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Strain   /streɪn/   Listen
Strain

noun
1.
(physics) deformation of a physical body under the action of applied forces.
2.
Difficulty that causes worry or emotional tension.  Synonym: stress.  "He presided over the economy during the period of the greatest stress and danger"
3.
A succession of notes forming a distinctive sequence.  Synonyms: air, line, melodic line, melodic phrase, melody, tune.
4.
(psychology) nervousness resulting from mental stress.  Synonyms: mental strain, nervous strain.  "The mental strain of staying alert hour after hour was too much for him"
5.
A special variety of domesticated animals within a species.  Synonyms: breed, stock.  "He created a new strain of sheep"
6.
(biology) a group of organisms within a species that differ in trivial ways from similar groups.  Synonyms: form, var., variant.
7.
Injury to a muscle (often caused by overuse); results in swelling and pain.
8.
The general meaning or substance of an utterance.  Synonym: tenor.
9.
An effortful attempt to attain a goal.  Synonyms: nisus, pains, striving.
10.
An intense or violent exertion.  Synonym: straining.
11.
The act of singing.  Synonym: song.



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"Strain" Quotes from Famous Books



... became quite still and then there arose the sound of music. It was a slow and somber strain, as from an ...
— The Crime of the French Cafe and Other Stories • Nicholas Carter

... strain which the Basque woman had given her grandson that enabled Steve to be master of his house even if he knew very little of what it was all about. It was fortunate for his peace of mind—and pocketbook—that ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley

... for Denasia could not by look or whisper make a complaint or a request. She was only not dead. The convalescence from such a sickness was necessarily long and tiresome. The fondest heart, the most unselfish nature must at times have felt the strain too great to be borne. Roland changed completely under it. His love for Denasia had always been dependent upon accessories pleasant and profitable to himself, as, indeed, his love for any human being would have been. While Denasia's beauty and talent ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... talked to her of their waiting in Paris, a week later, but on the spot there this period of patience suffered no great strain. He had written to his daughter, not indeed from Brighton, but directly after their return to Fawns, where they spent only forty-eight hours before resuming their journey; and Maggie's reply to his news was a telegram from Rome, delivered to him at noon of their fourth day and ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... you would get a corresponding increase in power or range, and be able to throw a relatively larger projectile, is something no one knows, for there never has been such a gun made. Besides, the strain of the big charge of powder needed would be enormous. So I don't want merely to make a giant cannon. I want one that will do a giant's work, and still be ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton

... sayin, 'Come over, come over," an' de little frogs kep' er hollin', 'Jus' knee-deep; jus' knee-deep,' tell de Beaver he pitched in fur ter swim 'cross; an', gemmun, de creek wuz so deep, an de water so swiff, tell hit put 'im up ter all he knowed. He had ter strain an' ter wrestle wid dat water tell hit flattent his tail out same ez er shobel, an' er little mo'n he'd er los' his life; but hit larnt him er lesson. I ain't nuber hyeard uv his meddlin' wid nuffin' fum dat ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle

... sir, that all our gear is nearly new," he said; "for if it had not been, this rolling would have taken the mast out of her. The strain on the shrouds each time that she gets chucked over must ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty

... Dr. James recommended it. He said it was harmful to let them strain themselves crying, and very hard on you. You could save yourself a lot," ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter

... weather or after obtaining the leave of the head-master,'because I have not received adequate support.' 'The school cannot, single-handed,' he continues, 'press the point, if parents do not like it. The strain upon me, individually, is too great, if I have to remonstrate with a parent, or to punish a boy, on an average about twice a week.' The boys cannot be got to come back to the school on a certain day, or prevented from leaving before the term is over, many parents being of opinion that ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny

... expected more than he received, and became very unpleasant in his correspondence, so much so that Shelley had to beg him not to write to Mary on these subjects, as her health was not then, in October 1819, able to bear the strain, and the subject of money was not a fitting one to be pressed on her by him. Mary had not the disposal of money; if she had she would give it all to her father. He assured Godwin that the four or ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti

... middle of this plank-like piece of wood, which is split with the grain to stand the great strain often imposed upon it, and never sawn at all, the toes are fastened by a leather strap. Another strap goes round the heel in a sort of loop fashion, securing the foot, but at the same time giving the heel full play. A ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... he humbly, and he got up to move out. He was going a little groggily, his eyes were dull and sodden. He presented all the aspect of a man under a heavy strain. ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc

... What do it smell like? It smell like chitlings. In that sack is the inside of the chitlings (hog manure). I boil it down and strain it, then boll it down, put camphor gum and fresh lard in it, boil it down low and pour it up. It is a green salve. It is fine for piles, rub your back for lumbago, and swab out your throat for sore throat. It is a good salve. I had a sore throat and a black woman told me how ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... Why should we be the last? We do not distinguish it, like all the others created before us. The reason is, that its nature is more perfect, its body finer and more finished than ours, that ours is so weak, so awkwardly conceived, encumbered with organs that are always tired, always on the strain like locks that are too complicated, which lives like a plant and like a beast, nourishing itself with difficulty on air, herbs and flesh, an animal machine which is a prey to maladies, to malformations, to decay; broken-winded, badly regulated, simple and eccentric, ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... or two Grace stood still. She did not want to stop, but something in Barbara's voice indicated strain. If Barbara were startled, it was strange. Then, not far off, a branch cracked and the pine-spray rustled as if they ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss

... grieves me that I have forgotten those vigorous remarks. I long hoarded them in my memory as a treasure. But I remember one of them still, because I heard it so many times. The trial of that little creature's life was the children's hair. She would tug and strain with her comb, accompanying her work with her misplaced pieties. And when finally she was through with her triple job she always fired up and exploded her thanks toward the sky, where they belonged, in this form: "Gott sei ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain

... handful of Hysop, of Figs, Raisins, Dates, of each an ounce, of Collipint half an handful, French Barley one ounce, boil therein three pints of fair water to a quart, strain it and clarifie it with two whites of Eggs, then put in two pound of fine sugar, and boil it ...
— A Queens Delight • Anonymous

... open the safe. You will find in it, on the right-hand side, another small bundle of linen: bring it here. Stop, Newton, blow the dust out of the pipe of the key before you put it in, and be careful that it is well inserted before you turn it, or you may strain the wards. In all other points, you may be as quick as you please. My lord Marquis', will you allow me to offer you some refreshment?—a glass of wine will be of service. Brother Nicholas, do me the favour to ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat

... temptation struck him as a sudden squall strikes a ship with all her canvas spread. For a moment mast and rigging stood the strain, then they went by the board. He would do it if it killed him; but the task must be undertaken properly, deliberately, and above all in secret. To-morrow he would begin. When he had satisfied himself; when he had seen; then ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard

... keyed for the onslaught of the unknown. He waited a moment, wondering what manner of animal it was that had arisen from under his foot and that now made no sound nor movement and that must be crouching and waiting just as tensely and expectantly as he. The strain became unbearable. Holding the night-stick before him, he pressed the button, saw, and screamed aloud in terror. He was prepared for anything, from a frightened calf or fawn to a belligerent lion, but he was not prepared for what he saw. In that instant ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London

... bishops to set fee-farms; and says, "Whoever intimates that they will deny their consent to such a reasonable law, which the whole nation cries for, are enemies to them and the Church." Whether this be his real opinion, or only a strain of mirth and irony, the matter is not much. However, my sentiments are so directly contrary to his; that I think, whoever impartially reads and considers what I have written upon this argument, hath either no regard for the Church established under the ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift

... sir, to show that I do not strain the interpretation of the Constitution, I desire to refer to some few authorities even under the old Constitution which go very far to answer the authority that the Senator cited. Bushrod Washington, a member of the United States Supreme ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... where, as in modern operas, machinery is everything. The same is true of Mendelssohn. His music yields reverently to the spoken word. It merely accompanies the play like a new fairy who strews a strain or two across the stage before his companions enter, and lends them wings by which they may again disappear. Only when the words and the characters who utter them have gone, does the music brood over the forest like a mist of reminiscence, in which ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud

... suddenly followed; the ominous rattle on roof and walls, different from and sharper than the lashing of the rain, began and died away unnoticed by him. He was wrapped in the deep, healing slumber that follows the slackening of severe mental and bodily strain; he knew nothing of the banks of ragged ice-lumps that lay melting to lee of ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss

... strain for some time, but as she quieted down became possessed of a notion to tar and feather him in the manner mentioned by her grandmother in one of her anecdotes. Carry and I were to be called upon to assist in this ceremony, which was to take place upon the return of Mr Pornsch. For the ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin

... In sin and idleness, Ah, health and wealth, I did you lend To bring me to distress. 70. My feet to evil I let run, And tongue of folly talk; My eyes to vanity hath gone, Thus did I vainly walk. 71. I did as greatly toil and strain Myself with sin to please, As if that everlasting grain Could have been found in these. 72. But nothing, nothing have I found But weeping, and alas, And sorrow, which doth now surround Me, and augment my cross. 73. Ah, bleeding conscience, how did I Thee check when thou didst tell Me ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... from a correspondent-besides the deep, quaint strain of the sentiment, and the curious introduction of some ludicrous touches amidst the serious and impressive, as was doubtless intended by the author-appears to us one of the most felicitous specimens of ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... were suspended, work on public improvements was checked, and commerce brought almost to a standstill. As the revenues fell off and ready money became scarce, drastic measures had to be devised to meet the financial strain. For the protection of credit, bank holidays were declared, stock exchanges were closed, moratoria were set up in nearly all the countries, taxes and duties were increased, radical reductions in expenditure were undertaken, and in a few ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd

... imagined; but it is also a matter of record that his novels were commonly read aloud in the family circle (a thing which some of their incidents would render impossible at the present day) and that sometimes when the emotional strain became too great the various listeners would retire to their own rooms to cry out their grief. Richardson appealed directly, then, to the prevailing taste of his generation, and no one did more than he to confirm its hold on the next generation, not ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher

... Chuck his orders to the dogs! Don't you worry; that affair will never come off. I'll go to your old man myself, and sift and strain this matter clear—there will be none of it left. I have come here only for the look of the thing. A very likely thing! Here's my son living in happiness and expecting happiness, and I'll go and match him with a slut! No fear, I'm not ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al

... decision and getting good things done, this line does seem to be cut farther over in the middle of some of us, than it is in others. Taking a life-average in any moral or social engineering feat, in any correct calculation of structural strain, how far over this line cuts through in a man, has ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee

... second honeymoon, made them again bride and bridegroom to each other. Nature, whom Ranny had blasphemed and upbraided, triumphed and was justified in Violet's beauty, that bloomed again and yet was changed to something almost fine, almost clear; as if its coarse strain had been purged from it by maternity. Something fine and clear in Ranny responded to ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair

... mental, as distinct from bodily, hygiene, yet all real health has its roots in the mind. Moreover, it is only by studying the hygiene of mind that we are enabled to do work in greater quantity and of better quality than we should otherwise be capable of, and to do this without risk of strain on the nerves or injury to health. The articles under this heading put forward some of the elementary laws ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various

... thorough, logical, and comprehensive,—that's what Professor Jamieson said, up to the High School. Them was his very words. Celandine is to graduate this year: she's in the class with girls two and three years older than herself, Mrs. Tarbell. It was a terrible strain on me to keep her at school, ma'am, and again and again I've thought I couldn't stand it, what with her being in the shop only in the afternoon, and the washing, and trying to keep her clothes always nice; though she's been as good as gold,—making ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various

... its finger in its eye and weep. Ha! ha! ha! poor Risberg! how would he laugh to see these compassionate tears! It seem she has written in a very doleful strain to thee,—talked very pathetically about his debts to his laundress and his landlady. I have a good mind to leave thee in this amiable ignorance; but I'll prove for once a kind brother, by telling you that Risberg is a profligate and prodigal; that he neglects ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown

... this strain, she would weep, and overwhelm him with caresses and gifts, until she imagined that every jealous thought was ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau

... Stephen awoke in her bed of nettles, and sitting up with her back to the wall, pressed her hands to her temples and tried to think. She could not. For the moment the strain had broken her, and her mind ran only on trifles—her wardrobe, a hundred small odds and ends of personal property left behind her ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... fingers until they swelled into confused and conflicting harmonies that clashed and jarred upon the theme. Their burden was strife and struggle and the anguish of strain, until at last, in the high clear note of ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss

... you speak to me?" she faltered. Her usual dainty assurance was fast disappearing beneath the nervous strain of ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... first everything looks uniformly dark and hopeless, the eye comes in time to form a truer picture. Shapes of strange magnificence make themselves dimly visible; noble characters appear all the grander for the strain through which they pass; principles and ideals through stern conflict are tested and displayed. Half a century has well-nigh passed since the events took place; the chief actors have disappeared from the earthly scene; a calmer and more discriminating treatment ought now to be possible ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas

... 'bodily' (Col 2:9). It also saith that he is the throne of God, and yet again, that he sits 'on the right hand of the throne' (Isa 22:23; Heb 12:2). These things are so far from being comprehended by the weakest, that they strain the wits and parts of the strongest, yet there is a heavenly truth in all. Heavenly things are not easily believed, no not of believers themselves, while here on earth, and when they are, they are so but weakly and infirmly.[27] I believe that the very appearing of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... against the side like the measured strokes of a sledge-hammer on the ship breasting them with her bluff bows, and contemptuously sailing on, spurning them beneath her fore foot; so, I was able to hear and see nearly all that passed, albeit I had to strain my ears occasionally to catch ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson

... and began a circuit of her. They could see several places where the pressure of the water, and the strain of the storm in which she had foundered, had 'opened the plates of the ship, but in no case were the openings large enough to admit a person. Captain Weston put his steel bar in one crack, and tried to pry it farther open, but his strength was not equal to the task. He made ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton

... of thought freely in the bank; strain and develop your ability to improve and control in the engine-room; train and exert your judgment in literature and art; push and brighten and sharpen your reason in science or ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener

... real wall was made more evident when the real goat was tied up to it. A painted wall would never have stood such a strain. ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry

... an ordinary door-lock or window-catch is no protection. With a jimmy eighteen inches long, even an anemic burglar can exert a pressure sufficient to lift two tons. Not one door-lock in ten thousand can stand this strain. It's like using a hammer to kill a fly. Really, the only use of locks is to keep out sneak thieves and to compel the modern, scientific educated burglar to make a noise. This fellow, however, was no ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve

... through it all, some inner strain kept trying to tell him he was not dead. This was his own world, all right, and essentially unchanged. What had happened to it was beyond the pale of mere guesswork. But this one thing began to be clear: This was a world in which change or motion ...
— The Day Time Stopped Moving • Bradner Buckner

... to return quickly to Europe. I had no strength left. The mental strain on that long journey had been so great that I had lost ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... Doodle," which Theo played upon the piano, while Henry Warner whistled a most stirring accompaniment! To be heard above that din was impossible, and involuntarily patting her own slippered foot to the lively strain the distressed little lady went back to her room, wondering what Madam Conway would say if she knew how ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes

... hero of your poetical talents is not more deserving their lays. I cannot, however, from motives of pure delicacy (because I happen to be the principal character in your Pastoral) withhold my encomiums on the performance; for I think the easy, simple, and beautiful strain with which the dialogue is supported does great justice to your genius; and will not only secure Lucinda and Amista from wits and critics, but draw from them, however unwillingly, their highest plaudits; if they can relish the praises that are given, as they must admire ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge

... dear, I don't know if they have or they haven't," a harassed grocer-woman acknowledged. Her conscience was becoming blunted in the stress and strain of business life. "She took a pound of it as usual, and that's all I can ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann

... all—the music, the rush of the cool night air against her temples, even the smell of naphtha and the heat of the flames on her face as the dancers paused now and again, dashed upon the fire as if to tread it out, and backed until the strain on their arms grew tense again; and, just as it grew unbearable, the circular leaping was renewed. Always in these pauses the same face confronted her across the fire: the face of a young man in a blue jersey and a peaked cap, a young man with crisp dark hair and dark eyes, ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... mortgage. I called it Maryfield, after my parental home in Edinburgh, and revelled in grapes, plums, and peaches, and much other country happiness. When a host of visitors, on a bright summer day, would rather strain the narrow larder, I used to divert the party into the garden, where they could complete their meal, although at times with inconvenient demand, from the male section at least, upon the brandy. When, ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth

... exhortation, now angry, now in strain of natural kindliness. To this Oliver made only a few brief and muttered replies; when it was all over, he fell asleep. But Godwin was ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing

... how long I sat there, trying to think, with my face buried in my hands. My mind had been kept on a strain during the last thirty hours, and the succession of surprises to which I had been subjected had temporarily paralyzed my faculties. For a few moments after Alice's announcement I must have been in a sort of stupor. My imagination, I ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent

... some sadly dying note, Upon this silent hour to float, Where, from the bustling world remote, The lyre might wake its melody! One feeble strain is all can swell. From mine almost deserted shell, In mournful accents yet to tell That slumbers ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... our fire-sides, when Sweet looks to accents sweet respond, And breathing soft her tender strain, More ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various

... more, but now the log began to crack, for the strain upon it was tremendous. Messmer heard the ominous sound, and, with a twist, loosened himself and began to crawl forth. Dave ...
— Dave Porter in the Far North - or, The Pluck of an American Schoolboy • Edward Stratemeyer

... from the disagreeable strain of a divided mind. To begin with she was not altogether pleased with Mr. Rickman. He had taken no notice of the friendly little letter she had written about the Elegy, her evident intention being to give him pleasure. She had written it on impulse, carried away by her ardent ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... in the shadows of a portico nearby, though 'twould somewhat strain credulity to imagine him the elderly tradesman Martin. He was a powerful and burly figure, black habited, of impudent visage quite unlike a gentle relative's. In the deeper shadows back of him crouched two fellows, one of whom bore in his ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon

... full amount of energy and heat. But unlike the furnace, when the human body is deprived of needed nutrients it preys upon itself and uses up its reserve that should be drawn upon only in cases of illness or extreme nervous strain. Some persons live in such a way as to never have any reserve of strength and energy to call upon but use up each day all the body can produce and so become physical bankrupts when they should be in their prime. Food is required for the production of nerve energy ...
— Human Foods and Their Nutritive Value • Harry Snyder

... in the tall church steeple Clang out a joyful strain. And I thought, 'Of all the great world's people, I have the bitterest pain.' For the old year was a good year, And the old love was sweet; And how could my heart hold any cheer When both lay ...
— Yesterdays • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... woods, the short-leafed Balfour and Murryana of the high Sierras, are sombre, rooted in the litter of a thousand years, hushed, and corrective to the spirit. The trail passes insensibly into them from the black pines and a thin belt of firs. You look back as you rise, and strain for glimpses of the tawny valley, blue glints of the Bitter Lake, and tender cloud films on the farther ranges. For such pictures the pine branches make a noble frame. Presently they close in wholly; they draw mysteriously near, ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin

... unquestionably the same as the knotted fragment I held in my hand. Chenille shawls, as every woman knows, must be handled carefully or the lightly-made fringe will come asunder; for the kind of cord of floss silk is generally made upon a single thread, which will break with the slightest strain. ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux

... the oldest miner in the camp, blinked his red-rimmed eyes as they watered with the strain of watching, "It's trouble that's chasin' him," he added, with conviction. "Trouble ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum

... A strain of music floated up from the street, and the children that were able to be on their feet rushed for ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd

... of disorder saw the intentions of the Government of Versailles thus set forth, a chorus of recriminations burst forth:—"They want to put an end to the Republic!"—"They are about to fire on our brothers!"—"They wish to set up a king," &c. The same strain for ever! In order to prevent as far as possible the mischievous effects of this insurrectionary propaganda, the Government issued the following proclamation, which bore date the ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton

... is wrought out for us when we are set free, in our religious thinking, from the bondage of unmoral conceptions, and are encouraged to believe that God is good. It is a great blessing to have a God to worship whom we can thoroughly respect. A tremendous strain is put upon the moral nature when men are required, by traditional influences, to pay adoration and homage to a being whose conduct, as it is represented to them, is, in some important respects, conduct which they cannot approve. All the religions, through the imperfection ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden

... assimilation. Let us have a dignified confidence in the power of our institutions and of our Christianity to continue the process which has developed the strength of the Republic. If we are true to our principles we will be equal to any strain that may be put upon them. Only let us see to it that our principles—both civic and religious—are at work in full vigor on the questions which the floodtide of immigration raises. What we need is not more bars to keep foreigners out but more laborers to work with them and teach them how ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose

... off the raft there will be no sudden pull on the canoe. Should there be such a misfortune I will shout to you, and we will then swim towards the boat, taking up the ropes as we go, but putting no strain upon them; when we reach the boat, one will aid the senor to steady it while the other climbs in; after that it will be easier to ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty

... more to herself than to Agatha, as she thus spoke of her son's character, and for a minute or two she continued in the same strain, speaking of him in a way that showed that every little action, every wish of his, had been to her a subject of thought and anxiety; and that she took a strange pride in those very qualities ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... little gasp. The galloping horses had drawn level with the last stragglers of her own party, and just beyond they stopped suddenly. Diana would not have believed it possible that they could have stopped so suddenly and in such close formation while travelling at such a pace. The tremendous strain on the bridles flung the horses far back on their haunches. But there was no time to dwell on the wonderful horsemanship or training of the men. Events moved too rapidly. The solid square split up and lengthened out into a long line of two ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull

... hastened. Her last words to the nation as she fell fainting on the platform in California were, "Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty?" Her fiery challenge was never heard again. She never recovered from the terrific strain of the campaign which had undermined her young strength. Her death touched the heart of the nation; her sacrifice, made so generously for liberty, lighted anew the fire of rebellion in women, and aroused from ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens

... inexpressibly dreary: The high-wrought nervous tension, which had been protracted through the long hours that the fight lasted, was succeeded by a proportionate mental depression, such as naturally follows any strain upon the mind. This was intensified in our cases by the sharp sting of defeat, the humiliation of having to yield ourselves, our horses and our arms into the possession of the enemy, the uncertainty as to the future, and the sorrow we felt at the loss ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... the city lad. These motion-picture shows have an estimated daily patronage in the United States of two and a quarter millions, and in Chicago 32,000 children will be found in them daily. Many of these children are helplessly open to suggestion, owing to malnutrition and the nervous strain which the city imposes; and harmful impressions received in this vivid way late at night cannot be resisted. At one time, after a set of pictures had been given on the West Side which depicted the hero as a ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben

... Success!' I have already issued a bulletin to the effect that I am in contact with your ship. I think it has had a good effect. The clamor is quieting somewhat; you don't know what a terrible strain this has been, sir!" ...
— The Terror from the Depths • Sewell Peaslee Wright

... feet of heating surface is the limit of the capacity of the boiler. Further, from a statement that a boiler is of a certain horse power on the manufacturer's basis, it is not to be understood that the boiler is in any state of strain when developing more ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.

... point, I may assume my proposals to have been carried into effect, I think I can promise, not only that our city shall be relieved from a financial strain, but that she shall make a great stride in orderliness and in tactical organisation, she shall grow in martial spirit and readiness for war. I anticipate that those who are under orders to go through gymnastic training will devote themselves with ...
— On Revenues • Xenophon

... number of eminent men can be listed who unquestionably suffered from various neuropathic traits. But it was not those traits that made them eminent; on the contrary, these were handicaps. Somewhere back in their ancestry a taint was introduced into a sound superior strain, and produced ...
— Mental Defectives and Sexual Offenders • W. H. Triggs, Donald McGavin, Frederick Truby King, J. Sands Elliot, Ada G. Patterson, C.E. Matthews

... strain your bodies to hold very high a moral standard for other nations, that you, yourselves fail ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay

... grows also his alienation from the highest good; and—this is evidently the idea, though it is not stated—the restless advance never reaches its goal after all; it is a Sisyphus-labour; the tower of Babel, which is incomplete to all eternity, is the proper symbol for it. The strain is that strain of unsatisfied longing which is to be heard among all peoples. On attaining to civilisation they become aware of the value of those blessings which they ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... then, arises whether from these points of view our German Cavalry is equal to the maximum strain it may be ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi

... possibly, than he had ever been before, seemed to stimulate his senses into acute and abnormal energy. And, too, the physical effort, as, step by step, the flexed muscles relaxing so slowly, little by little, gradually, each time as he found foothold on the step higher up, was a terrific strain. At the top his face was bathed in perspiration, and he wiped it off with his ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... is never absent from me! The sound of her voice is unceasing harmony to my ears! At night, retiring to darkness and thought, I pass her chamber door! In the morning again I behold the place where all that is heavenly rests! I endeavour after apathy. I labour to be senseless, stupid, an idiot! I strain to be dead to supreme excellence! But it is the stone of Sisyphus, and ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... twilight was deepening into the early darkness of the winter night, he opened wide his eyes, and was evidently listening. Malcolm could hear nothing; but the light in his master's face grew, and the strain of his listening diminished. At length Malcolm became aware of the sound of wheels, which came rapidly nearer, till at last the carriage swung up to the hall door. A moment, and Lady Florimel was flitting ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... that Bertram had shown timidity in his younger days—they had had some trouble in teaching him to ride—and there was no doubt that his was a highly strung and nervous temperament. He had not the calm which marked the Challoners in time of strain. On the other hand, Dick Blake was recklessly generous, and loved his cousin; it would be consistent with his character if he were willing to suffer in Bertram's stead. Moreover, there were reasons which might have had some effect in inducing Bertram to consent, ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss

... neighboring city who was given up to die; his relatives were sent for, and they watched at his bedside. But an old acquaintance, who called to see him, assured him smilingly that he was all right and would soon be well. He talked in such a strain that the sick man was forced to laugh; and the effort so roused his system that he rallied, and he was soon ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden

... lay over forbidding mountain passes ten thousand feet above the sea, and her rider was a heavy man. But Susanna was of broncho strain with a blooded sire, which makes the hardiest and swiftest mountain horse ...
— The Spirit of Sweetwater • Hamlin Garland

... was to be against the University of Pennsylvania eleven. The opposition team being an unusually good one that year, the Navy's gridiron pets were preparing to strain every nerve ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock

... confidence, if, instead of amusing himself or lying fallow, he goes to a Summer School, and passes several weeks in discussions which, to be profitable either to himself or his hearers, must put some degree of strain on ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin

... scud-water with which it was heavily loaded along the water surface. The first mad fury of the outfly was past; but, even so, it was blowing harder than I had ever seen it blow before; so hard, indeed, that I wondered at the brave way in which the close-reefed topsails withstood the tremendous strain and drag of the ship upon them. So great was this strain that I began to entertain very serious fears for the masts; and, now that it was too late, deeply regretted that I had not stripped the ship entirely bare and faced the outfly under bare poles; and ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood

... hunger to talk. She had learned of a family of Burrells whose name was known throughout the South, and that Meade Burrell came from the Frankfort branch, the branch that had raised the soldiers. His father had fought with Lee, and an uncle was now in the service at Washington. On the mother's side the strain was equally militant, but the Meades had sought the sea. The old soldier had told her much more, of which she understood little; told her of the young man's sister, who had come all the way from Kentucky to see her brother off when he sailed from San Francisco; told her of ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach

... sister, brother boy. [EXEUNT KAS. AND DAME P.] That master That had received such happiness by a servant, In such a widow, and with so much wealth, Were very ungrateful, if he would not be A little indulgent to that servant's wit, And help his fortune, though with some small strain Of his own candour. [ADVANCING.] —"Therefore, gentlemen, And kind spectators, if I have outstript An old man's gravity, or strict canon, think What a young wife and a good brain may do; Stretch age's truth sometimes, and crack it too. Speak for ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson

... asked such a question, and it surprised him that it should come from this slip of a girl, but he answered her in the serious strain of his thoughts. ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House

... her knees, and held out her clasped hands entreatingly. Agnes was far from having recovered, after the shock that she had suffered in the night: her nerves were far from being equal to the strain that was now laid on them. She was so startled by the change in the Countess, that she was at a loss what to say or to do next. Henry was obliged to speak to her. 'Put your questions while you have the chance,' he said, lowering ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins

... have departed?" His joy is new life poured into him; his agitation this time produces no exhaustion, he has strength for the moment to squander. "Hahei! Hahei!" shouts Kurwenal from his post, "How boldly it steers, how the sails strain in the wind! How it chases, how it flies!"—"The pennant?... The pennant?" Tristan holds his breath for the answer. "The bright pennant of joy floats gaily from the topmast!"—"Cheer! The pennant of joy!... In the ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall

... unlike his own—'Why, this proposition is far more "unthinkable" to me, and will be to 999 of 1000 of the human race, than mine about a God and a Providence. Alas! for the vagaries of the mind of man. When it wants to prove a pet theory of its own, it will strain at any gnat, and swallow ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley

... program not of their own making. And again, in the thirties and fifties of the nineteenth century, millions of people speaking a strange tongue sought asylum in the Mississippi Valley—an isolated region whose early inhabitants, of whatsoever national strain, were strongly inclined to secession or revolt against the older Eastern communities. Never was a nation composed of more diverse ethnic ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker

... had come faintly through stiffened white lips, for her labor at packing and the emotional strain of talking to me concerning the future had brought on one of the dreaded heart attacks which were so terribly frequent in the last weeks of her life. We had never spoken of the matter afterward, for she did not leave her bed again until ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison

... be judged from this specimen, there is little delicacy in Defoe's satire. The lines run on from beginning to end in the same strain of bold, broad, hearty banter, as if the whole piece had been written off at a heat. The mob did not lynch the audacious humourist. In the very height of their fury against foreigners, they stopped short ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto

... along, carrying outrageously heavy bags of freight on their heads. The quiver of their leg as the foot was planted and the strain exhibited by their bodies showed what a tax upon their strength the load was. They were stevedores and doing full stevedores work. They were very erect when unladden—from carrying heavy loads on their heads—just ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... owes his lifelong appetite for alcohol to the fact that the inception of his life could be traced to a night of dissipation on the part of his father. Physical degeneracy and mental derangements are too often caused by the parents producing offspring while laboring under great mental strain or bodily fatigue. Drunkenness and licentiousness are frequently the heritage of posterity. Future generations demand that such results be averted by better prenatal influences. The world is groaning under ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... rather a new strain for Randall, and we were not surprised when he dropped it abruptly as we filed into a little private room ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various

... our petitions for more time will all go to the last fire of doom. So why strain our voice in prayer?—Ah, here is Sruti-bhushan at last. My ...
— The Cycle of Spring • Rabindranath Tagore

... of the wheel. The seams of her new gloves were starting from the strain. There was a desperate ...
— The Motor Girls • Margaret Penrose

... a strange atmosphere on board the little vessels, as they labored about and parted from the doomed Osprey. Many were subdued with awe and joy at their deliverance; others broke the tense strain of the last hours in suffocating sobs. Every throb of the panting engines they answered with waiting heart-beats, as it sent them farther from the fearful wonder, now blazing in multiplex lines of fire against the gray horizon. Mr. Raleigh gazed after it as one watches ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various

... atrocious measure. I know the vain, stiff mind of the premier; he will lose temper, he will tender his resignation; to his astonishment, it will be accepted. You will be sent for; we will dissolve parliament; we will strain every nerve in the elections; we shall succeed, I know we shall. But be silent in the meanwhile, be cautious: let not a word escape you, let them think us beaten; lull suspicion asleep; let us lament our weakness, and hint, only hint at our resignation, but with assurances ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... severely criticised in Parliament, as that of Utrecht and every subsequent treaty with a similar object had been, but defensible both on grounds of domestic policy, as well as on that of affording us a much-needed respite from the strain of war; though it proved to be only a respite, and a feverish one, since at the end of two years the war was renewed, to be waged with greater fury than ever. But it was too short-lived for any constitutional questions to arise in it. And when, in 1804, ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge

... glory," the thoughts of earthly freedom, of freedom from sin, and finally of freedom from the toils, cares and sorrows of earth to be baptized into the joys of heaven, all seemed to blend into the many colored but harmonious strain. The singing of the simple hearted trustful, emancipated slave! Shall we ever hear the like again on earth? Alas, that the high hopes and glowing prophecies of that auspicious hour have been so deferred that the hearts of millions have been ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward

... duel of silence. The other, unable to stand the strain, had risen first. Would he win in the grimmer duel ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall

... Philosopher, too, says of the wicked (Ethic. ix, 4) that "their soul is divided against itself . . . one part pulls this way, another that"; and afterwards he concludes, saying: "If wickedness makes a man so miserable, he should strain every nerve to avoid vice." In like manner, although, on the other hand, the good sometimes do not receive material rewards in this life, yet they never lack spiritual rewards, even in this life, according to Matt. 19:29, and Mk. 10:30: "Ye shall receive a hundred times as much" even ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas

... the intellectual though weather-beaten features of his father. The effect was in the highest degree picturesque and imposing. The council was opened by smoking the pipe, which was passed from mouth to mouth. The Secretary then briefly addressed both parties, in a conciliating strain, urging them, in the name of their great father, the President, to abandon those sanguinary wars, by means of which their race was becoming extinct, and to cultivate the arts, the thrift and industry of ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake

... the ground and the three sat silent while they passed into the woods and over the place where they had first met Cameron. Ruth felt herself trembling again, and her teeth beginning to chatter from the strain. Cameron seemed to realize her ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill

... of Time! Night and day they never cease; We are wearied with their chime, For they do not bring us peace. And we hush our breath to hear, And we strain our eyes to see If thy shores are ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Dwight Moody

... do not encourage the lad to be a spendthrift," says Grafton, taking the pistole himself. "I will place this token of your appreciation in his strong-box. You know we have a prodigal strain in the family, sir." And my uncle ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... think it was to tell me that that he got into it all," she cried, as she sank into a deep chair in the reception room, endeavouring not to give way to her feelings, now that the strain was off and she had no longer to keep a ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve

... solace could be found for the sermon? Naturally the eye, wandering here and there among the serried ranks, made bold, untrammelled choice among our fair fellow-supplicants. It was in this way that, some months earlier, under the exceptional strain of the Athanasian Creed, my roving fancy had settled upon the baker's wife as a fit object for a life-long devotion. Her riper charms had conquered a heart which none of her be-muslined, tittering juniors had been able to subdue; and that she was ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame

... the sun. But there seemed to be nothing whatever to do, I felt in the way each time that I moved, so I took to my old refuge, work. And then into my small workroom came Eleanore's father for a long talk. He too had been up all night, his lean face was heavily marked from the strain, but their usual deep serenity had come back into his ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole

... tone or cadence That can work with such a spell In the soul's mysterious fountains, Whence the tears of rapture well, As that melody of Nature, That subdued, subduing strain Which is played upon the shingles By the patter ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester

... lonely; so that his loneliness had grown to seem to him as merely part of the day's work. The best women, he knew, where the best housewives; they were a rest and a benefit for the war-weary man, much as might be a pretty child, a bed of flowers, a strain of music. With Emily Austin he should find all this; and he loved her as good, pretty, amiable, perfect in her way. But now, with Miss Warfield—it had seemed that he ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various

... was kept a profound secret, the truth was that the Earl was not progressing as well as had been expected. Perhaps the strain of State affairs was too heavy upon him, for though far from recovered, he worked several hours with Mr. Charlton, his secretary, who sat at a table at his bedside, writing despatches as his lordship ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux

... which the lions lie. This then is all the answer that the wearied and perplexed servant gets from his Lord. The troubles of which he complains are but the training for still sorer. The only meaning of the checks and sorrows of life is to brace us for worse. It is the strain that ever brings the strength. Life is explained as a graded and progressively strenuous discipline, the result of it a stronger and more finely tempered soul. But this surely suggests the questions: Is that the whole result? ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith

... explain much that follows, and not a little the great strain that there was between Archbishop Hubert Walter and the Bishop of Lincoln. Perhaps this strain was bound to be felt, because the policy of the former was to employ churchmen largely in political and secular affairs, the policy of the other to exclude ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson

... remember every weather-stain on the old stone wall; the gray and yellow lichens that marked it like a map; the little crane's-bill that grew in the crevices? She had been shaken by the events of the last two days; her whole life just now was a strain upon her fortitude; and, somehow, these careless words of her father's, touching on the remembrance of the sunny times of old, made her start up, and, dropping her sewing on the ground, she went hastily out of the room into her own little ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... centre of the ball; Th' extended circuit of creation shake, The living die with fear, the dead awake. Oh powerful blast! to which no equal sound Did e'er the frighted ear of nature wound, Tho' rival clarions have been strain'd on high, And kindled wars immortal thro' the sky, Tho' God's whole enginery discharg'd, and all The rebel angels bellow'd in their fall. Have angels sinn'd? and shall not man beware? How shall a son ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young

... doubt, however, that he inherited a strain of madness from his father, a madness which that father had developed by forcing upon him the false forms of a ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald

... Thrale had been seized with a sudden mania for the improbable, and had set her wits to work their hardest on a carefully chosen typical example, could she have lighted on one that would have imposed a greater strain on human powers of belief than the presence, a mile off, of her mother, dead fifty years since? How improbable it would have seemed to her that her aunt and her kith and kin of that date should fall so easily dupes to ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... hand, to indicate that all in good time the other fellows would hear the news; and that he did not mean to strain his voice shouting across a stretch of water, when ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel

... answered the purpose of deeply impressing the Chippewa with the uselessness of Peter's plans, and sustained as it was by his early predilections, it served to keep him on the right side, in the crisis which was approaching. The discourse continued, much in the same strain, until the men got in with their bear's meat, having been preceded some time by the ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper

... Muses all around her Think 'tis Phoebus' strain they hear; And Cupid, drawing near to wound her, Drops his bow, and stands ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb



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