"Stroke" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... think I am supported in this feeling by the unanimous practice, if not the confessed opinion, of all artists. The painter of portrait is unhappy without his conventional white stroke under the sleeve, or beside the arm-chair; the painter of interiors feels like a caged bird, unless he can throw a window open, or set the door ajar; the landscapist dares not lose himself in forest without a gleam of light under its farthest branches, nor ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... deeper they penetrated into the dark waters. Now they entered the slime; now they stumbled on hidden roots; but deeper and deeper they waded until at last, turning the animal's head with a jerk, and giving him a sharp stroke of the whip, she headed straight for the island. A moment the beast snorted and plunged; higher and higher the black still waters rose round the girl. They crept up her little limbs, swirled round her breasts and gleamed green and slimy along her shoulders. A wild terror gripped ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... admonishing the executioners to lay on and spare not. Then the procession started, and was conducted by the criers through all the principal streets back to the great square, and at every few steps the executioners laid on with their whips, fetching blood at every stroke, so that to any man having aught of mercy and compassion within him the spectacle was horrible and nauseating, though to the Familiars and ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher
... noon the gavel fell with a single sharp stroke, and the speaker called persuasively, "The house will please be in order." The members rose and stood reluctantly, some of them sharpening their pencils, others reading while the chaplin prayed sonorously with many oratorical cadences, taking ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... chosen to fill the place; and be it known to whom it may concern, that the said Richard was the merriest, laziest, weakest, most kind-hearted fellow who ever sowed a large crop of wild oats, and by a sudden stroke of good-luck found himself raised to a ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... convey them into Italy. This was done, at the same instant, in all places for hundreds of leagues in extent, without the Jesuits, with all their cunning, having received a breath of information, or entertained a suspicion, as to the stroke impending over them; and, what is still more strange, without having given rise to the least symptom of complaint or disapprobation. On the contrary, the other religious orders, who had been offended by the haughty bearing ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... I had attempted to take him at his word, and punch a hole or two in him, I could not have done so, for even while he spoke his beloved sprang between us, and hissing the epithet 'Coward!' in my face, flashed a dagger towards my breast. So quick was the stroke that I am afraid only a miracle could have prevented a woman from at last making a permanent impression on the heart of Charles de la Pommeraye, but I was once more to be saved from the base designs of the sex. My ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... face downwards on the block. The executioner, a muscular Derbyshire coal miner, selected by the sheriff for his proficiency in wielding the pick, was masked, and his name kept a profound secret. Brandreth's neck received only one stroke, but it was not clean done, and the assistant (also masked) finished it off with a knife. Then the executioner laid hold of the head by the hair, and holding it at arm's length, to the left, to the right, and in front of the scaffold, called out three times—'Behold ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews
... little kayaks would circle out silent as shadows over the silver surface of the sea. A round head would bob up, or a bubble show where a swimmer was moving below the surface. The kayaks would narrow their surrounding circle. Presently a head would appear. The hunter nearest would deal the death-stroke with his steel gaff, and the quarry would be drawn in. But it was in the storm hunt over the kelp-beds that the wildest work went on. Through the fiercest storm scudded bidarkies and kayaks, meeting the herds of sea-otter as they drove before ...
— Pioneers of the Pacific Coast - A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters • Agnes C. Laut
... lucky!' whispered the old man, when they moved on again. 'And a great stroke of policy in you to observe it. He, he, he! We couldn't have gone outside. I should have died ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... Revelation of Moses, which appears to be of Rabbinical extraction, Adam, when near his end, informs his sons; that, because of his transgression, God had laid upon his body seventy strokes, or plagues. The trouble of the first stroke was injury to the eyes; the trouble of the second stroke, of the hearing; and so on, in succession, all the strokes should overtake him. And Adam, thus speaking to his sons, groaned out loud, and said, "What shall I do? I ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... hands. It is possible that one class was inflicted at one time, and the other at another. It is possible that on the last visit the pulse might not have entirely ceased to beat, and then the finishing stroke was given. It is said, that, when the body was discovered, some of the wounds wept, while the others did not. They may have been inflicted from mere wantonness. It was known that Captain White was accustomed to keep specie by him in his chamber; this perhaps may explain the last visit. ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... fanciful and impossible pastoral lovers. The remark made in my first book, that "only an educated mind can feel romantic love," led one of its reviewers to remark, half indignantly, half mournfully, "There goes the pastoral poetry of the world at a single stroke of the pen." Well, let it go. I am quite sure that if these poetic dreamers had ever come across a shepherdess in real life—dirty, unkempt, ignorant, coarse, immoral—they would themselves have made haste ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... paddle, and with a strong, sweeping stroke turned the head of the boat towards the land. Now she could see his lowering brow, and if the sight pleased her, 'twas not ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... what Joe was asking himself as he plunged on through the stream, using the Australian crawl stroke, which takes one through the water at such speed. Just what Joe could do when he reached his chum he did not stop to think. Certainly the two would have been no ...
— The Moving Picture Boys at Panama - Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal • Victor Appleton
... little Olaf was there, fast by the side of his friend and hero Karlsefin, who took charge of the large boat, with Thorward in the bow to direct him how to steer. Biarne was there too as a matter of course, in charge of the little boat, with Krake as his bowman and Tyrker pulling the stroke-oar. For Tyrker was strong, though little, ugly, and old, and had a peculiar talent for getting involved in any fighting, fun, or mischief that chanced to be in hand. Men said that he was afraid of dying in his bed, and had made up his mind to rush continually into the jaws of danger until ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... She paused upon a stroke, and some new note in his voice sent so sudden a thrill to her heart that she caught her breath with a painful kind of joy. The hammer dropped upon the anvil, and, in a moment, she stood in the doorway of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... servants from Madras, and turned the refractory out of their offices. Seeing his resolution, recourse was next had to flattery, entreaty, persuasion, and arguments, but all this failed to turn him aside from his purpose. By one fell stroke he put down the private trade and dangerous privileges of the company's servants, and he prohibited the extorting or receiving presents from the natives. At the same time Clive adopted measures, which might give the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... the first victim. At one blow she would free herself from the inconvenience of his rigid censorship, and by inheriting his goods would repair her own fortune, which had been almost dissipated by her husband. But in trying such a bold stroke one must be very sure of results, so the marquise decided to experiment beforehand on another person. Accordingly, when one day after luncheon her maid, Francoise Roussel, came into her room, she gave her a slice of mutton and some preserved gooseberries ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... after tea, as they sat on the rose-framed porch, while Rowland held his younger cousin between his knees, and she, enjoying her situation, listened timorously for the stroke of bedtime, Cecilia insisted on talking more about her visitor than ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... had a stroke of paralysis. He may lie in mental darkness for months and then recover. His heart action is perfect. Patience, care, and love will save him. There is no cause for ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... brought the thickness into his throat. It was not fear. It was the soft glow of a great love—and of understanding. She knew that even he was almost at the end of his fight. His endurance was giving out. One of two things must happen very soon. She continued to stroke his cheek gently until he placed her on her feet again, and then she held one of his hands close to her breast as they looked behind them, and listened. He could feel the soft throbbing of her heart. If he needed greater courage then it was ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... the topsail schooner Belvedere, laden with fish scraps for a Boston glue-factory, dropped over the counter into his dory and came rowing to the Polly, standing up and facing forward and swaying with the fisherman's stroke. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... deity; that a still heavier one awaited him, unless he went immediately and delivered the message to the consuls. The matter was now still more pressing. Hesitating, however, and delaying he was at length overtaken by a severe stroke of disease, a sudden paralysis. Then indeed the anger of the gods aroused him. Wearied out therefore by his past sufferings and by those threatening him, having convened a meeting of his friends, after he had detailed to them all he had seen and heard, and Jupiter's ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... the direction of the insect's body, we now touch its tail, what a display of vehement acrobatics! Instantly the agile body is bent backward in a loop, while the teeth fasten to the knife-blade with an audible click. If our finger-tip is substituted for the steel, the force of the stroke and the prick and grip of the jaws ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... he said, and flashed away like a fragment of rainbow gone astray. Almost by the time the first stroke of the axe rang out over the sleeping meadows he was ...
— Punch, July 18, 1917 • Various
... man of the flowing grey beard once more began to stroke it, first with one hand, then with the other, and, puckering his eyes, which sparkled with a shrewd smile, for he was pleased with his own words, watched for ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... so significantly said that there went a visible thrill through Alain; sudden as a sword-stroke, he fell pale again. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... name. She awoke soon after, but has never since that hour been quite herself,—never seemed conscious of Frederic's loss. She speaks of him as of one gone a journey. Some talk of her exertions the night before, of her anxiety, or of a partial stroke. But I think, and shall always think, that Frederic's angel appeared to her, and, in some way, deadened her mind to the dreadful suffering ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... conceivable that he turned over in his mind the idea of rebuilding the east end of Westminster Abbey in this same style—a design which he proceeded to put into execution five years later. The combination of the two Temple Churches into one harmonious whole is a stroke of genius on the part of the unknown architect. It might have been a failure had there been any violence of contrast. As it is, we feel that we are only moving one step forward in the evolution of church-building. The ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... description given him of Miss Elting's caller. He thought he knew whom that description fitted, all except the beard. It was the beard that spoiled the picture he had in mind. He pondered over this all during the time he was working on the tent, pausing now and then to stroke his own beard. ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge
... an' easy," he resumed. "Not a shot has been fired since we left Louisville an' now we're nearly to Tuentahahewaghta (the site of Cincinnati, that is, the landing or place where the road leads to the river). It means that Timmendiquas has been massing his warriors for a great stroke." ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... recommendation to Parliament for the union of Scotland and England, and the last act of Parliament to which he gave his consent was that which fixed the succession in the House of Hanover. At the age of fifty-one, while planning the campaign which was to make Marlborough immortal, William received his death-stroke, which was accidental. He was riding in the park of Hampton Court, when his horse stumbled and he was thrown, dislocating his collar-bone. The bone was set, and might have united but for the imprudence of the King, who insisted on going to Kensington on important ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... people of Mariposa saw and felt that summer evening as they watched the Mackinaw life-boat go plunging out into the lake with seven sweeps to a side and the foam clear to the gunwale with the lifting stroke of fourteen men! ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... helping hand to the financial rehabilitation of such countries because this financial rehabilitation and the protection of their customhouses from being the prey of would be dictators would remove at one stroke the menace of foreign creditors and the menace of ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... to wait for the evil news. Lord Calderwood had been seized with a paralytic stroke—his third attack—at ten o'clock the previous night, and had expired at half-past eight that morning. There could be no wedding that day—nor for many days and ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... political events the stars were questioned beforehand, or whether the astrologers were simply impelled afterwards by curiosity to find out the constellation which decided the result. When Giangaleazzo Visconti by a master-stroke of policy took prisoner his uncle Bernabo, with the latter's family (1385), we are told by a contemporary that Jupiter, Saturn and Mars stood in the house of the Twins, but we cannot say if the deed was resolved on in consequence. It ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... evils. She was oppressed with a feeling that a crushing blow impended over him. Now, almost as vividly as in her dream, she still saw the giant's club raised high to strike. If it were only in a fairy tale, her sensitive spirit would tremble at such a stroke, but inasmuch as it was falling on one who had avowed passionate love for her, she felt almost as if she must share in its weight. The idea of reciprocating any feeling that resembled his passion had at first been absurd, and now, in view of what he had shown himself ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... off, and the gig leading, gave way at a long steady stroke, for the southern extremity of the island, which we reached within the hour, although it was a pull of fully three miles. Arrived at the low point, and leaving each boat in charge of a couple of men, we landed; and as I was marshalling ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... centers can provide the most advanced diagnosis and treatment for heart disease and cancer and stroke ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... more afraid of the sudden flare within than of the substantial and dangerous fire without. The first swerved just in time to escape the fire, and went by so swiftly that the stroke of Grom's club caught him only a light, glancing blow on the rump. But the second of the pair, the female, was too close behind to swerve in time. She dashed straight through the fire, struck Grom with all her frantic weight, knocked him flat, and ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... now let slip. In 1772 Sir Richard Hill and his brother Rowland measured swords with Fletcher, and drew forth from him his Third and Fourth Checks. In 1773 Sir R. Hill gave what he termed his 'Finishing Stroke;' Berridge, the eccentric Vicar of Everton, rushed into the fray with his 'Christian World Unmasked;' and Toplady, the ablest of all who wrote on the Calvinist side, published a pamphlet under the suggestive title of 'More Work for John Wesley.' The next year (1774) there was a ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... A CRUEL mental stroke, like a heavy blow upon the body, sometimes benumbs and sickens at first, but does not torture; yet that ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... burst into tears. "Try and not give way," said Miss Janet again; "we are doing all we can. We must hope and pray. I feel a great deal of hope. God is so merciful, he will not bring this stroke upon you in your old age, unless it is necessary. Why do you judge for him? He is mighty to save. 'The Lord on high, is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea.' Think of His mercy and power to ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... people all over the world. The comedian made a play for himself, on the basis of Charles Burke's play, but with one vital improvement—he arranged the text and business of the supernatural scene so that Rip only should speak, while the ghosts should remain silent. That stroke of genius accomplished his object. The man capable of that exploit in dramatic art could not fail to win the world, because he would at once fascinate its imagination while ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... enter the tents, and often alight on the bow of a canoe, where the paddle at every stroke comes within eighteen inches of them. I know nothing which can be eaten that they will not take, and I had one steal all my candles, pulling them out endwise, one by one, from a piece of birch bark in which they were rolled, ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... position at the head of the Southern army only after one general had been killed, another wounded, and another stricken with a paralytic stroke; he coming ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... forget his purpose altogether. It was a packet inclosed in a wrapper which bore the name of his publishers on the outside, and he knew at once before opening it that it contained reviews. He tore off the wrapper eagerly, for now at last he would learn whether he had made a bold and successful stroke, or only ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... middle-aged man with a sour countenance, who did not present the appearance of one who had sustained any injury at all, "very hard this. I shall miss meeting with a friend, and perhaps lose doin' a good stroke of business to-night." ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... yet been very little inoculated with the sentiment of beauty; even the doorstep to the church is a wide flat stone, that shows not a single stroke of the hammer. Within, the simplicity is even more severe. Brown galleries run around three sides of the old building, supported by timbers, on which you still trace, under the stains from the leaky roof, the deep scoring ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... happens in a ballroom, the dancing ceases, the music stops, the revelers vanish. Something worse than death had happened in this drawing-room. The happiness of more than one life had been blasted as by a stroke of lightning. ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... indeed! Comparing the impressions left upon him by these women, as a result he gave Curran the commission to watch and study the daily living of Edith Conyngham. Even this man's nerve shook at a stroke so luckily apt. ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... the way," said Mr Medlock, "he deserves something for that; it's the best stroke of business we've done for a long time. It's worth three weeks to us to have him there to answer questions and choke off the inquisitive. He's got his busy time coming on, I fancy. Bless you, Durfy, ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... ill-founded on the whole, was, that we all had come out for pillage; and while a certain reserve withheld most of us from avowing this fact, he spoke of it openly and freely, expatiating admiringly on Captain This and Major That, who had done a fine stroke of work in such a store, or such another country-house. As for his blunders, they never ceased. I was myself the victim of an absurd one. On the march from Melazzo I got a severe strain in the chest by my ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... lost-beloved regains, And on the enamell'd couch of summer-plains Mingles sweet kisses with the west-wind's breath. Here, crown'd at last—Love never knows decay, Living through ages its one BRIDAL DAY, Safe from the stroke of Death! ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... lance now broke, his sword the warrior drew, That sword which never yet was drawn in vain, And still with cut or thrust some soldier slew; Now horse, now footman of the tyrant's train. And, ever where he dealt a stroke, changed blue, Yellow, green, white and black, to crimson stain. Cymosco grieves, when most his need require, Not to have now his hollow ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... write and break every engagement which he had made, and to sever his connection with Society at one stroke. But the next day his brother came again, with compromises and new protestations. There was no use going to the other extreme: he, Oliver, would have it out with the Wallings, and they might all go on their way as if nothing ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... spots where his betrothed was not to the spot where she was. Enjoyment was pretty general, and so much the more prevailed in being unhampered by conventional restrictions. Absolute confidence in each other's good opinion begat perfect ease, while the finishing stroke of manner, amounting to a truly princely serenity, was lent to the majority by the absence of any expression or trait denoting that they wished to get on in the world, enlarge their minds, or do any eclipsing thing whatever—which nowadays so generally nips the bloom and bonhomie ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... the cries of the two men in the water, and I saw them struggle in order to keep themselves afloat. I gave a sigh of relief that the two men—already a long distance from us—were, by a great stroke of luck, the only two who could swim. I urged them to have courage and we would come to their rescue, although for a moment I could not think how we should do it, as we had only one paddle left and the steering gear had got torn away from its socket, although ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... remember, and shall never forget as long as we live. It seems that the young fellow who pulled the bow oar of that men's college boat which we had the pleasure of beating got some glimpses of Georgina, our handsome stroke oar. I believe he took it into his head that it was she who threw the bouquet that won the race for us. He was, as you know, greatly mistaken, and ought to have made love to me, only he did n't. Well, it seems he came posting down to the Institute ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... and at the same time reckoned to be the basest of all the Persians, and having a great reputation for their cleverness and evil ways. Accordingly, since Chosroes had formed the purpose of capturing the city of Daras by a sudden stroke, and to move all the Colchians out of Lazica and establish in their place Persian settlers, he selected these two men to assist him in both undertakings. For it seemed to him that it would be a lucky stroke and a really important achievement to win for himself ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... have turned up to-morrow. I expect they have all been stolen from some other tribe. The two I have got are first-rate animals, and the goods will come to about fourteen pounds. I shall ride one of them myself, and put our swag on my own pony. That has been a very good stroke of business; they would never have sold them at that price if they ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... boomed once—a solemn, dignified stroke. Mr. Tidditt and his companion started and ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... stroke of the impact falling upon men of dissimilar temperament reacted on them diversely. The majority absorbed it by throwing themselves upon the ground on which they stood; others recoiled mechanically upon the companies in rear; while to not a few ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... overlooked by the force of habit, and the tendency to submerge all else in the mere enjoyment of the music. The utter variance of music and poetry was to Wagner the stumbling-block which, first of all, must be removed. So he crushed at one stroke all the hard, arid forms which existed in the lyrical drama as it had been known. His opera, then, is no longer a congeries of separate musical numbers, like duets, arias, chorals, and finales, set in a flimsy web of formless ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... butchered without resistance. The Europeans and the Turkish cavalry fought well for a short time, but in a few minutes they were overpowered by superior numbers. Of the whole force of 10,000 men, only a few individuals escaped by some special stroke of fortune, for nearly the whole of the 300 prisoners taken were subsequently executed. Such was the complete and appalling character of the destruction of Hicks's army, which seemed to shatter at a single blow the whole fabric of the Khedive's power in ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... great religious soul. It awoke in him echoes distant and profound. Through the feeling of perpetual reaction, which is in vigorous natures a vital instinct, the instinct of self-preservation, the stroke which preserves the quivering balance of the boat, and gives it a new drive onward,—his surfeit of doubts and his disgust with Parisian sensuality had for the last two years been slowly restoring God to his place in Christophe's heart. Not that he believed ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... but that the Sun doth still, Level his rayes against the rising hill: I would be high, but see the proudest Oak Most subject to the rending Thunder-Stroke; I would be rich, but see men too unkind Dig in the bowels of the richest mind; I would be wise, but that I often see The Fox suspected whilst the Ass goes free; I would be fair, but see the fair and proud Like the bright Sun, oft setting in ...
— The Complete Angler 1653 • Isaak Walton
... a simple operation. The essential organs of the grape-flower are covered by a small cap; this in some grapes must be removed before the anthers can be reached. In many native grapes, however, the cap and the anthers may be removed at one stroke by the operator. The best tool for this is a small pair of forceps. Each of the blades of the forceps in working with native grapes should have a sharp cutting surface, but with Vinifera sorts, where the cap must be removed before the anthers can be reached, forcep blades with a flat ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick
... and night, for another passing Australian liner, and whenever one hove in sight, to steal away to the shore, seize a stray canoe, overpower, if possible, their Shadows, or give them the slip, and make one bold stroke for freedom on the ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... threats could no longer be kept aloft. The compliance demanded was clearly, decisively refused. The threats must either be executed or must fall to the ground amid general derision. But the moment that the threat was put in execution its power as a threat had ceased. With the first stroke against the life of the nation all great and noble motives, instead of being balanced against each other, were drawing together in the same direction. It ought not to have been a surprise to the religious ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... soldier, animated by zeal, and armed with a weighty battle-axe, ascended the ladder; and even the Christian multitude expected, with some anxiety, the event of the combat. [50] He aimed a vigorous stroke against the cheek of Serapis; the cheek fell to the ground; the thunder was still silent, and both the heavens and the earth continued to preserve their accustomed order and tranquillity. The victorious soldier repeated his blows: the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... them again another line of awful watchers through the storms and rains of many a thousand years, waiting, grim and silent, like those doomed senators in the Capitol of Rome, till their own turn should come, and the last lightning stroke hurl them too down, to lie for ever by their fallen brothers, whose mighty ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... air. It was the bell of the old church. One! it tolled. Each man looked at his neighbor. Had death entered the village, and they unaware? Two! three! it went solemnly on, the mellow cadence scarcely dying before another stroke renewed it. The sexton was Simeon Pease, a little red-headed man, a hunchback, abnormally strong. Suddenly he rose in amazement. ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... whistle of shot. Two masked batteries, one upon each side of the bay, and mounting each six guns, had opened upon them. The cutter, commanded by the second lieutenant, was smashed by a round shot and instantly sunk. A ball struck close to the stroke-oar of the gig, deluging its occupants with water and ricochetting over the gunwale of the boat, between the stroke-oar and Mr. Hethcote. Two shot hulled the "Falcon," and others whistled ...
— Jack Archer • G. A. Henty
... for a few minutes gazing absently out to sea, and rehearsing in my mind my plan of campaign. My voice, manners and conduct must be such that if by some stroke of luck I actually fell in with my friend of last night or one of his confederates they would assume I was a friend and at least give me a nod, wink, password, or something to test me—and I vowed I would ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... blessing, and went with him to the lists; and the judges took his reins and led him in. And when the judges were gone out, they twain ran at each other, and Don Diego missed his blow, but Rodrigo Arias did not miss, for he gave him so great a stroke with the lance that it pierced through the shield, and broke the saddle-bow behind, and made him lose his stirrups, and he embraced the neck of his horse. But albeit that Don Diego was sorely bested with that stroke, he took heart presently, and went bravely against him, and dealt him so great ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... are resolved, at all events, in some form or other, to be the author! This is decided. What was that desperate phrase I once heard you utter—you would strike one blow, though you put your whole life into the stroke, and died upon the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... flash. Like lightning his right wing came round with a terrific flail-stroke, and hit Pig Head in the face at the precise instant that the surgical instrument he carried as his beak sank deep into one of Pig Head's calves. The Chieftain was upside-down at the moment, and his legs were tied together, but ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... me six pieces of soap, and a few strings of blue beads and jenettos (red glass beads) as a proof that he parted with no ill feeling. Hardly were the Turks in retreat when Kamrasi determined to give the finishing stroke to his enemies. He sent great quantities of ivory to the camp, and one evening his people laid about twenty tusks at my door, begging me to count them. I told him to give the ivory to Ibrahim's men, as I required nothing; ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... openly and explicitly 'judge the law' itself, and 'speak evil of the law;' who teach men to break (to dissolve, to loose, to untie the obligation of) not one only, whether of the least or of the greatest, but all the commandments at a stroke.... The most surprising of all the circumstances that attend this strong delusion, is that they who are given up to it, really believe that they honor Christ by overthrowing His law, and that they are magnifying His office while they are destroying ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... got there, but our small guides were thankful for the fee, which they no doubt had in mind from the first. Mournful and desolate indeed seemed the straggling little village where three centuries ago "a thousand witcheries lay felled at one stroke," one of the cruelest and most pitiful of the numberless tragedies which disfigure the ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... charring from direct contact with flames or from escaping steam. Besides the burns caused by flames and steam, there are other causative agents, such as chemicals (caustic alkalis and acids), lightning stroke, and occasionally the broken trolley wires of electric railways. When a large surface of the skin is burned or scalded, the animal (if it does not die at once from shock) will soon show signs of fever—shivering, coldness of the extremities, weakness, restlessness, quick and feeble pulse, and ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... Thus at one stroke the whole institution of feudalism which had flourished from the time of Yoritomo was cut away. The government made provision for the administration by creating prefectures (ken) to take the place of daimiates. This was done in 1871. At first the daimyos were appointed ...
— Japan • David Murray
... She became a regular attendant on the ministrations of a very worthy clergyman, having been attracted to his meetin' by witnessing a marriage ceremony in which he called a man and a woman a "gentleman" and a "lady,"—a stroke of gentility which quite overcame her. She even took a part in what she called a Sabbath school, though it was held on Sunday, and by no means on Saturday, as the name she intended to utter implied. All this, which was very sincere, as I believe, on her part, and ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... now sufficiently rich; but wealth came too late to be long enjoyed; nor could it secure him from the calamities of life: he lost, 1755, his only son; and the year after, March 26, a stroke of the palsy brought to the grave one of the few poets to whom the grave might be ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... crack my skull. Any insubordination, now, and you shall taste my resentment; it will not be the first time. Come, a good lusty stroke, and quick about it. I am in the pangs of travail; my brain ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... money, gold, silver, and English notes! And he laughed again as he recalled M. Ferraud, caught in a trap. He was clever, but not clever enough. What a stroke! To make prisoners of the party on their return, to carry the girl away into the mountains! Would any of them think of treasures, of conspiracies, with her as a hostage? He thought not. In the hue and cry ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... present time pigeons, goats, and more rarely buffaloes, are the usual victims at the shrine of the goddess. The ceremony commences with the adoration of the sacrificial axe; various mantras are recited, and the animal is then decapitated at one stroke. As soon as the head falls to the ground the votaries rush forward and smear their foreheads with the blood of the victim. It is of the utmost importance that the ceremony should pass off without any hitch or misadventure, [380] and special services are held to supplicate the goddess ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... 1685, just as Charles seemed to be getting everything arranged to his mind, a stroke of apoplexy carried him off the scene, and his brother ascended the throne. Monmouth's rebellion, and the horrible cruelties that followed, kept Colonel Kirke busy in England through the summer, and left the new king scant leisure ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... onions. Then two half-naked cooks stagger up bearing on a wooden dish, under a gold-bordered napkin, a sheep roasted entire and still impaled with the spit. The chief cook takes hold of the skewer and draws it violently toward himself, applying a smart stroke with his naked heel to the tail of the creature—a contact which would seem almost as trying as the ancient ordeal of the ploughshares, or as the red-hot horseshoes which the fire-eating marabouts are accustomed to dance upon. The Roumi travelers taste ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... Addison, That the Poet, after saying his Mistress's Bosom is as white as Snow, should add, with a Sigh, that it is as cold too, in order that it may grow to WIT, is I fear, very incorrect. For as to the Sigh, it avails not a Rush; and this Addition will be found to be only a new Stroke of WIT, equally trite, and less perfect, and natural, than the ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... some of its supporting poles, broke them, as if in an uncontrollable frenzy. The missionary, though alarmed, sat reading his breviary as before. When, however, on the next morning, the sorcerer began again to play the maniac, the thought occurred to him, that some stroke of fever might in truth have touched his brain. Accordingly, he approached him and felt his pulse, which he found, in his own words, "as cool as a fish." The pretended madman looked at him with astonishment, and, giving over the attempt ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... my word, sharp, stroke of ten, as planned. The Princess Orange regiment in van, By this undoubtedly has reached the heights Of Hackelwitz, there in the face of Wrangel To cloak the army's hid ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... are sharper in winter; the air transmits better. At night I hear more distinctly the steady roar of the North Mountain. In summer it is a sort of complacent pur, as the breezes stroke down its sides; but in winter always the same ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... mare. The cart swayed. Klim lashed once more and the cart gave a lurch. After the fourth stroke of the whip when the cart moved forward, the surveyor hid his ears in his ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... "Whit, I'm pulling a stroke for you. Now listen and don't be offended. I know what's put you off your feed, because I was the same way when Milly had me guessing. You've lost your head over Nan Brown. That's not so terrible, though I daresay you think it's a catastrophe. Because you've quit. You've shown a ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... narrower squeak than you've had to-night. If Long John did this—and I'm pretty sure he did—he meant to blow up my house, but being misled by those two windows, he has blown up Yetmore's house instead. You never did, and I doubt if you ever will do, a better stroke of work in your lives than when you ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... crashed on and the stroke fell. Sumner was called up before President Kirkland and received a reprimand. He came from the faculty-room to the proctor's apartment in a very boyish fit of tears, complaining between sobs that he was the victim of injustice, and upbraiding the proctor. ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... my grief has kept me drunk: Sure there 's a lethargy in mighty woe; Tears stand congealed, and cannot flow. ........ Tears for a stroke foreseen, afford relief; But unprovided for a sudden blow, Like Niobe, we marble grow, And petrify ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... in his graspless hand, and essayed to write. Oh, the agony of that effort! How every futile stroke of that pen went to the girl's heart like a stab of remorse! The name was signed at length, and in some sorry fashion. The dying man was ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... I had suffered a paralytic stroke, and that my speech was taken from me. I had no pain, and so little dejection in this dreadful state, that I wondered at my own apathy, and considered that perhaps death itself, when it should come, would excite less horror than ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... proceed on our journey. "Such an insult as that offered to me when I was in the Mexican war," said he, mounting over the wheel with one of those expletives much used among soldiers, "and I had demolished the lot at a stroke of my sword. Zounds! why can't stage drivers ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... the fence and with laborious stroke Laz was cutting wood. Leaving off his work as the wagon drew near he gazed with hand-shaded eye, and recognizing Jasper, threw down his axe and began to scramble over the fence, but one of the men fired a shot ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... adventure, air, or life was not worth the name to him. Above all he must see friendly faces, and that of the old dame was not such. But he desired to be friendly with her, and once, as she leaned over him, put up his hand—not a very clean one, I am bound to give her the advantage of my confessing—to stroke her cheek: she pushed him roughly away, rose in indignation upon her crutch, and lifted her cane to chastise him for the insult. A class of urchins, to Gibbie's eyes at least looking unhappy, were at the moment blundering through the ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... "Kamat Alfiyyah" like the letter Alif, a straight perpendicular stroke. In the Egyptian hieroglyphs, the origin of every alphabet (not syllabarium) known to man, one form was a flag or leaf of water-plant standing upright. Hence probably the Arabic Alif-shape; while other nations ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... Stewart, now a Senator from Nevada. He was married to a daughter of Governor Foote; was living in a small frame house on the bar just below the town; and his little daughter was playing about the door in the sand. Stewart was then a lawyer in Downieville, in good practice; afterward, by some lucky stroke, became part owner of a valuable silver-mine in Nevada, and is now accounted a millionaire. I managed to save something out of Spears, and more out of his partner Thornton. This affair of Spears ruined him, because his ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... that the Palace contains little American art earlier than 1905, American artists are showing marked individualities, even in their acceptance of popular precepts. The virile men of the day love luminosity; it dominates all else, and marks their canvases with light; they restrain the too bold stroke of the radical Impressionist, but outline with firmness, so that details are more easily imagined by the observer, even when an expected delineation is absent. Even the older men, though still under the influence of earlier ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... in one of the queen's regiments would offer much that might be supremely enviable. It is a chance to become, relatively speaking, a gentleman—more than a gentleman, a "swell"—to have the grim problem of existence settled at a stroke. The British soldier always presents the appearance of scrupulous cleanliness: he is scoured, scrubbed, brushed beyond reproach. His hair is enriched with pomatum and his shoes are radiantly polished. His little cap is worn in a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... said soothingly, and one of them whinnied back in response as if glad to know that a human being was near. He moved nearer to them, and began to stroke their manes and clap their necks, to which they responded by rubbing their faces against him and cuddling an affectionate return for ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh
... a stroke of the gong announces that the police formalities are about to begin. We leave the table after a parting glass of Choa-Hing wine, and a few minutes afterward are in the ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... sprawl on the dry, faded herbage, a score of "strollers for work" that is to say, of folk who, a community apart, consist of "nowhere people," of dreamers who live constantly in expectation of some stroke of luck, some kindly smile from fortune, and of wastrels who, intoxicated with the abundant bounty of the opulent region, have fallen passive victims to the Russian craze for vagrancy. These folk tramp from hamlet to hamlet in parties of two or three, and, while purporting to ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... heat till he can bear To lean in joy upon our Father's knee; And then I'll stand and stroke his silver hair, And be like him, and ...
— Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience • William Blake
... taken them away? But Old Joe answered, no, a definite hour had been set. The ex-service men were to gather on the stroke of midnight. We had ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... sir! Me and my mates has been a-workin' for you, in this here church, good six weeks and more, and we haven't seen the color of your money yet; and now we ain't going to do another stroke, without you pays ...
— Harper's Young People, June 15, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... overwrought excitement of months of heroism broke down when she found us safe at last' or some stroke from God—.... Who can tell what I may not have deserved?—But she has been utterly prostrate in body and mind, ever since we parted from you ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... Work it with the fingers into a flat, round piece, using a little flour on the fingers during this process. Dust the top lightly with flour and, by means of a rolling pin, roll the dough into a flat piece that is as nearly round as possible. Continue rolling with a short, light stroke until the dough is as thin as desired. Remember that light, careful handling is always necessary when any kind of dough mixture is rolled on the board, and that as little handling as possible is advisable. Skill in this respect will come with practice, so the housewife ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 4 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... must learn your trade," said Lousteau, laughing. "Given that the book was a masterpiece, under the stroke of your pen it must turn to dull trash, dangerous ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... this was the advance guard of General Marion, fled to their redoubts; but all were not fortunate enough to reach that haven, for several were overtaken and cut down in the streets, among whom was a sergeant-major, who fell from a back-handed stroke of a claymore dealt by Sergeant Macdonald. Out of the town the young men ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... that of freedom. One nation, most of all, could disturb us in this pursuit; she now offers to lead, aid, and accompany us in it. By acceding to her proposition, we detach her from the bands, bring her mighty weight into the scale of free government, and emancipate a continent at one stroke, which might otherwise linger long in doubt and difficulty. Great Britain is the nation which can do us the most harm of any one, or all on earth; and with her on our side we need not fear the whole world. With her then, we should most sedulously cherish ...
— From Isolation to Leadership, Revised - A Review of American Foreign Policy • John Holladay Latane
... Nietzsche calls him, cleans up his litter and chops off his surplusage quite as effectively as Tacitus, and I suspect that neither Tacitus nor any other classic writer hits the nail on the head with so straight, so steady, so effective a stroke. ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... helping on the other in the noble race of honour. In vain the sentries and a few men left on guard rushed out to oppose the assailants, and shouted and bawled to their comrades to hurry to their assistance. A pistol bullet or the stroke of a cutlass silenced the voice of many a ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... change can take place in China without encountering the opposition of the literati. This was no less the case then than it is now. To abolish feudalism by one stroke was a radical change indeed. Whether the change was for the better or the worse, the men of letters took no time to inquire; whatever was good enough for their fathers was good enough for them and their children. They found numerous authorities in the classics to support their contention ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... to prove the boat myself. Now, Macey, you sit still till I've worked her round even, and then when I say off, you keep on stroke ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... corridor, and still there was a breathing space between the surface of the water and the rocky ceiling above. And then I turned up the main corridor in the direction that Carthoris and the head of the column had passed a half-hour before. On and on I swam, my heart growing lighter at every stroke, for I knew that I was approaching closer and closer to the point where there would be no chance that the waters ahead could be deeper than they were about me. I was positive that I must soon feel the solid floor beneath my feet again and that once more my chance ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... most extravagant and dissipated, even of the courtiers here. For some time, it has been reported that he had nigh ruined himself by his lavish expenditure, and doubtless he thought to reestablish his finances by this bold stroke. ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... my stroke till the canoe quivered. "I am not sure. I have been shadowed. I thought it was by your order. I cannot ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... have perfectly reconciled his mind to the stroke of death. He made his will thirteen days previous to it, and dictated and signed plain and accurate orders respecting his funeral. He directed his library of books and all his pictures to be sold by auction, and the money arising therefrom, together with what money he might have at his bankers ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... I was, in consequence of this deliberation and counselling with my own mind, fully prepared to achieve a great stroke of policy for the future government of the town. I saw that it would not do for me for a time to stand overly eminent forward, and that it was a better thing, in the world, to have power and influence, than to show the possession of either. Accordingly, ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... Then at one stroke he cut off the animal's head, and at the same moment the castle vanished, and where it had previously stood the heretic found Maria, the farmer's daughter, who was overjoyed ...
— Tales from the Lands of Nuts and Grapes - Spanish and Portuguese Folklore • Charles Sellers and Others
... the victors after nightfall, threw them for a brief space into a panic, and nearly charged up to the square which sheltered Napoleon. The Saxon Captain von Odeleben, who was at the French headquarters, states that the Emperor was for a few minutes quite dazed by the daring of this stroke; and he now had too few squadrons to venture on any retaliation. Both sides were, in fact, exhausted. The allies had lost 10,000 men killed and wounded, but no prisoners or guns: the French losses were nearly as heavy, and five guns and 800 prisoners fell into Bluecher's hands. Both armies ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... that excellent tragedy called Liberty Asserted, which is thought to have given so great a stroke to the late French king, hath frequent imitations of this ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... very lonely quarry in a field by the road-side, about which he had heard some ugly stories of robbers and ghosts years ago. Although he was a courageous, he was a superstitious man, and gave his mare another stroke as he encouraged her to proceed. She started, however, suddenly, and made a kind of halt. The moon was shining so brightly that Mr Prothero could see into the quarry across the hedge, and he fancied he perceived somebody moving about. He urged his horse on by whip and ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... "Come, Win, be magnanimous for once and forgive. Think what it would be to bask continually in the sunshine of the lovely Ada's smiles. But there—poor little bird! did I stroke its pretty feathers all the wrong way, and ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... magnificent banquet was served to the soldiers upon the bridge. The whole extent of its surface, from the Flemish to the Brabant shore—the scene so lately of deadly combat, and of the midnight havoc caused by infernal enginery—was changed, as if by the stroke of a wand, into a picture of sylvan and Arcadian merry-making, and spread with tables laden with delicate viands. Here sat that host of war—bronzed figures, banqueting at their ease, their heads crowned with flowers, while the highest magnates ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... his arms now. At first he could only push back her hair, stroke her cheek, until at last the rush of life and youth came back to them both, and their lips met in the sealing kiss of years. Then both were young again. She put up a hand to caress his brown cheek. Tenderly ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... resembles a geographer who, with conscientious care, outlines a map of the region through which he journeys; the Frenchman, an anatomist who, with steady stroke, lays bare the nerves and muscles of the organism; the German, a mountaineer who loses in clear vision of particular objects as much as he gains in loftiness of position and extent of view. The ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... Lopez felt that he had done a good stroke of work. He had not exactly made up his mind to keep the father and son apart. That was not a part of his strategy,—at any rate as yet. But he did intend to make himself necessary to the old man,—to become the old man's son, and if possible the favourite son. And now he thought ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... He has planned many a shrewd stroke, and is devoted to his mistress. He will help thee to thy purpose, for ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... into sharp teeth, and the other fastened to a handle. The teeth are dipped into black Liquor, and then drove, by quick, sharp blows struck upon the handle with a Stick for that purpose, into the skin so deep that every stroke is followed with a small quantity of Blood. The part so marked remains sore for some days before it heals. As this is a painful operation, especially the Tattowing their Buttocks, it is perform'd but once in their Life ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... your friend, Louis Everard? How she dwells on his calling, and the happiness of it! My poor child, her whole heart yearns for the cloister. She loves all such things. I have urged her to follow her inclinations, though I know it would be the stroke of death for me, but she will not leave ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... Mildred sat down and began to copy it in pencil, to Beth's intense surprise. The possibility of copying it herself would never have occurred to her, but when she saw Mildred doing it of course she must try too. She could make nothing of it, however, till Mildred showed her how to place each stroke, and then she was very soon weary of the effort, and gave it up, yawning. Drawing was not to ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... don't put on an apron o' Mondays 'thout being druv to it—in the kitchen or the hen-house. She's studyin' to be a school-teacher. She'll make a beauty! I never knowed her show any sort o' kindness to nobody—not even when Jim's mother was took dumb. No! 'Twadn't no stroke. It stifled the old lady in the throat here. First she couldn't shape her words no shape; then she clucked, like, an' lastly she couldn't more than suck down spoon-meat an' hold her peace. Jim took her to Doctor Harding, an' Harding he bundled her off to Brighton Hospital ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... with apoplexy—stroke of paralysis, you know. Not paralyzed are you? Try lifting your ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... be instructed in his course, but the instruction reveals more difficulties than it removes, and there is much doubt and discussion, which Papaverius at once clears up as effectually as he had ever dispersed a cloud of logical sophisms; and this time the feat is performed by a stroke of the thoroughly practical, which looks like inspiration—he will accompany the forlorn traveller, and lead him through the difficulties of the way—for have not midnight wanderings and musings made him familiar with all its intricacies? Roofed by a huge wideawake, ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... all sorts of cajolling processes and feline ways. To-day he is trying to play the same game, and does not see that the animals have grown beyond all measure and that it is wild beasts that he is keeping about him. A strange sight it is to see this little man trying to stroke the roaring muzzle of a revolution with his ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... it will be as well if Jones does not worship the sun and moon. If he does, there is a tendency for him to imitate them; to say, that because the sun burns insects alive, he may burn insects alive. He thinks that because the sun gives people sun-stroke, he may give his neighbour measles. He thinks that because the moon is said to drive men mad, he may drive his wife mad. This ugly side of mere external optimism had also shown itself in the ancient world. ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... in the pulpit mentions no name; but he talks of "The hand of God made visible amongst us." He tells us how, when the white stroke fell, quivering and naked, the soul fled, robbed of his earthly filament, and lay at the footstool of God; how over its head has been poured out the wrath of the Mighty One, whose existence it has denied; and, quivering and terrified, ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... at one operation, sizes up to one inch being turned out at the rate of 360 a minute. In the manufacture of spikes, the punch for making the head is propelled by springs, which are compressed by a cam, and then released at each stroke; two cutters worked by side cams on the same shaft cut off the wire and make the point. A steel finger then advances and knocks the finished spike out of the way to make room for the next. Wire staples, three inches long, are turned out at the rate of a hundred a minute; the wire ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... valiant too, And all incensed Love can prompt me to. Hark—hark—the joyful Summons to my Death. [Trumpets sound. Go, leave me to approach it solemnly— Come, my dear Sword, from thee I must expect That Service which my Arm may fail to affect; And if thou ever did'st thy Master love, Be sure each Stroke ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... before me with his hand raised on high. His blade had already drawn my blood, and was crimsoned at the point; it was about to descend with a finishing stroke. I should be unable to parry it, for I had just exhausted my strength in guarding against a blow from Ijurra. My hopeless peril wrung from ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... as it did: it is a blow upon the fine mechanism by which we think, and move, and have our being—the pendulum vibrates aright no more—the dial hath no account with time—the process goes on, but it knows no symmetry or order;—it was a single stroke that marred it, but the harmony is gone ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 488, May 7, 1831 • Various
... With cruel words her dire request, Stood for a time absorbed in thought While anguish in his bosom wrought. "Does some wild dream my heart assail? Or do my troubled senses fail? Does some dire portent scare my view? Or frenzy's stroke my soul subdue?" Thus as he thought, his troubled mind In doubt and dread no rest could find, Distressed and trembling like a deer Who sees the dreaded tigress near. On the bare ground his limbs he threw, And many a long deep sigh ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... off outward, Loathly prey. Now he paid him his guerdon therefor, The fierce champion; so well, that abed there he saw Where Grendel war-weary was lying adown Forlorn of his life, as him ere had scathed The battle at Hart; sprang wide the body, Sithence after death he suffer'd the stroke, The hard swing of sword. Then he smote the head off him. 1590 Now soon were they seeing, those sage of the carles, E'en they who with Hrothgar gaz'd down on the holm, That the surge of the billows was blended about, The sea stain'd with blood. Therewith the ...
— The Tale of Beowulf - Sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats • Anonymous
... to tell 'ee that," he said, "for it do fair make I sweat still to think o' it; but you can have it if you like. Well, when they was gone, I was nigh dazed with such a stroke o' luck, and said the Lord's Prayer to see I wasn't dreaming. But 'twas no such thing, and so I cut a slit in the lining of my waistcoat, and dropped the notes in, all except the one she give me for myself, and that ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... lych-gate at the entrance to the churchyard. Then suddenly she looked up at the square grey stone tower where the bells hung, and from which they called the village to church, or chimed for weddings—or gave slowly forth to the silent air one heavy, regular stroke after another. She looked and shuddered, and spoke aloud with a curious, passionate ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... mysterious cord that, reaching back "through spaces out of space and timeless time,'' somewhere joins us to the Brute; a twine of mingled yarn, not utterly base. As we grow from our animal infancy, and the threads snap one by one at each gallant wing-stroke of a soul poising for flight into Empyrean, we are yet conscious of a loss for every gain, we have some forlorn sense of a vanished heritage. Willing enough are we to "let the ape and tiger die''; ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... departed; and, therefore, they do not affront their sorrowing patrons with the sublunary details of pounds, shillings, and pence. They speed on the wings of the post to the house of mourning, with the benevolent purpose of comforting the afflicted household. They are the first, after the stroke of calamity has fallen, to mingle the business of life with its regrets; and to cover the woes of the past with the allowable vanities of the present. Step by step, they lead their melancholy patrons along the meandering margin of their flowing pages—from ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various
... their boats, but we say nothing and push through them and climb down the steps to the boat. The white caps are rolling and the boat dances finely. Mustafa puts up a large three-cornered sail, Ali sits at the rudder, and with a stroke or two of the oars we turn around into the wind and away we dash towards the shore. The Meena (port) is before us, that white row of houses on the point; and back among the gardens is the city of Tripoli. In less than half an hour we reach the shore, but the surf is so high that ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... mulched it, I cut into the clean white roots. I had no twinge of compunction, for was this not fulfillment? Nothing comes of sorrow for worthy sacrifice. When I had laid the tree low, I clipped off the lower branches, snapped off the top with a single clean stroke of the axe, and shouldered as pretty a second-growth sapling stick as anyone ever laid ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... chambers of the wise men of his race. He saw the men whose word would tell. He watched their faces turned towards him, waiting; heard the beginning of the conflict of thoughts and minds—blind fidelity to the cause which they had espoused, or a rougher, more splendid, more selfish stroke for the greatness of Japan and Japan only. "If we break our faith we lose our honour," one murmured. "There is no honour save the care of my people," he heard one ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the English Queen had deliberately dislocated the plans of Drake's Lisbon expedition, changing it from a great political stroke into an unsatisfactory raid, till the closing months of 1594 when once again a decisively damaging blow was dealt to Philip's naval schemes, the war had given ample occasion for stirring deeds of valour and brilliant feats of arms, but the scheme of operations ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes |
