"Strain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... be reached, but probably at a temperature too high for most of the refractory bodies known. Given, then, an electrode which can withstand to a very high limit the effect of the bombardment and outward strain, it would be safe no matter how much it is forced beyond that limit. In an incandescent lamp quite different considerations apply. There the gas is not at all concerned: the whole of the work is performed on the filament; and the life of ...
— Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High - Frequency • Nikola Tesla
... canvassings, the debates, the discussions, the harangues, and the variety of objections raised by the grandees of the country, that at the age of eighteen the beauteous bird of paradise, still unmated, warbled her virgin strain in the ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... himself, and promptly felt a breaking strain on his imprisoned arm. The knee of the Japanese was under the back of Orme's elbow. A moderate use of the leverage thus obtained would snap the arm like a pipe-stem. This Orme realized, as he ceased struggling. The strain on his ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... detraction; if it were not true, it would not be detraction but calumny—another and a very different fault. It would be well for such people to reflect for a moment, and ask themselves if their own character would stand the strain of having their secret sins and failings subjected to public criticism and censure, their private shortcomings heralded from every housetop. Would they, or would they not, consider themselves injured by such revelations? Then it would be in order for them ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... expending, but lived in strict and economical retirement, to justify the name of the Incorruptible, with which he was honoured by his partizans. He appears to have possessed little talent, saving a deep fund of hypocrisy, considerable powers of sophistry, and a cold exaggerated strain of oratory, as foreign to good taste, as the measures he recommended were to ordinary humanity. It seemed wonderful, that even the seething and boiling of the revolutionary cauldron should have sent up from the bottom, and long supported on ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... himself up to the technical study of law, political economy and administrative history; if, for twenty years, he secluded himself and devoted himself to his task—at what a cost of prolonged effort, with what a strain his mental faculties, with what weariness and often with what dissatisfaction!—if he shortened his life, it was to discharge what he deemed a duty to that suffering France which he loved with tender and silent passion, the duty of aiding in her cure by establishing ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... downy pillows lye, Whose soft plumes will thither fly: On these roses, strew'd so plain Lest one leaf thy side should strain. SOUL. ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... At the outset, the King fought shy of your raillery, but in a thousand discreditable ways you set your cap at him and forced him to pay you attention. If all the letters written to me (all of them in the same strain) are not preconcerted, if your misconduct is such as I am told it is, if you have dishonoured and disgraced your husband, then, madame, expect all that your excessive imprudence deserves. At this distance ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... you the public's envied favours gain? Ceaseless, in writing, variegate the strain; The heavy author, who the fancy calms, Seems in one tone to chant his ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... As when rival muscles tussle, Highland lad or British tar, 'Tis a furious fight a outrance, knitted, knotted each to each, Heels firm-planted, hands tense-clenching, till the knobby knuckles bleach. Federated Masters straggle, Federated Toilers strain, Each intent on selfish interest, each on individual gain, And a chasm yawns between them, and a gulf is close behind! What is the most likely issue of such conflict fierce and blind? Unionism 'gainst Free Labour, Capital against mere Toil! Is it better than two tigers fighting for ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., Nov. 1, 1890 • Various
... then easygoing man disposes of them. More often the faculties of the crocodile are disappointingly acute. He is visible for such a fragment of time that the authoritative man who has promised sport looks foolish and tries to relieve the strain by the relation of anecdotes in which circumstances have not been all in favour of the illusive creature. He tells of the slumbering one which lay on a mud-bank with its jaws distended, weary of the monotony of the mangroves, and took but sleepy notice when upbraided ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... prizes I've took with that there parsley one time and another," pursued Mr. Battershall, not perceiving the flush of guilt on her face (for his eyesight was, in his own words, not so young as it used to be). "Goodbody's Curly Mammoth is the strain, and I don't care who knows it, for the secret's not in the strain, but in the way o' raisin' it. I grows for a succession, too. Summer or winter these six-an'-twenty years St. Hospital's ne'er been without a fine bed o' parsley, I thank ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... wrote a single volume of lyrical poems, which he gradually enlarged in succeeding editions. He was a consummate artist in verse, and his impressions are given with the most delicate exactitude of phrase, and in a very fine strain of imagination. He was a quietist and an epicurean, and the closest parallel to Horner in the literature of the North. Most of Bdtcher's poems deal with Italian life, which he learned to know thoroughly during a long residence in Rome. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... likely this task is set them as a punishment. As the mill revolves a slave girl pours the grain into a hole in the center of the upper millstone. As the hot, slow work goes on, the two toilers chant together a snatch from an old mill song, and we catch the monotonous strain:— ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... permission, I will translate. 'Washish squashish,' and so forth:—that is to say, 'I am happy to find, my dear Sinbad, that you are really a very excellent fellow; we are now about doing a thing which is called circumnavigating the globe; and since you are so desirous of seeing the world, I will strain a point and give you a free passage upon ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... lunch she told him triumphantly that she had refused all the invitations which had come for him since his arrival, on account of his health. She had told everybody that he had come home for perfect rest and quiet, which he much needed after the strain of his parliamentary duties; and as one of the notes at least would be read at a public meeting to explain his absence therefrom, and would afterward appear in the papers probably, she had made it impossible for him to go anywhere during his stay. Mr. Kilroy could not complain, however, ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... Uncle John, "you three girls have endured a long period of hard work and nervous strain, and you need a rest. I'm awfully proud of you all; proud of your noble determination and courage as well as the ability you have demonstrated as nurses. You have unselfishly devoted your lives for three ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne
... instant the opportunity were given, and avenge the atrocious massacre of neighbors and friends. The only hope that he had was to secure the girl while attempting to reach this place of safety, and there could be no doubt he would strain ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... stood, bewilder'd on the deck: The wind sung, cordage strain'd, and sailors swore, And the ship creak'd, the town became a speck, From which away so fair and fast they bore. The best of remedies is a beef-steak Against sea-sickness: try it, sir, before You sneer, and I ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... but the majority of us, even the most thoughtful, go on weighing a great many, and then in the most important moments of our lives forget all about the balance or the mental weights and scales, and so it was that, all in an instant, Paul Capel, unable longer to bear the mental strain, rose quickly from his seat, took two strides forward, and grasped ...
— The Dark House - A Knot Unravelled • George Manville Fenn
... far later period I chanced to speak of these particulars with a doctor of medicine, a man of so high a reputation that I scruple to adduce his name. By his view of it, father and son both suffered from the same affection: the father from the strain of his unnatural sorrows—the son, perhaps in the excitation of the fever; each had ruptured a vessel in the brain, and there was probably (my doctor added) some predisposition in the family to accidents of that description. The father ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Great Britain, in which he very plainly taxes that monarch with having instigated him to commence hostilities; and insists upon his remembering the engagements by which he was so solemnly bound. From the strain of this letter, and the Prussian king's declaration to the British minister when he first set out for Saxony, importing that he was going to fight the king of England's battles, a notion was generally conceived that those two powers had agreed to certain private pacts or conventions, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... Heaven's command, Arose from out the azure main, This was the charter of the land, And guardian angels sung this strain: Rule, Britannia, rule the waves, Britons never ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... had never made the Harbor But there sailed away with him Wife or child or friend or lover, Leaving eyes to strain and swim,— ...
— Ballads of Lost Haven - A Book of the Sea • Bliss Carman
... breakfast. It is a wise rule, in outdoor or sea bathing, to come out of the water as soon as the glow of reaction is felt. It is often advisable not to apply cold water very freely to the head. Tepid or even hot water is preferable, especially by those subject to severe mental strain. But it is often a source of great relief during mental strain to bathe the face, neck, and chest freely at bedtime with cold water. It often proves efficient at night in calming the sleeplessness which ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell
... marvellously, and when at last sight died out among them the race lived on. They had even time to adapt themselves to the blind control of fire, which they made carefully in stoves of stone. They were a simple strain of people at the first, unlettered, only slightly touched with the Spanish civilisation, but with something of a tradition of the arts of old Peru and of its lost philosophy. Generation followed generation. They forgot many things; they devised many things. ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... Skimpole began to talk, for the first time since our arrival, in his usual gay strain. He said, Well, it was really very pleasant to see how things lazily adapted themselves to purposes. Here was this Mr. Gridley, a man of a robust will and surprising energy—intellectually speaking, a sort of inharmonious blacksmith—and he could easily imagine that there Gridley was, ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... to the sacred Sun in Memnon's fane Spontaneous concords choired the matin strain; Touched by his orient beam responsive rings The living lyre and vibrates all its strings; Accordant aisles the tender tones prolong, And holy echoes swell ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... Besides which, we have had to decide what frocks to take with us on the yacht, and that is such a mental strain. ...
— The Admirable Crichton • J. M. Barrie
... pleasantly and swiftly at "Layton." Every day brought some new pleasure or excitement for the O'Connors, and Denis Quirk did his utmost to make them forget the strain that they had just been through. He proved that he could play as strenuously as he was accustomed to work, and that he was still a ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... ordinary things. One that would go a strain beyond himself, and is taken in it. A man that overdoes all things with great solemnity of circumstance; and whereas with more negligence he might pass better, makes himself with a great deal of endeavour ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... this strain, not sorrowing for the poor boy, but abusing her son, who was a soldier in the Army ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... raging battle of motives occupy the center of the field while all else, even the sense of time, place and existence, gave way in the face of this conflict! This struggle continues until the decision is made, when suddenly all the stress and strain drop out and other objects may again have place ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... a man. They entreated the Rajah to let them follow Lingi and take his head—never again would they take a head, only Lingi's, the Rajah's enemy and their own. Of course they were refused, and it must have been a terrible strain on their affection and fealty to the Rajah, not in this instance to follow the traditions of their ancestors, and gratify their personal revenge by killing a traitor. But they obeyed, and Lingi got safely back to Sarebas, little knowing how narrowly he escaped. ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... certain pace. There is no way to hurry the operation and get speedily over the difficulties. Any attempt to quicken the pace results only in a fall. The shoe cannot be pushed ahead as when the snow is well-packed or crusted. It has to be deliberately lifted, putting the leg tendons to an unnatural strain. ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... Far from shunning the barn, he hung about it constantly. Moreover, he was always present when the cows were milked, morning and night. He had a playful trick of dipping his own tin cup into the foaming pail, and scampering away with it full to the brim. Nobody objected to that. If he chose to strain a point, and drink unstrained milk, he was ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Inasmuch as language has retreated ever more and more from its true province—the expression of strong feelings, which it was once able to convey in all their simplicity—and has always had to strain after the practically impossible achievement of communicating the reverse of feeling, that is to say thought, its strength has become so exhausted by this excessive extension of its duties during the comparatively short ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... lost to all honorable ambition, as that in their secret souls they would rather not see whales than otherwise. But all in vain; those young Platonists have a notion that their vision is imperfect; they are short-sighted; what use, then, to strain the visual nerve? They have left their opera-glasses at home. Why, thou monkey, said a harpooneer to one of these lads, we've been cruising now hard upon three years, and thou hast not raised a whale yet. Whales are scarce as hen's teeth whenever ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... correspondent's choice of subjects and great plainness of speech; but he read what the Major had to say of Fontenoy, of the winter weather and the ailing slaves, of Mustapha, of county deaths and marriages, of the books he had been reading, and the men to whom he wrote. Major Edward's strain was ironic, fine, and very humanly lonely. Jacqueline's eyes filled with tears, and all the flames of the fire ran ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... his designs, joined in, in the same strain. Zoe presently entered into their mood, and they seemed, as in fact they were, a light-hearted and happy little breakfast party; both Arthur and Ella feeling greatly relieved by the favorable change in their cousin, not for Zoe's sake alone, but also because ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... necessary accompaniment of distinction. He longed to be aristocratically indifferent to money, and it humiliated him that not only was he not rich, but that to keep up the style of living his position demanded involved no inconsiderable strain. And, as a matter of fact, his financial position was precarious and depended entirely upon the fluctuating and speculative income he derived from the business of Blum & Co. Obviously, therefore, Mr. Maurice Blum was not a person with whom Bale could afford to quarrel. Wherefore he mastered his ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... said Clive, laughing away the strain that still fettered his speech a little. "You may have quarts if ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... employs all nations; and all cry, "Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain for us!" The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks Shout to each other, and the mountain-tops From distant mountains catch the flying joy; Till, nation after nation taught the strain, Earth rolls the rapturous Hosanna round. Behold the measure of the promise fill'd! See Salem built, the labor of a God! Bright as a sun the sacred city shines: All kingdoms and all princes of the Earth ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... the year you can show yourselves to him who can see you, but that the place where you were wicked is the Hades to which you are doomed for ages.' I thought and thought till I began to feel the air alive about me, and was enveloped in the vapours that dim the eyes of those who strain them for one peep through the dull mica windows that will not open on the world of ghosts. At length I cast my fancies away, and fled from them to the library, where the bodily presence of Laetitia made the world of ghosts ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... crowding the balconies and windows of the tall houses on either side of the way. But to the little group of friends gathered in the room where Bessie lay it was the holy Sabbath time, and, save when by the opening of some door across the hall a strain of music or shout of merriment was borne to their ears, they would never have guessed what was passing. The fever had burned itself out on Bessie's cheeks and left them colorless as marble; while in her eyes, so large and ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... lower part can no longer carry the weight of the superstructure, and the first signs of weakness begin to show themselves in the oldest and lowest portion of the whole. Carefully repaired, when the weakness is noticed at all, it can bear a little more, and again a little, but at last the breaking strain is reached, the tall building totters, the highest pinnacles topple over, then the upper story collapses, and the end comes either in the crash of a great falling or, by degrees, in the irreparable ruin of ages. But when all is over, and wind and weather and time ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... however; Ellen's senses soon came back; but she seemed like a person stunned with a great blow, and Alice wished grief had had any other effect upon her. It lasted for days. A kind of stupor hung over her; tears did not come; the violent strain of every nerve and feeling seemed to have left her benumbed. She would sleep long, heavy sleeps the greater part of the time, and seemed to have no power ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... requisite tackle, and we will tell you what is necessary, both for small and large fish, in as few words as we possibly can. A ROD specially adapted for trolling is almost a necessity, as it is a great strain upon an ordinary fly-rod to have the weight of 30 or 40 yards of line upon it: even a good rod is apt to get an ugly bend from such treatment. The rod for trolling need not be long—12 to 14 feet is quite sufficient—but it must be stiff; and we consider that the rings through ...
— Scotch Loch-Fishing • AKA Black Palmer, William Senior
... was almost a roar. Spencer's temper, always uncertain, had been severely tried that morning, and was rapidly giving way under the strain of bitter disappointment. "I ran up against Foster in those Senate lobby charges, and of all the cantankerous—" He paused expressively, then added, "I used to have a high regard for his sagacity and business ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... of it in New York—copying out instructions, taking notes of marriages and intermarriages in 1690, and writing each day a long, pleading letter to Bessie. There was a double strain upon me: all the arrangements for my client's claims, and in an undercurrent the arguments to overcome Bessie's decision, went on in my brain ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... wind laughs, the low wind broods; There is no sorrow in the strain! Of all the voices of the woods, That haunt these houseless solitudes, Not one has any ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... exhausted and spent with the long strain, the terrible fatigues of the past thirty-six hours, she had lain down and had dropped off to sleep. There she lay at full length. Very beautiful she looked, half seen in the morning gloom. One arm crossed her full bosom; the other pillowed her cheek. ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... fight and he would sing; he would laugh with his foe and then courteously kill him; he would know how to enter the presence, how to make a great Queen smile and sigh; and then again, amid the thunder and reek of the fight, on decks slippery with blood, he would strain, half naked, with the mariners, he would lead the boarders, he would deal death with a flashing sword and a face that seen through the smoke wreaths was so calm and high!—And the Queen might knight him—one day the Queen might knight him. And the people at home, ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... sweet crowns'-worth of bane; Could I with money buy thee back once more, The treasury of Plutus I would drain. But ah! not he the god I must implore; To have thee back, I need Apollo's vein. . . 'Twixt thee and me how hard a barrier-line, To ask for verse! Ah! this is all my strain! Adieu, adieu, poor box of mine; Adieu; ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... in secular history that strain the faith of the reader to such a degree as the feats of Joshua. Moses, with his manna and pillar of light in the wilderness and his dazzling pyrotechnics on Mount Sinai, fades into insignificance before ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... its stupid refuges of lies and ignominious wrappages, and of intimating to it afar off that there is still a Veracity in Things, and a Mendacity in Sham Things,' and so forth, in the well-known strain.[17] It is impossible to overrate the truly supreme importance of the violent break-up of Europe which followed the death of the Emperor Charles VI., and in many respects 1740 is as important a date in the history of Western societies ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley
... hark, hark, hark! peace, peace, O, peace! O sweet, admirable, swanlike, heavenly! hark, O most mellifluous strain! O, what a pleasant close was there! O ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... have wondered, why no letter has come from me. What you wrote at your return, had in it such a strain of cowardly caution as gave me no pleasure. I could not well do what you wished; I had no need to vex you with a refusal. I have seen Mr. ——[596], and as to him have set all right, without any inconvenience, so far as I know, to you. Mrs. Thrale had forgot ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... before dawn this time, and the attack was preceded by a protracted and exceedingly intense bombardment of the German positions. The Germans, exhausted by the long strain of constant counter-attacks, found the Canadians in their midst with little warning. But the defenders did not give up without a struggle, and ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... all through the operation—he always is, with the strain. But he turned red all over when they cheered, and just said: 'Thank you, gentlemen.' It really was a wonderful thing, Mr. Chester, even in these days. Only one man has done it, a German, and he has done it only twice. Doctor Burns will be distinguished ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... the improvements in the modes of manufacture, and the undoubted strength of the metal under certain circumstances, nevertheless we find that steel has not altogether met the requirements of engineers as a structural material. Although its breaking strain and elastic limit are higher than those of wrought iron, the latter metal is frequently preferred and selected for tensile members, even when steel is used under compression in the same structure. The Niagara cantilever bridge is a notable ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887 • Various
... the triremes had become sodden with water, which made them leaky, and difficult to row. Moreover the crews, which were largely composed of foreign seamen, had grown restive and mutinous under the severe strain of hardships and privation, so different from the easy and lucrative service in the hope of which they had enlisted. Some took the first opportunity of deserting to the enemy, while others ran away to remote parts of Sicily; and there was no means of filling ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... think it would be better for her not to meet them till she is stronger. Her continual anxiety and effort to please would be too much strain.' ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... five seconds more he sate immovably, like one that mused on some great purpose. For five he sate with eyes upraised, like one that prayed in sorrow, under some extremity of doubt, for wisdom to guide him towards the better choice. Then suddenly he rose; stood upright; and, by a sudden strain upon the reins, raising his horse's forefeet from the ground, he slewed him round on the pivot of his hind legs, so as to plant the little equipage in a position nearly at right angles to ours. Thus ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... a small amount of risk in travelling in wet weather, for when a camel does slip he does so with a vengeance; each foot seems to take a different direction and thus, spread-eagled under a heavy load, he might suffer a severe strain or even break a bone. Redleap fell once, but, happily, neither hurt ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... there were three causes went to it. There is a certain man named Dandy Dulcimer, that I had a very loving regard for, and I thought it against his aise and comfort to ask him to strain his poor bones by hard work. I accordingly substituted pure idleness for it, which is a delightful thing in its way. There, sir, is two of the causes—love of melody and a strong but virtuous disinclination to work. The third—" but here he paused ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... list'ning Muses all around her Think 'tis Phoebus' strain they hear; And Cupid, drawing near to wound her, Drops his bow, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... organic matter than those of old animals. In compact bones, also, the organic matter is greater than in spongy bones. The thigh-bone, of all the bones, contains most inorganic matter. In short, bones which have to bear the greatest strain are richest in inorganic matter. Of the bones of animals, fish-bones exhibit the greatest variety of composition, some being almost entirely made up of organic matter, while others are similar in their composition to the ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman
... which they were not haunted by the thought of money. They would no sooner escape, as by a miracle, from one difficulty, than a new one would come into view. In addition to all their physical hardships, there was thus a constant strain upon their minds; they were harried all day and nearly all night by worry and fear. This was in truth not living; it was scarcely even existing, and they felt that it was too little for the price they paid. They were willing to work all the time; and ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... difficult problems as the civilised European in his different surroundings. That these problems are made up of elements differing from those that constitute the problems of the civilised man in his daily avocation proves only a difference of content, not of difficulty. The mental strain involved in leading the so-called simple life of the so-called savage is, on the whole, no less intense than that suffered by the civilised man in maintaining his civilised existence. In the all-surrounding air of superstition and mutual suspicion in which the African moves and ...
— The Black Man's Place in South Africa • Peter Nielsen
... against the first icy precipice the danger had come unexpectedly, out of a concealing cloud, and anticipation was swallowed up in the event. But now we had to bear the fearful strain of expectation, with the paralyzing knowledge that nothing that we could do could aid us in the least. I thought that even Edmund's face paled ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... could not sleep; the night-lamp was extinguished, and all his ringing failed to arouse the valet-de-chambre, who had gone to sleep out of the house with an opera-dancer. At length the prince determined to rise himself, and to rouse one of his people. He had not proceeded far when a strain of delicious melody met his ear. Like one enchanted, he followed the sound, and found Biondello in his room playing upon the flute, with his fellow-servants assembled around him. The prince could hardly believe ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... problem are that the hall should be large enough to accommodate with dignity a number of members sufficient both for the representation of interests and the carrying out of committee work, and not too large for each member to listen without strain to a debate. The resultant size will represent a compromise among these elements, accommodating a number smaller than would be desirable if the need of representation and dignity alone were to be considered, and larger than it would be if ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... irritability. Miss Iris confided to Desmond, who paid her much court, that she couldn't imagine what was the matter with papa. And mamma, it transpired (from the same source), really feared that the strain at Lord's had been too much, that her indefatigable husband was about to break down. Finally, John made up his mind to ask a question. He was second in command; he had a right to ask the chief if anything were seriously amiss. Accordingly, ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... vary with the brook, the season, and the fisherman. Should one use a three-foot leader, or none at all? Whose rods are best for bait-fishing, granted that all of them should be stiff enough in the tip to lift a good fish by dead strain from a tangle of brush or logs? Such questions, like those pertaining to the boots or coat which one should wear, the style of bait-box one should carry, or the brand of tobacco best suited for smoking in the wind, are topics for unending discussion among ...
— Fishing with a Worm • Bliss Perry
... the tower, fair Melisendra lies, Her heart is far away in France, and tears are in her eyes; The twilight shade is thickening laid on Sansuena's plain, Yet wistfully the lady her weary eyes doth strain. ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... "from the high cost of gloves to a strike of lady manicures. Don't strain your intellect over it, though. If he's still in Coffee Creek there shouldn't be much ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... the rifles of the savages answered in a never-ending volley all around him. The leaden slugs droned past his ears as thick as swarming bees; the plunging hoofs showed through the brown dust-clouds, and his arms ached from the strain of the tie-ropes. ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... limbs out from the trunk horizontally. As Dr. Holmes says: "The others shirk the work of resisting gravity, the oak defies it. It chooses the horizontal direction for its limbs so that their whole weight may tell, and then stretches them out fifty or sixty feet so that the strain may be mighty enough to be worth resisting." Some trees have limbs which droop toward the ground, while those of most, perhaps, have an upward tendency, and others still have an upward direction at first and later in their growth a downward inclination, as in the case of the ...
— Arbor Day Leaves • N.H. Egleston
... sugar and 1/2 cup strawberries to 2 cups boiling water; bring to a boil and strain; add one tablespoon cornstarch which has been mixed with little cold water. Cook over hot fire for a minute or two, stirring constantly; remove from fire and beat hard; return to slow fire, cook very gently until thick. Pour while hot ...
— The New Dr. Price Cookbook • Anonymous
... shows Her hues, white lily and pink rose, And in her laughing eyes the snares That hearts entangle unawares. Ah, woe to men if Love should yield His arrows to this girl to wield Even in play, for she would give Sore wounds that none might take and live. Yet no such wanton strain is hers, Nor Leda's child and Jupiter's Is she, though swans no softer are Than whom she fairer is by far. For she was born beside the rill That gushes from Parnassus' hill, And by the bright Pierian spring She shall receive an offering ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... already I knew enough to doubt the wisdom of what he was at present undertaking. In all intellectual labour, his will prevailed so strongly when he fixed it on any object of desire, that what else its attainment might exact was never duly measured; and this led to frequent strain and unconscious waste of what no man could less afford to spare. To the world gladdened by his work, its production might always have seemed quite as easy as its enjoyment; but it may be doubted if ever any man's ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... former in the same strain—"it is possible Miss Haviland may be willing to qualify her last remark a little, when she is reminded of the existence of a certain marriage contract, to which she voluntarily ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... mansion? Should he not rather have wished her to determine to tear his image from her heart, and be happy in a second choice? I aim to recommend practical and praise-worthy self-denial, not that romantic strain of extravagant sentiment which enjoins impossibilities and commends absurdities. Arthur's reflections told him that in treasuring the remembrance of Isabel, even in his heart-of-heart, he invaded no one's right, and broke no divine precept. He measured the feelings of his mistress by his own. "Whatever," ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... the Calydonians as citizens, (2) were under the necessity of garrisoning their new possession. The reason was, that the Arcarnanians were threatening the place with an army, and were aided by contingents from Athens and Boeotia, who were anxious to help their allies. (3) Under the strain of this combined attack the Achaeans despatched ambassadors to Lacedaemon, who on arrival complained of the unfair conduct of Lacedaemon towards themselves. "We, sirs," they said, "are ever ready to serve in your armies, in obedience to whatever ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... in the following elegiac strain, which did not fail to touch our sympathies. "I can't tell what will become of us after 1840. Our negroes will be taken away from us—we shall find no work to do ourselves—we shall all have to beg, and who shall ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... selfishly hoarded, and to whose names, as to that of the late Jay Gould, there is attached in the mind of the people a distinct note of infamy. But this was not in general the character of the American millionaire. There were those of nobler strain who felt a responsibility commensurate with the great power conferred by great riches, and held their wealth as in trust for mankind. Through the fidelity of men of this sort it has come to pass that the era of great fortunes in America has become conspicuous in ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... the family, this symbol of creation, sleeping under the wing of God, of our consciousness withdrawing into the shade that it may rest from the burden of thought, and of the tomb, that divine bed, where the soul in its turn rests from life. To sleep is to strain and purify our emotions, to deposit the mud of life, to calm the fever of the soul, to return into the bosom of maternal nature, thence to re-issue, healed and strong. Sleep is a sort of innocence and purification. Blessed be He who gave it to the poor sons of men as the sure and faithful companion ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... for few persons in this land of mixed blood could boast a greater mixture than his. Practically all the ethnic elements, perhaps even the Negrito in the far past, combined in his blood. All his ancestors, except the doubtful strain of the Negrito, had been immigrants to the Philippines, early Malays, and later Sumatrans, Chinese of prehistoric times and the refugees from the Tartar dominion, and Spaniards of old Castile and Valencia—representatives of all the various peoples ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... spokesman, said: "The true interests of Great Britain and her plantations are mutual, and what God in His providence has united, let no man dare attempt to pull asunder." Governor Bernard, however, who inferred from this strain of remark that the province would soon recover its reputation for loyalty, seriously overrated its significance. When the General Assembly of Massachusetts met in 1764, Otis, as chairman of the Committee of Correspondence, drew ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 4, April, 1886 • Various
... during which he seems prosecuting the thought, for he has already commenced further remark in similar strain, when suddenly a new and ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... inception of his life could be traced to a night of dissipation on the part of his father. Physical degeneracy and mental derangements are too often caused by the parents producing offspring while laboring under great mental strain or bodily fatigue. Drunkenness and licentiousness are frequently the heritage of posterity. Future generations demand that such results be averted by better prenatal influences. The world is groaning under the curse of chance parenthood. It is due to posterity that ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... the first dash of the rain, With a sprinkle of spray above the rails, Just enough to moisten our sails, And make them ready for the strain. See how she leaps, as the blasts o'ertake her, And speeds away with a bone in her mouth! Now keep her head toward the south, And there is no danger of bank or breaker. With the breeze behind us, on we go; Not too much, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... to any of the fathers of the first three centuries. They all concur in describing the elements, after consecration, as bread and wine; they all represent them as passing through the usual process of digestion; and they all speak of them as symbols of the body and blood of Christ. In this strain Justin Martyr discourses of "that bread which our Christ has commanded us to offer in remembrance of His being made flesh, ... and of that cup which He commanded those that celebrate the Eucharist to offer in remembrance of His blood." [487:3] According to Clement ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... preserve, the same tranquil air of interest toward them all—a tranquillity and interest which generally required no effort—some of the people she met in the day's work subconsciously aroused a feeling of antagonism in her, some secretly amused her, some irritated her, some made her feel under a strain, and some even had the queer, vampirish effect of leaving her washed out and listless—psychological puzzles which she had never been able to solve. But with Archey she always felt restful and contented, ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... life was so great that I no longer took the least bit of pains with myself; often now I was scolded for looking so unkempt, and for having dirty, ink-stained hands. . . . But if I continue in this strain I will succeed in making my recital as tedious as were ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... shrewdest, and he drew breath of blessed relief when the last man staggered up the plank with his burden. The bell was clanging its final summons, and the slowly revolving paddle-wheels were taking the strain from the mooring lines. Being near the bow line Griswold was one of the two who sprang ashore at the mate's bidding to cast off. He was backing the hawser out of the last of its half-hitches when a carriage was driven rapidly down to the stage and two tardy passengers ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... success in business life. The question was, perhaps, whether the type of man who was pre-eminently successful in promoting his own pecuniary interests was necessarily the best type of public man. Was the average character equal to the strain of many years of concentration on money-making to the exclusion of public interests? When men emerged from the sphere of concentrated money-making, were they worth so very much as public men? Might not the values of ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... man in a neighboring city who was given up to die; his relatives were sent for, and they watched at his bedside. But an old acquaintance, who called to see him, assured him smilingly that he was all right and would soon be well. He talked in such a strain that the sick man was forced to laugh; and the effort so roused his system that he rallied, and he was ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... reach the oar?" Katherine cried, her voice hoarse, for she could hardly endure the strain ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... it love and pain The passion of her strain; And yet we little understand or know: Why should it not be rather joy that so ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... had been more of a strain on Jimmie than he appreciated; and the night the Ceramic sailed he slept the drugged sleep of complete nervous exhaustion. Late the next morning, while he still slept, a passenger on the Ceramic stumbled upon ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... but under cover of her burnous gave Archie's hand a sympathetic squeeze, for his arms were unfolded now, as if the strain was over, and one lay on his knee while with the other he wiped his hot forehead with an ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... any moment to receive an intimation that, owing to unforseen circumstances (which might not be explained) the Countess and her party were unable to carry out the arrangement they had entered into with us. But Thursday passed, and nothing happened. Friday wore on towards evening, and the constant strain upon my nerves had made me irritable. Terry, who was calmly getting ready for the start as if there were no cause for uncertainty, chaffed me on my state of mind, and I rounded upon him viciously, for was not all my scheming for ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... at Lewisham with the exaggerated mildness of his spectacled eye. "What do you think it means?" he asked. "Has he gone mad? We have been conducting some experiments involving—considerable mental strain. He and ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... structures, was scarcely true with respect to mechanical agencies. I proposed a simple experiment with chain cables, which, it occurred to me, would show quite a different result—namely, that the capability of resisting the severest proof-strain would rise rather than fall at each successive proof of the ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... there with every nerve on the strain, listening, while the dog whined uneasily, took a trot round the fire, and returned to the door, to stand with his head on one ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... a terrible ordeal, no doubt, and one that would hardly be approved of to-day, the publicity uniting with the severity to make it a cruel strain upon a boy's nervous system. In all the years that Bert spent at Dr. Johnston's school he was called upon to endure it only once, but that once sufficed. The way it ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... this well who now are rich and strong Young gentlemen of Anjou and Touraine, That far from them, on hostile bonds I strain. They loved me much, but have not loved me long. Their plains will see no more fair lists arrayed, ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... polite and courteous as her husband. Having begged me to be seated, and made various common-place inquiries, he led his brother out of the room, while the old lady continued the conversation in the same formal strain. When I inquired for Sophie, expressing my hope that she had recovered from the fatigues of the voyage, she answered that her daughter was in her room, and that she did not think she would be able to ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston
... the art shown at the Paris Autumn Salon you ask yourself: This whirlpool of jostling ambitions, crazy colours, still crazier drawing and composition—whither does it tend? Is there any strain of tendency, any central current to be detected? Is it young genius in the raw, awaiting the sunshine of success to ripen its somewhat terrifying gifts? Or is the exhibition a huge, mystifying blague? What, you ask, as you apply wet compresses to your weary eyeballs, blistered by ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... and in the same instant struck something harder. Wesley Bender's bundle of books had given him no such shock as he received now, and if the creek bottom had not been of mud, just there, the top of his young head might have declined the strain. Half stunned, choking, spluttering he somehow floundered to his feet; and when he could get his eyes a little cleared of water he found himself wavering face to face with a blurred vision of Milla Rust. She had risen up out of the pod and stood knee deep, like a lovely drenched figure ...
— Ramsey Milholland • Booth Tarkington
... we made only twelve miles the rest of the day, so slowly did we have to drive. Besides, we were continually expecting that tongue to give way again, and the strain was bad for our nerves. When we came at sunset to the junction of the Black River trail with ours, Kate resolutely turned the shaganappies ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... a few feet away. For her he darted, and dropped suddenly into her lap a big-eyed, hump-back toad. Instantly there followed a wild shriek of terror, as the spinster leaped from her chair, sending the innocent toad sprawling upon the floor. The strain was too much for Miss Arabella, and she properly collapsed, much to the consternation of the ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... undertaken in a certain spirit, such work might be the holiest of all. If there were but a thread or two of sound fiber here and there left in our modern religion, so that the stuff of it would bear a real strain, one might address our two opposite groups of evangelicals and ritualists somewhat after this fashion:—"Good friends, these differences of opinion between you cannot but be painful to your Christian charity, and they are unseemly to us, the profane; and prevent us from learning ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... to pull out the wrinkles towards the corners. Now go back to the ends: stretch, and place one tack each side of the first one. In a large canvas you may put two each side, but not more, and you must be sure that the strain is even on both sides. Don't pull too much; for next you must do the same with the other end which should bear half of the whole stretch. Do just the same now with the two sides. Now continue stretching ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... "This here strain is gittin' to be too much fer me, Mr. Crow. I can't keep it up much longer. I'm breakin' down. I been thinkin' it over, an' I can't see any way out of it except to go to jail ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... seems so far from our own as that of our great-grandfathers. The lovers of the Middle Ages and of the sixteenth century appear to us natural and healthy beings. Those of the eighteenth seem sentimental and foolish. In the case of Rousseau's great novel this effect is increased by the morbid strain of the author's mind. With him all passion tends to assume unhealthy shapes, and the very breezes of Lake Leman come laden ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... to divide sharply, with severance of particles, as by a blow or strain. To burst is to break by pressure from within, as a bombshell, but it is used also for the result of violent force otherwise exerted; as, to burst in a door, where the door yields as if to an explosion. To crush is to break by pressure from without, as an egg-shell. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... of the colored race, the population is diminishing instead of increasing. The French creoles seem to have lost the power of maintaining themselves, in proportion to the existing means of subsistence, and of multiplying. Families which do not from time to time fortify themselves with a strain of fresh European blood, die out in from three to four generations. The same thing happens in the English, but not in the Spanish Antilles, although the climate and the natural surroundings are the same. According to Ramon de la Sagra, the death-rate is ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... reached the kitchen, they found Effie with nose a-tilt and eyes suspiciously red. At sight of them she burst into a loud and cheerful strain: ...
— A Little Question in Ladies' Rights • Parker Fillmore
... THE AUDIENCE) What is going to happen, friends? 'Tis the critical hour. Ah! if there is some initiate of Samothrace(1) among you, 'tis surely the moment to wish this messenger some accident—some sprain or strain. ...
— Peace • Aristophanes
... passed in turn, farther up the valley. Each has its specialty and its limited but believing clientele. Then the road becomes solitary, and ephemeral humanity is left behind. Soon the slow, even strain of the horses tells of stiffer work than along the easy, inclines nearer the Raillere. The Gave comes jumping downward more and more hurriedly, and presently its restless mutterings deepen into a dull growl, which ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... beneath her window. And they looked at one another, remarking the changes which those six years had brought. And the changes, unnoticed and almost imperceptible to those who had lived daily in their company, sprang very distinct to the eyes of these two. Feversham was thin, his face was wasted. The strain of life in the House of Stone had left its signs about his sunken eyes and in the look of age beyond his years. But these were not the only changes, as Ethne noticed; they were not, indeed, the most important ones. Her heart, although she stood so still and silent, went out to him in ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... looked at Jim. His face still was eager but there were dark rings around his eyes that came from nerve strain. He was too thin and she saw for the first time that his shoulders were rounding. Mr. ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... portent si grans ancres de fust, que il seuffrent moult de grans fortunes aus plajes" De Mailla says the Chinese consider their ironwood anchors to be much better than those of iron, because the latter are subject to strain. (Lett. Edif. XIV. 10.) Capt. Owen has a good word for wooden anchors. (Narr. of ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... first that talked in this lofty Strain of our Nature was Epicurus. Beneficence, would his Followers say, is all founded in Weakness; and, whatever be pretended, the Kindness that passeth between Men and Men is by every Man directed to himself. This, it must be confessed, is of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... return to the town to resume my school-mastering, then the strain begins, and then the reign of complexities is renewed. When I am fully garbed in my town clothing I find myself the possessor of nineteen pockets. What they are all for is more than I can make out. If I had them all in ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... waved his handkerchief. The army wheeled into position; music burst forth in a martial strain, and then a great cloud of dust arose. When the dust had cleared away, ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... apostle, being himself fettered with a chain from which he would not be separated: for he declares himself to be closer and faster linked to St. Paul's chains by desire, than that apostle was in prison. In the like strain he speaks of the chains of St. Peter, and of St. John Baptist. In the next Homily, (9,) he returns in equal raptures to St. Paul in chains for Christ; in which state he calls him a spectacle of glory far beyond all the triumphs of emperors and conquerors. Our saint gives ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... high and low alike, to give their all for the safety of their country and the honor of their flag. Moreover, the sublime indifference in the face of certain death often has its origin in a still deeper necessity to relieve the insufferable strain on scarified nerves, and forever. As for the much vaunted recrudescence of the religious spirit which is one of the recurring phenomena of war, it is merely an instinct of the subtle mind, in its subtlest depths called soul, to indulge in the cowardice of dependence since the body ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... still rolled on. The organist had wandered into a melody of Mendelssohn's, a strain whose dreamy sadness went straight to Robert's heart. He loitered in the nooks and corners of the church, examining the dilapidated memorials of the well-nigh forgotten dead, and listening to ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... aloud, so great was the strain upon his nerves, which usually were strong enough; nor was he alone in this desire. Presently a sound arose from below him, as of some person in hysterics, and he heard a priest command silence in a fierce voice. The sobbing ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... spent in Paris, however, waiting for Mie Mie, who was passing the specified time in the convent, fresh difficulties were raised, and he began to doubt if he should ever bring the little girl to England. His health was seriously affected by the strain, and his friends begged him to give up a pursuit which was injuring it and taking him from them; but Mie Mie was at last received from the convent under a vague condition that at some future time she ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... said much in a gentle and popular strain. He was to have been consul for part of that year himself, but he gave the office to Virginius Rufus, and displaced none that had been named for the consulship by either Nero or Galba. Those that were remarkable for their age and dignity he promoted to the priest-hoods; and restored the remains of ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... thin-skinned, too conscious to be really happy. He was not self-swayed like Gladstone, but he was self- enfolded. He came into power at a time when the fortunes of the Liberal party were at their lowest; and this, coupled with his peculiar sensibility, put a severe strain upon him. Some people thought that he was a man of genius, morbidly sensitive shrinking from public life and the Press, cursed with insufficient ambition, sudden, baffling, complex and charming. Others thought that he ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith |
