"Nerve" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... nerve, and she went back to work moving sound, and continued to work sound up to her death from one of the regularly fatal bowel lesions twist ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... 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
... 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
... 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
... nerve in his body agitated by the sense of delinquency. Then he walked aft, cast one look around him at the desperate condition of the lugger, and, with the impetuosity of character that belongs to his country, he plunged into the sea, from which his body never reappeared. ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... 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 |
