"Strained" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pitiful carpet. A grim whimsicality fell upon him. It would be too bad to lose it! It was luxury to what Larry the Bat had known! There had not even been a carpet in the old Sanctuary, and—he sat suddenly bolt upright on the cot, his eyes, that had mechanically travelled on along the moonpath, strained now upon where the light fell upon the threshold of the door. There was a little white patch there, a most curious little white patch—that had not been there when he had thrown himself on the cot. Came a ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... that bound the book and began to turn the dingy pages. At length, he reached the one whereon the spell that he sought was written. The letters were crabbed and dim with age, and the Ash Goblin strained his eyes to see them, following the words with his crooked forefinger. He read the spell through carefully, again and again, until he was certain that he knew it by heart. Then he closed the book and returned it to its hiding-place. ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield
... automobile had had its effect. Eager faces appeared at windows and doors. Children frankly curious and as frankly neglected climbed over each other, hanging on the ragged fences. Two mongrel dogs strained at their chains, yelping furiously. Genevieve crossed to the little square building bearing a gilt "office" sign. There was no response to her imperative knock, but a middle-aged man appeared on the porch of the adjoining ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... butcher was endeavoring to release his dog from the deadly grip. At length Mr. Prideaux's voice and action appeared for a moment to create a calm, and he held back his dog. Turk's flanks were heaving with the intense exertion and excitement of the fight, and he strained to escape from his master's hold to attack once more his enemy. At length, by kind words and the caress of the well-known hand, ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... housewife wearied with her many hours of exacting toil, each would make the task lighter, and would get through it with less loss of vital force, by occasionally devoting a few minutes to absolute rest in entire relaxation of the strained muscles and ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... put forth all its energies for the struggle of the election. Crassus and Caesar staked their money—whether their own or borrowed—and their connections to procure the consulship for Catilina and Antonius; the comrades of Catilina strained every nerve to bring to the helm the man who promised them the magistracies and priesthoods, the palaces and country-estates of their opponents, and above all deliverance from their debts, and who, they knew, would keep his ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... Scotland Yard and shut himself up for twenty minutes in the make-up room. When he reached Smike Street again he was no longer the spruce, upright, well-dressed official. A grimy cap covered tousled hair. His face was strained, his eyes bloodshot and his moustache combed out raggedly. A set of greasy mechanic's overalls had been drawn over his own clothes. He ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... latter complied, and began the slow recover. Suddenly, the rope checked. Slavin strained a moment, then he turned around to the expectant group. "Got ut'" he announced grimly. "I can tell by th' feel av ut. Tail on tu th' rope there, all av yez! ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... they were passing the Ranger Station and Sibyl saw the lights through the trees, did she, for a moment, renew her struggle. With all her strength she strained to release her hands. One cry from her strong, young voice would bring Brian Oakley so quickly after the automobile that her safety would be assured. On that mountain road, the chestnut would soon run them down. She even tried to throw herself from the car; but, bound as ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... thing over two thousand feet. The arduous labor of scaling an Alpine peak has a compensating glory; but the dead lift of our bodies up Nipple Top had no stimulus of this sort. It is simply hard work, for which the strained muscles only get the approbation of the individual conscience that drives them to the task. The pleasure of such an ascent is difficult to explain on the spot, and I suspect consists not so much in positive enjoyment as in the delight the mind experiences in tyrannizing over ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... grave is covered with flowers, and the flag which always waves there—the Star-Spangled Banner which his strained eyes saw on that 14th of September, 1814, rise triumphant above the smoke and vapor of battle—is ...
— The Star-Spangled Banner • John A. Carpenter
... seemed on the very edge of breaking. After half an hour's strained expectation it seemed still on the very edge of breaking. So I sat down on a stump. Then for the first time I noticed another acquaintance, handling his peavie near the very person ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... Cardon brought an action against one Proust for an error in weights of two millions in a total of ten million pounds' weight of rags, worth about four million francs! The manufacturer washes the rags and reduces them to a thin pulp, which is strained, exactly as a cook strains sauce through a tamis, through an iron frame with a fine wire bottom where the mark which give its name to the size of the paper is woven. The size of this mould, as it is called, regulates the size of ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... there were people not far off who were talking in a most earnest manner. Presently, out of the darkness stepped a man and a woman, and passed directly under the electric lamp. He saw their faces distinctly, especially the woman's, which was strained and haggard, as she listened to her companion. As they came nearer and stood close to the edge of the dock, it was possible for Douglas to overhear parts of the conversation. He could not see their faces now, though he could observe their ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... Irish method of administering the mullein is to place an ounce of dried leaves, or a corresponding quantity of the fresh ones, in a pint of milk; to boil for ten minutes, and then to strain. This strained fluid is given warm to the patient, with or without a little sugar. It is administered twice a day; and the taste of the mixture is bland, mucilaginous, comforting to the praecordia, and not disagreeable. I resolved to try this ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 415, December 15, 1883 • Various
... went towards the river, as I had many a time seen the fishers go in the quiet days that were past; and we said little, but kept our eyes strained both up and down the river for ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... laborers, and these people, who were universally feared, probably were the guilty ones, for it is difficult to believe that Cardinal Alessandro would have undertaken such a venture on his own account. It seems, however, that the relations of the Borgias and the Farnese were somewhat strained during this period. The cardinal spent most of his time on his family estates, and at this juncture little was heard of his sister Giulia. It is not even known whether or not she was living in Rome and continuing her relations with the Pope, although, from subsequent revelations, it ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... stirrups. Mother said she'd never give her consent, an' I told her very saucy I'd do without it. That's why I know it don't do to press Dawn over far; she must have the same fight in her, an' if drove in a corner there'd be no doing anythink with her. Things was very strained at home then; they thought to wean me of him, an' Jim Clay he hung back some, sayin' I'd better think twice before I threw myself away on him. That made me all the determinder. Jim was the only man ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... and a large quantity of onions, into a pan full of water to soften. In about half an hour she put her dirty hands into the water, and mixed the whole together, now and then taking a mouthful, and, after chewing it, spitting it back again into the pan. She then took a dirty rag, and strained off the juice, which she poured over the ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... throne, Japan still enjoyed her original friendship with Paikche (Kudara), whence ladies-in-waiting were sent periodically to the Yamato Court. She also retained her military post at Mimana (Imna) and kept a governor there, but her relations with Shiragi (Sinra) were somewhat strained, owing to harsh treatment of the latter's special envoys who had come to convey their sovereign's condolences on the death of the Emperor Inkyo (453). From the time of Yuryaku's accession, Shiragi ceased altogether to send the usual gifts to the Emperor ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... facts, or of framing any hypothesis, however startling, which seemed to explain them...In any one else such an attitude would have produced much work that was crude and rash. But Mr. Darwin—if one may venture on language which will strike no one who had conversed with him as over-strained—seemed by gentle persuasion to have penetrated that reserve of nature which baffles smaller men. In other words, his long experience had given him a kind of instinctive insight into the method of attack of any biological problem, however ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... the common Bramble.—Five measures of the ripe fruit, with one of honey and six of water, boiled, strained, and left to ferment, then boiled again, and put in casks to ferment, are said to produce an excellent wine. In France the colour of wine is often rendered darker by a mixture of blackberries with ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 528, Saturday, January 7, 1832 • Various
... Gerbeaux, who was allowed to go out foraging, under escort of a guard, has returned with a rope of dried onions; a can of alphabet noodles; half a pound of stale, crumbly macaroons; a few fresh string beans; a pot of strained honey, and several clean collars of assorted sizes. The woman of the-house is now making soup for us out of the beans, the onions and the noodles. She has also produced a little grated Parmesan ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... enough to be remarked. His eye watched her rather than his lip addressed; he kept as much aloof as possible from the rest of her family, and his customary bearing was silent even to gloom. But there were moments when he indulged in a fitful exuberance of spirits, which had something strained and unnatural. He had outlived Lord Lilburne's short liking; for since he had resolved no longer to keep watch on that noble gamester's method of play, he played but little himself; and Lord Lilburne saw that he had no chance of ruining him— there was, therefore, no longer any reason to like ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... bath succeeded. Finally the tense silence, as of two adversaries locked in a deadly grip, was ended by the heavy, dull thump of a soft body flung against the inner partition of planks. It seemed to shake the whole bungalow. By that time, walking backward, his eyes, his very throat, strained with fearful excitement, his extended arm still pointing at the curtain, Wang had disappeared through the back door. Once out in the compound, he bolted round the end of the house. Emerging innocently between the two bungalows he lingered and lounged in the open, where anybody issuing from any of ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... he prepared to take a more positive attitude, and he engaged numerous African nomad tribes to support him in his revolt. The strained relations between Old and New Rome, which did not escape his notice, suggested to him that his rebellion might assume the form of a transition from the sovereignty of Honorius to the sovereignty of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... to pull up a runaway horse. Lord Minto had been sent to urge the Italian princes to grant those concessions which Austria always said (and she was perfectly right) would lead to a general attack upon her power, but when the attack began, the British Government strained every nerve to limit its extension and diminish its force. That Lord Palmerston in his own mind disliked Austria, and would have been glad to see North Italy free, does not alter the fact that he played the Austrian game, and played it with success. ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... whole we see that pregnancy induces a psychic state which is at once, in healthy persons, one of full development and vigor, and at the same time one which, especially in individuals who are slightly abnormal, is apt to involve a state of strained or overstrained nervous tension and to evoke various manifestations which are in many respects still imperfectly understood. Even the specifically sexual emotions tend to be heightened, more especially during the earlier period of pregnancy. In 24 cases of pregnancy in which the point was investigated ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... ancient kirtle, and with a huge chatelaine, from which massive chains dangled, not to say clattered-not merely the ordinary appendages of a young lady, but a pair of compasses, a safety inkstand, and a microscope. Her dark hair was strained back from a face not calculated to bear exposure, and was wound round a ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... federal, or whig and tory, being equally intermixed through every State, threatens none of those geographical schisms which go immediately to a separation. The line of division now is the preservation of State rights as reserved in the constitution, or by strained constructions of that instrument, to merge all into a consolidated government. The tories are for strengthening the executive and General Government; the whigs cherish the representative branch, and the rights reserved by the States, as the bulwark ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... can be prosecuted for assault, but I am very glad I did it. When he said, in the same voice of stone, "I refuse," I simply sprang on him. For three long instants he strained against me as if he had all hell to help him; but I forced his head until the hairy cap fell off it. I admit that, whilst wrestling, I shut ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... position he remained for half an hour. No sound broke the strained stillness of the place. The horses had sagged forward, their heads hanging, their legs braced. There was no cloud in the sky and the clear light of the moon poured down in a yellow flood. Calumet's task would have been easier if he could have told ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... really took Andrey Antonovitch's last hysterical outbreak as a direct permission to act as he was asking, or whether he strained a point in this case for the direct advantage of his benefactor, because he was too confident that success would crown his efforts; anyway, as we shall see later on, this conversation of the governor ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... yelping of triumph, seemingly reechoed the entire length of the chasm, in the midst of which one single voice pleaded pitifully,—only to die away in a shriek. The two agonized fugitives lay listening, their ears strained to catch the slightest sound from below. The faint radiance of a single star glimmered along the bald front of the cliff, but Hampton, peering cautiously across the edge, could distinguish nothing. His ears could discern evidences of movement, ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... strained, tense seconds passed with both men holding the positions they had assumed, it seemed Haydon was slowly beginning to realize that Harlan was reluctant, was ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... not doubt it was my father, for few others ever rode our way. He had been from home all day, as he frequently was of late, only he did not usually return so early in the evening. Something in my mother's face as she strained her eyes into the shadows to catch a glimpse of the advancing horseman drew me from my ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... power has been re-established. The three 'hereditary enemies'—England, France, and Russia—have joined hands, and have delivered Europe from the incubus of German suzerainty. German diplomacy has strained every effort to break the Triple Entente, in turn wooing and threatening France and Russia, keeping open the Moroccan sore as the Neapolitan lazzarone keeps open the wound which ensures his living, and finally challenging the naval supremacy of England, and preparing to become ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... up, his face white and strained, "Comrades!" he cried, "I came from the Rumanian front, to urgently tell you all: there must be peace! Peace at once! Whoever can give us peace, whether it be the Bolsheviki or this new Government, we will follow. Peace! We at the front cannot fight any longer. We cannot fight either Germans or ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... trees that surrounded them were hidden from their eyes, and the whiteness of the stone bench was seen no longer. They stood but a little way one from the other, but each might have stood alone. Susie strained her eyes, but she could see nothing. She looked up quickly; the stars were gone out, and she could see no further over her head than round about. The darkness was terrifying. And from it, Dr Porhoet's voice had a ghastly effect. It seemed to come, wonderfully changed, from the void of bottomless ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... wooing, which contained nothing that she might flout. So she strained away from him and sulked. ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... home a little while before; nothing was going well there, but as to that he was silent. "Karna isn't very well," he said. "She tried to do too much; she's strained herself ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... thousand pounds to purchase everything necessary to carry on the war with vigor next year." I heartily rejoice to hear this. I hope the committee are men of business, and will make a good use of the powers and moneys they are intrusted with. Let me tell you, that every nerve must be strained to resist the British tyrant, who, in despair of availing himself of his own troops which lately he so much prided himself in, is now summoning the powers of earth and hell to subjugate America. The lamp of ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... the local room. They were the very best of friends, in the office and out of it; but as the city editor had given Conway the Christmas-eve story to write instead of Bronson, the latter was jealous, and their relations were strained. I use the word "story" in the newspaper sense, where everything written for the paper is a story, whether it is an obituary, or a reading notice, or a dramatic criticism, or a descriptive account of the crowded streets and the lighted shop-windows of a Christmas ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... the fatal allurement of a separate research. The truth is that a spirit of fantastic experiment, started by the mystic manner of a Cesar Franck, sought a sanction in the phenomena of acoustics. So it is likely that the enharmonic process of Franck led to the strained use of the whole-tone scale (of which we have spoken above) by a further departure from tonality.[A] And yet, in all truth, there can be no doubt of the delight of these flashes of the modern French poet,—a delicate charm as beguiling as the bolder, warmer harmonies of the ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... it silently to Miss Taylor. Mary Taylor was beside herself with impatient anger—and anger intensified by a conviction of utter helplessness to cope with any strained or unusual situations between ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... steep glacis and a deep fosse defended the works. Durrance sat himself down upon the parapet of the wall above the glacis, while the pigeons wheeled and circled overhead, thinking of the long months during which Tewfik must daily have strained his eyes from this very spot toward the pass over the hills from Suakin, looking as that other general far to the south had done, for the sunlight flashing on the weapons of the help which did not come. Mather sat by his side and ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... journeys to the post office were meeting with less than their just deserts, she was not a woman to insist upon gratitude where gratitude was not freely given. She stayed therefore no longer than the fiction of dress-fitting required and then with a somewhat strained "good night" passed down the stairs and out ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... President sternly, while Professor Pludder flushed very red, "this will not do! Indulge in no personalities here. I have, strained a point in offering to listen to you at all, and I have invited the head of the greatest of our scientific societies to be present, with the hope that here before us all he might convince you of your folly, and thus bring the whole unfortunate ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... helpless trepidation of her manner. Miss Bart, on the contrary, borne forward on the wave of her buoyant grace, and neither shrinking from her friends nor appearing to lie in wait for them, gave to the encounter the touch of naturalness which she could impart to the most strained situations. Such embarrassment as was shown was on Mrs. Trenor's side, and manifested itself in the mingling of exaggerated warmth with imperceptible reservations. Her loudly affirmed pleasure at seeing Miss Bart took the form of a nebulous generalization, which included neither enquiries ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... freedom in the treatment, and my most wise manager, Mr. Harrison Grey Fiske, accorded this. The play was produced and played as written, with the exception of one or two short scenes, which were not acceptable to Mrs. Fiske; that is, she felt, or would have felt, somewhat strained or unnatural in these scenes. Accordingly, I cut them out, or rather rewrote them. The temperament of the race-horse has to be considered—much ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The New York Idea • Langdon Mitchell
... pondered, Studied long the rising smoke-clouds; Came not from the heat of battle, Came not from the shepherd bonfires; Heard they were the fires of Louhi Brewing beer in Sariola, On Pohyola's promontory; Long and oft looked Lemminkainen, Strained in eagerness his vision, Stared, and peered, and thought, and wondered, Looked abashed and envy-swollen, "O beloved, second mother, Northland's well-intentioned hostess, Brew thy beer of honey-flavor, Make thy liquors foam and sparkle, For thy many friends invited, ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... necessity of putting an end, at least for that evening, to this perilous conversation. Andrea affected an almost over-strained courtesy. Elena became even gentler, almost humble. A nervous tremor ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... in the trembling frame and altered voice that impressed her strangely. What was failing? Had the springs of life been so strained by suffering that there was ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... this almost come up to Lord Castlereagh's famous metaphor? It certainly goes beyond Mr. Gilfillan's own praise of Longfellow, whose sentiment is described as "never false, nor strained, nor mawkish. It is always mild,... and sometimes it approaches the sublime." Mr. G. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 203, September 17, 1853 • Various
... homilies on the principal festivals of the Church. Both the comments and sermons are generally allegorical in the construction of the text, and simply moral in the application. In these discourses several things seem strained and fanciful; but herein he followed entirely the manner of the earlier fathers, from whom the greatest part of his divinity is not so much imitated as extracted. The systematic and logical method, which seems to have been first ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... bank to the other as though there were no bridges in their insensate course. And their ears were strained for the explosion, for the abomination now to come, preparing slyly in the night so hypocritically soft under the cold glance of the stars. Suddenly, "Stop, stop!" Rouletabille cried ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... upon the lyric stage until 1834, when the failure of his voice, which had been strained at the Conservatoire, compelled him to retire. He continued, however, the study of music, and his productions, particularly a "Dies Irae," placed him in the front rank of composers. At this period of his life, meditation ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... Narrow-Face a sum of money and could not pay it. He remembered the unpleasant tightening of the mouth and the sudden shrewd hard look in his employer's long narrow face. He had not heard much of the talk, but he was aware of a strained pleading quality in the voice of the young man who had said over and over slowly and painfully, "But, man, my honour is at stake," and of a coldness in the answering voice replying persistently, "With me it is ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... on the stump half an hour longer, he was in condition to march; but the danger was past, the tremendous excitement had subsided, and his muscles, which had been strained up to the highest tension, seemed to become soft and flaccid. The party passed the Union pickets, and reached the headquarters of the division general, who had just ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... not answer. His ears were strained for the splashing in the water, if still it might be heard as an undertone beneath the distant din of the alarm. The launch could not advance a foot farther, if it were to save all three lives; and it would take some time at ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... she had been surprised,—clandestinely concealed with only Belfield and his sister—joined to the positive assertions of her partiality for him made by his mother, could not, to Mr Delvile, but appear marks irrefragable that his charge in his former conversation was rather mild than over-strained, and that the connection he had mentioned, for whatever motives ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... the Taoist Chang aloud, as he followed Chia Chen in. Chia Chen approached dowager lady Chia. Bending his body he strained a laugh. "Grandfather Chang," he said, "has come in ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... wherein nothing has been exaggerated; no fact produced which cannot be proved, and none which has been produced in any wise forced or strained, while thousands have, for brevity, been omitted; after so candid a discussion in all respects; what slave so passive, what bigot so blind, what enthusiast so headlong, what politician so hardened, as to stand up in defence of a system calculated for ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... a very good report in the morning. The patient's back has been strained, and the ankle is bad enough, but good care will soon overcome that. She must lie ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... Robert strained both eye and ear, but he could neither see nor hear any human being. The wall on the far side of the ravine rose to a considerable height, its edge making a black line against the sky, but nothing ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... snow-fights have been a kind of safety-valve for the young blood to keep it from worse mischief later on. There are worse things in the world than to let the boys have a fling where no greater harm can befall than a bruised eye or a strained thumb. ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... he continued, "I am not here to mock at your grief or to weary your strained heartstrings with such petty condolence as well-nigh drove Ayoub of old to impatience. But I love you, my brother, and I have somewhat to say to you in your trouble, some advice to give you in your ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... chatter which ensued the chords softly played passed into ears that might as well have been deaf; but at last there was a general quiescence of expectation, in which every one's eyes were strained to pierce through the gauze curtain to the sombre drapery beyond. The wait was so long that the tension relaxed and a whispering began, and Verrian felt a sickness of pity for the girl who was probably going to make a failure of it. He ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... shock in this encounter. He had been half prepared for such an event. Besides, his nerves had been already strained to their utmost by the spectacle of the morning. Sorrow may sometimes eclipse sorrow, and drive it from the heart; but that agony which he had already endured could not be supplanted by a greater. ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... was the company of the prelates—a long purple line, some only in cassocks, some in robes, and mitred; then came a new banner of the Blessed Virgin, which excited intense interest, and every eye was strained to catch the pictured scene. After this banner, amid frequent incense, walked two of the most beautiful children in Rome, dressed as angels with golden wings; the boy bearing a rose of Jericho, the girl a lily. After these, as was understood, dressed in black and veiled, walked ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... read or repeated; but in that crowded court-room, with every ear strained to catch the lie which seemed the only refuge for the man so hemmed in by circumstance, these words, uttered without the least attempt at effect, fell with a force which gave new life to such as wished to ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... left hand he caught the ledge to the left, strained up, and, holding thus, reached out with his right. The hand closed about the cluster, and the twig was broken. Grayson gave a great shout then. He turned his head as though to drop them, and, that ...
— 'Hell fer Sartain' and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... no sooner finished his business with his sable friend, when he turned the other way; and of course the motionless figure standing so near his elbow, the woman's bonnet and drapery, caught his first glance. Eleanor was watching, with eyes that were strained already with the effort; they got leave to go down now. The flash of joy in those she had been looking at, the deep tone of the low uttered, "Oh, Eleanor!" which burst from him, made her feel on the instant as if she were paid to the full, not only for all she had done, but for all that life ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... a single word, "As-cen-s-e-u-r!" in a singing roar, into which he threw his whole soul, as a young tiger does. As the train passed the boy, Mary, gazing out of the corridor window, looked straight down the deep round tunnel that was his open mouth, and caught his strained eye. He suddenly looked self-conscious, and broke into a foolish yet pleasant smile. Mary smiled too, like a child, showing her dimples. Then she knew that she would get out at Monte Carlo no ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Ziska moving with her floating, noiseless grace, Denzil Murray beside her, the little Nubian boy waving the peacock-plumes in front of them both, and all the other enslaved admirers of this singularly attractive woman crowding together behind. He watched the little cortege with strained, dim sight, till just at the dividing portal between the lounge and the ballroom the Princess turned and looked back at him with a smile. Over all the intervening heads their eyes met in one flash of mutual comprehension! ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... was alive with boats, the clouds of steam from their funnels wreathed about the spans. Street-cars blocked the roadway; tugging horses, sweating under the lash of their drivers' whips, strained under heavy loads. The air was heavy with coal-smoke. Through the gloom of the haze, close to the opposite bank, rose a grim, square building of granite and brick, its grimy windows blinking through iron bars. Behind these, shut out from summer clouds and winter snows, bereft ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the passages leading to Westminster Hall. By stoop, I mean that gentle bending of the body forwards, which, in great men, must be supposed to be the effect of an habitual condescending attention to the applications of their inferiors. While he held you in converse, you felt strained to the height in the colloquy. The conference over, you were at leisure to smile at the comparative insignificance of the pretensions which had just awed you. His intellect was of the shallowest order. It did not reach to a saw or a proverb. His mind ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... speculation, uneasily aware that much of the carefree confidence of the last hour had deserted him. In a more normal state of mind again he became prey to tension once more, a pounding heart and dry mouth recalling mercilessly the essential frailties of his kind. So, with aching neck and burning eyes he strained for a clear view past the length of ...
— Far from Home • J.A. Taylor
... the "Adventures" I have ascribed to Captain Dangerous will be readily recognised as "strange." To some they may appear exaggerated and distorted, to others merely strained and dull. If truth, however, be stranger than fiction, I may plead something in abatement; for although I am responsible for the thread of the story and the conduct of the narrative, there is not one Fact ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... His companions silently watched Bruce's mute struggles. The Major, a perfect sport, sat stoically in his place. Barney, knowing that suggestions were useless, also was silent. So they volplaned slowly downward, every eye strained for a safe landing-place. They knew what a crash would mean at such a place. Loss of life perhaps; a wrecked plane at least, then a struggle through the woods till starvation ended it. They were four hundred miles from the last trace of ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... in silence, and, the meal over, emphasized his position as head of the family by taking the easy-chair, a piece of furniture sacred to Mr. Green, and subjecting that injured man to a catechism which strained his powers of ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... Silvia—episodes which created the music and the painting of two centuries, and which still live upon the lips of the people. But inasmuch as his genius labored beneath the superincumbent weight of precedents and deferences, the poet's nature was strained to the uttermost and his nervous elasticity was overtaxed. No sooner had he poured forth freely what flowed freely from his soul, than he returned on it with scrupulous analysis. The product of his spirit stood before him as a thing to be submitted ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... with plantain-water, knot-grass and endive. Then purge with the following draught:—Take one drachm each of the void of mirabolans, and rhubarb, cinnamon fifteen grains; infuse for a night in endive water; add to the strained water half an ounce of pulp of tamarinds and of cassia, and make a draught. If the blood be waterish as it is in dropsical subjects and flows out easily on account of its thinness, it will be a good plan to draw off the water by purging with ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... I cried, as I jumped to my feet and walked to the door across which were the heavy wooden bars that had attracted my attention. Peering through these I could see nothing, nor was there any sound toward which I might have strained my eyes. ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... vestiges of his work. The next morning at dawn, he was on his way to bring in his fur. The snow had done its work effectually, and, he believed, had kept his secret well. Arrived in sight of the locality, he strained his vision to make out his prize lodged against the fence at the foot of the hill. Approaching nearer, the surface was unbroken, and doubt usurped the place of certainty in his mind. A slight mound marked the site of the porker, but there was no foot-print near it. Looking ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... Cream soups.—The strained pulp of cooked vegetables or legumes, with an equal portion of thin white sauce, is the basis for cream soups. The liquid for the soup may be all milk, part vegetable water and part milk, or ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools • Ministry of Education Ontario
... intercourse of trade and the establishment of regular diplomatic relations. King Mindon died in 1878, and was succeeded by his son King Thibaw. Early in 1879 he excited much horror by executing a number of the members of the Burmese royal family, and relations became much strained. The British resident was withdrawn in October 1879. The government of the country rapidly became bad. Control over many of the outlying districts was lost, and the elements of disorder on the British frontier were a standing menace to the peace of the country. The Burmese court, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... walk we will make tracks straightway for civilisation. I am sure you know the way, for now you are as right as I am." But nothing interested the dying man. Shortly before the end his eyes assumed a strained look, and I could see he was rapidly going. The thought of his approaching end was to me a relief; it would be untrue if I were to say otherwise. For weeks past I had seen that the man could not live, and considering that every day brought its battle for life, ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... awaited the eventful dawn of morning, to begin a contest, which long delay, rather than the probability of decisive consequences, and the picked body, rather than the number of the combatants, was to render so terrible and remarkable. The strained expectation of Europe, so disappointed before Nuremberg, was now to be gratified on the plains of Lutzen. During the whole course of the war, two such generals, so equally matched in renown and ability, ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... rather than received them, and maintained a merely official relationship with them so far even as not to invite them to dinner. {253} After a time, however, his Majesty somewhat softened in temper; the relations between him and his advisers became less strained; and he even went so far as to invite the members of the Cabinet to dinner, and expressed in his invitation the characteristic wish that each guest would drink at least two bottles of wine. When the construction of the new Ministry had been completed, Parliament reassembled on April 18; but ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... which he sank and looked around upon his frenzied followers. Mohammed Suraj-oo-deen Shah Gezee was now the Great Mogul of India. A royal salute of twenty-one guns was fired by two troops of artillery from Meerut in front of the palace, and the wild multitudes again strained their throats. To the thunder of artillery, the strains of martial music and the shouting of the people, the gates of the palace were flung open, and Prince Mirza Mogul, with his brother, Prince Abu Beker, at the head of the royal bodyguard, rode forth, the king following in ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... along much of the Mexico-US border region has ameliorated periodically strained water-sharing arrangements; the US has intensified security measures to monitor and control legal and illegal personnel, transport, and commodities across its border with Mexico; Mexico must deal with thousands of impoverished Guatemalans and other Central Americans who cross the porous border looking ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... a moon, seen red through tropical mists; and as he played it wore an expression of strained attention as though the fiddle were telling him tales much more marvellous than the old bald ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... personality. Gradually her thoughts returned to the happenings of the moment, and then the full horror of what had occurred came back to her. She began to cry weakly. But the tears did her good, bringing with them relief from the awful shock which had strained her nerves almost to breaking-point, and with return to a more normal state of mind came the instinctive wish to help—to do something for those who must be suffering so pitiably in the midst of that scarred heap ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... pseudo-Milton than of a writer who frankly aimed at nothing higher than a book of music-hall songs. He should be more eager to define the qualities of a book than to heap comment upon comment. If—I hope the image is not too strained—he draws a book from the life, he will produce a better review than if he spends his time calling it names, whether ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... fully enjoy your sports and you will never obtain all possible benefit from them until you lose your dignity and learn how to play. Try to be glad that you are alive and able to play these games. One great drawback to American sports is the tendency to take them too seriously. There is too much of strained effort involved in the desire to win the game at any price. Keep yourself in a state of mind where you "see the fun." Though "playing to win" may be commended, the real purpose of any game is the fun and benefit that is secured therefrom whether you win or ...
— Vitality Supreme • Bernarr Macfadden
... be made in one day of eighteen hours, 6d. is paid. The weekly wage of these sewing-women according to this and according to testimony from many sides, including both needle-women and employers, is 2s. 6d. to 3s. for most strained work continued far into the night. And what crowns this shameful barbarism is the fact that the women must give a money deposit for a part of the materials entrusted to them, which they naturally cannot do unless they pawn a part of them (as the employers ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... is, boilers have of late become gigantic foes to human life. Explosions have increased, are increasing, and should be diminished; and they are, in many instances, caused by boilers being strained and weakened by sudden contraction from having their surfaces exposed when the fire has been withdrawn from them. Boilers are also materially injured by the excessive furnace heat which it is necessary to maintain to compensate for the large ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... that strained and yearned and strove As toward the sundawn strives the lark, Is cold as all the old ...
— A Century of Roundels • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... down the road, and announced, in a loud voice, his coming. The heart of the mother throbbed quicker at the word. She went to the window, where the children crowded, feeling troubled, and yet with something of the old gladness about her heart. She strained her eyes to see him, and yet dreaded to fix them upon him too intently, lest more should be seen than she wished to see. He came nearer and nearer, and she was yet at the window, her heart beating audibly. ...
— Woman's Trials - or, Tales and Sketches from the Life around Us. • T. S. Arthur
... of locust leaves cast checkering lights and shadows on her white dress and across the strained anxiety of her face. She kept her eyes on her watch, and the ten minutes passed in silence. Then she went out into the road and looked down its length of noon-tide sunshine; the stage was not in sight. "Perhaps," ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... faster, Foreboding to traitors the doom of disaster. The heart of the steed and the heart of the master Were beating like prisoners assaulting their walls, Impatient to be where the battle-field calls; Every nerve of the charger was strained to full play, With Sheridan ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... JOSEPH CROMPTON, M.A., F.M.S. "The author, when walking close to the Cathedral of Norwich, was struck with the unusual fluttering of the flags on the top of the spire, which was 300 feet high. They were streaming with a strained, quivering motion perpendicularly upwards. A heavy cloud was passing overhead at the moment and as it passed, the flags followed the cloud and then gradually dropped into comparative quietness. The same phenomenon ...
— New and Original Theories of the Great Physical Forces • Henry Raymond Rogers
... sleep: I tried to convince myself that they were of no importance, really, since I should have forgotten them next morning, and to fix my mind on thoughts of the future which would carry me, as on a bridge, across the terrifying abyss that yawned at my feet. But my mind, strained by this foreboding, distended like the look which I shot at my mother, would not allow any other impression to enter. Thoughts did, indeed, enter it, but only on the condition that they left behind them every element of beauty, or even of quaintness, by which I might have been ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... stood utterly confounded by the treatment he had undergone and the sight that presented itself to his astonished gaze. Opera-glasses were turned on him from the boxes, the gentlemen on the grand tier strained their necks in order to catch a glimpse of him; the pit, filled for the most part with young barristers, was in suppressed ecstasies; while the gallery, packed to the utmost limit of its capacity, broke out into ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... fingers. His eyes were fixed not upon Mrs. Bollington-Watts nor upon Lady Elisabeth, but upon Maraton. He was a young man of harmless and commonplace appearance but his features were at that moment transformed. His mouth was strained and quivering, his eyes were lit with something very much like horror. Some words certainly left his lips, but they did not carry to the hearing of any one of those three people. He looked at Maraton with the fierce, terrified intentness ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... had once said pathetically: 'It is only M. Turgot and I who love the people.' But even with the king, there were points at which the minister's philosophic severity strained their concord. Turgot was the friend of Voltaire and Condorcet; he counted Christianity a form of superstition; and he, who as a youth had refused to go through life wearing the mask of the infidel abbe, had too much self-respect in his manhood ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Turgot • John Morley
... handkerchiefs to us from their open doors; cries of "Good-bye!" "God grant you a fortunate journey!" came to us from the group of fur-clad men who surrounded our sledges; and the air trembled with the incessant howls of a hundred wolfish dogs, as they strained impatiently ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... home, the tender mother got his saddlebags, and filled his flask with brandy, and packed up a huge piece of Yorkshire pie, and even stuffed in a plaid shawl. And she strained her anxious eyes after him ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... Bridget's TETE-TETE dinner was an embarrassed meal, with Kuppi and Maggie hovering about the table. The man's eyes said more than his lips, and the woman sat, strained and silent, or else ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... went home and got supper, strained and skimmed milk, set a sponge for bread, and slept all night like a dormouse. George Tucker never went ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... glimpse of the girl. The searchlight of one of the cars struck full on the side of her face, and drew there a distinct shadow of the network of her disarranged hair. He saw the strained, excited look ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... seeing it, those became dispirited who never had doubted before. And this time, the gloom did not lift; it became a settled and dogged conviction that we were fighting the good fight almost against hope. Not that this prevented the army and the people from working still, with every nerve strained to its utmost tension; but they worked without the cheery hopefulness ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... whispering to Kathleen that he hoped he was going to a place where he could have enough money to buy her the right kind of a present for her next Christmas, and that it was rotten luck to be as poor as all this. Mr. Bingle strained his ears to catch Kathleen's reply, and it was such that his face brightened; he afterwards sidled up to her and stroked her hair ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon |
