"Straining" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was but a little way, for the tide was low—there was the carriage waiting, and Rene, all grins, handed over our parcels to the footman. Then we got in, the wheels began slowly dragging across the sand to the road, the poor horses pulling and straining, for it was heavy work. And Rene stood watching us by his boat, his hand over his eyes, a black figure against the dazzling sunshine on the bay; but I could see his white teeth gleam in that broad smile of his from ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... and narrow alleys, festering, as it seemed, with a very plague of poverty-stricken and unwholesome humanity. Here the line runs parallel to the river—sullen to-day, blotted with black floats and lines of grimy barges, which straining, smoke-vomiting steam-tugs towed slowly against a strong flowing tide. On the opposite bank the heavy masses of the Abbey, the long decorated facade and towers of the Houses of Parliament, stood out ghostly and livid in ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... straining, could our younger eyes descry it. We approached as near the shore as we dared, but could go no nearer without the danger of swamping our boat, when suddenly we perceived a blessed apparition, a long white signal ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... long? The circumstances, too, seemed rather to belong to the tragic stage than to real life. A great statesman, full of years and honors, led forth to the Senate House by a son of rare hopes, and stricken down in full council while straining his feeble voice to rouse the drooping spirit of his country, could not but be remembered with peculiar veneration and tenderness. The few detractors who ventured to murmur were silenced by the indignant clamors of a nation which ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of treating this problem was sure to be as scientific as the vaulting of a Gothic arch. Indeed, one follows it most easily by translating his school-vocabulary into modern technical terms. With very slight straining of equivalents, Thomas might now ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... house disappeared from view Faith's straining eyes saw the two slowly mounting the steps together and turned in great content to say, "I'm glad that friendly lady is to be at Debby's. She has just helped the poor dear up the steps as kindly as possible. Poor Debby! ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... in succession; and thus their period of perfect elasticity could be successively extended, while the coefficient of elasticity did not appear to sustain any appreciable modification. This process of repeated straining, when there is an absence of a certain hammering effect, renders malleable bodies somewhat similar to those which are not malleable and brittle. There is an indication here of another argument against the testing of steam boilers ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various
... succeeded by a strong smell of burning oil and heated metal. Someone in the next room had lit a dark-lantern. I heard a gentle sound of movement, and then all was silent once more, though the smell grew stronger. For half an hour I sat with straining ears. Then suddenly another sound became audible—a very gentle, soothing sound, like that of a small jet of steam escaping continually from a kettle. The instant that we heard it, Holmes sprang from the bed, struck ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... and say that this Basic Course of Reading provides a practicable formula for the everyday use of these vast resources. It will enable you to acquire the magical qualities and still more magical effects that spell success and happiness, without straining your will to the breaking point and making life a burden. It will give you a definite prescription like the physician's, "Take one before meals," and as easily compounded, which will enable you to be prosperous ...
— Psychology and Achievement • Warren Hilton
... when he awoke, and lay on the bed, motionless and trembling, his heart sinking in the knowledge that he should never have slept. For almost half a minute, eyes wide with fear, he lay in the silence of the gloomy room, straining to hear some sound, ...
— The Dark Door • Alan Edward Nourse
... her she would accompany him to his castle. But the resolute maiden had secretly vowed to die rather than submit to such degradation. Choosing her fleetest steed, she vaulted nimbly into the saddle and galloped away. Her persecutor pursued close behind, straining every nerve to come up with her. Shuddering at the very thought of becoming his bride, she chose death as the only alternative. So she spurred her horse onward to the ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... presently he leaned over the taffrail and stared down at the whirling propeller; from the screws his gaze shifted to the whirling water above and about them, and thence to the tow in their wake. He put his head to one side, studied the spectacle of the straining hawser and the wallowing barge on the end of it, as if ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... he does not come?" inquired Nora, straining her eyes down the path for the thousandth ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... said, "can you see that space where the house stands? What a lonely place it looks! I wonder how I lived there for six years. I can see even the place where the canoe used to lie on the beach. There is one there now!" She stood straining her eyes to watch the scene once so familiar, until the steamer, drawing towards the landing-place, completely hid it from her. Then the lights on shore flashed out more brightly close at hand, and the figures of men ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... ashore, leaving the wherry to its fate. Then he raced like a hunted hare along the margin of the river, and before five minutes had passed he had scrambled up and leaped the wall of this lonely river-side house, and was crouching breathless and exhausted in a thick covert upon the farther side, straining his ears ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... that met my eyes as we entered the hall was the body of a man lying by the front door. The light of the lamp fell on his face and I saw that it was White. His hands and feet were tied. As I looked at him, he moved, as if straining against his bonds, and I was conscious of a feeling of relief. That sound that had reached me in the classroom, that thud of a falling body, had become, in the light of what had happened later, very sinister. It was good to know that ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... me before I go,' cried Mr. Daffy, his short and awkward figure straining in every muscle for the dignity of righteous wrath. 'I don't know whether you are more a fool or a knave. Perhaps you really think that there's as much to be said for your way of earning a living as for any other. I hope you do, for it's ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... the bloodsick earth to have the truth, And getting what they lookt for, as in sooth A man will do. So then they all fell to't To hale with cords and lever foot by foot The portent; and as frenzy frenzy breeds, And what one has another thinks he needs, So to a straining twenty other score Lent hands, and ever from the concourse more Of them, who hauled as if Troy's life depended On hastening forward that wherein it ended. So came the Horse to Troy, so was filled up With retribution that ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... kiss, and a straining in each others arms, which left me tingling for long after we had lost sight of each other, we parted. I stood and watched her as her white figure, gliding through the deepening gloom, faded as the forest thickened. It surely was no optical delusion or a phantom of the mind that her shrouded arm ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... persisted to this day. The musicians play Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Sebastian Bach, but not one plays God Himself. No one can play the eternal comfort and blessing of tone and sound, its magic correlation with the eager, straining ear; so that"—he continued in a lower voice and blushing with confusion—"so that the third tone forms a harmonic interval with the first, as does the fifth, and the leading tone rises like a fulfilled ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... her hands through the bars and held my face between them. She looked searching into my eyes, as if straining to force her blocked telepath sense through the deadness of the area. She leaned against the steel but the barrier was very effective; our lips met through the cold metal. It was a very unsatisfactory kiss because we had to purse our ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... 'O regenerate one, in very ancient times called the Brahma-kalpa, the high-souled Rishis of the regenerate order, when they assembled together, felt this very doubt about the creation of the universe. Re-straining speech, they remained immovable, engaged in (ascetic) contemplation. Having given up all food, they subsisted upon air alone, and remained thus for a thousand celestial years. At the end of that period, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... answer for them. The figure of St. Rocco, as well as its companion, St. Sebastian, is colored; they occupy the narrow intervals between the windows, and are of course invisible under ordinary circumstances. By a great deal of straining of the eyes, and sheltering them with the hand from the light, some little idea of the design may be obtained. The "St. Rocco" is a fine figure, though rather coarse, but, at all events, worth as much light as would enable ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... face of the man standing behind Cotter's chair was immovable, and Mark, placing himself behind a short man and straining his head forward, saw that Cotter scored four. The next time there was still no sign. Emerson showed a king and scored it, and then won every ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... glanced through the mass of soldiers to the little cottage under the trees opposite. The two there were straining to behold him, but the soldiers pushed them back, so that in the flare of the torches they could not see, nor in the tumult hear. He thanked ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... foolish words about the Hellenes, since they in no way deserve to be spoken of with slight; for by uttering slander against the Hellenes thou art stirring the king himself to make an expedition, and it is to this very end that I think thou art straining all thy endeavour. Let not this be so; for slander is a most grievous thing: in it the wrongdoers are two, and the person who suffers wrong is one. The slanderer does a wrong in that he speaks against one who is not present, the other in that he is persuaded ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... working its way upward, it dragged Mildmay along a wide alley-way between the ship's side and the casing of the companion-way until it reached the bulkhead between this space and the main hold. The straining of the ship, which had eventually resulted in her breaking in two, had also rent this bulkhead apart, leaving an aperture some ten feet wide, and through this in turn the octopus gradually worked its way, until it had passed into what—before ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... extraordinary industry, which I never practised before, and to which I hope never to be again reduced, I see the last part of my history growing apace under my hands." He was indeed, as he said, now straining for the goal which was at last reached "on the day, or rather the night, of the 27th of June, 1787. Between the hours of eleven and twelve I wrote the last lines of the last page in a summer-house in my garden. After laying down my pen, I took several turns in a berceau, ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... Distention, with the straining of the walls from peristaltic onrushes as described above, and the infection that this part of the alimentary canal is subjected to because of the decomposition of food that is going on to a greater or less extent in all victims of constipation, are the ...
— Appendicitis: The Etiology, Hygenic and Dietetic Treatment • John H. Tilden, M.D.
... a dramatic sense, which has guided her past details that are merely commonplace. The natural surroundings of a head station furnish materials for bright little sketches immediately associated with some romantic episode in the story; there is no vague straining to create 'atmosphere,' or anything that ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... business, and is also one of the Four Minute men in his country's service. I could give you many more instances of the splendid courage of these men and women who, though deprived of the most important of the special senses in adult life, are cheerfully doing their best, wasting no time in straining after the fruit just over "Fate's barbed ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley
... placed it before the smaller temple of lust; then, by a gentle uniform pressure, I gradually and almost imperceptibly glided in to the utmost extent. She pushed her bottom out, and, I could feel, was straining as if to void something, which is the real method to accelerate the entrance of a prick in that enchanting channel with the least difficulty and pain. We then commenced a slow movement—she wanted me to stoop forward ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... with waxy face and watery, yellow eyes, made paper pills, rolling them slowly between thumb and forefinger—his features as immobile as a death-mask. A blue-eyed, blond German officer, with a decoration on the lapel of his coat, nonchalantly twirled his mustache, his shoulders straining in tension. A Parisienne, with bleached hair and penciled eyebrows, leaned over her companion's arm. There was also a flashily dressed negro, evidently a Haytian, who sat motionless at the far end, ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... was heard and the next moment Sancho burst into the room trembling with rage. He was followed by some of the servants in the kitchen. Round his neck was a straining cloth, and dirty lather was splashed in various places over his person. He presented an appearance that at once made the Duchess scream with laughter. He proceeded to tell how he had been set upon by the kitchen-boy, ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... urge to push down, which she may do. But she should not work too hard at it because the baby will be brought down without her straining too hard. There will probably be more blood ...
— Emergency Childbirth - A Reference Guide for Students of the Medical Self-help - Training Course, Lesson No. 11 • U. S. Department of Defense
... starry skies, In war's long winter night, One ray still cheered our straining eyes, ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... as we learn from Suetonius, competed for prizes in the public musical contests, and was never without a slave at his elbow to warn him against straining his voice. In his love of magnificence he resembled a Greek flute player, with unbounded means to gratify it. His palace, the "Golden House," had triple porticos a mile in length, and enclosed a lake surrounded by buildings which had the appearance of a city. ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... men. I hate to see a brute whip and spur a noble animal. The good people object to racing, because of the betting, but bad people, like myself, object to the cruelty. Men are not forced to bet. That is their own business, but the poor horse, straining every nerve, does not ask for the lash and iron. Abolish torture on the track and let the ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... the others lay down, and the captain at last called out to him, "In the devil's name, do you want to be a target for the French?" making him seek shelter behind a little mound, which left him nearly as uncovered as he was before. And after hours of solid exertion, straining nerves and muscles to the utmost, when peace came with night, Wilhelm began a tiring piece of work with sticks and brushwood, out of pity ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... venting opulence upon the Fine Arts."—Ib., Vol. i, p. viii. "It is the giving different names to the same object."—Ib., ii, 19. "When we have in view the erecting a column."—Ib., ii, 56. "The straining an elevated subject beyond due bounds, is a vice not so frequent."—Ib., i, 206. "The cutting evergreens in the shape of animals is very ancient."—Ib., ii, 327. "The keeping juries, without meet, drink or fire, can be accounted for only ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... was almost illegible, but it could be seen that it was a United States postal. There was not a single word upon it that could be made out in its entirety, but up in the corner where the postmark had been they could see by straining their eyes the letters ...
— Army Boys on the Firing Line - or, Holding Back the German Drive • Homer Randall
... magistrate Granius deferred the payment of a public debt, in expectation of his death, he sent for him to his house, and placing his attendants about him, caused him to be strangled; but through the straining of his voice and body, the imposthume breaking, he lost a great quantity of blood. Upon this, his strength failing him, after spending a troublesome night, he died, leaving behind him two young children by Metella. Valeria was afterwards delivered of a daughter, named Posthuma; for so the ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... become grim. He offered no second protest, mainly because he, likewise, would not waste his breath, and if he would, he could not. Of breath in the ordinary sense breath, breathed automatically—he had none. He had only gasps to feed his straining lungs, and his half-trot, which had long since become a trot, was changed for a lope when Mr. Blakely reached his own best burst ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... England the teachers are more likely to succumb than the children. We do not commit suicide in America from any sense of shame at our intellectual shortcomings — what a decimating of the population there would be if we did! — it is more apt to be caused by ill health consequent upon a straining chase for dollars. In Prussia during the five years, 1902-1907, divorce increased from 17.7 to 20.8 per 100,000 inhabitants, and suicide from 20 ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... failed—he had lost her by his folly! She was his—she was torn from him! She would come at his bidding—she would cower to her tyrants! The thought of her was life and death in his frame, bright heaven and the abyss. At one beat of the heart she swam to his arms, at another he was straining over darkness. And whose ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... after being hidden from view for nearly a week, rose above the tops of the trees, thinning the darkness that lay heavy on the river, the full light not yet having reached the Little Big Branch at that point. Hippy shaded his straining eyes and gazed upstream. All seemed peaceful in that direction, but he suddenly realized that the sound he had heard was increasing in volume. He could now hear a succession of hollow reports, the meaning of which he could not fathom. He asked his companion ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... to overcome the noise of the world, straining until the dark-corded veins of his throat stood out sharply and perspiration gleamed on his bald forehead. As though his life depended upon the delivery of his great message he was explaining to that close-packed crowd that there was ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... so,) was the answer of the piffero, as he showed all his teeth in the broadest of smiles. Then, with a motion of his hand, he set both the young men going, he himself joining in, straining out his cheeks, blowing all the breath of his body into the little pipe, and running up and down the vents with a sliding finger, until finally he brought up against a high, shrill note, to which he gave the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... not have explained what she expected, hoped, or dreaded to hear as she crouched there, straining her ears, but it was characteristic of her ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... have been the character of the Puritans. We perceive the absurdity of their manners. We dislike the sullen gloom of their domestic habits. We acknowledge that the tone of their minds was often injured by straining after things too high for mortal reach: and we know that, in spite of their hatred of Popery, they too often fell into the worst vices of that bad system, intolerance and extravagant austerity, that they ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... a certain number of ourselves are to become arbitrators is briefly this: Are we to act on this occasion like partisans, straining every nerve for the advantage of our several parties? or are we to act like free men, exerting our united forces in one harmonious body for the immediate good of the whole country? The struggle may ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... straining his eyes in the direction of the sound. Just then a piece of the greasewood burned up brightly, and ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... Wulf ate, though not for hunger's sake, but of what they ate they remembered nothing who were watching Sinan and straining their ears to catch all he said without seeming to take note or listen. Although she strove to hide it and to appear indifferent, it was plain to them that Rosamund was much afraid. Again and again ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... hoped that Mr. Fotheringham understood what inexpressible gratitude was conveyed in those words, only to be appreciated after watching those six wakeful, straining days and nights. ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... little extraordinary, while the legislature and the judges are straining every nerve to suppress low gambling and punish its professors, they are the passive observers of a system pregnant with ten times more mischief in its consequences upon society, and infinitely more vicious, fraudulent, and base ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... While he was holding her back, and she straining every nerve to get to the fire, he began to show sudden symptoms of distress. He gasped loudly, and cried, "Oh! oh! I'm choking!" and then his clutch relaxed. She tore herself from it, and, plunging forward, rescued ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... The swaying of the veil of futurity, under the straining hands of our guardian angels? Is it the faint shadow, the solemn rustle of their hovering wings, as like mother birds they spread protecting plumes between blind fledglings, and descending ruin? Will theosophy ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... stems one hundred and fifty feet high probably, surmounted by crowns of drooping branches; palms with their graceful plumage; lianas hanging, looping, twisting—their orange fruitage hanging over our heads; great black snags; the lithe, wiry forms of our boat-men always straining to their utmost; and the motionless white turban of the Hadji,—all for a second relieved against the broad blue flame, to be again ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... little Frau, straining at the waist buckle and giving him a little pull here, a little tug there. "Rosa, come and look at ...
— In a German Pension • Katherine Mansfield
... in a firstclass uproar as it is—like to see me in the frontlines right now, bursting with dulce et decorum. I don't believe it would bother the Old Man any if I sat out the duration in a C O camp, but it'd hurt his job like hell and the poor old boy is straining his guts to get into the trenches and twirl a theoretical saber. So I guess I'm slated to be your humble and obedient, ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... oar to prevent her from striking against the foot of the cliff. Now she shoots out into the stream, and up as far as the line will permit, and then, wheeling, drives headlong against the rock, then out and back again, now straining on the line, now striking against the rock. As soon as the second line is brought, we pass it down to him; but his attention is all taken up with his own situation, and he does not see that we are passing the line to him. I stand on a projecting rock, waving my hat to gain his attention, for ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... Pearle crushed his way through the snow, sobbing, straining, cursing his luck, Alaska, Nome, the cards, and the man who had felt his knife. The hot blood was freezing on his hands, and the scene yet bright in his eyes,—the man, clutching the table and sinking slowly to the floor; the rolling counters and the scattered deck; the swift shiver throughout ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... operate internally? A person in perfect health, having his nostrils only touched with a feather, cannot avoid his body being so convulsed as to produce what is commonly called sneezing. But if the number of muscles agitated, the force and straining of the body by sneezing, are considered; the slightness of the cause must excite no little astonishment; for this action is occasioned by the muscles of the scapula, abdomen, diaphragm, thorax, lungs, &c. and if the sneezing continues, an universal explosion of the liquids ensues: tears, mucus, ...
— A Treatise on Foreign Teas - Abstracted From An Ingenious Work, Lately Published, - Entitled An Essay On the Nerves • Hugh Smith
... with the butter. Moisten with 1/2 a pint of water, and simmer till the gravy begins to flow. Then add the 4 quarts of water and the remainder of the ingredients; simmer for 5 hours. After skimming and straining it carefully through a very fine hair sieve, it will be ready ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... careful training, all his studiously acquired skill, all his mastery of the mechanics of his craft, came to him, now, without conscious effort—obedient to his purpose. Here was no thoughtful straining to remember the laws of composition, and perspective, and harmony. Here was no skillful evading of the truth he saw. So freely, so surely, he worked, he scarcely knew he painted. Forgetting self, ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... I roared. "You told him that I ran away? Damn your insolence! I'll break every bone in your body for this!" I cried, straining at the ropes. ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... enemy have met with this year will probably support the hopes of a vindictive Court, and occasion the straining of every nerve for the accomplishment of its tyrannic views, we doubt not your most strenuous exertions to prevent Great Britain from obtaining Russian or German auxiliaries for the next campaign; and we think, with ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... voices of the officers in the room below became louder, and by straining his ears the lad could make out what they ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... crests of the pines were merely soft blots above. Yet as they stood straining their eyes upward, striving to discover the location of the great bird by its clamour, vaguely the branches began to take shape ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... muscle of the strong young arm and shoulder. As well she might have tried to beat down an iron door with her bare hands as to hope for escape from his strong grip. He made a motion to draw her closer. Joyce flung herself back and sank down beside the bunk, straining away. ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... into the arms of Mr. Durance. She died in his arms. She was unconscious, he says. I left her straining for breath. She said "Victor"; she tried to smile:—I understood I was not ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... was straining his eyes in glances in every direction when he caught sight of the figure of a man ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"
... consider in the course of these debates.... It is supposed to be the one certain result of the last General Election that there is a large majority in favour of maintaining our naval position; but we cannot maintain that naval position without straining every nerve to do it, and we shall not be able to put all our energy into maintaining that position if we talk about invasion, and tell the people of this country that the fleet cannot do its duty.... If you put the doctrine of invasion so high, and if you tell them that in any degree ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... personal attractions than by the sterling characteristics of her art. Each of her scenes bears the stamp of intelligence of an uncommon order, and perhaps not the least remarkable feature in her portraiture of Galatea is that her effects, one and all, are produced without a suspicion of straining. Those who were present in the crowded theater last night, and saw the actress in the role—said to be her finest—had, we are sure, no room to qualify the high ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar
... little figure and her face, which but for the stress of London, of labour, and of poverty, would have had a blunt fresh-coloured dairymaid's charm, became symbols of a divine and sacred helpfulness in the eyes of hundreds of straining ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... nothing more than common-sense. All who wish to see it developed by a man of genius should read that golden little work, Bagehot's Physics and Politics, in which (it seems to me) the complete sense of the way in which concrete things grow and change is as livingly present as the straining after a pseudo-philosophy of evolution is livingly absent. But there are never wanting minds to whom such views seem personal and contracted, and allied to an anthropomorphism long exploded in other fields of knowledge. "The individual withers, and the world is more and more," to these writers; ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... Straining their eyes after him, as if they would somehow pierce the dark woods which hid his flight, mother and daughter stood as if turned to stone. Only Virgie, after a moment, waved her hand and sent her soft, childish prayer ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... this earth is a barrel of beer, which you can understand better than anything else, and it is being shaken up by being hauled around on wagons and cars, and is straining to get out, then a bartender drives a spigot into the bung, turns the thumb piece, and the pent-up beer comes out foaming and squirting, ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck
... and eighty feet, and, with a huge and desperate fish disputing every inch of the way, it becomes a seemingly endless labor. But at last Code, straining his eyes over the side, caught a glimpse of quick circles of white in the green and reached for the maul that was stuck ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... building was promptly hauled back into shape and fastened down with long timbers running from its sides to a convenient red-gum stump at the back. Thus it remained for many years, bulging at the sides, pitching forward, and straining at its tethers like an ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... each, endeavouring to get round a small boat with a man and a flag in it, which, as the wind was about the worst they could have had for the purpose, seemed no easy matter. There was no great interest in straining one's eyes after them, so I found out the Phillipses, and having told Dawson, who was escorting Clara, that Hanmer was looking for him to make out the list of "the eleven," I was very sorry indeed when the sound of a gun announced that the Hon. H. Chouser's Firefly had won the cup, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... Tension will be caused, Austria will make enormous demands, Russia will remonstrate, and, before any one has time to breathe, the clouds will part to let the lightnings through. If anything, we are over-ready, straining ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... attractive to myself, and I very seldom have indulged in such wearisome shikar. There is no particular satisfaction in sitting for hours in a cramped position, with mosquitoes stinging you from all directions, while your eyes are straining through the darkness, transforming every shadow into the expected game. Even should it appear, unless the moon is bright you will scarcely define the animal. I have heard well-authenticated accounts of persons who have patiently ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... to appreciate her position, almost as unhappy in her refuge as she had been in the storm—Sally crept to the rail and peered down. But her straining senses detected nothing below more than shadows, solitude, and silence; which, however, failed to convey reassurance; the fact of the open scuttle would seem to indicate that she hadn't stumbled into ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... pull hardest!" Two peasants are squatting, And, feet to feet pressing, Are straining and groaning, And tugging away At a stick held between them. This soon fails to please them: "Let's try with our beards!" And each man then clutches 110 The jaw of the other, And tugs at his beard! Red, panting, and writhing, And gasping and yelping, But pulling and pulling! ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... in just one move. But when his bared arm felt the hot, bulging neck something terrible burst out of the depths of him. To kill this enemy of his father's was not enough! Physical contact had unleashed the savage soul of the Indian. Yet there was more, and as Jean gave the straining body a tremendous jerk backward, he felt the same strange thrill, the dark joy that he had known when his fist had smashed the face of Simm Bruce. Greaves had leered—he had corroborated Bruce's vile insinuation ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... the fast-running stream from the overcharged eaves trough; then the thunder of the wind sweeping over the house in a great gust; and the whistle of the elm branches as they swung through the air like tremendous lithe switches, beating and writhing and straining in the fury of the blast. Looking into the clear, glowing flames, Diana heard it all, with a certain sense of enjoyment; when in the midst of it she heard another sound, a little thing, but distinguishable from all the rest; the ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... the excavation squad went into straining action. Oxen, their eyes bulbous in their skulls from effort, set brute energy against yokes along with the men. The mud eventually gave grip, ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... minutes, till I should claim it myself, I sat straining my eyes in the dark for the first glimmer of lights in the old town, when my train pulled up at a station a dozen miles from home. The guard ran along and threw open the doors of the compartments. I heard voices and ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... load of snow was faintly visible before the brown horses (they were yoked tandem) came into view. This cart was driven down to the water-edge, and was there upturned, with much shouting and cracking of whips on the part of the men engaged, and with a good deal of straining, slipping, and stumbling on the side of ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... bright-eyed, little children straining forward between their elders in the bull-fight frenzy—that same intoxication of the senses that held the Roman freemen spellbound at ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... length I saw something white fluttering in the breeze. It was so small that I should not have discerned it, if my very power of sight had not been sharpened by the anxiety I began to feel for these young people. By intently gazing—by straining my sight to the uttermost, I made out that the young lady was standing on a point of rock, lower down, and more conspicuous than that on which she had been seated. She had tied her handkerchief to her parasol, and was waving it, no doubt, as a signal to her brother. My heart turned ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 279, October 20, 1827 • Various
... in a fashion which not one of the three anticipated. Quite suddenly Olga's lips began to quiver. She raised her head with the agitated gesture of one straining for self-control; and then in a moment the tears were running down her cheeks, and she covered her ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... painfully aware of an uproarious babble of loud and drunken voices and a continual clinking of glasses, which appeared to sound as from a tap-room beneath, these commingled now and then with oaths and scraps of discordant song bellowed out above the hubbub. His wounded head beat with tremendous and straining painfulness, as though it would burst asunder, and he was possessed by a burning thirst that seemed to consume his very vitals. He called aloud, and in reply a fat, one-eyed woman came, fetching him something to drink in a cup. This he swallowed with avidity, and thereupon (the liquor perhaps ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... the white shape behind it, but could not make its movement unfeminine; and, when the lower sash was slowly raised until it jammed about a foot above the sill, and two hands showed their fingers under the frame straining to force it higher, Dick's heart leapt to the belief that they were those pretty, expressive hands he had watched so often ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... blade strike him once and again, he felt his blood gushing warm from the wounds, he caught the arm uplifted to smite, with despair's fierce energy he endeavoured to wrench the murderous weapon away. The two men went wrestling, struggling, straining each sinew to the utmost, drawing nearer, inch by inch, to the brink of the steep descent. Abishai dropped his dagger in the struggle, and could not stoop to attempt to recover it in the darkness, but he grasped with his sinewy hand the gasping youth by the locks, and, with ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... gait of the gigantic, unwieldy man, who had grown gray stooping over his work, had gained a certain majestic dignity. His cheeks glowed, and the gray eyes, which had long since acquired a fixed look from straining over the gemcutting, now beamed with a blissful radiance. Something wonderful must have happened to him, and, without waiting to be questioned by the lady, he poured out to her the news that he would have been overjoyed to have shouted in ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... water when I met a heavily-laden cart coming up. It must have been coming from one of the vessels, for it was full of strange-looking boxes and packages. A fine-looking nervous horse was drawing it, and he was straining every nerve to get it up the steep hill. His driver was a burly, hard-faced man, and instead of letting his horse stop a minute to rest he kept urging him forward. The poor horse kept looking at his ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... him, had missed him, had turned to him in her trouble, and it was not in his nature to resist her appeal. With a spring he was at her side, and lifting her in his arms seated himself upon her mother's grave; then straining her tightly to his bosom, he kissed her again and again. Hot, burning, passionate kisses they were, which took from Maddy all power of resistance, even had she wished it, which she did not. Too weak to reason, or see ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... cried Solling, and without another word dashed off full speed along the road he had just come. He kept in the middle of the causeway, straining his eyes to see into the darkness on either side of him, and wondering how it was he had not met the object of his search as he came to the village. He ran on, occasionally taking trees and fingerposts for men, and cursing his ill luck when he saw his mistake. The sweat poured down his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... more of her things," he said to himself; "I can't so much as look at 'em, somehow, without its making me—" he stopped to tie up the box; straining at the cords, as if the mere physical exertion of pulling hard at something were a relief to him at that moment. "I'll open it again and look it over in a day or two, when I'm away from the old place here," he ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... paces, as if at the word of command. Then they fall to work, plying their flails with the utmost rapidity and vehemence, till they come to the last bundle. Upon this they fling themselves with almost frantic fury, straining every nerve, and raining blows on it till the word "Halt!" rings out sharply from the leader. The man whose flail is the last to fall after the command to stop has been given is immediately surrounded by all the rest, crying out that "he has struck the Old Rye-woman dead." He has to expiate ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... tent and came out with his short-barrelled, evil-looking rifle on his arm. He fired both barrels in quick succession and waited, standing gravely on the edge of the Plateau. After a short silence two answering reports rose up through the mist to his straining ears. ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... us here That you are worth your breeding, which I doubt not. For there is none so mean or base That have not noble lustre in your eyes. I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, Straining ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... Giorgio Pellegrino, Trenta Capelli, followed by the whole population of Pizzo, rushed out about a hundred and fifty paces from where Murat, Franceschetti, and Campana were straining themselves to make the boat ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... therefore, were of opinion that if the several penal statutes already in force did not contain clear enactments against this offence, it was not proper for them to seek some meaning in the law, which would be construed by others into a straining of the provisions of the law, and make it doubtful whether they had not forced the meaning of an enactment, in order to procure a condemnation of the societies in question. Even if they could have discovered that, although the Orange societies had contrived to evade the law in some points, they had ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... natural expansion, would either shatter the band or allow it to cut deep into its own stem. The growing consciousness of Humanity has long been encircled by a rigid and inadequate conception of God. The gradual secularisation of the West means that the soul of man is straining that particular conception of God to breaking-point: and it is infinitely better that it should be broken to pieces than that its iron should be allowed to sink deep ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... of the transition period we behold a lady who has got a certain footing in society, but who is straining every nerve, in season and out of season, by hook and by crook, to improve her position. Society within the Pale is divided into a great many "zones" or "sets." It is like a target, with outer, middle, inner, and innermost ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... the anguish of the blow she had struck, and which had recoiled upon herself. It was a fearful sight to see that old woman crying like a child over the ruin she had made, wringing her hands in despair, and with straining eyes and blanched cheeks, listening at the door of the room where the being, whom she had nursed as a child, and idolised as a man, whose passions she had fostered, whose life she had saved and embittered, to whom she had confided her child, and whom she had at last ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton |
