"Braced" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Beulah like a salt sea breeze. She infused a new spirit into the bleak church "sociables" and made them positively agreeable functions. The choir ceased from wrangling, the Sunday School plucked up courage and flourished like a green bay tree. She managed the deacons, she braced up the missionary societies, she captivated the parish, she cheered the depressed and depressing old ladies and cracked jokes ...
— The Romance of a Christmas Card • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... always loyal to the Army. These heroic bundles of bandages, lifting wild and unshaven faces from their pillows, hailed me (a wretched creature who had never heard a gun go off) as one of their comrades! My mate and I, as we adjusted our stretcher at a cot's side, and braced ourselves against the weight of the patient, winked covertly at one another. "A nasty one for the Bluebottles!" ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... swimming teacher, his guilty conscience pricking him, and the knowledge of having been false to his superior strong within him, came sneaking into the kitchen, he was startled and horrified to find the lightkeeper awake and dressed. Mentally he braced himself for the battery of embarrassing questions which, he felt sure, he should have to answer. It might be that he must face something more serious than questions. Quite possible Seth, finding him absent, had investigated—and ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... becoming spacemen, officers in the Solar Guard. Most of you want to be space pilots. But there must be astrogators, radar engineers, communication officers and power-deck operators on each ship, and," she paused, braced her shoulders and added, "some of you will not be accepted for any of these. Some of ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell
... carried conviction to every one, and henceforth we do not hear that any attempt was avowedly made to avoid the issues as they came up. It was a most wholesome tonic. It braced up the convention to high resolves, and impressed upon all the delegates that they were in a situation where faltering or trifling was both wicked and dangerous. From that moment the mood in which they worked caught something from the glorious spirit of Washington. There was need of such high ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... At that time it was a very difficult operation to get a gun out of the port of a vessel where the gun was on a covered deck. To do this the necessary tackles had to be rigged from the yard-arm and the yard and mast properly braced and stayed, and then the lower block of the tackle carried in through the gun port, which, of course, gave the fall a very bad reeve. The first part of McGiffin's report dealt with a new method of dismounting the guns and ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... as strong this day as I was in the day when Moses sent me. As my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out and to come in.' For fighting, and for all the intercourse and manifold activities of life, his sinews are as braced, his eyes as clear, his spirit and limbs as alert as they were in those old days. No doubt you will say that was due to miraculous intervention. No doubt it was; but is it not true that, in a very real sense, a man may keep himself young all his life, if he will go ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... say, speak boldly out; Confront me like a man—I shall not start. Nor shiver, nor turn pale. My hand is firm, My heart is firmer still; and both are braced To meet the ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... without end to dare!" (Moniteur in Hist. Parl. xvii. 347.)—Right so, thou brawny Titan; there is nothing left for thee but that. Old men, who heard it, will still tell you how the reverberating voice made all hearts swell, in that moment; and braced them to the sticking-place; and thrilled abroad over France, like electric virtue, as a ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... from getting stiffness or pins and needles in her legs after long squatting on the ground. The chutka, a large silver ring worn by men on the big toe, is believed to attract to itself the ends of all the veins and ligaments from the navel downwards, and hold them all braced in their ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... in his chair. He acknowledged the game was lost before the struggle had actually begun. How could he presume to strike a bargain with such a man? He remembered Mrs. Delarayne, however, and braced himself once more. ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... She was perfectly sure she had heard a sound. It had been just like the banging of a door. She braced herself, listening, every muscle tense. And then, cleaving the stillness, came a voice from down ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... in the crystalline morning air, wasn't it worth it? Perhaps our finest pleasure always demands some such austerity of preparation. That is the secret of the truest epicureanism. Books like Dante's "Divine Comedy," or Plato's dialogues, will not give themselves to a lounging reader. They demand a braced, attentive spirit. But when the first effort has been made, how exhilarating are the altitudes in which we find ourselves; what a glow of pure joy is the reward which we are almost sure to win ...
— The Guide to Reading - The Pocket University Volume XXIII • Edited by Dr. Lyman Abbott, Asa Don Dickenson, and Others
... Baker. He brought from his desk a photograph of the babe that had been born lacking arms and one eye. Baker's superior braced a knee against his desk and settled back to a judicial attitude. He took the photograph and looked at it impassively. " Yes," he said, after a time, " that's a pretty good thing. You better show that to Coleman ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... crossed the square; her movements were listless. Maurice's thoughts went back to a similar night, a year ago, when, for the first time, he had walked at her side: it had been just such a warm, lilac-scented night as this, and then, as now, he had braced himself up to speak. At that time he had known her but slightly; perhaps, for that very reason, he had been bolder ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... cotton-trees, their branches bowed down with air plants, palms, to which clung clusters of wild nuts, thick, bulbous trees, taller trees with buttressed roots, as if Nature knew the strain that was to be placed upon them and braced them up accordingly, trees with bark like mirrors, and trees with six-inch ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... victors of our opponents. They have developed in us the very power by which we overcome them. Without their opposition we could never have braced and anchored and fortified ourselves, as the oak is braced and anchored for its thousand battles with the tempests. Our trials, our sorrows, and our griefs develop us in ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... in the coach,—a small dark-haired person in a glossy buff calico dress. She was so slender and so stiffly starched that she slid from space to space on the leather cushions, though she braced herself against the middle seat with her feet and extended her cotton-gloved hands on each side, in order to maintain some sort of balance. Whenever the wheels sank farther than usual into a rut, or jolted ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... balance, he stood braced against the wind, and with both hands held his hat upon his head while he watched her flying down the slope and out of sight amongst the trees. No girl in all the valley rode better than the Senorita Teresa Picardo, and Diego knew it well ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... effective and practical. Yet he understood me, my Celtic ideality, and that shy reserve which is the armour of a sensitive soul. Garry in his fine clever way knew me and shielded me and cheered me. He was so buoyant and charming he heartened you like Spring sunshine, and braced you like a morning wind on the mountain top. Yes, not excepting Mother, Garry knew me better than any one has ever done, and I loved him for it. It seems overfond to say this, but he did not have a fault: tenderness, humour, enthusiasm, sympathy and the beauty of a young god—all that was ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... its shifting tints. While the skein was yet golden, the forge of the armourer still sounded, the fire of the cook still blazed, still the cavalry led their steeds to the river, and still the busy footmen braced up their tents and hammered at their palisades. The skein of silk became rosy, the armourer worked with renewed energy, the cook puffed with increased zeal, the horsemen scampered from the river, the footmen cast an anxious glance at ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... high school bell started to ring, and both lads had to hurry to enter in time. Bob braced up and tried to assume his ordinary look. His pride came to the rescue, for no boy likes to find himself an object of commiseration among his mates. As for Jack, he had to put the entire matter from his mind just then, having other ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... stop!" I shouted, in real alarm. The boy paused, but with an arrow still drawn to its head. His eyes flashing, head erect, one moccasined foot on the ram's body, the other braced against the cliff; his short fawn-colored skin shirt clung to his lithe body, and the fringed edges hung over the dreadful black chasm in front of him. It was a picture to take away one's breath. "Put down your weapon, and we will ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... which stretched out and caught at people, without intention on his part, which grasped and held them. It was not his talent, he told himself, for he kept that in the dark. It was himself. Although he was less conceited than the average Englishman of talent, for a few minutes he braced his legs and had ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... after an instant that there was something in that. "But how can I face them till I know what they are? Do you want him," he then braced himself to ask, "to marry ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... round, required of it. This makes that mind and body fare together, hand in hand, sharing the hope, the action, the fruition; finding equal sweetness in the languor of aching limbs at eve and in the first god-like intoxication of motion with braced muscle in the sun. For walk or ride take the mind over greater distances than a throbbing whirl with stiffening joints and cramped limbs through a dozen counties. Surely you seem to cover vaster spaces with Lavengro, ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... roar, and the Bow Street Runner, dropping the nobbly stick, tottered weakly and fell,—strove to rise, was smitten down again, and, in that moment, Barnabas was astride him; felt the shock of stinging blows, and laughing fierce and short, leapt in under the blows, every nerve and muscle braced and quivering; saw a scowling face,—smote it away; caught a bony wrist, wrenched the bludgeon from the griping fingers, struck and parried and struck again with untiring arm, felt the press thin out before him as his assailants gave ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... of tall Hustling: If he saw an Opening six inches wide, he held it with his Foot until he could insert his Elbow, and then he braced his Shoulder, and the first thing you knew he was on the Inside demanding a fair cut ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... Syrian heard, rose up, and braced His huge limbs to the accustomed toil: "My child, see how the waters boil? The night-black heavens look angry-faced; But life ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... happy port affords our wandering fleet A month's reception, and a safe retreat. Full oft the monarch urged me to relate The fall of Ilion, and the Grecian fate; Full oft I told: at length for parting moved; The king with mighty gifts my suit approved. The adverse winds in leathern bags he braced, Compress'd their force, and lock'd each struggling blast. For him the mighty sire of gods assign'd The tempest's lood, the tyrant of the wind; His word alone the listening storms obey, To smooth the deep, or swell the foamy ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... intrenchments, and all the artillery fell into the hands of the Swedes. The victory at Narva settled the fame of Charles, but intoxicated his mind, and led to a presumptuous self-confidence; while the defeat of Peter did not discourage him, but braced him to make still greater exertions—one of the numerous instances, so often seen in human life, where defeat is better than victory. But the czar was conscious of his strength, and also of his weakness. He knew he had unlimited resources, but that his troops were inexperienced; and he made ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... Connie and 'Merican Joe braced their feet on the rocks and pulled. They could feel the rope sway like a pendulum as the man left the floor, and then, hand over hand they drew him to the surface. While the Indian had gone for the blankets, Connie had cut a stout pole to be used to support the load ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... means dispelled. And he was oddly conscious of a breaking away of the social barrier of whose existence she, at least, must have been convinced. The mere whispering together in this lonely part of the ship might account for it, to some extent, so he braced himself for the ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... could do anything. At Cissie's request he might even aid Tump Pack himself. Peter got himself into a generous glow as he charged up a side alley, around to a rickety front gate. Let Niggertown criticize as it would, he was braced by a high altruism. ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... had not attained the velocity of a gale, but it did have an ugly growl which suggested further violence. Mayo braced himself, ready to bring the schooner about in order to give the crew an ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... little, despairing in the picturesque and dramatic fashion characteristic of him, and the sooner he "got it out of his system," as Gillian had observed on one occasion, the better for everyone concerned. So Magda braced herself for the interview, and prepared to receive ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... anyhow, but the way to mend 'em ain't to be snivelling," rapped out grandma, giving Dawn and Andrew a shaking that braced them up. ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... Braced well up, with beams aslant, Betwixt the continents sails the Phocion, For Baltimore bound from Alicant. Blue breezy skies white fleeces fleck Over the chill blue white-capped ocean: From yard-arm comes—"Wreck ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... interrupt him, with his disgusting exhibitions, which it would be disgraceful even to describe. 'Ye doan't mind, do ye, gal?' he added, chucking her under the chin in a rude, familiar way, and giving a brutal laugh. Phyllis shrank away from him, but made no reply. She had evidently braced her mind to the ordeal, and was prepared to bear anything rather than offend him. I determined to stop any further proceeding, and ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... out of Boston Harbor, and at 1 P.M. rounded the Light-house. The Shannon stood off under easy sail, and at 3.40 Shannon up and reefed top-sails. At 4 P.M. she again bore away with her foresail brailed up, and her main top-sail braced flat and shivering, that the Chesapeake might overtake her. An hour later, Boston Light-house bearing west distant about six leagues, she again hauled up, with her head to the southeast and lay to under top-sails, top-gallant ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... to take possession of her, were fighting to preserve intact her independence, her individuality. But it became almost the business of a nightmare, this strange and unequal struggle in the artistic darkness devised by Crayford. And the audience seemed to be gaining in strength, like an adversary braced up by conflict. ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... a trained roping horse, stood, blown and panting, his feet braced, keeping the rope taut while Farrel dismounted and casually strolled back to the tree. He broke off a small twig and waited, while the hounds, belling lustily, came nosing across the meadow. Kay rode up, as the dogs, catching sight of the helpless cat, quickened their speed to ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... healthiest and hardiest of modern Englishwomen. With a delicate constitution and a sensitive, nervous temperament, Prince Albert would scarcely have lived to manhood, except for that admirable physical training. As a child, he was braced up by much life in the open air, simple diet, a good deal of rough play—while as to sleep, he was allowed to help himself, which he did plentifully, being much given to somnolency. As a lad and youth, he hardened ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... her step in front of him and put her hand on the strap, but kept his own there as well, while they both followed the backing horse with braced steps, the girl talking soothingly to the frightened animal the while. The naturally docile filly responded to the voice she had heard from earliest colthood and soon let Elizabeth approach close enough to put her hand on the bit. The seriousness of the affair gave way to the comic when ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... He braced himself for a supreme effort and ran along the pathway. His feet were blistered with the heat; there was a great burn on one of his arms. At last, however, he passed out of the danger zone and staggered up to where the Professor, the ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... came in from another room, doubtless the "far room" of which her mother-in-law had spoken. She was carrying a large tray full of cups. She braced herself against the weight of the earthenware and balancing herself with a free swinging motion on her high-heeled shoes walked with an accentuation of her ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... had been no failure, after all. Seven thousand at least in Israel had been braced and encouraged by his example, and silently blessed him, perhaps, for the courage which they felt. In God's world, for those who are in earnest there is no failure. No work truly done, no word earnestly spoken, no sacrifice freely made, ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... life was held very cheap. The band of fierce men who had believed they were carrying off a prince, would think nothing of running him through with their swords when they discovered how they had been tricked, and that by a mere child. Paul set his teeth hard and braced himself up for the task he had set himself. He knew his peril-he realized it too; but he was a soldier's son, and had he not said he would live and die for the prince? Would he ever be worthy of the knighthood every lad looked forward to ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... For a moment Dennis braced himself and clutched the wheel like a vice, but the strap held, the circle was completed, and the Aviatik, righting herself, skimmed over the pine-topped hill behind the hunting lodge, and planed majestically down towards ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... He saw, through the trees, where the trail turned, and gliding between the bushes, he reached the path ahead of the donkey that was coming down it full speed. Bart braced his feet apart and stood ...
— Frank Roscoe's Secret • Allen Chapman
... praise bestowed upon him and gave his shoulders a swagger. "Speakin' of that, boss," he said, "reminds me of a chap who rode into Cabin Gulch a few weeks ago. Braced right into Beard's place, where we was all playin' faro, an' he asks for Jack Kells. Right off we all thought he was a guy who had a grievance, an' some of us was for pluggin' him. But I kinda liked him an' I cooled the gang down. Glad I ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... chronometer. As is well known to those who are acquainted with the nature of springs moved by balances, the stronger those springs are, the quicker the vibrations of the balances are performed, and vice versa; hence it follows that those springs, when braced by cold, or when relaxed by heat, must of necessity cause the timekeeper to go either faster or slower, unless some method could be found to remedy ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... stage. Seen close this mechanism was no longer small. As it lay on its launching carrier upon the wide expanse of the flying stage, its aluminum body skeleton was as big as the hull of a twenty-ton yacht. Its lateral supporting sails braced and stayed with metal nerves almost like the nerves of a bee's wing, and made of some sort of glassy artificial membrane, cast their shadow over many hundreds of square yards. The chairs for the engineer and his passenger hung free to swing by a complex tackle, within ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... The head was lying a little clear of the water-jar, under the curve of it; and, as his teeth met, Rikki braced his back against the bulge of the red earthen-rare to hold down the head. This gave him just one second's purchase, and he made the most of it. Then he was battered to and fro as a rat is shaken by a dog—to and fro on ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... went down upon one knee. Rutlidge his legs braced, his body inclined toward the edge of the precipice, was gathering his strength for ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... the man stands like one who is braced against something that may come suddenly and that his deep-set eyes say, "We know what we know." There are other impressions that interest the newspaper man. For a moment the motionless one seems a blurred little unit of the hurrying crowd. Then for a moment he seems to grow ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... staggering blow. Did that example inspire the French Emperor, or did he take counsel from his own boundless resources of brain and will? Certain it is that, after a passing fit of discouragement, he braced himself for a final effort, and staked all on the effect of one mighty stroke. In order to hurry on the battle he feigned discouragement and withdrew his lines from Austerlitz to the Goldbach. Already he had sent General Savary to the Czar with proposals for a short truce.[40] ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... strength lay in the muscles of his ponderous and corded neck. Raving and bellowing, he plunged this way and that, striving in vain to wrench himself free from that incomprehensible, snake-like thing which had fastened upon him. Bong, trumpeting savagely, braced himself with widespread pillars of legs, and between them it seemed that the steel fence must go down under such cataclysmic shocks as it was suffering. But the noisy violence of the battle presently brought its own ending. An amused ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... wished that her uncle kept a toll-gate on the sea. Then she could go out with him and stop the little boats and the great steamers, and make them drop seven cents or thirteen cents into her hands as she stood braced in the stern; and she was just beginning to wonder how she could toss up the change to them if they dropped her a quarter, when the captain began to sing Tom Bowline. He was just ...
— The Captain's Toll-Gate • Frank R. Stockton
... The trenches were sometimes braced with boards and cross pieces of wood, such as is often used when a sewer is dug through the streets, and again wicker-work, or jute bagging, might be used to hold ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... could only end in one way—the Queen must send for the Duke of Wellington. When, next morning, the Duke came, he advised her Majesty to send for Sir Robert Peel. She was in "a state of dreadful grief," but she swallowed down her tears, and braced herself, with royal resolution, for ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... practical movements are no checks on the greatest poet, but always his encouragement and support. The outset and remembrance are there—there the arms that lifted him first, and braced him best—there he returns after all his goings and comings. The sailor and traveler—the anatomist, chemist, astronomer, geologist, phrenologist, spiritualist, mathematician, historian, and lexicographer, are not poets, but they are the ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... towards thy mother and of thy for bearance towards my mother! But there is no Might and there is no Majesty save in Allah, the Glorious, the Great! Verily, we are Allah's and unto Him we are returning."[FN364] And As'ad em braced his brother, sobbing and repeating ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... sky a hawk passed; the bell of the church was tolling for the diurnal mass. He ran along in the sun, as it grew warm, to dry his skin by movement, as his wont was. He was still stupefied by the fear which had fallen upon him; but the water had cooled and braced him. ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... was in the act of hurling it toward home, where Mullane had braced himself to receive the throw, and tag the oncoming runner out. Should Fred veer ever so little from a direct line throw he would pull the catcher aside, and thus give Clifford the opportunity he wanted ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton
... such lurking vagabonds would only be doing good service for the devil, who merits one's aid now and then." In evidence of her faith in the cause of the sounds, the good woman advanced forward, and, followed by the major, with his sword drawn and braced, they proceeded cautiously on over the bridge, though not until our hero had several times stopped to listen, which he declared was enjoined by every rule of the profession, and was a means to avoid surprise while advancing ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... claim on you, and we mean to insist on it. What, just after all this grief of separation, you would go away from us again? No, no! I tell you, Violet, we shall never find you your real self until you have been braced up by the sea breezes. I mean the real sea breezes. You want a scamper among the heather—I can see that; for I have been watching you of late, and you are not up to the right mark. The sooner we all go the better. Do you ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... shrewd, and American, with braced legs and back, and a philosophy that failed her only on Trustee Days. But as calendars are not kept in Ward C no one knew what this day was; and consequently Susan was grinning all over her pinched, gnome-like little face. Margaret MacLean kissed her on both cheeks; the Susan-kind hunger ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... were only young men in libraries when they wrote these books.—One must he an inventor to read well. As the proverb says, 'He that would bring home the wealth of the Indies must carry out the wealth of the Indies.'—When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. Every sentence is doubly significant, and the sense of our author is as broad as ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... my uncle Toby's face into a more pleasurable oval—or that the philanthropy of his heart, in seeing his brother beginning to emerge out of the sea of his afflictions, had braced up his muscles—so that the compression upon his chin only doubled the benignity which was there before, is not hard to decide.—My father, in turning his eyes, was struck with such a gleam of sun-shine in his face, as melted down the sullenness ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... did Hemming see them than he rushed aft to put the helm to port, while the officers on deck were giving different orders. When he got to the wheel he found that it had been put the wrong way, while the yards were being braced up first in one direction, then in another. The next instant the brig struck with a tremendous crash, throwing those on deck off their legs, and those below out of their berths. The following sea lifted the brig nearly her entire length more ahead, jamming ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... to give a reproduction of Ternina in the Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde, but instead it broke into the 'Washington Post,' and the room, braced to a great occasion, was horrified. Mrs. Portway, abandoning Henry, ran to silence the disastrous consequence of her husband's clumsiness. Henry, perhaps impelled by an instinctive longing, gazed absently ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... dilemma arose when Captain Pharo, braced up to such a degree by his dinner and his pipe, declared that "He didn't know as he should be took to any dagarrier's, after all! Tide and wind both serve f'r a fa'r sail home," said he, "and ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... But he did not slide back into unconsciousness again as the throbbing torture became something remote and untroubling. With his good arm he braced himself against the cliff, managed to ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... constructed. To uphold it, two towers were built close to the water's edge on either side, and then from the towers to the shores, on a level with the upper plateau, the steel fabric, composed of slender rods and beams braced to stand the great weight it would have to carry, was built on false work and secured to solid anchorages on shore. Then on this, over tracks laid for the purpose, a crane was run (the same process being carried out on both sides of the ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... by the power of an iron will, and that like a boiling volcano it needed but the faintest extra aggravation to make it burst forth and overwhelm its surroundings. The man's words fell on his ears like the knell of doom, and ere he replied he braced himself for the ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... your shoulder, comrade!" he shouted to the man next to him. The fellow braced himself, and in an instant the agile Zouave was on the narrow parapet, running along as nimbly as a cat, and winding himself past the huge statues at every half-dozen steps. He jumped down at the other ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... I braced my sword: then turned to look: For I had heard an evil laugh: The blind man, leaning on his staff, Still stood there where my leave I took: What! did he mock me? Would I brook A blind fool's scorn?—My sword was half Out of its sheath. I turned ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... had braced it, he drew his great flashing sword from his side, and rushed at his enemy, roaring hoarsely his cry of battle. The unknown knight's sword was unsheathed in a moment, and at the next the two blades were clanking together the dreadful music ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... women are coming to vote, I'm going home!" But he did not go; he had too much curiosity; he wanted to see the fun. He stayed and was converted. After watching the sovereign "white male citizen" perform the laborious task of depositing his vote in the ballot-box, I thought if I braced myself up I might be equal to the task. So, summoning all my strength, I walked up to the desk behind which sat the august officers of election, and presented my vote. When behold! I was pompously met with the assertion, "You are not ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... with the horizontal bed-plates. By this arrangement, when the table is moved along I, it will approach to or recede from all the drills equally. J 1 and J 2 are girders forming additional bearings for the framework of the table. The bed-plates and slides for the table are bolted and braced together, making the whole machine very firm and rigid. Power is applied to the machine through the cones K 1 and K 2, working the horizontal and vertical shafts L 1 and L 2, etc. On the vertical shafts are fitted coarse pitch ...
— Mechanical Drawing Self-Taught • Joshua Rose
... on the helmsman, his hand signalling the order, had the wheel put over to port to check the Elsinore's rush into the wind as she came up on the starboard tack. All was activity. Main- and mizzen-yards were braced up, and the Elsinore, snugged down and hove to, had a lee of thousands of miles ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... distance, and longed to start upon a journey of discovery; for its invitation seemed an assurance that in such beauty there must be something better than he had ever experienced in his own home. There came a day when the appeal was so insistent that he braced himself to the effort, and after many weary miles reached the place of his dreams, only to find that the blue distance had disappeared. Meeting a passer-by he told him of his journey and its object, and ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... chair, while Marjorie braced herself up on her pillows, and Molly, who was sitting on the bed, bounced ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... strongly marked the face of the country, greatly enlivened the ride to the eye of our young traveller. Everything contributed to impart a cheering influence to his senses; and with spirits and a frame newly braced and invigorated, he felt the bounding motion of the steed beneath him with an animal exultation, which took from his countenance that look of melancholy ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... the cracking plant and freeway and gas tanks—I couldn't think of a lie that mightn't get us into as much trouble as the truth—and the voice said, "Oh, did Grayl stay there?" and I said, "Yes," and braced myself to do some more admitting, or some heavy lying, as the inspiration ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... rifles, which the Indians usually make choice of for killing the buffalo, elk, and other animals whose wildness renders them difficult of approach. He then, unbidden, and as if tutored to the task, placed himself in a stiff upright position in front of his master, with every nerve and muscle braced to the most inflexible steadiness. The young officer next threw the rifle on the right shoulder of the boy for a rest, and prepared to take his aim on the object that ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... of the storm swooped upon him, enwrapping him, and clutching at his breath, for an instant Pete Noel quailed. This was a new adversary, with whom he had not braced his nerves to grapple. But it was for an instant only. Then his weary spirit lifted itself, and he looked grimly into the eye of the storm. The cold, the storm, the hunger, he would face them all down, and win out yet. Lowering his head, and ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... hesitate. The Pawnee had caught the signals from the other side of the stream, and hurried forward to intercept the enemy making his way in that direction. He advanced far enough from the spreading base of the tree to render his foothold firm, when he braced himself with drawn knife, to receive the youth. He had flung his blanket and rifle aside, before stepping on the trunk, so as not to ...
— Footprints in the Forest • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... not then plead that this Chinese statesman, equally with Lord Granville, at a crisis of his life, recurred to the great thoughts and images of the literature in which he had been trained, and found there what braced and fortified him, a comfort, an inspiration, an ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles
... ten-spots—the ones that I could trace. Jove! what a mess I'd made of it! Oh, some of them were all right, of course, and I made THOSE fifties on the spot. But the others—! I tell you, Ned, money that isn't earned is the most risky thing in the world. If I'd left half those wretches alone, they'd have braced up and helped themselves and made men of themselves, maybe. As it was—Well, you never can tell as to the results of a so-called 'good' action. From my experience I should say they are every whit as ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... they had told each other the old, old story, "I'm so glad I kept my castles in Spain. When you went away and didn't write I almost wrecked them purposely. I thought they'd go tumbling into ashes but somehow I braced them up again. Now they're more beautiful than ever. I pity the people who own no castles in Spain, who have no dreams that won't come true exactly as they dreamed. I'll hold on to my dreams even if I know they can never come true exactly as I dream them. I wouldn't ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... feet square, and Gerard might be bound perhaps, and powerless to help. But this man, whom we have seen shake in his shoes at a Giles-o'-lanthorn, never wavered in this awful moment of real danger, but stood there, his body all braced for combat, and his eye glowing, equally ready to take life and lose it. Desperate game! to win which was exile instant and for life, and to lose it was to die that moment upon that floor he ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... going round him, yet he steadied and braced himself. "But this is the natural atmosphere of such people," he thought. He tried to find satisfaction in the thought that Glory was not with them. Perhaps they had ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... impatient of delay, He braced his sandals on, and strode away: Then from the heavens the martial goddess flies Through the wild fields of air, and cleaves the skies: In form, a virgin in soft beauty's bloom, Skill'd in the illustrious labours of the loom. Alone to Ithaca she stood ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... brilliantly-striped morning dress, in her fluttering ribbons, in the large scarlet rosettes on her smart little shoes—all sprang alike from the same source; from the overflowing physical health which strengthened every muscle, braced every nerve, and set the warm young blood tingling through her veins, like the blood ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... come down the line she seemed about to fall, but braced herself with new strength from some hidden source. When he released her she stood erect, regarding him with something of the twisted, humorous quirk about her lips that for an instant brought her back to him as the little girl of long ago. Not until then had he been ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... sin and shame who broods there—without losing our identity. In contemplating this matter, the feeling for ourselves should be simply one of humility and thankfulness. We have grown up in pure light and air, appeased with the comforts, and braced by at least the current morality of society. But, concerning those degraded ones, what some call "charity" is no more than "justice." It is no more than justice to say—all the conditions being considered—that as to a vast majority of them, crime is ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... left Ireland, but the good weather held for only a few days after. Then, there blew up such a storm as I never see before an' hope never to see again. It was fearful, fearful. I couldn't describe it to you if I tried. We just lay in our berths, every one of us, our backs agin the wall, our knees braced agin the board in front, an' we holdin' on for dear life expectin' every moment to be dashed out on to the floor an' have all our bones broken. We was too frightened to say a word, but we prayed, oh, my! how we did pray, every mother's son of us. For nigh onto three days that poor boat struggled ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... heaving up and down, in delightful rhythm, while the winds sing in chorus and the cool, fragrant brine searches every fiber of your body; and at length you are tossed ashore with a glad Godspeed, braced and salted and clean ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... Lydia braced herself. It had come, and it was worse than she could have anticipated. She cringed inwardly in remembrance; she wished she had not let Conroy make that pitying reference—unreproved, uncorrected—to Stoddard's being a rejected man. But perhaps they ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... be begun early in life, and the mind of the girl must be braced by a recognition of natural law to the acceptance of all the conditions of her nature. But for this she must learn to distinguish between the ideal and the actual, between woman's nature as God designed it, and her nature as ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... touch the girl, whose mind was braced for battle. The reverend mother ceded with as good a grace as she could assume, on the top of a very arbitrary temper. An English priest was heard of who was about to travel to London on his return to a noble friend and patron in the north ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... plunge had braced him up, clearing away the brain mists caused by exhaustion in the fight; and now once more he was himself, ready to save his own life, and think, as an officer should, about his men. Of course his first thoughts ought to have been about saving ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... Ignored, Shelby braced himself patiently against a pillar in the dusky recess while the penitent knelt and pattered in deeps of contrition which the ministrations of her low-church rector in New Babylon had never plumbed. But patience vanished at the sound of footsteps ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... crack. The fire had now gained such headway that the air was hot and a glare danced on the wall where the shadow had crept; and we heard the Aimes boys yell in the woods a short distance off. With all my strength I pulled at the board; I got off my knees and braced myself, and with a quick jerk the board came up with a loud rip and I fell ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... the army proceeded to Windsor. However it may be now, in those days the castle was not easy to take when any one chose to defend it. The traitor made it secure, as soon as he planned his treacherous deed, with a triple line of walls and moats, and had so braced the walls inside with sharpened stakes that catapults could not throw them down. They had taken great pains with the fortifications, spending all of June, July, and August in building walls and barricades, making moats and drawbridges, ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... West, The strength of virgin forests braced his mind, The hush of spacious prairies stilled his soul. Up from log cabin to the Capitol, One fire was on his spirit, one resolve — To send the keen ax to the root of wrong, Clearing a free way for the feet of God. And evermore ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... would find himself, the strange examination-room, the quizzing professors—would these combine with his native shyness to seal the lips and cramp the pen of Robert Chalmers Fordyce? No—a thousand times no! He would win through! Robert set his teeth, braced himself, ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... said I was a tree-frog that had got into the same meadow with Longhurst, and had blown myself out till I went pop. It was rough on a man in his honeymoon; so was what they said about my looks, and what I had on, and the way I perspired. But I braced myself up with the Flying Scud. How did it exactly figure out anyway? I don't seem to catch on ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... order, and more than one man uttered the belief that discretion was the better part of valour, and that there was no humour in attacking numberless Britons with fifty men. We braced up our nerves, however, retraced our steps, and presently reached the vicinity of the kraal. Two men crept up close and came back to say the place was full of English. Leaving the horses in charge of a few men, ...
— With Steyn and De Wet • Philip Pienaar
... sage, who keeps in check His baser self, who lives at his own beck, Whom neither poverty nor dungeon drear Nor death itself can ever put in fear, Who can reject life's goods, resist desire, Strong, firmly braced, and in himself entire, A hard smooth ball that gives you ne'er a grip, 'Gainst whom when Fortune runs, she's sure to trip. Such are the marks of freedom: look them through, And tell me, is there one belongs to you? Your mistress begs for money, plagues you sore, Ducks you with water, drives you ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... pallor, and the blood, and the iron of seared cheek and lined brow, worked a great change. He placed both hands on the rock and then leaned his shoulder there and braced his powerful body. ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... this fact the Ballplatz increased its offer, but only very slightly, while it grew more and more lavish of arguments. But the "principal aspirations of the Italian people" had not yet been taken into serious consideration by Baron Burian. Down to April 21 this statesman had not braced himself up to offer anything more than the Trentino, which Prince Buelow had virtually promised in January, and this despite the intimation given by the Italian Foreign Secretary, that after the long spell of word-weaving and hair-splitting he must insist on a serious ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... Wherever he turned he faced growing intolerance and malignity. It was only by exercising the utmost vigilance and firmness that he was able to snatch for himself and cause a hearing. Under these circumstances all the powers of the man became braced, eager, alert, determined. It was many against one, but that one was a host in himself, aroused as he then was, not only by the grandeur of his cause, but also by a keen sense of personal indignity and persecution. ...
— Charles Sumner Centenary - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 14 • Archibald H. Grimke
... speculations. I laid them aside until the next occasion when I should feel disposed for self-torture, and got out of bed. A bath and breakfast braced me up, and I left the house in a reasonably ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... final. His mind is fully made up for the time being. It would be poor salesmanship to butt your head against his fixed idea, just as it would be foolish to tackle a strong opponent when he stands most formidably braced to resist attack. But the two or three toned negative does not mean that the idea behind it is fixed in the prospect's mind forever. Any one is prone to change his mind, unless he is kept so busy supporting a position taken that he has no chance ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... avenue to fortune gave her fortitude. She braced herself up, and set herself valourously to unriddle the perplexities of a nocturne ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... items of the government program for 1864. Armed with this, Davis braced himself for the great task of making head against the enemies that now surrounded the Confederacy. It is an axiom of military science that when one combatant possesses the interior line, the other ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... the clouds which had gathered over his mind broke and passed away. His gout returned, and freed him from a more cruel malady. His nerves were newly braced. His spirits became buoyant. He woke as from a sickly dream. It was a strange recovery. Men had been in the habit of talking of him as of one dead, and, when he first showed himself at the King's levee, started as if they had seen a ghost. It was more than ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... tightly bound together, and propped, where the water was deep, by beams passing under the bottoms of each one and resting on the end of the next; each receiving this sort of support they mutually braced each other. A planking, some five feet wide, was then laid, and the horses, wagons, and artillery were crossed without trouble. The bridge was built in about ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... suddenly descended from the heavens and began to question the multiple's gardener, who was peacefully digging at the rate of a spadeful every five minutes. Presently he sat down on his wheelbarrow, and then shifted, without relief, from one handle of it to the other. Then he rose and braced himself desperately against the tool- house, where, when his tormentors drifted away, he seemed to the soft eye of pity pinned to the wall by their cruel interrogations, whose barbed points were buried in the stucco behind him, and whose feathered ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... own, a spirit of wise submission that was more than once to serve him well, he pulled his hat sharply down, braced and squared such appearance of perfect physical development as the eighteen dollars had achieved, and walked away. He had always known the watch would go. Now it was gone, no more worry. Good enough! As he walked he rehearsed an explanation to Bulger: ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... her in the chair across the aisle. The train was skirting the bluffs of Keechelus then, and she had taken off her coat and hat and sat watching the unfolding lake. His side glance swept her slender, gray-clad figure to the toe of one trim shoe, braced lightly on her footstool, and returned to her face. In profile it was a new delight. One caught the upward curl of her black lashes; the suggestion of a fault in the tip of her high, yet delicately chiseled nose; the ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... old house dealer, immediately he has bought a structure, makes it as weather-tight and marauder-proof as possible. Sagging floors and weak stairways are braced, as are fireplaces injured by dampness and frosts. Paneled partitions are stripped of layers of disguising wall paper. Any efforts to modernize that hide original conditions are torn out and the house cleared of the rubbish left by ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... given in the Palace to Cyrus W. Field. Beyond the Palace, to the north, was the Latting Tower, an observatory, three hundred and fifty feet high, an octagon seventy-five feet across the base, of timber, braced with iron, and anchored at each of the eight angles with about forty tons of stone and timber. The tower was the design of Warren Latting, and cost one hundred thousand dollars. Immediately over the first story there was a refreshment room, and above three view landings, the highest being ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... braced himself and went at that sorry work with all his fine strength. I had not the heart to stay by him; I knew that my eyes upon him were like offering him an insult, and yet I never looked at him save in love. But once or twice I glanced from the doorway, ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... He braced his legs and feet, pressing the cabin floor with his toes in a clutching sort of way. Knots and ridges and mounds of muscles writhed ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... look disarmed the other. He swept up the dice-box, and shook it furiously, while his lips stirred. It was as if he murmured an incantation for success. The dice rolled out, winking in the light, spun over, and the owner of the gun stood with both hands braced against the edge of the table, ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... holidays was always rather a stirring time for his private feelings, but he became more and more inexpressive. He would sometimes lay a hand on those growing shoulders and then withdraw it. They felt braced-up shoulders, stiffly inflexible or—they would wince. And when one has let the habit of indefinite feelings grow upon one, what is there left to say? If one did say anything ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... two friends tramped the little path at the foot of the bluff, or waded, with legs well-braced, the tumbling torrent, and sent their flies hither and yon across the boiling flood to be snatched by the strong-hearted denizens of the stream, Dan felt the life and freshness and strength of God's good world entering into his being. At dinner time they built a little fire to make their ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... They braced my aunt against a board, To make her straight and tall; They laced her up, they starved her down, To make her light and small; They pinched her feet, they singed her hair, They screwed it up with pins;— Oh never mortal suffered more In penance for ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... no answer; it, was as if she were choosing words. Kirkwood braced himself to meet the storm; but none ensued. There was rather a lull, which strung itself out indefinitely, to the monotonous music of hoofs and ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... from the northward and westward as the yards were braced up, and the Candahar payed off handsomely on the port tack with the tide, making for the Warner Lightship to the eastwards; and, as we trimmed sails and bore away from our whilom anchorage in the roadstead, the breeze brought out to ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... and on the march at five, after having braced ourselves for a solid day's work with hot coffee and bread, or hard tack and butter—the bread and butter being the fruit of yesterday's foraging. Some even fared on chicken, goose, lamb, etc., though it is feared the rightful owners thereof were not ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... the signal was given; the fun was on in earnest. Instantly the miners—veritable school-boys they were, so genuine was their merriment—braced themselves for a catch of the book, which had landed safely in Trinidad's hands. Now it was aimed at Sonora, who caught it on the fly; from Sonora it travelled to Old Steady, who sent it whizzing over to Handsome. Now the Deputy made ready to receive it; but instead it landed once more ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... trapped us. He had left both doors open, had run through, braced the back door, then had rushed around outside just in time to ...
— The Romance of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... whether he was in love with her or not. He could not even be certain of the girl. There were times when Lund seemed to fascinate her. One thing he braced himself to do, to be ready to aid her against Lund if occasion came, and she needed protection. The luck, as Lund phrased it, that had given brawn to the giant, had given Rainey brains. When the time came he would ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... He braced his courage when he rang the bell, but John, who let him in, did not seem to find anything remarkable in his choice of a companion. Pete looked very big and rather truculent in his rough, wet clothes, but he ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... The man braced against the bar looked around with interest. In the mask of Mick Kennedy the single eye closed almost imperceptibly. Slowly the face of the ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... commended his zeal and vigilance. There was one who said, and made it clearly to be understood, that more diligence might easily have been shown to anchor or to remain without leaving the bay; and that, with only the sprit sail braced up, she might have run for shelter under the cape to windward. It was also said that they went to sleep. In the morning the captain asked the pilot what was the position of the ship. He replied that she was to leeward of the cape; and the captain ...
— The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea • George Collingridge
... earth upon his robe of white, Stood side by side with Hobbes and Locke, And, braced by many an acolyte, With Edwards standing on his rock, And all ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... has been by the German Government most deliberately and systematically prepared for. The fact remains that Britain—though for a long period she had foreseen danger and had on the naval side slowly braced herself to meet it—was on the military side caught at the last moment unprepared; that France was so little intending war that a large portion of the nation was actually still protesting against an increase in the size of the standing army; and that Russia—whatever plans she may have had, or ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... glad to see us." He felt that that was not a strong enough note, braced himself stubbornly, and added: "I want to see the Barneses. I haven't any desire ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... his wife. Hugh Roughsedge watched the departing figures. Excellently matched, he must needs admit, in aspect and in height. Was it about to happen?—or had it already happened? He braced himself, soldierlike, ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... enough wherewith to lie down at night in peace, and rise to-morrow to take what comes to-morrow, even as he took what came to-day? And will he not be most fit to take what comes to-morrow like a Christian man, whether it be good or evil, with his spirit braced and yet chastened, by honest and patient labour, instead of being weakened and irritated by idling over to-day, while he ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... pipe and the mighty stillness to bear him company, remained on deck until dawn. In the spirit of the North he discovered something akin to his own soul; the solitude and the stillness braced him to deny himself manfully what was not manfully his to have. In the act of relinquishing Natalie, he felt, what he would not have supposed possible, a great, added tenderness for her. Before he went in, his sober cheerfulness had returned; ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... the sharp discipline of Necessity giving to him an early training well calculated to impress his character with the seal of manliness and self-reliance. His intellectual constitution was early accustomed to the keen atmosphere of wholesome severity; and it nerved and braced him for the warfare of his subsequent career. In it, too, we may find the origin of his peculiar traits as a writer and a politician. He wrote in a vigorous but not polished style, and all his productions were more forcible than elegant. But their very ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... that Bones was not to be scared from his purpose by one fright, he made a detour, got ahead of him, and prepared to receive him near the old well of an adjoining farm, which stood close by the road. When the burglar's footsteps became audible, he braced himself up. As Bones drew near Pax almost burst his little chest with an inhalation. When Bones was within three feet of him, he gave vent to such a skirl that the burglar's reason was again upset. He bounded away, but suddenly recovered self-possession, and, turning round, dashed at the old well, ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... to realize that the words meant acceptance, for Phillips had prepared himself too thoroughly against another failure. Now he felt the tautened muscles release, so quickly that he would have fallen if he hadn't been braced against the seat. ...
— Dead Ringer • Lester del Rey
... were not much different from those usually worn by deep- sea divers. They were of seamless rubber composition, braced across the breast with bars of steel in order to offset the great pressure of the lower levels and give the lungs plenty ...
— Boy Scouts in a Submarine • G. Harvey Ralphson
... against soft flesh and at the yell of pain that followed. Catching Jessup by an arm he swept him toward one of the tables, snatched up a chair, and with his back against the heavy piece of furniture he faced the mob. His hat was gone, and as he stood there, big body braced, mouth set, and hair crested above his smoldering eyes, he made a splendid picture of force and strength which seemed for an instant to awe ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... screamed again; then closed it, and turned towards him, threatening, triumphant. He was as white as a sheet, not because he was frightened or dreaded her threats, but because he recognised in her a mortal enemy. He braced ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... an exhilaration of motion. The slender tops fairly flapped and swished in the passionate torrent, bending and swirling backward and forward, round and round, tracing indescribable combinations of vertical and horizontal curves, while I clung with muscles firm-braced, like a ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... comfortable for the night, and, being instructed by Boris, I set my straw, with the foot of my bundle to the door, which opened inward upon us. Then, putting my sword by my side and my other weapons convenient to my hand, I laid me down and braced my feet firmly against the door, ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... That command implied danger. It called for an instant tightening of every muscle to withstand the strain of a slip. Even Bower, a man on the very brink of committing a fiendish crime, yielded to a subconscious acceptance of the law, and kept himself braced in his steps. ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... Thy favourite flowers of yellow hue; The crocus and the daffodil, The cowslip soft, and sweet jonquil. But when at last usurping Jove Old Saturn from his empire drove, Then gluttony, with greasy paws Her napkin pinn'd up to her jaws, With watery chops, and wagging chin, Braced like a drum her oily skin; Wedged in a spacious elbow-chair, And on her plate a treble share, As if she ne'er could have enough, Taught harmless man to cram and stuff. She sent her priests in wooden shoes From haughty Gaul to make ragouts; Instead of wholesome bread and cheese, To dress ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... seen a bare two weeks ago at the Bachelors' Club in London. Few things are certain in this world, but one was that, if Bartling—such was the Vision's name—should see him, he would come over and address him as Crocker. He braced himself to the task of being Bayliss, the whole Bayliss, and nothing but Bayliss. It might be that stout denial would carry him through. After all, Reggie Bartling was a man of notoriously feeble intellect, who could ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... place opposite Mount Desert Island, taking Julian with him; a place with a stimulating climate but a rather foggy atmosphere. He must have gone there for his health, and it is pathetic to see how the change of climate braced him up at first, so that he even made the commencement of a new diary, and then, as always happens in such cases, it let him down again to where he was before. He did not complain, but he felt that something was wrong with him and he could not tell ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... faces, it lifted Susanna's hair and blew stray locks about her temples, it summoned a lively colour to her cheeks. Anthony could admire the resolute lines, the forceful action, of her strong young body, as she braced herself to march against it. From the turf under their feet rose the keen odour of wet earth, and the mingled scents of clover and wild thyme. All round them sand-martins wheeled and swerved, in a flight ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... the side, than the captain gave orders to shorten sail. He took in royals and topgallant sails, furled the courses, trysail and jib, and double-reefed the topsails. They braced the yards a little to starboard, hauled the foretopmast staysail sheet well aft, and the captain, thinking he had everything snug, stood looking over the weather rails, watching the approaching squall. The wind had almost died away, and the atmosphere seemed strangely ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... The corners of his mouth drooped, his hands felt clammy. Fleur with the pick of youth at the beck of her smile-Fleur incomparable! It was an evil moment. Jon, however, had a great idea that one must be able to face anything. And he braced himself with that dour refection in front of a bric-a-brac shop. At this high-water mark of what was once the London season, there was nothing to mark it out from any other except a grey top hat or two, and the sun. Jon ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... herself presentable; took care of her hair, smoothed her face at the mirror and behind the shield of the drug she waited. She heard the old car rattling up the street, and braced herself for the struggle. She knew—she had learned by bitter experience that the first blow in a rough and tumble was half the battle. As he came raging through the door, slamming it behind him, she faced him, and before he could ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... remarkably heavy cow," said the Elephant; "but I'll fetch her!" And he braced his forefeet in the earth, and ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant
... thought of that, though I felt the point of the knife at my throat, I opened my mouth with the intention of giving a scream, if it was my last one, which might alarm the main guard. The man who held me seemed to know my thoughts; for, even as I braced myself to it, he whispered, 'Don't make a noise. The fort is safe enough. There are no rebel dogs on this side of the river.' There was the ring of truth in what he said, and I knew that if I raised my voice I was a dead man. I could read it in the fellow's brown ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... discouraged, and silence fell again upon them. Then at length he braced himself for an effort. For all his shyness he was ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... was slowing down. The brakes shrieked and grated as we came to a jerky stop. Three of us braced ourselves at the heads of the four horses in the rear of the car and prevented them from sliding on top of us. Boyle and Slater were doing their best to quiet the forward four. The explosions overhead increased. Now we heard the report of field pieces so close that they seemed to ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... But the visitors were braced for the experience. Estra looked at each approvingly, and then did something which made them wonder. He stood stock still for perhaps a second, his eyes closed as though listening; and then, without explanation, he led the way through an opal-glass ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... below the street. I felt as though I had gone into the mines. I didn't like it but I knew that there was just as much to learn here as above and that it must all be learned eventually. The sides were braced with heavy timbers like a mine shaft to prevent the dirt from falling in and there was the constant danger that in spite of this it might cave in. We went down by rough ladders made by nailing strips ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton |
