"Unstrung" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... weak hand; but the girl's eyes were no longer closed; they were open and fixed on his face. The great fellow was trembling like a leaf. The past hour had been almost more than he could bear. He was entirely unstrung. ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... her steadily for a moment, but he saw only rigid resolution and determination in her eyes; he was too unstrung and broken to protest, or to insist on his right as head of the house, and so—he yielded. Later in the day, however, a compromise was effected. It was agreed that he should accompany his daughter and his daughter-in-law to New York, aid them in securing passage, passports and ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... be felt. Ab carried his new weapon proudly, hungering for the love and admiration of this girl of his, and eager to show her its powers and to exhibit his own skill. At his back hung his quiver of mammoth bone. His bow, unstrung, was in his hand. In front of the cave was a bare area of many yards in extent, then came a few scattering trees and, at a distance of perhaps two hundred yards, the forest began. Across the open space of ground, with its great mass ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... ones who were thoroughly at ease. Barclay and Natalie, unstrung by the events of the day, ate little and talked listlessly. Dorothy, victim to an inward excitement which was half happiness and half disappointment, chattered feverishly. Rathbawne was wrapped in his own thoughts, and his wife, ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... To-morrow evening I hope to see you playing tennis. If you ask the cook for a screw-driver you'll probably be able to wedge open your desk easily. But in future you'll be wiser to confine your work to the preparation hours. The bow must be unstrung sometimes, or your health will suffer. If you join with the other girls at their games you'll soon get to know them, and feel more at home here. Try to be sociable and make yourself liked. Part of the training of school life is to learn to ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... I have found him too late. It couldn't be true," wept the girl, overstrained and unstrung by long vigils, heart-sick with hope deferred, as she ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... retorted that Pere Bracasse being a municipal functionary could not transmit his functions except through the Administration. Monsieur Pujol must desist from drumming and crying. Aristide bowed to authority and unstrung his drum. ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... to let the jibes, criticisms, and heated words of his opponents trickle off from him as easily as water does from a duck's back, which is the proper legal mental attitude in regard to such things. He told us that sharp, harsh, or bitter words entered his soul like barbed iron and he was upset and unstrung for hours afterward. A man with such an emotional nature as his and such an intellect is especially qualified for literature, and we are glad to say that he is now making a very flattering success in this ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... she had worked for him, loved him, spoilt him; and now, in these weeks, her lifework was utterly undone. And then, in the terrible loneliness of her room, with the darkness on the world and round her bed and at her heart, she wept—terrible, tearless sobbing that left her in the morning weak, unstrung, utterly unequal ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... was something more; he was what not one of the great Latin poets was, a Christian; that is, in his latter days, when he began to feel the vanity of all human pursuits, when his nerves began to be unstrung, his hair to fall off, and his teeth to drop out, and he then composed sacred pieces entitling him to rank with—we were going to say Caedmon—had we done so we should have done wrong; no uninspired poet ever handled sacred subjects like the grand Saxon Skald—but ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... drawing-room a piano and violins had begun to play. The air was warm and heavy. For some reason April could not fathom the French windows had been closed, and there was a swishing, seething sound outside, as though the sea was rushing in tides through the garden. She felt curiously unstrung. It was not only the nervous effect of having these two men so intent upon her every word and movement, but there was something extraordinarily disturbing in the atmospheric conditions that made the palms of ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... is broken, The bow is unstrung; The bell peals afar Where the war-whoop once rung: The council-fires burn But in thoughts of the Past, And their ashes are strewn To ...
— Indian Legends and Other Poems • Mary Gardiner Horsford
... whispered to Denviers, as my nerves seemed to be almost unstrung at the unknowableness of ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... the life of one who surviveth his calamities. He that is afflicted with sorrow should be consoled by the recitation of the history of persons of former times (like those of Nala and Rama). He whose heart hath been unstrung by sorrow should be consoled with hopes of future prosperity. He again who is learned and wise should be consoled by pleasing offices presently rendered unto him. He who, having concluded a treaty with an enemy, reposeth at ease as if he hath nothing more to ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... that? He rubbed them angrily, but they were wet the next moment again. Here, here they had driven last summer—only a few months ago—with hay and flowers on the wagon, and had been so gay. And now? His lips trembled, he felt unstrung. At last he had really seen that things must ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... convulsively. He was thoroughly unstrung. The cold, desperate mood had passed. In its place came the old feeling of desolation. He was a child, aching for sympathy. He wanted to tell his troubles. Punctuating his narrative with many gestures and an occasional ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... rushed to the vale of Mona, to Dardu-Lena's dream, by Dalrutho's stream, where she slept, returning from the chase of hinds. Her bow is near the maid, unstrung ... Clothed in the beauty of youth, the love of heroes lay. Dark-bending from ... the wood her wounded father seemed to come. He appeared at times, then hid himself in mist. Bursting into tears, she arose. She knew that the chief was low ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... to be quiet; the muscular energies were still unaffected, and, with continual hemorrhage from the lungs, he could not understand that work or exercise could hurt him. But as the disease gained ground, its characteristic languor unstrung his force; the hard and sinewy limbs became attenuated and relaxed; his breath labored; a hectic fever burnt in his veins like light flame every afternoon, and subsided into chilly languor toward morning; profuse night-sweats increased the weakness; and as he grew feebler, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... believe, who, wavering between different borrowed opinions, first caught at one straw, then at another, unable to settle into any consistency of character. After gazing a few moments, Sagestus turned away exclaiming, How are the stately oaks torn up by a tempest, and the bow unstrung, that could force the arrow beyond ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... "I am too unstrung to auction off any stuff," admitted Matt. "That first scare was enough to take the heart right out of a fellow. You go ahead if you wish, and I'll clean out the window and get things ready for that new ...
— Young Auctioneers - The Polishing of a Rolling Stone • Edward Stratemeyer
... it is necessary for me to take a short rest. Recent excitement in Manti has left me very nervous and unstrung. I shall be away from Manti for about two weeks, I think. During my absence any pending litigation must be ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... grave is laid, Untuned, unstrung, it will lie there long, If you bring flowers alone dear maid Without bringing the spirit ...
— Verses and Rhymes by the way • Nora Pembroke
... a long fight to beat her down, and she was unstrung. She seemed to have a queer physical aversion ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... so, feeling curiously weak and unstrung. He put his arm around her, and led her into the ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... revived and recalled what had occurred, she passed into a condition of almost hysterical grief, for her nervous system was all unstrung. Mr. Jocelyn, meanwhile, attended upon her in a silent, gentle, self-possessed manner that puzzled Mildred greatly, although she ascribed it to the stimulant he ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... beginning to get excited when the doctor came. They told him everything, so that he could form an opinion. But Jeanne suddenly burst into tears, her nerves all unstrung, and almost screamed: "I want Rosalie; I wish ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... with us, said Panurge. Holos, alas, I drown; be be be bous, be bous, bous; in manus. Good heavens, send me some dolphin to carry me safe on shore, like a pretty little Arion. I shall make shift to sound the harp, if it be not unstrung. Let nineteen legions of black devils seize me, said Friar John. (The Lord be with us! whispered Panurge, between his chattering teeth.) If I come down to thee, I'll show thee to some purpose that the badge of thy humanity ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... unstrung. Perhaps the conclusion of my story 'll steady them. Well, the venture that was planned was no less than to take the goods in under Black Rock, and have them hauled up the face of the cliff. In the end 'twas safely done—to ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... folded behind him, paced twice or thrice along the room. Pausing before one of the green baize bags, he lifted it from its nail, and having untied the string that fastened it, he drew forth with great tenderness an unstrung violin, and, carrying it to the light, sat down and turned it over and over in his hands. Then he took the neck with his left hand, and, placing the instrument upright upon his knee, caressed ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... his prisoner to the subordinate, and knocked at the door of Phoebe's lodgings. She came down herself and let him in. She led the way upstairs, motioned him to a seat, sat down by him, and began to cry again. She was thoroughly unstrung. ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... I did," admitted the young pitcher modestly, as he thought of the times he pitched when his arm ached, and when his nerves were all unstrung on account of the receipt of bad news. "But other fellows worked hard, too," he went on. "You've got to work ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... gasp. Yet Mrs. Edwards shook in dread every time she entered the room. The look seemed conscious still, intensified malignity and despair creeping in. She was afraid and guilty and unstrung. Perhaps, with some sudden revival of his forces, he would kill her. He was lying there, too still for defeat. His life had been an expression of hates; the last one ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... work. To this end I had chosen a peasant's house in the village of Gross-Graupen, which is half- way between Pillnitz and the border of what is known as 'Saxon Switzerland.' Frequent excursions to the Porsberg, to the adjacent Liebethaler, and to the far distant bastion helped to strengthen my unstrung nerves. While I was first planning the music to Lohengrin, I was disturbed incessantly by the echoes of some of the airs in Rossini's William Tell, which was the last opera I had had to conduct. At last I happened to hit on an effective ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... attacked and enthusiastically praised, as it antagonized or attracted its readers. Buckle became the intellectual hero of the hour. The second volume appeared in May, 1861. And now, worn out by overwork, his delicate nerves completely unstrung by the death of his mother, who had remained his first and only love, he left England for the East, in company with the two young sons of a friend. In Palestine he was stricken with typhoid fever, and died at Damascus on May 29th, 1862. His grave is marked by a ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... Groups of shivering, unstrung people stood about, utterly incapable of thinking what to do next. But Peter was not there—nor ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... squirrel up there in the oak and the rabbit under the hedge. I listen as of old to the chirp of the grasshopper in the stubble, to the hum of the bees among the foxgloves, to the song of the blackbird on the hawthorn, and, best of all—yes, best of all for brain unsteadied and nerve unstrung—I ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... nervous and unstrung and actually believe that America will now enter the war against them. It is impossible to conceive of the general breakdown of nerves ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... readers. Their God is not a Being, their religion is not a worship, their duty is not a law, their immortality is not the hope of a world to come. Amidst these equivocations and contradictions thought is blunted, and the sinews of the intellect are unstrung. The public, bewitched by talent and captivated by success, is deluged with writings which have the same effect as the talk of a frivolous man, or the showy tattle of a woman of the world. They give an agreeable exercise to the mind, without ever allowing it ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... never seemed to hear. But when he tried to touch her she flew at him like a she-panther. That's what he called her. She said she'd kill him! And she drove him out of her house.... He was all weak and unstrung, and I believe scared, too, when he came to me. She must have been a fury. Those quiet, gentle women are furies when they're once roused. Well, I was hours up with him and finally he got over it. He didn't pray any more. He paced ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... of laughter from the passengers greeted the capsizing of the fox- terrier and the good-natured gravity of Michael. But not alone at this did they laugh, for at the moment of the snap and the turning over, Captain Duncan's unstrung nerves had exploded, causing him to jump as he tensed ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... precise,—was bolting right across the clearing. After the manner of hares where objects directly in front of them are concerned, the fugitive entirely failed to perceive Excalibur and, indeed, ran right underneath him on its way to cover. Excalibur was so unstrung by this adventure that he ran back to where he had left Eileen and ...
— Scally - The Story of a Perfect Gentleman • Ian Hay
... ground in this kingdom, I am sure that it cannot have any long continuance in yours. Our liberty might now and then jar and strike a discord with that of Ireland. The thing is possible: but still the instruments might play in concert. But if ours be unstrung, yours will be hung up on a peg, and both will be mute forever. Your new military force may give you confidence, and it serves well for a turn; but you and I know that it has not root. It is not perennial, and would prove but a poor shelter for your liberty, when this nation, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... all cluttered up with bad habits, not havin' no family of her own to raise," Pearl said. "She wouldn't jump up and screech every time the door slams if she'd been as used to noises as Ma is, and this talk about her nerves bein' all unstrung is just plain silly—and as for her not sleepin' at nights, she sleeps as sound as any of us. She says she hears every strike of the clock all night long, and she thinks she does; but she doesn't, I know. Anyway, ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... with anger and excitement. My nerves were all unstrung by the events of the past two days; and as I finished, my tears burst forth. I wept with passionate sobs. My father made no effort to comfort me. He sat with his chin resting on his breast, weary ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... hunting-shirt his body, and a hairy boar-skin was thrown across his broad shoulders. Altogether, he seemed to his visitor the very personification of ferocity. A huge bow, ready strung, leaned against his hut. As Bladud advanced with his own bow unstrung, the man apparently scorned to take it up, but he grasped and leaned upon a ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... banish'd harps, unstrung, At Babylon upon the willows hung; Yours sounds aloud, and tells us you excel No less in courage, than in singing well; While, unconcern'd, you let your country know They have impoverish'd themselves, not you; 10 Who, with the Muses' help, can mock those fates Which threaten kingdoms, ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... the truth. The iron nature, so long overwrought, now utterly unstrung, had yielded for the first time to the stress of nature and of events. The relief from what he had taken to be death had come swiftly, and the reaction brought a lethal calm of its own. If he had indeed recognized the face of the woman who had touched him with her hand, it was as though he had ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... all tales tell, he will take my life if I ride thither. And," said he, turning to Simon, "this is belike what thou wouldest with me?" And therewith he drew out his sword, for his bow was unstrung. ...
— Child Christopher • William Morris
... "her nerves are completely unstrung. She seems to have been under a great mental strain and her surroundings are not—" He paused, and then added, "Is the young ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... had achieved enough for one man in winning Gettysburg. It would not be strange if the three days' battle had left him with nerves unstrung. The fact remains that he did not pursue and annihilate the defeated army. They were permitted to recross the Potomac without molestation, to reenter what may be called their own territory, to reorganize, rest, ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... is most vividly impressed with the reality of being in life and death simultaneously. That these trials surpassed any that had hitherto ruffled the noiseless tenor of our way was a truism. But coming at a moment when our nerves were sufficiently unstrung by the dearth of tonics, they were doubly enervating. Stomachal grievances were forgotten, and few ventured to desert the imaginary security of their homes to face the risks the redress of grievances would entail. Thus did the hours creep on until darkness with its interregnum ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... holding out her hand to Mrs. Whitney. "You may help me to my apartments if you like. I am quite unstrung by all this," and she swept out ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney
... The unstrung heart to others leaves The music of a feebler woe, Her numbers are the sighs she heaves, Her off'ring tears that ever flow. Where could I gather fancies now? They 're with'ring on thy lowly tomb,— My summer was thy cheek and brow, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... to strike the Infinite One out of existence! "The angels might retire in silence and weep, or fly through infinite space seeking some token of the Father they had lost. With unbounded grief and despair they might wing their way farther and farther, with their harps all unstrung, and every song silent, and the soul-harrowing words, 'We have no Father, no God, a blind chance rules,' might be all that would break the awful silence of heaven. Let the glorious words once more be heard, 'God reigns, ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 7, July, 1880 • Various
... Aylward, having unstrung his bow, had remounted his horse during this conversation, and the two rode swiftly past the little squat Chapel of the Martyr and over the brow of the hill. From the summit they looked back. The injured archer lay upon the ground, with several of his comrades ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... would not now indulge it, even when it had ceased to be a mock, the prospect of that day, or evening at furthest, lying at anchor, with plenty of water for his people, and a brother captain to counsel and befriend, seemed in no perceptible degree to encourage him. His mind appeared unstrung, if not still more seriously affected. Shut up in these oaken walls, chained to one dull round of command, whose unconditionality cloyed him, like some hypochondriac abbot he moved slowly about, at times suddenly pausing, starting, or staring, biting his lip, biting his finger-nail, flushing, paling, ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... behind you?" Tarrano's voice simulated sudden alarm; he scuffled his feet on the floor. The men jumped with fright; nerves unstrung, they cowered. ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... may not content me nor gazing upon thee assuage the fire of my heart, nor will the love of thee, that hath mastered my soul, leave me, but with the passing away of my life.' So saying, he wept and the tears ran down upon his cheeks, like unstrung pearls. When Shemsennehar saw him weep, she wept for his weeping; and Aboulhusn exclaimed, 'By Allah, I wonder at your plight and am confounded at your behaviour; of a truth, your affair is amazing and your case marvellous. If ye weep thus, what ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... did not live to enjoy the fruits or all his study, labour, toil, and anxiety; for, while this enterprise was still in progress, and before the machine trade had revived, he was taken ill, and confined to bed. He became sleepless; his nerves were unstrung; and no wonder. Brain disease carried him off on the 17th of January, 1833; and this good, ingenious, and admirable inventor was removed from all ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... in no condition to meet the other girls to-night, dear. They cannot understand your feelings, and, without meaning to be unkind or curious, would ask questions which it would embarrass you to answer. You are nervous and unstrung, so lie down on my couch and I will see that your dinner is brought up. I shall say to the other girls that you are not feeling well, and that it would be better not to disturb you." Then, going into her bedroom, Miss Preston quickly ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... too easily touched. There are many politicians in every epoch whose principles grow slack and flaccid at the approach of the golden sun of royalty. Barnave was one of those who was sent to bring back the fugitive King and Queen from Varennes, and the journey by their side in the coach unstrung his spirit. He became one of the court's clandestine advisers. Men of this weak susceptibility of imagination are not fit for times of revolution. To be on the side of the court was to betray the cause of the nation. We cannot take too much pains to realise that the voluntary ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... conclusions, my dear little girl. Jeb's the soul of honor, and of courage; he's just a mite unstrung, that's ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... Give me your arm that I may lean upon it, for I grow tired. It is the heat, not that I am ill or weaker; the heat, the heat, and I grow tired. And yet I must walk: I cannot rest; no, not for a moment; this—this horror has unstrung me." ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... and I was fain to hush the laugh upon my lips. Whatever the thing might prove to be to me, it was daily comfort to the nervous, unstrung, lonely woman, whom to suspect of trickery I began to think ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... minutes; and these minutes were precious, for they afforded time for Captain Montague and his officers to cut their way to the spot where he fought, just as a murderous club was about to descend on his head from behind. Montague's sword unstrung the arm that upheld it, and the next instant the pastor was surrounded ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... talk, talk, talking, sip, sip, sipping, and 'just another bottle-ing'; more, we believe, from want of something else to do than from any natural inclination to exceed; the exertion, we say, of such parties had completely unstrung our fat friend, and ill-prepared his nerves for such a shock. Being a great man for his little comforts, he always breakfasted in his dressing-room, which he had fitted up in the most luxurious style, and where he had his newspapers (most ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... The large animal nature of this man always annoyed her. There was much of breath in his words, much of physical sensation always clinging to his thoughts. At present, however, she was not inclined to judge him too hardly; although visibly unstrung, unwise in his sweeping condemnation, coarse in his anger, and somewhat grandiloquent in his pose, there was still much of real heroism in his mental attitude. Braced by the fiercest party spirit, he stood staunch in his loyalty to ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... days that was the last heard, by the garrison, at least, of these most recent captives of the Sioux. Gentle and sympathetic women, however, who called on Mrs. Hay, were prompt to note that though unnerved, unstrung, distressed, she declared again and again her faith that the Indians would never really harm her husband. They might hold him and Nanette as hostages for ransom. They might take for their own purposes ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... selfish soul; Let Freedom perish, if, to Freedom true, In the same ruin Wilkes may perish too. With all the symptoms of assured decay, With age and sickness pinch'd and worn away, 420 Pale quivering lips, lank cheeks, and faltering tongue, The spirits out of tune, the nerves unstrung, Thy body shrivell'd up, thy dim eyes sunk Within their sockets deep, thy weak hams shrunk, The body's weight unable to sustain, The stream of life scarce trembling through the vein, More than half kill'd by honest truths which fell, Through thy own fault, from men who wish'd thee well— Canst ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... old lady Chia exclaimed. "These women have never known what good manners mean. Put the table down." Saying this, she picked up the cash, and loosening the knots, she unstrung them and piled them ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... ground the bow was unstrung. Hay-uta carefully bent it over and slipped the noose in place on the notched end. Then, after examining one of the feather-tipped arrows, he fitted it in place and looked around for some target at which ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... all unstrung, her powers of self-control annulled. She broke out with as unreasoning a sense of injury as a sensitive child might have felt. "They are talking about us!" ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... bard! where'er thy name appears, The weeping verse a sad memento bears; Ah! what avail'd the enormous blaze between Thy dawn of glory and thy closing scene! When sinking nature asks our kind repairs, Unstrung the nerves, and silver'd o'er the hairs; When stay'd reflection came uncall'd at last, And gray experience counts each ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... reply. There was an arduous task before him, and his nerves were unstrung. After he had unfastened the end of the rope and passed it to Ram, who did not secure the end about him, but the middle, after he had nearly drawn it tight, so that, if he did slip, the fall would not be so long. Then reluctantly, but feeling that ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... in a low tone I do not know how long. Her ill-nature had quickly vanished; she was, in her way, provoking, charming. I was sitting close to her. The moonlight played upon her daring, wilful face through the leaves of the grape-vines. It was unpremeditated; my nature was, most probably, unstrung at the instant by ungratified longings for Georgiana; but suddenly I ...
— Aftermath • James Lane Allen
... to her and unstrung the bow, putting it away in its niche. But from the same place he produced a ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... remarkably pale next morning, and declined her breakfast. She had not been well for some time, but she had not trembled as now at the opening and shutting of a door. It was plain that her nerves had been quite unstrung. ...
— Dotty Dimple At Home • Sophie May
... "thy nerves are unstrung, and no wonder. It is a terrible risk to run. Even if thou saidest nothing, and Helladia under the torture accused thee of having been privy to her design, it might have a bad effect on the Emperor's mind. If he put thee to the torture too—but no! that's impossible. I feel faint and giddy, ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... unstrung and nervous in this hardness of circumstance and her terror of destitution. As she told her story, she sobbed and wrung her hands. In the next six months she had better occupation, however, in spasmodically busy shops, where the hours were shorter than in the cloak ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... a severe one upon the zealous Mr. Holcombe, who found himself at the end of it in a very bad way, with nerves unstrung and brain so fagged that he assented without question when his doctor exiled him from New York by ordering a sea voyage, with change of environment and rest at the other end of it. Some one else suggested the northern coast of Africa and Tangier, ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... my girls for not saying good-night," she cordially spoke. "Miriam has been quite upset by a letter from home; and this little—episode—this evening, which she cannot understand as we do, has so unstrung her that Mrs. Foster offered to send them over home in her sleigh. The side door had been barred, but Mr. Horton pried it open for them, so they had no need to come this way, and ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... away, and they stood facing each other, he eager, mystified, thrilling with passion almost beyond mastery, she trembling and unstrung, her cheeks crimson, her eyes filled ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... from the ravages of rum. My young friend, whom I said died of starvation; foolishly married a dissipated man who happened to be rich and handsome. She was gentle, loving, sensitive to a fault. He was querulous, fault-finding and irritable, because his nervous system was constantly unstrung by liquor. She lacked tenderness, sympathy and heart support, and at last faded and died, not starvation of the body, but a trophy of the soul, and when I say the law helped, I mean it licensed the places that kept the temptation ever in his way. And I fear, that is the secret ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... halted, Bathalda made the rest of the bamboos into arrows and, making a quiver of the bark of a tree, hung them over his shoulder. Roger left his spear behind; using the bow, which he had unstrung, as a walking staff. Bathalda offered to carry the spear, in addition to his own weapon, but Roger told him that he did not ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... Saunders returning before twelve. He did not dare to leave the shelf unwatched, even to run downstairs to ring the bell. Morton the butler often used to come round about eleven to see that the windows were fastened, but he might not come. Eustace was thoroughly unstrung. At last ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... the smallest of bows should sometimes be unstrung, and that if my little arrows are flimsy and light they will, I trust, ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... "Times"—a journal the fidelity of whose reports was never questioned. You will be amazed to hear that I not only did not do that of which I am accused; but that I did the very reverse. Fearing that, nervous and unstrung as I was, I might do any injustice in the course of a lengthened speech, by even an ambiguous expression, I find these words reported in the "Times,"—"Mr. Phillips said the prosecutors were bound to prove the guilt ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... so foolish. My nerves are unstrung from keeping late hours," murmured she. Then hastily glancing towards the spot whence the sound proceeded Marguerite knelt down and prayed that an All-Merciful Providence would keep her from ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... eternal, mingled with the earth;— With darker horror shook the conscious wood, 580 Groan'd the sad gales, and rivers blush'd with blood; On cypress-boughs the Loves their quivers hung, Their arrows scatter'd, and their bows unstrung; And BEAUTY'S GODDESS, bending o'er his bier, Breathed the soft sigh, and pour'd the tender tear.— 585 Admiring PROSERPINE through dusky glades Led the fair phantom to Elysian shades, Clad with new form, with finer sense combined, And lit ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... she should have forbidden it!" replied Nattie, coldly, yet looking somewhat startled. Poor Nattie's nerves were decidedly unstrung to-night. ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... unstrung with the din of the guns, and it was an hour before he could be calmed down. The wildcat was skinned, and it was days before the orang could be reconciled to the sight of the pelt or the ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... times he tried and failed, And still that lean, persistent dog At distance, like some spirit wailed, Safe in the cover of a fog. His nerves unstrung, with many a shout He strove to frighten it away, It would not go,—but roamed about, Howling, as ...
— Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt
... parsonage, Captain Monk was softly closing the garden gate behind him—for when in sorrow we don't do things with a rush and a bang—when a whirring sound overhead caused him to start. Strong, hardened man though he was, his nerves were unstrung to-night in company with his heartstrings. It was the church clock preparing to strike twelve. The little doctor, Speck, who had left the house but a minute before, was standing at the churchyard fence close by, his arms leaning on the rails, ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... abruptly seemed to turn white, and instantly her face became ashy pale. One last convulsive effort,—the jaw dropped, the features relaxed, the limbs were unstrung, and Laleli Khanum fell forward to her full length upon her face on the peach-colored satin of ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... too spent for the effort of speech. His hard-drawn breath laboured in great sobs; his limbs were powerless and unstrung in utter relax after hard service. Failure in his endeavour induced a stupor of misery and despair. In addition was the wretched humiliation of open violence and strife with his brother, and the distress of hearing misjudging contempt expressed without reserve; for he was ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... room below, and knew nothing more of the affair until called by Hogan, when he had run to Mr. Gleason's quarters, and after a moment had taken Ray home and insisted on his going to bed. The lieutenant was just recovering from a severe illness, was weak and unstrung, and the affair threatened to bring on a relapse. There had been an open breach between the two officers for over two years, and of late, he knew not how, it had widened. The deceased frequently maligned Lieutenant Ray, and the latter never spoke of him ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... the Worm-tongue, if it lack the rare sentiment of that beautiful story; with more detail and consistency, if with less variety, than the history of Gudrun and her lovers in the Laxdaela; and more a work of art than that, or than the unstrung gems of Eyrbyggja, and the great compilation of Snorri Sturluson, the History ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... discussing, almost wildly she thought, the possibility of a bird's flying against such a gale; and after everyone else had settled down again for the night she could hear Ellen pacing the floor of the living-room. Poor Ellen, thought the girl, she was all unstrung over Shane's accident and frightened at the thought ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... weeks, or till another heroine, who had herself been murdered, obliterated the former horrors from her plastic mind,—Miss Macnulty could discuss the catastrophe with the keenest interest. And Lizzie, finding herself to be, as she told herself, unstrung, fell also into novel-reading. She had intended during this vacant time to master the "Faery Queen;" but the "Faery Queen" fared even worse than "Queen Mab;"—and the studies of Portray Castle were confined to novels. For poor ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... so long since I wrote that I must write, I must ruffle your thoughts with a little breath from my side. Listen to me, my dear friend. That I have not written has scarcely been my fault, but my misfortune rather, for I have been quite unstrung and overcome by agitation and anxiety, and thought that I should be able to tell you at last of being calmer and happier, but it was all in vain. I do not leave England, my dear friend. It is decided that I remain on in my prison. It was my full intention to go. I considered ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... The music, that distant, mellow phrasing of the call of love, the music had unstrung him. While he paced the bridge before her coming that music had been melting the ice of his natural reserve. But he did not pardon himself because ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... sucked the life's blood out of my veins as it embraced me with a slimy kiss. Such dreams are not restful. I woke anything but refreshed when the morning came. And when I got up and dressed I felt that, on the whole, it would perhaps have been better if I never had gone to bed. My nerves were unstrung, and I had that generally tremulous feeling which is, I believe, an inseparable companion of the more advanced stages of dipsomania. I ate no breakfast. I am no breakfast eater as a rule, but that morning I ate ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... let him return naturally,' said Tancred; 'sending for him is a scene; and I do not know why, Baroni, but I feel—I feel unstrung. I am surprised that there are no letters from England; and yet I am rather glad too, for ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... for this the Spanish maid, aroused, Hangs on the willow her unstrung guitar, And, all unsexed, the anlace hath espoused, Sung the loud song, and dared the deed of war? And she, whom once the semblance of a scar Appalled, an owlet's larum chilled with dread, Now views the column-scattering bayonet jar, The falchion flash, and o'er the yet ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... As the savages advanced I retreated, resolving to make a stand at my tent door. At the same time I tried to show by signs that I could, if I liked, kill two or three of them, but that I was ready for peace if they were. At last I lowered my rifle from my shoulder, and they unstrung their bows and advanced with outstretched hands towards me. Knowing their treacherous character, however, of course I could not depend on them. I bethought me that the best way to win their friendship was to offer them food, as is ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... agitated, with nerves unstrung by the life he had been leading, Hazleton listened. And as Kennedy hammered one fact after another home, he clenched his fists until the nails ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... beneath, eight small figures, covered to their noses, shook with held-back sobs or wailed softly. According to the custom that had unwittingly established itself, Ward C was crying itself to sleep. Not that it knew what it was crying about, it being merely a matter of atmosphere and unstrung nerves; but that is cause enough to turn the mind of a sick child all awry, twisting out happiness and twisting in ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... cry of Fouchette seemed yet to linger in the misty morning air, thrilling the distant ear, vibrating upon the unstrung nerves of the outcasts beneath the far-away bridges, borne upon the surface of the waters, when it was answered out of the darkness by a ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... vessels; at Savannah, in the quarter ending June 30, two hundred and three. Something of this outburst of activity, in which neutrals of many nations shared, was due, as Mr. Clay said, to the suddenness with which commerce revived after momentary suspension. "The bow had been unstrung that it might acquire fresh vigor and new elasticity"; and the stored-up products of the country, so long barred within, imparted a peculiar nervous haste to the renewal of intercourse. The absolute numbers quoted do not give as vivid impression of conditions at differing times ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... nerves unstrung, with straining ears George listened. The tense atmosphere made him ajump for ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... ceased to sing, for the four figures that surround her evidently point, by their attitudes, toward her; particularly St. John, who, with a tender yet impassioned gesture, bends his countenance toward her, languid with the depth of his emotion. At her feet lie various instruments of music, broken and unstrung. Of the colouring I do not speak; it eclipses nature, yet has all her ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... speak of, fell for eyes to see, Have sped me forth again from Loxias' shrine, With strength unstrung, moving erect no more, But aiding with my hands my failing feet, Unnerved by fear. A beldame's force is naught— Is as a child's, when age and fear combine. For as I pace towards the inmost fane Bay-filleted ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus
... disturbed by an enforced realization of his own back-sliding. He had been quite furious upon discovering that the "little episode" of the moonlit cottage had filched from him all his new won strength and nervous stamina, leaving him sleepless and unstrung, ready to jump at the rattling of a stone. More and more, there grew in him a fierce disdain of weakness and a cold determination to beat Nature at her own game. Let him once again be "fit" and wily indeed would be the trick which would steal ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... It was not for him to consider the conditions that distressed the Court of Graustark. Not at all. He was a grand duke and he would take his own time in paying his respects. What cared he that every one in the Castle was tired and unstrung and sad and—sleepy? Any one but a grand duke would have waited a day or two before requiring a royal audience. When he finally presented himself at the Castle doors, a sleepy group of attendants ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... mused, touching all unconsciously the strings of my lute which was lying in my hands suddenly a thought came into my mind of its own accord. And I took the lute and unstrung it, and chose from among its strings one, which I rolled like a bangle on my wrist. And I said to the lute aloud: Old love, we will work together: for if indeed she is my enemy, she is thine as well. ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... anarchist crimes can only be looked upon as a means to indirect suicide. They are outbursts that lead to a spectacular martyr-like ending to brains that "too much thought expands," to hearts overladen, and to nerves all unstrung. Life is a burden to them, though they lack the courage to commit suicide directly. Such is the view of these students of criminal pathology, and they cite a long list of political criminals who can only be explained as those who have sought indirectly self-destruction. It is a type of insanity ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... unstrung," said the captain. "He is under the delusion that we deliberately deserted him and, later, found the gold he speaks of. The first charge is nonsense. We did all that was possible in the frightful weather. We ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... extensively and for a long time in the Dutch colonies. Here for a while absolutely no coin was in circulation, and wampum being the feasible substitute was universally adopted. So great was the popular demand, that even the unstrung wampum, prohibited in the eastern colonies, passed at but a trifling discount.[50] For many years the easy-going government at New Amsterdam does not seem to have regulated the currency by law, as did its more thorough neighbors, ...
— Wampum - A Paper Presented to the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society - of Philadelphia • Ashbel Woodward
... still frowning absent-mindedly. "Oh, this?" He held the glass to the light. "You mean you want me to begin—NOW? A fellow has to sober up gradually, my dear. I really need a jolt— I'm all unstrung." ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... unworthy to share the glory that awaits their brave brethren," cried the indignant Eleazar, as, leaning on his unstrung bow, he watched a long line of fugitives wending ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... contents of the letter. It was from a lawyer in Paris, informing him of the decease of his brother, a leather merchant, who, dying wifeless and childless, had bequeathed him both his business and fortune. This intelligence of both joy and sorrow so bewildered and unstrung the nerves of M. Oudin that, in accordance with his custom, he took a dram—in fact the circumstances were so very warrantable that he took two—and probably even more; or else they were like Mynheer Van Dunk's, ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... wiser than man [puts ring on], therefore she is called faithless. Oh, let me sit, I'm so unstrung! [Pehr leads her to a chair ...
— Lucky Pehr • August Strindberg
... sent thrills of joy Through nerves unstrung and palsied frame, The feet that travelled for our need, Were nailed ...
— Poems • Frances E. W. Harper
... faltering feet, And our muscles in a quiver, Our fate we meet With our feelings all unstrung! If our plot complete He has managed to diskiver, There is no retreat— ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... Moliere, for example, corrected the proofs for this edition of the 'Precieuses Ridicules,' when he first discovered "what a labour it is to publish a book, and how GREEN (NEUF) an author is the first time they print him." Or it may be that Campanella turned over, with hands unstrung, and still broken by the torture, these leaves that contain his passionate sonnets. Here again is the copy of Theocritus from which some pretty page may have read aloud to charm the pagan and pontifical leisure of Leo X. This Gargantua ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... greatly pleased her, though she could not help smiling at the source from whence it came, for Mac sent her a Cupid not the chubby child with a face of naughty merriment, but a slender, winged youth leaning on his unstrung bow, with a broken arrow at his feet. A poem, "To Psyche," came with it, and Rose was much surprised at the beauty of the lines, for, instead of being witty, complimentary, or gay, there was something nobler than mere sentiment in them, and the sweet old fable lived again ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... I thought, finding it more and more difficult to co-ordinate my thoughts, "he seems to be as unstrung ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... in a heroic effort to obey, but she was too late. She sneezed, and to poor Ruth's unstrung nerves, the sound was only to be compared in volume to a peal of thunder. The mysterious rustling ceased, and just outside ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... weapon on the greensward, and returned it to the sheath. He then sprang to the side of his wife, and, with the help of the foreman and two brakemen, raised her. She said her nerves were all unstrung, and she 'never could walk home in the world;' so she was placed on the box of the hose carriage ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... his head. "Don't you see, I am sick with an infernal cold," he said. "Got it tramping in the rain without my overcoat, and that fight I told you of has unstrung me. It was a regular battle. But you go yourself, and perhaps Eloise will come to see me. I shall show her the Colonel's confession, and she can do as she pleases about telling ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... possible that my nerves were somewhat unstrung during the days that followed. I wakened one night to a terrific thump which shook my bed, and which seemed to be the result of some one having struck the foot-board with a plank. Immediately following this came a sharp knocking on the antique bed-warmer which hangs beside my fireplace. When I had ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... simple tablet marks a Father’s bier; And those he loved in life, in death are near. For him, for them, a daughter bade it rise, Memorial of domestic charities. Still would you know why o’er the marble spread, In female grace the willow droops her head; Why on her branches, silent and unstrung, The minstrel harp, is emblematic hung; What Poet’s voice is smother’d here in dust, Till waked to join the chorus of the just; Lo! one brief line an answer sad supplies— Honour’d, belov’d, and mourn’d, here Seward lies: Her worth, her warmth of heart, our sorrows say: Go seek her ...
— Anna Seward - and Classic Lichfield • Stapleton Martin
... from his nostrils and his eyes, 30 While still like hungry death he fed his maw; Till every minor crocodile being dead And buried too, himself gorged to the full, He slept with breath oppressed and unstrung claw. Oh marvel passing strange which next I saw: In sleep he dwindled to the common size, And all the empire faded from his coat. Then from far off a winged vessel came, Swift as a swallow, subtle as a flame: ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti |
