"Nerveless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... nerveless fingers, at his tightly buttoned cut-away coat. It resisted his efforts. Suddenly, with a snarl of exasperation, he dragged violently at the lapel, tearing the button outright from the cloth. "Look what I have done," he said, staring stupidly ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the pick fell from his nerveless hands. The hunger pains were gnawing at his vitals. He felt dizzy and sick. A death chill invaded his entire being. It suddenly grew dark; there was a buzzing in his ears. His knees gave way beneath him. He stumbled and fell. He was still conscious, ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... to his face, he found that his remaining probe had disappeared and that he was in possession of three eyes. The third eye was on his forehead, where the old sorb had been. He could not guess its use. He still had his third arm, but it was nerveless. ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... features and a quiet, conscientious sort of expression, exquisite in his dress and scrupulous in his manners, with more of his mother's gentleness than of his father's bold frankness in his brown eyes. His small hand grasped mine readily enough, but seemed nerveless and lacking in vitality, a contrast to Paul Patoff's grip. The Russian was as angular as ever, and his wiry fingers seemed to discharge an electric shock as they touched mine. I realized that he was a very tall ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... Levantines. A strange race of obese Creoles, connected with our society by naught save language and dress, but enveloped by the Orient in its stupefying atmosphere, the subtle poisons of its opium-laden air, in which everything becomes limp and nerveless, from the tissues of the skin to the girdle around the waist, ay, even to the mind itself and ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... in a weak, fitful fashion. I first became slightly curious about myself. Why had I slept so profoundly? Why was I so nerveless and ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... last, woman steps forward, tipping the symbols of despotic power—sceptre and crown—from the nerveless hand and dishonoured brow of her recent lord and master! And down he goes under ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... despite Molly's cooling drinks which she brought to as many men as possible. John Hays worked his cannon bravely, while perspiration streamed down his face and heat blurred his vision. Suddenly all went black before him—the rammer dropped from his nerveless hand, and he fell beside his gun. Quickly to his side Molly darted, put a handkerchief wet with spring water on his hot brow, laid her head on his heart to see whether it was still beating. He was alive! Beckoning to two of his ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... hot, trembling fingers in his cold, nerveless hand, a moody frown on his brow, and his lips ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... churned into angry foam by the furious sharks. Instinctively I placed my hand on the knife I had thrust through the lapel of my coat for just such an emergency, but strength and courage were all gone and my nerveless hand could not draw it out. It seemed a long time that I waited, half dazed, for death, which I hoped when it came would ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... half-century's struggle with the elements for existence, wrestling with the storm, fighting for its life from the moment that it leaves the acorn until it goes into the ship, that gives it value. Without this struggle it would have been characterless, staminaless, nerveless, and its grain would have never been susceptible of high polish. The most beautiful as well as the strongest woods are found not in tropical climates, but in severe climates, where they have to fight the frosts and ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... purring satisfaction. This quality of self-contented sentiment partly explains why the type of beauty adored is neither womanly nor manly, but adolescent. It has to be tender, fragile, solicitous, unripe; appealing to sensibility, not to passion, by feminine charms in nerveless and soulless boyhood. The most distinctive mark of Adonis is that he has no character, no will, no intellect. He is all sentiment, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... fatal to the physical condition. One may spring up from a task of moderate mental labor with a sense of freedom like a bow let loose; but after an immoderate task one feels like the same bow too long bent, flaccid, nerveless, all the elasticity gone. Such fatigue is far more overwhelming than any mere physical exhaustion. I have lounged into the gymnasium, after an afternoon's skating, supposing myself quite tired, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... pen dropped from the nerveless grasp. Clemence bent her head wearily on the table, and fell ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... otherwise. Lucille has returned to Dorset House. Souspennier is confounded altogether by a little revelation which I ventured to make. He spoke of an appeal. I let him know with whom he would have to deal. I left him nerveless and crushed. He can do nothing save by open revolt. And if he tries that—well, there will be no more of ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... in a telegraphic dispatch and handed it to him. The Vice-president opened it, glanced through it, and tried to hand it to the Secretary of State. Instead, it fluttered from his nerveless fingers, and he sank back with a groan. The Secretary picked it ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... with drought. 'But a nerveless creature like me, who can't even hit straight from the shoulder, would be good enough for that. A giant like ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... had told Cedarquist that he was ill, that he was jaded, worn out, he had only told half the truth. Exhausted he was, nerveless, weak, but this apathy was still invaded from time to time with fierce incursions of a spirit of unrest and revolt, reactions, momentary returns of the blind, undirected energy that at one time had prompted him to a vast desire to acquit himself of some terrible deed of readjustment, just what, he ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... sleepless, watching the firelight play hide and seek with the shadows among the aged, smoky rafters and flicker over the strings of dried things that hung from the ceiling. In the other corner her father and stepmother snored heartily, and Bub, beside her, was in a nerveless slumber that would not come to her that night-tired and aching as she was. So, quietly, by and by, she slipped out of bed and out the door to the porch. The moon was rising and the radiant sheen of it had dropped ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... church. First came an old man and woman, like chief mourners at a funeral, attired from head to foot in the deepest black, all but their pale features and hoary hair, he leaning on a staff and supporting her decrepit form with his nerveless arm. Behind appeared another and another pair, as aged, as black and mournful as the first. As they drew near the widow recognized in every face some trait of former friends long forgotten, but now returning as if from their old graves to warn her to prepare a shroud, or, with purpose almost ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... The weary feet Hope-shod, stept lightly on the homeward way; So specially it fared with Ambrose Gray That time I tell of. He had work'd all day At a great clearing: vig'rous stroke on stroke Striking, till, when he stopt, his back seem'd broke, And the strong arm dropt nerveless. What of that? There was a treasure hidden in his hat— A plaything for the young ones. He had found A dormouse nest; the living ball coil'd round For its long winter sleep; and all his thought As he trudged stoutly homeward, was of nought But the glad wonderment in Jenny's eyes, And graver ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... rank, your volleyed thunder flew! Oh, bloodiest picture in the book of time, Sarmatia fell, unwept, without a crime; Found not a generous friend, a pitying foe, Strength in her arms, nor mercy in her woe! Dropped from her nerveless grasp the shattered spear, Closed her bright eye, and curbed her high career; Hope, for a season, bade the world farewell, And Freedom shrieked as Kosciusko ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... began the change; and what's my crime? The wretch condemned, who has not been arraigned, Chafes at his sentence. Shall I, unsustained, Drag on Love's nerveless body thro' all time? I must have slept, since now I wake. Prepare, You lovers, to know Love a thing of moods: Not, like hard life, of laws. In Love's deep woods, I dreamt of loyal Life:- the offence is there! Love's jealous woods about the sun are curled; At least, the sun far brighter ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... surprised to see me," she said, holding out her little gloved hand. The courtesy toward the sex, which was hereditary with the Livingstones, contrasting strangely with their fierce, ungovernable tempers, made him not reject it; but his lay passive and nerveless in her slender fingers, never answering their eager pressure; it had no longer the elastic quiver of repressed strength that she ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... prisoner, who forms the foreground figure, and is seated on a rock, with his languid limbs hanging over the precipice, which may be supposed to yawn beneath. It is impossible to describe the despair depicted in this figure: it is marked in his position, in the drooping of his head, which his nerveless arms seem with difficulty to support, and the little that may be seen of his face, over which, from his recumbent attitude, his hair falls in luxuriant profusion. All is alike destitute of energy and of hope, which the beings grouped around the captive seem to ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... brow of the now nerveless and unhappy youth. He was pale, and his eyes were fixed for an instant; but, suddenly recovering himself, he rushed hastily from the apartment before his uncle could interpose to prevent him. He heard not or heeded not the words of ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... way to bed having noticed the electricity still in full glare over the open transom, and who straightened out matters for the stunned man lying face downward across the bed, his mother's letter crushed in his nerveless hand. ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... sleep—which sometimes abridged the long days, had stolen over her. The weather was hot. While turning in febrile restlessness, she had pushed the coverlets a little aside. Mrs. Pryor bent to replace them. The small, wasted hand, lying nerveless on the sick girl's breast, clasped as usual her jealously-guarded treasure. Those fingers whose attenuation it gave pain to see were now relaxed in sleep. Mrs. Pryor gently disengaged the braid, drawing out a tiny locket—a slight thing it was, such ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... cold with sick and unreasoning fear. As she gazed wide-eyed at the living confirmation of the statement that "Gum Shoe Tim" was "as cross as a bear," the gentle-hearted Principal took the paper from her nerveless grasp. ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... with the dagger in my right hand, and wounded him, but not deeply, in the side. He gave blow for blow, but his poniard scarce drew blood, so nerveless was the arm that would have driven it home. I struck again, and he stabbed weakly at the air, then let his arm drop to his side, as though the light and jeweled blade had ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... obviously more of a Levantine than a Serb. The older man, small, slight, gray haired, and swarthy, but surprisingly active in his movements for one of his apparent age, raced up to Prince Michael. He fell on his knees, caught that nerveless right hand, and pressed it ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... late, pitifully propped against a stone, the cigarette, he had tried to light to comfort him, dead in his nerveless hand. Tharon had wept and wept for Harkness, for he had been a good comrade, open-hearted and merry. And deep in her soul she harboured dim longings for justice on his murderer—revenge, ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... the sentences came in jerks; they gasped for breath; they reeled and fell; they dragged on, nerveless and bloodless, to an unspeakable exhaustion. Then, as if her genius defied the ultimate corruption, it soared and made itself its own funeral fire. She had finished the thing somehow, and flung it from her as the divine folly came upon her. The wonder was that she should ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... old now. The earnest, restless gaze had gone from his eyes; he was staring mutely before him, twisting between nerveless fingers that blank scrap of paper, which had been the ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... the prostrate form of the Indian, which lay upon its face. They rolled him over on his back, but he was limp and nerveless as a rag. His body was still warm, but to all appearance he was entirely lifeless—a gash on the side of his face, from which a great quantity of blood had streamed over his person, adding to the ghastly ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis
... learned the secret of it, know what he wanted, but he could not even lift his nerveless hand to show her the gilded point beneath which lay the spring that controlled the hidden drawer and ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... earth contains! the world's great eye "By which it all surveys. My tender words "Believe, I dearly love thee. Pale she look'd, "While thus he spoke;—started, and trembling dropp'd "Her distaff, and her spindle from her hand "Nerveless. But ev'n her terror seem'd to add "Fresh beauty to her features. Longer he "Delay'd not, but his wonted form assum'd; "In heavenly splendor shining. Mild the maid, "Won by his beauteous brightness, (though at first, "His sudden ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... captain, pointing out the lifeless form of the prince, and ordering him to tell nobody but his superior officer of the fact. Then I reentered the room and approached the body of my former friend. There was a pistol beside him on the floor where it had fallen from his nerveless grasp after the fatal deed was performed, but he reclined as easily in the chair as though he had dropped asleep naturally, for a ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... Wotton, apparently nerveless beneath his absolute immobility, let them out—and slammed the door behind them with such promptitude as to give cause for the suspicion that he was a fraud, a sham, beneath his icy exterior desperately afraid lest the house be stormed by ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... been prudentially soft and nerveless, suddenly hardened into solid muscle, and one of his heavy blows came full and square upon the region of Archy's left eye. The young lord of the manor reeled as though a tornado had struck him, and fell heavily ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic
... agony, letting the spear drop from his nerveless hands, and just as it clattered to the ground Canaris was upon him with a rush, and down they went together, the ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... expectation of the risks insured. The odds are heavily in favor of the Insurance Company—of that the stupidest person can have no shadow of doubt. Yet we continue to insure, as private individuals and as business men, and so far from being ashamed of our proceedings as a weak and nerveless folly, which somehow we are unable to resist, we blazon them forth in the strong accents of conscious pride. We preach insurance to our neighbors as the core of self-regarding duty, and, if ever we feel a twinge of uneasiness, it is lest we, too, may have omitted in some particular ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson
... then denounced Mrs. Bliss as an adventuress, and that she had no legal claim upon his father-in-law. His loud voice and violent gestures were too much for the invalid. The pen dropped from his nerveless fingers and he fell back exhausted. I think you had better ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... him to be frank with him; and Ferris could not. That pity for himself as the prey of fantastically cruel chances, which he had already vaguely felt, began now also to include the priest; ignoring all but that compassion, he went up to the bed and took the weak, chill, nerveless hand in his own. ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... unceasing ache was left and he was very tired. He tried to smile, to gather together the tatters of his courage and faith, but he could not think of the future. When he tried to think of Shirley a sickening qualm rushed over him, leaving him weak and nerveless. ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... grew slower and slower, and gradually ceased, Walter's eyes slowly closed, and he sank down unconscious. His paddle fell from his nerveless hand and floated away on the stagnant water just as a dark, shapeless mass crept out of a bunch of reeds and struck the ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... new-born babe for breath. And with what anxiety they watched her! She grew strong again, went with Sally Drover and the other girls on Sunday excursions to the country, applied herself to her embroidery with restless zeal for days, only to have it drop from her nerveless fingers. But her thoughts were uncontrollable, she was drawn continually to the edge of that precipice which hung over the waters whence they had dragged her, never knowing when the vertigo would seize her. And once ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... go to that trouble, Dr. Bird," spoke a metallic voice, from nowhere, it seemed. The negroes looked at one another. Picks and shovels fell from nerveless hands. ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... not think of. For a moment the old horror which had first seized upon her came upon her once more, paralyzing her limbs. She looked at him with staring eyes as she knelt, and the bloody knife dropped from her nerveless hands. But the horror passed, and once more, as before, was succeeded by vehement action. She sprang to her feet, and caught at his ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille
... Masters. The Clever Man, having had his usual morning warble, is extremely quiet. He will win, he pyramids—and he pyramids because he has the cash and can afford to make every play a big one. All he needs is the rake of a croupier to complete his disinterested and wholly nerveless poise. He is a born gambler, is The Clever Man—and I dare say that to play cards in time of war constituted a heinous crime and I am certain that he played cards before he arrived at La Ferte; moreover, I suppose ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... strength Uncas rose to his feet, and hurled Cora's murderer into the abyss below. Then, with a stern and steady look, he turned to Le Subtil and indicated with the expression of his eye all that he would do had not the power deserted him, Magua seized his nerveless arm and stretched him dead by passing his dagger ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... rigid, as if turned to stone. The last change passed over his face. He fell to the ground, sudden and heavy. The chords THERE, too,—the chords of the human instrument were snapped asunder. As he fell, his robe brushed the laurel-wreath, and that fell also, near but not in reach of the dead man's nerveless hand. ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... With nerveless fingers Peter drew out, not an envelope, but a stiff card. And he stared at the card in the red twilight, and groaned in ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... hands I could not move— The nerveless palms together prest— And clasped them tightly to his breast; While in my heart the question strove. The fire-flies flashed like wandering stars— I thought some sprang from out his eyes: Surely some ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... stood there, staring after him, his heart as cold as ice, his arms hanging nerveless at his sides. The real, underlying motive of the man was slow in forcing itself into ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... art, and the work of second-class artists was evidently much in demand and obtained its meed of admiration. Bissolo was a fellow-labourer with Catena in the Hall of the Ducal Palace in 1492; he is soft and nerveless, but he copies Bellini, and has imbibed something ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... gone far he saw, approaching the ranch, a single riderless horse. As the animal came nearer and nearer it whinnied on seeing him, and finally changed its course and came directly toward him. Then he saw that there was a man on its back; a man either dead or asleep. His hand hung down nerveless by the horse's shoulder, and swung helplessly to and fro as the animal walked on; the man's head rested on the horse's mane. The horse came up to Sidney, thrusting its nose out to him, whinnying gently, as if ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... unremitting toil. Our daily journeys were short, and the head we made against the stream but trifling. The men lost the proper and muscular jerk with which they once made the waters foam and the oars bend. Their whole bodies swung with an awkward and laboured motion. Their arms appeared to be nerveless; their faces became haggard, their persons emaciated, their spirits wholly sunk; nature was so completely overcome, that from mere exhaustion they frequently fell asleep during their painful and almost ceaseless exertions. ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... of his strong warm hands, all manacled as they were, upon the other's nerveless clammy fingers, sent, more than the words, something of the speaker's own courage to his friend's wrung heart. And yet that very courage ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... he one night answered that he never felt better in his life. "But you," he said, casting an eye over the face and figure of the minister, who lay back in his easy-chair, with his hands stretched nerveless on the arms, "you, look rather peaked. I don't know as I noticed it before, but come to think, I seemed to feel the same way about it when I saw you in the ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... since he avowed himself a religious character, he had written nothing but the most vapid and nerveless twaddle. Your poor dear father used to send his letters to me to read, and I sometimes really thought that Silas was losing his faculties; but I believe he was only trying to write ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... down with kinsman gifts of care and loving-kindness, while his purpose had been—must still be—to strike back like a merciless enemy. He remembered the old fable of the adder warmed to life in a man's bosom, and it left him sick and nerveless. ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... pinioned as I was above the water by the timber, I raised her above it. The weight proved too much and she sank again. Again I pulled her to the surface and again she sank. This I did again and again with no avail. She drowned in my very grasp, and at last she dropped from my nerveless hands to leave my sight forever. As if I had not suffered enough, a few moments after I saw some objects whirling around in an eddy which circled around, until, reaching the current again, they floated past ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... her nerveless fingers as she fell, struck the Navajo rug with a muffled thump, bounced and rolled over, and settled down harmlessly on a ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... came not even so much as the feeblest moan from her lips. The torment was far too racking for such futile fashion of lamentation. She merely sat there in a posture of collapse. To all outward seeming, nerveless, emotionless, an abject creature. Even the eyes, which held so fixedly their gaze on the window, were quite expressionless. Over them lay a film, like that which veils the eyes of some dead thing. Only an occasional languid motion of the lids ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... talents are as mischievous as if each had been seized upon by some bird of prey, which had whisked him away from fortune, from truth, from the dear society of the poets, some zeal, some bias, and only when he was now gray and nerveless was it relaxing its claws, and he awaking to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... a spot contains, Where Scorpio bends in two wide bows his arms, His tail, and doubly-stretching claws;—the space Encompassing of two celestial signs. Soon as the youth the monstrous beast beheld, Black poison sweating, and with crooked sting Threatening fierce wounds, he nerveless dropp'd the reins: Pale dread o'ercame him. Quick the steeds perceiv'd The loose thongs playing on their backs, and rush'd Wide from the path, uncheck'd;—through regions strange, Now here, now there, impetuous;—unrestrain'd, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... choice that devotes her life to science. She was the confidant of the dead chemist, whose torch of knowledge she took up firm- handed, when it fell from his nerveless fingers. ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... could not arouse him, she pulled the relaxed and nerveless form to the lounge, but when she attempted to lift the limp figure to the couch she found it almost more than all her woman's strength could accomplish. Luther stirred and muttered, but could not be awakened sufficiently ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... away from me she stood, arrayed in the gauzy dress of the harem, her fingers and slim white arms laden with barbaric jewelry! The light wavered in my suddenly nerveless hand, gleaming momentarily upon bare ankles and golden anklets, upon ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... grasp, the boy struck out at him with a nerveless gesture and then shot like an arrow through the hall and out into the twilight. At the moment his terror of Fletcher was forgotten in the paroxysm of his anger. Short sobs broke from him as he ran, and presently his breath ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... gorgeous dome, As even the pomp of Eastern opulence Could never equal: wandered thro' its halls A numerous train; some with the red-swoln eye Of riot, and intemperance-bloated cheek; Some pale and nerveless, and with feeble step, And eyes lack-lustre. Maiden? said her guide, These are the wretched slaves of Appetite, Curst with their wish enjoyed. The epicure Here pampers his foul frame, till the pall'd ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... He laid the cool, delicate, nerveless hand back upon her knee, and rose, for the Sister was folding up her sewing. He looked long after the girlish figure as ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... broken by a long, gasping sigh. Astonished, he looked at the girl. Her eyes were set unfathomably upon his pink tie; the wand had dropped from her nerveless hand, and she stood rapt and immovable. She started violently from her trance. "Ain't you goin' to finish your coffee?" she asked, plying her instrument again, and, bending over him slightly, whispered: "Say, Eph Watts is over there ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... fold. This evening, as all was still, we played a little game of Bridge, as in the old days when life was a pleasant dream. Suddenly a dozen rifle shots, in quick succession, rang out in the air and the cards fell from our nerveless fingers as a stray ball rattled against the iron shutters of our windows. Instinctively we crouched into sheltered corners and waited; another volley and another followed, until finally Monsieur S. whispered in a hoarse voice, "A la cave." The household, ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow
... never moved, never uttered a sound. He seemed to doubt the evidence of his own eyes, and to have lost the power of speech. Then from nerveless hands his own cards fell face downward, still unrevealed, upon the table. The next moment he was on his feet, the chair in which he had been seated flung crashing behind him on ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... hands she had been permitted to enter, Ester did not stop to wonder. She had seen her but once before, but she knew at a glance the worn, wrinkled face; and, as if a picture of the scene hung before her, she saw that old, queer form, leaning trustfully on the strong arm, lying nerveless now, being carefully helped through the pushing throng—being reverently cared for as if she had been his mother; and she, looking after the two, had wondered if she should ever see them again. Now she stood ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... Arthur with a sad smile. He took off her glove, and helped to raise her arm, which hung nerveless and powerless by her side. I felt big tears rolling down ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... cannot gratify their curiosity. Mr Braidwood told me, it remained long in his school, but had been lost before I made my inquiry. [Footnote: One of the best criticks of our age 'does not wish to prevent the admirers of the incorrect and nerveless style which generally prevailed for a century before Dr Johnson's energetick writings were known, from enjoying the laugh that this story may produce, in which he is very ready to join them'. He, however, requests me to observe, that 'my friend very properly chose a ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... not be; my courage was appalled, my arms nerveless. I muttered prayers that my strength might be aided from ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... some persons to whom I seem too severe in [the writing of] satire, and to carry it beyond proper bounds: another set are of opinion, that all I have written is nerveless, and that a thousand verses like mine may be spun out in a day. Trebatius, give me your advice, what shall I do. Be quiet. I should not make, you say, verses at all. I do say so. May I be hanged, if that would not be best: but I can not sleep. Let those, who want sound sleep, anointed ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... beheld a chance of escape within my reach. My guard lay before me at my mercy. His vigorous limbs relaxed by sleep; his bosom open for the blow; his carbine slipped from his nerveless grasp, and lying by his side; his stiletto half out of the pocket in which it was usually carried. But two of his comrades were in sight, and those at a considerable distance, on the edge of the mountain; their backs turned to us, and their ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... Conde, and while he was taking heavy toll of those before him, he could not cope with the men who attacked him from behind; and even as she looked, she saw a battle axe fall full upon his helm, and his sword drop from his nerveless fingers as his lifeless body rolled from the back of Sir Mortimer to the ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... tousled families, and certain nondescript town loafers of tramp-like appearance. The flies were nearly as bad as ever—but not quite, for under Mrs. Wetherford's dragooning the waiters had made a nerveless assault upon them with newspaper bludgeons, and a few of them had been ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... sons of Spain, and strange her fate! They fight for freedom, who were never free; A kingless people for a nerveless state, Her vassals combat when their chieftains flee, True to the veriest slaves of Treachery; Fond of a land which gave them nought but life, Pride points the path that leads to liberty; Back to the struggle, baffled in the strife, War, war is still the ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... if thou wilt, thy sires, Bad husbands of their fires, Who, when they gave thee breath, Failed to bequeath The needful sinew stark as once, The Baresark marrow to thy bones, But left a legacy of ebbing veins, Inconstant heat and nerveless reins,— Amid the Muses, left thee deaf and dumb, Amid ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... kindled eyes, and angry boyish defiance—tightly to her side. Did the man's strange words give form and significance to some dark, shadowy, indistinct doubt that had previously haunted her at times? I judged so. The rector appeared similarly confused and shaken, and had sunk nerveless ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438 - Volume 17, New Series, May 22, 1852 • Various
... need you,' went across the continent, and brought the ready response, 'coming on the wings of the wind.' It was Judge St. Claire who wrote to Harold, for Jerrie's nerveless fingers could not grasp the pen, and she could only dictate what she wished the judge ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... formed but a loosely knit confederacy, the sparse population scattered over a great expanse of land. Ever since the Federalist party had gone out of power in 1800, the nation's ability to maintain order at home and enforce respect abroad had steadily dwindled; and the twelve years' nerveless reign of the Doctrinaire Democracy had left us impotent for attack and almost as feeble for defence. Jefferson, though a man whose views and theories had a profound influence upon our national life, was perhaps ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... she swayed on her feet. The pistol wavered and swung in a feeble spiral, no longer pointed at Wayne. Gently, he took it from her nerveless fingers and caught her ...
— The Judas Valley • Gerald Vance
... for ever! It is enough; let me now return whence I came; let me be gathered to my fathers and be at rest!'? I should be loth to think that, if the enemy, in recognizable shape, came roaring upon us, we would not, like the red-cross knight, stagger, heavy sword in nerveless arm, to meet him; but, in the feebleness of foiled effort, it wants yet more faith to rise and partake of the food that shall bring back more effort, more travail, more weariness. The true man trusts in a strength ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... over the wound as Sahwah had showed her, and tried to close her ears to the gurgling. But the old terror had her by the throat, suffocating her, paralyzing her hands. They dropped uselessly at her sides; she crouched limp and panting and nerveless beside the helpless man. Then, for the first time in her life Oh-Pshaw began to fight the fear. She forced her clammy hands back over the wound, she cast desperately around for something to think about beside the murmuring horror ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... stood, an iron-nerved man, trembling and nerveless in expectancy of a revelation of horror; ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"
... that it had been so "deuced hot in the theatre, no wonder people fainted," but she knew all the time that it was nothing to do with the heat; she stooped mechanically and picked up Esther's gloves which had fallen from her nerveless hand before she followed Micky back into the foyer, where he laid Esther down on one ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... is he, that helmsman bold? The captain saw him reel, His nerveless hands released their task, He sank beside the wheel. The wave received his lifeless corse, Blackened with smoke and fire. God rest him! Never hero had A nobler ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... sword upon his thigh, Doth gleam the panting soldier's eye, But nerveless hangs the arm that swayed So proudly that terrific blade. The feeble bosom scarce can give A throb to show he yet doth live, And in his eye the light which glows, Is but the stare, that death bestows. The filmy veins that circling thread The ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... of no disease known to medical science. He simply faded away—weaker, more nerveless and hopeless day by day; he faded away until, almost before any one knew it, the grave yawned to receive him. Poor, miserable, hopeless wreck—poor suicide, for his own sin and crime were the ...
— Manhood Perfectly Restored • Unknown
... reason were obvious). To show his confidence in me. (Napoleon's jaw does not exactly drop; but its hinges become nerveless. The Lieutenant proceeds with honest indignation.) And I was worthy of his confidence: I brought them all back honorably. But would you believe it?—when I trusted him with MY pistols, and MY ...
— The Man of Destiny • George Bernard Shaw
... the room, closing the studio doors behind him. Olga looked apprehensively about her. Some mysterious presence seemed to oppress her. She fumbled with nerveless fingers at the ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... whiskers, and young ladies were generally close observers and therefore good judges of such matters. Annie, finding it impossible to keep up even the pretense of talking any longer, sat helplessly staring at the floor, and waiting in nerveless despair for what he would say next, fairly hating Lou because she did ...
— Potts's Painless Cure - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... nothing to do; and idleness, everywhere, is the parent of vice. "There is scarcely anything," says the good old Quaker Wheeler, "so striking, or pitiable, as their aimless, nerveless ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... listless manner. His frame appeared loose and flexible; but it was vast, and in reality of prodigious power. It was, only at moments, however, as some slight impediment opposed itself to his loitering progress, that his person, which, in its ordinary gait seemed so lounging and nerveless, displayed any of those energies, which lay latent in his system, like the slumbering and unwieldy, but terrible, strength of the elephant. The inferior lineaments of his countenance were coarse, extended and vacant; while the superior, or those nobler parts which are thought to ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... instead of merely recommending his eldest son to the favour of his suzerain. Only a very few steps, a distance that might be bridged by a single resolute advance, had separated Partab Singh from the dignity of a full-blown independent prince, when the nerveless hands of the Ranjitgarh ruler were suddenly reinforced by the strong grasp of a British Resident upon the reins. For a short time it was doubtful whether the stiff-necked old Rajah would not put his fate to the ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... your head out of the hole you have a nose-breadth escape. If a hundredth part of the providential deliverances told in Ladysmith were true, it was a miracle that anybody in the place was alive after the first quarter of an hour. A day of this and you are a nerveless semi-corpse, twitching at a fly-buzz, a misery to yourself and ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... entr'acte, though the restless guests moved about, Hermia sat rooted to her chair, fascinated with horror. Her body seemed nerveless and she feared that if she rose her limbs would not support her, or, if they did support her, she must fly like a mad thing from the house. And so she sat, a fixed smile frozen on her lips, greeting those who approached her. Beatrice ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... around him looked at him with astonishment. Hitherto, during these great shocks, he had displayed an active coolness; but here it was a dead calm, a nerveless and sluggish inactivity. Some fancied they traced in it that dejection which is generally the follower of violent sensations: others, that he had already become indifferent to every thing, even to the emotion of battles. Several remarked, ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... eighteenth century. Those who dreaded and lamented its advances found it no difficult task to show that sometimes it was connected with Deistical or with Socinian or Arian views, sometimes with a visionary enthusiasm, sometimes with a weak and nerveless religion of sentiment. They could point also to the obvious fact that thorough scepticism, or even mere irreligion, often found a decent veil under plausible professions of a liberal Christianity. There were some, indeed, who, in the excitement of hostility or alarm, seemed to lose all power ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... hand to the floor,—with a sound like the first clatter of gravel on a coffin lid; and in abasement absolute he dropped his head; his hands nerveless, ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... he added with even greater fierceness; so that Pak Chung Chang's silver pipe dropped from his nerveless fingers and clattered on ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... of its real value."* (* Banks to Hunter, February 1, 1799. Historical Records of New South Wales 3 532.) If that was the feeling in 1799, we can imagine how a claim to the right to found a French settlement in Australia during the nerveless regime of Addington would have been received. It would not have delayed the signing of the Treaty of Amiens by one hour. England at that time would not have risked a frigate or spent an ounce of powder on resisting such a demand. But the subject does ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... of metal was the cross which his fingers still gripped. Boone examined it with a somewhat superstitious caution, took it from the nerveless fingers, and slipped it into a pocket of Pierre's shirt. A small cut on the boy's forehead showed where the stone struck which knocked him senseless, but the cut still bled—a small trickle—Pierre lived. He even stirred ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... of the ages past,— Where the brave chieftans; where the mighty ones Who flourished in the infancy of days? Ah to the grave gone down! On their fallen fame Exultant, mocking, at the pride of man, Sits grim Forgetfulness. The warrior's arm Lies nerveless on the pillow of its shame, Hushed is the stormy voice, and quenched the blaze ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... need I care for it? Nothing seems of value to me where you are not—I am nerveless, senseless, hopeless without you. My inspiration—such ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... bared, Bidding his armour-bearer thrust his sword Hilt-deep into his heart. "Better to die "By friendly hand," he cried, "than owe my death "To yonder hated victors. Quick! Thy sword! "Thrust deep and quickly!" But the faltering hand That held the sword fell nerveless. "Mighty King! "I dare not!" spake the trembling armourer. "Then by my own I die," exclaimed the King. And as he spake he poised the glittering blade Point upward from the earth, and moaning fell Upon the thirsty steel. The ruddy gush Came spurting ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... Nerveless and shaken with strangling sobs, she crept into the shelter of his arms, trusting him wholly now that his word was hers, pleading unconsciously that he save her from herself and from him. He lifted her to her feet, soothing her with touch and voice, forgetting ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... private interests, the jealousies of classes and of factions were too inveterate, for any large and wholesome form of popular government to be universally acceptable. Besides, the burghers had been reduced to a nerveless equality of servitude, in which ambition and avarice took the place of patriotism; while the corruption of morals, fostered by the Medici for the confirmation of their own authority, was so widely ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... her hand imprisoned—that fragrant, listless little hand, so lifeless, nerveless, unresponsive—as though it were no longer a part of her and she ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... disordered his brain. The constant apprehension of danger made him watchful, and his distempered imagination made him fancy that every sound was the footstep of his enemy. Watchful against this, he held his pistol in his nerveless grasp, feeling conscious at the same time how ineffectively he would use it if the need for its use should arise. The road before him wound round the hill up which he had clambered in such a way that but a small ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... long ago, a failure; first lapsing into Fourierism, and dying, as it well deserved, for this infidelity to its own higher spirit. Where once we toiled with our whole hopeful hearts, the town paupers, aged, nerveless, and disconsolate, creep sluggishly afield. Alas, what faith is requisite to bear up against such results of ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... so long as the plan is plainly revealed, it is easy for a courageous man to advance. But to such a one uncertainty is like a shock to the body, palsying the form and changing a strong arm into a nerveless, useless stick of bone and tissue. A cup may be very bitter, salt with the brine of tears and hot with the fire of vitriol, and yet, if all the ingredients in that cup are known to him who drinks it, grief has not reached its superlative. Socrates' ...
— The Heart-Cry of Jesus • Byron J. Rees
... fields in golden waves, the colors of the flowers sprang out, the soft cool air was like a supremely magnificent wine that could give old nerveless men the strength of young giants; and the very marrow of his bones seemed to shrink and scream for mercy. "Ought to 'a' done it at night," he said to himself. "Mr. Bates didn't wait till daylight. In the dark—that's it. At the prisons ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... courtesy excelled The kings his foes—imperial Saladin. But even as Raschi spake an abrupt noise Of angry shouts, of battering staves that shook The oaken portal, stopped the enchanted voice, The uplifted wine spilled from the nerveless hand Of Rabbi Jochanan. "God pity us! Our enemies are upon us once again. Hie thee, Rebekah, to the inmost chamber, Far from their wanton eyes' polluting gaze, Their desecrating touch! Kiss me! Begone! Raschi, my guest, my son"—But ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... taa-taa from my nerveless grasp. Half closing it, she swam directly toward the monster into whose widening throat she thrust the sharp-pointed instrument, in, in, until I thought she herself would follow it. And then, as she had intended, the point pierced ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... Cimarron the half-frozen Indian collapsed, falling from his saddle into the snow utterly exhausted. Staggering himself like a drunken man, the Sergeant dragged the nerveless body into a crevice of the bluff out of the wild sweep of the wind, trampled aside the snow into a wall of shelter, built a hasty fire, and poured hot coffee between the shivering lips. With the earliest gray of another ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... unhappy fate! {405} My mother sinks to the dark realms of night, Nor longer views this golden light; But to the ills of life exposed Leaves my poor orphan state! Her eyes, my father, see, her eyes are closed, And her hand nerveless falls. Yet hear me, O my mother, hear my cries! It is thy son who calls, Who prostrate on the earth breathes on thy lips ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... to the vessel, and, looking at its huge sides, Electra coveted even a deck passage; envied the meanest who hurried about, making all things ready for departure. The last bell rang; people crowded down on the planks; Russell hastened back to the carriage, and took the nerveless, gloved hand. ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... our vision, but each night brings back; We strive to hold their grandeur, and essay To be the thing we dream. Sudden we lack The flash of insight, life grows drear and gray, And hour follows hour, nerveless, slack. ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell
... provincial witenagemots, local jurisdictions, ceased to move at the royal bidding the moment the direct royal pressure was loosened or removed. Enfeebled as they were, the old provincial jealousies, the old tendency to severance and isolation lingered on and woke afresh when the crown fell to a nerveless ruler or to a child. And at the moment we have reached the royal power and the national union it embodied had to battle with fresh tendencies towards national disintegration which sprang like itself from the struggle with ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... the Shoe-ma-ker For all his goodly deeds,— Yea, bless him free for booting thee— The first of all thy needs! And when at last his eyes grow dim, And nerveless drops his clamp, In golden shoon pray think of him Upon his ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley
... Diregus had anticipated such an action, and called to Peters not to injure the poor insane fellow more than was necessary to prevent him from injuring others. Ahpilus was not dead—that is, he was not dead over his entire body: the hips and all below were as nerveless as the body of a corpse; but above the hips, the same old vigor remained—and so it would be though he lived for yet ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... comprehension so much more resembled their lady's than that of Miss Fulmort, and who made such intolerable blunders, that he bestowed on them more vituperation than, in their opinion, 'he had any call to;' and looked in a passion of despair at the numb, nerveless ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the threatened destruction of the Union, weakly apologized for the contemplated Treason, garrulously scolded the North as being to blame for it, and, while praying to God to "preserve the Constitution and the Union throughout all generations," wrung his nerveless hands in despair over his own powerlessness—as he construed the Constitution—to prevent Secession! Before writing his pitifully imbecile Message, President Buchanan had secured from his Attorney-General (Jeremiah S. ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... brain had drawn up held out a tiny spirit babe, and so real was the apparition that he put out a trembling hand. For a moment he groped blindly for something tangible in the nothingness before him. Then, with a groan, he let his arm fall nerveless to his side. The vision disappeared, and Lem's presence and even Fledra's faded; for Lon again felt the agonizing cracking of his bones under the prison strait-jacket, ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... schemes, that they were insufficient and in many respects objectionable; but that to give the administration hearty support in the most vigorous measures which it was willing to undertake, was better than to aid an opposition utterly nerveless and servile and altogether devoid of so much as the desire for efficient action. It was no time to stay with the party of weakness; it was right to strengthen rather than to hamper a man so pacific and spiritless as ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... The sea, too, although it reeled slightly, unsteadily rising only to fall away, what a radiance of color it maintained! Here in the garden the drowsy air would lift a flower petal, as some dreamer sunk in hasheesh slumber might touch a loved hand, only to let it slip away in nerveless impotence. Never had the charm of this Normandy sea-coast been as compelling; never had the divine softness of this air, this harmonious marriage of earth-scents and sea-smells seemed as perfect; never before had the delicacy of the foliage and color-gradations of the sky as triumphantly ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... office produced their natural effect. Either men refused to accept the office, which hence tended to fall into abeyance; or accepting it, they sank under its weight into spiritless creatures, cloistered recluses, from whose nerveless fingers the reins of government slipped into the firmer grasp of men who were often content to wield the reality of sovereignty without its name. In some countries this rift in the supreme power deepened into a total and permanent separation of the spiritual ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... returned home from Meredith's bedside and found Honor nerveless and prostrated with white cheeks and dark rings round her eyes, she was convinced that it was high time her daughter ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... almost dropped from his nerveless hand, and he regarded the Daughter of Zion with unspeakable rage and disdain. Then, the blood mounting in his face, he gathered himself together, and shouted: "You take yourself off that log and ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... certainly as one that contains no address to his reason. If sermons are full of emotion, and empty of arguments, they are invertebrate and produce but transient effects. If the sermon be simply and solely an intellectual effort it will be cold and nerveless and ineffective. You may convince a man beyond all possibility of contradiction or protest, and at the same time utterly fail to bring him to the decision you desire him to register. Probably an analysis of most of our congregations ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... scanty white hair streaming backward on the end of the pallet, which had been turned up to form a pillow. Over him and reaching from his feet to his breast, was drawn a sheet, and on that sheet lay one of his thin, wrinkled and nerveless hands. His eyes were shut, and he might have appeared to be asleep, but that ever and anon there broke from him one of those low but distinct groans indicative of severe inward pain, which had startled the two Zouaves. But the old man was not the most singular or the most painful ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... feel deeply sad at my own ruthlessness. It is frightful to contemplate the physical wreck of a being whom, in some strange and hideous way, one always feels to be oneself. When I look at him it is as if his fallen face, his hanging nerveless hands, his down-drooping figure and eyes lit with despair were mine. His poses, his gestures, his physical tricks, they are all mine. I watch them with a cold, enveloping disgust, frozen in criticism of everything he does, anticipating every movement, every look, ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... Afraid to touch a Brahman's sacred robes Or even mingle with his grief their tears. And when they reached the fragrant funeral-pile, Weeping they placed their dead on their last couch, The child within its father's nerveless arms; And when all funeral rites had been performed, The widow circled thrice the funeral-pile, Distributing her gifts with lavish hand, Bidding her friends a long and last farewell— Then stopped, and raised her tearless eyes and said: "Farewell, ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... was on the wretch's throat; but there was no occasion to use force: he recognized me, and nerveless, paralyzed, sank on the floor incapable of motion much less of resistance, and could only gaze in my face in ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... that led the sacred band Along the crimson field; The meteor blade sinks from the nerveless hand Over the ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... been the fashion to compare the style of Addison and Johnson, and to depreciate, I think very unjustly, the style of Addison as nerveless and feeble[661], because it has not the strength and energy of that of Johnson. Their prose may be balanced like the poetry of Dryden and Pope. Both are excellent, though in different ways. Addison writes with the ease of a gentleman. His readers ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... physic; and he drank on and on, every drop seeming to make it easier at last to think. And then the cup was being taken from his lips, and he tried to raise his hand to catch it and hold it so that he might drink more; but his arm fell as if nerveless, and he uttered ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... had finished playing "The Awakening of the Lion," the curtain rose, disclosing the nerveless Signore in purple tights and high-topped boots. A long, portable cage had been put together on the stage during the intermission, and within it the ten pacing beasts. There is something terrifying about the roar of a lion as ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... knock at the front door, and when I went, I found Inspector Johnstone had arrived, and brought with him one of his plainclothes men. You will understand how pleased I was to see there would be this addition to our watch; for he looked a tough, nerveless man, brainy and collected; and one I should have picked to help us with the horrible job I felt pretty sure we should have to do ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... visit mosques and bazaars which you feel sure call for insect-powder; you will see Arabian men knitting stockings in the street, and thinking it no shame; you will see countless eunuchs with their coal-black, beardless faces, their long, soft, nerveless hands, long legs, and the general make-up of a mushroom-boy who has outgrown his strength; you will hear the cawing of countless rooks and crows, and if you leave your window open these rascals will fly in and eat your fruit and sweets; you will see and hear the picturesque lemonade-vendor selling ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... to death, she opened her sleepless eyes upon Max's face. He was stooping over her, holding her nerveless hand very tightly in his own while he pressed a needle-point into her arm. That, she knew, was the preliminary to the winding-up process. It had happened to ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... silence for nearly a minute during which Gladwyne sat very still in nerveless dismay. All resistance had melted out of him, his weakness was manifest—he could not face a crisis, there ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... me. I will cross the bridge with you. But I couldn't stand anything quite so vigorous as the associations of the siege this afternoon. I'm going to the Boboli Gardens, to debauch myself with a final sense of nerveless despotism, as it expressed itself in marble allegory and formal alleys. The fact is that if I stay with you any longer I shall tell you something that I'm too old to tell and you're too old to hear." The old man smiled, but offered no urgence or comment, ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... sluggish," muttered Kenyon, to himself; "a weak, nerveless fool, devoid of energy and promptitude; or neither Donatello nor Miriam could have escaped me thus! They are aware of some misfortune that concerns me deeply. How soon am I ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... him, and never to be trusted for a moment. The reader now understands why we described the Ceylonese man as a tiger-cat in his noblest division: for, after all, these dangerous gentlemen in the peach-stone are a more promising race than the silky and nerveless population surrounding them. You can strike no fire out of the Cinghalese: but the Kandyans show fight continually, and would even persist in fighting, if there were in this world no gunpowder, (which exceedingly they dislike,) and if their allowance ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... is one of loss to England. The brilliant French conquests of Henry V (SS289, 290) slipped from the nerveless hands of his son, leaving France practically independent. The people's power to vote had been restricted (S297). The House of Commons had ceased to be democratic even in a moderate degree. Its members were all property holders elected by property holders (S297). Cade's rebellion was the ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... conveyance to America. But this emigration, however advisable for the departing, does little for those left behind, and is in the main detrimental to the country. The energetic, the daring, the high-spirited go, leaving the residue more abject and nerveless than ever. If Two Millions more were to leave the country next year, the condition of the remainder would not be essentially improved. Over population is not a leading ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... matter of a few seconds. Immelan, when he felt himself seized, scarcely struggled. The courage of his madness seemed to pass, the venom died out of his face, he shook like a man in an ague. Prince Shan kicked the revolver on one side and looked scornfully down upon him, now a nerveless wreck. ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... inaudible, As in the mazes of the Mammoth Cave, Fainter and fainter on the listening ear, The low, retreating voices die away. His eyes were closed; a gentle smile of peace Sat on his face. I held his nerveless hand, And bent my ear to catch his latest breath; And as the spirit fled the pulseless clay, I heard—or thought I heard—his ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... the Nashaway Valley blooming with the fruits of civilized labor; seeing new families filling the woeful gaps made in the old by Philip's warriors; seeing children and grandchildren grasping the implements that had fallen from the nerveless hold of the earliest bread-winners, with hopeful and pertinacious purpose to extend the paternal domain; seeing too, may we not trust, from the Pisgah height of prophetic vision the glorious promise awaiting ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various |
