"Taut" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... merchant-vessels lying on either side of the channel, the young earl bade his rowers pull between the two. Suddenly there is a stir on the quiet merchant-vessels. The capstan bars are manned; the sunken cable is drawn taut. Up goes the stern of Earl Hakon's entrapped warship; down plunges her prow into the waves, and the water pours into the doomed boat. A loud shout is heard; the quiet merchant-vessels swarm with mail-clad men, and the air is filled with a shower of stones, ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... noose tightens over one leg, or perchance over the neck and fore-paw, and as the rope straightens with a "plunk," the horse braces itself desperately and the bear tumbles over. Whether he regains his feet or not the cowboy keeps the rope taut; soon another noose tightens over a leg, and the bear is speedily ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... out past a tuft of saw-grass on the bend, and laid his eye to the sights. Another stroke of the paddles and the canoe was in full view, and Roger found his front sight bearing upon a button on the silken shirt which stretched taut across Garman's great chest. ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... little cabin. Her planks were almost white—there was not a board in her off which one might not, as the Partan expanded the common phrase, "ait his parritch, an' never fin' a mote in 's mou'." Her cordage was all so clean, her standing rigging so taut, everything so shipshape, that Malcolm was in raptures. If the burn had only been navigable so that he might have towed the graceful creature home and laid her up under the very walls of the House! It would have perfected the place in his eyes. ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... sam-yen banjo. And as, from time to time, his hymn to the Three Pure Ones was prolonged in high, fine quavers, like the uneven, squeaky notes of a woman's voice, he ran his left hand up the slender neck of the instrument, rested a long nail of his right on its taut, snake's-skin head, and lightly touched the strings; then, in quick, thin tones, they followed the ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... and stood facing her father, every nerve taut with protest. "You don't mean to tell me, dad, that you and Frank Johnson and Lone Morgan and—everybody in the country are cowards, ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... But where are we?" demanded Dick, trying to pass his hand across his aching forehead, and realizing that the chain, though it seemed fastened to nothing, was perfectly taut. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... of Phillips not infrequently lack that clinching power that stretches the interest taut. Many scenes are admirably spectacular, suggestive of richly decorated tapestries, which hang separately in spacious rooms; but the plays need more forceful dramatic action, moving through changes to a climax. Phillips's diction, though sometimes rhetorical, is ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... exclaimed Cap'n Ira sternly. Putting his hand upon Ida May's shoulder, he forced her down into her chair again. His own eyes gleamed angrily, and his countenance expressed his wrath. "What was you told on coming here? Didn't you promise to keep a taut line on all that foolishness? I won't stand for it. No, Prudence!" he exclaimed, as his wife tried to interfere. "I won't stand for it. She must either keep away from that business, or I'll put her right out of the house. Leastways, it being ...
— Sheila of Big Wreck Cove - A Story of Cape Cod • James A. Cooper
... savin' o' the nation; To funk right out o' p'lit'cal strife aint thought to be the thing, Without you deacon off the toon you want your folks should sing; So I edvise the noomrous friends thet's in one boat with me To jest up killick, jam right down their hellum hard alee, Haul the sheets taut, an', layin' out upon the Suthun tack, Make fer the safest port they can, wich, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... For as the line came taut, up Jane went!—caught bodily from the ground. And still spinning, whizzed forward in that high wind and struck the ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... both men were quick as light, yet to the girl's taut senses they seemed theatrical and deliberate. Into her mind was seared forever the memory of that second, as though the shutter of a camera had snapped, impressing upon her brain the scene, sharp, clear-cut, and vivid. The ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... own hand racing up for a skean I hadn't carried in six years, and fronted them squarely, hoping I could face down the prospect of a roughhouse. They wouldn't kill me, this close to the HQ, but at least I was in for an unpleasant mauling. I couldn't handle three men; and if nerves were this taut in the Kharsa, I might get knifed. Quite by accident, ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... that the solution was beyond me. It was as if the controlling powers were flitting, invisible, just above my head, just beyond my grasp. There was obviously something vibrating; some cord, somewhere, stretched very taut and quivering. But I could think of no better solution than: "You must have done with him." It seemed obvious, too, that that was impossible, was outside the range of things that could be done—but I had to do my best. "It's a—it's vile," ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... reached the hooded descent to the Subway, she was almost in his shadow; then cautiously after him down the iron stairs, and when he paused to buy his ticket, he might have touched her as she held herself taut against the wall and out of his vision. A passer-by glanced back at her twice. From the last landing of the stairway and leaning across the balustrade, she could follow him now with her eyes, through the iron gateway and on to ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... shut my eyes tightly, shaking my head sharply; but, when I looked again, there the presence was, of course. It—he—not actual Braxton but, roughly speaking, Braxton—had come to stay. I was conscious of intense fatigue, taut and alert though every particle of me was; so that I became, in the course of that ghastly night, conscious of a great envy also. For some time before the dawn came in through the window, Braxton's eyes had been closed; little ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... road, straight as a taut strap. She, pale and motionless as a statue, stood, her eyes seizing every step he took. But the red of his shirt melted into the dark colour of his trousers, his step could not be seen, and the dog could not be distinguished from the boots. Nothing could be seen but the ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... see the rope blowing about between them ... what a wind there must be ... it's bent out taut like a bow, you can see it against the snow, and they're bending themselves more than forty-five degrees ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... up to the dome where he saw the canvas drawing taut. He knew that he had succeeded ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... Reading. JEREMIAH had proposed to introduce Clause enabling inhabitants of town to protect themselves against the Sabbath incursions of a mob in red waistcoats and poke bonnets, with drums, trumpets also, and shawms. Evidently no use; so the Admiral lowered his topsails, pulled taut his lee scuppers, and sheered off. "We're living in flabby times," he complained to ...
— Punch Volume 102, May 28, 1892 - or the London Charivari • Various
... should stand by yourself and learn to be by yourself. Why don't you be more like the Japanese you talk about? Quiet, aloof little devils. They don't bother about being loved. They keep themselves taut in their own selves—there, at the bottom of the spine—the devil's own power ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... that su'thin' had kep' quiet, I do believe that I'd have gone about-ship an' showed her my heels, but that su'thin', whatever it was, set up my dander. 'Now then,' says I, 'haul taut the main brace! Up wi' the t'gall'nt-s'ls an' sky-scrapers! ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... by his own hunger, all that Otah and others had tossed him these past days; they were taut and clinging now, unresilient, like the vines of the young trees and yet ...
— The Beginning • Henry Hasse
... walls and taut guy-ropes the travelers wound their way, emerging at length upon a gravelly beach where vast supplies of provisions were cached. All about, in various stages of construction, were skeletons of skiffs, of scows, and of barges; the ground was spread ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... its pinions would bring the rope up taut, and it would fall back upon the sward. There it would lie by the hour, then shake itself and clamber up to its ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... long in getting the line that had been used to tow the vessel to its moorings, and a freely running noose was prepared and tested by Rogers, who suddenly threw it over one of his messmates' heads, gave it a snatch, and drew it taut. Taking it off, he lassoed another in ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... are rushing calves to the branding. The hubbub and turmoil increase. Taut ropes cross the ground in many directions. The cutting ponies pant and sweat, rear and plunge. The garb of the cowboy is now one of white alkali which hangs gray in his eyebrows and moustache. Steers bellow as they surge ...
— The Passing of the Frontier - A Chronicle of the Old West, Volume 26 in The Chronicles - Of America Series • Emerson Hough
... apart. (The line of these stakes should be the position of the net.) Then take two pieces of twine, one 47 feet 5 inches long, and the other 39 feet. Fasten one line to each of the spikes that you have placed 27 feet apart. Where the two lines meet as they are pulled taut are the true corners of the court, as there are only four points where they can meet. The various measurements can then be marked as above by referring to the diagram. It is customary to mark a double court and to indicate the ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... one exercise here on page twenty that I hate worst of all. You screw up your face tight until you look like a Christmas mask to get your neck muscles taut and then wobble your head around like a new-born baby until it swims. I did that one twenty extra times and all the others in proportion to make up for those two hours in bed. Hereafter I'll get up at the time directed on page three, or maybe earlier. ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... moment, the face of her father seemed floating on the sunbeams that gilded the pulpit, and the tones of her mother's voice rang in her ears. The terrible tension of many days and nights of torture gave way suddenly, like a silver thread long taut, which snaps with one last vibration. She raised ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... cord just the right length for the drills, he was ready for work. With one stake stuck in the bed at the upper end, the other at the lower, the cord between gave Jack a good string line for the drill. Then, with the end of a small round stick held close against the taut line, the drill was made. So he continued making drills at distances of four ...
— The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. • Ellen Eddy Shaw
... the primitive, the darkness held infinite terrors for her. Not alone the terrors of the known but more frightful ones as well—those of the unknown. She had passed through much this night and her nerves were keyed to the highest pitch—raw, taut nerves, they were, ready to react in an exaggerated form to ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... who had thrown it nimbly jumped down, and at that moment his horse began to rear and prance and suddenly to lower his head close to the ground and kick high. He ran round in a circle, the fallen steer on the taut lasso acting as a pivot. The cowboy loosed the rope from the steer, and then was dragged about on the grass. It was almost frightful for Madeline to see that cowboy go at his horse. But she recognized the mastery and skill. Then two ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... sail or cordage now and then flapping inconsistently in a breath of wind, which seemed to come out of the west for no other purpose, and to retire into the east afterward, its whole duty done. On board, men were moving about, hanging lanterns, making taut here, setting free there, all with an air of utter peace and repose such as is found only on placid waterways beneath a setting sun. Occasionally an oar dipped in the still water, a hint of action, modified, softened into ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... muscles grew taut, for the other voice was that of Conscience and it shook with terrified unevenness and a tremulous faintness like the leaping and weakening of a fevered pulse. He could tell that she was talking guardedly with her lips close ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... boat was made taut enough before I brought you here, and you think she wouldn't have broke away before this if she was going to do it? Don't be ...
— A Sailor's Lass • Emma Leslie
... aided Strauss in this brew and collaborated with him in the next, which, it was hoped, probably because of the difference in its concoction and ingredients, would make his rein even more taut than it had ever been on theatrical managers and their public. From the Greek classics he turned to the comedy of the Beaumarchais period. Putting their heads together, the two wrote "Der Rosenkavalier." It was perhaps shrewd on their part that they avoided all allusion to the ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... probability of the skipper being able to fulfil his promise, when a howling squall swept through the taut rigging and between the masts of the ship, causing the whole fabric to vibrate with a barely perceptible tremor, while the swish and patter of heavy rain resounded upon the glass of ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... of the big machine, its glistening canvas, its polished aluminum motor and taut wires and braces. He could even see the pilot, leaning far over to one side, a smile of satisfaction on his face. Jerry could hardly resist shouting a word of ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... her bite, will watch and guard her. Ah, poor old lady! she is one of those that will not weep for Jack Smith, eh, Adrian? Well, well, I have had a happy life, barring one or two hard raps of fate, and when only I have seen Madeleine once more, I'll feel all taut for the port, though the passage there ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... have been no opportunity for that action and reaction which is here set forth. But there was a common link to bind them together. To single himself out from all other Norwood builders the landlord had devised and laid out a common lawn tennis ground, which stretched behind the houses with taut-stretched net, green close-cropped sward, and widespread whitewashed lines. Hither in search of that hard exercise which is as necessary as air or food to the English temperament, came young Hay Denver when released from the toil of the City; hither, too, came Dr. Walker and his two fair daughters, ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... antagonist—Man. Except that the hunters are few and now dress in San Francisco clothes, they go to the hunt in the same old way as when Baranof, head of the Russian Fur Company, led his battalions out in companies of a thousand and two thousand "bidarkies"—walrus-skin skiffs taut as a drumhead, with seams tallowed and an oilskin wound round each of the manholes, so that the boat {68} could turn a somerset in the water, or be pitched off a rock into the surf, and come right side up without taking water, ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... myself were on duty till the next morning, and after the first bustle, which always takes place on board when settling down in harbor—(boats to lower, booms to swing out, running rigging to make taut)—we had nothing more to do but to look on. We said to one another: "Where are we in reality?—In the United States?—In some English Colony in ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... strength, may be fully employed during a given period and yet show a wide difference in the quality and quantity of the results. The one may be busy all the while but slouch through the minutes. The other may be taut and intensive, working at white heat, and the output will be more extensive and of better quality. The mind that ambles through the period shows forth results that are both meager and mediocre; but the mind whose impact is both forceful and incisive produces results that serve to magnify ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... there are four other ropes of the same material secured to the body of the anchor, to serve in case of accidents. There is no strain whatever in the meantime on these reserved ropes, which hang slack, and would only come taut and into play in case of ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... end of a struggle even more wearing he flung his other arm across the ledge, and for some time hung there, at the end of an almost taut rope, unable to overcome its resistance and pull himself in over the coping, stubbornly ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... see him now—good old Kitch! With a great black patch over one roving blue eye and an inky paw, a trim, taut body and a masterful tail, he travelled more miles than fall to the lot of most bull dogs and got quite as much good out of them as most of his fellow travellers. He would have chased an elephant if I had told him to and carried bones to a cat if I had ordered it done. ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... the cord, and slithered hastily to the branch below her; then, bracing himself against the trunk, he clutched her round the waist and knees; but the taut cord held her up, and she would not come to anchor. He could not hold her and untie the cord, which was fast round her waist. If he let her go with one hand, and got out his knife, he would never be able to cut and hold her at the same time. For a moment he thought he had better climb up again ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... becoming critical: the main deck ports had been shipped some time previous, but this precaution did not prevent the water from gaining entrance on the main and lower decks. As she still continued to heel over to starboard, a hawser was taken on shore, and, by purchases, set taut to the mast head; but before this could be accomplished she had filled so much that ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... patience and pertinacity, they never would have succeeded in impressing their existence on something so volatile and irresponsible as thought is. A sensation needs to be violent, like the sun's blinding light, to arrest attention, and keep it taut, as it were, long enough for the system to acquire a respectful attitude, and grow predisposed to resume it. A repetition of that sensation will thereafter meet with a prepared response which we call recognition; the concomitants of the old experience will form themselves ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... the best Grace could do was to keep the rope taut, taking up the slack when the fellow tried to roll toward her to loosen ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... to the stern, which, as the steamer had discharged her cargo, rose fully twenty feet from the water. He hauled in the boat until it lay directly beneath. Then he gathered up the slack of the painter and wound it about a cleat until it was taut. This done, he dropped over the rail and let himself down by the rope until his feet touched ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... the growing total of those gong strokes beat in upon her brain, all the dreamy preoccupation faded from her face. The little compassionate smile which had accompanied the last words disappeared before the swift, taut change that straightened her lips. She whirled, peering from startled eyes up at the dim old dial, refusing to believe her own count; and as she stood, body tensely poised, gazing incredulously at the hands, she realized for the first time how fast the hours ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... went to a tiny curtained-off kitchenette and returned with a knife. He put his hand on the head of the ninth android and drew it backward so that the neck muscles were taut. He raised the knife. ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... is very wisely said, in writing to a contemporary, "For active exercise, a dress ought to be cut all in one—'princess,' as the milliners call it—and so arranged in the skirt that there is no drapery which will catch in things, come unstitched, and look untidy; everything wants to be taut and trim, like tailor's work. But even the ladies' tailors will insist upon making a skirt and little jacket-bodice, instead of a dress in one piece. It is almost impossible to use the arms freely—to ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 356, October 23, 1886. • Various
... wheel, cursing, his hands knotted round the spokes, his back taut and muscle-ridged under the thin shirt. The cracked voice of Daddy John came from beyond the canvas hood and David's urgent cries filled the air. The mules, necks outstretched, almost squatting in the agony of their endeavor, held their ground, but could do no more. Bess and Ben began to ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... not serious," Saunders said. "I have seen him break down before. He is too intense, too strenuous; whatever he does he does with every nerve in his body drawn as taut as ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... held everything Roman, that before passing the night in the tent to which they had been taken, they examined it carefully. The tent, round of form, was decorated inside with woolen cloth, striped in strongly contrasting colors. It was fixed on taut cords which were fastened to stakes driven into the earth. The cloth of the tent did not come down close to the ground, and Albinik remarked that between the coarsely tanned hides which served as a carpet, and the lower edge of the tent, there remained a space ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... was in for when He was creating woman, but I'm sure that she meddled in it herself and forced Him to create her such as she is... and with such attributes: for who would have incurred so much trouble for nothing? I know Nastasya may be angry with me for free-thinking, but... enfin, taut est dit." ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... upward into the room. Another ventilator can be made by tacking a strip of loosely woven material to the upper sash and to the top of the window-frame. When the upper sash is dropped, the stuff is drawn taut over the opening, and, while permitting air to pass through, breaks ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... beneath it were steamboats so gigantic in proportions that they resembled illuminated palaces vaulting over the sea; while close off our starboard bow, there appeared advancing toward us a fairy like fleet, with low, rakish hulls, taut rig, and sails made whiter by the moonbeams playing upon them. The whole fleet seemed to skim over the sea, though the "Two Marys" scarce moved. One, more tiny than the rest, and which appeared to have ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... mountains. The Thunder Bird seemed alive, glorying in her native element. The earth slid away like a map unrolled endlessly beneath them. Desert and little towns on the railroad like broken beads strung loosely on a taut wire. Salton Sea was cool and tempting, though the air shimmered all around it with heat. They flew the full length of it and on up the valley. Then they climbed higher and so breasted the currents flowing over the San ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... Avon time in which to uncoil his rope. Instead of flinging it over the horns of the steer he dexterously caught the loop around one of his hind legs, and jerked it taut with the quickness of lightning. Down went the animal again, kicking and bellowing and struggling hard ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... acquaintances and friends are certain little toy-boat builders, who bestow upon me from time to time boats fashioned by their knives; vessels which would not, it is true, encounter stormy seas, and therefore are not fitted for use, but which look taut and trim as they lie in the quiet harbour of bracket or slab amongst other choice ornaments. A rowing-boat, a yacht, a schooner, a man-of-war—all these varieties are somewhat commonplace. The construction of them requires skill and dexterity, I know, but you do not want a description ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... into mist. Except the path immediately before them, and the rocky perpendicular wall now on their right and now on their left, the travellers could distinguish nothing through the blinding rain. Shortly the wind began to blow, whistling in the stiff pines as it whistles among the taut cordage of a ship in a gale. At intervals it tore along the salient zigzags and threatened to sweep the mules off their legs. The flashes of lightning now followed one another in rapid succession, and the thunder crashed incessantly through the gorges. It appeared ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... raised threateningly. It remained poised for a fraction of time over the upturned face of the man lying in a position of disadvantage. Then it lunged downwards. And as it descended, a sound like the clipping of teeth came back to the taut strung senses of the onlookers. A sigh escaped from ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... at the little Sunday evenings which he holds quite regularly, goes far, I am told, towards easing the strain on the taut nerves of the Sinn Fein intellectuals who attend them. On the Sunday evening I was present the subject of jail journals was broached. Darrell Figgis had just written one. In a dim corner of the room was miniatured the ivory face and the ...
— What's the Matter with Ireland? • Ruth Russell
... kidney trouble, and whenever he grew strongly agitated, his face, his hands and his feet became swollen. Now, rising like a mountain of bloated flesh above the taut springs of the bed, he felt, with the anguish of a sick man, his swollen face, which seemed to him to belong to some one else. Unceasingly he kept thinking of the cruel fate which people were preparing for him. He recalled, one after another, all the recent ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev
... my list to Mijares and Co., in "Monkey Business." We have the exquisite criterion always for the wire, in the perfect Bird Millman. "Monkey Business" is a very good act, and both men do excellent work on the taut and slack wire. "Monkey," in this case being a man, does as beautiful a piece of work as I know of. I have never seen a back somersault upon a high wire. I have never heard of it before. There may be whole generations of artists gifted in this particular ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... the stream cable being then taut ahead, the wind W.S.W., with a very heavy sea, the ship canted suddenly with her head to the southward, where we had deep water; we immediately set our courses, jib and driver, and for some time ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... when once off their feet; just a slow, steady pull from the oars, and a taut enough halter to lean on in the tight places. But others rolled over like logs when the full force of the current struck them, threatening to drag the boat under, as it and the horse raced away down stream with ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... still now, and I was looking out on the river. Through the grip of his hand on my arm I could feel his body taut and quivering, his whole spirit hot with revolt. The same old Joe, but tenser now, strained almost to the breaking point. But I myself was different. In college he had appealed to me because there I was groping and had found nothing. But now I had found something sure. ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... swinging gallop, sending the short turf flying from his unshod hoofs at every stride. Back he came again, a vision of floating mane and streaming tail, and stopped dead three yards from Ralph, his forelegs strained and taut, ploughing furrows in the grass. As Ralph moved quietly across the field the colt followed, pushing a cool moist nose over the young man's shoulder. When at last Ralph set a foot on the projecting stone which stood out from ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... hunter as he closed in on the fox is the look in the face of him who sees the coveted contract lying ready for the finishing stroke of his pen. And his words are those of the hunter of long ago as, eyes a-gleam, teeth bared, muscles still taut with the tenseness of the chase, he waves the paper high in air and ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... men were. I found afterwards that they were idle rascals who deserved punishment, and always went about their duty in a lazy, sluggish way. However, there was no doubt that our captain was a very taut hand. The ship had just come out of harbour. He had found out that the greater part of his crew were a bad lot, and he was getting them into order. He treated us who had belonged to the Montezuma in ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... gone there anyway," said Lois, still all a-quiver, and shivering close to my shoulder. I put my arm around her; every muscle of her body was rigid, taut, yet trembling, as a smooth and finely turned pointer trembles with eagerness and ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... yourself and others. You will embroider life with sunshine if there is any sunshine at all. Like myself, you will be able to smile and laugh whenever the pain is not too severe, yet I fear it will be very hard sometimes. Bat, as my husband would say, you are taut, trim and well ballasted, and good for a long, safe voyage. You have obeyed the Fifth Commandment, and its ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... curtain that overlapped the floor, and thus protected the lodgers from draught while they were sitting about the fire. The doorway was two feet by five, and was covered with a raw deerskin hung from the top. A stick across the lower edge kept the skin taut. A log at the bottom of the doorway answered for a doorstep and in winter kept out the snow. Now the ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... confusion. But in some mysterious way an order is always getting evolved. On this occasion it seemed to be perfectly understood which boat should go first. And presently there she was, in mid-rapid, apparently not advancing an inch, the ropes held taut from a causeway a quarter of a mile off. At last the strain suddenly ceased, and she moved quickly up stream. Another followed. Then it was dark. And we had to pass the night, after all, tossing uneasily in the rough water. Soon after dawn we started again. I went ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... may be drawn by fixing two pins in a sheet of paper at S and H, fastening a string, SPH, to the two pins, and stretching it with a pencil point at P, and moving the pencil point, while the string is kept taut, to trace the oval ellipse, APB. S and H are the foci. Kepler found the sun to be in one focus, say S. AB is the major axis. DE is the minor axis. C is the centre. The direction of AB is the line of apses. The ratio of ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes
... whose prongs are brought to bear upon the stones, which have holes bored in them. When one end of the rope is fastened to the windlass, and the latter is turned round by working the handspikes, the rope winds round the windlass, gets taut, and thus it raises the load to the proper height and to ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... in size and strength, his long, clean limbs showing taut muscles and great springing power; and his neck grew thick and short, which is well for a buck, who must use it in savage thrusts when the head is a battering ram. His horns were short and bony, but they protruded in front ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... moisture. From time to time Rafael saw her quiver with a mysterious tremor; then extend her arms and cross them behind her head of golden hair, in a voluptuous stretch that made her white robe rustle, while her limbs grew taut in a delicious tension. She seemed upset, ill almost; at times her panting breath was like a sob. Her head drooped over a shoulder and her ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... as the dawn was showing gray through the chinks of his window curtains, with a vague, uneasy sense of something wrong, and lay listening, every nerve strained taut. From the adjoining room came the sound of Cavendish's breathing, but now it was more raucous, more like groan following groan. The Lieutenant-Governor strove in vain to put off the foreboding which lay heavy upon him, until, finally, unable to resist the ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... she was; a square-bilt, trim, well-ballasted craft, fore and aft; none of your sky-scraping, taut, Baltimore clipper, fair-weather, no-tonnage jigamarees! Betsy is a woman; her mother was just like her when I fell in with her, and it wasn't long afore I chartered her for a life's voyage. And the man who lets such a woman ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... throttle, and while the two tugs steadily drew her off into deep water, the Maggie fought valiantly to stick to the beach and even to continue her interrupted journey overland. She merely succeeded in stretching both hawsers taut; slowly she was drawn seaward, stern first, and at the expiration of fifteen minutes' steady pulling, Mr. Gibney could restrain himself no longer. He rang for full speed astern—and got it promptly. ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... as a taut line they went, leaving behind them eight brown stripes alternating with bands of white between. Then back and forth, back and forth, for the distance of another mile they vibrated until it was noon, when eight more connecting brown ribbons were stretched beside their ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... before they had become hard. The entrance ([t]ijebe) was generally opposite the quarter from which the wind was blowing. A door flap ([t]ijebeg[|c]a^{n}—7) hung over the entrance; it was made of skin with the hair outside, so as to turn water, and was held taut by a stick fastened to it transversely. The bottom of the door flap was loose, but the top was fastened ...
— Omaha Dwellings, Furniture and Implements • James Owen Dorsey,
... with poles, boxes, cauldrons, tea-kettles, and all the paraphernalia of a gipsy settlement. Wilson's Kaffir experience came at once into play, and under his solemn but effective superintendence, in less than twenty minutes the horn-headed tent rose, dry and taut, upon the sward. Having carpeted the floor with oil-skin rugs, and arranged our three beds with their clean crisp sheets, blankets, and coverlets complete, at the back, he proceeded to lay out the dinner-table at the tent door with as much decorum as if we were expecting ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... go flying away with him, jumping from star to star in the thrilling blue sky. As it was she stood on one foot, as if poised for flight with a sort of spring in her movements that his softer muscles had never experienced. He caught at her hand, and felt it taut, and queerly, individually alive. ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... hand. Everything remained quiet below, and, coiling it carefully over my arm, I noiselessly arose to my feet once more, poising myself to essay a second cast. As straight this time as an arrow from the taut string of a bow the noose sped silently away into the darkness. I felt a thrill of delight tingle through me as the end settled softly over the end of the vague, distant spar. I drew the cord taut and firm, not a sound breaking the intense stillness closing us in like a wall. ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... long, cold days of formal construction? Emotions seem to grow cold and set like glue. The intense power and energy called forth by the first thrilling vision grow slack for want of incentive. What engine is to generate the heat and make taut the energies by which alone significant form can be created? That is where ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... and the season for work on land. I had been told so by the heartening wind. And as I went still westward, remembering the duties of the land, the sails still held full, the sheets and the weather shrouds still stood taut and straining, and the little clatter of the broken water spoke along the lee rail. And ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... But even as Jack came into sight, the strangers had mastered Me Dain, and in a second he was dragged to the ground. With incredible speed and quickness they flung loops of rope around ankles and wrists, ran them taut, and made the Burman a prisoner. Then two of them dropped on Me Dain's legs and arms, and the third seized his hair and dragged his head forward. The fourth leapt a pace back as nimbly as a panther, and swung up a short, broad, ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... mon coeur sommeille; Laisse-le, de ses maux a peine il est gueri, Et j'ai peur que ta voix si douce a mon oreille Par un chant d'amour ne l'eveille, Lui, que l'amour a taut meurtri!" ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... be done by the pupils themselves under the direction of the teacher. This work will include the levelling of the plots with hoes and rakes, and the trimming of the edges to the exact size of the plots, as determined by a string drawn taut about the four corner pickets. If the pupils in this Form have individual plots, each pupil will mark out his drills, put in the seeds, and cover them. The teacher may give demonstrations in connection with the work but should not do ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education
... man stood there with taut drawn bow Tarzan recognized him not so much the NEGRO as the ARCHER ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the taut string merely, Give a touch, and she must throb to time? Think you how his bow must rouse the echoes, Quailing triumphing on, ...
— Behind the Arras - A Book of the Unseen • Bliss Carman
... seemed to have no body. The oval of the face and hair hung beside the fire with a dark vacuum for background. As if dazed by the glare, her green-blue eyes stared at the flames. Every muscle of her face was taut. There was something tragic in her thus staring—her age between ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... "Say, I jes' jumped deh bar an' deh way I plunked dat blokie was great. See? Dat's right! In deh jaw! See? Hully gee, he t'rowed a spittoon true deh front windee. Say, I taut I'd drop dead. But deh boss, he comes in after an' he says, 'Pete, yehs done jes' right! Yeh've gota keep order an' it's all right.' See? 'It's all right,' he says. ...
— Maggie: A Girl of the Streets • Stephen Crane
... around—out the side walls of glistening quarsteel into the sea gloom, into the thick of the smooth, lithe, brown-skinned shapes that now and again poised pressing against the submarine, peering in with their liquid seal's eyes. Dimly he could see the taut seaweed ropes stretching down from the top of the Peary to the sea-bottom. It looked hopeless, and to these men inside it was hopeless. He knew he must speak in confident, assured tones to drive away the uncaring ...
— Under Arctic Ice • H.G. Winter
... resist Wallie gave Canby a shove and pushed him over the bank. He struck the water with a splash and went out of sight. Immediately the well-trained cow-horse felt the strain it backed up and held the rope taut. ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... off suddenly, and he stood a moment absolutely still, every nerve in his slim young body taut as wire, every muscle rigid. For along the passage—not so very far in front of them, from where it seemed to terminate—came the thud of men's feet upon the soft clayey ground. The torch went out in an instant. In another, Cleek had caught Dollops's arm and drawn ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... the two from being dashed against the face of the rock, by rushing backward. When the mast whipped to seaward they advanced to the edge of the cliff. Five others hauled on each of the lines whenever the hawser was nearly taut, and paid out and pulled in with the slackening and tightening of the larger rope. But even so, the sling in which the skipper and the girl hung was tossed about desperately, now dropped toward the boiling rocks, now twirled like a leaf in the gale, and next moment jerked aloft and flung almost ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... its creaking parquet till he touched the cold smoothness of the tiled stove, and freezing to immobility as he heard the kitchen door open. Quick footsteps advanced along the passage; to him, checking, his breath in the dark, listening with every nerve taut, it was as though he saw her, the serene poise of her body as she walked, the pathetic confidence of her high-held head, so distinctive and personal was even the noise of her tread on the boards. Presently, when she had ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... and frame were hidden. Only Loomed a black, colossal Seat, Taut, magnificent, and lonely, O'er a pair ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum)
... of the topsail shivers, The bowlines strain and the lee shrouds slacken, The braces are taut, the lithe boom quivers, And the waves with the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... obscuring dust from the trampled road, the horse holding the line taut, Morgan flung from the saddle in the nimble way of a range man, bent over the fallen slayer of men a little while. When the first of the crowd came breaking across the broad space intervening and drew ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... restless to remain indoors and left the others to their own devices. He walked without aim, as fast as he could go; he felt no weariness. The burning sun beat down upon him, but he did not know it. The hours passed with lagging feet. Susie lay on her bed and tried to read. Her nerves were so taut that, when there was a sound in the courtyard of a pail falling on the cobbles, she cried out in terror. The sun rose, and presently her window was flooded with quivering rays of gold. It was midday. The day passed, and it was afternoon. The evening came, but ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... before the crowd realized what was about to happen; they saw it reflected first in the face of Hurley, which suddenly went taut and pale, and then, even as they looked with a smile of curiosity and derision toward Pierre le ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... sharp knife cutting a taut cord. The tense muscles relaxed and Keith gave a sudden laugh. True, it was a short laugh, and a bitter one; but it was ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... the speaking-tube that the water was gaining so fast that all hands were about to leave the mine. At the same instant the harsh clang of the engine-room gong was heard. The wire cable was strained taut, and then began to move slowly over its rollers. "They are coming!" shouts the mine boss. "Stand back and ...
— Derrick Sterling - A Story of the Mines • Kirk Munroe
... was blissfully unconscious of her presence, and as he worked he whistled Schubert's "Wohin," and whistled it very badly. Then he fell to apostrophizing his tackle, and then he grew irritable. "Somebody come and keep this thing taut," he cried. "Tam, Jock! where on ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... however, generally attained on the second or third attempt, and then the end of the hawser is drawn out to the wreck by means of the small line which the shot had carried; and being made fast and "drawn taut," the bridge is complete on which the car is to ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... deep-set, brilliant, restless—with infinite lessons of hours of agony, of loneliness, torture in all the million hours which filled up his nine years of endless and unbroken gloom in penal servitude. The frame is slight, well-knit—the frame of a sturdy son of the people—kept taut and thin by the restless nervous soul within. An empty sleeve hanging by his side tells the tale of work in the factory in childhood's years, and of one of the accidents which too often maim the children of the poor in the manufacturing districts of ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor |
