"Nerve" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... brilliancy in the coolness and constant movement of the waves, vanishes on the shore in little gelatinous pools. During those intervals of idleness, when the absence of thought leaves the hand inert upon the modelling tool, Felicia, deprived of the sole moral nerve of her intellect, became savage, unapproachable, sullen beyond endurance,—the revenge of paltry human qualities upon great tired brains. After she had brought tears to the eyes of all those whom she loved, had striven to evoke painful memories or paralyzing anxieties, and had reached the ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... but for your nerve, Bruce, my boy, we'd have been minus film and motor truck. For pure grit, I think you scouts take the prize. I wish I could think of some way to repay you," cried Mr. Dickle, pumping ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... lymph tissue are coincident with degenerations of the blood, and especially the plasma, such as Scrofulosis, Tuberculosis, Syphilis and Cancer, while other degenerations of the lymph tissue coincide with degenerations of the lymph-fed nerve tissue and are ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... naturally to the incisive. The power to take a subject by its handle and poise it on its centre is perhaps the consummation of merely intellectual culture. When all its nutriment has been converted into bone and muscle and sinew and nerve, then the mind bounds to its work, lithe and strong, like a hunting leopard on its game. It was exactly the power with which our Webster handled his case, till it seemed to the farmer too simple to require a great man ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... disturbed by visions for which no microscope was needed. He offered to sketch what he had seen, but could give no more definite description in words than "figures on the blind" and "streaming hair," so he was left alone to recover his nerve. The Jehu then pointed out that his prophecy had proved correct, and the misty rain had blown off, leaving a clear sky and fine weather, so a start was made en masse for the scene of the ploughing operations. A slight lameness on the part of one of the steeds made it necessary for the smaller ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... a very large extent the moralizing process has been a merely mechanical one. Through slight differences in nerve-structure individuals have varied a little in their response to the pressure of inward cravings and outward perils. The braver, the more prudent, the more industrious have had a better chance of survival. So by the process which we have come ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... thinking myself guilty. The warder said it was ten minutes—I thought it hours! I was quite done for, and could hardly get down-stairs. I knew the spirit was being crushed out of me by the solitary period, and it is plain that I must think of nothing that needs nerve or presence of mind!' he added, in ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... but not for an instant does the listening tension of the lake relax. Then the loud bellow rings out again, startling us and the echoes, though we were listening for it. This time the tension increases an hundredfold; every nerve is strained; every muscle ready. Hardly have the echoes been lost when from far up the ridges comes a deep, sudden, ugly roar that penetrates the woods like a rifle-shot. Again it comes, and nearer! Down in the canoe a paddle blade touches the water noiselessly ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... to be against the University of Pennsylvania eleven. The opposition team being an unusually good one that year, the Navy's gridiron pets were preparing to strain every nerve in the hope ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... in bad health and poor circumstances, who had heavy responsibilities in private life, and who were not only unable to pay their fines, but even unable to make any provision for their families during incarceration. Such conditions would tend to shake the nerve ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... child, they are afraid of each other. They are afraid the richer slaves, who are able to comply with the demands will laugh at them and ridicule them, and that is why they strain every nerve to follow the god's wishes. A slave, whether she is rich or poor, grows more cringing year by year, until at last she loses all her individuality, and becomes a mere echo ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... do I pretend to any great virtue in the matter. The truth is, I want the force of character which might enable me to stand against the spirit of the times. The call on all sides now is for young men, and I have not the nerve to put myself in opposition to the demand. Were 'The Jupiter,' when it hears of my appointment, to write article after article setting forth my incompetency, I am sure it would cost me my reason. I ought to be able to bear with such ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... with every nerve under painful control, felt his breath come quick and deep until his chest heaved, and words leaped to his lips which, with a supreme effort, he bit back. This whole intolerable fallacy of outgrown and hard-shelled narrow-mindedness was spurring him to ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... table, several on the floor, and in deck-chairs, I never slept in anything quite so "knobby" as that extraordinary bed. A lump here, and a lump there, always seemed to select the most inconvenient part of one's frame to stick in, and sometimes getting on a nerve quite numbed the spot. After the first night I asked the Vahtimestari to turn and knead the mattress, which he cheerfully promised to do, and no doubt did. But all his turning and pounding was perfectly useless, so after a second restless night, which left me beautifully ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... blue, And seek in vain some answering sign from thee. Look down upon us, guide and cheer us still From the serene height where thou dwellest now; Dark is the way without the beacon light Which long and steadfastly thy hand upheld. Oh, nerve with courage new the stricken hearts Whose dearest hopes seem lost ...
— Charles Sumner Centenary - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 14 • Archibald H. Grimke
... games as cricket and football not only their success in various competitions but also their success in the sterner warfare of life. This success has been obtained on the tented field and in the work of exploring, mountaineering, and other pursuits that make great demand not only on nerve and muscle but also on strength of character and powers ...
— Youth and Sex • Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly
... the wild or pathetic appeal of his expressive countenance, she would relent, and for a while resume her ancient kindness. But these fluctuations shook to its depths the soul of the sensitive youth; he no longer deemed the world subject to him, because he possessed Evadne's love; he felt in every nerve that the dire storms of the mental universe were about to attack his fragile being, which quivered at the ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... your nerve!" said Pat. "Only for the darkness I'd hand you one for that. What's he following you for? If he hadn't followed you, both of us would have ...
— Boy Scouts in the Philippines - Or, The Key to the Treaty Box • G. Harvey Ralphson
... its confusion, though he had declined joining it previously to the battle. Nothing was easier than to enter the throng, in its present confused state, and move about undetected for hours, if one had the nerve necessary for the service; and, in that property, I felt certain the Onondago was not deficient. There was a coolness in the manner of the man, a quiet observation, both blended with the seeming apathy of a red-skin, ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... said Evelyn, with shining eyes, "to think that all the time we were worrying about you and feeling sure you were lost, you were having the time of your life! Oh, if I'd only had the nerve to follow you!" ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... force. Grant would have put himself into the relation to McClellan which he sustained to Meade in 1864, and would have infused his own energy into the army. Halleck did not do this. It would seem that he had become conscious of his own lack of nerve in the actual presence of an enemy, and looked back upon his work at St. Louis in administering his department, whilst Grant and Buell took the field, with more satisfaction than upon his own advance from Shiloh to Corinth. He seemed already determined ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... girl of eleven, told the story of Joan of Arc. Other girls followed her, each telling her own pet story. Their skill in this direction was a thing to marvel at. The audience was a joy, with half-raised heads, wide eyes, open mouths, every nerve of them hanging on the reciter's words. Indeed, I, too, found that one of the tale-tellers had "got" me with her story ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... admiration. They won knowledge, sometimes at heavy cost of health and nerve power. They helped to make women's education possible. But what of the fairer side of college life could they ever know? They were accepted always on sufferance; they never "belonged." One such pioneer was a friend of mine. In many walks and talks she ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... measure it. Further to illustrate this position: we do not see with our outward eye any more than we do with spectacles. The apparent ocular apparatus is but the passive, unconscious instrument to transmit images thrown through it upon a fine interior fibre, the optic nerve; and even this does not take cognizance of the object, but is only another conductor, carrying the image still farther inward, to the intellectual nerves of the brain; and not until it reaches them do we see ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... S. and C. last year. He was born in the camp and his mother died when he was a baby. God knows how he pulled through! You know what those mining places are. His father, Frank Lee, was killed in a drunken row while I was there, and Abe showed so much cool nerve and downright manliness that I offered him a place with my party. He has been with ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... Monarch's chair, And stood with rustic plainness there, And little reverence made; 340 Nor head, nor body, bow'd nor bent, But on the desk his arm he leant, And words like these he said, In a low voice,—but never tone So thrill'd through vein, and nerve, and bone:— "My mother sent me from afar, 346 Sir King, to warn thee not to war,— Woe waits on thine array; If war thou wilt, of woman fair, Her witching wiles and wanton snare, 350 James Stuart, doubly warn'd, beware: God keep thee as He may!"— The wondering ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... on in his country Kosciuszko, himself ready to strain every nerve in her cause, wrote in the April of 1792 to ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... nerves carrying the message of its impact to the brain-centres, and as there thrills down from those centres through the motor nerves the answer that welcomes or repels, so does every vibration in the universe, which is His body, touch the consciousness of God, and draw thence responsive action. Nerve-cells, nerve-threads, and muscular fibres may be the agents of feeling and moving, but it is the man that feels and acts; so may myriads of Intelligences be the agents, but it is God who knows and answers. Nothing can be so small ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant
... before a large and crowded assembly—was horror to the mind of the poor Jib; and he would nearly as soon have acceded to a desire to dance a hornpipe, if such had been suggested as the wish of the company. However, there was nothing for it; and summoning up all his nerve—knitting his brows —clenching his teeth, like one prepared to "do or die," he seized the hissing cauldron, and strode through the room, like the personified genius of steam, very much to the alarm of all the old ladies in ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... on, "that I could make you understand, in your superb health, just all I mean by change of conditions. It means change of food, air, surroundings; every thing in short, which addresses itself to the senses. It means an entire new set of nerve impressions." ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... surging, racking, nerve-killing race and Winton had his hand's-breadth of lead and had picked his place for the million-chanced wrestle with death. It was at the C. G. R. station of Tierra Blanca, just below a series of sharp curves which he hoped ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde
... and more frequently covering the rock, would prove my grave. At length I had to seek a higher and more exposed level, and as water occasionally surged up to the place where I had spent the night, and might at any moment sweep me off, I tried to nerve ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... in her sensitive nostrils, in the mobile lips, in the very pitch and angle of the rounded chin, in her hands, small, muscular and veined, that he knew at sight to be the hard-worked hands of one who had spent long hours at the piano. Pride it was, in every muscle, nerve, and quiver ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... nerve. His cheeks were pale, his teeth were chattering. The engine, however, was still beating. Gradually the pressure of the water grew less. In front of them they caught a glimpse of the road. They drew up at the ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... from town, which a few days before would have made every nerve in Elinor's body thrill with transport, now arrived to be read with less emotion that mirth. Mrs. Jennings wrote to tell the wonderful tale, to vent her honest indignation against the jilting girl, and pour forth her compassion towards poor Mr. Edward, who, she was ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... dim light and shoot, with a .22 high-power rifle, a tiger which is just ready to charge; when he will go alone and unarmed into the mountains to meet a band of brigands who have been terrorizing the country, it means that he has more nerve than any one man needs ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... back on his head; his long arms dangled, pendulum-like, by his sides, while his lanky legs, dragging along anyhow, were ever lagging behind one another. But when he opened the piano and put hands and feet to keys and pedal, he was not the same individual. He would turn on nerve and muscle-power, and would hurl avalanches of music and torrents of notes at his audience till he, in his turn, was overwhelmed with thunders of applause. And those were the days, we must remember, when but few men could play at a greater rate than twenty to twenty-five miles an hour; when ...
— In Bohemia with Du Maurier - The First Of A Series Of Reminiscences • Felix Moscheles
... attitude, the brilliant silk hat, the shaven face, and every inch of the attire. As plainly as one knows a green tree from a dead one, the Crusoe of Grande Pointe recognized one who came from the haunts of men; from some great nerve-centre of human knowledge and power where the human mind, trained and equipped, had piled up the spoils of its innumerable conquests. His whole form lighted up with a new life. His voice trembled with pent feeling as he said ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... only too certain that they were in close pursuit. Nearer and nearer they came; I heard their feet pattering on the ice nearer still, until I could feel their breath and hear their snuffing scent. Every nerve and muscle in my frame were stretched ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... only kept under fire for four days. At the end of that time, they are sent back a few miles in shifts to the nearest village where they find quarters, and rest from the nerve-racking, soul-shaking clamor of guns and buzz of bullets. The trenches were wonderful. Zaidos and Velo, the Red Cross badges on their arms giving them free passage, soon explored every inch until they were perfectly familiar with them all. Zaidos ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske
... the house the mourners laughed and lit cigarettes and pipes. If no new visitor came they fell to chatting and smoking, but the sight of a fresh and unharrowed person started them off again in their mechanical, though nerve-racking, cry. ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... had received more than they wanted. They had not only withdrawn to a good distance, but they did not even have nerve enough to launch a counter-attack. The American advance had been so well prepared that it won ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... you nerve enough to help me replace this ankle? The Countess is too nervous, and J. G. ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... last to go. "I say," he whispered to Patty, "it's been a great success! I don't see how you ever had the nerve to try it, but it worked all right!" Then he went away, and Patty and Mona sank limply into chairs and shook with laughter. Susan instantly returned to her role of servant, and stood before Patty, as if ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... freedom of the soul was waged until at least one hundred millions of human beings—fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters—with hopes, loves, and aspirations like ourselves, were sacrificed upon the cruel altar of an ignorant faith. They perished in every way by which death can be produced. Every nerve of pain was sought out and touched by the believers ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll
... most amusing tricks is to let us work with might and main to help her on, while she makes us believe that we are straining every nerve and ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... the latter was joined by their mother, and they went out to the clatter of hoofs, the thin jingle of harness chains, where the barouche waited for them in the street. Once Camilla obtruded into the room. "I wonder you don't give yourself a headache," she remarked; "I never heard more nerve-racking sounds." ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... a woman of tact and judgment and refinement, might take into her hands this thing and, in a sense, make it plastic clay, and use its elements of life, and power, and energy, and unscrupulousness, and nerve, and egotism, and mountain courage, and almost make a ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... is one mass, called anteriorly the corpus striatum, or striated body, and posteriorly the optic thalamus or bed of the optic nerve, though the optic nerve has its principal origin in another part, called the optic lobes. The thalamus and corpus striatum are called together, the great inferior ganglion of the brain. They are masses of gray substance, with white fibres from below passing ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, May 1887 - Volume 1, Number 4 • Various
... of India in the days long before the canal, when Nelson proclaimed that in that point of view chiefly was it important to Great Britain. In the cluster of island fortresses of the Caribbean is one of the greatest of the nerve centres of the whole body of European civilization; and it is to be regretted that so serious a portion of them now is in hands which not only never have given, but to all appearances never can give, the development which is ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... the forest starts back with dismay as he comes suddenly upon one of these venomous reptiles, and hears its ominous rattle when too near to escape. He must muster all his nerve, and strike it with his stick as it springs; for a wound from its fangs will, as he knows, bring certain death, ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... Great nerve, considerable skill, and first-rate horsemanship are required for the sport of pigsticking. The horse, too, must be fast, steady, well- trained and quick, for without all these advantages the sport is a dangerous one. The wild ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... thundered beneath. It was fearful to listen and look downward; the heads of all were giddy, and their hearts full of fear. Guapo, alone accustomed to such dangers, was of steady nerve. He and Don Pablo afoot were in ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... the air, mingled with the odors of a classroom that was never clean, nor free from the fragments of our breakfasts or snacks, affected his sense of smell, the sense which, being more immediately connected than the others with the nerve-centers of the brain, must, when shocked, cause invisible disturbance to the organs ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... Still let the Lord exist, And call Him by imposing names, A venerable list. But nerve and muscle only count, Gray matter of the brain, And an astonishing amount Of ...
— ANTHOLOGY OF MASSACHUSETTS POETS • WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE
... did amusing and surprising things. When first I saw her she was riding a very old bicycle downhill with her feet on the fork of the frame—it seemed to me to the public danger, but afterwards I came to understand the quality of her nerve better—and on the third occasion she was for her own private satisfaction climbing a tree. On the intervening occasion we had what seems now to have been a long sustained conversation about the political situation and the books and ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... devil, kind, unselfish he must be, Born to lead when danger threatens—type of ancient chivalry. When you hear a "houndman" jeering at the "customers" in front, Saying they come out to ride a steeplechase and not to hunt, You may bet the "grapes are sour," the fellow's smoked his nerve away; Once he went as well as they do: "every dog will have his day." Though to ride about the roads in state may do your liver good, You see precious little "houndwork" either there or in the wood. He who loves to mark the work of hounds must ride beside the pack, Choosing his own ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... Six coming over from the other side would have turned the scale, and this was the idea floating in my mind, which produced the mistake. The second error was in the version of Mr. Adams's expression, which I stated to you. His real expression was, 'that he would not unbrace a single nerve for any treaty France could offer; such was their entire want of faith, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... attempt anything," rejoined Rob, "but I don't think he's got nerve enough to carry out any of his schemes. Hullo!" he broke off suddenly, "there he is now across the street by the post office, talking to Bill Bender and Sam Redding. I'll bet they are hatching up some sort of mischief. Just look at them looking at us. I'll bet a doughnut ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... right to my side, I heard the very low report. I hunt a great deal and shoot, and the flash of a gun doesn't scare me but sets me instantly on my nerve. ...
— The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt • Oliver Remey
... the Jesuits, resolved that no pope should be elected who would not favor their end. A cardinal was found,—Ganganelli,—who promised the ambassadors that, if elected pope, he would abolish the order. They, accordingly, intrigued to secure his election. The Jesuits, also, strained every nerve, and put forth marvellous talent and art, to secure a pope who would protect them. But the ambassadors of the allied powers overreached even the Jesuits. Ganganelli was the plainest, and, apparently, the most unambitious of men. His father had been a peasant; but, by ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... Cardinal-Archbishop of Toledo, and moved thus in an atmosphere of combined temporal and spiritual dignity such as his soul loved. Very agreeable indeed to him was the honour shown to him at this time. Deep down in his heart there was a secret nerve of pride and vanity which throughout his life hitherto had been continually mortified and wounded; but he was able now to indulge his appetite for outward pomp and honour as much as he pleased. When King Ferdinand went out to ride Columbus would be ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... farisah): the phrase has often occurred and isour "trembled in every nerve." As often happens in Arabic, it is "horsey;" alluding to the shoulder-muscles (not shoulder-blades, Preston p. 89) between neck and flank which readily quiver in ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... forward. His face was only inches from Pop Young's. It was seamed and hard-bitten and nerve-racked. But any man would be quivering if he wasn't used to space or the feel of one-sixth gravity on ...
— Scrimshaw • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... but net loss and headlong decay of the spirit; that modicum of forbearance and equity that is requisite to the conduct of life in a community of ungraded masterless men is seen by these stouter stomachs as a loosening of the moral fiber and a loss of nerve. ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... is undoubtedly right," he said, looking down at Stevens. "But I am quite sure the young woman is capable of taking care of herself. Quade has a tremendous amount of nerve, setting Slim to follow her, hasn't he? Slim may run up against a ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... over his bass-viol. The rehearsal began. Heman forgot all about his keeper sitting by the stove, as the old, familiar tunes swelled up in the little room, and one antique phrase after another awoke nerve-cells all unaccustomed nowadays to thrilling. He could remember just when he first learned The Mellow Horn, and how his uncle, the sailor, had used to sing it. "Fly like a youthful hart or roe!" Were there spices still left on the hills of life? Ah, but only for youth to smell ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... his nerve—suppose he slipped and tell with a splash into that black, spangled water—what could he do? Poor Mike would be swept away directly, and his only chance of life would be for him to swim steadily till he reached the rocks, and then try to find one to which he could ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... then, weary of circumlocution, she added in a bolder tone than she had yet used, "only remember, sir, that what is done must be done effectually; no mistakes, no errors, no flaws! See that you use all your eyes—see that you bend every nerve to the task. I will have no procrastination for the sake of fresh fees—nothing omitted one day to be remembered the next—no blunders to be corrected after long delays and longer correspondence. I know you lawyers ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... Her lute and favorite airs lost half their power to please; the day seemed to stand still—she became melancholy, and thought the breakfast-hour would never arrive. At length the clock struck the signal, the sound vibrated on every nerve, and trembling she quitted the closet for her sister's apartment. Love taught her disguise. Till then Emilia had shared all her thoughts; they now descended to the breakfast-room in silence, and Julia almost feared to meet her eye. In the breakfast-room they were alone. Julia found ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... to give classifications except as they exist unnamed in the above titles: (1) straight winged: locusts, grasshoppers, crickets, katydids; (2) tooth-shaped: dragon-flies; (3) ephemerals: may-flies; (4) half-winged: leaf and tree hoppers; (5) nerve-winged: lace-wings, ant-lions, and caddis-worms; (6) two-winged: flies and mosquitoes; (7) scaly winged: butterflies and moths; (8) sheath-winged: beetles; (9) membranous-winged: bees, wasps, ...
— Little Busybodies - The Life of Crickets, Ants, Bees, Beetles, and Other Busybodies • Jeanette Augustus Marks and Julia Moody
... of blood reverts; He hears the echo of his victims' cry, Whose agonizing eyes again are fixed Upon his face, pleading for mercy. See! how he writhes in speechless agony! As morning dew-drops on the face of nature, So hangs upon his brow the clammy sweat. Each feature of his face, each limb, each nerve, Distorted with remorse and agony, Is fraught with nature's speechless eloquence, And is a faithful witness to his sin. It is not all a dream, but memory holds Before the sleeper's eyes her magic glass, In which he sees the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 367 - 25 Apr 1829 • Various
... Burke spoke amid the angers and alarms inspired first by the subversive energy, and then by the doctrinaire cruelty of the French Revolution. It was in the process of "diffusing the Terror" that most of his philosophical obiter dicta were uttered. The real nerve of the thinking of a mind so vehement, so passionate, so essentially dramatic is to be sought not in some principle which was the major premise of his syllogisms, but in some pervading emotion. Fanny Burney said of him ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... once lookin' back for fear he might change his mind. When he drives off in his buggy you can see that he's all het up and trembly, like one of them reckless Wall Street speculators you read about. He's spent a cent, but he's had a lovely nerve-wrackin' time doin' it. Oh, a feller has to satisfy his cravin' for excitement somehow, and Jerry satisfies his buyin' one-cent newspapers and seein' his creditors get mad. Do you suppose you can worry such a critter as that by talkin' ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... reserved a special part for the former serving to thaw the reserve which had succeeded to his outbreak of the night before. After some debate Maignan persuaded me that the old woman had not sufficient nerve to play the part I proposed for her, and named Fanchette; who being called into council, did not belie the opinion we had formed of her courage. In a few moments our preparations were complete: I had donned the old charcoal-burner's outer rags, Fanchette had assumed those ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... hisses of every street in the nation, ring it in your ears, and deafen you with their din. The people have a voice of their own, and it must, it will be, sooner or later heard: and I, as in duty bound, will always exert every nerve and every power of which I am master, to hasten the completion of so desirable an ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... the 3rd of May the new general, Thomas, an enterprising man, tried a fireship, which was meant to destroy all the shipping in the Cul de Sac. It came on, under full sail, in a very threatening manner. But the crew lost their nerve at the critical moment, took to the boats too soon, and forgot to lash the helm. The vessel immediately flew up into the wind and, as the tidal stream was already changing, began to drift away from the Cul de Sac just when ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... from the disturbing effect of all these doubts and of all these unchained passions. Caught in the gearing of those small intrigues, full of fears, mistrustful, curious, feverish, he felt in every aching nerve the truth of the Corsican proverb, "The greatest ill you can wish your enemy is an election ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... libel case between the Rev. Denis O'Donoghue, parish priest of Ardfert, and myself. The address of this cleric in proposing Mr. Blennerhasset at the nomination had annoyed those he assailed intensely. Up to that point I had been utterly indifferent, but after that I strained every nerve ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... watched by an eye that never slept; Richelieu suddenly appearing, at the critical moment, from behind the tapestries where he had concealed himself, fronted and defied his enemy. The King, bewildered, had not nerve enough to face his own servant, who however made him comprehend the dangers which surrounded his throne and person, and compelled him to part with his mother,—the only woman he ever loved,—and without permitting her to imprint upon his brow her own last farewell. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... possessor enjoys the advantage of knowing that whatever gives him joy or sorrow always arouses similar feelings in countless other men. The root of all ambition is the wish to rule over the hearts of our fellows by compelling them to make our feelings their own; the central nerve of all happiness consists in seeing our own sensations shared by those about us and reflected back, as it were, from manifold mirrors. Small annoyances often have a diverting effect on the spectator; great success easily excites his envy; great sorrows and minor joys, on the contrary, ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... it—the sharp fresh air, which braces every nerve, and invigorates every limb, causing all the senses to awake and share, as it were, this daily waking up of Nature, fresh as a rose? For what rosiness, in the brightest summer days, can compare with that kiss of the winter's sun on the tree-tops, slowly creeping down their trunks ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... white slash down his favourite's side caught the woodsman's eye at once. He looked at it critically, touched the flour with tentative finger-tips, then turned on his wife a look of poignant interrogation. But Mrs. Jabe was ready for him. Her nerve had recovered. The fact that her victim showed no fear of her had gradually reassured her. What Jabe didn't know would never hurt him, ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... of flaming rubbish, and in that last hour of grapple a great storm arose out of the sea and swept round the island, and the gigantic fleet was seen no more. The uncanny completeness and abrupt silence that swallowed this prodigy touched a nerve that has never ceased to vibrate. The hope of England dates from that hopeless hour, for there is no real hope that has not once been a forlorn hope. The breaking of that vast naval net remained like a sign that the small thing ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... world, for never in this had a ray of reason shone upon poor Patsy's darkened mind. We have said there were no tears, and yet, although the waters came not to the surface, there was one heart which wept, as with unflinching nerve the cold, stern woman arrayed the ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... Physostigmine, indeed, stimulates nearly all the non-striped muscles in the body, and this action upon the muscular coats of the arteries, and especially of the arterioles, causes a great rise in blood-pressure shortly after its absorption, which is very rapid. The terminals of the vagus nerve are also stimulated, causing the heart to beat more slowly. Later in its action, the drug depresses the intra-cardiac motor ganglia, causing prolongation of diastole and finally arrest of the heart in dilatation. A large ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... never shot," said Carl, "but I sushpect I know vat shooting is." And he smiled again, with trouble in his heart, that would have quite disconcerted a youth of less nerve and phlegm. ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... place formerly arose a great semaphoric telegraph, with its gaunt arms tossed up against the horizon. It has been replaced by an observatory, connected with an electric nerve to the heart of the great commercial city. From this point the incoming ships are signaled, and again checked off at the City Exchange. And while we are here, looking for the expected steamer, let ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... over from old editing sessions.) It happened that there weren't any editor backup files, so DWIM helpfully reported '*$ not found, assuming you meant 'delete *'.' It then started to delete all the files on the disk! The hacker managed to stop it with a {Vulcan nerve pinch} after only a half dozen ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... father's steps, and fled to her room to nerve herself for the part she must act before him. But she was far from successful; her pale face and abstracted manner awakened his attention and his surmises as to the cause. Having an engagement out, he soon left her to welcome solitude; ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... tendency may be a universal nervous system, artists are inclined to ganglionate. The nerve-knots vary in size and importance, and one chief ganglion may serve as a feeding brain, but it cannot monopolize the activity. In America, particularly, these ganglia, or colonies, are an interesting and ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... the prefixing of dis or un to reverse the meaning: as, please, displease; qualify, disqualify; organize, disorganize; fasten, unfasten; muzzle, unmuzzle; nerve, unnerve. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... about, as though she were a tourist intent upon finding every object starred in Baedeker. To his inward rage and chagrin, Giovanni realized his mistake in having attempted to hurry her, and now changed his tactics. Although his every nerve was strained to catch the sound of Nina's approaching footfall, he went into a long, prosy dissertation upon the history of the ceiling, dwelling purposely upon the dullest facts he could think of, until his tormentor was glad enough ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... is not a ghost; yet every nerve I have is unstrung: for a moment I am beyond my own mastery. What does it mean? I did not think I should tremble in this way when I saw him, or lose my voice or the power of motion in his presence. I will go ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... that of a number of separate pieces. The arms, for example, were detached from the trunk, and seemed suspended in the air. In fact, memory and the power of reasoning appeared to be complete long before the optic nerve was restored to healthy action. But what I wish chiefly to dwell upon here is, the absolute painlessness of the shock; and there cannot, I think, be a doubt that, to a person struck dead by lightning, ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... much influence in committee ought to have more control of his nerve centres," Ormiston told him. The squire belonged to that order of elderly gentlemen who will have their little joke. "Well, have you and Bingham and Horace Williams made up your minds ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... and fell,—strove to rise, was smitten down again, and, in that moment, Barnabas was astride him; felt the shock of stinging blows, and laughing fierce and short, leapt in under the blows, every nerve and muscle braced and quivering; saw a scowling face,—smote it away; caught a bony wrist, wrenched the bludgeon from the griping fingers, struck and parried and struck again with untiring arm, felt the press thin ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... assumption that he may have had to endure some volume of hostile private criticism. Whatever may have been Zuniga's reasons for qualifying his early adhesion to the Copernican theory, it seems safe to think that timidity was not one of them. His nerve was unshaken. Towards the end of his life he was engaged on a task after Luis de Leon's own heart: the bringing to book of ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
... was two hours later and Ivan Veliki had rung the hour of eleven, when the silence of the room was broken by the entrance of Piotr, who, at sight of his master asleep at this unwonted hour, halted in surprise and confusion. It took him ten minutes to nerve himself to the waking of the Prince. But it was only ten more before Michael, who had sworn at his valet steadily, meantime, for the delay, entered his public office, fully dressed, to greet General Ryumin, a member of ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... was a thing to be acutely remembered—sustained, long-drawn, vindictive; a nerve-wrenching pandemonium of groans, yelpings and cat-calls, in the midst of which the partizans shuffled into loose marching order ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... in material existences and sense-experiences; and every day we are hearing of new discoveries connecting our aesthetic emotions with the structure of eye and ear, the movement of muscles, the functions of nerve centres, nay, even with the action of heart and lungs and viscera. Moreover, all round us schools of criticism and cliques of artists are telling us forever that so far from bringing forth and educating true virtue, art has the sovereign power, by mere ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... to consciousness, hours afterward, she opened her eyes on midnight darkness, though the room was flooded with sunlight. The optic nerve had been injured, the doctor said. It was doubtful if she would ever be able ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... we shall certainly come again unless we can have a Democracy of Supermen; and the production of such a Democracy is the only change that is now hopeful enough to nerve us to the effort that ...
— Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion • George Bernard Shaw
... Lord, Clancy, do ye mean it? Why, I ain't got the nerve. It's too chilly, and I ain't slept enough. Run away? I told you, Clancy, I've eat the lettuce. I've lost my grip. 'Tis the tropics that's done it. 'Tis like the poet says: "Forgotten are our friends that we ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... brings its own crop of interminable difficulties. When man leaves his resting-place in universal nature, when he walks on the single rope of humanity, it means either a dance or a fall for him, he has ceaselessly to strain every nerve and muscle to keep his balance at each step, and then, in the intervals of his weariness, he fulminates against Providence and feels a secret pride and satisfaction in thinking that he has been unfairly dealt with by the ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore
... Italians in Switzerland were a generation younger, and they would not go back, at least not to the old Italy. Suffer as they might, and they did suffer, wincing in every nerve and fibre from the cold material insentience of the northern countries and of America, still they would endure this for the sake of something else they wanted. They would suffer a death in the flesh, as 'John' had suffered in ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... him. "Nerve! If that's a sample of legal brilliancy of wit, I'm sorry for the defendant ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... syllable rapped out decisively. Then his anger, righteous enough in its way, got the better of him. "Listen to me, Stella!' he gritted, clenching his hands beside him. "I can see clear through you. You haven't the nerve to face this down, so you're going to sling me overboard. That's it, isn't it? Well, you sha'n't. I've handled you like a fool, these years, and now I'm going to take charge. You'll stay here—not because of yourself or me—but for the boy!" he ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... ingenious ideas for getting out, each of which appears as though it would work, but in the end does not, usually in a quite entertaining way. Eventually they do think of a way, which I will not divulge here, and they get out, but it had been a long nerve-racking period before their ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... crept to the window. Two horsemen were at the gate. The door opened below him, his host went out, and the three talked in whispers for a while. Then the horsemen rode away, his host came back into the house, and all was still again. For half an hour the boy waited, his every nerve alive with suspicion. Then he quietly dressed, left half a dollar on the washstand, crept stealthily down the stairs and out to the stable, and was soon pushing his old nag at a weary gallop through ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... "Nerve yourself," Melton whispered to Guy. "I have an idea of what is coming," and before Guy could reply they were ushered into the very apartment which they had left so hastily ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... laughing horribly. The pent-up excitements of the night had broken her nerve at last. For an instant he ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... of the bar near the door, his liquor in his hand, lounging in his careless attitude of abstraction. But there was not a lax fiber in his body; every faculty was alert, every nerve set for any sudden development. The scene before him was disgusting, rather than diverting, in its squalid imitation of the rough-and-ready times which had passed before many of these men were old enough to carry the weight of a gun. It was just a sporadic outburst, a pustule ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... a great friend of mine," Valentine said. "He is a famous nerve-doctor. Seeing you hovering about his door led me to suppose you might be ill, and were going to consult him. I ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... Meyer's outstretched hand, and been drawn into safety through a kind of aperture above the top step. Then the rope was let down again for her father, who tied it about his middle. Well was it that he did so, since when he was about half-way up, awkwardness, or perhaps loss of nerve—neither of them wonderful in an old man—caused his foot to slip, and had it not been for the rope which Meyer and the Molimo held, he would certainly have fallen into the river some hundreds of feet below. As it was, he recovered himself, and presently arrived panting and very pale. In her ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... me, while every nerve of me tingled; but at last she shook her head. "No," she sighed. "I can not yet say." She did not see the sweat ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... know experimentally that it is faith in a living, personal God,—the God of providence, and the Hearer of prayer, and not the desolate doctrine of Nature,—"the God of the iron foot, stern as fate, absolute as tyranny, and merciless as death,"—that can sustain him under every trial, and nerve him with fresh vigor ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... a large number of interscholastic competitions were held. These were found valuable, not only in broadening the boys' ideas in respect to shooting, but in helping their nerve in competitions. ...
— A report on the feasibility and advisability of some policy to inaugurate a system of rifle practice throughout the public schools of the country • George W. Wingate
... Britain had a recognized capital at all, York and not London best deserved that name. For here was the chief military nerve-centre of the land, the head-quarters of the Army, where the Commander-in-Chief found himself in ready touch with the thick array of garrisons holding every strategic point along the various routes by which any invader who ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare
... not even guess at what raw nerve I touched, but he suddenly threw his arms wide as men do when a shot is mortal. His cool insolence dropped from him, and he was all fire and helpless defiance. He stamped his foot, till, slender ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... tens, while the monks are counted by tens of thousands. And among many great companies of monks, there may have been one individual, as there is, for instance, in many a country parish a bee-taker or a horse-tamer, of quiet temper and strong nerve, and quick and sympathetic intellect, whose power over animals is so extraordinary, as to be attributed by the superstitious and uneducated to some hereditary secret, or some fairy gift. Very powerful to attract wild animals ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... thee to action-nerve thee to duty! Whate'er it may be, never despair! God reigns on high,—pray to him truly, He will an answer give to thy prayer. Shrinketh thyself from crosses before thee? Art thou so made as to tremble and fear? Confide in thy God; he will watch o'er thee; Humbly and trustingly, brother, ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... babblers Every church of the city lent its iron tongue to the peal Fast growing to be an eccentric by profession Foolish trick of thinking for herself Forgetfulness is like a closing sea Fortitude leaned so much upon the irony Good nerve to face the scene which he is certain will be enacted Government of brain; not sufficient Insurrection of heart Grand air of pitying sadness Had taken refuge in their opera-glasses Hated tears, considering them ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... their fidelity to King Charles I. could under the circumstances be destruction. They waited with resignation for the impending gloom to overshadow them. Terrible moment for a nation, when despair itself fails to nerve it for further resistance and possible success! Such was the position of the Irish ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... and was brushing my hair before the glass, when suddenly my eyes lit upon something which left me so sick and cold that I sat down upon the edge of the bed and began to cry. It is many a long year since I shed tears, but all my nerve was gone, and I could but sob and sob in impotent grief and anger. There was my house jacket, the coat I usually wear after dinner, hanging on its peg by the wardrobe, with the right sleeve thickly crusted from wrist to elbow with daubs ...
— The Parasite • Arthur Conan Doyle
... anniversary of her wedding. She was so taken up with one fashionable function after another that she had no time to think. Sometimes in the midst of her social activities, she stopped to ask herself if she was really happy, if this nerve-racking existence of idleness and pleasure—with its bridge parties, its dinners, its opera and theatre-going—was the kind of life she had dreamed of in her girlhood days. Sometimes she felt a longing, a yearning for a more useful existence, ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... before, emanated from the wires of my apparatus. The thought flashed through my mind that the Martian held in this instrument a means of communicating sound. If so, what were the words—what language? The possibility of what I heard being words, made me strain every nerve to catch the slightest resemblance to such sounds, but alas, with no success. That they were intended to convey a message, I became fully convinced, but I could not rest in the belief that this jumble of sounds was the Martian language. If the Martians themselves resembled, ...
— Zarlah the Martian • R. Norman Grisewood
... so, Padre! There isn't any 'suppose' about it! Now look: what makes sight? The eye? No. The eye is made by the sight. The human mind just gets it twisted about. It thinks that sight depends upon the optic nerve, and upon the fleshly eye. But it isn't so. It is the sight that externalizes the 'meaty' eye. You see, the sight is within, not without. It is mental. God is all-seeing; and so, sight is eternal. Don't you see? Of ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... her soul being crucified. While Jack stood talking in the hall or on the steps, she tried to conceal from herself what she had done and, when that was impossible, to nerve herself to make reparation. Then she was blinded by the glare of the head-lights and opened her eyes to find that the car had swept beyond reach of her voice. ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... broadly ovate, abruptly cuspidate at the apex, and acuminate, 5-nerved (rarely 3-nerved). The second glume is broadly ovate-lanceolate, concave, acuminate, short awned, 5-nerved with two partial nerves one on each side of the central nerve (7- to 9-nerved at the tip), hairs on nerves, a few tubercled. The third glume is similar to the second, broadly ovate-lanceolate, awned, awn 1/8 to 1/4 inch, paleate with usually three stamens, occasionally neuter. Lodicules are present. The fourth glume is chartaceous, shining, ...
— A Handbook of Some South Indian Grasses • Rai Bahadur K. Ranga Achariyar
... boxed me in the stern. Once so caught, and nine or ten inches of the blood-stained dirk would be my last experience on this side of eternity. I placed my palms against the main-mast, which was of a goodish bigness, and waited, every nerve upon the stretch. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... At the same time, a number of the northern colonies had taken incipient steps for the emancipation of their slaves. Here permit me to say, sir, that, with a prudent regard to what the Senator from Maine (Mr. Hamlin) yesterday called the "sensitive pocket-nerve," they all made these provisions prospective. Slavery was to be abolished after a certain future time—just enough time to give their citizens convenient opportunity for selling the slaves to southern planters, putting the money in their pockets, and then sending to us here, on this ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... a pretty tame cruise to write about, for nothing really occurred. We were only on the watch for some untoward happening; that made it nerve wracking. But even when we sighted the spur of land which we knew marked the southern boundary of the de la Plata—the widest mouth of any river on the globe, for it is not masked by islands at all—we were not out of danger. The peril ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... lack the power to step boldly up on to the parapet and go over at once, as the bathers do when they tumble headlong into the stream that has no dangers for them. She had known that she must crouch, and pause, and think of it, and look at it, and nerve herself with the memory of her wrongs. Then, at some moment in which her heart was wrung to the utmost, she would gradually slacken her hold, and the dark, black, silent river should take her. She climbed up into ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... nerve in his body tingling. Here was a chance to make money. If he only had a few hundreds he could buy up all the Magpie shares he could get and reap the benefit of the rise. Five hundred pounds! If he could obtain that sum he could buy two thousand five hundred shares, and if they went to three pounds, ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... less to a full lootenant commanding six thirty-knot destroyers for the first time? 'E seemed to cherish the 'ope that 'e might use the Gnome for 'is own 'orrible purposes; but what I told him about Mr. Jones's sad lack o' nerve comin' from Pompey, an' going dead slow on account of the dark, short-circuited that connection. 'M'rover,' I says to him, 'our orders is explicit; Stiletto's reported broke down somewhere off the Start, an' we've been ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... somewhat dismantled and disordered room. Her bed had been restored to its place, after the guests had departed the night before, but other appointments were a bit lacking. Nan had forbidden her to rise until noon, for the Bazaar had meant a large expenditure of strength and nerve force, and Patty was ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... feast as the unconscious Hapsburg afforded the ghoul of a priest! It was a loathsome surgery; greedy fingers trembling on the knife, the victim's soul flayed, each nerve of a vanity, or tendon of an ambition, or full-throbbing vein of hope, each and all lifted one by one from the clotted mass and scrutinized exultantly. There was not a feature but held a revelation as sure as vivisection. The high, broad forehead of a gentle poet ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... cloud deepens on his haggard, handsome face. Eight o'clock, and they have been in saddle almost incessantly since yesterday afternoon, weighed down with the tidings of the fell disaster that has robbed them of their comrades, and straining every nerve to reach ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... author of our misfortunes. My heart, thirsting for revenge, eagerly drank in the intelligence, that Bianca was on the point of being married a second time; it was settled—she must die. But as my soul recoiled at the deed, and I attributed too little nerve to Pietro, we looked around for a man to accomplish our fell design. I could hire no Florentine, for there was none that would have undertaken such a thing against the governor. Thereupon Pietro hit upon a plan, which ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff
... barren resolutions; he must see society, study it, mix in it, without becoming a slave to it, learn to express himself forcibly, and acquire a gentle authority. If he do not feel the need of possessing firmness and nerve, he will not make any real progress; it is time for him to be a man. The life of the region in which he lives is a life of effeminacy, indolence, timidity, and amusement. He will never be so true a servant ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... said Bramble, "I see you've got nerve, so all's right. You had better go and lie down now, for you must be tired; I'll call you in ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... have given me a jolt, for a fact," answered the saddle boy, as his face expressed his surprise. "I allow that you show a lot of nerve in laying out such a big plan; and if you only find out what makes that trembling, roaring sound, you'll get the blessing of many a range rider who believes all the stories told ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... government must pass into the blood-stained hands of rebels, men whose designs were more than doubtful, and who could not, even if their designs had been good, restrain the violence of their followers. In consequence we strained every nerve. Money was freely spent, even to an amount much in excess of our resources. How it was employed, I ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... case. He even thought he scented the sickening odor which he had now and then experienced in the Central Park Zoo. He knew, too, that this was purely imaginary, but the horror of a nightmare was on him, and for only an instant he lost his nerve. ...
— Boy Scouts in a Submarine • G. Harvey Ralphson
... great! There never has been such riding in America. Mrs. Hooper lost her hat in the woods, and Mrs. Graves lost part of her habit coming through that break in the hedge over there. That skinny Miss Elperson, who never before has had nerve enough to jump her horse over the lawn hose, cleared the wall that runs along O'Brien's mill,—nobody's ever done it before,—and she came in hanging to the horse's mane and yelling like a wild-cat. Gad, it was two hours before we got 'em quiet and ...
— The Flyers • George Barr McCutcheon
... been rehearsing this speech for several days; but was now rather surprised that he had the nerve to utter it. But the old man trusted him. Was not Francis almost a ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... his fist, and hold down by the horns a young bull, however furious. He had had several encounters with bears; and although on two occasions only armed with a knife, he had come off victorious. His nerve and activity equalled his strength. He was no great talker, and he was frequently morose and ill-tempered; but he had one qualification which compensated for all his other deficiencies—he was devotedly ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston
... bare, whitewashed cell remembered by all Leideners with anguish. There I (and thousands before and thousands after) had sat to wait my dreaded turn with the professors behind the green-baize table in the room next door. There I—among those other nerve-shattered ones—had scribbled my name and scrawled a sketch or two. "Here sweated Rudolph Brederode," read out Miss Rivers, with a sweet look, as if she pitied me now for what I suffered then. But Miss Van Buren showed sublime indifference. She wished, she said, to pick out names that ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... just as the Russian drive was slowing down and while Germany was straining every nerve to meet the eastern crisis, the French and British along the Somme suddenly broke out in a terrific attack over twenty miles of front. The French rapidly approached Peronne, the British more slowly by steadily moving toward Bapaume. Here was the answer to the German assertion ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... bottle of what was called "gammal scherry" (though the Devil and his servants, the manufacturers of chemical wines, only knew what it was), started the flagging circulation. We then went to bed, tingling and stinging in every nerve from the departing cold. Every one complained of the severity of the weather, which, we were told, had not been equalled for many years past. But such a bed, and such a rest as I had! Lying between clean sheets, with my feet buried in soft fur, I wallowed in a flood of downy, delicious sensations ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... forward in defense. He said he had heard that Senator Coot's native State of Indiana was originally settled by people who had started for the West but lost their nerve. In view of the timidity and weak irresolution of his Senate brother, he, Senator Gruff, was inclined to credit the tradition. He must protest against question-asking at this time. Senator Gruff must even warn his friend Senator ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... analysis, even she represented to him a gambler's chance. But in Brandes there was another streak. He wanted to take the chance that he could marry her before he had a right to, and get away with it. But his nerve failed. And, at the last moment, he had hedged, engaging Parson Smawley to play the lead ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... answered. "Up to a certain point he did well. He was always a man of iron nerve, and the story is still told in India how he crawled down a drain after a wounded man-eating tiger. There are some trees, Watson, which grow to a certain height, and then suddenly develop some unsightly eccentricity. You will see it ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... infer from this what efforts have to be made and what compromises must be acquiesced in by those deputies whose election depends on such institutions which, aware that money is more than ever the nerve of political contests, subscribe to the election expenses, and assure in this way the respectful gratitude of the parliamentary recipients of their benefactions. And all this is executed with order and discipline. Examples could be quoted and ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... is, that as ether is physical matter, etheric sight depends upon the sensitiveness of the optic nerve while spiritual sight is acquired by developing latent vibratory powers in two little organs situated in the brain: the Pituitary body and the Pineal gland. Nearsighted people even, may have etheric vision. Though ...
— The Rosicrucian Mysteries • Max Heindel
... equal esteem upon man and woman. Sometimes this Satanette came in a blue-flannel suit, the collar turned well back from the throat, and in a broad straw hat wound with pink and white tarlatan. He looked like a flower,—if any flower ever expressed along with its beauty the powerful nerve of manliness. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... there in camp, isolated from the usual social life, July 2 and 3 and 4, Independence Day, was indeed a test of nerve, already tried and sore and raw, for the young Negroes in training. Why should men train to fight for a country that permitted such barbarous atrocities against their race with impunity. In savage Memphis charred remains of ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... not fit for the big north. Tall and slim, with blond hair in spite of his French blood and name, a quiet and unexcitable face, and an air that Blake called "damned superiority." He wondered how the Fiddling Man had ever screwed up nerve enough to kill Breault. Undoubtedly there had been no fight. A quick and treacherous shot, no doubt. That was like a man who played a fiddle. POOF! He had no more respect for him than if he dressed ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... maintaining gold payments, but only temporarily. In Berlin drastic measures were undertaken to accumulate gold in the Reichsbank. Vienna reports it to be well known that Germany had been for eighteen months before straining every nerve to obtain gold. Whatever sums of gold were included in the so-called "war chest" in Spandau (said to be $30,000,000) were also deposited with the Reichsbank. Gold was even smuggled across the borders of Holland on the persons of ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... his daughter; and she, soon after her arrival, made Cambyses acquainted with the fraud. A ground of quarrel was thus secured, which might be put forward when it suited his purpose; and meanwhile every nerve was being strained to prepare effectually for the expedition. The difficulty of a war with Egypt lay in her inaccessibility. She was protected on all sides by seas or deserts; and, for a successful advance upon her from the direction ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... nerve to tell that to a man dying of starvation?" demanded Sergeant Noll with heat. "Kelly, it takes me four seconds to get my overcoat off, and only two seconds to get ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... said Meldon. "The resemblance I speak of lies in the fact that I've 'earned my night's repose.' The village blacksmith felt that he deserved his after listening to his daughter singing in the local church choir. I've undergone an even severer nerve strain. I've practically arranged the marriage between ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham |
