"Straining" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... they sat there—Mrs. Travilla, Adelaide, the doctor, and poor old Chloe—silent and still as statues, watching that quiet slumber, straining their ears to catch the faint sound of the gentle breathing—a sound so low that ever and anon their hearts thrilled with the sudden fear that it had ceased forever; and one or another, rising noiselessly, would bend over the little form in speechless alarm, until again ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... payments, and suspend rescheduling negotiations. Aid from Gulf Arab states, worker remittances, and trade contracted; and refugees flooded the country, producing serious balance-of-payments problems, stunting GDP growth, and straining government resources. The economy rebounded in 1992, largely due to the influx of capital repatriated by workers returning from the Gulf, but the recovery was uneven throughout 1994 and 1995. The government is implementing the reform program adopted ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... merit," he says, " ... of having drawn together and unified the labor movement and the socialist idea. In the first third of the nineteenth century labor struggled and fought against the crushing power of capital; but it was not conscious itself toward what end it was straining; it did not know that the true objective of its effort was the common ownership of property. And, on the other hand, socialism did not know that the labor movement was the living form in which its spirit was ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... felt at first a dull sort of surprise and then a sudden, stimulating gladness, noting the familiar look of the ridge ahead. Yonder the cave would be. The cave and King, success and rest. She straightened up a little, brushing her hand across her straining eyes, making sure that she was right. She heard the insistent scream behind her, but now she did not heed it, for in front of her, stock-still in the trail, was a man. ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... my sinuous hips As a dancer winds her girdle. The ocean's horrid crew, The octopus, the serpent, and the shark, with the heart of a coward, Plunge downward when they hear my feet above on the sea-floor, And hide in their slimy coverts. Brave men pray upon the straining decks Till comes my mood to end them, and I strew the ...
— Pan and Aeolus: Poems • Charles Hamilton Musgrove
... almost exhausted companion, to whom its scenery was familiar, waited not to look back upon its beauty or its richness. Not so Raymond, who, from the moment they began to ascend the elevation, kept constantly looking back, and straining his eyes in one particular direction. At length he started, and placing his right hand upon the priest's shoulder, said in a suppressed but ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... wretched track several times, but as she was not running much faster than a man could walk, the worst consequence to us was a severe jolting. She was small, and was easily pried back upon the track, and sent again upon her wheezy, straining way. ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... destiny, made one stream of passion which welled forth in the deep rich tones of her voice. She had a rare contralto, which Lady Cheverel, who had high musical taste, had been careful to preserve her from straining. ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... island, and resumed the warfare against their hereditary foes. Success at sea and on land resulted in the capture of richly laden prizes, multitudes of captives, and booty of enormous value. The captives became slaves laboring on the fortifications or straining at the oars. The booty adorned the churches and enriched the people. But as power and wealth increased, the desire for spoils took possession of the hearts of the Knights and the original vows of humility, kindness, and charity were ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... said he was imprudent. Steadying himself with one arm about the mast, the captain stood firmly in his elevated position, and, as the sun came slowly up and the golden radiance spread over the sky and sea, he swept the arch of the horizon to the south, east and west, straining his keen vision for the first ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... seat so that he could look out of the car window, and the other passengers observed that at intervals the little fellow would wave his hand and smile. Following the direction of his glances, the passengers saw the other boy running along the sidewalk, straining every muscle to keep up with the car. They watched his pantomime in silence for a few blocks, and then a gentleman asked the lame boy who the other boy was: 'My brother,' was the prompt reply. 'Why does he not ride with you in the car?' was the next question. 'Because he hasn't any money,' answered ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... into the night; the straining of the taut ropes and the creaking of the pulleys might have been heard at the lake's edge as he applied the multiple power of leverage against some stubborn log and hauled it up the slope. Then he would notch and trim it, and ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... casually, the crew, six of them, carried Number Nine to the water's edge, saw paddles and everything in order for a quick launching, and lolled about carelessly on the sand. They were guilty of not advertising that anything untoward was afoot, although they did steal glances up to their captain straining through the binoculars. ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... not riding; the fact being that he had no longer courage enough to get into the saddle. His riding days were over. Even the stable mastiff, an old favourite with Brian, gave him a painful shock when the great tawny brute leapt out of his kennel, straining at his chain, and baying deep-mouthed thunder by way of ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... here and there, while he complacently fingered his Punch, flacking over the leaves with brisk slaps of the hand. At this moment he was as comfortably-minded a householder as any in London, engaged solely in digestion, at peace at home and abroad, so unconscious of the fretting, straining, passionate lost soul in the room with him, hovering, flicking about it like a white moth, as to be supremely ridiculous—to any one but Lucy. It is difficult to hit off her state of mind in a word, or ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... he could, Mainwaring snatched up the empty weapon and struck once and again at the bald, narrow forehead beneath him. A third blow he delivered with all the force he could command, and then with a violent and convulsive throe the straining muscles beneath him relaxed and grew limp ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... She hurried on, straining her eyes at the barrier of gloom that rose a few yards ahead. And out of it kept springing faint grotesque shapes that changed themselves slowly, resolving into dim rocks and bushes, telegraph poles and high embankments, finally melting away behind her and losing their identity ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... centuries which are as a breath in the workings of the Infinite, and which must yet elapse before this world, as we know it, comes to an end—God has taken pity on the few, very few souls dwelling here, pent up in mortal clay, who have blindly tried to reach Him, like plants straining up to the light, and has established a broad stream of sympathetic electric communication with Himself, which all who care to do so ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... sometimes went on field-work: a railed opening was made in the hedge, because the upland with its bordering wood and clump of ash-trees against the sky was a pretty sight. Presently there came along a wagon laden with timber; the horses were straining their grand muscles, and the driver having cracked his whip, ran along anxiously to guide the leader's head, fearing a swerve. Rex seemed to be shaken into attention, rose and looked till the last quivering trunk of the timber ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... heed, but swung himself to and fro, straining out his neck to peep round the mate and get a look at ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... contortions; so that to the timid eye of the landsman, they seem as Indian jugglers, with the deadliest snakes sportively festooning their limbs. Nor can any son of mortal woman, for the first time, seat himself amid those hempen intricacies, and while straining his utmost at the oar, bethink him that at any unknown instant the harpoon may be darted, and all these horrible contortions be put in play like ringed lightnings; he cannot be thus circumstanced ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... window the canaries in their cage rustled and bickered; unwashed plates were crowded on the table; the big unmade bed added a flavor of its own to the atmosphere. Madame eased herself, panting, into the chair before the desk, revealing the great rounded expanse of her back with its row of straining buttons and lozenge-shaped revelations of underwear. With the businesslike deliberation of a person who transacts a serious affair with due seriousness, she spread the bill before her, smoothing it out with a practiced wipe of the hand, took her ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... of one smooth, juicy lemon, and squeeze out the juice, straining it on the rind. Put one cup of sugar and a piece of butter the size of an egg in a bowl, and one good-sized cupful of boiling water into a pan on the stove. Moisten a tablespoonful of corn starch, and stir it into the water; when it boils, pour it over the sugar and butter, and stir in the rind ...
— Recipes Tried and True • the Ladies' Aid Society
... leather, take a quart of skimmed milk, pour into it one ounce of sulphuric acid, and, when cold, add four ounces of hydrochloric acid, shaking the bottle gently until it ceases to emit white vapors; separate the coagulated from the liquid part, by straining through a sieve, and store it away till required. Clean the leather with a weak solution of oxalic acid, washing it off immediately, and when dry apply the ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller
... draw from slates. Poor Seraphim! They mean to spoil our sleep, and do, but all their gains Are curses for their pains!' Now who but knows That truth to learn from foes Is wisdom ripe? Therefore no longer let us stretch our throats Till hoarse as frogs With straining after notes Which but to touch would burst an organ-pipe. Far better ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... said again, raising her from the floor, and straining her to his breast, his burning lips seeking the icy ones of the Tzigana. "Answer ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... people to look into it dispassionately. They were bound to no set of opinions, but regarded everything as an open question, accepting nothing save as the conclusion of a logical argument. I joined the Society—straining my clerical conscience somewhat to do so—and eventually formed one of the committee appointed by the Society to inquire into the matter, and having a sub-committee sitting at my own house. This, however, broke up suddenly, for I found even ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... gone into her mouth, whereupon the child ran in all haste to the door to get into the house again, shrieking out in a most terrible manner. Whereupon this deponent made haste to come to her; but before she could get to her the child fell into her swooning fit, and at last, with much pain and straining herself, she vomited up a twopenny nail with a broad head; and being demanded by this deponent how she came by this nail, she answered that the bee brought this nail and forced it into her mouth. And at other times the elder child declared unto ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... strength. Truly they who know still know nothing if the strength of love be not theirs; for the true sage is not he who sees, but he who, seeing the furthest, has the deepest love for mankind. He who sees without loving is only straining his ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... his neck, his great bowed body straining in an effort of attention, he looked at the wounds, the pus, the soiled bandages, the worn, thin face, and his own wooden visage laboured under the stress of all ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel
... approaching clamour and the shout, The rattle and the clatter, and the roar, The whistle, and the thunder, and the tramp, The clanking discord of the missive shields, The clang of swords, the hissing sound of spears, The tinkling of the helmet, the sharp crash Of armour and of arms, the straining ropes, The dangling bucklers, the resounding wheels, The creaking chariot, and the proud approach Of the triumphant champion of the Ford. Clutching his master's robe, the charioteer Cried out, "Ferdiah, rise! for lo, thy foes Are on thee!" Then the Spirit of Insight fell Prophetic on the youth, ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... looks o'er all those broad domains, And hears no heavy clank of servile chains, Here man, no matter what his skin may be, May stand erect and proudly say "I'M FREE!" No crouching slaves cower in our busy marts, With straining eyes ...
— Poems of the Heart and Home • Mrs. J.C. Yule (Pamela S. Vining)
... to himself a thousand times: "I will write a tale, that shall constitute an epoch in the mind of the reader, that no one, after he has read it, shall ever be exactly the same man that he was before." The effort, and straining after effect which this confession implies, are evident throughout the work. The reader's curiosity is continually excited by the promise of new interest and new developments, but he is as continually disappointed. The main idea of the story is certainly a striking ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... rampageous river that runs the devil knows where; My hand is athrill on the paddle, the birch-bark bounds like a bird. Hark to the rumble of rapids! Here in my morris chair Eager and tense I'm straining — isn't it most absurd? Now in the churn and the lather, foam that hisses and stings, Leap I, keyed for the struggle, fury and fume and roar; Rocks are spitting like hell-cats — Oh, it's a sport for kings, Life on a twist of the paddle . . . there's ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... Morning Prayer. If this is an unjust criticism we ought not to let ourselves be troubled by it. On the other hand, if it is a just criticism it will be much wiser of us to heed than to stifle the voice that tells us the truth. It might seem to be straining a point were one to venture to explain the present very noticeable disinclination of Churchmen to attend a second service on Sunday, by connecting it with the particular infelicity in question; but that the excuse, ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... Bill halfway up I saw Mendoza come out of the hut where we all lived. Mendoza thought that Bill was away buying groceries. But he wasn't: he was in the bucket. And when Mendoza saw Luke hauling and straining on the rope he thought he was pulling up a bucketful of gold. So he drew a pistol from his pocket and came sneaking up behind Luke ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... mile after mile. On each side of the village street are straw thatched houses, and along the roads coolies bend under great loads, carried on poles across their shoulders. Black bulls drag giant loads on two wheeled carts, their masters straining beside them. The bulls' mouths are open, their tongues hang out, and saliva drools out in streams. It leaves a wet, irregular wake, in the dust of the roadside, behind the carts. By and by, the men will stop for food and drink. They cannot choose what it shall be. They cannot afford ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... flakes of light. Lamar watched only the square block of shadow where Dorr's house stood. The door opened at last, and a broad, cheerful gleam shot out red darts across the white waste without; then he saw two figures go in together. They paused a moment; he put his head against the bars, straining his eyes, and saw that the woman turned, shading her eyes with her hand, and looked up to the side of the mountain where the guard-house lay,—with a kindly look, perhaps, for the prisoner out in the cold. A kind look: that was all. The door ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... Now his straining eyes perceived a tiny bit of light, and simultaneously he became conscious of a deathly stench. The damp earth padding his footsteps, he advanced swiftly toward the source of light, which now seemed to lie in stripes across his line of vision. He soon ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... blur of speed between the slightly slanted rudders. Somewhere, miles away, a splintered amphibian plane was slipping down to her last landing, and above, perhaps, the white hell of storm which had brought her low still bowled over the trackless wastes; but here were only shadows and shifting gloom, straining the alert eyes to soreness and tensing the watcher's brain with alarms that, one ...
— Under Arctic Ice • H.G. Winter
... the mouth, and form a most complete strainer, so that only the most minute animals can enter. This is necessary, as the swallow is too small to admit even the smallest fish. When a black whale feeds, it throws up millions of small animals at a time with its thick lower lip, into the straining apparatus I have described; and as they are scarcely perceptible to the naked eye, when its vast size is considered some slight notion may be formed of the prodigious number it ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... Gallons of it into a half Tub, as they call it, of Wood, and straining a Canvas over it, to keep out Dust and Insects, and letting it stand in some shady room for three weeks or a month, it did of itself putrefy and stink exceedingly, and let fall to the bottom a black ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... whistle sounded, and amid the farewells that followed, Reginald went out into his new world, leaving them behind, straining their eyes for a last look, but little dreaming how and when that little family should ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... muffled steersman sails with that Norland gloom; The Snowflake in the offing is neck and neck with doom. Ha, ha, my saucy cruiser, crowd up your helm and run! There'll be a merrymaking to-morrow in the sun. A cloud of straining canvas, a roar of breaking foam, The Snowflake and the sea-drift are racing in for home. Her heart is dancing shoreward, but silently and pale The swift relentless phantom is hungering on her trail. They scour and fly together, until across the roar He signals for a pilot—and Death puts out from ...
— Ballads of Lost Haven - A Book of the Sea • Bliss Carman
... through the bars and held my face between them. She looked searching into my eyes, as if straining to force her blocked telepath sense through the deadness of the area. She leaned against the steel but the barrier was very effective; our lips met through the cold metal. It was a very unsatisfactory kiss because we had to purse our ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... stick touched the hondo, the two stopped and panted for a minute; then Diego grasped his end of the stick and signaled the return trip. Again it took practically every ounce of strength they had in their muscular bodies, but they could move steadily now, instead of in straining, spasmodic jerks. The rawhide sizzled where it curled around the stick. They reached the end and stopped, and Jack commanded them to sit down and have a smoke before ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... be sprung with unnecessary force, for fear of injuring the corners of the grooves; and, in stacking arms, care should be taken not to injure the bayonets by forcibly straining the edges against ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... sun-lit spires of mountains, shadowed valleys, and mysterious crevasses from which clouds of steam and yellow vapor curled. Still it seemed they must crash against one of those slender pinnacles. Nearer it came like a flash; a dizzying blur, now, that drove directly in their straining faces. ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent
... we march on Agpur, they daren't leave the city undefended with us in their rear. They have no military genius to see that the only chance lies in snapping us up before we can unite, and straining every nerve to do it, and we can get together a large enough force to give a very good account of anything less than the whole Agpur army. If we find ourselves faced with that, and luck's against us, we shall probably go down, but we shall have done it more damage than Sher Singh can repair ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... ran riot to my head And still I held my madness thrall, My lips repressed the frenzied shriek, My straining heart was stout as teak; But, when he kissed her mantling cheek, I broke—and two attendants led ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... the parapet, and with his feet carelessly dangling on the other side, sat gazing off upon the sea, now straining his eye to make out the rig of some dark hull in the distance, and now following back the moon's glittering wake until it met the shore. At this moment the hound, leaving his mistress's side, put his fore paws upon the top of the parapet and his nose into one of the boy's hands, causing him ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray
... milk cheese, but a vegetable one, made by boiling and straining the pulp of the cactuslike prickly pear fruit to cheeselike consistency. It is chocolate-color and sharp, piquantly pleasant when hard and dry. It is sometimes enriched with nuts, spices and/or flowers. It will keep for a very long time and has ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown
... the gigantic, unwieldy man, who had grown gray stooping over his work, had gained a certain majestic dignity. His cheeks glowed, and the gray eyes, which had long since acquired a fixed look from straining over the gemcutting, now beamed with a blissful radiance. Something wonderful must have happened to him, and, without waiting to be questioned by the lady, he poured out to her the news that he would ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... necessity of action in relation to belief, and the uselessness of passive impressions. It has been said that the defect of the eighteenth century theology 'was not in having too much good sense, but in having nothing besides,' and the straining after good sense, so prominent in Pope's age, affected alike, men of letters, philosophers, and theologians. The virtue was carried to excess and is conspicuous in Butler. He has his weaknesses both as a philosopher and a theologian, but the reader of the Analogy and of the three sermons ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... Greeks said and wrote to the Entente powers. And the chief newspapers of the Allies are full of articles trying to prove that the Bulgarians, under the guidance of Germany and Austria, are endangering the Balkan situation. According to what we learn, Germany is straining every nerve to incite an armed conflict between Greece and Bulgaria. In this way Germany hopes to guarantee Turkey against any possible attack from Bulgaria, and thus promote her own interests. To this fact we most earnestly call the ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Everything is dependent upon their rowing together in absolute rhythm come what may, and giving instant obedience to orders. The trireme is in one sense like a latter-day steamer in her methods of propulsion; but the driving force is 174 straining, panting humans, not insensate ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... idea that any importance would be attached to his statements. Many mistakes were probably made in the work of dictating the narrative to a fellow-sailor. If Rutherford had been bent upon making a romantic story, he would have told it in a different form. There is no straining after effect in the manuscript reproduced by Craik. The faults are inaccuracies, not exaggerations. Some excuse may be found for Rutherford's mistakes in the description of the battle Te Ika-a-rangi-nui in the fact that modern Maori scholars cannot agree on important ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... now and then at my watch and by straining my eyes was surprised to see how early it was yet. The minutes ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... grew suddenly serious. Leaning forward with eyes straining hard to the horizon, she said: "Flip, I've had a hard life, in spite of the success. Shall I run?... or... shall I stay, and snatch joy, while there ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... not hear much of gold in the earlier times, but in 237 B.C., when Ts'in was straining every nerve to conquer China, the (future) First August Emperor was advised that "it would not cost more than 300,000 pounds weight in gold to bribe the ministers of all the states in league against Ts'in." Yet in 643 B.C., on the death ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... occupation every joy of the domestic hearth. The public acknowledged with favour the exertions of the labouring man; pronounced him worthy of his sire; vouchsafed him their respect and confidence. Bravely the youth proceeded on his way—looking ever to the future—straining to his object—prepared to sacrifice his life rather than yield or not attain it. Noble ambition—worthy of a less ignoble ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... curious thing: There were no clouds, the sun was going down in a limpid, gold-washed sky. Just as the lower edge of the red disk rested on the high fields against the horizon, a great black figure suddenly appeared on the face of the sun. We sprang to our feet, straining our eyes toward it. In a moment we realized what it was. On some upland farm, a plough had been left standing in the field. The sun was sinking just behind it. Magnified across the distance by the horizontal light, it stood out against the sun, was exactly contained within the circle of the disk; ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... watch in hand, he awaited the fatal hour of midnight. As the minute hand slowly but surely drew near to twelve he asked to see his valet's watch, and was relieved to find that it marked the same time as his own. With beating heart and straining eyes he watched the hand draw nearer and nearer. A minute more to go—half a minute. Now it pointed to the fateful twelve—and nothing happened. It crept slowly past. The crisis was over. He put down the watch with a deep sigh of relief, ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... mind. My wife had a feeling that Margaret, thus early, was conscious of a drift, of a widening space, and was making an effort to pull the two parts of her life together, that there should be no break, as one carried away to sea by a resistless tide grasps the straining rope that still maintains his slender ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... snow was faintly visible before the brown horses (they were yoked tandem) came into view. This cart was driven down to the water-edge, and was there upturned, with much shouting and cracking of whips on the part of the men engaged, and with a good deal of straining, slipping, and stumbling on ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... center rigid as a post, with outstretched hands and head thrown backward. On his right are his wife and daughter straining toward him. Back of them the Postmaster, turned toward the audience, metamorphosed into a question mark. Next to him, at the edge of the group, three lady guests leaning on each other, with a most satirical expression on their faces directed straight at the Governor's ...
— The Inspector-General • Nicolay Gogol
... heard: Giorgio Pellegrino, Trenta Capelli, followed by the whole population of Pizzo, rushed out about a hundred and fifty paces from where Murat, Franceschetti, and Campana were straining themselves to make the boat glide down ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... GEORGE, ever thoughtful for the welfare of others, arranged with the Military authorities to give a change of scene to six members of the Clyde Workers' Committee, who have been recently over-straining their vocal chords. This was the impression I got from Dr. ADDISON, who, like his great namesake, is a master of the bland style; but Sir EDWARD CARSON thrust aside official euphemism and bluntly inquired whether these men were not in fact assisting the KING'S ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 5, 1916 • Various
... individual will live in chronic dissatisfaction with his present lot; and when he has reached what may be called the normal pecuniary standard of the community, or of his class in the community, this chronic dissatisfaction will give place to a restless straining to place a wider and ever-widening pecuniary interval between himself and this average standard. The invidious comparison can never become so favourable to the individual making it that he would not gladly rate himself still higher relatively ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... back, according to the work and exercise which they use, we can't judge of a man's strength by lifting only; but a method may be found to compare together the strength of different men in the same parts, and that too without straining the ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... earth. It is needless to say that he grew careless, and on this particular morning leaped into the car and demanded the cables to be let out with all speed. I saw with some surprise that the flurried assistants were sending up the great straining canvas with a single rope attached. The enormous bag was only partially inflated, and the loose folds opened and shut with a crack like that of a musket. Noisily, fitfully, the yellow mass rose into the sky, the basket rocking like a leather in the ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... smell of ripening in the air, a smell of sap once more on the move, of humid earths disintegrating from the winter rigidity, of twigs and slender branches stretching themselves under the returning warmth, elastic once more, straining in their bark. ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... should make a "train;" that is, bind all the sleds together, and so go down: it would be more delightful than ever by moonlight. No sooner said than done. Only Pussy's sled was not tied to her brother's, for he feared lest the straining and shocks that often took place in this kind of coasting might prove dangerous to her. She followed, therefore, as usual; but Otto could not stop his sled if she was delayed, for he had to go on with the "train." Off they went, and the long chain reached the bottom safely ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... overmuch in life, Straining at ends of hard accomplishment, And goaded onward by poor discontent, We build our little Babels up through strife, And bitterness of soul, and motions rife With passions that oft slay the innocent, Like Priests of Lust plunging the ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... she would, even through storm and darkness. It was then, she said, that the cry sounded loudest and nearest, as if her pretty boy were frightened by the tempest. What wild, terrible rovings we had, she straining forward, eager to overtake the dream-child; I, sick at heart, following, guiding, protecting, as best I could; then afterwards leading her gently home, heart-broken because she could not ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... then; and regardless of my resistance one motherly body after another seized me, kissing my cheeks roundly, straining me to her bosom, and calling me her "brave lad!" or her ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... employment of women in industry seems likely to increase. Women are employed, on the whole, on the lighter and more routine stages of the process of production. They have shown capacity, endurance and steadiness upon monotonous and nerve straining work both upon machine and hand tasks. It seems likely that they will continue to displace men in many of the simpler mechanical jobs. Many individual women wage earners have risen to tasks of responsibility and direction. This number will be greatly added to by improvement ...
— The Settlement of Wage Disputes • Herbert Feis
... away with that quick, nervous, low-lying action which marks the rush of racers, when side by side and nose to nose lapping each other, with the roar of cheers on either hand and along the seats above them, they come straining up the home stretch. Returning from one of these arrowy flights, she would come curvetting back, now pacing sidewise as on parade, now dashing her hind feet high into the air, and anon vaulting up and springing through the air, with legs well under her, as if in the act of taking a five-barred ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... so many skilled women journeyed to New Bethel that week, coming with the glow of crusaders, eager to write their names on this momentous page of woman's history, that Mary's worry turned into a source of embarrassment. However, by straining every effort, accommodations were found for the visitors and the work of re-organization was at ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... was undoubtedly ambiguous; to give a kiss may mean: 1. What it literally says—to bestow a kiss. 2. To offer one's self to be kissed. 3. To accept willingly a proffered kiss; and, without much straining of words, 4. Merely to refrain from angry expostulation and a rupture of acquaintance when one is kissed—this last partaking rather of the nature of the ratification of an unauthorized act, and being, in fact, the measure of Dora's criminality. ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... fortress one views a wide bay, bounded to the north by the dark flanks of Sila (I was in sight of the Black Mountain once more), and southwards by a long low promontory, its level slowly declining to the far-off point where it ends amid the waves. On this Cape I fixed my eyes, straining them until it seemed to me that I distinguished something, a jutting speck against the sky, at its farthest point. Then I used my field-glass, and at once the doubtful speck became a clearly visible projection, ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... worthy gentleman to the office of Sheriff's or private Chaplain or to some similar position of confidence, by which he gained the poet's respect and gratitude. The whole allusion, however, might, without straining be regarded as a merely complimentary one. The tone of the passage affords at any rate a very pleasing glimpse of the mutual regard entertained by the poet and his ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt
... pitch at all during the process, do not seem to know how; but the majority do know, and know well! The colt is roped in a corral by the forefeet, jerked down, and his head held till bridled; or he is roped round the neck, snubbed to a post and so held till he chokes himself by straining on the running loop. As soon as he falls a man jumps on to his head and holds it firmly in such a way that he cannot get up, and someone slips on the Hackamore bridle. Thus you will see that a horse lying on its side requires his muzzle as a lever to get him on his feet. Then he ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... that wherever he was, he was unwatched, Mr. Grimm was on the point of concluding that further inaction was useless, when his straining ears caught the faint grating of metal against metal—perhaps the insertion of a key in the lock. His hands grew still; his eyes closed. And after a moment a door creaked slightly on its hinges, and a breath of cool air ...
— Elusive Isabel • Jacques Futrelle
... old things are beginning to totter and fall, and ideas rendered sacred by years of observance are being brushed aside with a startling display of irreverence. Under the surface of our civilization we may hear the straining and groaning of the ideas and principles that are striving to force their way out on to the ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... opinion as to their legality or illegality. The government, therefore, were of opinion that if the several penal statutes already in force did not contain clear enactments against this offence, it was not proper for them to seek some meaning in the law, which would be construed by others into a straining of the provisions of the law, and make it doubtful whether they had not forced the meaning of an enactment, in order to procure a condemnation of the societies in question. Even if they could have discovered that, although the Orange societies had contrived to evade the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... to the springboard and the leap, always, after the take-off, in mid-air, they had to encounter an assistant who stood underneath, an extraordinarily long buggy-whip in hand, and lashed them vigorously. This made them leap from the springboard beyond their normal powers, hurting and straining and injuring them in their desperate attempt to escape the whip-lash, to beat the whip-lash in the air and be past ere it could catch their flying flanks and ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... trumpeting impatiently for inspection. Their compound is a series of roofless walled enclosures, and a visitor notes with grateful appreciation the strength of the chains anchoring the beasts to mother earth. A leviathan is straining at his tether in a mad effort to reach a vagabond who is tantalizing him with a pike, and your guide—one of the official messengers with sword and shield—says: "He no like Hindu people; last week he kill two." Beasts ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... effective agent of the propagandism of slavery. The transition is easy from such a theory to the fulfillment of the boast of Senator Toombs, 'that the roll of slaves might yet be called at the foot of Bunker Hill Monument.' But no straining of the language of the Constitution can make it mean the recognition of the natural right of slavery, The guarded manner in which the provision was made for the rendition of slaves, and all the circumstances connected with the adoption of the Constitution, show conclusively that slavery ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... is the grey goat of old Hawk and Buckle, And what of pretty Nanny this hot summer weather? She stays not contented with little or with muckle, Straining for daisies at the ...
— Country Sentiment • Robert Graves
... younger traveller looked back with straining eyes to catch another glanco of the vanished object, ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... sat their camels. These, indeed, now that they were free of the long desert grass, trotted at their quickest pace. And at sunset that evening they stopped and rested for an hour. All through that night they rode and the next day, straining their own endurance and that of the beasts they were mounted on, now ascending on to high and rocky ground, now traversing a valley, and now trotting fast across plains of honey-coloured sand. Yet to each man the pace seemed always ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... Day; the rope was run round the schoolhouse, and the building was promptly hauled back into shape and fastened down with long timbers running from its sides to a convenient red-gum stump at the back. Thus it remained for many years, bulging at the sides, pitching forward, and straining at its tethers like an eager hound ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... stood, and her breath came straining hot and heavy through her white teeth, and she smiled and ogled him archly. He felt her take hold of him, and it was as though a ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... Politics as well as the other diseases Press, which had kindled, proceeded to extinguished Presumptuous belief Ready is the ardent mind to take footing on the last thing done She was not, happily, one of the women who betray strong feeling Shuns the statuesque pathetic, or any kind of posturing Straining for common talk, and showing the strain Style resembling either early architecture or utter dilapidation The people always wait for the winner The system is cursed by nature, and that means by heaven The tragedy of the mirror is one for a woman ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger
... authorities. The Nineteen were in no way surprised to hear of great preparations being made by the King of Spain to retake the town, and they on their part were determined to maintain their conquest by meeting force with force. Straining all their resources, three squadrons were equipped; the first two, numbering thirty-two ships and nine yachts, were destined for Brazil; the third, a small flying squadron of seven vessels, was despatched early to watch the Spanish ports. The general-in-chief ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... matter to those who have written about this to Your Highness that the recovery of Goa should have been so many times attempted, how much harder must it have been to gain the country from so powerful a sovereign as the King of Bijapur, Lord of so many armies, who is not likely to refrain from straining every nerve to recover the possession of it and striking a decisive blow at our prestige, if he could do so? And whenever any one of his captains shall come up against this city, are we to surrender it immediately without ...
— Rulers of India: Albuquerque • Henry Morse Stephens
... it. His hand was on the horse's mane, when just above its head he noticed a clean patch of granite, and across that space he saw a huge grey baboon leap, and then another, and another. He turned about, and looked across to the opposite wall, straining his eyes, and a second later to the wall on his right. Then he understood; the twisted rifle, the finger marks, this thing which he held under his coat, he understood them all. The walls of the hollow were ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... sunset. She watched until she had seen the distant vessel put about, making for the open sea. Ah, now she knew that he was safe aboard,—no need had they to come farther into shore. Yet still she waited, straining her eyes to see the ship sink slowly beneath the horizon. One last glint of sunlight against a white sail, and it ...
— Their Mariposa Legend • Charlotte Herr
... the frightful condition of affairs in San Francisco; the straining of public patience ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... drawing around to the fateful cleft. Would it win past once more? No; it was too far out! It felt the grasp of the outward suction, soft and insidious at first, then resistless as the falling of a mountain. With straining nerves and pounding heart Henderson strove to hold it back by sheer will and the wrestling of his eyes. But it was no use. Slowly the head of the log turned outward from its circling fellows, quivered for a moment in the cleft, then shot smoothly forth into the sluice. With a groan ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... abdomen, and a particular one to the umbilicus. The last point is one of great importance, where there is any tendency to a rupture at this part of the body—a tendency which very often exists in feeble children. And without some support of this kind, crying, coughing, sneezing, and straining in any way, might greatly aggravate the evil, ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott
... went into action; face glued to the visiplate, hands moving faster than the eye could follow—the left closing and opening the switch controlling the zone of force, the right swinging the steering controls to all points of the sphere. The mighty vessel staggered this way and that, jerking and straining terribly as the zone was thrown on and off, lurching sickeningly about the central bearing as the gigantic power of the driving bar was exerted, now in one direction, now in another. After a second ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... Island was deciding to come in, Nova Scotia was straining every nerve to get out. There was no question that Nova Scotia had been brought into the union against its will. The provincial Legislature in 1866, it is true, backed Tupper. But the people backed Howe, who thereupon went to London ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... the east and west, Frae Indus to Savannah! Gie me within my straining grasp The melting form of Anna. There I'll despise imperial charms, An Empress or Sultana, While dying raptures in her arms I ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... in and found a youth of about thirteen straining his eyes in the fading light over one of those halfpenny humorous journals which, thanks to an improved system of education, at least eighty per cent. of our juvenile population are now enabled ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... the cruel tension of the gin testified to his anguished and futile struggles for freedom. The wire had cut into his shoulder, and his bolting eyes were wild with terror. It was no easy task to loosen the trap, and there was blood on Toby's hands as she strove to release the straining, frenzied creature. ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... fiercely. "What is all other fate as compared to the death of terror? What, when the coldest sage, the most heated enthusiast, the hardiest warrior with his nerves of iron, have been found dead in their beds, with straining eyeballs and horrent hair, at the first step of the Dread Progress,—thinkest thou that this weak woman—from whose cheek a sound at the window, the screech of the night-owl, the sight of a drop of blood on a man's sword, would start the colour—could ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... both branches of Congress—John Quincy Adams leading those of the Representatives, and Daniel Webster and Henry Clay of the Senate. The entire self-possession of Mr. Prentiss, then only twenty-nine years of age, never forsook him in such an august presence. There was no straining for effect, no trick of oratory; but, from the first to the last sentence, everything in manner, as in matter, seemed perfectly natural, as if he were addressing a jury on an ordinary question of law. This feature of his speech—this evidence ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... opened out, was a glimpse of the Seine; and with a turn of my head I could see, huge and vast, the enormous keep of the Louvre, built by Philip Augustus, and evilly known as the Philippine. But although my eyes, straining through the twilight, rested on these and more, my thoughts were far away. At a puff my pyramid of cards, the little life I had built up for myself, had come down, and all my labour and ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... the door, which he opened a few inches. The rain had now stopped, and he could hear, perhaps a quarter of a mile away, the sound of horses moving cautiously through the mud, along the river bank. In a twinkling Watson and Macgreggor were at his side, straining their ears. ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... over my notes and jotting down some ideas which were still fresh in my mind. Suddenly I became conscious of that sense of alarm which is always aroused by the sound of hurrying footsteps on the silence of the night. I stopped work and looked at my watch. It was after eleven. I listened, straining every nerve to hear above the tumult of my quickening pulse. I caught the murmur of voices, then the gallop of a horse, then of another and another. Now thoroughly alarmed, I woke my companion, and together we both listened. After a moment he put ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... and thine only. To live for thee shall satisfy both my heart and my ambition. If thou wilt be kind, no softer loveliness shall be desired by me. George Robinson has never been untrue to his vows, nor shalt thou, O my chosen one, find him so now. For thee will I labour, straining every nerve to satisfy thy wishes. Woman shall henceforward be to me a doll for the adornment of whose back it will be my business to sell costly ornaments. In no other light will I regard the loveliness of her ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... stuffed their mouths so full of peas that conversation was impossible and waited for the first victim. A low, heavily laden lumber wagon, drawn by straining horses, creaked down the street. They concentrated their fire upon the driver by tacit consent, for each of the marksmen had had an aversion to causing runaways drilled into him by the hair ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... They were all straining their eyes, but the distance was so great that they could only be sure that they were camel-men and ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... faded, the first ghostly light came stealing from the east. The blood began to leap once more in his veins. Already it was almost light enough to shoot. Then his straining eyes saw Bill emerge ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... (names which I can never separate),—not indeed peculiar to these, for it is the same in the Psalms, Ezekiel, and throughout the Scriptures, but which I feel most in Paul and Luther, —there is one fearful blank, the wisdom or necessity of which I do not doubt, yet cannot help groping and straining after like one that stares in the dark; and this is Death. The law makes us afraid of death. What is death?—an unhappy life? Who does not feel the insufficiency of this answer? What analogy does immortal suffering bear to the only death which is ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... sincere good will and much straining of eyes that the hunt started. It proved to be slow work. Every now and then some seeker came across what he thought might prove a clue, ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... characterization, but also a lowering of moral tone, which results largely from the closer identification of the drama with the Court party. There is a lack of seriousness of purpose, an increasing tendency to return, in more morbid spirit, to the sensationalism of the 1580's, and an anxious straining to attract and please the audiences by almost any means. These tendencies appear in the plays of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, whose reputations are indissolubly linked together in one of the most ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... and tried to dance with another girl, and the dance music still went on. But she could not help straining her ears and trying to catch the subject of Rosamund's conversation. Why, she was absolutely laughing, and the Professor, who was generally so grave and quiet, was laughing also. ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... more he moved about, and clomb Ev'n to the highest he could climb, and saw, Straining his eyes beneath an arch of hand, Or thought he saw, the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... joy or sorrow Was heard from either bank; But friends and foes in dumb surprise, With parted lips and straining eyes, Stood gazing where he sank; And when above the surges, They saw his crest appear, All Rome sent forth a rapturous cry, And even the ranks of Tuscany Could scarce forbear ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Egyptian race—upon keen-eyed travelers—Herodotus yesterday, and Warburton to-day—upon all and more this unworldly Sphinx has watched, and watched like a Providence with the same earnest eyes, and the same sad, tranquil mien. And we, we shall die, and Islam will wither away, and the Englishman straining far over to hold his loved India, will plant a firm foot on the banks of the Nile, and sit in the seats of the Faithful, and still that sleepless rock will lie watching and watching the works of the new busy race, with ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... heaving and straining and splitting and scattering and narrowing and broadening along the red, wet sands, and over and between the tangled tree-roots, and through and among the bushes, and in and out of the grass clumps; for even now the ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... the words apparently, for her attitude changed. She parted her straining hands as though by great effort, and moved ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... This system, besides aiding the natural restlessness of the American character, gives rise to a good deal of spurious religion, and shortens the lives and impairs the usefulness of the ministers by straining ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... not laugh, but took his pipe from his mouth, and stood up a moment, straining his sight once more against the distant horizon, where the green-blue water of the wide estuary melted into the blue-green of the sky with hardly a line of demarcation. Then he sat down and took a dry tobacco leaf lying on a stool beside him and crushed ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... was on the phone. Her voice was excited; she was obviously straining to keep it at a low level. "I'm telling you, he's here! Right in our living room. And he insists I know somebody named Carolyn ... Yes, that's right. But do hurry ... Please. He's acting much ...
— Next Door, Next World • Robert Donald Locke
... that now, senor. I think it will be of advantage to talk, for I am sure if I were to lie with my eyes straining, and thinking of nothing else, they would soon begin ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... last. Three violent blasts ripped over us like projectiles, and the "song of the dead men" was twanged upon the straining ropes. The Waif stopped for an instant, as if debating whether she would run or cower before the onslaught, then she dipped her nose into the mad lather that rose around her and plunged forward. That ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... be seen affecting horses that are in service, more often at heavy draft work where they are exposed to severe straining of joints; where stabling is insanitary; and where they are obliged to lie down (if they do not remain standing) upon cold and wet ground or upon hard ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... time the sea proved very beneficial to Kate's health, but the never-ending surprises and expectations she was exposed to finished by so straining and sharpening her nerves that the stupors, the assuagements of drink, became, as it were, a necessary make-weight. Her love for Dick pressed upon and agonized her; it was like a dagger whose steel was being slowly reddened in the flames of brandy, and in this subtilization of the brain ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... even too descriptive, too imitative of things, and seems to out-run the province of words, somewhat as that did the province of notes. But, though this hunting, and checking, and floating, and flying in metre may be to strain the arts of prosody and diction, with how masterly a hand is the straining accomplished! The spear, the arrow, the attack, the charge, the footfall, the pinion, nay, the very stepping of the moon, the walk of the wind, are mimicked in this enchanting verse. Like to programme-music we must call it, but I wish the concert-platform had ever justified this slight perversion ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell
... of physics and electronics, and entered the field of psychology. Instead of retiring, he applied for a beginner's status in his new profession. It had taken considerable bending and straining of the Commonwealth's rules—but for a man of Leoh's stature, the rules could be flexed somewhat. Leoh became a student once again, then a researcher, and finally a Professor ...
— The Dueling Machine • Benjamin William Bova
... sprang to his side, and kneeling down, searched with straining eyes in the bleached and bony face, fringed with matted hair and long unkempt gray beard, for some trace of the full and ruddy countenance which she remembered. She would still have hesitated, but ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... through my mind. The sad loss of the gallant Lieutenant Gore and a whole boat's crew a short time before, about the same locality, was present to my thoughts. To add to the chances of our not finding the man, it was now growing rapidly dusk. As we reached the spot, every eye on board was straining through the gloom to discern the object of our search, but neither Miles nor the life-buoy were to be seen. Still, I could not bring myself to leave him to one of the most dreadful of fates. He was a good swimmer, and those who knew him ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... from the north with sleet on its back. Raw shuddering gusts whipped the sea till the ship lurched and men felt driven spindrift stinging their faces. Beyond the rail there was winter night, a moving blackness where the waves rushed and clamored; straining into the great dark, men sensed only the bitter salt of sea-scud, the nettle of sleet ...
— The Valor of Cappen Varra • Poul William Anderson
... are straining every nerve to employ enormous masses of men from the first moment of hostilities, in order thus to gain an advantage whilst their enemy is still concentrating, and when we further consider how these exertions must increase the strain throughout ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi
... over night that she must not ride out by the river. And she had gone to prove her own spirit and teach Coppy a lesson." Certainly the last two sentences could be united into a compound sentence, nor would it be straining the structure to put all three sentences into one. This example is not exceptional. Many similar cases may be found in all prose writers; and in Macaulay's writings there are certainly occasions when it would be better to unite independent ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... had managed to accompany them thus far, and now, as the great ship is slowly leaving the wharf, and Mrs. Douglas, Malcom, Margery, Barbara, and Bettina are clustered together on her deck, waving again and again their good-bys, and straining their eyes still to recognize the dear familiar form and face among the crowd that presses forward on the receding pier, we will take time for a full introduction of the chief personages of ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt
... Christine asked. There was a touch of vexation in her voice; her eyes were straining through ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... noises; shouts; men and boys running down steep places towards the pier: all more bright and gay and fresh to our unused eyes than words can paint them. We came to a wharf, paved with uplifted faces; got alongside, and were made fast, after some shouting and straining of cables; darted, a score of us along the gangway, almost as soon as it was thrust out to meet us, and before it had reached the ship - and leaped upon ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... to the window and leant his arms unseeingly on the high narrow sill that looked out over the neighbouring housetops, straining to hear the faintest sound from the inner room. It seemed to him that he must have waited hours when at last the door opened and shut quietly and the American came leisurely toward him. He faced him with swift unspoken inquiry. The doctor nodded, moving ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... Harris sat straining his ears to catch every word, and Akkomi's assumption of bland ignorance brought a rather sardonic smile to his face, while his lips moved in voiceless mutterings of anger. Impatience was clearly to be read in his face as he waited for Overton to question further, and his ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... a tendered tin-pail and seven pennies and departed. He passed into the side door of a saloon and went to the bar. Straining up on his toes he raised the pail and pennies as high as his arms would let him. He saw two hands thrust down and take them. Directly the same hands let down the filled pail ...
— Maggie: A Girl of the Streets • Stephen Crane
... four when he had slipped noiselessly up to the front of the store on his soft-soled slippers, led by a newly formed habit, of which, to be fair, he was rather ashamed, of spying upon the young man clerk, he looked casually out of the front window, straining his faded eyesight to reach the street. A limousine, large, portentous, impressive, had drawn to the curb, and the chauffeur, after dismounting and holding some sort of conversation with persons in the interior ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... first-hand knowledge of his subject, a student were to read the "Works of Margaret Fuller":—"Life Within and Without," "At Home and Abroad," "Woman in the Nineteenth Century," "Art, Literature, and Drama,"—he would be prepared to find eccentricities of style, straining for effect, mystical utterances, attempts at profundity, and stilted commonplace. He would, however, find nothing of this sort, or of any sort of make believe, but simply a writer always in earnest, always convinced, with a fair English style, perfectly intelligible, intent ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach
... business scheme?" he asked, in a preoccupied tone of voice and straining his eyes to look me over. "You are dressed up, I see. Quite prosperous, ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... in St. Paul's, yet left without bread his surviving 'housekeepers' and natural children—of the tenderness of heart which permitted that his father, moved from the shop, should play a servant's part in the gallery in Queen Anne Street, straining canvases, varnishing pictures, and showing in visitors, with a suspicion that he cooked the dinner even if he did not take the shillings at the door. 'Look'ee here,' said the poor old man, who, it is right to state, saw no humiliation in acting lackey to his prosperous ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... tell; that the Champion would be taken, she did not believe possible. But, alas! many of those on board might be killed or wounded; several days might pass before the Champion could come into Cork harbour. With straining eyes she gazed towards the two ships gradually become less and ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... the dogs repeated the growl, and then I could hear the clicking of a pair of sabots on the road. The noise approached, and my guardians looked towards me, every muscle in their bodies straining, waiting for the ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... wings of the Confederates. The opportunity was still supremely favorable for McClellan, but prompt decision was not easy for him. Nothing but reconnoitring was done on Monday afternoon or on Tuesday, whilst Lee was straining every nerve to concentrate his forces and to correct what would have proven a fatal blunder in scattering them, had his opponent acted with vigor. The strongest defence the eulogists of the Confederate general ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... other, a lack of profitable works outside to meet expenses; need you longer wonder if the field-works create a deficit and not a surplus? In proof, however, that the man who can give the requisite heed, while straining every nerve in the pursuit of agriculture, has speedy [30] and effective means of making money, I may cite the instance of my father, who had practised ...
— The Economist • Xenophon
... rising and sinking, swaying from side to side, a slender figure poised in the swinging bucket, steadied by a white hand that grasped the rim of steel. She turned from the window resolved to see no more. Her resolution fled. She was again at the window with upturned face and straining eyes, white lips whispering prayers that God might be good to the girl who was risking her life for another. The slender threads even then had vanished. There was only a fleck of black floating high above the rambling town, above the rocks mercilessly waiting ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... say stories, at heart with frenzied fantasy burning, Pour'd she, a deep-wrung breast, clear-ringing cries of oppression; 125 Sometimes mournfully clomb to the mountain's rugged ascension, Straining thence her vision across wide surges of ocean; Now to the brine ran forth, upsplashing freshly to meet her, Lifting raiment fine her thighs which softly did open; Last, when sorrow had end, these words thus spake she lamenting, 130 While from a mouth ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... breathed from the wide scene; from its mere depth below her; from the spacious curve of the river, the mountains half shown, half hidden, the great race of the clouds, the fresh beating of the wind. The north spoke to her and the mountains. It was like the rush of something passionate and straining through her girlish sense, intensifying all that was already there. What was this thirst, this yearning, this physical anguish of pity that crept back upon her in all the pauses of the ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... all that, and above all the happy consciousness of his own health, strength and freedom from care. His lungs, straining his tight-fitting fur coat, inhaled the frosty air; the trees, grazed by the shaft, sent showers of white flakes into his face; his body was warm, his face ruddy; his soul was without a care or blemish, or fear or desire. How happy he was! But now? ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... days Duallach went hither and thither trying to raise a bodyguard, and every man he met had some story of Costello, how he killed the wrestler when but a boy by so straining at the belt that went about them both that he broke the big wrestler's back; how when somewhat older he dragged fierce horses through a ford in the Unchion for a wager; how when he came to manhood he broke the steel horseshoe ...
— The Secret Rose • W. B. Yeats
... hands John Aldous set to work. Five minutes and he knew that it was madness to continue. Hands alone could not clear the tunnel. And yet he worked, tearing into the rock and shale like an animal; rolling back small boulders, straining at larger ones until the tendons of his arms seemed ready to snap and his veins to burst. For a few minutes after that he went mad. His muscles cracked, he panted as he fought with the rock until his hands were torn and bleeding, and over ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... ideas of this. There is a violence, an impossibility about men who have ideas, which makes one suspect that they could never be the type of any widespread life. Society could not be conformed to their image but by an unlovely straining from its true order. Well, in this nature the idea appears softened, harmonised as by distance, with an engaging naturalness, without the noise of ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... ability as a "carpet-duster," [Footnote: See Aurora Leigh.] as Mrs. Browning calls the agitator, he is merely unsettling society,—for what end? He himself will soon have forgotten—will have become as salt that has lost its savor. Nothing is more disheartening than to see men straining every nerve to make other men righteous, who have themselves not the faintest appreciation of the beauty of holiness. Let reformers beware how they assert the poet's uselessness, our singers say, for it is an indication that they themselves are blind to the light ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins |
