained, and with more nerve than coin of the realm, he succeeded in shipping from a Puget Sound port, and managed to survive the contingent miseries of steerage sea-sickness and steerage grub. He was rather sallow and drawn, but still his own indomitable self, when he landed on the Dyea beach one day in the spring of the year. ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... change in the task. Casualties were not exceptionally heavy, but the strenuous work and perpetual stress of the nerves told on them. For there is no more nerve-shattering task than to have to submit without active retaliation day after day to harassing shell-fire. It is during this early initiating into a general expectation of possible death that the young warrior has to conquer the psychological instinct impressed ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... of at the time, and Mr Lorimore, who had a nerve for poesy himself in his younger years, was of opinion that it was so much to the purpose, and suitable withal, that he made his scholars write it out for their examination copies, at the reading whereof before the heritors, when the examination of the school came round, the ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... Greek butler was in the room, and Dion did his best in reply; nevertheless the conversation languished. Although Dion had so few words to give to his hostess he felt abnormally alive. The whole of him was like a quivering nerve. ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... poor habits of life, and unsanitary homes show their effects upon her. The girls who come to the school are young enough to remedy many of their defects. In a few months they will be in positions demanding eight or more hours a day, in which they must strain every nerve and bend all of their energies to meet the standard brought about by trade competition. The Physical Department of the school studies the health of each girl and trains her to care adequately for it. The specific treatment needed by some of the students takes them many hours ...
— The Making of a Trade School • Mary Schenck Woolman
... Northern riders are straining every nerve, galloping their steeds furiously—eyes fixed on the seeming-impossible goal. Rather are they modern centaurs, each rider and steed a unit of undivisible will and energy: Danton a furious resistless hippogriff, fire-striking, ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon
... day, let each contend; No rest, no respite, till the shades descend; Till darkness, or till death, shall cover all: Let the war bleed, and let the mighty fall; Till bathed in sweat be every manly breast, With the huge shield each brawny arm depress'd, Each aching nerve refuse the lance to throw, And each spent courser at the chariot blow. Who dares, inglorious, in his ships to stay, Who dares to tremble on this signal day; That wretch, too mean to fall by martial power, The birds shall ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... Wellington brought Armitage under her scrutiny, which was long, silent, and searching, he felt as he did upon his first interview with the Secretary of the Navy. However, no one had ever accused him of lack of nerve. ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... and her head has got dizzy, comes into the parlor in the evening, all frills and tucks, all "highty-tighty," all full of fun and God's good humor, and impresses my friend with the belief that she has never done an honest hour's labor in her life! Pshaw! she has got more pluck, and nerve, and "sand," than half a dozen men, when it comes to where the need is! ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... deserted battery, the horses unhitched from the guns; the caissons were going like the wind, the drivers laying the lash all the while. Cannoneers mounted the unhitched horses barebacked, and were straining every nerve to keep apace with caissons in front. Here and there loose horses galloped at will, some bridleless, others with traces whipping their flanks to a foam. Such confusion, such a panic, was never witnessed before by the troops. Our cannoneers got their guns in position, and enlivened ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... "that those old woman's tales of Max Fortin and Le Bihan should have actually made me see what didn't exist at all! I lost my nerve like a schoolboy in a dark bedroom." For I knew now that I had mistaken a round stone for a skull each time, and had pushed a couple of big pebbles into the pit instead of ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... of his life at Salisbury accords with what is known of his life at the Waxhaws. He was ready for a frolic or a fight at any hour of the day or night; he excelled in such sports as required swiftness and nerve; he was fond of practical jokes; he was not over fond of study, and never acquired any great knowledge of the law. At twenty, when his studies were finished, he is described as a tall, slender young fellow, with a thin, fair face and deep blue eyes, by no means handsome, but distinguished ...
— Andrew Jackson • William Garrott Brown
... as she says," remarked Mr. Aldritch, in a subdued voice. "The body has been undressed and properly laid out in grave clothes. Gracious Heaven—this mere girl! She must have the nerve of ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... and no time must be wasted in carrying it into execution. I have already ventured to touch upon the subject to Lord Linden, but have not said anything definite. It is a difficult affair to conduct delicately; yet the obtaining of these votes is of such vital importance that we must strain every nerve to ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... side of the man. On the other was the sweet-tempered, sympathetic comrade, always willing to help, never knowing how to refuse, generous with every nerve and fiber of his being. Think of a young musician, father of a family, who at the time of his death held positions as Associate of the Royal College of Music, Professor in Trinity College and Crystal Palace, Conductor of the Handel Choral Society and the Rochester ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... drown," the kid said, "and one of them got discouraged and lost his nerve and didn't try to swim any more and ...
— Roy Blakeley's Bee-line Hike • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... simply vanished. It didn't explode, you remember, just flashed into light and disappeared, with scarcely any noise. Then you pulled several more of your fool ideas, such as long-range bombardment, and so on. None of them worked. Still you've got the nerve to think that you can get them with ordinary gunmen! I've drawn you diagrams and shown you figures—I've told you in great detail and in one-syllable words exactly what we're up against. Now I tell ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... believed that he was going lo do it. Whenever common sense snorted, "Nonsense! Folks don't run away from decent families and partners; just simply don't do it, that's all!" then Babbitt answered pleadingly, "Well, it wouldn't take any more nerve than for Paul to go to jail and—Lord, how I'd' like to do it! Moccasins-six-gun-frontier town-gamblers—sleep under the stars—be a regular man, with he-men ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... No boisterous arguments from snuff-taking sexagenarians: all is placid —Eden-like—just as a dozer's sanctorum ought to be! The only thing attendant on the doze of an inside passenger, is the great chance of being suddenly aroused by the entrance of company. O tell me, ye of the fine nerve, what is more vexing than to be startled from your nest by the creaking slam of the steps, the bleak winter gales galloping along your face, and a whole bundle of human beings pushing themselves into your retreat! There is no rose without its thorn, as ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... The next day a man come and plastered overhead, Ury and Philury helped clean the floors and put down the carpets, and in three day's time everything wuz happy and calm and quiet, and Josiah wuz beginnin' to recover from the effects of too voylent wrath upon his nerve. ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... you men," said Jack at last. "I've got a scheme. I'm a good sport. Have you got the nerve to ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... Walton had few superiors on the road as a driver of a stage coach, especially for the manner in which he would handle his "cattle," and pull his coach through the streets of the Metropolis. He was, however, daring to a fault, but a strong will and an iron nerve could only have enabled him to carry that heavy handful of reins for ten hours at a stretch—fifty miles up and fifty miles back on the same day, all through the season. This was ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... Bernardo Contarini, arrived on the 22nd of June at the head of several thousand Greek Stradiots to the duke's assistance, while the French were held in check by Galeazzo's force and compelled to remain within the walls of Novara. This momentary panic over, Lodovico recovered his health and nerve, but his treasury was exhausted by the large subsidies granted to his allies and the extravagant expenditure of the last two years, and the forced loans which he exacted from his subjects created a general feeling of discontent. Galeazzo's ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... Campbell and Kearns. One pot of eight hundred dollars was won by a pair of treys on a showdown. And once Harnish called Kearns for two thousand dollars on a cold steal. When Kearns laid down his hand it showed a bobtail flush, while Harnish's hand proved that he had had the nerve to call on a pair ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... they are afraid of each other. They are afraid the richer slaves, who are able to comply with the demands will laugh at them and ridicule them, and that is why they strain every nerve to follow the god's wishes. A slave, whether she is rich or poor, grows more cringing year by year, until at last she loses all her individuality, and becomes a mere echo ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... abscess near the tooth is so much more painful than a similar one of soft parts. There may be no cavity in the tooth, but the tooth is commonly dead, or its nerve is dying, and the tooth is frequently darker in color. It often happens that threatened abscess at the root of a tooth, which has been filled, can be averted by a dentist's boring down into the root of the tooth, or removing the filling. It is not always possible to locate ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
... old goat agreed, getting in the last word. "It would be nice if you could figure out what to do with your ability to snap my nerve-strings!" ...
— The Right Time • Walter Bupp
... inference be presumptuous? Have we any right to assume that the Creator works by intellectual powers like those of men? If we must compare the eye to an optical instrument, we ought in imagination to take a thick layer of transparent tissue, with a nerve sensitive to light beneath, and then suppose every part of this layer to be continually changing slowly in density, so as to separate into layers of different densities and thicknesses, placed at different distances ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... and letting them fall at random on the floor. Fortune smiles upon those who roll up their sleeves and put their shoulders to the wheel; upon men who are not afraid of dreary, dry, irksome drudgery, men of nerve and grit who do not turn ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... extensive country, could be established in no other way.... He trusted, moreover, that in the changes and chances of time we should be involved in some war, which might strengthen our union and nerve the executive. He was of all men the most indiscreet. He knew that a limited monarchy, even if established, could not preserve itself in this country.... He never failed, on every occasion, to advocate the excellence of, and avow his attachment to, monarchical government.... ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... bright side of things, which is a fortunate habit of youth, he began to think of the good times he would have riding the horses on the plains, and of watching the cowboys as they roped the steers and branded them. And his fancy even pictured himself as a successful participant in various nerve-stirring contests. ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... nights. The little bottle was at her bed-side, waiting to lay its spell upon her. She rose and undressed hastily, hungering now for the touch of her pillow. She felt so profoundly tired that she thought she must fall asleep at once; but as soon as she had lain down every nerve started once more into separate wakefulness. It was as though a great blaze of electric light had been turned on in her head, and her poor little anguished self shrank and cowered in it, without knowing where to ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... a scale of your whole nervous system and can play all the gamut of your sensibilities in semi-tones, touching the naked nerve-pulps as a pianist strikes the keys of his instrument. I am satisfied that there are as great masters of this nerve-playing as Vieuxtemps or Thalberg in their lines of performance. Married life is the school in which the most accomplished artists in this department are ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... full towards it, they were able to note the chances it offered for their safety. They saw that they were not so bad; and, encouraged by hope, they made efforts more energetic than ever—both of them straining every nerve and muscle ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... possible, with jaws widespread and ready, whether the great curved mahogany scimitars of the soldiers, or the little black daggers of the smaller workers. And with no eyelids to close, and eyes which were themselves a mockery, the nerve shriveling and never reaching the brain, what could sleep mean to them? Wrapped ever in an impenetrable cloak of darkness and silence, life was yet one great activity, directed, ordered, commanded by scent and odor alone. Hour after hour, as I sat close to the nest, ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... with water; in both of which animals the eye is in an almost rudimentary state, and is covered by a tendinous membrane and skin. In the common mole the eye is extraordinarily small but perfect, though many anatomists doubt whether it is connected with the true optic nerve; its vision must certainly be imperfect, though probably useful to the animal when it leaves its burrow. In the tucutuco, which I believe never comes to the surface of the ground, the eye is rather larger, but often rendered ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... Tyrrell and O'Moore, leading spirits in the midland counties were ravaging Ormond's palatinate of Tipperary almost without opposition. An English reinforcement, debarked at Dungarvan, was attacked on its march towards Dublin, and lost 400 men. In this emergency, before which even the iron nerve of Ormond quailed, the Council took the resolution of ordering one moiety of the Queen's troops under Ormond to march south against Tyrrell and O'Moore; the other under Marshal Bagnal, to proceed northward to ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... rations, which were supplied by rascally contractors, were very bad and altogether different from those to which they had become accustomed in the years just preceding, the men ate them without murmuring. But when, on December twenty-sixth, they joined battle, the old push and nerve seemed lacking. The preparations had been made on the plan of concentration, but at the last moment Lannes was detached with his division to cut off the enemy's line of retreat over the Narew. Napoleon, as at ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... haven't been in the thick of it," objected Barkleigh. "When the danger is so close you can see it, a woman's nerve isn't as good as a man's. It can't be. She isn't ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... little, not realizing that his own observation was a recognition based upon response. Now he figured that the low softness of her speech was due to her tired condition and a little wave of tenderness swept him, blent with admiration of her pluck. Saddle-racked, nerve-tried, she had never murmured, never mentioned the trials of ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... fond of handing out roasts seem to overlook the fact that you were the man mainly responsible for kicking out Rives and his crowd and cleaning up the whole rotten administration. It makes me mad. And some of them have got the nerve to hint that ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... very awful thing! 'Tis something like that feat in the ring, Which requires good nerve to do it— When one of a "Grand Equestrian Troop" Makes a jump at a gilded hoop, Not certain at all Of what may befall After his getting ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... industry generally, we passed to broader perspectives. I asked him what he thought of the relations between agriculture and industry in Russia, and supposed that he did not imagine that Russia would ever become a great industrial country. His answer was characteristic of the tremendous hopes that nerve these people in their almost impossible task, and I set it down as nearly as I can in his own words. For him, of course, the economic problem was the first, and he spoke of it as the director of a huge trust might have spoken. But, as he passed on to talk of what he thought would result ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome
... distant Peak, and the column of dark smoke, remained in sight, as eternal land-marks. The young man might have been an hour in the open sea, gradually hauling off the land, in order to keep clear of the coast, when he bethought him of returning. It required a good deal of nerve to run in towards those rocks, under all the circumstances of the case. The wind blew fresh, so much indeed as to induce Mark to reef, but there must always be a heavy swell rolling in upon that iron-bound shore. The shock of such waves expending their whole force on perpendicular rocks ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... animal or the man is essentially a device to make action effective and to keep it safe. The animal is a machine in action. Toward the end of motion all other mental processes tend. All functions of the brain, all forms of nerve impulse are modifications of the simple reflex action, the automatic transfer of sensations derived from external objects into ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan
... "All that tall talk—! Probably got it from some man who hangs about; learned it off like a parrot. Did she poke this in here herself last night, or did she send that sneak-faced Frenchwoman? I like her nerve!" He wondered whether he might have been breathing audibly when the intruder thrust her head between his curtains. He was conscious that he did not look a Prince Charming in his sleep. He dressed as fast as he could, and, ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... the voice of the cataract not only roared night and day through every chamber of the house, but the whole building vibrated incessantly with the shock of the mighty fall. I have still health and nerve and spirits to cope with the grand exhibitions of the powers of Nature: the majesty and beauty of the external world always acts as a tonic on me, and under its influence I feel as if a strong arm was put round me, and was lifting me ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... muttered Henry, as he sat down on a rock to rest; for, although the six miles of country he had crossed was a trifle, as regarded distance, to a lad of nineteen, the rugged mountain-path by which he had come would have tried the muscles of a Red Indian, and the nerve of a goat. "You were wont to keep to time better in days gone by. Truly it seems to me a strange thing that I should thus be made a sort of walking post between my mother's house and this bay, all for the benefit of a man who seems to me ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... greatly interested for Colberg; sends orders to collect from every quarter supplies at Stettin, and strain every nerve for the relief of that important little Haven. Which is done by the diligent Bevern, the collecting part; could only the conveying be accomplished. But endless Russians are afield, Fermor with a 15,000 of them ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... out between his big shoulders. And when he went down the hill he was striding like a giant, but every now and then he would stop short, and his head would go up as if he were tempted to turn around and go back, but didn't quite have the nerve. Donnegan, tell me the trick ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... she has the appearance of a woman's untidiness when she is at that particular stage of her toilet. Hands letter to ANNIE, but snatches it away as ANNIE turns to go. She glances at the letter long and wistfully, and her nerve ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter
... but, Lord bless me, he asked how much the blowers were paid and wanted me to raise their pay on the spot. That was one on me, all right; I'd thought of giving him the works to play with, but I didn't have the nerve to offer it to him after that. 'Fraid he'd either turn it down or take it ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... a dagger's thrust had pierced the tenderest nerve of an already aching wound. He had tried to comfort her, though he himself had long since lost all hope. The fault could only lie with him—and now he understood! He felt himself crushed by a weight of despair, and sat there staring before ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... he observes, "We find in the mammalia nearly absolute identity of anatomical structure, bone for bone, muscle for muscle, nerve for nerve—similar organs performing like functions. It is not by a vertical position on his feet, the os sublime of Ovid, which he shares with the penguin, nor by his mental faculties, which, though more developed, ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... women with nothing to do cultivate their voices—when they can't sing a little bit. But he tops them all. I don't see how ANY teacher can put fifteen dollars of value into half an hour. But I suppose he does, or he wouldn't get it. Still, his may be just another case of New York nerve. This is the biggest bluff town in the world, I do believe. Here, you can get away with anything, I don't care what it is, if ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... bid defiance to Austria, Russia, and Germany. Great was his disappointment when he learned that, in order to acquire citizenship, he would be obliged to go to the United States and remain there five years. As he was trying to nerve himself for this sacrifice, I presented some serious considerations to him. Knowing him to be a man of honor, I asked him how he could reconcile it with his sense of veracity to assume the rights of American citizenship with no intention to discharge its duties. This ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... the enemy have met with this year will probably support the hopes of a vindictive Court, and occasion the straining of every nerve for the accomplishment of its tyrannic views, we doubt not your most strenuous exertions to prevent Great Britain from obtaining Russian or German auxiliaries for the next campaign; and we think, with you, that it is an object of the greatest importance to cultivate ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... she was nervous, apprehensive, every time she thought it likely that her lover was about to visit her. She dreaded what might transpire. She dreaded lest her power should be weakened before she had accomplished her end. It was difficult; it was nerve-racking. She must keep his love at fever-heat. It ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... numerous barriers of bayonets and machine guns, the Bolshevik chieftains have made this barbarically gorgeous nesting place of Oriental autocracy the throbbing nerve centre of world revolution.... And from its frowning gates they sally forth in their high power limousines on affairs of state even as the Czars in their day went forth to superintend the administration of their ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... few years to nerve your arm. But rest a while, you are almost spent," said the prisoner, in a kind tone of patronage, as he looked at the youthful face of his captor, which in a second had varied from deep ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and crisply cold, and Willa started upon her early gallop in the Park with every nerve a-tingle and the blood racing in her veins. Her perplexities were forgotten, her slow, waiting game put aside and she gave herself up joyously to the influences of the hour. After all, it was good ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... sorrow was dumb. Silently he tried to lead the little lady away from the place, but she would not go, and would not be comforted. Then there came from the open windows the beginning of a song. At the first note Gilian thrilled in every nerve. ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... occasioned by the weight of the snowshoe. It often resulted in severe inflammation of the lower leg. The local remedy was a drastic one: it was to place a piece of lighted touchwood on the most inflamed part, and to leave it there till the flesh was burnt to the nerve! ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... my last bit of nerve. I told my sister, and you can understand she was in a bad way, too. We knew what it meant. Ida had heard that ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... whatever was done would have to be done instantly. Her first thought was for Scott. He would be taken unaware. If she could only get to him—warn him—so that he could hide in the brush till the men had passed! Breathlessly, she began to climb down the cliff. She was badly frightened, her nerve was shaken and her strength seemed to be leaving her. She found herself slipping and sliding on ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... the last experiment mentioned in these pages, in order to recover steadiness of brain and nerve, and to relieve my overtaxed eyes, I had no hope of reaching success in any other way than that pointed out in the principle which I was pressing,—a principle whose importance is proved in the familiar experiments on stereoscopic views, whereby things ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... him, don't you see, with old Felix there with all his fascinations, plus Molly's money." He turned on her with a sudden confused wonder in his face. "God! What a time he took to do it! I hadn't realized all his nerve till this minute. He must have known what it meant, to leave you there with Felix ... to risk losing you as well as—Any other man would have tried to marry you first and then—! Well, what a dead-game sport he was! And all for a lot of dirty ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... something within us which may yet grow into a calm-eyed immortality of loveliness, we becoming gradually what we dream of. I have heard people complain of the frailty of these verses of Seumas O'Sullivan. They want war songs, plough songs, to nerve the soul to fight or the hand to do its work. I will never make that complaint. I will only complain if the strife or the work ever blunt my senses so that I will pass by with an impatient disdain these delicate snatchings at a beauty which is ever fleeting. But I would ask him to remember ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... of these lowly creatures are not visible, and consist of single special cells scattered among the epidermal cells of the skin, and connected by means of a sensory nerve fibre with a little bunch of nervous matter in the body. Such a simple visual apparatus serves them only in distinguishing light from darkness, but this to them is most important knowledge, as it enables them to avoid the surface of the earth by day, when ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... marks," was given, and Will, with the other three, advanced and took his place on the line. Every nerve in his body seemed to be tingling with excitement and ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... the most courageous of men. It was terrifying and nerve-racking to face such an unhuman foe—weird, drifting globes and invading jungles whose very source was shrouded in mystery. Against this enemy no weapons seemed to prevail. All the paraphernalia of modern warfare was proving useless. And looking ...
— The Seed of the Toc-Toc Birds • Francis Flagg
... unhappy lot to be placed. [Footnote 7: "Hico mas que su edad requeria, porque seria de edad de veinte i dos anos." Zarate, Conq. del Peru, lib. 4, cap. 20.] He instantly set about providing for the wants of his men, and strained every nerve to get them in good fighting order for the approaching campaign. He replenished his treasury with a large amount of silver which he drew from the mines of La Plata Saltpetre, obtained in abundance in the neighbourhood of Cuzco, furnished the material for gunpowder. He caused cannon, ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... alarm'd.—If Harcourt's presence Thus agitates each nerve, makes every pulse Thus wildly throb, and the warm tides of blood Mount in quick rushing tumults to your cheek; If friendship can excite such strong emotions, What tremors had ...
— Percy - A Tragedy • Hannah More
... "Stay with me, Dawson—that's a good fellow. Walk around with me awhile. I never went to pieces like this before, and I've had a good many hard knocks. Do you think you could hustle something in the way of a little lunch, old man? I'm afraid my nerve's too far gone ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... to be holding him. He had got far beyond Urquhart's ledges, was upon the place where Urquhart must have slid rapidly down. All was well as yet, but he didn't want to overshoot the mark. He kept his nerve steady, and tried to work it all out in his mind. If this were really a cornice it must now be very thin, he thought. He drove at it with his staff, and found that it was so. It was little more than a frozen crust. He kicked into ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... very highly crowned, with frequent right-angle and hair-pin turns. Here a skid or a side-slip or the failure of your brakes is quite likely to bring your career to an abrupt and unpleasant termination. To motor along one of these military mountain highways when it is slippery from rain is as nerve-trying as walking on a shingled roof with smooth-soled shoes. At one point on the Upper Isonzo there wasn't enough room between our outer wheels and the edge of the precipice for ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... the suppliant friend. Give me thy son, thine eldest born, Whom locks like raven's wings adorn. That hero youth, the truly brave, Of thee, O glorious King, I crave. For he can lay those demons low Who mar my rites and work me woe: My power shall shield the youth from harm, And heavenly might shall nerve his arm. And on my champion will I shower Unnumbered gifts of varied power, Such gifts as shall ensure his fame And spread through all the worlds his name. Be sure those fiends can never stand Before the might of Rama's hand, And mid the best and bravest none Can slay that pair but ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... and down the floor of his house, holding his afflicted jaw with both hands, the poor man endeavoured to endure it with fortitude; but when the quivering nerve began, as it were, to dance a hornpipe inside of his tooth, irrepressible groans burst from him and awed ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... flashed fire: Kenelm Chillingly had ceased to be a philosopher. Crash came his blow—how unlike the swinging roundabout hits of Tom Bowles!—straight to its aim as the rifle-ball of a Tyrolese or a British marksman at Aldershot,—all the strength of nerve, sinew, purpose, and mind concentred in its vigour,—crash just at that part of the front where the eyes meet, and followed up with the rapidity of lightning, flash upon flash, by a more restrained but more disabling blow with the left hand just ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... his pipe and lighted it. Keith noticed that he held the lighted taper without a tremor. The nerve of the ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... the siege should be pressed at once, the city taken at any cost, the expedition to Kertch resumed. Once only, under torment of the Emperor's reproaches and the Minister at War's remonstrances, his resolution and his nerve gave way; eight days of failing judgment issued in the Karabelnaya defeat, the severest repulse which the two armies had sustained; but the paralysis passed away, he showed himself once more eager to act in concert with the English general;—when ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... home in the dark," the gentleman would ring for a messenger boy as an escort, or call a taxi; and if she sighed for sympathy and a stroll by the Truckee, he would think that she needed a doctor, or a nerve specialist. .... The sons of the Sagebrush are not cold-hearted, nor are they lacking in courtesy of any sort, but to use a Western expression, they possess a large percentage of "horse sense!" Meaning, that they are not wearing their hearts ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... experience of this first meeting with a woman-farmer, from whom he desired employment simply because he was very badly off, he was getting old, and Mr. Wellin's widow had treated him shabbily. He had lost his nerve for new ventures. But Miss Henderson had made things easy. She had struck him as considerate and sensible—a "good sort." He would do his ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... case when the vision has become dim through over exertion of the eyes. It was with "Euphrasy and Rue" the visual nerve of Adam ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... things as he saw them on that stirring day, as gathered from his letters and as fortified from other sources. Of tireless energy and restless activity, and sternly intent upon making the Chickasaw second to none in the grand work demanded of the fleet, he imparted nerve and enthusiasm throughout the vessel; now in the pilot-house, looking after the helmsman; then in the forward turret, personally sighting the guns; anon on top of the turret, taking in ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... void of this silence stood Mr. Leary, shivering now in the reaction that had succeeded the nerve jar of being robbed at a pistol's point, and lacking the fervour of the chase to sustain him. For him the inconceivable disaster was complete and utter; upon him despair descended as a patent swatter ...
— The Life of the Party • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... loved on woman's lips, that subservient harmony of another instrument desired of musicians when they have done their solo-playing, came not to wind up the performance: not a single bar. She did not speak. Probably his Laetitia was overcome, as he had long known her to be when they conversed; nerve-subdued, unable to deploy her mental resources or her musical. Yet ordinarily she had command of the latter.—Was she too condoling? Did a reason exist for it? Had the impulsive and desperate girl spoken out to Laetitia to the fullest?—shameless daughter of a domineering ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Bent, as they cleared the wood and entered a hedge-enclosed garden at the end of which stood an old-fashioned cottage. "I've talked to her now and then when calling here—I should say she's a woman of nerve." ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... level of the valley, the waves of the angry sea turn back from its shores and cease to thunder upon the beach, the stars to halt in their swift courses, than to change any one law of our own nature. And one of those laws, uttered by God's voice, and speaking through every nerve and fibre, every force and element, of the moral constitution He has given us, is that we must be upright and virtuous; that if tempted we must resist; that we must govern our unruly passions, and hold in hand our sensual appetites. And this ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... a half to two inches in length. It forms a curve with its concavity forwards, and at its termination divides into, rather than gives off, its two or three principal branches. Its corresponding vein is in close contact behind, as also the lumbo-sacral nerve, the obdurator nerve to its outer side. The peritoneum covers it anteriorly, and it is crossed just at its commencement by the ureter. On the left side it is covered anteriorly by the rectum. Of its anatomical relations, that of the external iliac vein ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... leather-lined motor-coat, she drove the "sixteen." The six-cylinder "sixty" was too powerful for her, but with the "sixteen" she ran half-over Scotland, and was quite a common object on the Perth to Stirling road. Possessed of nerve and full of self-confidence, she could negotiate traffic in Edinburgh or Glasgow, and on one occasion had driven her father the whole way from Glencardine up to London, a distance of four hundred and fifty miles. Her fingers pressed the ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... of such depths. He realized instinctively, with a tightening of his heart, that he was listening to one of the great songs of which Janin had spoken. It hung for a minute or more in his hearing, thrilling every nerve, and then died away. It stopped actually, but its harmony rang in Harry Baggs' brain. Instantly it had become an essential, a permanent part of his being. It filled him with a violent sense of triumph, a richness of possession that gave birth to ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... reeking of sulphur. Who can tell when this parvenu volcano may spout forth fire and ashes? Would any sane person have the courage ever to settle within range of a possible eruption? No, the Phlegrean fields are interesting to visit, but he must require a strong nerve who would fain dwell beneath the ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... equivocal in a different way; the friendliness may not only have existed, but may have existed in strength sufficient for any test whatever; not the principles of the Seceders, but their Jacobinical mode of asserting them, may have proved the true nerve of the repulsion to many. What is it that we wish the English reader to collect from these distinctions? Simply that the danger is not yet gone past. The earthquake, says a great poet, when speaking of the general tendency in all dangers to come ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... habits that he was not an original New Yorker. Of course he made frequent visits to the house of Mr. Hamilton, and was always a welcome guest. His relations with Rosabel were of the most interesting character; and now at twenty-six, he is a happy husband, educated and wealthy, and, with his wife to nerve his soul, he stands braced against the Coming Wave of Temptation and Sin, which is always rolling in upon the ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... although small for an American lake, the opposite shore of Wichikagan was so far-off as to appear dim and low, while, in one direction, the sky and water met at the horizon, so that I enjoyed the romantic feeling of, as it were, skating out to sea! The strength of youth thrilled in every nerve and muscle; the vigour of health and life coursed in every vein. I felt, just then, as if exhaustion were impossible. The ice was so smooth that there was no sensation of roughness under foot to tell of a solid support. The swift gliding motion was more like the skimming of the ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... and farther than that fringe the inflammation had not crept as yet. In the rest of the world the stream of life still flowed as it had flowed for immemorial years. The fever of war that would presently clog vein and artery, deaden nerve and destroy brain, ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... way, though it looked to him as if there were really no way, "I'm as much at sea as I was then. It's not the same turmoil, but it's a turmoil. I was pulled up short. I was given plenty of time to think. Well, I thought—when I hadn't the nerve to keep myself ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... Confucius replied, 'Advance the upright and set aside the crooked, then the people will submit. Advance the crooked and set aside the upright, then the people will not submit.' CHAP. XX. Chi K'ang asked how to cause the people to reverence their ruler, to be faithful to him, and to go on to nerve themselves to virtue. The Master said, 'Let him preside over them with gravity;— then they will reverence him. Let him be filial and kind to all;— then they will be faithful to him. Let him advance the good ...
— The Chinese Classics—Volume 1: Confucian Analects • James Legge
... a sprightly, adventurous nerve in the mind, and would pull his velvet sleeves busily up—such was his little ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... entitled "Verdicts," somewhat in the manner of Lowell's satire. . . . . Mr. ——— resides now at Greenwich, whither he hoped I would come and see him on my return to London. Perhaps I will, for I like him. It seems strange to see an Englishman with so little physical ponderosity and obtuseness of nerve. ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... every Indian on the boat, and the boat was full! No one knows how the poor devils decided it, but it was their only escape from slavery, and they went over the side like a school of fish. Men, women, and children from the desert who couldn't swim a stroke! Talk about nerve—there wasn't one weakling in that whole outfit, not one! Perez was wild. It lost him ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... At first sight, the Yakute sleigh appears to be a clumsy but comfortable contrivance, but very few miles had been covered before I discovered its unlimited powers of inflicting pain. For this machine does not glide like a well-behaved sleigh, but advances by leaps and bounds that strain every nerve and muscle in the body. In anything like deep, soft snow it generally comes to a standstill, and the combined efforts of men and horses are required to set it going again. However, for the first three or four days, good progress was made at the rate of about 200 ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... should have married placable flesh and blood, very large and handsome, without a nerve in her body. The sort of woman who has any amount of large and handsome flesh-and-blood children, and lives to have them, thrives on them. That's Henry's idea of the ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... wonder," agreed Belle, as she went over to a hammock suspended between two trees. "Get something for mine, while you're at it, Bess. I think they use bromide, or something like that. But I doubt if the boys would have any. They don't seem to have a nerve in their bodies, though goodness knows they're 'nervy' enough at other times. Pardon the colloquialism," she murmured as she ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... we can better bear to part in spirit than in body, and while we have the fortitude to act farewell have not the nerve to say it? On the eve of long voyages or an absence of many years, friends who are tenderly attached will separate with the usual look, the usual pressure of the hand, planning one final interview for the morrow, while each well knows that it is but a ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... him indeed but little; he was not given to making much of anything that was due to himself—partly through carelessness, partly through generosity; but the absence in his brother of that delicate, intangible, indescribable sensitive-nerve which men call Honor, an absence that had never struck on him so vividly as it did to-night, troubled ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... naturally decreased by avoiding such food and drinks as have nerve weakening or stimulating influences, or a tendency to stir up the passions, the impulses and the emotions; it is a very good practice to watch and associate with those persons that are steady, ...
— The Power of Concentration • Theron Q. Dumont
... of farisah): the phrase has often occurred and isour "trembled in every nerve." As often happens in Arabic, it is "horsey;" alluding to the shoulder-muscles (not shoulder-blades, Preston p. 89) between neck and flank which readily quiver in blood-horses ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... anything," said the lawyer, "except that I could bear testimony to the effect that your experience with flat life was similar to mine. This young person, with his customary nerve, tries to make it appear that I said you sang comic ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs
... still haunted by the troubles of the Tugela, and was unable to nerve himself for the risks that every leader must run. The Boers bewildered him. He could plan no scheme without a conviction that somehow their "knavish tricks" would frustrate it, and his inactivity made him more prone than ever to brood ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... looking at pictures. The visitor did not start back, nor rush forward, nor dissolve into hysterics, nor behave as though confronted by the ghost of a murdered victim. He just gazed at the picture, keeping his nerve and holding his tongue. And yet it was not an easy picture to look at. It was a picture of an advanced experimentalism, and would have appealed to nothing but the sense of humour in a person ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... "that your illness has put a stop to everything; and that it has left you little nerve for any explanation of the kind: but you are growing stronger every day now, and the case is becoming so serious on the other side that I own I dread the consequences of much further delay. You see ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... very short time when I heard it strike twelve; the watchman now arose, and blew a blast upon his horn that thrilled through my every nerve, and sang:— ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 390, September 19, 1829 • Various
... my client continued, and he backed away the better to look him over; "you had nerve to stay as long as ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... angry blood surged from it and inflamed his system; every nerve tingled; his eyes glowed, and his fingers tightened on the barrel of the gun beside him. His consciousness of antagonism grew so intense that it seemed to annihilate space and materialize his distant ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... the solicitude to accomplish the objects in contemplation, and so deep an interest did the colonists take in the war, that every nerve was strained, to raise and equip the number ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... is a tonic. It braces me up—makes me feel fine!—and keeps me in prime mental condition. Laughter is a physiological necessity. The nerve system requires it. The deep, forceful chest movement in itself sets the blood to racing thereby livening up the circulation—which is good for us. Perhaps you hadn't thought of that? Perhaps you didn't realize that laughing automatically re-oxygenates the blood—your blood—and keeps it red? ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... scheme, Mr. W.C. Stockley kindly undertook the task of directing the work. I was determined it should not be a personally conducted cantata; consequently, I was spared what would have severely taxed my capacity and nerve. ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... to frequent potations, were quickly maddened by the spirit, which mounted to their brains and rushed through their veins like wildfire, causing every nerve in their strong frames to tingle. Their characteristic gravity and decorum vanished. They laughed, they danced, they sang, they yelled like a troop of incarnate fiends! Then they rushed in a body towards their prisoners, and began a species of war-dance ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... and less than three hours before sunrise. There was a race yet for the life of Daniel Dean. The gallant little mare could cover the stretch with nearly an hour to spare, and Chad, thrilled in every nerve, but with calm confidence, raced against ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... the milk that feeds the babe, He dulls the tortured nerve; He gives a hundred joys of sense Where few or ...
— Songs Of The Road • Arthur Conan Doyle
... shee so? Then will I ly as calme as doth the sea, When all the winds are lock'd in Aeolus jayle; I will not move a haire, not let a nerve Or Pulse to beat, least I disturbe ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... the elaborate depot for communication by plane and wireless was rapidly being destroyed. The reserve of gasoline had gone up in smoke almost at the beginning, and in spreading out had extended the disaster to nearly all the compact nerve-center ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... of course, accompanied by an officer guide—several were detailed at the Quartier for this special duty—whose complex and nerve-racking task it was to answer all questions, make all arrangements, report to each local commandant, pass sentries, and comfortably waft his flock of civilians through the maze of barriers which cover every foot, so to speak, of this region near ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... rigidly still, with every nerve aching. His hands, locked under his head, grew tight as he heard her rise and draw near. He shut his eyes hard as she laid on his wrinkling forehead a cold kiss moistened with a tear, and melted from ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... mind and soul that has rendered itself incapable of vision. For just as our ordinary vision of the beauty of this world depends not only on the existence of the world but on a certain capacity in us to see it, so that the beauty of the world does not at all exist for the man whose optic nerve is paralysed; so the meaning and beauty, nay, the very existence of the supernatural order depends for us upon a capacity in us which we may call the capacity of vision. The sceptic waves aside our stories of supernatural happenings ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... of weariness on Diana. Never less in her life. She was glad the drive was so long; not because she was weary and wanted to rest, but because every nerve and sense seemed strung to a fine tension, so that everything that touched them sent waves of melody over her being. Truly the light was sweet that evening, for any eyes; to Diana's vision the sunbeams were ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... as art; as pageants of life they appear on the Earth Shield Kentucky. The metal-worker of old wrought them upon the armor of the Greek warrior in tin and silver, bronze and gold. The world-designer sets them to-day on the throbbing land in nerve and blood, toil and delight and passion. But there with the old things she mingles new things, with the never changing the ever changing; for the old that remains always the new and the new that perpetually becomes old—these Nature allots to man ...
— Bride of the Mistletoe • James Lane Allen
... leprosy, is an endemic, chronic, malignant constitutional disease, characterized by alterations in the cutaneous, nerve, and bone structures; varying in its morbid manifestations according to whether the skin, nerves or other tissues are ...
— Essentials of Diseases of the Skin • Henry Weightman Stelwagon
... woman economic equality with man; that is, she can choose her own profession and trade, but as her past and present physical training have not equipped her with the necessary strength to compete with man, she is often compelled to exhaust all her energy, use up her vitality and strain every nerve in order to reach the market value. Very few ever succeed, for it is a fact that women doctors, lawyers, architects and engineers are neither met with the same confidence, nor do they receive the same remuneration. ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... shown themselves to be in the pursuit of their organised plans. The odds were nearly three to one against us. Opposed to these, with, for our antagonists, resolute men, whose knowledge of the consequences that must inevitably follow upon an unsuccessful attempt at piracy would nerve them to desperation—men who were unquestionably full of brute courage, and who, moreover, were doubtless as well armed as ourselves—was I justified in entertaining the slightest hope of success in the event of my submitting the ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... conceive how sensibly I feel the value of the offer of a seat from you, in the event of Grenville's failure in the county; and I should certainly at once throw myself on the chance of his success, (which, I trust, cannot be doubtful), if I did not feel it to be my duty to strain every nerve in the general cause, and to the utmost extent of my ability to increase our numbers in the House of Commons, by purchasing ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... President, I am here at almost every hour of the day or night, and I never saw you at the table, do you ever eat?" "I try to," replied the President; "I manage to browse about pretty much as I can get it." After the long wearing, nerve-taxing days were over in which he was glad to relieve himself occasionally with a good story or a merry laugh, came the nights of anxiety when sleep was often banished from his pillow. He frequently wrapped himself in his Scotch shawl, and at ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... was taken from the Academy, and a dozen parents and guardians followed the example of the advocate for discipline. Mr. Baird was in despair. The institution was falling to pieces for the want of discipline. The principal had not the nerve to enforce order, even with the limited means within his reach. He went to see Mr. Lowington and begged him to assist in stemming the tide which was setting against the Brockway Academy. The retired naval officer became ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... health gave way, as did also that of our worthy agent, Catherine Taylor. She endured great suffering from inflammation of the sciatic nerve, and was entirely disabled from labor for months. Late in the Autumn our supplies ran very low, and our self-sacrificing president was also in poor health. She, with a few other members of the board, visited the asylum, and found nothing on hand but corn-meal and turnips, ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... as a rock. He aimed six times as calmly as though he were in a pistol-gallery. Nerve told. Six explosions roared. Six ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... turn the car in a big circle and make for the road again. But that flashing black body darting through the air was enough to shake the nerve of anybody. The car "wabbled." It shot towards the ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... dread, partly from a return of nerve, Max had, during the latter part of his novel ride through the bracing water, remained perfectly silent and quiescent, but the next words that were spoken sent a shock through him greater than the first ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... the tea. I rose from the couch, interposed my person between it and the table—and, taking up the poison, deliberately poured three drops into the beverage. I never did anything more firmly. Yet I was not the less miserable, because I was most firm. My nerve was that of the executioner who carries out a just judgment. This done, I put the vial into my pocket. Julia then spoke to me. I turned to her with eagerness. I was prepared to cast the vessel of tea from the window. It was my hope that she was about to speak, though late, ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... One learns to keep cool, and to have one's wits about one; for anyone who loses his temper has but a poor chance indeed against another who keeps cool. Moreover a man who can box well will always keep his head in all times of danger and difficulty. It gives him nerve and self-confidence, and enables him at all times to protect ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... Black Hills, and shall rush into Sioux City for a pay lecture and turn the proceeds over to the Dakota fund.... O, the lack of the modern comforts and conveniences! But I can put up with it better than any of the young folks.... All of us must strain every nerve to move the hearts of men as they never before were moved. I shall push ahead and do my level best to carry this State, come weal or woe to me personally.... I never felt so buoyed up with the love and sympathy and confidence of the good people everywhere.... ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... its brilliant disk, and dreadful starting eyes, and quivering open mouth. It disappeared in an instant among the shadows of the laurel, and Clarsie, with a horrible fear clutching at her heart, sprang to her feet. . . . the ghost stood before her. She could not nerve herself to run past him, and he was directly ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... "I like that," she flared. "I did it because I wanted to, and not because of any love for you—I can tell you that. I like your nerve sitting here presuming to question me after the way you have neglected me." She pushed back her plate, and made as if ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... hundred? Well, then, let her attack Harmac at once. The outer and inner gates are down; the Fung think they have raised the devil and will run. She can inflict a defeat on them from which they will not recover for years, only it must be done at once, before they get their nerve again, for, after all, they ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... 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
... still unsolved, and we get very thirsty; but thirst is a small fleabite, after all. "Which would you rather have," I asked a discontented lance-corporal, "a bit of a thirst or a dentist drilling a hole down a pet nerve?" And he owned he'd rather have a thirst. You know, it's most awkward. They come to you when there's any difficulty and seem to think you can put things right always. For instance, a man came up the other day: "Please, sir, I've lost my haversack." "When did you miss it first?" "Between —— ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... were all men of the stamp of Trelawney, Lord Byron's friend, who was, they say, the original of his "Corsair." They were all fatalists, men of nerve and poesy, weary of leading flat and empty lives, driven toward Asiatic enjoyments by forces all the more excessive because, long dormant, they awoke furious. One of them, after re-reading "Venice Preserved," and admiring the sublime union of Pierre and ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... new dance for her, with colored lights and mechanical snaps and things, and have it patented; and finally she will get her picture on soda-cracker boxes and cigarette advertisements, and have a race-horse named after her, and give testimonials for nerve tonics and soap. Does fame reach ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... force the passage. The same evil fortune attended the division that followed Lancaster. The archers of Harclay obeyed his orders so well that the Lancastrian cavalry scarcely dared enter the water. Lancaster lost his nerve, and besought Harclay for a truce until the next morning. His request was granted, but during the night all the followers of Hereford dispersed, thinking that there was no need for them to remain after the death of their lord. Lancaster's own troops were ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... intervening centuries, to their present development. The mind is the central personage in the trinity of man's being; linking the mortal and immortal to its life and action; vitalising the body with intelligence, until every vein, muscle, and nerve, and function thrills and moves to the impulse of thought; vitalising the soul with the vigorous activities of reason, giving hands as well as wings to its hopes, faiths, loves, and aspirations; giving a faculty of speech, ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... The parallelist compares Erasmus to "a river swelling its waters, and often overflowing its banks; Budaeus rolled on like a majestic stream, ever restraining its waves within its bed. The Frenchman has more nerve, and blood, and life, and the Hollander more fulness, freshness, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... lost his nerve and this is really the end of the story of what happened to him. It was almost dark when he got to the fence and he put his hands on the top bar and stood staring. Hal Winters jumped a ditch and coming up close to Ray put his hands ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... presumptuous? Have we any right to assume that the Creator works by intellectual powers like those of men? If we must compare the eye to an optical instrument, we ought in imagination to take a thick layer of transparent tissue, with a nerve sensitive to light beneath, and then suppose every part of this layer to be continually changing slowly in density, so as to separate into layers of different densities and thicknesses, placed at different distances from each other, and with the surfaces of each ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... prayers on his lips, he began a systematic search of the sand-dunes. Often his nerve nearly failed him, and he would sink panting among the prickly bents before he dared to peer into the hollow up the sides of which he had climbed. His ears shuddered at the anticipation of hearing from near at hand the report of pistols, ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... planted my corn; and in the evening I felt the dumb weariness of physical toil. Many times in older days I have known the wakeful nerve-weariness of cities. This was not it. It was the weariness which, after supper, seizes upon one's limbs with half-aching numbness. I sat down on my porch with a nameless content. I looked off across the ...
— Adventures In Friendship • David Grayson
... Francis can roll smoothly where he will, and can choose between the start, or the coming-in, or the turn behind the brow of the hill, or any out-of- the-way point where he lists to see the throbbing horses straining every nerve, and making the sympathetic earth throb as they come by. Francis much delights to be, not in the Grand Stand, but where he can see it, rising against the sky with its vast tiers of little white dots of faces, and its last high rows and corners of people, looking ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... of wind-swept mesas. Here was something definite and tangible for the stirring underman to lay hold upon. Blount, the sober-minded, the self-contained, found a curious transformation working itself out in quickened pulses and exhilarating nerve-tinglings. Boston, the Law School, the East of the narrow walk-ways and the still narrower rut of custom and convention, were fading into a past which already seemed age-old and half forgotten. He threw open the window ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... is here," she said, coolly, and traced it delicately along his palm with a sea-shell tinted finger. Like cool delicious fire it spread from nerve to nerve and set aside his reason in a frenzy. He would seize the berry and feel its stain upon his ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... him, . . amazement, jealousy, distrust, revenge, all gathering stormily in the black frown of his bent vindictive brows. His great chest heaved pantingly—his teeth glittered wolfishly through his jetty beard, . . and in the terrible nerve- tension of the moment, the fury of the spreading conflagration was forgotten, at any rate, by Theos, who, stricken numb and rigid by a shock of alarm too poignant for expression, stared aghast at ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... love of God, but he would not listen to me. O that I knew what is become of him!" Before he had done speaking, the eunuch came up and stood behind him, whilst the pages surrounded him. The stoker turned and seeing the eunuch and the pages round him, changed colour and trembled in every nerve for affright, exclaiming, "Verily, he knows not the value of the good offices I have done him! I believe he has denounced me to the eunuch and made me an accomplice in his offence." Then the eunuch cried out at him, saying, "Who ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... 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, ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... loudspeaker van to its edge and boom at him to come out. He allowed them to do that for some inscrutable reason; perhaps to demonstrate that his powers were selective. Then it seemed he got tired of the farce, and cruel fingers twined themselves into the nerve centers of the President of Italy and the Prime Minister of the government of United Europe. He made them dance a horribly twisted pas de deux on the banks of the Danube for his ...
— The Mightiest Man • Patrick Fahy
... world and on history was reserved for the reformers. The reformer, in his inmost nature, is related to the people; his soul is agitated by formulas and ceremonies, to which the mystic is indifferent; they are to him obstacles to his faith and he strains every nerve to destroy them. He has every appearance of the truly free spirit, but he is secretly dependent on that against which he is fighting. He suffers under its inefficiency; his deed is the final reaction against his environment; salvation seems to him to lie in ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... Still equal to herself is Zara seen; Her passions are the passions of a queen. When she to murder whets the timorous Thane,[66] I feel ambition rush through every vein; Persuasion hangs upon her daring tongue, My heart grows flint, and every nerve's new strung. In comedy—Nay, there, cries Critic, hold; Pritchard's for comedy too fat and old: 820 Who can, with patience, bear the gray coquette, Or force a laugh with over-grown Julett?[67] Her ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... long letter of Roland, it is curious to remark how the nerve and vigor of his style, which had spoken so potently to his sovereign, is relaxed when he addresses himself to the sans-culottes,—how that strength and dexterity of arm, with which he parries and beats ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... more 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 ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... the woods they set sail for their own country, and a wind that never failed carried them back so safely that they all slept at night. This and much more Charlie told. Sometimes the voice fell so low that I could not catch the words, though every nerve was on the strain. He spoke of their leader, the red-haired man, as a pagan speaks of his God; for it was he who cheered them and slew them impartially as he thought best for their needs; and it was he who steered them for three days among floating ice, each ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... both of which animals the eye is in an almost rudimentary state, and is covered by a tendinous membrane and skin. In the common mole the eye is extraordinarily small but perfect, though many anatomists doubt whether it is connected with the true optic nerve; its vision must certainly be imperfect, though probably useful to the animal when it leaves its burrow. In the tucutuco, which I believe never comes to the surface of the ground, the eye is rather larger, but often rendered blind and useless, ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... my precious!—I feel I am strong; I know I am brave in opposing the wrong; I could stand where the battle was fiercest, nor feel One quiver of nerve at the flash of the steel; I could gaze on the enemy guiltless of fears, But I quail at the sight of your passionate tears: My calmness forsakes me,—my thoughts are a-whirl, And the stout-hearted man is as weak as a girl. I've been proud of your fortitude; never a trace Of yielding, all ...
— Beechenbrook - A Rhyme of the War • Margaret J. Preston
... went up to the coffin, flung back the gauze from that marble face, and looked down upon it. Those black eyes burned too hotly for tears, but the raven beard trembled about his mouth, his hand was clenched, the burning consciousness of a great crime was upon him, and he felt it in every nerve and pulse of his system. If North had ever loved this woman, all the force of that passion came back upon his soul now in an agony of remorse. As he gazed, his hand released its iron grip, his strong limbs shook like reeds, and flinging himself ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... abuse of NERO, that when Rome was in flame he accompanied the crackling of doors and rafters with his very best fiddle. We grant this showed a want of fine sympathy on the part of NERO; there was, nevertheless, a boldness, an exhibition of nerve, in such instrumentation. Any way, it leaves us with a higher respect for NERO than if he had been found playing on the burning Pantheon with a penny squirt. His mockery of the Romans, bad as it was, was not ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... of cicadas, but the killer has apparently little difficulty in finding his prey. The wasp pounces upon the insect, and in spite of its strength and the thrashing of its vigorous wings punctures it with his sting again and again. The poison of the sting entering into the nerve centers gradually paralyzes, but usually does not kill, the cicada. Now the killer carries its prey home, pushes it to the bottom of the tunnel and deposits upon it a single egg. The wasp closes ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... consider his position quietly. Each word must be charged with suppressed meaning. His eyes wandered over the room, resting now and again on the majestic, impassive smile of the mummy. It seemed to restore his nerve. He found himself unconsciously looking towards it over Carrel's head each time he spoke. While the blackmailer, seated once more, gazed up to his face with a defiant, insolent stare, swinging his chair backwards and forwards, unconcerned at the length of the interview, ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... me nerve to pop the question," he replied. "I told my little girl just now—for she is mine now—that she wanted a strong man to protect ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... have taken a nip and a suck from the missionary as he pushed on by night and by day through their savage territory. I glance at him, and sure enough they seem to have got all the juice out of him, but they have left the sinew and the bone. His nerve, too, is all there, and his heart is sound and "under his ribs," which one of his admiring flock considers ...
— Beyond the Marshes • Ralph Connor
... it. (1) We shortly deny the assumption, in relation to the two last branches, both that the kingdom's preservation stands in necessity of these men's help, and that their help tends not to the undoing of a greater good, seeing there is no reason given to confirm these two points, wherein the nerve of the business lies. We refer to a reason of our denial of them given p. 22.(382) (2) It is true that the obligation to such a duty lies upon all, but that obligation is to be brought into act and exercise in an orderly and qualified way, else what ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... that I had a steady nerve and was not easily frightened, for the sight that met my gaze would have startled most grown-up persons, let alone one ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... spring, and thus convey notice to the inner regions of the house when any customer should cross the threshold. Its ugly and spiteful little din (heard now for the first time, perhaps, since Hepzibah's periwigged predecessor had retired from trade) at once set every nerve of her body in responsive and tumultuous vibration. The crisis was upon her! Her first ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... were growing gradually fainter, ere I recovered myself sufficiently to know where I stood. One absorbing thought alone possessed me. Lucy was not lost to me forever; Power was not my rival in that quarter,—that was enough for me. I needed no more to nerve my arm and steel my heart. As I reflected thus, the long loud blast of a trumpet broke upon the silence of the night, and admonished me to depart. I hurried to my room to make my few preparations for the road; but Mike had already anticipated everything here, and all ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... of the man. It is only when we regard his mercantile exploits that we can admire him. He was, unquestionably, one of the ablest, boldest, and most successful operators that ever lived. He seldom made a mistake in the conduct of business. Having formed his plan, he carried it out with a nerve and steadiness, with such a firm and easy grasp of all the details, that he seemed rather to be playing an interesting game than transacting business. "He could command an army of five hundred thousand men!" exclaimed one of his admirers. That was an erroneous remark. He could have commanded an ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... allowance, leaving scarcely a quarter of a bottleful,—the other had before been exhausted. The sun was sinking low, and we had not yet seen the hull of the ship. Nettleship looked more anxious than before. The men strained every nerve, for they believed that their lives depended on their getting up to the ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... in the message of Brand; none in Tolstoy's nihilism. One glorifies the will, the other denies, rejects it. No comparison can be made between the two wonderful men as playwrights. Yet Tolstoy's Powers of Darkness is brutal melodrama when compared to Ibsen's complex dramatic organisms. But what a nerve-shattering revelation is The Death of Ivan Ilyitch. ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... transparent brilliancy in the coolness and constant movement of the waves, vanishes on the shore in little gelatinous pools. During those intervals of idleness, when the absence of thought leaves the hand inert upon the modelling tool, Felicia, deprived of the sole moral nerve of her intellect, became savage, unapproachable, sullen beyond endurance,—the revenge of paltry human qualities upon great tired brains. After she had brought tears to the eyes of all those whom she loved, had striven to evoke painful memories or paralyzing anxieties, and had reached the ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... the student of poetry now recall the diagram used in handbooks of psychology to illustrate the process of sensory stimulus of a nerve-centre and the succeeding motor reaction. The diagram is usually drawn after ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... melancholy. He was the Leopard Man, but he did not look it. His business in life, whereby he lived, was to appear in a cage of performing leopards before vast audiences, and to thrill those audiences by certain exhibitions of nerve for which his employers rewarded him on a scale commensurate with ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... few of their brethren in England. Those who ministered outside the Pale, lived in poverty and simplicity. The monasteries were not so richly endowed as the English conventual houses; and, perhaps, this freedom from the world's goods, served to nerve them for the coming trial; and that their purer and more fervent lives saved the Irish Church ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... Russia? The armaments engender fear, the fear in turn engenders armaments, and in that vicious circle turns the policy of Europe, till this or that Power precipitates the conflict, much as a man hanging in terror over the edge of a cliff ends by losing his nerve and throwing himself over. That is the real lesson of the rivalry in armaments. That is certain. The ...
— The European Anarchy • G. Lowes Dickinson
... assembly—was horror to the mind of the poor Jib; and he would nearly as soon have acceded to a desire to dance a hornpipe, if such had been suggested as the wish of the company. However, there was nothing for it; and summoning up all his nerve—knitting his brows —clenching his teeth, like one prepared to "do or die," he seized the hissing cauldron, and strode through the room, like the personified genius of steam, very much to the alarm of all the old ladies in the vicinity, whose tasteful drapery benefitted but little from his ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... The emissaries have become over-anxious. They dare not face the responsibility of conveying the priceless copy to Fleet Street. They have completely lost their nerve. They insist upon the author accompanying them to see with his own eyes that all is well. They do not wish Posterity to hand their names down to eternal infamy as "the men who ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... listened—breathlessly listened! A cold chill crept stealthily about the roots of my hair, I clenched my hands hard and whispered to myself: 'Will it come, good God, will it come, the thing he listens for?' When with a wild bound, as if every nerve and muscle had been rent by an electric shock, he was upon his feet; and I was answered even before that suffocating cry of terror—'The bells! the bells!'—and under cover of the applause that followed I said: 'Haunted! ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... moment as if it must capsize. Every one looked terrified but kept complete silence, for I had enjoined it on penalty of death. In spite of our dangerous position, I could not help laughing when I heard the sobs of the cowardly scaramouch. The helmsman was a man of great nerve, and the gale being steady I felt we would reach Corfu without mishap. At day-break we sighted the town, and at nine in the morning we landed at Mandrachia. Everybody was surprised to see ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Her nerve broke there. She could no longer meet those terrible black eyes. Her passionate denial was not only the last of her shameful deceit; it was the woman of her, repudiating herself and him, and all this ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... equal isosceles, isotherm *Lithos stone monolith, chrysolite Logos word, study theology, dialogue Metron measure barometer, diameter *Micros small microscope, microbe Monos one, alone monoplane, monotone *Morphe form metamorphosis, amorphous *Neos new, young neolithic, neophyte *Neuron nerve neuralgia, neurotic Nomos law, science, astronomy, gastronomy, economy management *Onoma name anonymous, patronymic *Opsis view, sight synopsis, thanatopsis, optician *Orthos right orthopedic, orthodox ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... Shaw, who was poor in two senses, strength of nerve and money, looked blue and cold in her little black suit, and her pale blue liberty scarf was horribly inadequate and unbecoming. Daisy was really painful to see as she gazed out apprehensively at the dragging robe, and the glistening slant ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the boys, and what they would say if they knew that he had not nerve enough to pot the enemy when he ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... evoked by memory, which rose so vividly before her. Again she saw herself seize his hand to kiss it humbly, yet with fervent devotion; again she met the patronizing but friendly smile with which he withdrew it, and a thrill of happiness ran through every nerve, for she imagined she once more felt his slender white hand soothingly stroke her black hair and burning cheeks, as if she were a sick child who needed help. Later years had never granted her aught ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... unmoved person, squatting down on his heels and thrusting his hand inside David's shirt. "Only a faint. Why, where's your nerve? You're nearly as white ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... said at last, "if you ask me questions I suppose I must answer them in one way or another. But—I think I had rather you did not." He felt that every nerve was strained in self-control as she listened to him. "Mrs. Romaine," he went on deliberately, "is not a woman that I like—or—respect. I would very much prefer not to talk ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... had sailed the boat ladened with wire netting and heavy goods from Bowen, 200 miles south, and was on his way to his selection, 100 miles further north. A wiry, slight man though a real "shellback," one who had been steeped in and saturated with every sea, was "giving the sea best," nerve-shaken, so he said—and yet sailing a cutter with but 3 or 4 inches of free board "single-handed." And he told the why and wherefore of ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... fell, and there it fires his thrilling breast, And a shudder runs through all his frame; he knows not if it be A throb of rapture, or the first sharp pang of agony. Come, swell our banners on the breeze, thou sacred spirit-band, Give wings to every warrior's foot, and nerve to every hand. We go to strike for freedom, to break the oppressor's rod, We go to battle and to death for our country and our God. Ye are with us, we hear your wings, we hear in magic tone Your spirit-voice the paean swell, and mingle with our own. Ye are with us, ye throng around,—you ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... would have liked to turn the rifle upon the men instead of the bottles. He was angry, and an angry man is always at a great disadvantage, especially where a steady nerve is needed. He accordingly fired wild, and when, the third shot had been made, ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... where, on the cold damp ground, in the agonies of death, I see my dear mother and my revered grand-father. I strive to raise you; you push me from you, and shrieking cry—'Charlotte, thou hast murdered me!' Horror and despair tear every tortured nerve; I start, and leave my restless ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... wireless system, keen to perceive, to feel, to know the things hidden to the mass. I look forward to years of torture with the accursed things. The only thing that relieves, and of course it does not cure, is osteopathy, stimulating the nerve where it enters the spine. But never let them touch the sore place. That is fatal. It raises all the devils and they begin scraping on the ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... the beginning of the end, for Yuan had lost his nerve. He had decided to quit, and one hundred days after he became emperor elect he issued a mandate canceling the monarchy and restoring the republic. But the rebellious provinces were not satisfied and demanded that he get ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... thought it a good omen— It is as well to think so, now and then; 'T was an old custom of the Greek and Roman, And may become of great advantage when Folks are discouraged; and most surely no men Had greater need to nerve themselves again Than these, and so this rainbow look'd like ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... kindness which he had shown to Moodeewhy at different times, and said that he had twice saved his tribe from total ruin. In the present instance, Moodeewhy had killed three of his hogs. Every time he mentioned his loss, the recollection seemed to nerve afresh his aged sinews: he shook his hoary beard, stamped with indignant rage, ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... of War having carried his point, the Major directed his efforts towards another quarter, and more successfully. Indeed he rarely failed in any enterprise requiring nerve, perseverance, tact, and ability; and it may well be added that he seemed to accumulate wealth to enjoy the pleasure of spending it worthily. His unostentatious charities during the war were almost boundless; and hundreds of ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... suddenly putting spur to the mare. Afterwards he complimented himself on his remarkable self-control, and laughed as he likened his present alarm to that of a boy passing a graveyard at night. Nevertheless, he was now filled with an acute, very real sense of anxiety and apprehension; every nerve was on edge. ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... XXII. and Benedict XII., preached the crusade, and offered their mediation to settle the differences between the two kings; but they were unsuccessful in both their attempts. The two kings strained every nerve to form laic alliances. Philip did all he could to secure to himself the fidelity of Count Louis of Flanders, whom the King of England several times attempted, but in vain, to win over. Philip drew into close relations with himself the Kings of Bohemia ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... correspondence with Boyle, whom no doubt he slighted as the young editor of a spurious author. But Boyle's edition came forth, as Bentley expresses it, "with a sting in its mouth." This, at first, was like a cut finger—he breathed on it, and would have forgotten it; but the nerve was touched, and the pain raged long after the stroke. Even the great mind of Bentley began to shrink at the touch of literary calumny, so different from the vulgar kind, in its extent and its duration. He betrays ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... beginning to find a falling-off in their docility of late, which was no doubt owing to their sisters; it was excessively annoying to him that those girls should be so difficult to convince of the protective value of a fortress, and especially that they should decline to take his own superior nerve and courage for granted. And the worst of it was, nothing but some imminent danger was ever likely to convince them, such were ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... hand," said the pirate, whipping off his mask. "You make me nervous, sitting there. You've got a nerve, you have." ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... but continually to whirl about, and present stinging points to the travellers' faces. Talking wasn't possible even if you were in the humour, and the dead, blank silence of all nature, unbroken hour after hour, became as nerve-wearing as the cold and stinging wind. The Boy fell behind a little. Those places on his heels that had been so badly galled had begun to be troublesome again. Well, it wouldn't do any good to holla about it—the only ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... exploits of Mrs. Braxton can only be explained by supposing her to be naturally endowed with a larger share of nerve and hardihood than usually falls to the lot of her sex. Some influence, too, must be ascribed to the peculiarly wild and free life that prevails in the southwest. Living so much of the time in the open air in a climate peculiarly luxuriant and ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... hatred, as he waited for him, leaning against the fence. With his subtle Gallic brain, his physical spasms of languor and energy, his keen instincts that uttered themselves to the last syllable always, heedless of all decencies of custom, no wonder that the man with every feminine, unable nerve in his body rebelled against this Palmer. It was as natural as for a delicate animal to rebel against and hate and submit to man. Palmer's very horse, he thought, had caught the spirit of its master, and put down its hoofs with calm assurance ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... in a springless vehicle, two miles distant from the county-seat, the pains of labour came upon her. She steeled every nerve and had herself carried to the house of the county-physician whose daughter was now ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... means that Nature keeps on asking for more bricks and mortar to go on building up the works that were begun years ago and not finished—muscle and bone and nerve, sir, so as to get him a sound body; and mind you, a sound body generally means a sound brain. Everything in a proper state ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... and the well-modulated tones of culture. He watched him now as the fascinated toad watches the snake that is about to devour it. He saw the graceful limbs and symmetrical body motionless as a marble statue as the creature crouched in the concealment of the leafy foliage. Not a muscle, not a nerve moved. He saw the deer coming slowly along the trail, down wind and unsuspecting. He saw a buck pass—an old buck—and then a young and plump one came opposite the giant in ambush, and Schneider's eyes went wide and a scream of terror almost broke from ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... mile distant, the woods were broken and cut up by ravines and hills, as though an earthquake had passed through that section; and, believing that this would afford him a better opportunity of eluding his foes, he turned in that direction and strained every nerve to reach it. As for Edith herself, she seemed fired with supernatural strength, and sped with a swiftness of which she never dreamed herself capable. Seeing this, the Rifleman attempted to draw the charge ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis
... healthful elasticity of our nerves, the exercises must be such as will bring into varied combinations and play all our muscles and nerves. Those exercises which require great accuracy, skill, and dash are just those which secure this happy and complete intermarriage of nerve and muscle. If any one doubts that boxing and small-sword will do more to give elasticity and tone to the nervous system than lifting kegs of nails, then I will give him ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... there"; he was fearless; he could use a gun; he had many killings to his credit. When earlier in the day Charlie had made private inquiry of the saloon-keeper, an old friend, concerning a man of nerve that he could engage who would ask no questions, Alvarez was ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... fighting machine, and for the transport of troops, one can obtain a glimpse of the nature of the new attack and counter-attack. A recent writer[1] has shown us the future tank carrying war into the enemy's country and destroying his nerve centres by actually reaching and paralysing the G.H.Q.s. of armies and smaller formations. Such operations will have to occur through a wide zone of the new gas and will necessitate the anti-gas tank. Indeed, one of the most important functions of the tank will be to carry the advance guard ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden
... "Surely, nerve runs in his family as well as his cousin's. The rascal came because I hung up a little purse for a fireman at the roundhouse, and he nearly had a fight with another fellow that wanted to cut him out of ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... knew how to suffer. He will remain a figure for the legends of the future for, running to transmit an order, he received a bullet in the eyes which shattered his optic nerve. He was completely blinded. Nevertheless, he continued to advance, trying to grope his way through the night that had fallen upon him. He encountered something lying on the ground—a something that was a man just as badly wounded. ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... island from end to end, calling upon Jake in the darkness, but getting no answer; till, finally, so many half-drowned men seemed to come crawling out of the water on to the rocks, and vanish among the shadows when he came up with them, that he lost his nerve completely and returned to lie down by the ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... the king's daughter was shut up in some distant hiding-place, Gunnar strained his wits in every nerve to track her out. Hence, while he was himself conducting the search with others, his doubtful ear caught the distant sound of a subterranean hum. Then he went on slowly, and recognized a human voice with greater certainty. He ordered the ground underfoot to be dug down to the solid ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... shootings, "holding-up" of passenger trains, wrecking of express cars by dynamite, bank robbery, and the like exploits of the Anglo-American desperado, to steal, are unknown to the temperament of the Spanish-American. The latter are creatures of impulse, and lack the "nerve" for a well-planned murderous exploit of the above nature. Nor are they capable of the lynching, burnings of negroes, and race riots which characterise those parts of the United States which bound Mexico on the north, and once formed part of her territory. ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... half-defiantly, despite the difference in years between them; Antonina is taken as a companion and very soon developes into a sick-nurse. For in the space between the ship-board engagement and the wedding a railway accident changes poor Agnes from a still beautiful and active woman to a nerve-ridden invalid. But in spite of this she and Brangwyn marry; and (with the much too attractive Antonina always in evidence) you can guess the result. One odd point; you will hardly get any distance into Miss E.S. STEVENS' exceedingly well-written ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug. 22, 1917 • Various
... up the hill before Courtney moved. Every nerve was aquiver as he raised himself to his feet and looked cautiously about. The thing he feared had come to pass, but even as he crouched there in the shelter of the bushes the means of salvation ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... got his nerve back, fathered the book, made corrections; and this edition, too, sold with a rush. Byron returned to Newstead, invited a score of his Cambridge cronies, who came down, entering the mansion between the bear and the wolf, and were received with salvos of pistol-shots. Here ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... seated on the deck, his eyes peering about on all sides, trying to pierce the veil, every nerve taut, every sense alert. The girl crept close beside him, so that she touched him, and there she remained, while all the terrors of the ghostly ship arose to confront her. The weed-hung, slimy rails and wave-bitten ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... him, but I knew better. My body might get perfectly well, but something in my soul was broken. It was worn out. The thin spring had snapped. I could never fight again. Any loud noise made me shake all over. I knew that I could never face a battle—impossible! I should certainly lose my nerve and run away. It is a damned feeling, that broken something inside of ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... the woman who had talked through the window, and who had restored the emerald. But that was impossible, since Mrs. Bolton habitually took more liquor than was good for her, and would not have the nerve to deliver the jewel, much less commit the crime, the more especially as the victim was her own son. Of course she might have found out Sidney's scheme to run away with the jewels, and so would have claimed her share. But if she had been in Pierside on that evening—and ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... supreme court. I was appointed by the speaker as a member of the visiting board for Prairie View State Normal. As a member of the committee on privileges and Election I single handed fought for a colored man elected from Brazoria county, N. H. Haller by name who had the nerve to contest the seat of a white man to whom the certificate of election had been awarded. After a long and bitter fight in which three times I carried in and presented a minority report we won and Haller was seated. This isn't ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... decease, calls in the science of anatomy to amplify the resources of her instinctive cruelty, and, having made a collection of weevils and spiders, proceeds with marvellous knowledge and skill to pierce the nerve-centre on which their power of locomotion (but none of their other vital functions) depends, so that the paralysed insect, beside which her egg is laid, will furnish the larva, when it is hatched, with ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... of her people, and her great love for Kria had alone served to nerve her to leave her tribe, and the forest country that she knew. A great fear fell upon her when, the familiar jungles being left far behind, she found herself floating down stream through cluster after cluster of straggling Malay villages. The knowledge that Kria was at hand to protect her ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... blows the breath of life', which not many visitors will believe, because, instead of a quickening breath, pestilential odors enter by the window and offend the nostrils of those whose olfactory nerve has not lost all sensitiveness.... On the opposite wall, to the west, appear the words, 'A memorial unto the destruction of the Temple'. To this day I do not know what there was to commemorate the fall of the Holy Place. The rickety rafters? Or were the little creatures swarming all over ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... of the two women, 'it's the fire again! it's all round us! O I wisht I hadn't a'come! I wisht I was to hum!'—and she showed the earnestness of the wish by beginning to cry. Her companion sat still and turned very pale. Paler yet, but with every nerve braced, Wych Hazel stood in the road to see for ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... the swift even beat of the flying feet, and his own—slower from the longer stride, and the sound of his breath. And for some clear moments he knew that his only concern was, to sustain his speed regardless of pain and distress, to deny with every nerve he had her power to outstrip him or to widen the space between them, till the stars crept up to midnight. Then out again would come that crowd invisible, humming and hustling behind, dense and dark enough, he knew, to blot out the stars at his back, yet ever skipping and ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... would be so wrought up he'd ride night mairs most all night. He'd spring up in bed cryin' out, "All aboard for Coney Island!" or, "There is the Immoral Railway! See the divin' girls, and the Awful Tower. Get a hot dog; look at the alligators, etc., etc." I gin him catnip to soothe his nerve, but that didn't git the pizen out of his system; no, ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley
... uncomfortably drawn up on the seat of a third-class compartment he missed Tim, and wondered dully if the regiment, which that little son of Mars had said was waiting for him—at attention!—could now be in the thick of things. He pictured Tim chasing Germans with the same dogged nerve that he had chased and caught the murderer of the little nurse. As evening fell, battle scenes grew vivid in the twilit compartment, because he was thinking again! Whenever speeding trains passed, their approaching rumbles would make him start, ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... rejoined his comrades at the canoe. They pushed out into the river, but held the boat in the current by an occasional paddle-stroke, and waited listening. Back at the foot of the tree the captive strained every nerve and muscle in one mighty effort to break the cords that bound him; but it was useless, and he lay back with set teeth and rigid muscles, while his eyes sought in vain through their thick covering to see the approach of his foes. Presently a ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, however, the Rebel authorities at Montgomery lost no time, but strained every nerve to precipitate War. They felt that there was danger to the cause of Secession in delay; that there were wavering States outside the Confederacy, like Virginia, that might be dragged into the Confederacy by prompt and bloody ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... and nerve-racking ride in the automobile a chance for quiet, a bath, and relaxation between the clean coarse sheets of a bed, seemed heavenly to Janice Day. She really did not want to ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... isn't your business, it's your nerve that you've got to hire money on—and your clothes. You do what I tell you. Come to my ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... me," Vorse stated, "'That was for you too.' I had my hand on my gun under the counter as he said it, ready if he made a move. He knew what I had there, but it didn't faze him. He's a better man than Joe Weir ever was, I want to remark, and different; he has nerve and a bad eye. He knows something, lay ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
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