"Straining" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... necessary; the Duke of Newcastle particularly would do anything. These were the men who were so squeamish that they could not be brought to support amendments even, unless they were permitted to turn the schedules upside-down, straining at gnats out of office and swallowing camels in. It is remarkable that after the sacrifice Wharncliffe made to re-ingratiate himself with the Tories, incurring the detestation and abuse of the Whigs, and their reproach of bad faith, the former have utterly neglected him, taking no notice of him ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... steps, and in another moment had gained the farther side of the cellar; then, skirting around the ruck of cases, he stooped suddenly and passed in through the opening in the wall. And now he halted once more. He was straining his eyes down a long, narrow passage, whose blackness was accentuated rather than relieved by curious wavering, gossamer threads of yellow light that showed here and there from under makeshift thresholds, from ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... been relied upon in vain, and Parma's seven months of patient labour had been annihilated in a moment. Sainte Aldegonde and Gianibelli stood in the 'Boors' Sconce' on the edge of the river. They had felt and heard the explosion, and they were now straining their eyes through the darkness to mark the flight ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... collection. The prompt answer of Peter may indicate that he knew that in other years Jesus had paid this tax, as it is altogether probable that he did. The question, however, implies official suspicion that Jesus was seeking to evade payment, and exhibits further the straining of the relations between him and the Jewish leaders. The conversation of Jesus with Peter served to show his clear consciousness of superiority, and was a further summons to the disciples to choose between ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... moment the horses received the signal to start, the danger of the enterprise was apparent. Both animals immediately reared, straining in opposite directions at the reins, and it was certainly more than a minute before Mansana could steer them through ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... it increased. In the twilight and the darkness that followed it assumed new aspects of the weird and uncanny. Despite the torches that flared up, the darkness was mainly in control. Now the dancers, whirling about the pole and straining on the cords, were seen plainly, and now they were only shadows, ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... I tell? It might come to that, at last; and yet—" She ceased, and there came over her face a strange, dead look at the sea before her—a straining gaze, as though she would fix her eyes far beyond, in another hemisphere, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... found a youth of about thirteen straining his eyes in the fading light over one of those halfpenny humorous journals which, thanks to an improved system of education, at least eighty per cent. of our juvenile population are now ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... common with scores of others, were straining forward to watch every detail of the task. They wanted to see whether the locomotive would take to the rails, or slip off the inclined irons, and again settle down ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... gazed down on the viceregal equipage over the shoulders of eager guests, whose mass of forms darkened the chessboard whereon John Howard Parnell looked intently. In Fownes's street Dilly Dedalus, straining her sight upward from Chardenal's first French primer, saw sunshades spanned and wheelspokes spinning in the glare. John Henry Menton, filling the doorway of Commercial Buildings, stared from winebig oyster eyes, holding a fat gold hunter watch ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... wind straining, The pale yellow woods were waning, The broad stream in his banks complaining, Heavily the low ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... for us, and that we would take two or three days to do the trip, but that the ox-waggons would be at least seven, which was death to our romantic dream of toiling laboriously up almost inaccessible mountains at the head of straining ox-carts, sleeping by the roadside, brigands, ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... and paced the floor with nervous, uneven strides. He plunged his hand into his coat pocket and drew out the letter again. He re-read it, with hot eyes and straining thought. Every word seemed to sear itself upon his poor brain, and drive him to the verge of distraction. Why? Why? And he raised his bloodshot eyes to the roof of his hut, and crushed the ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... suppose. No—only her uncle? Well, I'll be her uncle now," and so saying he led the way to the deck. Loring saw the lively party come surging forth from the companionway—senoras, senoritas, gray-haired men and gay young gallants. There was a moment of clasping, clinging embraces, of straining arms and lingering kisses, of crowdings and murmurings here and there, some little sobbing and many tear-wet eyes as the father was finally hurried down the ladder, and then there was further delay and shouts for Escalante, ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... claim in the most peremptory terms the performance of this engagement. It would be very offensive to his Majesty that a request made so repeatedly on his part should be neglected; but it is infinitely more so to see that, when this country is straining every nerve for the common cause, a body of troops for the want of which Toulon may possibly at this moment be lost, have remained inactive at Milan. You will admit of no further excuses." Grenville ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... No straining is needed in order to fit this great prophetic picture of the world-Conqueror to Jesus. Even that, at first sight incongruous, picture of a victor leading long lines of captives, such as we see on Assyrian slabs and Egyptian paintings, is historically true of Him who 'leads ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... scars; When I stood up for age-long wars And held the very Fiend at grips; When all my mutinous body rose To range itself beside my foes, And, like a greyhound in the slips, The Beast that dwells within me roared, Lunging and straining at his cord.... For all the blusterings of Hell, It was not then I slipped and fell; For all the storm, for all the hate, I kept my ...
— Young Adventure - A Book of Poems • Stephen Vincent Benet
... Straining his eyes, as he partly lifted his head, Paul believed he could just make out a shadowy form stretched upon the ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... in that canvas-crowd for one of those devoted men who, ill-paid, half-starved, and overwrought, toil night and day in that most awful work on this earth, the attempt to rescue and raise the lapsed masses of our large populations? Was there no room for the man who penalizes body and soul to straining-point for words and thoughts that shall inspire and hearten men to steer their lives by the higher stars, those eternal principles of truth and right? Was there no room for a woman of the Salvation Army who is out of some hideous slum for a moment's breathing, before ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... eagerness, too, as one who looks for a new meaning in an old friend's face. Something of his zest was communicated to me, and stilled the shuddering thrill that had seized me. The protecting land was still a comforting neighbour; but our severance with it came quickly. The tide whirled us down, and our straining canvas aiding it, we were soon off Cuxhaven, which crouched so low behind its mighty dyke, that of some of its houses only the chimneys were visible. Then, a mile or so on, the shore sharpened to a point like a claw, where the innocent dyke became a long, low fort, with some ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... any one," remarked Nort, straining his eyes to pierce the gloom and shadows into which the face of the tunnel and the locked gate were thrown ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... should be able to stand the racking of half a dozen cyclones, m' lord, without straining a bottom plate. No; it's far more probable she shook off her screw, or something went wrong with the steering gear or in the engine room. I've recharted her probable course and that of the cyclone. It was as well for us to begin our search at the Zambezi, as I told your ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... to shelve the IMF program, stop most debt payments, and suspend rescheduling negotiations. Aid from Gulf Arab states, worker remittances, and trade contracted; and refugees flooded the country, producing serious balance-of-payments problems, stunting GDP growth, and straining government resources. The economy rebounded in 1992, largely due to the influx of capital repatriated by workers returning from the Gulf, but the recovery was uneven in 1994-96. The government is implementing the reform program adopted in 1992 and continues to secure rescheduling and write-offs ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... certain they were now close on the discovery of what they sought, and on the other hand (with the return of darkness) infected with the fear of Indians. Mountain was the first sentry; he declares he neither slept nor yet sat down, but kept his watch with a perpetual and straining vigilance, and it was even with unconcern that (when he saw by the stars his time was up) he drew near the fire to awaken his successor. This man (it was Hicks the shoemaker) slept on the lee side of the circle, something farther ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... flap vigorously as gusts of wind tear through the camp, carrying clouds of sand across the island. Through the darkness comes the sound of the lashing of the date palms and the tamarisks as they swing to the gale. Within a straining, war-worn tent, lit by a flickering candle, stuck in a grease-streaked bottle, sit several mounted men of the old Brigade, their faces brown and weather-beaten from long campaigning in the Sinai Desert and amid Palestine hills. The gear and stuff scattered ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... business, if not anxiety, in it. Fleda instinctively held her breath to listen. Presently she heard Watkins reply; but they were round the corner, she could not easily make out what they said. It was only by straining her ears ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... against the varying fortunes of political warfare, but against the irreversible decrees of Fate. It is the old story of the Rutulian hero; and now, in the very crisis and agony of the battle, while the Cotton King is summoning all his resources and straining every nerve to cope successfully with its more apparent, but less formidable adversary, in the noisy struggle for temporary power, if it would listen for a moment to the voice of reason, and observe the still working of the laws of our being, it, too, might ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... on all right. Keohane is the only weak spot, and he only, I think, because temporarily blind. But Evans' party didn't get up till 10. They started quite well, but got into difficulties, did just the wrong thing by straining again and again, and so, tiring themselves, went from bad to worse. Their ski shoes, too, are out ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... dismissed for taking part in a strike. The shop was frequented by syndicalists. There were five or six of them who used to sit in a room at the back, looking on to an inclosed courtyard, narrow and ill-lit, from which there arose the never-ceasing desperate song of two caged canaries straining after the light. Joussier used to come with his mistress, the fair Berthe, a large coquettish young woman, with a pale face, and a purple cap, and merry, wandering eyes. She had under her thumb a good-looking boy, Leopold Graillot, a journeyman ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... to the breaking strain, there was no man on board who even dreamt of surrender; all the guns were charged to the muzzle with bullets and broken stone, the artillerists match in hand stood grimly awaiting the order to fire, straining their eyes and their ears in the gathering darkness; in a few minutes at most they knew that the fate of the Galleon of Venice must ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... fleeting glimpse of sun-lit spires of mountains, shadowed valleys, and mysterious crevasses from which clouds of steam and yellow vapor curled. Still it seemed they must crash against one of those slender pinnacles. Nearer it came like a flash; a dizzying blur, now, that drove directly in their straining faces. ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... Greek papyri in a kindergarten. Thus have we grown avaricious and vulgar and in their weariness of things as they are, have our women grown base. They know that their lives miss something, they know that their fierce rivalry and feverish straining for precedence bring them no nearer the Mecca that closes its austere gates to their aching eyes. And for the dignity and pride their lives have lacked, they give their fortunes and sell their bodies and exchange, for a title, the name of which they have grown ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... closed in mass by regiments, the 61st on the left. The waiting for a battle to open is always a trying time for troops. When a movement, or action, is under way the dread leaves. So now, while we were standing with arms in hand watching for the first sign, and straining to catch the first sound we were ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... a cabin, and over this there rose a slender staff from which floated the black and white pennant of St. Pierre. The raft was alive. Men were running between the tents. The long rudder sweeps were flashing in the sun. Rowers with naked arms and shoulders were straining their muscles in four York boats that were pulling like ants at the giant mass of timber. And to David's ears came a deep monotone of human voices, the chanting of the men ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... Now his straining eyes perceived a tiny bit of light, and simultaneously he became conscious of a deathly stench. The damp earth padding his footsteps, he advanced swiftly toward the source of light, which now seemed to lie in stripes across his line of vision. He soon saw that ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... animal milk cheese, but a vegetable one, made by boiling and straining the pulp of the cactuslike prickly pear fruit to cheeselike consistency. It is chocolate-color and sharp, piquantly pleasant when hard and dry. It is sometimes enriched with nuts, spices and/or flowers. It will keep for a very long time and has been a dessert or confection ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown
... up a position a few hundred yards from the trail and followed its course, straining her eyes to see before and behind her, husbanding her strength with frequent rests, ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... that would mighty near wake a dead man. If there's anybody alive around that camp they sure heard me this time," he thought, as he looked and listened with straining eyes and ears. But there was no movement about the fire, and another whinny was the only sound that came from its direction. "Mighty queer!" was his inward comment, as his hand sought the revolver ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... charge is measured by the units of quantity, such as the coulomb. The charge that a conductor can retain at a given rise of potential gives its capacity, expressible in units of capacity, such as the farad. A charge implies the stretching or straining between the surface of the charged body, and some complimentary charged surface or surfaces, near or far, of large or small area, of ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... seemed to have fallen upon them. The trees all around them rocked in the wind; they heard the branches creak; and they heard the hissing of the leaves. They were in the midst of a hurricane. And they felt the earth sway as it resisted the straining roots of great trees, which seemed to be dragged up by the force of the furious gale. Whistling and roaring, the wind stormed all about them, and the doctor, raising his voice, tried in vain to command it. But the strangest thing of all was that, where they stood, there was ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... simply knocked the pins from under them. It took 'em quite a while to come back with inquiries about the name off the yacht, Varney's air of mystery and all that line of slush. My response was vigorous, yet gentlemanly, straining the truth for all she'd stand, and even bu'sting her open here and there, I gravely fear. However, it was a clincher. It crimped them right. Not a peep have we had from ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... something else, the sand does not. These agents liberate a force in the germ that is not in the grain of sand. The warmth of the brooding fowl does not spend itself upon mere passive, inert matter (unless there is a china egg in the nest), but upon matter straining upon its leash, and in a state of expectancy. We do not know how the activity of the molecules of the egg differs from the activity of the molecules of the pebble, under the influence of warmth, but we know there must be a difference between the interior movements ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... to the Elysee Montmartre, and Alphonsine lent her a couple of louis, pour passer sa soiree, and we all went away in carriages, the little horses straining up the steep streets; the plumes of the women's hats floating over the carriage hoods. Marie was in one of the front carriages, and was waiting for us on the high steps leading from ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... was so dark that it was only by glancing up at the tops of the bordering trees, outlined against the sky, that the driver of the car was able to keep well in the middle of it. She was straining her eyes, peering into the ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... wind pinned her skirts to her slender body as she leaned against the gale, gripping her hat tightly with one hand and straining under the weight of the bag in the other. The ends of a veil whipped furiously about her head, and, even in the gathering darkness, he could see a strand or two of ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... the tide having risen, the ship was once more perfectly upright. The capstan palls were shipped, away we tramped round and round, straining every nerve. In vain we hove, the cable was strained to its utmost, but not an inch did we move. I saw the captain and his mates making long faces as if they thought that the ship was irretrievably lost. Uncle Jack cheered on the men. Already all the water had been started, ...
— The Mate of the Lily - Notes from Harry Musgrave's Log Book • W. H. G. Kingston
... passing round her body, and employed in toying with her enchanting breasts. As soon too as she felt him at home as he could reach, she lifted her head a little from the pillow, and turning her neck, without much straining, but her cheeks glowing with the deepest scarlet, and a smile of the tenderest satisfaction, met the kiss he pressed forward to give her as they were thus close joined together: when leaving him to pursue his delights, she hid ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... With straining eyes they watched the strange, stealthy approach of the mysterious object. Every now and then it would totally disappear from sight and then, a moment or two afterwards, could again be dimly seen, crouching along beside some big rock or emerging behind the thick branches ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... With straining eyes he stared after them until they both disappeared together within the house. Miss McDonald glanced back toward him once almost shyly, but the other never turned her head. The carriage drove away toward the stables. ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... ran in all haste to the door to get into the house again, shrieking out in a most terrible manner. Whereupon this deponent made haste to come to her; but before she could get to her the child fell into her swooning fit, and at last, with much pain and straining herself, she vomited up a twopenny nail with a broad head; and being demanded by this deponent how she came by this nail, she answered that the bee brought this nail and forced it into her mouth. And ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... keys. Behind, sullen and dejected, followed a band of Hudson's Bay men. Grant stepped up to meet the sheriff. The terms of capitulation were again stated, and there was some signing of paper. Of those things my recollection is indistinct; for I was straining my eyes towards the groups of settlers inside the walls. When I looked back to the conferring leaders the silence was so intense a pinfall could have been heard. The keys of the fort were being handed to the Nor'-Westers ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... my uncle, when he informed me of the result of the family council held on my case, "as I'm only a poor man, I'm straining a point and crippling my means in order to send you to school; but I am doing it so that you may be educated to earn your own living, which you'll have to do as soon as the three years expire for which I have contracted with Dr Hellyer; ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... for a moment, the strange emotions depicted on his countenance soften down into one of humorous resignation to my will, and then looking wistfully up to the tufted top of the tree, he stands on tip-toe, straining his neck and elevating his arm, as though endeavouring to reach the fruit from the ground where he stands. As if defeated in this childish attempt, he now sinks to the earth despondingly, beating his breast in well-acted despair; ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... the movement was done, the boat was some twelve yards below the rock as she came round with her nose just in the lower edge of the eddy behind it, while from either side the current closed in on her. Straining every nerve the three paddlers worked as for life. At first Tom thought that the glancing waters would sweep her down, but inch by inch they gained, and drove the boat forward from the grasp of the current into the back eddy, ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... flashed into his mind that set every nerve tingling. As though the old desk exerted some strange and subtle fascination, he drew near it; slowly, hesitatingly, almost on tiptoe, yet steadily. His heart beat like a trip-hammer, and his ears were straining to catch the slightest sound of any one's approach. The house was wonderfully quiet. He seemed to be quite alone in it; and presently he found himself close beside the desk. Although open, the inner lids were still shut, and ere Bert put out his hand to lift the ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... laborious preparation which this science, more than almost any other, demands. But the proceedings of the trained philologist are no more arbitrary than those of the trained astronomer. And though the former may seem to be straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel when he coolly tells you that violin and fiddle are the same word, while English care and Latin cura have nothing to do with each other, he is nevertheless no more indulging in guess-work than the astronomer who confesses his ignorance as to the habitability ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... about a minstrel to hear his story fell hearkening also round about the silenced and hearkening tale-teller: some of the dancers and singers noted them and in their turn stayed the dance and kept silence to hearken; and so from group to group spread the change, till all were straining their ears to hearken the tidings. Already the men of the night-shift had heard it, and the shepherds of them had turned about, and were trotting smartly back through the lanes of the tall wheat: but the horse-herds were now scarce seen on the darkening ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... letter together in the darkened room, that was more than the words seemed to say. There was an elation, a hint of triumph, such as had never been in my father's letters before. I cannot tell how I knew it. I felt a stirring, a straining in my father's letter. It was there, even though my mother stumbled over strange words, even though she cried, as women will when somebody is going away. My father was inspired by a vision. He saw something—he promised us something. It was this "America." And "America" became ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... find either my love for my friends or my love of literature in the least failing. I enjoyed even when flattest in my bed hearing Harriet Butler reading to me till eleven o'clock at night. Sir Henry Marsh prescribed some book that would entertain and interest me without straining my attention or over-exciting me, and Harriet chose Madame de Sevigne's Letters, which perfectly answered all the conditions, and was as delightful at the twentieth reading as at the first. Such lively pictures of the times and modes of living in country, town, and court, so interesting ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... father had received the pardon we have spoken of. And there she had been watching the Mier Expedition through every step of its progress, eagerly collecting every scrap of information relating to it published in the Mexican papers; with anxious heart, straining her ears over the lists of killed and wounded. And when at length the account came of the shootings at El Salado, apprehensively as ever scanned she that death-roll of nigh twenty names—the decimated; not breathing freely until she had ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... to time a sporty-looking man standing beside a ticker, shouted the odds and read off the returns. Felix heard with straining ears: ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train
... running waters of the other side of the pool; and the next second there was a slight wave along the surface, a dexterous jerk with the butt, and presently the line was whirled out into the middle of the pool, running rapidly off the reel from the straining rod. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... the thickly gathering dusk, Caroline Holland and Sarah Spencer were at the dairy, straining the milk into creamers, for which Christopher was sullenly pumping water. The house was far from the road, up to which a long red lane led; across the field was the old Holland homestead where Caroline lived; her unmarried sister-in-law, Electa Holland, kept ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... ravens, crows, bats, buzzards and every species of owl. They believe that swallowing gnats, flies and the like, always breed sickness. To this that divine sarcasm alludes 'swallowing a camel and straining at a gnat.'" Their purifications for their Priests, and for having touched a dead body or other unclean thing, according to Mr. Adair, are quite Levitical. He acknowledges however, that they have no traces of circumcision; but he supposes ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... a well-regulated library should be unprovided with book-supports, in order to prevent the volumes from sagging and straining by falling against one another, in a long row of books. Numerous different devices are in the market for this purpose, from the solid brick to the light sheet-iron support; but it is important to protect the end of every row from strain on the bindings, and the cost of book ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... began to feel a vague uneasiness which increased as the sun set and night began to fall. Walter, who alone knew the real object of the captain's trip, was greatly worried. Long after the others had retired to the wigwam for the night, he sat alone straining eye and ear for sight or sound that would herald the absent one's return. As the night wore away, anxiety deepened into certainty with the troubled lad. Something must have happened to the captain. Impatiently the lad waited for daylight, ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... no creature of flesh and blood was this that clung to him, but some mysterious bodiless horror of the Supernatural, unguessed at by the outer world of men! The dews of death stood thick on his forehead; there was a straining agony at his heart, and his breath came in quick convulsive gasps; but worse than his physical torture was the overwhelming and convincing truth of the actual existence of the Spiritual Universe, now so suddenly ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... of 40 feet, as represented in Fig 2, Pl. I. Now instead of running the braces from A C until they meet in a point, as before we stop them at a, and c, and place the straining beam, a c, between them to prevent those points from approaching, suspend the points B and D from them, and start the braces B b and D b—and, if the truss were longer, would continue on in the same manner as far as needful. To prevent the. truss from altering its form, ...
— Instructions on Modern American Bridge Building • G. B. N. Tower
... had the power to speak or to resist come back to her, so instant and terrible was her surprise. But at the first touch of his lips upon her cheek the very despair brought back to her tenfold her own strength. She pushed against him with her hands, straining him from her by the rigid tension of her arms, setting her face far from his, but she was still unable to break the clasp of his arms ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... been so great, and which had stood so long? The circumstances, too, seemed rather to belong to the tragic stage than to real life. A great statesman, full of years and honors, led forth to the Senate House by a son of rare hopes, and stricken down in full council while straining his feeble voice to rouse the drooping spirit of his country, could not but be remembered with peculiar veneration and tenderness. The few detractors who ventured to murmur were silenced by the indignant ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... visit paid to the five captives, among whom was a female with a yearling about the size of a half-grown calf. The tame elephants went straight to the captives straining at the ropes, and bound their fore-feet tightly together. This was not done without furious resistance on the part of the betrayed beasts; but this resistance was overcome in a most brutal way by strokes of the trunk and by bites. Thereupon the merciless captors busied themselves removing from within ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... regiment, and was not above fishing for compliments upon it: I therefore dutifully did what was manifestly expected of me, and immensely gratified His Majesty by being as complimentary as I possibly could be without unduly straining the truth. But when all was said and done I had a very shrewd suspicion that while Moshesh might perhaps be credited with a genuine desire to show me some honour by inviting me to witness the review of his troops, he was principally animated by a ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... ceased, and without moving from her crouching position she listened with straining ears to the sounds that reached her from the stable. In a moment the clatter of horses' hoofs going at a furious pace swept by, then a dead silence fell. The intense quiet seemed to rouse her, and going ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... take a quart of skimmed milk, pour into it one ounce of sulphuric acid, and, when cold, add four ounces of hydrochloric acid, shaking the bottle gently until it ceases to emit white vapors; separate the coagulated from the liquid part, by straining through a sieve, and store it away till required. Clean the leather with a weak solution of oxalic acid, washing it off immediately, and when dry apply ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... force of its own natural expansion, would either shatter the band or allow it to cut deep into its own stem. The growing consciousness of Humanity has long been encircled by a rigid and inadequate conception of God. The gradual secularisation of the West means that the soul of man is straining that particular conception of God to breaking-point: and it is infinitely better that it should be broken to pieces than that its iron should be allowed to sink deep into ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... violently thrown. A woman's shriek flying thin and high like a javelin of horror. A crowd sprung full grown out of the bog of the morning. White, peering faces showing up in the brilliant paths of the acetylene lamps. A uniform pushing through. A crowbar and the hard breathing of men straining to lift. A sob in the dark. Stand ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... of the court, the last sediment of the human stew that had been boiling there all day, was straining off, when Doctor Manette, Lucie Manette, his daughter, Mr. Lorry, the solicitor for the defence, and its counsel, Mr. Stryver, stood gathered round Mr. Charles Darnay—just released—congratulating him ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... was no room to wheel. One desperate practibility alone remained. Turning his horse's head towards the edge, he compelled him, by means of the powerful bit, to rear till he stood almost erect; and so, his body swaying over the gulf, with quivering and straining muscles, to turn on his hind legs. Having completed the half-circle, he let him drop, and urged him furiously in the opposite direction. It must have been by the devil's own care that he was able to continue his gallop along that ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... departure Mr. LLOYD GEORGE, ever thoughtful for the welfare of others, arranged with the Military authorities to give a change of scene to six members of the Clyde Workers' Committee, who have been recently over-straining their vocal chords. This was the impression I got from Dr. ADDISON, who, like his great namesake, is a master of the bland style; but Sir EDWARD CARSON thrust aside official euphemism and bluntly inquired whether these men were not in fact assisting the KING'S enemies, and ought ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 5, 1916 • Various
... the paper walls were extended to their uttermost size, the wondering spectators saw a huge ball of some one hundred and ten feet in circumference, swaying uneasily to and fro with every breath of air, as though straining at its fetters. At last came the word. The ropes were released, and the great body rose rapidly into the air, followed by a thunder of applause. With straining eyes the crowd followed that wondrous flight. Higher and higher, nearer ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... pain here," said Chester, with a sad smile, pressing one hand upon his breast. "It seems, Mary, as if an iron girdle were about me, straining tighter and tighter. Sometimes it troubles me to ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... could say no more. His arms went round her, straining her to him. His face was close to hers. But his eyes were the eyes of ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... absolute silence, Murphy leading, every nerve on edge, straining eye and ear for a sign of the enemy's scouts, now doubtless swarming forward and to ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... lips; then snatching off his bonnet, hid it there, and bent among the shrubbery and was gone, as swiftly and silently as a wolf. Frances flew to the house and up the stairs to her room. There she threw up the window and sat panting in it, straining, listening, for sounds from the ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... or chair. The standing position assists in the birth. The bladder should be emptied frequently, as a distended bladder retards labor and may even stop the womb contractions. The pains become more frequent and severe as the end of this stage approaches and each contraction is now accompanied by straining or a bearing down effort on the part of the woman, and as a rule the membranes rupture spontaneously about this time. An examination of the vagina should now be made with the woman in bed, and if the membranes have not broken and the ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... of home, the tired coachman letting it go almost at its own pleasure, the broad moonlight fields, with their dark fringes of hedge, spinning past. Then the village went past him, with all its sleeping houses, the church standing up like a protecting shadow. He looked out again at this, straining his eyes to see the dark spot where his father was lying, the first night in the bosom of the earth: and this thought brought him back for a moment to himself. But the next, as the carriage glided on into the shadow of the trees, and the overgrown copses of the Warren received him into their shadow, ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... find yourself riding for dear life—perhaps to escape, perhaps after the Germans. You then realize that you have been whipped and that the charge has failed, or you see the backs of the fleeing enemy, feel your horse straining in pursuit and know that you ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... again, raising her from the floor, and straining her to his breast, his burning lips seeking the icy ones of the Tzigana. "Answer ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... canoeman snorted. He would like to see any of them catch him. They were straining after him, and half a dozen canoes shot down that glassy slide which ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... still carries its point against counterpoint. "How could he who improves us, help being better than we?" man has ever thought thus. Let us therefore improve mankind!—in this way we shall become good (in this way we shall even become "classics"—Schiller became a "classic"). The straining after the base excitement of the senses, after so-called beauty, shattered the nerves of the Italians: let us remain German! Even Mozart's relation to music—Wagner spoke this word of comfort to us—was ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... him!" cried Ned, for he saw that his chum had rushed to the rear of the auto, and was endeavoring to drag one of the powder boxes across the lowered tail-board. Tom was straining and tugging at it, but did not seem able to move the case. It was heavy, as Ned learned later, and was also held down by the weight of other express packages on ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... followed, I saw that Mr. Royce was studying him, too, was straining to find a ray of light for guidance. ...
— The Holladay Case - A Tale • Burton E. Stevenson
... well have laid down and gone to sleep on that pinnacle for all the good my waiting and eye-straining did me. One hour slipped by and then another, and still I did not abandon hope of their appearance. Naturally, I argued with myself, they would turn back when I failed to overtake them—especially if they had thoughtlessly followed some depression in the prairie where I could not easily see them. ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... and gentlemen)—the great audience craned forward like one man, straining eyes and ears towards the speaker,—Kun granda plezuro mi akceptis la proponon... The crowd drank in the words with an almost pathetic agony of anxiety. Gradually, as the clear-cut sentences poured ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... Gardner out, and she was squirting death out of her five barrels into the flank of the rushing stream of savages. "Oh, this bloody gun!" shouted a voice. "She's jammed again." The fierce metallic grunting had ceased, and her crew were straining and hauling at ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... exclaimed Marillac, as he looked at his watch a second time; "I should like to know what this little miniature rose takes me for? It was hardly worth the trouble of over-straining this poor horse, who looks as wet as if he had come out of the river. It is enough to give him inflammation of the lungs. If Bergenheim were to see him sweating and panting like this in this bleak wind, he would give me a sound blowing-up. Upon my word, it is becoming comical! There are no more young ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... out on the starboard, that is the southward, rail of the spar-deck, and Michael, straining his eyes to the utmost, saw him take a round flat object from under his coat, and then look round stealthily to see if he was observed. As he did so Michael whipped a pistol out of his pocket, levelled it at the man, and said ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... of things upon their names.... His understanding could almost pierce into future contingents; his conjectures improving even to prophecy, or the certainties of prediction. Till his Fall, he was ignorant of nothing but sin.... There was then no struggling with memory, no straining for invention. His faculties were ready upon the first summons.... We may collect the excellency of the understanding then, by the glorious remainders of it now: and guess at the stateliness of the building by the magnificence of its ruins.... ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... thousand eager watchers in the Square when he arrived. The afternoon paper had evidently been digested well. Each watcher was straining his eyes at the brownstone mansion on Fayette street. From the windows of several Carey-street houses curious persons leaned out, and even on the west, at the Franklin-Square Hospital, there were ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... in a Straight Line through Forests.—Every man who has had frequent occasion to find his way from one place to another in a forest, can do so without straining his attention. Thus, in the account of Lord Milton's travels, we read of some North American Indians who were incapable of understanding the white man's difficulty in keeping a straight line; but no man who has not had practice can walk through trees in a ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... all were either conquerors or subdued except Gall and Roman Nose. The pair seemed equally matched. Both were stripped to the breech clout, now tugging like two young buffalo or elk in mating time, again writhing and twisting like serpents. At times they fought like two wild stallions, straining every muscle of arms, legs, and back in the struggle. Every now and then one was lifted off his feet for a moment, but came down planted like a tree, and after swaying to and ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... now into a hundred furrows, shattered and shell-swept, and blasted in a thousand places into deep pits and craters—watched first as those small advance-parties, sent by the enemy to reconnoitre the situation, were shot down or driven back to shelter; and watched now with straining eyes and with many an exclamation as a horde of grey-coated infantry debouched from the evergreen woods encircling the eastern and northern slopes of the approaches to their position, and, forming up there, advanced steadily to attack them. They were still ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... day; chilly and raw; a damp mist falling; and the trees in that northern region quite bare and wintry. Whenever the train halted, I listened for the roar; and was constantly straining my eyes in the direction where I knew the Falls must be, from seeing the river rolling on towards them; every moment expecting to behold the spray. Within a few minutes of our stopping, not before, I saw two great white ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... seeming indifference, the Mole turned his talk to the harvest that was being gathered in, the towering wagons and their straining teams, the growing ricks, and the large moon rising over bare acres dotted with sheaves. He talked of the reddening apples around, of the browning nuts, of jams and preserves and the distilling of cordials; till by easy stages ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... reach the battle area, but through all the fighting after they had closed with the enemy. The carefully worked-out plans for directing everything from the shelter of the conning tower were thrown aside without a thought. So there we see them, grouped in the most exposed positions on their ships, straining their eyes through the haze for the first glimpse of friend or foe, and urging those below, at the fires and the throttle, to squeeze out every fraction of a knot that boilers and turbines could be ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... and straining to look in at the windows, and rattling the doors which had been hurriedly locked by the keepers who had rushed to ascertain the cause of the tumult, whilst the tiger made the place resound with its terrific roars as it hurled its huge weight ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... the matter in German. Bulba, in spite of his straining ears, could make nothing of it; he only caught ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... upon the workmen that one of the primary secrets of successful enamelling is absolute cleanliness; consequently all precautions must be taken to ensure that the enamel is perfectly free from grit and dust, and it must be so kept by frequent straining through fine muslin, flannel, or similar material. The work having been thoroughly cleaned and freed from all grease and other foreign matter, it must be suspended or held immediately over the pan elsewhere referred to, and the enamel poured on with an ordinary ...
— Handbook on Japanning: 2nd Edition - For Ironware, Tinware, Wood, Etc. With Sections on Tinplating and - Galvanizing • William N. Brown
... six new settlements that have been called into existence, two, Bowen and Townsville, have been incorporated, and are now, together with Mackay, straining in the race to secure the trade of the western interior. Cardwell has experienced a check, in consequence of an undue haste in the adoption of a line of road over its Coast Range, which is too difficult to be generally adopted, and ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... therefore, frequent use of this retirement, therein to refresh your virtue. And to this end be always provided with a few short, uncontested notions, to keep your understanding true. Do not forget to retire to this solitude of yours; let there be no straining or struggling in the matter, but ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... straining topmasts, Hanging tangled in the shrouds. And her sails were loosened and lifted, And blown ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... broken ground. It was Stapleton with his butterfly-net. He was very much closer to the pair than I was, and he appeared to be moving in their direction. At this instant Sir Henry suddenly drew Miss Stapleton to his side. His arm was round her, but it seemed to me that she was straining away from him with her face averted. He stooped his head to hers, and she raised one hand as if in protest. Next moment I saw them spring apart and turn hurriedly round. Stapleton was the cause of the interruption. He was running ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle
... regenerate one, in very ancient times called the Brahma-kalpa, the high-souled Rishis of the regenerate order, when they assembled together, felt this very doubt about the creation of the universe. Re-straining speech, they remained immovable, engaged in (ascetic) contemplation. Having given up all food, they subsisted upon air alone, and remained thus for a thousand celestial years. At the end of that period, certain words as sacred as those of the Vedas simultaneously reached the ears of all. Indeed, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... patriotism, and civilization are on their knees before the men of the South, and with clasped hands and straining eyes are begging them to become ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... current setting westward like a mighty river. Furthermore, a small boat, by the wind and bucking into a big headsea, does not work to advantage. She jogs up and down and gets nowhere. Her sails are full and straining, every little while she presses her lee-rail under, she flounders, and bumps, and splashes, and that is all. Whenever she begins to gather way, she runs ker- chug into a big mountain of water and is brought to a standstill. So, with the Snark, ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... that his name had been mentioned aloud at that time; he recalled the fact that Goron, in rising to shake hands with him, had called him by name plainly enough. It was evident that she also remembered that much of the facts, and was now straining every energy she possessed to recall what ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter
... I must marry him. I controlled myself. I smiled; I waited. I wished him to go on, but he was peering into my straining ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... apples. Not many now remained; she had evidently sold them nearly all. Across her shoulder she carried a sack full of shavings. She must have picked them up near some new building, and was taking them home with her. It was plain that the sack was straining her shoulder. She wanted to shift it on to the other shoulder, so she rested the sack on the pavement, placed the apple-basket on a small post, and set about shaking down the shavings in the sack. Now while she was shaking down the sack, an urchin in a ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... the Etruscans, whose ranks were crowded in a narrow space. Then, having abandoned the plan of fighting, which they had directed with equal effort in every quarter, they all turned their forces toward one point; straining every effort in that direction, both with their arms and bodies, and forming themselves into a wedge, they forced a passage. The way led to a gradually ascending hill: here they first halted: presently, ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... to him Gilbert a Beckett is prone upon his face, leaving his barrister's wig upon the "block-head." Jerrold, as a wasp, is gazing ruefully at the baton which has dropped from Punch's feeble hands; and Mark Lemon, dressed as a pot-boy, is straining himself in the foreground to reach his pewter-pot. Around float many of Punch's butts, political and social. Wellington on the left and Brougham on the right play cup-and-ball with him. Louis Philippe ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... bitter toil an' straining— But truce with peevish, poor complaining! Is fortune's fickle Luna waning? E'en let her gang! Beneath what light she has remaining, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... the display of this false virtuosity. The picture was one of Jack's "strongest," as his admirers would have put it—it represented, on his part, a swelling of muscles, a congesting of veins, a balancing, straddling and straining, that reminded one of the circus-clown's ironic efforts to lift a feather. It met, in short, at every point the demand of lovely woman to be painted "strongly" because she was tired of being painted "sweetly"—and yet not to lose an ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... what seemed a summons from the unknown—the prolonged morning whistle of the shoe factory. For a while he lay as one benumbed, and the gradual realization that ensued might be likened to the straining of stiffened wounds. Little by little he reconstructed, until the process became unbearable, and then rose from his bed with one object in mind,—to go to Horace Bentley. At first—he seized upon the excuse that Mr. Bentley would wish to hear the verdict of Dr. Jarvis, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... sometimes a gleam of sunlight on the wall, the buzz of a bee at the window, would bring the thought to me. Only to make me miserable, for it was a waste of golden time while the rich sunlight streamed on hill and plain. There was a wrenching of the mind, a straining of the mental sinews; I was forced to do this, my mind was yonder. Weariness, exhaustion, nerve-illness often ensued. The insults which are showered on poverty, long struggle of labour, the heavy pressure of circumstances, the unhappiness, only stayed the expression ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies
... most terrible thing to witness was the last, straining, anxious look which the mother gave her daughter through the grating. She had seen her child pressed to the arms of strangers and welcomed to her new home. She was no longer hers. All the sweet ties of nature had been rudely severed, ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... Lady Landale with much asperity, "not come in person!" She had been straining her eyes to make out something of her interlocutor's form, unable to reconcile her mind's picture with the coarse voice that addressed her—And now all her high expectations fell from her in an angry rush. "Have I come all this way to be met by ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... sadness round the sky was cast, Where clouds seem'd hurrying with unusual haste; Winds urged them onward, like to restless ships; And light dim faded in its last eclipse; And Agitation turn'd a straining eye; And Hope stood watching like a bird to fly, While suppliant Nature, like a child in dread, Clung to her fading ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry |
