"Bracing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... well, though the place has its drawbacks. It is a long way from London and the opera. Still, I could not bear to live quite in town; the air there stifles me. After the clear bracing air of Canada, I find London very oppressive. But, M. Lacroix, you must be tired after your long walk up the hill. Do take that comfortable arm-chair and let me give you ...
— Marie Gourdon - A Romance of the Lower St. Lawrence • Maud Ogilvy
... account for the wistful look in the child's eyes and the tired feeling of which she continually complained. Mrs. Ashe, with vague uneasiness, began to talk of cutting short their Roman stay and getting Amy off to the more bracing air of Florence. But meanwhile there was the Carnival close at hand, which they must by no means lose; and the feeling that their opportunity might be a brief one made her and Katy all the more anxious to make the very most of their time. So they ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... restaurant Rotherhithe way, Where the din of the docksides is loud all the day, And the breezes come bringing off basin and pond And all the piled acres of lumber beyond From the Oregon ranges the tang of the pine And the breath of the Baltic as bracing as wine, In a fly-spotted window I there did behold, Among the stale odours of hot food and cold, A ship in a bottle some sailor had made In watches below, swinging South with the Trade, When the fellows were patching old dungaree suits, Or mending up oilskins and leaky ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 22, 1920 • Various
... chance! They were all taking a chance. And there was one, an officer, with an empty right sleeve. And suddenly what for an enthusiastic moment, in that bracing sea air, had seemed a game, became the thing that it is, not a game, but a deadly and cruel war. I never grew accustomed to the tragedy of the empty sleeve. And as if to accentuate this thing toward which I was ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Then, bracing his feet against one lump, he pushed against its neighbor, and under that steady pressure the enormous masses moved apart and kept on moving, grinding among their fellows. Over and around them Stevens sprang, always watching his line of retreat as well as that of his advance, ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... earnestness of the converts, all bespoke a future of much promise. At last, however, completely prostrated by repeated attacks of illness, the only hope of restoration seemed to lie in a voyage to England and a brief stay in its more bracing climate; and this necessity, painful though it seemed at the time, proved to be only another opportunity for the manifestation of the faithfulness and loving care of Him "who worketh all things after the ...
— A Retrospect • James Hudson Taylor
... just as the story was given to me and I repeat it to show how bracing the climate near Superior is. Remember, if you please, that I do not want the story to be repeated as coming from me, for I have nothing left now but my reputation for veracity, and that has had a ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... in regard to size, shape, curvature, bracing and material, are all important. A great deal depends upon the curve of the surfaces. Two machines may have the same extent of surface and develop the same rate of speed, yet one may have a much greater lifting power ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... two or three times to see Mrs. Tracy, but she put him off with one excuse after another, until Tom took the matter in hand and told her she was acting like a fool and putting on quite too many airs. Then she appointed an interview, and, bracing herself with a tonic, went down to the darkened, cheerless room, and by her manner so managed to impress him with her superiority over him and his that he forgot entirely the speech he had prepared with infinite ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... more brightly and the air was never more clear and bracing than when Sinclair helped his wife off the train at Pawnee Junction. The station-master's face fell as he saw the lady, but he saluted the engineer with as easy an air as he could assume, and watched for an opportunity to speak to him alone. Sinclair read ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... must be eaten in the fields, when your system is all aglow with exercise, when the frosty weather nips your fingers, the wind rattles the bare boughs or rustles the few remaining leaves, and the jay is heard screaming around. What is sour in the house a bracing walk makes sweet. Some of these apples might be labelled, "To be eaten in ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... food, but for that love of a free, untrammelled life, and for those soaring dreams of fancy in which he so ardently delights. Not only is the Swiss determined by the peculiarities of his geographical position to lead a pastoral life, but the climate, and mountain scenery, and bracing atmosphere inspire him with the love of liberty. The reserved and meditative Hindoo, accustomed to the profuse luxuriance of nature, borrows the fantastic ideas of his mythology from plants, and flowers, and trees. The vastness and infinite diversity of nature, ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... the Bishop again, "he has him." The thrush had seized the worm who had come up to investigate the noise, and was now staggering backwards, bracing himself, and tugging at the poor worm, who, in a moment more ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... (Vol. viii., p. 148.).—The former of these words is, I believe, obsolete, or nearly so. It means bracing-stakes: strut, in carpentry, is to brace; and stower is a small kind of stake, as distinguished from the "ten stakes" mentioned in the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 201, September 3, 1853 • Various
... regions, at different seasons of the year, and even different hours of the day. The odorous, fresh sea-breezes are distinct from the fitful breezes along river banks, which are humid and freighted with inland smells. The bracing, light, dry air of the mountains can never be mistaken for the pungent salt air of the ocean. The air of winter is dense, hard, compressed. In the spring it has new vitality. It is light, mobile, and laden with a thousand palpitating odours from earth, grass, and sprouting leaves. ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... through the winter at Barbadoes; but the very mildness of the climate relaxed and enervated him. He felt the want of the bracing winter weather to which he had been accustomed. Even the invariable beauty of the climate; the perpetual summer, wearied the restless invalid. "This is the finest island of the West Indies," said he; "but I own no place ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... "this country life is great. Early to bed and early to rise makes a man's stomach digest mince pies—how's that? Notice the air out here? How pure and fresh and bracing! You ought to go out and ...
— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh
... air. We consequently hurried here as soon as ever we could get into the house, and whilst the carpenters were still in it. Indeed, there was only one bedroom ready for us when I arrived. The poor little man rallied at first amazingly; the weather was exquisitely bright and sunny, and yet bracing. Baby was to be kept in the open air as much as possible, so F—— and I spent our days out on the downs near the house, carrying our little treasure by turns: but all our care was fruitless: he got another and ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... dimensions were twenty feet by thirteen feet, the front wall being nine feet six inches high, sloping to seven feet six inches at the back. All the timbers were of oregon and deal, and particular attention was paid to bracing and strengthening the building, which rested on piles just clear of the sandy surface. The inside was lined and ceiled, and the roof of galvanized iron was set flush with the front wall, fascia boards along the front and sides ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... as the girls thought they must have missed "their own particular four" and were bracing themselves to stand the ...
— The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House • Laura Lee Hope
... the ocean, on some sterile length of sand or rock, and amongst sea-faring people? Still, you are girls to be envied; for the sea has grand thoughts to tell you, and the rocks are full of meaning. The bracing air, the salt breeze, the impetuous beat of the sea, must arouse energy within you which even the heat of summer cannot wholly allay. Surely, the hospitable, the generous-hearted, people of your town must prove to you the worth of ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... many trials, but at last by Billy putting his hind legs against one wall of the well and bracing his forehead against the opposite wall, Stubby managed to jump on his back and climb to his head, from where he gave a big leap ...
— Billy Whiskers' Adventures • Frances Trego Montgomery
... was inspirited by perceiving any door of escape. Any vivid sensation was welcome in the irksome vacancy that pursued her in the absence of immediate excitement. Devoid of the interest of opposition, and of the bracing changes to the Holt, her intercourse with the Charterises had become a weariness and vexation of spirit. Idle foreign life deteriorated them, and her principle and delicacy suffered frequent offences; but like all living wilfully in temptation, she seemed under a spell, only to be broken by an ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... have known of great service to weak people, and is perhaps the least noxious of all unnatural stimuli; which however, like all other great excitement, may be carried to excess, as complained of by the ancients. The unmeaning application of the words relaxation and bracing to warm and cold baths has much prevented the use of this grateful stimulus; and the misuse of the term warm-bath, when applied to baths colder than the body, as to those of Buxton and Matlock, and to artificial ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... Bracing himself, he strode forward, grasped the rattling handle and pushed. The little signal bell above the door went off with a monstrous 'ding' that rang through his spine, and in a condition of feverish moistness he entered, and, halting a pace within, saw in blurred fashion, and ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... understood, being coatless to a man. Bernard Graves took off a new golf coat which Shelby ruthlessly crumpled and stuffed into place. An instant later he was astride the Pole's hips, his hands grasping the powerful chest on either side. Bracing his elbows, Shelby bore his whole weight forward, counted three, sat back upon his knees, counted two, and so continued, down "one-two-three," up "one-two," with the quiet assurance of ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... we are growing very tired of dramatists who look upon life with a wry face instead of with a brave and bracing countenance. In due time, when (with the help of Mr. Barrie and other healthy-hearted playmates) we have become again like little children, we shall realise that plays like As You Like It are better than all the Magdas ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... of the jury was completed Mr. Loram rose to introduce the case; whereupon his lordship leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, as if bracing ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... supposed that Chicago, of all places, would appreciate what she wanted to do. The day she drew her hard-earned one hundred dollars from the bank in Denver—how the sun had shone that day in Denver, how clear the sky had been, and how bracing the air!—she had quite taken it for granted that her future was assured. And now, after tasting for three weeks the cruelty of indifference, she looked back to those visions with ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... forcing her to walk beside him not toward the drive, but away into the tree-grown sheltered wing of the garden. By interlacing paths, from the tremulous gray willows under the somber, clashing eucalyptus spears, under dark wings of cypress they were moving. She was bracing in every nerve against the ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... a ford. Henry led the way, the pony approaching the bank with a countenance of cool indifference, bracing his feet and sliding into the stream with the ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... Bracing strongly back, with the reins wound around his tough hands, and with a look in his face that should have given courage even to the Hart boys, Dab strained at his task as bravely as he had stood at the tiller of the ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... back to his place. The next play was an ordinary formation with the ends back, and the ball passed to left end for a run back of quarter and through the line outside of guard. It worked like a charm, and left end sped through with Joel bracing him at the turn and the left half going ahead. Four yards were netted, Meach, the substitute left half, being tackled by Post. In the mix-up that followed Joel found himself sprawling over the runner, with Cloud sitting astride the small of his ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... whose best sauce is the open air, whose finest flavors only he whose taste is sharpened by brisk work or walking knows; winter fruit, when the fire of life burns brightest; fruit always a little hyperborean, leaning towards the cold; bracing, sub-acid, active fruit. I think you must come from the north, you are so frank and honest, so sturdy and appetizing. You are stocky and homely like the northern races. Your quality is Saxon. Surely the fiery and impetuous south is not akin to you. Not spices or olives or the sumptuous liquid fruits, ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... being so short, so little, and so few, and their displeasures and their griefs so great, so continual, and so many. It maketh me think on a good worshipful man who, when he divers times beheld what pain his wife took in tightly binding up her hair to make her a fair large forehead, and with tightly bracing in her body to make her middle small (both twain to her great pain) for the pride of a little foolish praise, he said unto her, "Forsooth, madam, if God give you not hell, he shall do you a great wrong. For it must needs be ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... with Chicago. She thrived under its more bracing air. She loved the bustle, the stir. We were now in the midst of the presidential campaign, and Mammy and Jenny saw political enthusiasm in a new phase. Marching men passed through the street. There were shouts, torches, many ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... those lonely, youthful years, which moulded the pure-hearted muser with ethereal, unsuspected fingers. Elsewhere, Hawthorne has given another glimpse into his interior life at this time: "This scene came into my fancy as I walked along a hilly road, on a starlight October evening; in the pure and bracing air I became all soul, and felt as if I could climb the sky, and run a race along the Milky Way. Here is another tale in which I wrapped myself during a dark and dreary night-ride in the month of March, ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... and Quaker hatred of wrongdoing; with our just tolerance of men and opinions a righteous abhorrence of sin. All the more for the sweet humanities and Christian liberalism which, in drawing men nearer to each other, are increasing the sum of social influences for good or evil, we need the bracing atmosphere, healthful, if austere, of the old moralities. Individual and social duties are quite as imperative now as when they were minutely specified in statute-books and enforced by penalties no longer admissible. It is well that stocks, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... loopings of the eastern approach. Lidgerwood, scanning the grades as the service-car swung from tangent to curve and curve to tangent up the steep inclines, was beginning to think of breakfast. The morning air was crisp and bracing, and he had been getting the full benefit of it for an hour or more, sitting under the umbrella roof at the observation end of ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... in apprehension, half in anticipation, as he entered the dining-room the following morning. Jewel had not arrived, so he settled himself to read his paper. Each time there was a sound he glanced up, bracing himself for the approach of light feet, beaming face, and an ardent embrace. His interest in the news gradually lessened, and his expectancy increased. She did not come. At last he began to suspect that the unprecedented had happened, and that Mrs. Forbes ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... by Col. Ridley, who bade him a cheerful good morning, and expressed the hope that he felt much better after his night's rest. "Thank you, sir; I am glad to say that I feel very much refreshed." "If you feel disposed," said Col. Ridley, "we will take a walk out, the air is bracing and a little walk will give you an appetite for your breakfast, which will soon be ready." They started, and as the old nurse of the plantation wished to see Colonel Godfrey, he proposed to his host that they should go to her quarters. They had but a short distance to go, ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold
... (Moral. viii, 26): "There are some of the righteous who bracing themselves up to lay hold of the very height of perfection, while they aim at higher objects within, abandon all things without." Now, as stated above, (AA. 1, 2), it belongs properly to religious to brace themselves up in order to lay hold of the very height of perfection. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... waving her muff in farewell, Kathleen hastened off through the grounds in the direction of Pennsylvania Avenue. She found the cold invigorating air a bracing tonic after the steam-heated atmosphere of the Capitol, and was thoroughly enjoying her walk when she became conscious that a figure was keeping pace with her. Looking up, she ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... ingathering of the crops, until after the ushering in of the new year, was wont to be with them a season of greater joy and festivity than with any other people on earth, of whom it has been my lot to hear. In the glorious November nights of our beneficent clime, after the first frosts had given a bracing sharpness and a ringing clearness to the air, and lent that transparent blue to the heavens through which the stars gleam like globes of sapphire, when I have seen a hundred or more of them around the swelling piles of corn, and heard their tuneful voices ringing with the chorus ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... rest they enjoyed—without having been disturbed by anything. One would have supposed that, after so much hardship, they would have got up somewhat wearied. Strange to say, it was not so, for they arose quite refreshed. This Lucien attributed to the bracing influence of the light dry atmosphere; and Lucien was right, for, although an arid soil surrounded them, its climate is one of the healthiest in the world. Many a consumptive person, who has crossed the prairies with flushed cheek, ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... trip proved equally delightful for them all. The mountain air was bracing, the morning panorama spread out before them, gloriously beautiful as it always was, brought constant delighted exclamation from both Mrs. Polk and Nita while Steve found ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... the next company any adventures left at all. Moreover so many of the stubborn and ill-favoured persons had come by a bad end, were hung in chains by the road, or lying pierced with sorrows, that later pilgrims would have to complain of a lack of bracing incidents. Still, how delicate and gentle a journey it was, and with what caressing fondness the writer helped these young and faltering feet along the way. What pretty and absurd sights they saw! How laden they were with presents! Christiana had Mr. ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... glowed in the heart, in spite of intense frost and biting breeze. At such a time we were wont to pull on our warm jackets and seal-skin caps, and, striding out upon the floe, enjoy to the utmost the elasticity of health and spirits with which we were blest under so bracing a climate. There, with one's friend, the mutual recognition of Nature's beauties and congratulations, at being there to witness it, richly rewarded us for our isolation from the world of our fellow-men; and general enthusiasm had its full sway as, from the heights of Griffith's Island, we looked ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... Mother earth grown fat with sheaves Thrifty gleaner finds who seeks; Russet-golden pomp of leaves 20 Crowns the woods, to fall at length; Bracing winds are felt to stir, Ocean gathers up her strength, Beasts renew their ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... likewise of the rigid type, but realising the inherent dangers accruing from the employment of metal for the framework, its constructors have used wood, reinforced and strengthened where necessary by metallic angle-iron, plates, and bracing; this utilisation of metal is, however, carried out very sparingly. The first vessel of this class was a huge failure, while subsequent craft have not proved ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... possibility.' We should shrink from calling even this theory dreary, associated as it is with the rigorous enforcement of the heroic virtues of temperance and moderation, and the strenuous and careful bracing up of every faculty to face the inevitable and make the best of it. At bottom it is the theory of many of the bravest souls, who fare grimly through life in the mood of leaders of forlorn hopes, denying pleasures, yet very sensible of the stern ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 3 (of 3) - Essay 2: The Death of Mr Mill - Essay 3: Mr Mill's Autobiography • John Morley
... smoke. As this increased and rose higher, Farragut went up step by step until he was close under the maintop. Here, without losing touch with Jouett, he was very near the pilot, had the whole scene of battle spread out under his eyes, and at the same time, by bracing himself against the futtock shrouds, was able to use his spy-glass more freely. Captain Drayton, however, being alarmed lest he might be thrown to the deck, directed a seaman to carry a lashing aloft and secure him to the ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... to leave his turret chamber and to walk upon the rampart of the castle. There was a brisk northern wind, heavy and wet with the salt of the sea, and he felt, as he turned his face to it, fresh life and strength surging in his blood and bracing his limbs. He took his hand from Aylward's supporting arm and stood with his cap off, leaning on the rampart and breathing in the cool strong air. Far off upon the distant sky-line, half hidden by the heave of the waves, was the low white fringe ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... spirits were high, and he sang as he leaped down, agile as a goat, to the sea. He meant to return as he had come, and at the water's edge he stripped off his clothes once more, tied them into a bundle, plunged into the sea, and struck out for the beach opposite. As he did so, as the cold, bracing water seized him, he heard far above him the musical cry of the siren of the night. He answered it with ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... is of course acquainted with the vigorous and bracing pages of Sir John (2 vols.: London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown). Sir John, who plays but a tooth-comb in the orchestra of this historical romance, blows in his own book the big bassoon. His character is there drawn at ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... time, I thrust my hand into her dress, and struggling hard, keep her at the top, until I can place my foot down upon a projecting root; and so bracing myself, I drag her to the bank, and having climbed up, take hold of her belt firmly with both hands, and drag her out; and poor Isabel, choked, chilled, and wet, is ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... mean Honolulu. You would get the Atlantic and the Rocky Mountains, would you not? for bracing. And so much less sea! And then you could actually see Vailima, which I would like you to, for it's beautiful and my home and tomb that is to be; though it's a wrench not to be planted in Scotland—that I can never deny—if ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a small cupboard in the corner of the room, and from it produced in instalments all that goes to make cake and cocoa. She did not speak. Presently, filling Space, there sprang into being an Odour; and as it reached him Mr Ferguson stiffened in his chair, bracing himself as for a fight to the death. It was more than an odour. It was the soul of the cocoa singing to him. His fingers gripped the arms of the chair. ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... sat there, certainly, for more than an hour, when I heard steps, steps soft and slow, I knew not where, I was unable to locate them, but bracing myself up, I called out anew, whereupon I perceived a glimmer of ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... Peter Smithers,' Mrs. Fiske continued, bracing her shoulders. 'Surely, you remember poor Peter, Louisa? An old flame of your own! He was going to kill himself, but married a Devonshire woman, and they had disagreeables, and SHE died, and he was undressing, and saw her there in the bed, and wouldn't get into ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... plains; there is all the grandeur of monotony and yet continual change. Sometimes the distances are broken by blue buttes, or rugged bluffs. Over all there is a sparkling atmosphere and never-failing breeze; the air is bracing even when most hot, the sky is cloudless, and no rain falls. A solitude which no words can paint, the boundless prairie swell conveys an idea of vastness which is the overpowering feature of the Plains.... The impression is not merely ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... so full of life and energy," he went on, half to himself, as though he were wondering if the company of this tall, bright-eyed, hatchet-faced young man might not prove too bracing for his worn-out nerves. ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... long practice and by bracing the ball of his foot against the knob on the stove door, was able to balance himself on one rear leg of his chair, lost his footing on the nickel knob and crashed to the floor, but he "came up smiling," offering for inspection a piece of ore in his ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... they rattled in a bracing northeast wind, the rugged country bowling back against the tumbled sky. Far to south a rusty haze had gloomed against the sun like a midday fog, mile after mile; and suddenly, as they topped the range and cleared the last low ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... into a more open country, where I became conscious of a considerable change in the atmosphere. Hitherto the air had been tolerably warm, though bracing; it now grew sensibly cooler. Thick clouds were gathering in the sky. The wind, before a gentle breeze, now rose rapidly, and blew with violence. It soon became icy cold, and flakes of snow began to fall. Without a fire, I felt I should well nigh perish. At all events, before I could ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston
... Death, gradually recovered the roundness of the cheek, the mantling blood, the soft down, and blooming complexion of a young girl who has been on the mountains, and whose cheek has been visited by the first cold bracing winds from the glaciers. Her lips had recovered their fulness, her eyes their brightness; the lid no longer drooped, and the eye itself seemed to swim in that continual and luminous mist which rises like a vapor from the burning heart, and is condensed ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... Then, bracing himself firmly against the door-jamb, Jan opened his jaws and—barked. But the novelty of the performance, superimposed upon the concussion and the exertion involved, was too much for his stability, and with one prolonged but unsuccessful effort to hold on to his dignity Jan rolled ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... which, traveling on a broad-gauge track above the ditches, moved along the tunnel, section by section, as the work advanced. The panels were hung loosely from joists carrying a platform on the top chord of the carriage trusses, and were adjusted transversely by bracing and wedging them out from the carriage. The small forms for the refuge niches, ladders, etc., were collapsible, and were spiked to the main panel forms just previous to the deposition of the concrete. The ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 • James H. Brace and Francis Mason
... halo. The sky seemed of a more vivid blue, the grass of a brighter emerald than in the States where women do not enjoy equal rights. The leaves of the many cottonwood trees twinkled pleasantly in the clear sunlight, the air was fresh and bracing and the snow mountains looked down upon the city like a visible realization of ideals." The presence of the visitors soon became known and an impromptu reception was held in the large waiting room of the station, which was beautified ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... reached my neck. I cried out with terror as I felt myself borne from my feet. But Georgie kept hold of me, and bracing ourselves against the first low rock, we waited the coming of the great green wave that rolled surging toward us, raising its whitening crest high over our heads. It broke directly above us, and for a moment ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... and brought into the noble traits of a Christian character which will impress itself upon the non-Christian community there must be firm guidance, stern repression of evil and wise inspiration to good on the part of the native pastoral force under the bracing influence of missionary guidance. To those who are conversant with the condition of the native Church in India there is a supreme conviction that its greatest danger lies in the irregularity of the life of its members and in its want of firm discipline and the preservation of purity rather than ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... permitting them to suspect my presence, what manner of men they might be? Doubtless, their mode of life would be found to admit of some simple and prosaic explanation. In any case, the evening was fine, and a walk would be bracing for mind and body. Lighting my pipe, I set off over the moors in the ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... feet wide, and the granite so smooth that we could find no place to fasten the lasso for the next descent; so I determined to try the climb with only as little aid as possible. Tying it round my breast again, I gave the other end into Cotter's hands, and he, bracing his back against the cliff, found for himself as firm a foothold as he could, and promised to give me all the help in his power. I made up my mind to bear no weight unless it was absolutely necessary; and for the first ten ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... mine," Foster broke in. Hulton looked from one to the other and a curious steely glitter came into his eyes. It hinted at a pitiless, unchangeable purpose, and bracing himself with an effort ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... every selfish ambition and devoted his life to philanthropic work, show how great was the change that came over his spirit when about twenty-five years of age. Before that time he imagined that the world was treating him harshly, and he was bracing himself for a contest with it, with a feeling that he was surrounded by enemies. His tone was almost invariably pessimistic. After the change referred to, he habitually saw friends on every side, gave up selfish ambitions, and a cheerful ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard
... died when I was fifteen. A year later and so threatened were we by crown officers, private creditors and infuriated peasants, that it was a question of either fleeing the country or bracing ourselves for a decisive struggle, and if needs be finding a grave under the ruins ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... the change of scene, the perfect quiet, and the bracing air might do wonders for ...
— The Upas Tree - A Christmas Story for all the Year • Florence L. Barclay
... bracing or stringing the bow was as follows: Grasping it with his right hand at its center, with the belly toward him, and the lower end on his right thigh, he held the upper end with his left hand while the loop of the string rested between his finger and thumb. By pressing downward at the handle ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... 'interest' must be assiduously awakened in everything, difficulties must be smoothed away. Soft pedagogics have taken the place of the old steep and rocky path to learning. But from this lukewarm air the bracing oxygen of effort is left out. It is nonsense to suppose that every step in education can be interesting. The fighting impulse must often be appealed to. Make the pupil feel ashamed of being scared at fractions, ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... rock, he examined his bag and found that it was all right. He then commenced to ascend the cliffs and on reaching their top the force of the gale almost blew him off his feet. He struck a signal light. This is a light made of chemicals which burns with intense brilliancy. Bracing himself against a rock he held it above his head. The flare lit up the surrounding cliffs. While it was still burning he turned to windward and looked down on the huge breakers that made the cliff on which he stood tremble as they dashed in against it. While gazing down ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... and the two sailors knotted the ends of their sashes around the mast. Tonet tied the little boy securely to a ring astern; but seeing that his brother, for a show of bravado, had sat down beside the tiller free, he crouched at the railing, bracing himself against a chock on the deck. A funereal silence settled on the Mayflower. The sea was now in such commotion that the kelp on the bottom showed its streamers in the troughs of the waves. The crests of foam ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... by W. H. H. Murray, in both which appears John Norton, the trapper, a character that promises to become as much of a favorite as is the hero of the Leather Stocking novels. These stories have a bracing outdoor freshness and a delightfully crisp realism: are vigorous in tone, and strong and picturesque in the relation. Taken altogether, they may be pronounced in the most artistic of Mr. Murray's excursions into the realms of fiction, ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... hearty meal in short order and sipping hot bracing coffee, the three cadets took turns in telling Jeff of their conversations with Strong, their escape, and their near encounter with Vidac on ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... "That would be a change indeed—the very thing after South Africa," he added, looking with a keen professional eye at Major Dene's gaunt cheeks and too sharply outlined profile. "There are some pleasant places on the west coast—bracing, yet not too cold. In my boyhood I spent a summer in a village called St. Aidens. It was out of the way, certainly, but you could not go ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... I am going to do," said Ann firmly, bracing herself for opposition, "and it's as good as done, so you needn't say a word about it. I'm going to have a Christmas dinner, and I'm going to invite every blessed soul in this house to come. They shall be warm and full for once in their lives, please God! And, Katey," ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... choice poets are mainly unseen and unmet in him,—perhaps because he cannot achieve them, more likely because he disdains them. But there is an electric living soul in his poetry, far more fermenting and bracing. His wings do not glitter in their movement from rich and varicolored plumage, nor are his notes those of the accustomed song-birds; but his flight is the ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... three steel arches, by far the longest that had ever been constructed; the first to dispense with spandrel bracing; and the first to be built of cast-steel. The "Encyclopaedia Britannica" called them "the finest example of a metal arch yet erected." They were built out from the piers from both ends to meet in the middle; and were put into place entirely ...
— James B. Eads • Louis How
... Mycenae, what bones lie hid, and where, under the Cathedral floor, what sands—"fallen from the ruined sides of Kings"—that this passion of deaths and dates was upon him. I can see myself as a child of seven or eight, standing outside the drawing-room door at Fox How, bracing myself in a mixture of delight and fear, as to what "Doctor Stanley" might ask me when the door was opened; then the opening, and the sudden sharp turn of the slight figure, writing letters at the middle table, at the sight of "little Mary"—and the ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... privilege, a very unusual privilege for a young girl," Mother replied promptly. "As for the 'why,' you are going because you have been cordially invited; because I think the experience will be for your advantage, present and future; because also it will be good for a growing girl like you to have the bracing effect ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... arrival, the advent of the couple from Portland Place. "Oh, we shall give you time to breathe!" Fanny remarked, in reference to the general prospect, with a gaiety that announced itself as heedless of criticism, to each member of the party in turn; sustaining and bracing herself by her emphasis, pushed even to an amiable cynicism, of the confident view of these punctualities of the Assinghams. The ground she could best occupy, to her sense, was that of her being moved, ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... see, I had rather entertained a sort of hope that when I had revealed to him the Bassett's mental attitude, Nature would have done the rest, bracing him up to such an extent that artificial stimulants would not be required. Because, naturally, a chap doesn't want to have to sprint about country houses lugging jugs of orange juice, ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... bard sang his wild songs, and Llewelyn and Howel sat by the glowing fire of logs that blazed in the long winter evenings upon his hearth, listening to his fierce words, and hardening their hearts and bracing their wills against any kind of submission to a foreign yoke. A burning hatred against the English king also consumed them. Had they not, at the cost of most bitter humiliation, gone to him as vassals, trusting to his promise that all who did homage for their lands should ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... considerations of rank and station. We were just a man and a woman whose fates were linked irrevocably by love. I stooped suddenly, under the sway of an impulse, I could not resist, and kissed her upturned face, turning almost dizzy in the act. Then I broke from her clasp, and bracing myself for the task to which we ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... Bettina, already a little intoxicated with the bracing air and liberty, gave forth triumphantly these three exclamations, "No one! no one! no one!" a rider appeared, walking his horse in the direction of the carriage. It was Paul de Lavardens. He had been watching ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... became less distinct. The chaise was still upright. The horse, beginning to falter in his pace, took more kindly to the accustomed control of the rein. It was then Susannah found that she had been clinging to Halsey for support, and that he, by bracing himself with one arm to the side of the chaise and holding her with the other, had prevented ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... mile within the mouth of Disaster Inlet, and next morning, which was cool and bracing enough for a latitude twenty degrees further south, we followed its upward course, which was more westerly than suited our impatience to proceed direct into the interior. Four miles and a half from the entrance, in a straight line, though ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... as strong as most of them," Reuben said, smiling too. "Four years' mill-wright's work, and four years on horseback in this bracing air, ought to make one strong, if there's anything in one to begin with. I think I shall do, in ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... natural position by setting the shrouds up too taut. The phrase, to wring, is also applied to a capstan when by an undue strain the component parts of the wood become deranged, and are thereby disunited. The head of a mast is frequently wrung by bracing up the lower yards beyond the dictates of ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... think it is all right; quite bracing; a sort of trial of strength; and quite safe, because we know that madness in that direction is simply and altogether impossible. You have been working too hard; and besides, it will do you good to meet the people. You will see a lot of the youngsters ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... himself up, as if bracing himself to meet opposing forces. He was a little pale, ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... are so mournful and so sinister as the implacable cruelty with which a wounded animal is pursued by its fellows. Perhaps it is due to a cold and bracing climate, perhaps to a Christian civilisation, that the Western peoples of the world have to a great extent risen above this low original instinct. Among Europeans power provokes antagonism, and weakness excites pity. All is different in the East. Beyond Suez ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... become very tense and still. The trees seemed to hold themselves rigid, as if they listened for something. Now and then, lightning stabbed viciously through the dark. Beneath her the old house creaked, bracing itself once more to meet the onslaught of its life-long enemy, the wind. Far away across the plateau came a faint rushing sound, that grew in volume rapidly. Once again the ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... its early foundation to certain patrician families of Amalfi, which after securing their fortunes decided to leave the hot close city beside the shore, and to seek new homes in the bracing air of the hill-top above. Placing itself under the protection of the powerful Robert Guiscard, Ravello became faithfully attached to the Norman interest, and in 1086, at the suggestion of the great Count Roger, who cherished a deep regard for the Rufolo family, the town was created a bishopric ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... telling the judge that he felt highly complimented, but it was a mistake to ring in that snow stuff on Alaska. She'd suffered from it too long. He was going on to paint Alaska as something like Alabama—cooler nights, of course, but bracing. Alonzo still had Beryl Mae by the scarf, telling her ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... the kind that gave one lots of "pep," high cloudless sky, dazzling sun, hot and bracing. The morning paper had a column on the first page listing the names of those who had succumbed to the heat; but Joe had no eyes for such morbid news. A man never felt the heat when he had plenty of good work to do and was in good shape, ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... monstrous as it is—is not senseless, one may feel sure. Even now here in England one perceives an extraordinary pulling together and bracing up of the people, a development of solidarity and mutual helpfulness, a greater seriousness, and a disregarding of artificialities, which are all to the good. These things are gains, even though ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... were easily laid on 'the "horses" and then came the bolts and the bracing with piano wire. When brought together the fifty-four foot long skeleton was in shape much like a cigar. The main frame was six feet high, tapering to five feet at each end. In depth the dimensions were the same. The engine rested on the floor of the middle section ...
— The Air Ship Boys • H.L. Sayler
... they write, if it be a cruise to Labrador, sailing an ocean race or telling how to put a gasoline engine together. Under and through all other features of YACHTING is the call of the water—the bracing, irresistible appeal that has drawn men off shore since the first cockle-shell was set afloat. Once you have heard and answered it you will know why a sailor once is a sailor always—and you will know also why YACHTING should interest you. ...
— Taxidermy • Leon Luther Pray
... was that subconscious sense of bracing air—something like the sense of climax in reaching a Northern station on a very hot day. We may be very hot, perhaps, at Carlisle or Edinburgh, but it is not the climate ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... to go, pending further developments of the publicity we had given the drug war in the Star, Kennedy and I decided on a walk home in the bracing night air. ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... indulged in hard study rather than in hard riding, had overworked, had brought back his Cuban fever, and was in poor shape to face the tropics. So, for two months before the transport was to sail, they ordered him to Cape Cod to fill his lungs with the bracing air of ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... the white glare of ice. The only guide across that heaving traverse, the unerring instinct of that tall figure at the bow, now plunging forward, now bracing back, now shouting out a "Steady!" that the wind carried to our ears, thrusting his pole to right, to left in lightning strokes, till the canoe suddenly darted up the roaring ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... to play a little at Monte Carlo and cruise a little in the Mediterranean—to kill time through the detestable winter, which made itself felt wherever he was; and she went to London to see about Francie's gown, and up north to bracing Scotland, and down to Wellwood for Christmas, and back to the racket of London in the spring; and neither of them had spent a lonelier time in all their lives. Quite a fresh and peculiar sense of homelessness and uncomforted old age ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... East Coast," Mr. Moyat declared cheerfully. "More bracing, and suits his constitution better. I've heard ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... went off to the seaside. The bracing air did for Clemence what the doctor's medicine had failed to accomplish. In spite of the languid interest she took in everything, hope grew stronger each day in the care of her watchful friend. And at last the roses came back ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... him. Perspiration appeared on his forehead, and he gripped the arms of his chair as one bracing himself for torture. He looked at the little lady with the terror of one to whom the dentist has just said: "That jaw tooth must come out at once. Open your mouth wider, please, so I can ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... door, you! Back up!" Sandy's voice was almost conversational but it was profoundly convincing. The bully obeyed him, standing at the door in the place of the assayer, who stepped aside, feeling a little sick at the stomach, Sam bracing him in friendly ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... the heart of the forest and began to breathe more freely. Avenues of giant trees stretched before him, which criss-crossed one another and faded into the gloom of twilit, colonnaded tunnels. He could almost feel the gnarled trunks bracing themselves and the crooked branches linking arms to bear up the weight of the down-poured roof of whiteness. As his eyes grew accustomed to the dimness, he saw the animals strewn flat among fallen leaves, their noses pressed between ...
— Christmas Outside of Eden • Coningsby Dawson
... still a prisoner in the closet, the door of which was an old-fashioned one and thick. But by bracing his feet against the back wall, Dick got a firm hold and soon his shoulder on the barrier caused it to bend and creak. Then the lock gave way and the door flew open with ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... Johnson. To him, as to most men of his time, woman was not an individual, but an institution—a toast that was drunk some time after that of Church and King. But it is far better to consider the difference rather as a special merit, in that he stood for all those clean and bracing shocks of incident which are untouched by passion or weakness, for a certain breezy bachelorhood, which is almost essential to the literature of adventure. With all his faults, and all his triumphs, ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... and appointments of staterooms, of all the large public rooms, and especially the dining-room, are perfect. A week on the Atlantic, with the joyous bracing sea-air of the summer months, and surrounded as you are by a cosmopolitan group of people, passes as delightfully as a brief stay at ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... tended inevitably towards a catastrophe. Day by day this drew nearer, and I flattered myself into regarding my own personal fate as interwoven with this universal unrest. Now that the powers of reaction were everywhere more and more openly bracing themselves for conflict, the final decisive struggle seemed indeed close at hand. My feelings of partisanship were not sufficiently passionate to make me desire to take any active share in these conflicts. I was merely conscious of an impulse to give ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... angels ever look out of their sphere of intense spiritual realities to indulge in a laugh, methinks such a lonely tripod-sitter, cased over with his invulnerable, non-conducting cloak and hood,—shrinking, dodging, or bracing himself up on the defensive, as the crowd fans him with its rush or jostles up against him,—like the man who fancied himself a teapot, and was forever warning people not to come too near him,—might furnish a subject for a planetary joke not unworthy of translation into ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... 5.—Calm seas, children bright and happy, cloudless skies, weather charming and exhilarating, though cold. Morning spent over our Bibles. Time seemed to fly rapidly while we talked of 'the things concerning the King.' In the afternoon the bracing air and bright skies invited vigorous exercise, and our Birmingham friend and I walked between two and three miles. Faith was our theme of converse. May the result be that we both shall trust our God more than heretofore, for ourselves and our work, and realise increased measure. ...
— God's Answers - A Record Of Miss Annie Macpherson's Work at the - Home of Industry, Spitalfields, London, and in Canada • Clara M. S. Lowe
... Roger slipped and fell. He did not lose his grip on the lead rope and at the sudden jerk the little burro pitched forward after Roger. But Peter got his balance immediately and threw himself back on his shoulders, bracing his feet against the roots of a ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... dripping; beads of perspiration streaming down our faces, we reach the top at last; and thank Heaven, that after two hours' absence deep down among those terrible "diggins," we are permitted once more to feel the bracing air, and to look upon the glorious ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... wonderfully better. Every day in the clear, bracing air of Bywood seemed to bring fresh vigor to her frame, fresh color to her cheeks. She began to take regular walks, instead of strolling a little way, leaning on her friend's stronger arm. Together the girls ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... was consumed in reaching my vantage-point. When I did get there the crack was a foot over my head. If I had only been tall like Steele! There was nothing to do but find toe-holes in the crumbling walls, and by bracing knees on one side, back against the other, hold myself up to ...
— The Rustlers of Pecos County • Zane Grey
... side of the canoe to help her to the bank, but she took his hand only to steady herself while rising. Stepping over the bracing-strips between the gunwales, she caught a swaying branch, and swung herself lightly ashore. Back from the water the ground rose into a low hill, covered with oak and elm and ragged hickory trees. Here, for a space, there was little undergrowth, and save under the heaviest of the trees the ground ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... Pain of cold in the loins and forehead. 2. Great expense of sensorial power in the vital motions. Immersion in cold water. Succeeding glow of heat. Difficult respiration in cold bathing explained. Why the cold bath invigorates. Bracing and relaxation are mechanical terms. 3. Uses of cold bathing. Uses of cold air in fevers. 4. Ague fits from cold air. Whence their periodical returns. IV. Defect of distention a cause of fever. Deficiency of blood. Transfusion of blood. V. 1. Defect of momentum ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... Bracing myself, I waited until there was a sufficient lull in the blizzard for me to make some use of my eyes. I blinked and peered toward the different points of the compass, but without catching the first ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... down suddenly to hide the tears that stung my eyelids. But I winked them away in an instant, and was bracing myself to make him laugh by mimicking the man who had introduced us: Nebuchadnezzar of ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... see also a finer morality in M. Coppee's work than in M. de Maupassant's or in M. Daudet's or in that of almost any other of the Parisian story-tellers of to-day. In his tales we breathe a purer moral atmosphere, more wholesome and more bracing. It is not that M. Coppee probably thinks of ethics rather than aesthetics; in this respect his attitude is undoubtedly that of the others; there is no sermon in his song—or at least none for those who will not seek it for themselves; there is never a ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... though we did not know it by that name then, opened with fine bracing weather, and there was the usual round of dinners and entertainments with which we always greeted the birth of a new twelve-month. We had several Canadian-like snow storms. In the midst of one, I met a forlorn despatch rider coming up the main street on his wheel with ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... Miss Skipwith, delightedly. "You look better already. There is nothing like severe study for bracing the nerves." ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... rose from the river, obscuring all objects, when the bordermen rolled out of their snug bed of leaves. The air was cool and bracing, faintly fragrant with dying foliage and the damp, dewy luxuriance of the ripened season. Wetzel pulled from under the protecting ledge a bundle of bark and sticks he had put there to keep dry, and built a fire, while Jonathan fashioned a cup from a green fruit resembling a gourd, ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... sneak in a little at a time as it does 'round here. It rolls in in waves. That's the way the cloud of fire and mud and white-hot stones rolled down from that volcano over the town and over the ships. It was on us in almost no time, but I saw it and in the same glance I saw our captain bracing himself to meet it on the bridge. He was facing the fire cloud with both hands gripped hard to the bridge rail, his legs apart and his knees braced back stiff. I've seen him brace himself that same way many a time in a tough sea with the spray ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... hasty mounting of steeds among the Crusader's tents; a hasty bracing-up of armor and settling of casques; shields were lifted high and spears were laid in rest, and, followed by a hundred knights, the boy Crusader dashed impetuously from his camp and charged into the thick gardens that held his captive cousin. His action was quicker ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... Panama fevers were their portion; or, after a long pull and a strong pull around the Horn, they were comparatively fresh and eager for the fray when they touched dry land once more. There was much close company between decks to cheer the lonely hours; a very bracing air and a very broad, bright land to give them welcome when the voyage was ended—in brief, they had ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard
... push he felt the wall sag. Releasing his pressure it came back. This time he put both feet against the wall and bracing his shoulders he put every ounce of strength in his body into a mighty heave. The next second he was lying on his back. The greater part of the wall had collapsed. He was curious enough to examine the work he had demolished. It had evidently ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... the milky floss of the cottonwood trees is strewed upon the sidewalks or floats like thistledown upon the air. To one sensitive to physical surroundings the change is like that from a sullen face to a smiling one, from a forbidding aspect to a cheerful one. The constant bracing of one's self against the influence of one's surroundings is relaxed: a feeling of relief and contentment comes instead. Our thirst for picturesque beauty may not be satisfied, but we accept with thankful hearts the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... secret that starchy, modern women often long to wilt back into droopy musk roses, that climb over gates and things, but they don't let each other. When I feel myself getting soluble, I write it out to Jane and I get a bracing cold wave of a letter in reply. The one this morning was on the subject of love, or, at least, that is what Jane would have said ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... open to one side and the other, and allow the descending wagon to pass through. When this could not be done, they were to fall down upon the ground when they saw this strange military engine coming, and locking their shields together over their heads, allow the wagon to roll on over them, bracing up energetically against its weight. Notwithstanding these precautions, and the prodigious muscular power with which they were carried into effect, some of the men were crushed. The great body of the army was, however, unharmed; as soon as the force of the wagons was ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... on the fourth act—that in which Fogg was going to do something. He had in the meantime been bracing up. When he made his entry and spoke, his manner of speech was somewhat thick, but his acting was more energetic. Fogg never could take anything stimulating without its going to his head, and as his brain exercised ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... familiar at Court, familiar at the opera, are to be seen there during the season; beautiful faces that have grown pale and worn with the excitement of a London campaign, and here, as they are bent thoughtfully over the green waters, the bracing air brings sweet roses, the lines fade, the eyes brighten; there is no such beautifier as a sea breeze, no bloom so radiant and charming as that brought by the ...
— The Tragedy of the Chain Pier - Everyday Life Library No. 3 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... rather have me bury him at present." Sewell sat down, and, bracing his elbow on his desk, rested his head heavily ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... the weather be intensely cold. I dislike fires in bedrooms, especially for children; they are very enervating, and make a child liable to catch cold. Cold weather is very bracing, particularly at night "Generally speaking," says the Siecle, "during winter, apartments are too much heated. The temperature in them ought not to exceed 16 deg. Centigrade (59 deg. Fahrenheit); and even in periods of great cold scientific men declare that ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... leisurely along just ahead. But whichever way Father Jose turned, the mountain always asserted itself and arrested his wandering eye. Out of the dry and arid valley it seemed to spring into cooler and bracing life. Deep cavernous shadows dwelt along its base; rocky fastnesses appeared midway of its elevation; and on either side huge black hills diverged like massy roots from a central trunk. His lively fancy pictured these hills peopled with a majestic and intelligent race of savages; and ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... neck. Unable to rid herself of her burden in this manner, she planted her fore feet firmly on the earth, and elevated her hind legs high in the air with great rapidity and fury, forcing the rider to turn quickly upon her back and clasp his arms tightly around the barrel of her body, bracing his toes against the point of her fore shoulders, and thus rendering futile all her frantic ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... kindest of my friends, a friend of all the world. Never did he meet a man or woman that did not love him. The Germans have killed Alec. Perhaps among the multitudinous Germans killed there are one or two German Alecs. Yet I am still meeting people who think that war is a fine bracing thing for the nation, a sort of ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... Mexico. Monterey itself was a good point to hold, even if the line of the Rio Grande covered all the territory we desired to occupy at that time. It is built on a plain two thousand feet above tide water, where the air is bracing and the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... call the distance from here about two miles," remarked the captain reflectively; "but such a walk before breakfast in this bracing air I presume will not damage children as strong and healthy as these two of mine," regarding them with a fond, fatherly smile. "So come ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... provided for stray visitors, Hythe, with its clean beach, its parade that will presently join hands with Sandgate, its excellent bathing, and its bracing air, may look to take high rank among watering places suburban to London. But there are greater charms even than these in the immediate neighbourhood. With some knowledge of English watering places, I solemnly declare that none is set in a country of such beauty as is spread behind Hythe. ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... faded and shrivelled indeed, after another year or two of anything but hospitality as generous as that of New York. Well-nourished and undimmed, however, it concealed for them admirably the fact that it was the hospitality they were after, and not the bracing climate or the desire to see the fascinating Americans of London and Paris at home. New York found them agreeable specimens of high-spirited young English people, and played with them indefinitely. Miss Forde, when she sat imperturbably on a cushion in the middle ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... family life of the ideal religious institution, with its reasonable and bracing discipline, its gift of shelter, its care for tradition, its habit-formation and group consciousness—all this is given, as we may as well acknowledge, at the price which is exacted by all family life; namely, mutual accommodation and sacrifice, place made for ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... we have already said, was from the Wolga to the Jaik; the distance about 300 miles; the time allowed seven days. For the first week, therefore, the rate of marching averaged about 43 English miles a day. The weather was cold, but bracing; and, at a more 30 moderate pace, this part of the journey might have been accomplished without much distress by a people as hardy as the Kalmucks: as it was, the cattle suffered greatly from overdriving; milk began to fail even for the children; the ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... a very judicious move. But, you see, I didn't know what the place was like; and, after all, an experience of this kind is supposed to be bracing." ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... the breast backstays out of the cross-tree horns or out-riggers and bear them aft. If not done, when suddenly bracing up, the cross-tree horn is ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... October morning. The air was sharp and bracing, and the leaves which had taken their autumnal tints were falling from the trees. The road which wound by Westbourne Green, gave him a full view of the hill of Hampstead with its church, its crest of houses, and its villas peeping from out ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... more than coffee and a roll in the morning," he continued, after the second omelette, the ham, the waffles, and more coffee had been consumed. "I fancy it's your bracing air." ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... replied, "you have given the strongest reason why they should be carefully guarded against the slightest pressure. It is very remarkable that kittens and puppies should be so well put together that they need no artificial bracing, and the human family be left wholly to the mercy of a bandage. Suppose a child was born where you could not get a bandage, what then? Now I think this child will remain intact without a bandage, and, if I am willing to take the ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... mount upon a horse behind another person by leaping from the ground, and assisting themselves only by one hand, and other similar things. One feat which they practiced was to climb up between two partition walls built pretty near together, by bracing their back against one wall, and working with their knees and hands against the other. Another feat was to climb up a ladder on the under side by means ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... And he stood bracing himself, with his back against the door, as if determined that not even that powerful individual himself should ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge |
