"Nerves" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... would. English countrywomen have pretty strong nerves. You ought to know that. But why did you leave the room if you expected the owner of the trinket to return in search ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... of the meeting was already tainted with the Terror. Nerves were on edge. Every time any newcomer would enter the door the audience would look over their shoulders with apprehensive glances. At the conclusion of the meeting the loggers gathered around the secretary and asked him the latest news about the contemplated raid. For reply Britt ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin
... Still swollen, it was of a clear brown, in which you could see the browner trouts darting to and fro with such a slippery gliding, that the motion seemed the result of will, without any such intermediate and complicate arrangement as brain and nerves and muscles. The water-beetles went spinning about over the surface; and one glorious dragon-fly made a mist about him with his long wings. And over all, the sun hung in the sky, pouring down life; shining on the roots of the willows at the bottom of the stream; lighting up ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... thing to do," he said, with renewed animation, "is to find a sanitarium where you will get a complete rest for a while, and allow your nerves to get into a better condition. I myself will go with you and select a ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... put up with lots o' things, but Church P'rade's the very limit. Don't you take me for a 'eathen, sir; I'm much more of a believer than 'eaps of others. I don't mind singin' 'ymns, an' when the preacher can talk a bit, I don't objeck to sermons. But what used to get on my nerves was the cleanin' up Sunday mornin's. You've only seen us in khaki; you don't know our peace-time church togs. Some blasted togs they were too, an' no mistake—all glitterin' with blinkin' red an' gold, an' covered with white beltin'. An' the inspection before you start ...
— General Bramble • Andre Maurois
... I find the air here agrees with my nerves and rheumatism much better than in Florida. I have hopes of entirely recovering. But let us go inside, I ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... at the tavern, for, to tell the truth, my throat felt like the rough edge of a buffalo robe, and my nerves trembled like ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... give you carte blanche, with all the expenses of the new house before us," he explained, "but one or two pretty frocks apiece you must and shall have, while we are on the spot; so go ahead and make yourself smart, and I'll brace my nerves to face the bill." ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... ought to be with mamma still." "We always call him 'Baby' in the Lancers," explained Frank, "because he joined us so very young. He is nineteen, though you would guess him about twelve; but he's got the brains of a man of sixty and the nerves of a giant. Ah! Parachute, you may kick, old girl, but you won't get rid ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... alone can be truly happy or safe. When we examine what doctors have written about the use of these poisons, we find that alcohol as well as nicotine is a stimulant and a narcotic. As a stimulant, it excites the brain and nerves, quickens the circulation of the blood, and intoxicates (makes drunk); while as a narcotic it blunts the powers of the brain and nerves and produces ...
— How John Became a Man • Isabel C. Byrum
... round on his heel, his heart palpitating, his nerves shaken, but his face as serene as ever. It had come, then. After all, what did it matter? He would have preferred to have reached his comrades but at least they would know he had tried. And no man should have reason to say that he had not taken whatever happened like ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... look, that rather startled Kitty, Jack vanished, to return presently with a comfortable cup of tea and a motherly old lady to help repair damages and soothe her by the foolish little purrings and pattings so grateful to female nerves after ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... the accompaniment of a soft, faint rustle. With pleasure Henrietta watched her employer's face brighten and clear as he talked with her sister. The agitation faded from his manner and presently she was aware that the impression she had had of struggle and appeal, which had begun to tense her own nerves, had disappeared. ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... silica causes the argillaceous schist to be traversed by quartz, transforming it, in part, into whetstone and silicious schist; the latter sometimes containing carbon, and being then capable of producing galvanic effects on the nerves. The highest degree of silicifaction of schist is that observed in ribbon jasper, a material highly valuable in the arts,* and which is produced in the Oural Mountains p 260 by the contact and eruption of augitic porphyry (at Orsk), of dioritic ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... for you. You're strong. Your nerves are all right. But I'm full of disease. (Ferrovius takes his hand from him with instinctive disgust). I've drunk all my nerves away. I shall have the ...
— Androcles and the Lion • George Bernard Shaw
... to go, we may as well go by enthusiasm as by calculation; it is a sensation pleasanter to the nerves, and leads to just as good a result when there is only ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... which is art. Of course this is only a wildly chosen example. I never heard either of them mention "Peter Pan." And the proper hatreds were ever more difficult than the proper devotions. You might let Shakespeare get on your nerves, provided you really enjoyed Milton. I wonder if you do see what I mean? It must be perfect of its kind, its kind being anything under heaven; and it must never, never, never be sentimental. It must have art, and parti pris, and point of view, and individuality ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... shrank from the duty before me, and, as I knelt down sorrowfully by the dead form and respectfully composed his stiffening limbs, I thought that it was unjust of fate to place a well-meaning man, whose nerves were not of iron, in ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... venture to ask you not to renew the terrible noise with which you have been filling the house for the last half hour. You know how I dislike crushing the exuberance of your animal spirits; but such a perfectly barbaric noise tortures my poor overstrained nerves." ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... spouts that waited to pour out grain by the hundred thousand bushels. Trains came down from Minneapolis, boats came down from Duluth, warehouse after warehouse at Chicago was filled; and overstrained nerves neared the breaking point as the short December days flew by. Some said the Clique would win, some said Page would win; in the wheat pit men were fighting like tigers; every one who knew the facts ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster
... glimpse of the flooded forest, the great waste of troubled waters, and all the vast desolation about them. It was weird and uncanny to the last degree, and despite all the dangers and hardships through which they had passed on land, the five steadied their nerves only with supreme efforts of ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... blotting-out of self, a rapture of peace, and to Mr. Russell it frequently means that he is entirely "heart-hidden from the outer things," but I suspect it means sometimes mere lift of the heart through lungs full of fresh air, or through green fields for tired eyes, or through mountain air for worn nerves, or through skies thick-sown with stars ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... that day. "Though," his lordship added, "I am aware that an important issue stands for trial. But, the fact is, gentlemen (addressing the Bar in a low tone of voice and somewhat confidentially), I have met with a domestic misfortune, which has altogether deranged my nerves. Poor Lady Carleton has, most unfortunately, miscarried, and—." "Oh, then, my lord," exclaimed Curran, "I am sure we are all quite satisfied your lordship has done right in deciding there is no issue to try to-day." His lordship smiled a ghastly smile, and, retiring, thanked ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... You have iron nerves, all you Douglases. I have heard all, and I know what you have suffered. How soon will you ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... salts of common photography. This substance purpurine is rapidly decomposed by radiant energy of certain wave lengths, becoming bleached, but the decomposition is attended by certain molecular movements; the ends of the optic nerves, which are also spread over the retina, are shaken by the disrupting molecules, and the disturbance is the origin of what we call the sensation of light. But the sensation is generally a compound one, and when all wave lengths which are competent to affect the retina are present, the compound ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various
... is, though Lang tells me you exhibit the courage of Huish, that not even an order can alleviate the wretched annoyance of the business. I have always said that there is nothing like pain; toothache, dumb-ague, arthritic gout, it does not matter what you call it, if the screw is put upon the nerves sufficiently strong, there is nothing left in heaven or in earth that can interest the sufferer. Still, even to this there is the consolation that it cannot last for ever. Either you will be relieved and have a good hour again before the sun goes down, or else you will be liberated. It is something ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that he was the man who had robbed them? Over and over he told himself it was impossible, but he could not lift from his spirit a dread that made him toss in restless torment. With the daylight, his nerves steadied, and a perusal of the morning papers still further calmed him. Only one man had been caught—Knapp. Garland had broken through the window, and with the darkness and his knowledge of the country to aid him, had made his escape. The sheriff's ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... I shall be nervous when the moment of the bombardment actually arrives. This suspense is not calculated to soothe one's nerves. A few moments since, a salute was fired in honor of General Butler's arrival, when women, children, and servants rushed to the front of the houses, confident of a repetition of the shelling which occurred a month ago to-day. ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... can perhaps say that the apperception of great productive maxims of nature absolutely compels us to continue our investigations to the minutest possible details, just as the final ramifications of the arteries meet, at the extreme finger-tips, the nerves to which they are linked. In particular I might perhaps say that I have often been brought more closely to you than you probably know; for conversations with Riemer very often turn on a word, its etymological signification, formation and mutation, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... for the child should commence with the first knowledge of its coming birth. A tremendous control of self, and emotions, and foolish habits, and a stern command of nerves should be the prospective mother's constant effort, as science has proved that all pre-natal influences have such powerful effect upon the child; and, surely, if any woman stopped to think of the colossal responsibility she has undertaken in having become the vehicle ...
— Three Things • Elinor Glyn
... sinuous waterway, and the two boys had gone fully half a mile, when, without warning, they were rudely jolted as the skiff grated harshly on a bar. Ordinarily, such an incident would have been without effect upon them, but now their nerves were so highly strung, that the noise of the boat rubbing against the gravel seemed as loud as the report ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa
... West Point. If Poe met some of the tests of practical life inadequately, it must be remembered that his health failed at twenty-five, that he was pitiably poor, and that the slightest indulgence in drink set his overwrought nerves jangling. Ferguson, the former office-boy of the "Literary Messenger," judged this man of letters with an office-boy's firm and experienced eye: "Mr. Poe was a fine gentleman when he was sober. He was ever kind and courtly, and at such times everyone liked ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... blood, Whose nerves, whose life, whose very frame relies On Caesar's strength, no less than heaven on Atlas, Cannot admit it but ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... favourable notice of Trent from a window when he had crossed the lawn, and had been hoping desperately that the resolver of mysteries (whose reputation was as great below-stairs as elsewhere) would send for her. For one thing, she felt the need to make a scene; her nerves were overwrought. But her scenes were at a discount with the other domestics, and as for Mr Murch, he had chilled her into self-control with his official manner. Trent, her glimpse of him had told her, had not the air of a policeman, and at a ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... without reason that Roger Dymond hesitated before he gave his answer, for nerves are difficult things to deal with. It is surprising, but it is true, that you never find a man who is afraid the first time he goes under fire. There are thousands who are frightened beforehand—frightened that they will "funk it" when ...
— Mud and Khaki - Sketches from Flanders and France • Vernon Bartlett
... to his feet, his face white with a new terror. However, he had endured so much since embarking with Mr. Gibney on a life of wild adventure that his nerves had become rather inured to impending death, and presently his fear gave way to an overmastering rage. He hurled his hat on the sands and jumped on it until it was ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... substance remembered, introduce an infinitesimal dose of it within the brain, modify the substance remembering, and, in the course of time, create and further modify the mechanism of both the sensory and motor nerves. Thought ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... excitement and expectation, when every man's nerves tingled to be called into vigorous action, Ben Bolter saw fit to ...
— The Battle and the Breeze • R.M. Ballantyne
... umbrella, her horse bounded, reared, cannoned into me, cannoned into Belle and the lad, and bolted for home. It really might and ought to have been an A1 catastrophe; but nothing happened beyond Fanny's nerves being a good deal shattered; of course, she could not tell what had happened to us until she ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the greater is the proportion of water and the lower the nutritive value of meat. It should be understood, however, that not all of meat is edible material; indeed, a large part of it is made up of gristle, bones, cartilage, nerves, blood vessels, and connective tissue. The amount of these indigestible materials also varies in different animals and different cuts, but the average proportion in a piece of meat is usually considered to be 15 per cent. of the ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 3 - Volume 3: Soup; Meat; Poultry and Game; Fish and Shell Fish • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... uncomfortable, as if Rupert's music pounded on her nerves; but yet she would not make a move. She stood hushing Cinders as if he had been ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... down at the bottom of the canoe, but I must see what is going on. I am accustomed to the aspect of a sea in a violent gale, and this great body of water, however fast it rushes, will not be more trying to the nerves than such a scene as that. There is one thing that I should wish you to do. Let each tie a light rope round his waist and fasten the other end to the canoe, and then if the raft does go to pieces you will be able to get on board, and at any rate, if she upsets we shall ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... 10-inch shells: a deliberate whirring course—a deafening explosion—black smoke, and earth 70 or 80 feet in the air. These always burst on percussion. The constant noise of our own guns is really worse on the nerves than the shell; there is the deafening noise, and the constant whirr of shells going overhead. The earth shakes with every nearby gun and every close shell. I think I may safely enclose a cross section of our position. The left is the front: ...
— In Flanders Fields and Other Poems - With an Essay in Character, by Sir Andrew Macphail • John McCrae
... nerves almost to frenzy to contemplate the shackles and fetters with which, whether in the domestic or social or legal world, the free spirits of men and women are bound down ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys
... wire was cut. Hostilities had commenced in earnest, and Gueldersdorp, severed from the South by this opening act of war, must find her salvation thenceforwards in the cool brains and steady nerves of the handful of defenders behind her sand-bags, when the hour of ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... a low sob near me, and it caused a faint thrill among my sluggish nerves. Surely I had heard that sound before, and curiosity so far asserted itself that I opened my eyes and ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... fastened in a small house, with nothing to defend ourselves, and the helpless women and children under the roof. "Let us open the door, and decide the contest hand to hand," said Ralph Watts. 'O! my family, my wife and children,' groaned Daniel Roe, 'let us defend the house to the last.' And with nerves strung like iron, and hearts swelled to desperation, we waited in silence for the savages to hew their way through the door. The work was soon over, the savages uttered one deafening yell as the door gave way; and clubbing our guns we wielded them with giant energy. The dark ...
— Stories and Sketches • Harriet S. Caswell
... they stood so. Then, as Auntie Sue faced him again, the stranger, with a supreme effort of his will, gained a momentary control of his shattered nerves. Drawing himself erect and standing steady and tall before her, he raised a hand to his uncovered head as if to remove his hat. When his hand found no hat to remove, he smiled as if at some jest at his ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright
... already established that credit that came so easy to him) being triumphantly quoted as saying, "Glory Hallelujah Gulch was the richest placer he'd ever struck." Nobody added that it was also the only one. But this matter of a stampede is not controlled by reason; it is a thing of the nerves; while you are ridiculing someone else your legs are carrying you off on ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... the Lord knew how much it had cost that poor girl to maintain her fortitude during that trying scene. She had controlled herself for the sake of her friends. But now, when she found herself in the carriage, her long strained nerves gave way—she sank exhausted and prostrated into the corner of her seat, in the utter collapse ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... to hold his own; poor Count Thun, whose nerves were not strong, after a serious discussion with him used to go to bed at five o'clock in the afternoon; he complained that his health would not allow him to hold his post if there were to be continuous ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... in the deep double verandas for "Last Posts," when Simmons went to the box at the foot of his bed, took out his pipe, and slammed the lid down with a bang that echoed through the deserted barrack like the crack of a rifle. Ordinarily speaking, the men would have taken no notice; but their nerves were fretted to fiddle-strings. They jumped up, and three or four clattered into the barrack-room only to find Simmons kneeling by ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... balanced effort, easy, unresting, planned, assured, and there is also the blundering-up of a still half-somnolent man, irascible, clumsy, quarrelsome, who stubs his toe in his first walk across the room, smashes his too persistent alarum clock in a fit of nerves, and cuts his throat while shaving. All patriotic vehemence does not serve one's country. Exertion is a more critical and dangerous thing than inaction, and the essence of success is in the ability to develop ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... for all the day and all the night; a nervous woman might well have shrunk from being thus left alone and unprotected in such a place; but if Barbara had ever been troubled with the nineteenth century malady of "nerves," she had lived it down since she had taken up her abode on the Saucel Ranch. Her hands were always full. Even now, her day's task done, she had set herself to "improve the shining hour" by "tidying-up" the ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... but fibres, nerves, and flesh, And these the smallest ones possess, Although their frame and structure ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... are said sometimes to commence on the forehead, but more commonly on the cheeks, afterwards spreading to the ears and neck.[6] In two Albinos examined by Dr. Burgess, the blushes commenced by a small circumscribed spot on the cheeks, over the parotidean plexus of nerves, and then increased into a circle; between this blushing circle and the blush on the neck there was an evident line of demarcation; although both arose simultaneously. The retina, which is naturally red in the Albino, invariably increased at the same time in redness.[7] Every one must ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... not at first the power for concealment. Her nerves were shattered, her senses dazed by this unexpected shock. She sat there, a mark for boulevarders, the unconscious object of numberless wondering glances. Paris was full, and it was by no means a retired spot which she had found. Yet she never once thought ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... well in myself," proceeded James, "but my nerves are out of order. The least thing worries me to death. I shall have to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... and hackman, the haunting murmur of millions like the moan of the sea borne on breezes winged with the odours of saloon and kitchen, stable and sewer—the crash of a storm of brute forces on the senses, tearing the nerves, crushing the spirit, bruising the soul, and strangling the ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... one of the many species of love. But Cherubino anticipates and harmonises all. They are conscious, experienced, world-worn, disillusioned, trivial. He is all love, foreseen, foreshadowed in a dream of life to be; all love, diffused through brain and heart and nerves like electricity; all love, merging the moods of ecstasy, melancholy, triumph, regret, jealousy, joy, expectation, in a hazy sheen, as of some Venetian sunrise. What will Cherubino be after three years? A Romeo, a Lovelace, a Lothario, a Juan? a disillusioned rake, a sentimentalist, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... difficult to draw the line between the two. Yet through the apparatus of the nose we can perceive the microscopically small parts of matter borne to us through the air, which could not be appreciated by the nerves of the mouth. Fourth in order of scope comes the hearing, which gives us an account of those waves of matter that we understand as sound. This power is much more far ranging than those before noted; in some cases, as in that of the volcanic ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... enough to do. Possessed of sufficient servants, her household duties occupy a very small portion of her leisure, and if her children are at school (or perhaps she has none) she has nothing more engrossing to do than read novels and pay visits. The result is that one type of woman cultivates nerves and becomes a neurasthenic semi-invalid; another cultivates the opposite sex and fills her leisure hours with undesirable philandering; another develops temper or melancholy or jealous fancies; and so on—all of them spoilt as companions merely ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... during the day. I was told afterwards, that when I recovered from the fainting fit, the doctor, apprehensive of spasms, gave me a powerful anodyne to quiet my tortured nerves. When I became conscious of what was passing around me, the moon was shining on the bed where I lay, and the shadow of the softly rustling leaves quivering on the counterpane. I was alone, but I heard low, murmuring voices in the next room, and there was a light there ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... or two people didn't receive a little bit of a shock to their nerves," said the visitor, thoughtfully. "One lady even stayed in bed next day. However, I made it all right with them. The company is very generous, and although of course there is no legal obligation, they made several of them a present of a few pounds, ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... you have not slept for a night or two," said Holmes, in his easy, genial way. "That tries a man's nerves more than work, and more even than pleasure. May I ask how ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... swords may reap the field, And plant fresh laurels where they kill: But their strong nerves at last must yield; They tame but one another still: Early or late They stoop to fate, And must give up their murmuring breath When they, pale captives, creep ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... to run riot. The child was coddled; the girl was allowed to grow up without any of the discipline which young men receive in their college and business life, and little or no attention was paid to her physical development. The woman naturally became a bundle of nerves, highly irritable, unreasonable, and hysterical. All this reacted in the most detrimental manner upon her ...
— The Four Epochs of Woman's Life • Anna M. Galbraith
... idle words: 'Suppose I know a man to be so lame that he is absolutely incapable to move himself, and I find him in a different room from that in which I left him, shall I puzzle myself with idle conjectures, that perhaps his nerves have by some unknown change all at once become effective? No, sir, it is clear how he got into a ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... and saw the surgeon labor awhile, but could not enjoy; it was much less trying to see the wounds given and received than to see them mended; the stir and turmoil, and the music of the steel, were wanting here—one's nerves were wrung by this grisly spectacle, whilst the duel's compensating pleasurable ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... above (Q. 74, A. 1). But our Lord said (John 6:56): "My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed." Therefore, only the flesh and blood of Christ are contained in this sacrament. But there are many other parts of Christ's body, for instance, the nerves, bones, and such like. Therefore the entire Christ is not ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... fifty-eight,—10th February, 1471. The manner of his end was peculiar. In that War with Pommern, he sat besieging a Pomeranian town, Uckermunde the name of it: when at dinner one day, a cannon-ball plunged down upon the table, [Michaelis, i. 303.] with such a crash as we can fancy;—which greatly confused the nerves of Friedrich; much injured his hearing, and even his memory thenceforth. In a few months afterwards he resigned, in favor of his Successor; retired to Plassenburg, and there died in about a ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... Mr. Cameron," she said. "It was but a crisis of the nerves, and to be expected. And now she ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... spirits, moved in the sensory by an object, continue their motion to the brain; whence the motion is propagated to this or that particular part of the body, as is most suitable to the design of its creation; having first made an alteration in the face by its nerves, especially by the pathetic and oculorum motorii actuating its many muscles, as the dial-plate to that stupendous piece of clock-work which shows what is to be expected next from the striking part; not that I think the motion of the spirits in the sensory continued ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... of the great proportion of artillery the Germans employ is to beat down the resistance of their enemy by concentrated and prolonged fire, to shatter their nerves with high explosives, before the infantry attack is launched. They seem to have relied on doing this with us, but they have not done so, though it has taken them several costly experiments ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... to the art of composition. Somehow, when Foy was in the house, singing and talking, and that great Frisian brute, Martin, was tramping to and fro, there was never any quiet, for even when he could not hear them, the sense of their presence exasperated his nerves. So now was his opportunity, especially as his mother was out—marketing, she said—but in all probability engaged upon some wretched and risky business connected with the people whom she called martyrs. Adrian determined to avail himself of it and ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... only be paralleled by that connected with the marriage relation. A vast number of actions and experiences still pass as the "signs" of approaching departure. As in omens generally, the prevailing principle is usually the effect of association of ideas; the shock to the nerves consequent on the imagination of the occurrence is, in the popular fancy, inseparable from belief in its reality. Hence the general tendency to insist on euphemistic speech, the required abstinence from unpleasant suggestions, the favete linguis of the Roman. In this body of deeds ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... excited state, truly," observed Hodges, as he drew near, "and must not be left for a moment, or he will do himself a mischief. I must give him a draught to allay the fever, and compose his nerves—for in this state I dare not have recourse ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... all right, but the baggage wagon next to it fell, down off the line, and as we were going slowly they put on the brake and no other carriage followed." "Can we go on to-night?" "Oh no, the roadway is broken up." This was a shock to my nerves, but at any rate we were safe for the night, and after running in and telling John and E—-, we soon all fell asleep. During the night they tacked on an engine, with its great lamp eye at the back of our car (we are the last carriage), and ...
— The British Association's visit to Montreal, 1884: Letters • Clara Rayleigh
... the Reichstag comment on the conference proposal Crown Prince frontiers, alleged violation by the French General Staff, did it conspire to bring about war? German efficiency invasion of France losses methods mobilization nerves opinion of England plundering Press plays Germany a foul trick provocation to Belgians before the war State, a Nirvana German Socialists and conscription and universal peace cheer the announcement that Germany had invaded two neutral countries help ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... you do not swim which gives zest to the exercise. I climb along yonder jutting cornice of the cliff with eagerness, and pluck my simples with a hand that trembles more from joy than fear, precisely because the strain of balancing the nerves, and the certainty of suffering as the result of carelessness, knit my sensations together into an exaltation which is not exactly pleasure, perhaps, but which is not to be distinguished from it in ...
— Hypolympia - Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy • Edmund Gosse
... now in a dilemma. He could face danger with unflinching nerves, but was a novice in such an emergency. Doing what any young man with generous impulses naturally would do under such circumstances, he attempted to allay the fears of his hysterical companion. There was little of premeditated propriety in ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... come to take a precious treasure of art from the drawing-room or the household goddess from the front hall. And as I sat in the study once more, on the comfortable easy-chair of the Judge, with the empty feeling in my stomach telling me that my nerves were on edge, as they used to be when I rowed on our crew and sat listening for the gun, I was sure that after announcing me she lingered beyond the curtains, covertly ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... he slept. The peace of the prairie world got hold of him; the profound silence lulled his fagged nerves, his pipe went out, ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... quarter to which my care is to be directed," I continued gravely: chuckling, however, to myself over the thought of being set to chaperon Madame Beck or any of her pupils. Now Dr. John had a fine set of nerves, and he at once felt by instinct, what no more coarsely constituted mind would have detected; namely, that I was a little amused at him. The colour rose to his cheek; with half a smile he turned and took his hat—he was going. My heart ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... knotted arms whistled through the air like falling trees, threatening fatal blows. Besides which the Raja's head scarcely reached the giant's stomach, and the latter, each time he struck out, whooped so abominably loud, that no human nerves could ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... tone may play on flesh, Or thought on brain,—you passed, if I may say so, From red and scarlet through morbid greens to mauve. Let us regard ourselves, you used to say, As instruments of music, whereon our lives Will play as we desire: and let us yield These subtle bodies and subtler brains and nerves To all experience plays . . . And so you went From subtle tune to subtler, each heard once, Twice or thrice at the most, tiring of each; And closing one by one your doors, drew in Slowly, through darkening labyrinths of feeling, ...
— The House of Dust - A Symphony • Conrad Aiken
... rightly divided for me; when I slept, it was during the day when others were awake, and vice versa. I became a spoiled, pampered child, and gained a great deal of attention and sympathy, in consequence of which I became a veritable little bundle of nerves. While yet in my mother's arms, I manifested many of the whims and vagaries which were destined to crop out more strenuously as ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs
... the rattlesnake coiled in his path at that moment had ended his existence, but the snake was indeed an honorable highwayman, and sounded a gentlemanly warning in the nick of time. Collins would have killed it for its pains, but killing had upset his nerves that day. So he left the reptile to try its fangs on a better man. Besides, he reflected that he could not consistently advocate capital punishment, and he sincerely hoped that his humane sentiments would spread in California. He recalled the fact that there was a strong party among the good ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... see Mrs. Landis a while this afternoon. It is a long time since I've been there. I do enjoy being with her. She's such a cheerful person. The work and noise of nine children doesn't bother her a bit. I don't believe she knows what nerves are." ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... Savage nerves could stand no more. The Raturans turned and fled as one man. They descended the pass as they had never before descended it; they coursed over the plains like grey-hounds; they passed through their own villages like a whirlwind; drew most of the inhabitants after ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... friend heard them tuning their instruments; and as the hour of liberty drew near, each must have had his music open, his bow in readiness across the fiddle, his foot already raised to mark the time, and his nerves braced for execution; for hardly had the twelfth stroke sounded from the earliest steeple, before they had launched forth into ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... judgment in "smokes"—and this feeling of a certain detachment from the larger emotions of life was always his father's pose—the philosopher's. In his father's case it was perhaps engendered, if not necessitated, by his poor health and wretched nerves. ...
— A Student in Arms - Second Series • Donald Hankey
... daring soldiers, wherever the British Lion was the object of hostility. Those of whom we are now to speak, the people of Williamsburg, were men generally of fearless courage, powerful frame, well-strung nerves, and an audacious gallantry that led them to delight in dangers, even where the immediate objects by no means justified the risk. They felt that "rapture of the strife", in which the Goth exulted. In addition ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... than the last; and now all his glasses were ground and polished either by his own hand or by his brother Alexander's. Carolina meanwhile took her part in the workshop; but as she had also to sing at the oratorios, and her awkward German manners might shock the sensitive nerves of the Bath aristocrats, she took two lessons a week for a whole twelvemonth (she tells us in her delightfully straightforward fashion) "from Miss Fleming, the celebrated dancing mistress, to drill me for a gentlewoman." Poor Carolina, there she was mistaken: Miss ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... persuade her friend Lizzy to comply with the wishes of all her family. "Pray do, my dear Miss Lucas," she added in a melancholy tone, "for nobody is on my side, nobody takes part with me. I am cruelly used, nobody feels for my poor nerves." ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... completely absorbed his thoughts and energies, his spirits flagged. The vivacity, the wit for which he had been noted deserted him and he sank gradually into a mental lethargy which, as his malady increased, at times almost amounted to torpor, but alternated with a restlessness and irritation of the nerves very distressing to witness. In order to divert his attention from the life with which he could no longer mingle, it was decided that novelty of scene might have a beneficial result. His family therefore proceeded to ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... tell her story with reluctance, dreading lest Thresk should attribute it to a woman's nerves and laugh. But he did not. He listened gravely, seriously; and, as she continued, that nightmare of an evening so lived again in her recollections that she could not but make it ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... over the threshold, and with shaking fingers secured the outer bolt of the buttery door. Her head was whirling, and she dared not stop there even to think over this extraordinary adventure, for Moppet was doubtless waiting breathlessly for her return; and at the recollection Betty's nerves grew steadier, and she bethought herself that a glass of milk would be needed by the child and that she must take it to her. So she filled the smallest dipper, not wishing to go back into the china pantry for fear of noise, and, ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... narrative, and Mazarin stopped. The night was already past, and, in the light of the early dawn, we saw each other's faces distinctly. It may have been mere fancy, or the result of the severe strain on my nerves, or, more simple still, the manner in which the half light played on his face, but it seemed to me that the powerful Cardinal had ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... habit of being vague. And through all these things—serious or trivial—a terrible yearning over Katherine and her baby—the new, little, human life which was his own life, and which yet he would never know or see. And through all these things also, the perpetual, heavy ache of those severed nerves and muscles, flitting pains in the limb of which, though it was gone, he had not ceased to be aware.—He dozed off, and mortal weakness closed down on him, floating him out and out into vague spaces. And then suddenly, once more, he felt a horse ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... change of position, but at best the lull was temporary. Soon one of the sleepers would give a suppressed snort, to be immediately joined by one after another, until the unearthly chorus once more swelled to rack the quivering nerves of ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... training of even seventy years ago, twenty years after cellular pathology had dawned, held wearisome hours of dissection now known to be a waste. It is the functions of the body and its organs which we now know to be the more important, and not the bones, muscles, nerves, and organs considered ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... leap. What effect, then, did mental condition exert on a man like Peters under the circumstances attending this unparalleled leap? Think of the enormous muscular power developed by the message received through the nerves from a mind thus affected! His own life, and that of another, if not of two others, depended upon the success of his effort. Under such circumstances muscular power would either be paralyzed, or else intensified beyond our common conception of such force. Peters positively ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... her nerves to act the part of her sister at the dangerous moment, and her excitement made every instant of waiting seem ten times its length. Inez did not answer the question at once. Dolores repeated it still ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... utterly out of the question, and that one or two more thrills would make very little difference to my already shattered nerves, I replied that I would listen eagerly to anything she could tell me, however horrible. My permission thus gained—and gained so readily—Miss Macdonald, not without, I noticed, one or two apprehensive glances at the slightly rustling curtains, began her narrative, ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... lantern, and left us in pitch darkness—such an absolute darkness as I have never before experienced. The smell of hot metal remained to assure us that the light was still there, ready to flash out at a moment's notice. To me, with my nerves worked up to a pitch of expectancy, there was something depressing and subduing in the sudden gloom, and in the cold, ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... and fro for some moments, making not the slightest effort, till the horribly paralysing shock had somewhat passed away. Then, as his nerves began to resume their wonted ...
— Son Philip • George Manville Fenn
... in the hope that one of them would venture to give a mocking smile. How pleased he would have been to vent his nerves on them! ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... days of her carrying the second baby she had again the fierce ugly attacks of temper that had shattered Sam's nerves, but having learned to understand, he went quietly about his work, trying as far as in him lay to close his ears to the stinging, hurtful things she sometimes said; and the third time, it was agreed between them that if they were again unsuccessful ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... up. His clean-shaven face wore an expression of extreme alertness—the sort of look a ferret wears as he slips in at the mouth of a rabbit-hole. A doctor, called upon to sum up Mr Kay at a glance, would probably have said that he suffered from nerves, which would have been a perfectly correct diagnosis, though none of the members of his house put his manners and customs down to that cause. They considered that the methods he pursued in the management of the house were the outcome of a naturally malignant disposition. This was, however, ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... exclaimed the major with delight, his eyes beginning to sparkle in anticipation. "The best of news! A little action, eh? I ask nothing better. All I ask is that we live to reach the committee—live to be properly killed! It's this dying-alive that kills me! Faith, it tears the nerves clean ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England |
