"Nerve" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... replied Jack, in a loud, authoritative tone, "and what's more, I will be obeyed, Gascoigne. I have nerve, if I haven't knowledge, and at all events I can steer for the beach. I tell you, give me the helm. Well, then, if ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... when I think that the awful moment may find me speechless, and my consent may be assumed from my silence. Save me from this trial, dearest Edward; for I fear everything now—and fear myself—my unhappy weakness of nerve and spirit more than all. Do not leave me to this trial of my strength—for I have none. Save ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... with Slattery. Homer and a heavily armed posse rode over to the muddy corners on Sunday night, and the sheriff discovered that he might have taken the Skilletts and Johnsons single-handed and unarmed. Their nerve was gone; they were shaken and afraid; and, to employ a figure somewhat inappropriate to their sullen, glad surrender, they fell upon his neck in their relief at finding the law touching them. They had no wish to hear "John Brown's Body" again. They wanted to get inside of ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... him, not only by the internal rebellion of his feelings against the violence which he exercised over them, but by many accidental circumstances, which, in the course of the banquet, and during the subsequent amusements of the evening, jarred upon that nerve, the least vibration of which ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... West, She shall look, and not in vain - For out of its broad and boundless store Come muscle, and nerve, and brain. Let the bards of the East and the South be dumb - For out of the West ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... nerve to stand fire," faltered Christian. "But as to marrying, I own I've asked here and there, though without much fruit from it. Yes, there's some house or other that might have had a man for a master—such as he is—that's now ruled by a woman alone. Still it might ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... his victim. The victim, you know, dying in his sins, goes to hell, and the murderer has the happiness of seeing him there. And if heaven grows dull and monotonous, the murderer can again give life to the nerve of pleasure by watching the agony of his victim. I am opposed to that kind of forgiveness. And yet that is the religion of ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... of such an exploit caused his flesh to creep. But he was not of that class of men who fall back dazed before the face of danger. Again and again, led by an impulse he was unable to resist, he studied that precipitous rock, every nerve tingling to the newborn hope. God helping them, even so desperate a deed might be accomplished, although it would test the foot and nerve of a Swiss mountaineer. He glanced again uneasily toward his companion, and saw the same motionless figure, the same sober ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... faculties and actions of a man, and to impose a perpetual illusion on the senses of his friends and enemies. Articulate sounds vibrated on the ears of the disciples; but the image which was impressed on their optic nerve eluded the more stubborn evidence of the touch; and they enjoyed the spiritual, not the corporeal, presence of the Son of God. The rage of the Jews was idly wasted against an impassive phantom; and the mystic scenes of the passion and death, the resurrection and ascension, of Christ ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... tried to restore Clara to animation, but in vain—the poor young woman was dead. Long had Joergen been buffeting the waves with a corpse—exerting his utmost strength and straining every nerve for ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... all other tonics because it is composed of the nerve-giving principles of the ox brain and wheat germ.) It gives vitality to the insufficient growth of children; feeds the brain and nerves; prevents fretfulness; gives quiet rest and sleep. An ill-fed brain learns no lessons, and is excusable if peevish. Restless infants ...
— The Nursery, No. 169, January, 1881, Vol. XXIX - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... commence operations, and placing myself on my back, with one hand to defend my head, and one foot against the end, I struck out with the other on the part above me. A cracking sound encouraged me to go on. Each time I struck out the planks appeared to move slightly. I used so much force that every nerve in my body was jarred, and I was afraid of laming myself. Notwithstanding that, I persevered, stopping every now and then to listen, lest my captors should return; but as no one came I was satisfied that they had gone ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... went on, without heeding him, "I care nothing, for, as I tell you, I have their antidote at hand. You have known me for many years, tell me, did you ever see my nerve desert me? Do you suppose that I am a woman who would bear failure when I could choose death? No, George, I had rather pass into eternity on the crest of the wave of my success, such as it has been, and let it break and grind me to powder there, or else bear me to greater heights. All that should ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... beside Mrs. Carr, Gabriella soon found out that she was not nearly so rich as her neighbours were, not nearly so rich as her position in society exacted that she should be. She was still not rich enough to be spared the sordid, nerve-racking effort to make two ends meet without a visible break. Her small economies, to Gabriella's surprise, were as rigid as Mrs. Carr's; and though she lived in surroundings which appeared luxurious to the girl, there was almost as little ready money to spend as ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... no question either that nerve strain and monotony accentuate the critical attitude towards food. Here is an extract from Mr. Jackson's report on Senne (September 11, 1915): "There were some complaints, as usual, in regard to the food. ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... broke into ten thousand smiles, laughing and dancing with every ripple, as unconsciously as if no form dear to human hearts had gone down beneath it. Oh! treacherous, deceiving beauty of outward things! beauty, wherein throbs not one answering nerve to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... did; he acknowledged that the union of the Anglican with the Roman communion was the dearest wish of his heart; that he would strain every nerve in the struggle to bring about its fulfilment; that though, no doubt, infidelity was making rapid strides, still churchmen generally united in thinking that before long, and for the common good, petty differences would be sunk in the grand magnitude of the act of the union of ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... wasn't sure of you. I didn't know how you'd take it. And I'd lost my nerve, damn it! the last few years. Thought you might just kick me out, or ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... limb were long and painful. A nerve had been taken up in one of the ligatures at the time of the operation; and the ligature, according to the practice of the French surgeons, was of silk instead of waxed thread; this produced a constant irritation and discharge; and the ends of the ligature ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... great hope" (23rd of January, 1850) "that I shall be remembered by little Em'ly, a good many years to come." "I begin to have my doubts of being able to join you" (20th of February), "for Copperfield runs high, and must be done to-morrow. But I'll do it if possible, and strain every nerve. Some beautiful comic love, I hope, in the number." "Still undecided about Dora" (7th of May), "but MUST decide to-day."[163] "I have been" (Tuesday, 20th of August) "very hard at work these three days, and have still Dora to kill. But with good luck, I may do ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... me by, I suppose, the attraction of repulsion. The muse who guides the dreamings of the Russian artist is a sombre and heavy-lidded lady, but most sombre, I think, when she moves in the brain of the musician. Then she wears the glooms and sables of the hypochondriac. She does not "nerve us with incessant affirmations." Rather, she enervates us with incessant dubitations. It is more than a relief to leave the crowded Promenade, after a Tchaikowsky symphony, to stroll in the dusky glitter of Langham Place, ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... the northern colonies had taken incipient steps for the emancipation of their slaves. Here permit me to say, sir, that, with a prudent regard to what the Senator from Maine (Mr. Hamlin) yesterday called the "sensitive pocket-nerve," they all made these provisions prospective. Slavery was to be abolished after a certain future time—just enough time to give their citizens convenient opportunity for selling the slaves to southern planters, putting the money ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... cell of the county jail. Dixon proved to be a clear-eyed, clean-cut young man. The thing that impressed me most about him, aside from the prepossession in his favor due to the faith of Alma Willard, was the nerve he displayed, whether guilty or innocent. Even an innocent man might well have been staggered by the circumstantial evidence against him and the high tide of public feeling, in spite of the support that he was receiving. Leland, we learned, ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... speaker or writer; and next, that he should employ words and phrases which might convey it in all its truth to the mind of another. The man who entertains such conceptions, will not unfrequently want the steadiness of nerve which is required for their adequate transmission. Suitable words will not always wait upon his thoughts. Language is in reality a vast labyrinth, a scene like the Hercinian Forest of old, which, we are told, could not be traversed in less than sixty ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... boy? What boy? Is 't mine? and have they netted my young fledgeling? Now heaven support me, if they have! He'll own me, And share his father's ruin! But a look Would put him on his guard—yet how to give it! Now heart, thy nerve; forget thou 'rt flesh, be rock. They come, they come! That step—that step—that little step, so light Upon the ground, how heavy does it fall Upon my heart! I feel my child! (Enter Sarnem with Albert, whose ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... addressed. Burke spoke amid the angers and alarms inspired first by the subversive energy, and then by the doctrinaire cruelty of the French Revolution. It was in the process of "diffusing the Terror" that most of his philosophical obiter dicta were uttered. The real nerve of the thinking of a mind so vehement, so passionate, so essentially dramatic is to be sought not in some principle which was the major premise of his syllogisms, but in some pervading emotion. Fanny Burney said of him that when he spoke of the Revolution his face immediately ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... declared Arthur Warren, "but then, he always did have nerve, Jack did. If he didn't he wouldn't have done the things ...
— The Hilltop Boys on Lost Island • Cyril Burleigh
... one hundred and thirty-first Psalm, and the figures "1860." Every word, every letter, and every point, of all these passages was written exquisitely on this minute space; and that old man not only saw every mark he made, but had the delicacy of muscular action and steadiness of nerve to form the letters so beautifully that they abide the test of the highest magnifying power. They were, of course, ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... Space is really full of things we cannot see and as yet do not know? How if all animals and some savages have a cell in their brain or a nerve which responds to the invisible world? How if all Space be full of these landmarks, not material in our sense, but quite real? A dog barks at nothing, a wild beast makes an aimless circuit. Why? Perhaps because Space is made up of ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... are becoming enthusiastic. What did I tell you? The whole of life's an adventure; and nothing but adventure is worth while. At the first breath of coming events, there you are, quivering in every nerve. You share in all the tragedies stirring around you; and the feeling of mystery awakens in the depths of your being. See, how closely you are observing that couple who have just arrived. You never can tell: that may be the gentleman who proposes to do away with his wife? ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... dash, nerve, vim and initiative essential to a successful flier. He is moulded as a cog. He is part of a system—out of that he must not move. It has wrecked his initiative, and the sneer of the greatest German in history, Frederick the ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... off your bricks and mortar, and put out your tentacles toward the great spiritual world around you. Open communications with God. You can not help God. For Him who made the Milky Way you can do nothing. But here are his creatures. Not a nerve, muscle, or brain-convolution of the humblest of these but duplicates your own; you excel them simply in the coordination of certain inherited faculties which have given you success. Widen your heart. Put your intellect to work to so readjust the values of ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... last, and with every nerve throbbing from excitement Murray started up in readiness, for the black had bent over to whisper to him that he was going to try and find a way past the several parties of the enemy who were beleaguering the holders ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... business concerns today who are slowly dying from dry rot because they have not the nerve to break away from the precedent that built up their businesses. They let sentiment outweigh common sense. They maintain the same old lines and follow the same policy because that policy years before things ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... sixth or seventh month; the fore-teeth coming first, then the eye-teeth, and last of all the grinders. The eye-teeth cause more pain to the child than any of the rest, because they have a deep root, and a small nerve which has communication with that which makes ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... have not had an attack yet, though there has been hard fighting on our immediate right and left. We are fairly safe here behind barbed wire entanglements, and this would be an easy job if one could get used to the row and the watching through the night, which is rather nerve-racking. This trench is in a bonnie fir wood, just like bonnie Scotland, but the shell fire has damaged nearly all the trees. Today, being windy, they are falling in all directions. We have not had a hot meal since we came here. We are ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... to loosen his grip, and to enable the besieged to rise against the besiegers and break through. The Confederates, however, had not sufficient forces for such an enterprise. General Lee, in the East, had now undertaken the campaign of Gettysburg, and the Confederacy was already strained in every nerve. General Grant had the way open for supplies and re-enforcements. The siege was pressed with the utmost vigor, and Pemberton was ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... them. Miss Prescott need not know anything of the danger. After all, it may amount to nothing. As for Jess, she has as much, and more, nerve ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... me a bit, if he done that," replied Pete querulously. "The old man ain't lacking in nerve. Back thar was the first time I ever seen him hang back in my ...
— Frontier Boys on the Coast - or in the Pirate's Power • Capt. Wyn Roosevelt
... 'basicranial axis,' while the plane of the tentorium ('i T'.) is inclined at rather more than 90 degrees to the 'basicranial axis'; and so is the plane of the perforated plate ('a d'.), by which the filaments of the olfactory nerve leave the skull. Again, a line drawn through the axis of the face, between the bones called ethmoid and vomer—the "basifacial axis" ('f e'.) forms an exceedingly obtuse angle, where, when produced, it cuts the ...
— On Some Fossil Remains of Man • Thomas H. Huxley
... winning against politeness, "I never dreamed you'd have the nerve to try that fancy corkscrew throw of yours before all that crowd. Why, after two years to get out of practice, you took an awful chance of making a fool of yourself! Y'see, Bill," he explained with a deliberate garrulity, "that throw he made when he caught the horse was the finest ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... spiritual element, then add this temperament, and there follows a certain subtile, penetrative, radical quality of thought, a characteristic percipience of principles. And principles are not only seen, but felt; they thrill the nerve as well as greet the eye; and the man consequently becomes highly amenable to his own belief. The primary question respecting men is this,—How far are they affected by the original axiomatic truths? Truths are like the winds. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... fearful length, thick of girth, vast of crook, and wide in the spiral stripe that seemed to run a living flame before his ravished eyes, beginning at the bottom and winding around and around the whole dizzy height. Fearfully in nerve-braced silence he leaned far out of his bed to bring against this amazing apparition one cool, impartial forefinger of skeptic research. It did not vanish; it resisted his touch. Then his heart fainted with rapture, for he knew the ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... man at the guiding-gear, as the air-ship shot onward and upward, now heading, as directly as was practicable, for the Lost City of the Aztecs. "That was the very lesson I needed. I am steady of nerve, now, and will show no lack,—heaven grant that we may not be ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... crashing down on the table with his fist; "we are merely intellectuals. We cling to a mummified world. But they have the power and the nerve." ...
— One Man's Initiation—1917 • John Dos Passos
... of the story lies west of the Mississippi River, in the days when emigrants made their perilous way across the great plains to the land of gold. There is an attack upon the wagon train by a large party of Indians. Our hero is a lad of uncommon nerve and pluck. Befriended by a stalwart trapper, a real rough diamond, our hero achieves ...
— Slow and Sure - The Story of Paul Hoffman the Young Street-Merchant • Horatio Alger
... scorn; but, all the same, she had been a little longer going to sleep than usual. She felt herself almost as much as ever the guardian of her sisters, and the old sensitive nerve was set quivering. And now there could be no question about it—Rose had changed her ground towards Mr. Langham altogether. Her manner at breakfast was ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... policeman, laconically. "I saw him rob that elderly gentleman," and he pointed to Mr. Bunn. "And then this fellow has the nerve to say he was only ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Rocky Ranch - Or, Great Days Among the Cowboys • Laura Lee Hope
... told no one, but he meant to, unless things got better. 'I haven't the nerve for this job, Davie,' he said; 'I'll have to resign. And it's a pity, for the place suits my health fine. You see I know too much, and I haven't your whinstone nerve and total lack ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... and that is PERSEVERANCE! A few years ago there was a boxing match between Sam Mac Vea and Joe Jeannette that will remain famous in the history of the sport. Mac Vea was a heavy weight, strong, all muscle: a veritable black giant. Joe Jeannette, light, well proportioned, all nerve: a mongrel of the best sort. The match was epic. It went on for forty-two rounds and lasted three hours. At the third round, and again in the seventh, Sam Mac Vea threw Joe Jeannette, and his victory seemed assured. But little by little Joe Jeannette revived, pulled himself together, ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... wall, smashing the glass of one of the pictures, had already recovered his balance and turned around. The little revolver, with whose use Philip was barely acquainted, flashed suddenly out in the lamplight. Even in that lurid moment he kept his nerve. He aimed at the right arm outstretched to strike him, and pulled the trigger. Through the little mist of smoke he saw a spasm of pain in his assailant's face, felt the thundering crash of his ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... muscle is strengthened, the tendons, and the crests of bone to which they are attached, become enlarged; and this must likewise be the case with the blood-vessels and nerves. On the other hand, when a limb is not used, as by Eastern fanatics, or when the nerve supplying it with nervous power is effectually destroyed, the muscles wither. So again, when the eye is destroyed the optic nerve becomes atrophied, sometimes even in the course of a few months.[734] The Proteus is furnished with branchiae ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... and more especially Haeckel, lays on the relationship of the larva of the ascidia to the lancelet fish. Now the important testimony of K. E. von Baer, in his "Memoires de l'Academie de St. Petersbourg," Ser. vii, Vol. 19, No. 2, tells us that the nerve-ganglion {84} of the ascidia lies on the side of the stomach, and on that account can not be homologous with the spine of the vertebrates, but that the cord in the larva of the ascidia is nothing more than a support for the tail in swimming, which ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... got me on the back of it!" cried Miss Hazy, rising hurriedly from the machine and peering over her glasses. "You open it, Mis' Wiggs; I ain't got the nerve to." ...
— Lovey Mary • Alice Hegan Rice
... fleeter game of all kinds now shot past us like arrows; deer were bounding over the ground, in company with wolves and panthers; droves of elks and antelopes passed swifter than a dream; then a solitary horse or a huge buffalo-bull. From our intense anxiety, although our horses strained every nerve, we ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... it,' said I, 'among all the men I know in the wild country I have lived and worked in, I know none more fearless or of more unhesitating nerve.' ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... of his so spurred me on, that I Strained every nerve, behind him scrambling up, Until the circle was beneath ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante
... suitable, in his opinion, to this extensive country, could be established in no other way.... He trusted, moreover, that in the changes and chances of time we should be involved in some war, which might strengthen our union and nerve the executive. He was of all men the most indiscreet. He knew that a limited monarchy, even if established, could not preserve itself in this country.... He never failed, on every occasion, to advocate the excellence of, ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... institutions of truth and love. And, however you will, it is the expression of a solemn responsibility, the exercise of an immeasurable power for good or for evil, now and hereafter. It is the medium through which you act upon your country—the organic nerve which incorporates you with its life and welfare. There is no agent with which the possibilities of the Republic are more intimately involved, none upon which we can fall back with more confidence, ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... a celebrated French surgeon, born at Pierre-Buffiere; he was a man of firm nerve, signally sure and skilful as an operator, and contributed greatly, both by his inventions and discoveries, to the progress of surgery; a museum of pathological anatomy, in which he made important ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... right," he said, looking down at Stevens. "But I am quite sure the young woman is capable of taking care of herself. Quade has a tremendous amount of nerve, setting Slim to follow her, hasn't he? Slim may run up against a husband ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... very likely she did, for she was very quick-tempered. In later years I have not suffered from the fearsome malady, but even now, after fifty years of stage-life, I never play a new part without being overcome by a terrible nervousness and a torturing dread of forgetting my lines. Every nerve in my body seems to be dancing an independent jig on ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... its lilt, would suddenly make me start up, wide awake, with every nerve in my body dancing ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... exertions the first game fell to the Sixth. They were heartily clapped, and the Fifth began to look rather blue. Each side now played with extreme caution. They had taken one another's measure, and knew what they had to expect. Hilda Browne kept her nerve well, and her serves were acknowledged to be what the girls called "clinchers". As for Gwen, her arms seemed elastic. This time the Sixth were beaten, and ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... by voice and example, to keep firm. But the lances of Alexander's cavalry and the pikes of the phalanx now pressed nearer and nearer to him. His charioteer was struck down by a javelin at his side; and at last Darius' nerve failed him, and, descending from his chariot, he mounted on a fleet horse and galloped from the plain, regardless of the state of the battle in other parts of the field, where matters were going on much more favorably for his ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... change in the shape of the ear in animals born of parents in which such a change was the effect of a division of the cervical sympathetic nerve. ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... Then will I ly as calme as doth the sea, When all the winds are lock'd in Aeolus jayle; I will not move a haire, not let a nerve Or Pulse to beat, least I disturbe her! ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... appetite is too powerful; it demands the sordid pleasures which the possession of gold makes possible. Nor will it be satisfied with anything else. A tramp gold-seeker is irreclaimable. His joy lies in his quest and the dreams of fortune which are all too rarely fulfilled Every nerve centre is drugged with his lust, and, like all decadents, he must fulfil the destiny which his own original weakness ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... to commence the attack at once. We were drawn up in three ranks on the shore nearly opposite the fort. Allen then made a short address to us. He was never a man of many words. He said he knew our spirit, and hoped we would remember the cause for which we were about to strike; that would nerve the arm of a coward. He concluded by conjuring us to obey orders strictly, and to commit no slaughter that could be done without. Then, with Arnold at his side, Allen led us stealthily up the rocks to the sally-port. ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... turn his head sharply away when he passed the village tobacco store, for every nerve cried out for the solace of a good pipe, but he felt more than repaid for the sacrifice by Lou's honest rapture over the poor things he had been able ...
— Anything Once • Douglas Grant
... "I was worried," she confessed. "It's nurse's night out and Victor had to go to a board meeting unexpectedly—and with you away—I lost my nerve. It seemed dreadful to be ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... We conversed in whispers, until Tim, still influenced by his excessive drinking, became sleepy, and slid off the stump onto the ground, where he curled up on a pile of leaves. I let him lie undisturbed, and continued my vigil alone, feeling no inclination to sleep, every nerve throbbing almost painfully. Three or four men straggled into the saloon while I sat there, coming from the direction of the camp, and were doubtless waited upon by Sal. None remained long within, and all I saw of them were indistinct figures revealed ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... and enraged by the interruption, our modern Terpander starts from his seat, and opens the window. This operates as air to a kindling fire; and such a combination of noises burst upon the auricular nerve, that he is compelled to stop his ears,—but to stop the torrent ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... nerve of the three lads to stand at their posts and see men killed and maimed before their eyes, but they were under orders, and did not waver. For these scenes, terrible and horrible though they were, were to serve the good purpose of stimulating ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the War Front - Or, The Hunt for the Stolen Army Films • Victor Appleton
... evening she flitted through the woods and across the meadow to the cottage of old Hagar. Sleep had refreshed her and she had dreamed pleasant dreams. She felt stout of heart, and firm of nerve. ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... the communist domain-our politics and our economy, our science and technology against the best they can do—our liberty against their slavery—our voluntary concert Of free nations against their forced amalgam of "people's republics"—our strategy against their strategy-our nerve against their nerve. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... went deadly white, and she sank back in her seat as if every nerve in her body had of a sudden been bereft of power, whilst she of the fair ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... of me, as usuall; and, on entering our Chamber, I found her quite undrest, sitting at the Table, not reading of her Bible, but with her Head resting on it. I should have taken her to be asleep, but for the quick Pulsation of some Nerve or Muscle at the back of the Neck, somewhere under the right Ear. She looks up, commences rubbing her Eyes, and says, "My Eyes are full of Sand, I think. I will give you my new Crown-piece, Deb, if you will read me to ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... the funeral, although his condition was very painful to his friends and he refused to leave the place, and remained there, with great fortitude but little wisdom, for a long time, until his nerve was completely gone. He never was afterwards the same man, and, although Mr. Gladstone put him into his Cabinet in 1881, for friendship's sake, [Footnote: There was another reason: his intimate knowledge ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... beneath his sway the broken fragments of the Celtic race. Mysterious prophecies, the prophecies of Merlin the Wise which floated from lip to lip and were heard even along the Seine and the Rhine, came home again to nerve Wales to its last struggle with the stranger. Medrawd and Arthur, men whispered, would appear once more on earth to fight over again the fatal battle of Camlan in which the hero-king perished. The last conqueror of the Celtic race, Cadwallon, still lived ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... about noon one day, while I was trying to nerve myself to make this hard expedition, that I called a halt in order to eat my dinner—which I knew would be a very little one—being just then come aboard of a great ungainly galleon that from the look ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... throat and head got wrong, and it was with difficulty I could frame my sentences or pronounce my words, and yet I had to meet the great opportunity that was presented. I am paying the price to-day in weariness extreme. There is hardly a bone in my body that does not ache, or a nerve that ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... lively fashion, and everybody expected to see the boy thrown off. But Bayard kept his seat like a man of thirty, spurred on his horse, and galloped round and round the court, as brave as a lion, his eyes sparkling with delight. An old soldier like his father thoroughly appreciated the lad's nerve and spirit, and could scarcely help betraying the pride he felt in him. But the wise Bishop probably thought that the lad had received quite as much notice as was good for him, and announced that he was ready to start, adding to his nephew: "Now, my friend, you had better ...
— Bayard: The Good Knight Without Fear And Without Reproach • Christopher Hare
... "Oh, my brethren, every nerve, fiber, muscle, and 'petty artery of the body,' participates in Love. Love is the conqueror of death, because Love alone perpetuates life. Love is life! Love is religion! Love is the universe! Love is God!" And with this climax he sat down amid ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... was destined to lead his Battery afield for many a long day with unshaken nerve. He was removed, and nursed and petted into convalescence, while the Battery discussed the wisdom of capturing Simmons, and blowing him from a gun. They idolized their Major, and his reappearance on parade brought ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... I'll take his word for it that Almo proved himself the greatest genius for desert fighting that the Republic has produced in a hundred years. And I'll follow my own intuition that a swashbuckler whose own thoughts prompted him to challenge the King of the Grove as a cure for tedium, who had the nerve to carry out the idea and the skill to win a hundred and six fights in ten months must be a good all-round man and a real man clear through. I take it that being put in supreme command of a great expedition will brush the cobwebs ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... cleverest of their number was charged with his instruction, and immediately began with the important art of sitting on the haunches with his tail curled up upon his back. In this, though he strained every nerve to perform it, he made an ignominious failure. He could only maintain the position for a moment, and then pitch forward or fall backward, seeming to rock over on his curved tail, and cutting such a ridiculous figure that ...
— Harper's Young People, May 11, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... It is for ourselves that we worked, and our reward lies in the creation of a race of men who shall surpass us. We amassed their treasury, we hoarded it in a wretched hovel open to all the winds of Heaven: we had to strain every nerve to keep the doors closed against death. Our arms carved out the triumphal way along which our sons shall march. Our sufferings have saved the future. We have borne the Ark to the threshold of the Promised Land. It will reach that Land ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... Only to make me miserable, for it was a waste of golden time while the rich sunlight streamed on hill and plain. There was a wrenching of the mind, a straining of the mental sinews; I was forced to do this, my mind was yonder. Weariness, exhaustion, nerve-illness often ensued. The insults which are showered on poverty, long struggle of labour, the heavy pressure of circumstances, the unhappiness, only stayed the expression of the feeling. It was always there. Often in the streets of London, as the red ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies
... abnormalness, a morbid conception of beauty, a defiant disregard of the fact that a public exists which judges by common sense and the eye, not by a fine-spun confusion of theories and an undefined but omnipotent and deified "aesthetic sense" non-resident in the optic nerve. Mr. Whistler's pictures to-day, cleverly as he can paint if he will, are not pictures—I do not mean in fact, which is certainly true—but in title. They are "Natures in Black and Gold," or "In Blue and Silver," or "In Blue and Gold," or "Arrangements in Black," or "Harmonies ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... down at the girl, trembling, brave, white, beside him; and he felt like gathering her in his arms and hiding her himself, such a frail, brave, courageous little soul she seemed. But the calm nerve with which she had shot the serpent was gone now. He saw she was trembling and ready to cry. Then he smiled upon her, a smile the like of which he had never given to human being before; at least, not since he was a tiny baby and smiled ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... to be Leopold of Lutha," he said, "was but a mad adventurer. He would have seized the throne of the Rubinroths had his nerve not failed him at the last moment. He has fled. The true king is dead. Now I, Prince Regent of Lutha, declare the throne vacant, and announce ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... external jugular vein. 9. That during recovery the lungs are heavily taxed in purifying the vitiated blood, as shown by the excessive amount of organic impurities exhaled. 10. That restlessness and jactitation accompany the restoration of nerve function, and that vomiting occurs with returning consciousness. 11. That pains like those of rheumatism are complained of for some days subsequently, these probably resulting from the sudden arrest ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various
... turn that letter over to Merrick it will give him some idea of our proposed trip," said Mr. Rover, "and more than likely he will strain every nerve to get ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... a woman who is a stranger to you is a sin, and so there was the danger of the vessel coming to grief on my account. And, as though to spite me, the closing verse of Psalm 104 reads, "Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth and let the wicked be no more." I strained every nerve to keep Matilda out of ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... prison-dressed, he might see as many lawyers as he pleased, to be looked at, laughed at, and advised that there was but one way out of the scrape. Higgins was, in his speculations, a regular counterpart of Bailly; but the celebrated Mayor of Paris had not his nerve. It was impossible to say, if their characters had been changed, whether the unfortunate crisis in which Bailly was not equal to the occasion would have led to very different results if Higgins had been in his place: ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... leader, or the man who was called "Bill," cast anxious glances at the inspector, as though desirous of speaking, yet fearing that his remarks would not be received with much cordiality. At length he mustered sufficient nerve ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... little trailing sound along the floor, seemed to her terrifying, as if it were the movement of an animal in the room. She shut her eyes, and the pulse in her head beat so strongly that each thump seemed to tread upon a nerve, piercing her forehead with a little stab of pain. It might not be the same headache, but she certainly had a headache. She turned from side to side, in the hope that the coolness of the sheets would cure her, and that when ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... through which a novice must pass before being admitted to holy orders is a severe tax upon nerve and endurance. In the process of a long ritual, at least three, or even so many as nine, pastilles are placed upon the bald scalp of the head. These are then lighted, and allowed to burn down into the skin until permanent scars have been formed, ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... wolf would come on till almost within springing distance, when he would stop and lift his great head, wrinkling his chops to show the long white fangs, and rumbling a warning deep in his massive chest. Then the caribou would lose his nerve; he would stamp and fidget and bluster, and at last begin to circle nervously, crashing his way into the scrub as if for a chance to take his enemy in the flank. Whereupon the old wolf would trot quietly along the path, paying no more heed to the interruption; while the ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... back. It seemed as yesterday. And here HE stood grown to manhood. He needed just that reminder to stir his blood and nerve him for the ordeal ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... arable farmer has just the same difficulty to keep his labourers at their work, and unless he is constantly on the watch valuable time is lost daily. In the harvest, however, he has an advantage. The corn is reaped by piece-work, and the labourers therefore strain every nerve to do as much as they can. But then he must be on the lookout to see that they do ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... one of good blood to lack courage, but had you been nervous and flurried the first time you were called upon to play the part of a man, it would have seemed to me but natural; now it gladdens me indeed to know that even in your first essay you should have thus shown that you possess nerve and coolness as well as courage. Anyone can rush into a fight and deal blows right and left, but it is far more rare to find one who, in his very first trial at arms, can keep his head clear, and be able to reply to a question, as Edgar says you did, in a calm and even voice. Now, tell ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... mamillares of the Brain, and some adjoyning glandules, and by the moist steam of the Lungs, with a Liquor convenient for the reception of those effluvia and by the adhesion and mixing of those steams with that liquor, and thereby affecting the nerve, or perhaps by insinuating themselves into the juices of the brain, after the same manner, as I have in the following Observations intimated, the parts of Salt to pass through the skins of Effs, and Frogs. Since, I say, smelling seems to be made ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... and rob you. Fortune befriended me ever after; but the richer I grew, the more keenly I felt how wicked I had been, and the more I foresaw that my victim's vengeance would some day overtake me. Haunted by this thought, I lost my nerve, till one night I beheld your spirit, and from that time forth fell ill. But how you managed to escape, and are still alive, is ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... action. The sharp head nurse wondered if Dr. Sommers had had any wine that evening, but she dismissed this suspicion scornfully, as slander against the ornament of the Surgical Ward of St. Isidore's. He was tired: the languid summer air thus early in the year would shake any man's nerve. But the head nurse understood well that such a wavering of will or muscle must not occur again, or the hairbreadth ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... this plain, unvarnished tale without admiring the stern resolution, the unbending pride, the loftiness of spirit that seemed to nerve the hearts of these self-taught heroes and to raise them above the instinctive feelings of human nature? When the Gauls laid waste the city of Rome, they found the senators clothed in their robes and seated with stern tranquillity ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... There has been much uncalled for satirical comment at the expense of the quartermasters. They were really among the most useful of officers—indispensable in fact. The man who handled the transportation for a cavalry command had a position requiring tact, nerve, energy, endurance and ability of a high order. Mr. Patten was such a man. His wagon trains never failed to reach the front with needed supplies when it was possible to get them there. The white canvas of the army wagon was a pleasant sight to the soldier worn out with marching and ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... of Agriculture is, taken as a whole, a most wonderful institution. I do wish, however, that the Department officials would not always wait until they think they know exactly all the facts about a thing before they publish it. I sometimes wish they had enough nerve to say: "Now, this is what we found out today. We may change our minds tomorrow and if we do we will tell you so," the same as any other honest citizen. Why in the world they collect all the data they do, file it away day after day, month after month and year ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting - Washington, D. C. October 7 AND 8, 1920 • Various
... accurate description of the dinner itself and enclosing a diagram of the manner in which the guests were seated, but without any commentary on the proceedings of the day. It was, after all, one of the nerve-centres of the great world, and an agreeable change from the domestic monotony of the Wayside. Thackeray would have descried rich material for his pen in it, but Hawthorne's studies lay in another direction. Great men were not his ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... Jimmy was up in arms. He had a reserve stock of nerve for occasions like this, which could be ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... his make-up both on and off the stage, and copied, so far as he could, Ling's style of work. His fame reached this country and the New York Clipper published, in its Letter Columns, an article stating that Ling Look was not dead, but was alive and working in England. His imitator had the nerve to stick to his story even when confronted by Kellar, but when the latter assured him that he had personally attended the burial of Ling, in Hong Kong, he broke down and confessed that he was a younger brother ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... an energetic heroic age, in the hardy North which steels every nerve. The precise duration of the action cannot be ascertained,—years perhaps, according to the story; but we know that to the imagination the most crowded time appears always the shortest. Here we can ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... because we are separated from some member of the Lord's body, or because there is not the freedom of His love flowing through every organic part. It does not need a blow upon the head to paralyze the brain; a blow upon some nerve may do it; or a wound in some artery at the extremities may be fatal to the heart. Therefore we must stand right with all His children, and meet in the body of Christ in the sweetest, fullest fellowship, if we would ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... much to further the cause of the Liberals in Europe. It was a difficult and a hazardous game to play, but he set about playing it with delighted alacrity. And then, to his intense annoyance, just as he needed all his nerve and all possible freedom of action, he found himself being hampered and distracted at every turn by... those people at Osborne. He saw what it was; the opposition was systematic and informed, and the Queen alone would have been incapable ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... over-culture of the age leads to this shoal, and nothing becomes the cultivated man so much as to escape by a happy victory this twofold and pernicious influence. Of all other European nations, our neighbors, the French, lean most to this extreme, and we, as in all things, strain every nerve ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... which in order to provide a supply of fresh meat for her offspring after her own decease, calls in the science of anatomy to amplify the resources of her instinctive cruelty, and, having made a collection of weevils and spiders, proceeds with marvellous knowledge and skill to pierce the nerve-centre on which their power of locomotion (but none of their other vital functions) depends, so that the paralysed insect, beside which her egg is laid, will furnish the larva, when it is hatched, with a tamed and inoffensive quarry, incapable ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... had believed himself to be while laboring under more serious bodily illness: he was only sad; but that sadness, he believed, would remain during life. Ah, well!—if life and health were still to be his, he must nerve himself to meet whatever of sorrow or disappointment might come, and bear what he could not conquer. So thought he as they rode homeward, when John for a time ceased that constant stream of chat for ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... intent on insects so small as to be invisible to us at a very short distance. These he gathers in the air, he sees what we cannot see, his eyes are to our eyes as his wings are to our limbs. If still further we were to consider the flow of the nerve force between the eye, the mind, and the wing, we should be face to face with problems which quite upset the ordinary ideas of matter as a solid thing. How is it that dull matter becomes thus inexpressibly sensitive? Is not the swallow's eye a miracle? Then his heart, for he ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... feel or how I don't feel hain't got nothing to do with it, Mawruss," Abe retorted. "And furthermore, Mawruss, any motor-cycle policeman which has got the nerve to swear that he could tell inside of two miles an hour how fast somebody is driving, understand me, is guilty of perjury on the face of it, which I told the judge. 'Judge, your Honor,' I says, 'I admit I was going fast,' I ...
— Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things • Montague Glass
... radiated good fellowship and even bandied witticisms with the junior subaltern in an admirable spirit of give-and-take. He had enjoyed excellent sport. Later, in the ante-room, he delivered a useful little homily on the surmounting of obstacles, on patience, on presence of mind and on nerve, copiously illustrated from a day's triumph that will resound on the Murman coast as the unconditional surrender of the intimidated roach. He described how he had cunningly outmanoeuvred the patrols, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various
... Aumia was not genuine. It could not be; it was too dramatic. When they left the house the mourners laughed and lit cigarettes and pipes. If no new visitor came they fell to chatting and smoking, but the sight of a fresh and unharrowed person started them off again in their mechanical, though nerve-racking, cry. ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... a scene of confusion. Exposing himself recklessly, Scott tried to urge the dogs forward, but they had lost their nerve. It needed only this to upset everything. The hunters closed in together, and the critical moment had come; deaf alike to command and entreaty, the two hounds refused to go in, and Scuffy, flying wildly about the bear, seemed unable to check ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... if their own nervous power were cooperating in the struggle, the gallant ship bore her head round to face the driving waves. From the ten huge, red stacks columns of inky black smoke poured out as the stokers crammed the furnaces beneath. It was man against nature, human nerve and mechanical ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... sin," he said. "You have had enough of that already. It will require a steady nerve to meet the girl and carry out the deception, for the eyes of love are quick to discern. If she should for an instant suspect that you are not her lover, Lester Armstrong, the game is up, and you have lost the high ...
— Mischievous Maid Faynie • Laura Jean Libbey
... a rough affair. For ten minutes the result was doubtful. The Federal cavalry were apparently commanded by an officer of excellent nerve, and he fought his men obstinately. For nearly a quarter of an hour the wood was full of sabre-strokes, carbine-shots, and yells, which mingled with the roll of the storm. Then the ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... said he, "to be among the best you have; and I know very few lines in your language equal to the two first stanzas in his 'Meditation on Napoleon,' or to those exquisite verses called 'Le Lac;' but you will allow also that he wants originality and nerve. His thoughts are pathetic, but not deep; he whines, but sheds no tears. He has, in his imitation of Lord Byron, reversed the great miracle; instead of turning water into wine, he has turned wine into water. ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... it curl itself away around the chandelier, for notwithstanding the fact that he knew, or should have known, the effects of nicotine on the human system, this aspiring young member of the medical profession wasted money and nerve force in his slavery ...
— The Daughter of a Republican • Bernie Babcock
... years. Do you know anything about the philosophy of the hypnotic trance? Well, that was the relation between us—hypnotist and subject. She had been under another man before my time, but no one was ever so successful with her as I. She suffered from tic douloureux of the fifth nerve. She had had most of her teeth drawn before I saw her, and an attempt had been made to wrench out the nerve on the left side by the external scission. But it made no difference: all the clocks in hell tick-tacked in that poor woman's jaw, and it was the mercy ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... all. Making a will is like ordering your grave clothes. Takes nerve. Mrs. Mosely didn't have any. She was merely a little old gray barnacle sticking to her husband's ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... and of the trains and detachments en route to it, would have been hardly less disgraceful than a surrender of the whole. To Burnside's honor and credit it should be recorded that he did not dream of doing it. He strained every nerve to hasten the movement of his troops so as to get through with his little campaign against Jones by the time the Ninth Corps could come from Kentucky, and if he could accomplish it within that limit, he would have ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... along every nerve tingled an exquisite thrill of excitement. He had yearned for wild, border life. Here he was in it, with the hunter whose name alone was to the savages a symbol for all ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... test. And, again, this negative act may be equivocal in a different way; the friendliness may not only have existed, but may have existed in strength sufficient for any test whatever; not the principles of the Seceders, but their Jacobinical mode of asserting them, may have proved the true nerve of the repulsion to many. What is it that we wish the English reader to collect from these distinctions? Simply that the danger is not yet gone past. The earthquake, says a great poet, when speaking of the general tendency ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... an absolutely straight street forms a comparatively easy target, and a cellar is no protection against a 240 lbs. Minenwerfer shell. On one occasion the enemy, starting at one end, dropped a shell on every house in turn down one side, smashing each cellar; it was a nerve-racking performance for those who lived in one of the cellars and had to watch the shells coming nearer, knowing that to go into the street meant instant death at the hands of some sniper. The headquarters of No. 15 Platoon had a direct hit, but fortunately 2nd Lieuts. Brooke ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... How could you pretend When, after Jena, I'd have come to you, "The weather was so wild, the roads so rough, That no one of my sex and delicate nerve Could hope to face the dangers and fatigues." Yes—so you wrote me, ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... her and Howie. The train was late. It was almost the hour for pictures to begin when she got down at that lonely, far-away station. And the town, it seemed, was a mile from the station! There was a bus she must take. Every nerve of her being was hurrying that bus on—until that very anxiety made it seem it was Howie himself she would see if only she ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... against the loss of that blessed sense of well-being and overflowing health, that she used to have, in the old days. She resented the nerve-weariness, the fatigue that she was now more conscious of than ever, with the coming of the spring. The impulse of creative energy broke forth in her. The pearly mornings and the birds' songs stirred every ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... the one hand they restored the estates plundered by the Cromwellians thirty-six years before, and gave compensation to all innocent persons—while they strained every nerve to exclude the English from our trade, and to secure it to the Irish—while they introduced the Statute of Frauds, and many other sound laws, and thus showed their zeal for the peaceful and permanent welfare of the ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... the American manner, crouching, with both arms half extended (and this seems to have entirely bewildered his adversary) and he made no effort to reach the face. He just thumped away steadily below the spot where the ribs part, and where—a doctor informs me—a nerve-center, known as the solar plexus, is situated. He revolved, too, with considerable agility, round his opponent, and gradually drew the battle nearer and nearer to the side lane outside. He knew enough of slum-chivalry by now to be ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... because a Robinson relative had given him the job, and he hadn't the nerve to refuse it. He couldn't well refuse it, because of Thomas. Uncompanioned by Thomas he would probably have chosen instead to sweep a crossing or play a barrel-organ, or stand at a street corner with outstretched hat (though this last would only have done for a summer engagement, as Peter didn't ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... heavy stone close at hand; or to scramble about among crags and precipices, if you felt certain of the steadiness of your head and the strength of your muscles. But he did not realize that "courage" could mean the nerve to speak one ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... drummer was drinking to recover his nerve, Alexandra hurried to the drug store as the most likely place to find Carl Linstrum. There he was, turning over a portfolio of chromo "studies" which the druggist sold to the Hanover women who did china-painting. Alexandra explained her predicament, ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... which should duly flatter the niece of the moment without unduly discounting the aunt that was to come. Privately he doubted more than ever whether these formal visits on a succession of total strangers would do much towards helping the nerve cure which he was supposed ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki |
