"Nerve" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Mesoblastic Origin of Excitomotor Nerve Roots, had won him his fellowship of the Royal Society; and his researches, Upon the Nature of Bathybius, with some Remarks upon Lithococci, had been translated into at least three European languages. He had been referred to by one of the greatest living authorities as being the ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of hard red earth gave a little respite. It was neither courage nor pride that kept me in the saddle, but the knowledge that much of the way would be worse rather than better, and I would wisely face it at the outset. If it got too nerve-racking I could always betake myself to my chair and, trusting in the eight sturdy legs of my bearers, abandon myself to enjoying ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... was himself that he had carried through it. He had lived face to face with all the corporeal horrors; he had handled them, tasted them, he, the man without a skin, with every sense, every nerve in him exposed, exquisitely susceptible to torture. And he had come through it all as through a thing insubstantial, a thing that gave way before his soul and its exultant, processional vision ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... more intimate way it is dependent on the special sense organs. But the part of the body to which the mind is most directly and intimately related is the nervous system. The sense organs themselves are merely modifications of the nerve ends together with certain mechanisms for enabling stimuli to act on the nerve ends. The eye is merely the optic nerve spread out to form the retina and modified in certain ways to make it sensitive ...
— The Science of Human Nature - A Psychology for Beginners • William Henry Pyle
... and Beth would answer politely, and tell the truth if possible, instead of making some sulky evasion, as she had begun to do when there was no other way of keeping the peace. She was fearlessly honest by nature, but as she approached maturity, she lost her nerve for a time, and during that time she lied, on occasion, to escape a harrowing scene. She always despised herself for it, however, and therefore, as she grew stronger, she became her natural straightforward self again, only, if anything, all the more scrupulously accurate for the degrading ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... inch in thickness, known as the cortex. It is also found on the surface of the cerebellum. Diffuse masses of grey matter are likewise met in the other parts of the brain, and extending downward through the centre of the spinal cord. The function of the grey matter is to form centres to which the nerve fibres tend and carry in stimulations, or from which they ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education
... community will never know what a loss it has had in Dr. Dimock. It was not merely her skill, though that was remarkable, considering her youth and limited experience, but also her nerve, that qualified her to become a great surgeon. I have seldom known one at once so determined and so self-possessed. Skill is a quality much more easily found than this self-control that nothing can flurry. She had that in an eminent degree; and, had she lived, she would have been sure to ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... sinking, all-gone sensation excessively unpleasant to feel. Perhaps its wearer had a touch of fever! Then the stout tradesman on the other side of the Convent sneezed suddenly, and W. Keyse, with every nerve in his body jarring from the shock, knew that he was simply ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... this I press down with both hands, tossing the cover, when done, into a pan. In spite of myself I hurry; I cannot work fast enough—I outdo my companions. How can they be so slow? I have finished three dozen while they are doing two. Every nerve, every muscle is offering some of its energy. Over in one corner the machinery for sealing the jars groans and roars; the mingled sounds of filling, washing, wiping, packing, comes to my eager ears as an accompaniment ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... venomous snake coiled its glistening folds around his leg he would not have been more startled. But this man of iron nerve soon recovered. He frowned deeply after ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... resulted in forehanded thrift; he now possessed a comfortable holding,—cattle, house, ample land; and he had all the intolerance of the ant for the cricket. As Bedell lifted the bow once more, every wincing nerve was enlisted ...
— The Christmas Miracle - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... side, the fire flare up around her at the Smithfield stake, or to promise, with dying Dorothea, celestial roses to the mocking youth, whose face too often took the form of Thurnall's; till every nerve quivered responsive to her fancy in agonies of actual pain, which died away at last into heavy slumber, as body and mind alike gave way before the strain. Sweet fool! she knew not—how could she know?—that she might be rearing in herself the seeds of idiotcy and death: but who ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... the nerve center of our civilization. It is also the storm center. The city has a peculiar attraction for the immigrant. Here is heaped the social dynamite; here the dangerous elements are multiplied and ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... mentioned, Jimmy was up in arms. He had a reserve stock of nerve for occasions like this, which could be summoned to ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... to me, even when I brought you water?" she answered. She was not afraid. She had nerve ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... his despondent gesture showed how quickly hope had lighted up. "Besides, Billy, I've lost my nerve. ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... expenses of his family; for the last year it had not sufficed. It was necessary for the success of his business, or, he supposed, it was necessary that he should be considered a rich man; and he had harassed himself and strained every nerve to keep up appearances, and now he was saying to himself that this new claim upon him could not possibly be met. He was not a hard man, though he had sometimes been called so. At this moment, his heart was ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... certain ghostly radiance that, despite the deluge of spindrift and scud- water with which the air was saturated, enabled one dimly to discern objects as far forward as the foremast. But to rush, at the speed at which we were travelling, into the heart of that pitchy blackness was nerve-racking work, for although the chart assured us that we had a clear sea for some hundreds of miles ahead, there were still such possibilities as derelicts to be reckoned with, and under such circumstances ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... such mastery over this hard-headed and practical race. I could not have believed to what an extent it is carried had I not observed it for myself. We have had a perfect epidemic of it this voyage, until I have felt inclined to serve out rations of sedatives and nerve-tonics with the Saturday allowance of grog. The first symptom of it was that shortly after leaving Shetland the men at the wheel used to complain that they heard plaintive cries and screams in the wake of the ship, as if something were following ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... much, possibly even a little more, and yet the result is never quite equal. Why? A question of health. C'est un temperament de chatte. He cannot pass from masterpiece to masterpiece like Velasquez. The expenditure of nerve-force necessary to produce such a work as the portrait of Lady Archibald Campbell or Miss Alexander exhausts him, and he is obliged to wait till Nature recoups herself; and these necessary intervals he has employed in writing letters signed ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... the room until her face had regained its natural look, but her door was always ajar, and Jane fancied she liked to hear Rebecca's quick, light step. Her mind was perfectly clear now, and, save that she could not move, she was most of the time quite free from pain, and alert in every nerve to all that was going on within or without the house. "Were the windfall apples being picked up for sauce; were the potatoes thick in the hills; was the corn tosselin' out; were they cuttin' the upper field; were ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... there was a sad severity in his look, as his fine countenance of deep melancholy turned to the bright moon, which a little comforted her, and indicated that it was pride rather than patience which led to his affected contentment. He had not a parent to nerve his heart to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... when, in January, 1863, he assigned "Fighting Joe" Hooker to the command of the Army of the Potomac. Hooker had believed in a military dictatorship, and it was an open secret that McClellan might have become such had he possessed the nerve. Lincoln, however, was not bothered by this prattle, as he did not think enough of it to relieve McClellan of his command. The ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... from the spine, branch out, like the limbs and twigs of a tree, till they extend over the whole body; and, so minutely are they divided and arranged, that a point, destitute of a nerve, cannot be ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... because upborn by such a tide Of full blown honours, in his unripe age, For he excelled in heart and nerve, beside The riches of his royal heritage, Like Lucifer, the monarch waxed in pride, And war upon his maker thought to wage. He with his host against the mountain went, Where Egypt's mighty ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... horsemen would travel would be far longer than the direct line across country, and he resolved at once to strain every nerve to reach his friends in time to get them to interpose between the captors of the Lady ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... not look more than thirty. His face is ruddy, his eyes bright, his voice firm and ringing. He must be a man of considerable strength and—I should say—of more than ordinary animal courage and animal appetite. There is not a nerve in his body which does not twang like a piano wire. In appearance, he is tall, broad, and bluff, with red whiskers and reddish hair slightly touched with grey. His manner is loud, coarse, and imperious; his talk of dogs, horses, and ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... long string of vehicles began to move. Women screamed shrilly, as with their escorts they dodged the horses' hoofs, the trolleys clanged their gongs, electric-signs blinked their pictorial designs, noisy boys yelled hoarsely "final extras!" The din was nerve racking. One had to shout to be heard, yet no one seemed to object. Everybody was happy. New ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... daylight seemed to distress her: flowers were the only links between her and the outer world,—wild ones, for the scent of greenhouse-flowers, and even that of most garden ones, she could not bear. She had been very fond of music, but could no longer endure her piano: every note seemed struck on a nerve. But she was generally quiet in her mind, and often peaceful. The more her body decayed about her, the more her spirit seemed to come alive. It was the calm of a gray evening, not so lovely as a golden ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... a novice must pass before being admitted to holy orders is a severe tax upon nerve and endurance. In the process of a long ritual, at least three, or even so many as nine, pastilles are placed upon the bald scalp of the head. These are then lighted, and allowed to burn down into the skin until permanent scars have been formed, ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... had enjoyed unbroken peace for five days, and were beginning, in spite of dysentery, to recover their nerve. But they were not happy, for they did not know the work in hand, and had they known, would not have known how to do it. Throughout those five days in which old soldiers might have taught them the craft of the game, they discussed ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... and vagabond life, and is celebrated for his comedies. Wallenberg was a clergyman, full of the enjoyment of life, and disposed to see the most amusing side of everything. Lidner and Thorild, unlike the writers just named, were grave, passionate, and sorrowful. Lidner was a nerve-sick, over-excited genius; but many of his inspired thoughts struck deep into the heart of the time, and Swedish literature is highly indebted to Thorild for the spirit of manly freedom and the principles of sound reasoning and taste ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... of a disease. It is the frame of mind of the sluggard in the Bible who says, "There is a lion in the way." Younger people are apt to be irritated by what seems a wilful creating of apprehensions. They ought rather to be patient and reassuring, and compassionate to the weakness of nerve for which ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... therefore, about equally matched, and it was evident that the contest would resolve itself into one of sail-carrying, seamanship, and nerve. ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... smoke from the cannon's mouth; Or the trail of a comet, sweeping faster and faster, Foreboding to traitors the doom of disaster. The heart of the steed and the heart of the master Were beating, like prisoners assaulting their walls. Impatient to be where the battle-field calls; Every nerve of the charger was strained to full play, With Sheridan only ten ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... Whitley, shortly; and then added, as Frank rose to his feet and began walking the floor again. "Oh, for Heaven's sake quit your tragedy and sit down. You make me tired. You're not cut out for either a gambler or a robber. You haven't the nerve." ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... incident of the music in the streets thus touching so suddenly upon the nerve of memory, and calling away his mind from its dark bodings to a recollection of years and scenes the happiest, perhaps, of his whole life, there is something that appears ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... nothing. Our cousin and Flora were not formally engaged, but their betrothal was understood by all of us as a thing of course. He did not allude to the stranger; but as day followed day, he saw with every nerve all that passed. Gradually—so gradually that she scarcely noticed it—our cousin left Flora more and more with the soft-eyed stranger, whom he saw she preferred. His treatment of her was so full of tact, he still walked ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... we may realise it, our standards of judgment and criticism are purely individual and infinitely variable. Two people see a thing: put scientifically, the result of this is that each experiences a stimulation of the optic nerve. Apart from any differences arising from the varying powers of concentration and observation, the stimulus will be the same. But the next step in the process of seeing is the translation of this nerve-stimulus by ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... effects is also found in organic processes (which, indeed, are partly chemical): as when a man eats bread and milk, and by digestion and assimilation converts them into nerve, muscle and bone. Such phenomena may make us wonder that people should ever have believed that 'effects resemble their causes,' or that 'like produces like.' A dim recognition of the equivalence of cause and effect in respect of matter and ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... economy, our science and technology against the best they can do—our liberty against their slavery—our voluntary concert Of free nations against their forced amalgam of "people's republics"—our strategy against their strategy-our nerve ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Harry S. Truman • Harry S. Truman
... the thick of it," objected Barkleigh. "When the danger is so close you can see it, a woman's nerve isn't as good as a man's. It can't be. She isn't built ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... said his new-found friend. "Seems like I lose my nerve every time I try to say a word to that girl. Now, I plum forgot to ast you which way you was goin'. Do ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... an old man charged with "exhibitionism." To the normal mind this seems a particularly disgusting proceeding, and the offender's age is regarded as an aggravation. The explanation is that the higher nerve-cells of the old man are degenerating, that he may be thus unable effectively to control his morbid sexual impulses, particularly if stimulated by an enlarged prostate. Such a person is a subject for pity rather than punishment; he must be restrained from annoying others by ...
— Mental Defectives and Sexual Offenders • W. H. Triggs, Donald McGavin, Frederick Truby King, J. Sands Elliot, Ada G. Patterson, C.E. Matthews
... through life, and we have all sorts of sensations. We hunger and are fed. We are thirsty, and reach an oasis. We are homeless, and find shelter. We are ill, and again walk the streets. We dig and delve and strain every nerve and tissue, and the triumph comes at last, and with it often riches and honor. All these things send shivers of delight through us, and for the moment we spread our wings and soar heavenward. But when we take in our arms the girl we love, and hold close ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... refers scoffingly in the Holy Fair, is said to have been a woman of uncommon beauty and charm of manner. Their daughter, Mrs. Thomas Stevenson, suffered in early and middle life from chest and nerve troubles, and her son may have inherited from her some of his constitutional weakness. Capable, cultivated, companionable, affectionate, she was a determined looker at the bright side of things, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... other wall, the murmur of every stream, aye! the hoots and 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 event." ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... that great mosaic, from the Fillmore-street hill, at once creates a nerve-soothing impression most uncommon in international expositions, and for that matter, in any architectural aggregate. One is at once struck with the fitness of the location and of the scheme of architecture. Personally, I am greatly impressed with the architectural scheme and the ...
— The Art of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... of mine, a man of great nerve and courage, next inhabited the room, and went through the same experiences. He took every possible means to discover the cause of the sounds, and failed in accounting for them in any way. He said the blows on the door were so violent he ...
— The Alleged Haunting of B—— House • Various
... turning of a rosy purple, in the weird depths of the gorge were yet the unbroken shadows and stillness of night. But at the earliest peep of dawn the monk had risen, and now, as he paced up and down the little garden, his morning hymn mingled with Agnes's dreams,—words strong with all the nerve of the old Latin, which, when they were written, had scarcely ceased to be the spoken ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... to the enemy; no computation swelling them higher than three thousand horse, two of them light cavalry, and nine thousand foot. The strength of his army lay in his Spanish infantry, on whose thorough discipline, steady nerve, and strong attachment to his person he felt he might confidently rely. In cavalry, and still more in artillery, he was far below the French, which, together with his great numerical inferiority, made it impossible for ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... goats and that dog and cat had nerve to face that beast," said one of the men. "I should like to own them ...
— Billy Whiskers' Adventures • Frances Trego Montgomery
... if that door should open outward. Every nerve in the miserable fugitive's body thrilled with hope. He examined it from top to bottom, though scarcely able to distinguish its outlines in the surrounding darkness. He passed his hand over it: no bolt, no lock! A latch! He started up, the latch yielded to the pressure of his ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... and all her lovely dark hair floated about her as if it were spread upon a wave that upheld her. She was beautiful indeed as she lay there sleeping, and the man, thus suddenly come upon her, anxious and troubled and every nerve quivering, stopped, awed with the beauty of her as if she had been some heavenly being suddenly confronting him. He stepped softly to her side and bending down observed her, first anxiously, to make sure she was alive ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... lives In many lives; through many a nerve she feels; From child to child the quick affections spread, For ever wand'ring, yet for ever fix'd. Nor does division weaken, nor the force Of constant operation e'er exhaust Parental love. All other passions change With changing circumstances; ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... is men who have the nerve and the grit to work and wait, whether the world applaud or hiss. It wants a Bancroft, who can spend twenty-six years on the "History of the United States;" a Noah Webster, who can devote thirty-six years to a dictionary; a Gibbon, ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... that I should make you understand my feelings, nor 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 things, ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... right," observed Redmond after a pause, during which he keenly scrutinized the young agent's face. "Anyway, I ain't going to let it be said that you've got more nerve than I have. Let the lead hoss go where ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... is the basic cause of all so-called diseases. In the process of tissue-building (metabolism), there is cell-building (anabolism) and cell destruction (catabolism). The broken-down tissue is toxic. In the healthy body (when nerve energy is normal), this toxic material is eliminated from the blood as fast as it is evolved. But when nerve energy is dissipated from any cause (such as physical or mental excitement or bad habits) the body becomes weakened or enervated. When ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... and Hanson felt a vise clamp down around his throat. He tried to break free, but there was no escape. The old man mumbled, and the vise was gone, but something clawed at Hanson's liver. Something else rasped across his sciatic nerve. His kidneys seemed to be wrenched out ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... A few years ago there was a boxing match between Sam Mac Vea and Joe Jeannette that will remain famous in the history of the sport. Mac Vea was a heavy weight, strong, all muscle: a veritable black giant. Joe Jeannette, light, well proportioned, all nerve: a mongrel of the best sort. The match was epic. It went on for forty-two rounds and lasted three hours. At the third round, and again in the seventh, Sam Mac Vea threw Joe Jeannette, and his victory seemed assured. But little ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... ninth week in Boston. He had failed considerably since I last saw him, but he still continued to exhibit the bears and chuckled over his almost certain triumph. I laughed in return, and sincerely congratulated him on his nerve and probable success. I remained with him until the tenth week was finished, and handed him his $500. He took it with a leer of satisfaction, and remarked, that he was sorry I was a teetotaller, for he would ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... passing them from hand to hand. Of what tragedies were they not the cause! In August 1851, Antonio Sciesa, of Milan, was shot for having one such leaflet on his person. The gendarmes led him past his own house, hoping that the sight of it would weaken his nerve, and make him accept the clemency which was eagerly proffered if he would reveal the names of others engaged in the patriotic propaganda. 'Tiremm innanz!' ('come along') he said, in his rough Milanese dialect, and marched incorruptible to death. On a similar charge, Dottesio and Grioli, the latter ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... which wash out with a 5 per cent solution of permanganate of potash. As this is a dangerous location for a layman to interfere with, owing to the branching of the carotid artery, pneumogastric nerve and jugular vein, it should be done by ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... blusher, she was in her girlhood at mention or print of the story of men and women. Who, not having known her, could conceive it! But who could conceive that, behind the positive, plain-dealing, downright woman of the world, there was at times, when a nerve was touched or an old blocked path of imagination thrown open, a sensitive youthfulness; still quick to blush as far as the skin of a grandmother ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... which was to come in May. Vane, with some petulance, refused to entertain the motion; but Endicott put the question, and it was carried. As the time drew near the excitement increased, the clergy straining every nerve to bring up their voters from the country; and on the morning of the day the feeling was so intense that the Rev. Mr. Wilson, forgetting his dignity and his age, scrambled up a tree and harangued the people from its branches. [Footnote: ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... express cars by dynamite, bank robbery, and the like exploits of the Anglo-American desperado, to steal, are unknown to the temperament of the Spanish-American. The latter are creatures of impulse, and lack the "nerve" for a well-planned murderous exploit of the above nature. Nor are they capable of the lynching, burnings of negroes, and race riots which characterise those parts of the United States which bound Mexico on the north, and once formed ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... an amused, detached interest, but Hobart's admiration had traveled past that point. He found it as impossible to define her charm as to evade it. Her inheritance of blood and her environment should have made her a finished product of civilization, but her salty breeziness, her nerve, vivid as a flame at times, disturbed delightfully the poise that held her when ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... and every nerve in his body quivering with wrath, the proud, unhappy boy strode through the gay streets. They had betrayed him then, these accursed Beauforts! they circled his steps with schemes to drive him like a deer into the snare of their loathsome charity! The roof ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... with dates, figs, almonds, plantains, bananas, and a dozen other species of fruits, piled upon salvers of silver, were set before us: in fact, every product of the tropical clime that could excite a new nerve of the sense of taste. We were fairly astonished at the profusion of luxuries that came from ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... large must be the type in textbooks in order that young children may easily read it? What variations from the present school program are necessary in order to make adequate provision for change in the use of different sets of muscles, and relief from nerve strain? ...
— Health Work in the Public Schools • Leonard P. Ayres and May Ayres
... dream of such a thing. The shock would kill him. Therefore, I shall strain every nerve to keep him from ever learning the truth. I have a plan in mind, but before trying it you ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... thirty-six vessels for Stockholm, intending to capture the city. The Swedish fleet, being much inferior in numbers, was forced to retire under shelter of the fortress of Waxholm, which guards the access to the capital. In this dire dilemma, Gustavus strained every nerve to avert the threatened disaster. With a small force, chiefly of Dalecarlians, he marched day and night, and hastened to Waxholm in the hope of surprising the Danish fleet which had been detained by adverse winds. But the enemy, being probably informed of his approach, saw that their opportunity ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... Strength — N. strength; power &c 157; energy &c 171; vigor, force; main force, physical force, brute force; spring, elasticity, tone, tension, tonicity. stoutness &c adj.; lustihood^, stamina, nerve, muscle, sinew, thews and sinews, physique; pith, pithiness; virtility, vitality. athletics, athleticism^; gymnastics, feats of strength. adamant, steel, iron, oak, heart of oak; iron grip; grit, bone. athlete, gymnast, acrobat; superman, Atlas, Hercules, Antaeus^, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... do you think you possess sufficient courage and nerve to enter one of the prisons of the Blood Council? If you do, I may promise you the freedom of your friend. But recollect the risk you run is a very fearful one. If you are captured, your life will pay ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... spy is not a dishonourable person—at least, he need not be. I saw a monument in Westminster Abbey to a man who was hanged as a spy. A spy must be brave; he must have nerve, caution, and resource. He sometimes does more for his country than a whole regiment. Oh, there are worse persons than ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... hands. I had been there but an instant, however, when she vanished without looking round at me. I knew, nonetheless, exactly what dreadful face she had to show; and I wondered whether, if instead of being above I had been below, I should have had, for going up, the same nerve I had lately shown Quint. Well, there continued to be plenty of chance for nerve. On the eleventh night after my latest encounter with that gentleman—they were all numbered now—I had an alarm that perilously skirted ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... recruit was passed as "fit" by the doctor and turned over to a Corporal to make note of his scars. I was mystified. Suddenly the Corporal burst out with, "Blime me, two of his fingers are gone"; turning to me he said, "You certainly have your nerve with you, not 'alf you ain't, to bring this ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... plunge into the depths her patience gave out, and with a vow to be a slave no longer to her treacherous memory, she tumbled every thing in, performed a solemn jig on the lid till it locked, then pasted large, but illegible placards in every available spot, and rested from her labours with every nerve in a throbbing condition. ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... Since the night he had flung himself out of her house, tortured in every nerve, she had not for a moment left him. When he walked through the house, she followed him, her stealthy footfall sounding just the merest fraction of a second after his. He avoided the bare polished floors and walked on the rugs whenever possible, that he might not hear that soft, slow ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... fighters 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 ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... of animals to be found with more brilliant abilities and livelier imagination than the Snail, but for gravity of demeanour and calmness of nerve who is his equal? And if a sound judgment be not behind such outward signs, there is no faith to ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... "I do not. I told Mr. Sawyer so on the train. It is hotter in the country than it is in the city. I can't bear the ticking of a clock in my room, and I think crickets and owls are more nerve-destroying than clocks, and I positively detest anything that buzzes and stings, like bees, and wasps, ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... Orchard, we must not fail to see, is quite genuinely exasperated by the deadness of religious life, and is straining every nerve to quicken the soul of Christ's sleeping Church. This discontent of his is an important symptom, even if his prescription, a very old one, gives no hope of a cure. He is popular, influential, a figure of the ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... 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 ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... dark reflection upon the prisoner, meditating her sentence; the prisoner, young enough to tremble in the suspense, old enough to enjoy the nerve-tension and the moment of drama, gazed back at him. Her hair lay in damp rings, and hung in rats'-tails about her forehead. Her small face, with the silver-clear skin, stippled here and there with ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... careless ease with which he took unnecessary and avoidable risks I had a feeling that there was deep design under everything he did. Though I couldn't have proved it if I'd been asked, I felt sure that he was trying my nerve. After all there's no better test of that than the crowded traffic of a big city. I've met men who'd cheerfully face a crowd of howling cannibals and yet would develop a very bad case of jumps if asked to cross a street roaring and humming ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... noble animal. The good people object to racing, because of the betting, but bad people, like myself, object to the cruelty. Men are not forced to bet. That is their own business, but the poor horse, straining every nerve, does not ask for the lash and iron. Abolish torture on the track and ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... the window, in a state of conflagration, every strained nerve vibrating. What need to attempt to recount what he said or thought? Dark Rosaleen has made trouble often enough between nearer and dearer than Larry and his young cousin. She will send brothers to fight each other to the changing music of her harp, crowned and ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... week ahead had been enough to poison life for him. He was one of those young men whose souls revolt at the thought of planning out any definite step. He could do things on the spur of the moment, but plans made him lose his nerve. ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... anything," said the lawyer, "except that I could bear testimony to the effect that your experience with flat life was similar to mine. This young person, with his customary nerve, tries to make it appear that I said you sang comic songs ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs
... yet Hath done no injury." A mingled sense Of fear and of confusion, from my lips Did such a "Yea" produce, as needed help Of vision to interpret. As when breaks In act to be discharg'd, a cross-bow bent Beyond its pitch, both nerve and bow o'erstretch'd, The flagging weapon feebly hits the mark; Thus, tears and sighs forth gushing, did I burst Beneath the heavy load, and thus my voice Was slacken'd on its way. She straight began: "When my desire invited thee to love The good, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... two men set up the tent and made a fire to boil the kettle, a short expedition was made by the three young naturalists, it being a settled thing that there was to be no collecting next day, but every nerve was to be strained to reach the ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... with one hand convulsively clutching the back of the chair he was leaning on, Pascal tried to nerve himself for some terrible blow. For was not his life at stake? Did not his whole future depend upon the revelations Madame Ferailleur was about to make? "So this was your object in going out, mother?" ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... "Darn his nerve, if he ain't wavin' his hand to me to say, 'I see you little boy, you're it!' Spotted me, danged if he didn't, by ginger! an' now the fun's a'goin' to start right along. Wow! this is what I like, an' pays up for a wheen o' lazy days. How the blood does leap through a feller's veins when he feels ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... inefficiency, discomfort. The woman lives all day in stifling rooms, poorly lighted, with the nerve-racking life of neighbors pouring itself through walls and windows. The men come from crowded shops and the children from crowded schoolrooms to crowd themselves into these rooms, to snatch a meal, or to sleep. How can there be real family life? What joy can ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... a supreme struggle began. All the coolness and nerve of the practitioner had returned to him. Till now he had not ventured to try any violent remedies, for he dreaded to enfeeble the little frame already almost destitute of life. But he no longer remained undecided, and straightway dispatched Rosalie for a dozen leeches. ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... caused the older man to laugh. "No, my friend," said he to himself, "you shall not lose!" But what he said aloud was, "You must not be excited, Dunwody. You may need all your nerve. I thought you cooler in ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... of all is that of the man who keeps the gun on the target, whose true right eye may send twenty-five thousand tons of battleship to perdition. No one eye of any enlisted man can be as important as the gun-layer's. His the eye and the nerve trained as finely as the plugman's muscles. He does nothing else, thinks of nothing else. In common with painters and poets, gun-layers are born with a gift, and that gift is trained and trained and trained. It seems simple to ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... moments of dejection this was one of Willy's commonest thoughts. "I did my best, but I was opposed. Father doesn't care, and as for the girls, they'll take up with any man so long as he is young. Still, in spite of them I should have got on if I hadn't lost my nerve and had to give up hunting; and without hunting there is no ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... congratulate you both," he said to Ralph, "upon your coolness and presence of mind, in a very frightful position. The oldest aeronaut could not have shown more nerve." ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... joke—now," she said with a catch in her voice that showed how desperately hard she was trying to meet Chet's fortitude and force her own words to steadiness. "That takes—real nerve. I like that!" ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin
... suppression of normal sexual life. The past has shown, moreover, that when society succeeded in spreading alarm and in decreasing prostitution by fear, the result was such a rapid increase of perversion and nerve-racking self-abuse that after a short while the normal ways were again preferred ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... month is scarcely sufficient. It would be folly, such as you never show, to trust a nerve so undermined as mine till time has restored its power. For an enterprise like this you need a man of ready strength and resources; not one whose condition you might be obliged to consider ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... in whom we trust, to direct your counsels by His unerring wisdom, guide you with His effectual spirit. We now conjure you by the sacred charities of kindred, by the solemn obligations of justice, by every consideration of domestic affection and patriotic duty, to nerve every faculty of your minds to the investigation of this important subject, and let not the united voices of your mothers, wives, daughters and kindred have sounded in vain in your ears."—Drewry, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... hours before dark. Rachael was conscious of every nerve in her body, and paced up and down the long line of rooms which terminated in the library, until Alexander's legs were worn out trotting after her, and he fell asleep on the floor. Twice she went to the roof to look for Hamilton's ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... and said, "Now direct the nerve of sight across the ancient scum, there yonder where ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... and knocked. The inmate there was still in bed, as was his custom, and answered Mr Wentworth through his beard in a recumbent voice, less sulky and more uncertain than on the previous night. Poor Wodehouse had neither the nerve nor the digestion of his more splendid associate. He had no strength of evil in himself when he was out of the way of it; and the consequence of a restless night was a natural amount of penitence and shame in the morning. He met the Curate with a depressed countenance, ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... boy, from boy to youth he grew, But more in grace and knowledge than in years. At play his joyous laugh rang loud and clear, His foot was fleetest in all boyish games, And strong his arm, and steady nerve and eye, To whirl the quoit and send the arrow home; Yet seeming oft to strive, he'd check his speed And miss his mark to let a comrade win. In fullness of young life he climbed the cliffs Where human foot had never trod before. He led the chase, but when soft-eyed ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... of other matters than the hidden Numa by a shrill scream of warning from the Ape. Turning his eyes quickly in the direction of his companion, the boy saw that, standing in the path directly before him, which sent tremors of excitement racing along every nerve of his body. With body half-merging from a clump of bushes in which she must have lain hidden stood a sleek and beautiful lioness. Her yellow-green eyes were round and staring, boring straight into the eyes ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... lighted caboose. Night freights do not stop at Gatun, nor anywhere merely to let off a "gum-shoe." But just beyond New Gatun station is a grade that sets the negro fireman to sweating even at midnight and the big Mogul to straining every nerve and sinew, and I did not meet the engineer that could drag his long load by so swiftly but that one could easily swing off on the road that leads ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... enemy's artillery became less active and we sent off the wounded. Those who could walk were compelled to follow the bearer parties. One man, who was not badly hit, had lost his nerve and refused to leave. The doctor had to tell him sharply that he need not expect to be carried, as there were too many serious cases to be attended to. I went over to him and offered him my arm. At first he refused to come, and then I ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... your fieldglasses, and did not wait for it to reach me, in which case it would have pecked out my eyes and struck me with its claws, probably tearing my chest open, but sprang to meet it. Death seemed absolutely certain, and though my nerve was set, and, as it were, I mentally gave up my life, I met the bird with a thud. With both hands I caught its neck before it could lift a foot to strike; we both rolled over, and, with strength given me at the moment, I clung to its neck until I came up, 'top dog.' But then ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers
... main-spring of the universe. Modern science is more and more inclined to find the explanation of all vital phenomena in electrical stress and change. We know that an electric current will bring about chemical changes otherwise impracticable. Nerve force, if not a form of electricity, is probably inseparable from it. Chemical changes equivalent to the combustion of fuel and the corresponding amount of available energy released have not yet been achieved ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... to be distinctly marked. While there were but two parties, that is the liberal and the illiberal among the patricians, there were no less than three among the plebeians. Only one of the three could be called a plebeian party. That was the party containing the nerve and sinew of the order, which united only with the liberal patricians, and with them only on comparatively independent terms. The other two parties were nothing but servile ...
— Public Lands and Agrarian Laws of the Roman Republic • Andrew Stephenson
... so nerve-racked that she was on the point of tears, the girl put off the attempt. But days passed, and when no inspiration came, and she was still haunted by the thought of a duty undone, she compromised by telegraphing ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... us, his words put fire into our hearts; and in order to show him that we really were his children, and not the kind of men to shrink from danger, we used to march right up to great blackguards of cannon which bellowed and vomited balls without so much as saying "Look out!" Even dying men had the nerve to raise their heads and salute him with the cry of "Long live the Emperor!" Was that natural? Would they have done that for a ...
— Folk-Tales of Napoleon - The Napoleon of the People; Napoleonder • Honore de Balzac and Alexander Amphiteatrof
... history was winding toward an unhappy conclusion. Many feared that the end of that foreign war of men and machines meant the beginning of a domestic war of recrimination and reprisal. Friends and adversaries abroad were asking whether America had lost its nerve. Finally, our economy was ravaged by inflation—inflation that was plunging us into the worst recession in four decades. At the same time, Americans became increasingly alienated from big institutions. They were steadily losing confidence, not just in big government but in big business, big labor, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Gerald R. Ford • Gerald R. Ford |
