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Bridle   /brˈaɪdəl/   Listen
Bridle

noun
1.
Headgear for a horse; includes a headstall and bit and reins to give the rider or driver control.
2.
The act of restraining power or action or limiting excess.  Synonyms: check, curb.



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"Bridle" Quotes from Famous Books



... her child To forego a sport so wild; While he, turning, frowned or smiled, And away would sidle. For, to give him short and long, Harry had a head so strong, In the right or in the wrong, It was hard to bridle. ...
— The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould

... to the spot with only two attendants, and he was no sooner seen approaching than M. de Nerestan and the Vicomte de Pont-Chateau advanced from the ranks, apparently to welcome him, but on reaching his side, the latter seized the bridle of his horse, while his companion arrested him in the name of the King.[261] Resistance was of course impossible, and thus the Comte d'Auvergne, despite all his precautions, ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... left his lips, when his hand relinquished its hold of the bridle, by a convulsive movement he threw himself back in the saddle, and fell heavily to the ground, struck by a ball. A cry of horror from Luis was echoed by one of consternation from the Carlists, on witnessing the fall of a man whom they all ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various

... and their movement. A horse comes along, walking on a hoof that is no longer a hoof. What stops every team within two blocks for twenty minutes? Why, an officer has rushed into that torrent of traffic, has grasped that poor beast by the bridle, and has sent a bullet on a mission of mercy through its brain. How is it that the frightful objurgations of the high-charioted host fall so lightly on that officer? Why does he not get killed himself? Because ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern

... face them around, crying to them that victory was sure, but it did no good, they divided and swept by her like a wave. Old D'Aulon begged her to retreat while there was yet a chance for safety, but she refused; so he seized her horse's bridle and bore her along with the wreck and ruin in spite of herself. And so along the causeway they came swarming, that wild confusion of frenzied men and horses—and the artillery had to stop firing, of course; consequently ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain

... said Duncan McClean. The Scotsman was beginning to betray an inclination to bridle under the youngster's attitude, and to show an equally pronounced desire not to appear to. "More so, ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy

... event of the battle was the charge made by that squadron. It was no canter, no easy "pig-sticking"; it was a fight to get in and a fight to get out, with frenzied followers of the Khalifa hanging to the bridle reins, hacking at the horses' hamstrings, and slashing and firing point-blank at the troopers. Churchill was in that charge. He received the ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis

... where they hold a kind of fair which generally lasts fifteen or twenty days. On these occasions they bring for sale, besides horses and cattle, fossil salt, gypsum, pitch, bed-coverings, ponchos, skins, wool, bridle-reins beautifully wrought of plaited leather, baskets, wooden vessels, feathers, ostrich-eggs, and a variety of other articles; and receive in return wheat, wine, and European manufactures. In the conduct of this barter they are very skilful, and can with difficulty be overreached. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr

... condescended to sit in a corner for an hour and talk with a massive lady, dressed like Hamlet's mother in black velvet with a pearl bridle under her chin. A Polish count, aged eighteen, devoted himself to the ladies, who pronounced him, 'a fascinating dear', and a German Serene Something, having come to supper alone, roamed vaguely about, seeking what he might devour. Baron Rothschild's private ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... the memory of a certain pair of large-bowed spectacles that she wore, and of the green calash, held by a ribbon bridle, that sheltered her head, when she walked up from the shore to see us, as she often did. They announced to us the approach of inexhaustible kindliness and good cheer. We took in a home-feeling with the words "Aunt Betsey" ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom

... should go with them. I went to get ready as quickly as possible, and my luggage, saddle and bridle, were carried down to ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various

... Sir,' returned Patrick, taking the stranger's bridle that he might dismount; 'my father and my cousin will gladly further on his way a prisoner ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge

... moment? I must not let a first disappointment control my reason. The roads were bad; the retreat of the rebels was necessarily slow, as they had many wagon trains to protect. The road must be forsaken at the first path that would lead me to the right; any bridle-path would lead me somewhere. The night was clear, and the stars would guide me until I should reach some better ground. The sketch furnished me gave me only the main road, with the branch roads marked down for very ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson

... the auctioneer to lower the price of the saddle, but finally concluded to pay ten dollars for it and two dollars for a bridle. A worn saddle cloth was "thrown in" for good measure. Ripley handed the money to ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock

... a project which would find little favour with Coke, and the crowd of lawyers who venerated him—men whom Bacon viewed with mingled contempt and apprehension both in the courts and in Parliament where they were numerous, and whom he more than once advised the King to bridle and keep "in awe." Bacon presented his scheme to the King in a Proposition, or, as we should call it, a Report. It is very able and interesting; marked with his characteristic comprehensiveness and sense of practical needs, and with a confidence in his own knowledge of law which ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church

... said, "I don't need you. Cal'late I can take care of 'most anything that's liable to have happened. If he ain't put the bridle to bed in the stall and hung the mare up on the harness pegs I judge I can handle the job. Wonder how fur along he'd got. Didn't hear him singin' anything about 'Hyannis on ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... themselves against it. Hasan was affrighted at them and fared forwards surrounded by the horses, without drawing rein till he came to the cavern which Shaykh Abd al-Kaddus had described to him. The steed stood still at the door and Hasan alighted and bridged the bridle over the saddle-bow[FN113]; whereupon the steed entered the cavern, whilst the rider abode without, as the old man had charged him, pondering the issue of his case in perplexity and distraction and unknowing what would befal him.—And Shahrazad perceived ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton

... were well under progress when I left in August. One of these was designed for me and the other for Vallas. Mr. Ewing presented me with a horse, which I took down the river with me, and en route I ordered from Grimsley & Co. a full equipment of saddle, bridle, etc., the same that I used in the war, and which I lost with my horse, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... This he did without delay. But such a question seemed silly and out of place to one of the guardians of the corpse, and he commanded the knight to move on. This angered Don Quixote beyond measure. He seized the man's mule by the bridle; but this, in turn, annoyed the mule, which rose on its hind legs and flung its rider to the ground. Another man came up to Don Quixote and tried to talk reason to him, but to no avail, and in the disturbance that followed the procession was soon scattered over the fields and plains, with torches ...
— The Story of Don Quixote • Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards, and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... station on the railway the horses were waiting for us. It was a lovely moonlight night, and we shortened the distance considerably by taking the bridle path over the moor. Between nine and ten ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins

... the mire, all their impatient aspirations for better days smothered, and the volcano-blasts blown aside, which made the future of rulers so horrid and so dark? They see not, in truth, that this blind and passive faith which we demand from the mass, furnishes their rulers with a bridle with which both to conduct and curb them; whilst we ask from the happy of the world only some appearances which ought, if they had only the knowledge of their own corruption, to give an increased ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... "El-Khaur," distinguished as El-Shiml ("the Northern"): it winds round by the north, and we shall descend it to-morrow. The mule-riders left the Wady el-Wijh, which extends some two hours eastward, and struck to the east-south-east. The bridle-path, running up the left bank of an ugly rocky torrent, the Wady Zurayb, presently reaches a plateau undulating in low rises. Burnt with heat, almost bare of trees, and utterly waterless, it is ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton

... she did keep on. No sooner were the dogs safely kennelled than she began to think how fine it would look to be followed by this wonderful pair along the country roads and through the streets of Exeter. To be followed, she must have a horse and a saddle and a bridle and a habit; and later on I found that these things did not grow on the bushes in our neighborhood. I drew a line at these things, however, and decided that they should not swell the farm account. Thus I keep from the reader's eye some of the foolishness of a doting parent who has always ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter

... running a smaller loop, tightened the coil round the frightened calf just back of its ears. A pull on the bridle brought Kentuck to a halt in his tracks, and the baby buffalo rolled over and over in the grass. Jones bounced from his seat and jerked loose a couple of the soft cords. In a twinkling; his big knee crushed down on the calf, and his big ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey

... the head of so great a nation with no courage in the heart, with no exaltation of captaincy in the soul, without even the decency to make sacrifices for principle, made him bitterly contemptuous. At first he could scarcely bridle his rage, but as years went on he used to say that the politicians had deepened his faith in Providence. God was surely looking after England or she would have perished years agone. In his old age he ceaselessly quoted ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie

... had been kicked into a fire by a horse and afterwards rolled in the dust under a barrow, and finally thrown against the fence from a distance. Several saddle-horses, which had been 'hanging-up' round the verandah, were galloping wildly down the road in clouds of dust, with broken bridle-reins flying; and from a circle round the outskirts, from every point of the compass in the scrub, came the yelping of dogs. Two of them went home, to the place where they were born, thirty miles away, and reached it the same night and stayed there; it was not till towards evening ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson

... for fright. Then, as he was making his way into Gaul, Decimus Brutus opposed him; who preferred being himself surrounded by the waves of the whole war, to allowing him either to retreat or advance; and who put Mutina on him as a sort of bridle to his exultation. And when he had blockaded that city with his works and fortifications, and when the dignity of a most flourishing colony, and the majesty of a consul elect, were both insufficient to deter him from ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero

... his prison in blockaded Venice the great admiral was sent forth on a forlorn hope, and blocked victorious Doria here with boats on which the nobles of the Golden Book had spent their fortunes. Pietro Doria boasted that with his own hands he would bridle the bronze horses of S. Mark. But now he found himself between the navy of Carlo Zeno in the Adriatic and the flotilla led by Vittore Pisani across the lagoon. It was in vain that the Republic of S. George strained every nerve to send him succour from the Ligurian sea; in vain ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... carried a memory in his wallet as he trudged to Romeville whistling The girl I left behind me. If the earthquake did not time it we should know where to place poor Wat, sitting in his form, the cry of hounds, the studded bridle and her blue windows. That memory, Venus and Adonis, lay in the bedchamber of every light-of-love in London. Is Katharine the shrew illfavoured? Hortensio calls her young and beautiful. Do you think the writer of Antony ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... Who is the man on horse-back? How is he dressed? What is hanging from a chain on his breast? What is he looking at? What is the expression on his face? What is the color of his horse? Have you ever seen a bridle and a harness like these in the picture? Do you think the man loved his horse and took good care of him? Who is the man standing beside the horse? How would you describe his garments? What has he in his right hand? What is its use, and what does it signify? What does the gesture ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester

... met us with a girning face and white fangs. On Tarf-side there was a rough bridle-path that the wind swept the snow from, and our progress was fairly easy. Here the drifts lay waist high, the horses plunged to the belly-bands, the footmen pushed through in a sweat. It was like some Hyperborean hell, and we the doomed wretches sentenced to our eternity ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... set up by our Lord. "By me," saith he, "kings reign, and princes decree justice. By me princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the earth" (Prov 8:15,16). Nor are they when set up, left to do, though they should desire it, their own will and pleasure. The Metheg-Ammah,9 the bridle, is in his own hand, and he giveth reins, or check, even as it pleaseth him (2 Sam 8:1), He has this power, for the well-being of his people. Nor are the fallen angels exempted from being put under his rebuke: He is the "only potentate" (1 Tim 6:15), and in his times ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... introducing his companion. Personally, he would as readily have performed this office on horseback, but he knew that the schoolmaster was a stickler for ceremony. While the introduction was going on, Pierre took Mr. Nash's horse by the bridle, and led the procession home. There, Madame stood in the porch eagerly waiting for news of "ce jeune homme si courageux, si benveillont," and was delighted to hear that he was safe, and that Mr. Nash, an old acquaintance, was ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... come and pay us a visit, and see Ronald after he has learned the full use of the saddle and bridle—eh, Ronald?" ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade

... are guided by telepathic means alone, there is no need for rein or bridle, and so our object now was to find two that would obey our unspoken commands. As they charged about us we succeeded in mastering them sufficiently to prevent any concerted attack upon us, but the din of their squealing was certain to bring investigating warriors into the courtyard ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... out of the cottage, he beheld, in the center of the common, a well dressed, good-looking individual, who was standing on the ground and holding by the bridle a horse, which, as well as the rider himself, appeared both travel-stained and weary. Approaching the stranger with a firm step, but with a pale countenance and throbbing ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett

... classic, or rather fairy ground. This is the haunted glen of Thomas the Rhymer, where he met with the queen of fairy land, and this the bogle burn, or goblin brook, along which she rode on her dapple-gray palfrey, with silver bells ringing at the bridle. ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving

... bridle on the neck of Pegasus seemed to Muratori sixty years later to be altogether too risky a proceeding—although advocated by a Prince of the Church! He reinserts the bit of the verisimilar, though he talks with admiration of the fancy, that "inferior apprehensive" faculty, ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce

... only get me the best shoes you can for my horse, and the grandest saddle and bridle that are to be found', said the lad, 'you may have my twelve mares that graze up on the hill yonder, and their twelve foals into the bargain.' For you must know that this year too ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent

... befouled, Rudolph passed through into the torrid glare. The leper cut short his snarling oration. But without looking at him, the young man took the bridle from the coolie. There had been a test. He had seen a child, and two women. And yet it was with a pang he found that Mrs. Forrester had ...
— Dragon's blood • Henry Milner Rideout

... Gobbet), and Ulyate (the white hunter) and myself rode in a widely extended line in front of the safari, sweeping the country for game. It was hot at the base of the hills—so hot that when your bridle hand dropped inadvertently to the pommel of the saddle, the brass mounting there seemed to burn you. Not a breath of air was stirring, and the sun shone down blazing through the wisps of smoke haze, and the heat waves rose from the dead, parched veldt so that ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine

... the likeness of an ugly toad, in which hateful shape she remained to her dying day, wandering around the castle and the green fields, an object of hatred to all who saw her. The "Spindlestone," a tall crag on which the young knight hung his bridle, when he went further on to seek the worm in the "heugh," is still to be seen, but the huge trough from which the worm was said to ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry

... said one day, when he was pulling and tugging impatiently at Neddie's bridle, "we'll ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous

... property—like parks, open spaces, and wash-houses. I do not mean that he treated this public property as other, and more conventionally-minded, men habitually treat it. Mr. Shaw walks down the Strand as if it were his private bridle-path. He walks across an Insurance Bill or a National Theatre scheme or a policy for giving self-government to Englishmen as a man who might be treading the weeds in his own garden. But the intellectual stage-properties were all prepared ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James

... spirits, through the exercise of our own faculties of judgment and common-sense, if only we will keep near to Him. 'Be ye not as the horse or as the mule, which have no understanding, whose mouths must be held in with bit and with bridle, else they will not come near to thee,' but walk close behind Him, and then the promise will be fulfilled: 'I will guide thee with Mine eye.' A glance tells two people who are in sympathy what each ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... would not suffer himself to be {258} caught, and at last, worn out with his fruitless exertions, Bellerophon fell into a deep sleep beside the sacred spring Pirene. Here Pallas-Athene appeared to him in a dream, and presented him with a magic bridle for the purpose of capturing the divine steed. On awaking Bellerophon instinctively put out his hand to grasp it, when, to his amazement, there lay beside him the bridle of his dream, whilst Pegasus was quietly drinking at the fountain close by. Seizing him by the mane Bellerophon threw ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens

... waylay Bentley and beat him. Hour after hour I sat there. Horses began to canter by; up and down the road there was laughter and merry chatting. The moon was full, and I could plainly see the passers-by. Suddenly I sprang from the log and seized a bridle rein. A girl shrieked and a man cut my hand with a whip, and I jerked the horse to his knees. Bentley shouted that he would kill me if I did not let go, but I heeded not; I jerked him off his horse, kicked ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read

... A bridle-path conducted us for some miles along the edge of a gentle stream, whose banks were clothed with long luxuriant grass extending on either side for a few hundred yards; we proceeded rapidly at first, keeping our horses at a hand gallop, as the path was ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem

... the matter; in fact I've not been in the spinning department for—for some time." Stoddard looked down at the hand which held his bridle, and remembered that he had absented himself from every place that threatened him with the ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke

... Acro-Corinthus were by special agreement put into his hands, following the example of Aesop's hunter; for he would not get up and ride the Achaeans, who desired him so to do, and offered their backs to him by embassies and popular decrees, till, by a garrison and hostages, they had allowed him to bit and bridle them. Aratus exhausts all his powers of speech to show the necessity that was upon him. But Polybius writes, that long before this, and before there was any necessity, apprehending the daring temper of Cleomenes, he communicated secretly with Antigonus, and that he had beforehand prevailed ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... that under his previous masters. The single other difference was that instead of irritating silence, these men unwittingly soothed him with their talk and swift exchange of jokes. Thus the hours passed, until noon came, when, with his bridle and saddle removed, and pungent odors of savory cooking tickling his nostrils, he received the privilege of grazing over the whole desert unhobbled and untethered. But this, liberal as it seemed, brought him nothing of the nourishment his soul craved. ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton

... raised his bugle, and blew so sudden a blast that the horse on which Lady Helen sat took fright, and began to plunge and rear, to the evident hazard of throwing her into the stream. Some of the dismounted men, seeing her danger, seized the horse by the bridle; while the English knight extricating her from the saddle, carried her through some clustering bushes into a cave, and laid her at the feet ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... by the time I was twelve, there wasn't a hunter in the stables that I wouldn't get on at a moment's notice. I am ashamed to confess that I have even caught the loose cart-horses in a field, and ridden them without saddle or bridle. I never was beat but once, and that was at Uncle Horsingham's when I was about fifteen. He had bought a mare at Tattersall's for his daughter to ride, and brought her down to Dangerfield, thinking she would conduct herself like the rest of her species. How well I remember ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville

... check was put to these excesses by the report of the murder of Count La Garde, who, receiving an account of this tumult, mounted his horse, and entered one of the streets, to disperse a crowd. A villain seized his bridle; another presented the muzzle of a pistol close to his body, and exclaimed, "Wretch, you make me retire!" He immediately fired. The murderer was Louis Boissin, a serjeant in the national guard; but, though known ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... possibly late 19th century. USNM 211312; 1956. A rugged type of bridle bit with steel rings used to control horses. This particular bridle bit may have been used in Texas and Mexico in the cattle industry. Gift of Catholic University of America, ...
— Agricultural Implements and Machines in the Collection of the National Museum of History and Technology • John T. Schlebecker

... garden wall, Walked swiftly o'er the lonely plain, Till 'neath the blasted pine again He paused, and blew the whistle low; Soon from a clump of firs below An aged servant slowly led A saddled steed: the pale moon shed Its fitful gleam as Lennard sprung Light to his seat, then fearless flung The bridle loose, and spurring, soon Drew up beside a deep lagoon, Whose stagnant waters 'neath the moon Glimmered through bush and hanging vine, And cypress bald and ragged pine. Concealed within the spectral ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various

... BLADIER, or orator, to make harangues to the great folks whom he visits; then his GILLY-MORE, or armour-bearer, to carry his sword and target, and his gun; then his GILLY CASFLIUCH, who carries him on his back through the sikes and brooks; then his GILLY-COMSTRIAN, to lead his horse by the bridle in steep and difficult paths; then his GILLY-TRUSHHARNISH, to carry his knapsack; and the piper and the piper's man, and it may be a dozen young lads besides, that have no business, but are just boys of the belt, to follow the laird, and do ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott

... tin mugs, Rifle-Eye was entirely silent, uttering never a word and paying no attention to any allusion about horses. Right after the meal Wilbur went down to the corral, saddled one of his two new horses, put a leading bridle on the other, and, after bidding Bob-Cat and the boys "Good-by," started for the point where he was to ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... torrent which separates the town of Bard from the fort. Bonaparte, whose retinue was not very numerous, crossed the torrent. On arriving within gunshot of the fort he ordered us to quicken our pace to gain a little bridle-path on the left, leading to the summit of Mont Albaredo, and turning the town and fort ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... drew the bridle through a ring and hook attached to the wall just inside the gates. No one spoke. The two nuns noiselessly replaced the heavy bolts. There was a muffled clank of large keys, and they led the ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman

... hero was inducted on these conditions, seemed formed, with respect to the public room, upon the principle of a citadel, intended to observe and bridle a rebellious capital. Here sat the host on the Saturday evenings, screened from the observation of his guests, yet with the power of observing both their wants and their behaviour, and also that of overhearing ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... stop, be they where they might. It so happened that their next meeting was at the head of Acushnet River, three miles above New Bedford, where Whittredge was visiting his patients, and West his parishioners. This done, they set out towards evening to walk to New Bedford. Whittredge throwing the bridle-rein over his arm, they walked on slowly, every now and then turning aside into some crook of the fence, the horse meantime getting his advantage in a bit of green grass, and thus they talked and walked, and walked and talked, till the ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey

... from his position for hours; should it be necessary to dismount, and leave him. The horses thus tutored are invaluable for shooting purposes, as it is frequently necessary to stalk an animal on foot; in which case, the bridle is simply arranged by drawing the reins over the head, and throwing them in his front, to fall upon the ground before his fore-feet. When thus managed, the horse will feed, but he will never move away from his position, ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... combinations of the statement as we may, the problem of the future of America is in certain respects as dark as it is vast. Pride, competition, segregation, vicious wilfulness, and license beyond example, brood already upon us. Unwieldy and immense, who shall hold in behemoth? who bridle leviathan? Flaunt it as we choose, athwart and over the roads of our progress loom huge uncertainty, and dreadful, threatening gloom. It is useless to deny it: Democracy grows rankly up the thickest, noxious, deadliest plants and fruits of all—brings worse and worse invaders—needs ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... best horse of the three, and the khan himself of a more sanguine and hopeful disposition, I make him tie all his clothes and damageable things into a bundle and fasten them on his saddle; the rope is then tied to the bridle and the horse pulled across, his gallant rider clinging to his tail, according to my orders, and praying aloud to Allah on his own account. The gray swims the unfordable middle portion nobly, and the khan comes through with no worse damage than a mouthful or ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... need a famous steed be a with bridle e'er restrained? Through the city it speeds; the moat it skirts; how fierce it looks. The master gives the word and wind and clouds begin to move. On the 'fish backs' and the 'three isles' it only makes a name, (a ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... from chafing, when the trawl is being worked over the bottom, by pieces of old net. The meshes vary in size according to the part of the trawl. Near the mouth, they are four inches square, and in the cod, an inch and a quarter. The trawl is hauled along by a bridle, that is to say, by two ropes of about fifteen fathoms each, which are fastened to the ends of the trawl heads, and unite at a warp, one hundred and fifty fathoms long, which serves to haul the net along. Trawling, as a rule, is carried on in the direction ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston

... gaunt farm horse was standing on his hind legs pawing the air madly, while a rickety old spring wagon seesawed uncertainly on the edge of a deep ditch beside the road. But the driver of the horse was on the road, hanging on to the bridle while plying a stout hickory stick freely ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... but not overbearance; and also see that ye bridle all your passions, that ye may be filled with love; see that ye ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous

... example of the driver in spilling to the ground. Then our good international, the agent, jumped down and, mounting to the coachman's seat, took the reins and urged the horse forward, while its driver pulled it by the bridle. All was of no effect till the solitary of the back seat rose in his place and shouted to the frightened creature in choice American: "What d' you mean, there? Come on! Come on, you fool!" Then, as if it had been an "impenitent mule" in some far-distant ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells

... see him anywhere. I was the more annoyed at this, as I found that (by mistake) I had given him notes on the Bank of Elegance, which everyone knows are of less value than notes on the Bank of England. However, it was too late to search for the vendor, and I walked away as I could, leading by the bridle the steed ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 27, 1890 • Various

... he knew of Mr. Highton, he was lying near him, with his saddle and bridle beneath his head, apparently sleeping and settled for ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various

... could have breathed. His corduroy trowsers (such like as I have often since made to growing callants) were tied round his ankles with a string; and he had a rusty spur on one shoe, which I saw a man take off to lend him. Save us! how he pulled the beast's head by the bridle, and flapped up and down on the saddle when he tried a canter! The second one had on a black velvet hunting-cap, and his coat stripped. I wonder he was not feared of cold, his shirt being like a riddle, and his nether nankeens but thin for such weather; but ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir

... by laws and policy, and that he himself hath appointed the civil magistrate, and hath delivered to him the sword to the protection and praise of good men, but for punishment and revenge on the evil, that by this bridle, men's vices and faults may be restrained, whether these are committed against the first or ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... to be prayin', any more than swearin', in the middle of the road," said Miranda; "but I'm thankful it's no worse. You're born to trouble as the sparks fly upward, an' I'm afraid you allers will be till you learn to bridle your ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... no time, I diverged from the straight road which leads to Kilrush, and took a cross bridle-path to Callonby; this, I afterwards discovered was a detour of a mile or two, and it was already sun-set when I reached the entrance to the park. I entered the avenue, and now my impatience became extreme, for ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever

... fire raged furiously, devouring the trees which fringed its shores; while close above our heads hung a black canopy of smoke, though a cool current of air, which blew up the stream, enabled me to breathe freely. The hunter, holding the bridle of his horse, was ...
— The Trapper's Son • W.H.G. Kingston

... time. The dishonest speaker, not he only who purposely utters falsehoods, but he who does not purposely, and with sincere heart, utter Truth, and Truth alone; who babbles he knows not what, and has clapped no bridle on his tongue, but lets it run racket, ejecting chatter and futility—is among the most indisputable malefactors omitted, or inserted, ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson

... when within about a mile veer to the right. It soon becomes evident to Karl that these are trying to get between him and the camp. He tells Oswald his fears, who promptly joins Karl, facing these unknown horsemen. Making a turn near the trail, the four rapidly approach. Both drop their bridle-reins, grasping the ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee

... Miller he hecht her a heart leal and loving; The Laird did address her wi' matter mair moving, A fine pacing horse wi' a clear chained bridle, A whip by her side ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... whom childhood and womanhood had begun to interchange hues, as it were with the play of colours in a dove's neck. Happy they in whom neither has a final victory! Happy also all who have such women to love! At one moment Ginevra would draw herself up—bridle her grandmother would have called it—with involuntary recoil from doubtful approach; the next, Ginny would burst out in a merry laugh at something in which only a child could have perceived the mirth-causing element; ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald

... all set out at full gallop, Robert's old deaf tutor, Sir Foucault de Nesle, who had not heard one word of the remonstrance, holding his bridle, and shouting, "Ores a eux! ores a, eux!" They burst into the town, and began to pillage, killing the Saracen Emir Fakreddin, as he left his bath; but in the meantime, Bendocdar, another Mameluke chief, had rallied his forces, threw a troop between ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... in that room under a guard so watchful that any attempt to escape was out of the question, until three o'clock the next morning. The horses were then saddled, and we were soon off, Rube and I riding in the midst of the party with our hands tied before us, so that we could just hold the bridle. We had found out from the conversation that El Zeres with his band was about twenty-five ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty

... reconnoitre the enemy. The horse, frightened by the cannonading, ran away with the King, and nearly carried him into the midst of the French lines. Fortunately, however, one of the attendants succeeded in stopping him. An ensign seized the horse's bridle, and ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... ez I ken: 'Wo dar, you scan'lous villyun! Wo!' Well, suh, I speck dat hoss mus a-bin use'n ter niggers, kaze time I holler at 'im he lay right still, suh. I slid down dat bank, en I kotch holter dat bridle—I don't look like I'm mighty strong, does I, suh?" said Aunt Fountain, pausing suddenly in her narrative ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris

... horses of high mettle. The trappings of these animals were of a novel description, bells being appended to various parts of the harness, and streamers, or plumes of white hair and gaudy ribbons, floating in the air from the bridle of each. A postilion, in a suit of grey, with an otter-skin cap, rode on the rearmost or saddle horse, and his nonchalance and perfect command of his team were surprising. This boat was some sixty yards in length, and constructed only for passengers ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell

... who was a squire; he set himself against the Moor with his lance under his arm, and gave him such a thrust in the breast, that the streamer of the lance came out all red with blood between his shoulders, and he down'd with the dead man and took his horse by the bridle, and began to call the Infante Diego Gonzalez. When the Infante heard himself called by his name he turned his head to see who called him, and when he saw that it was his cousin Felez Munoz, he turned and awaited him. And Felez Munoz said, Take this horse, cousin Diego Gonzalez, and ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various

... estates, without all respect of order or statutes devised by the founders, onelie thereby to place whome they think good (and not without some hope of gaine) the case is too too evident, and their attempt would soone take place, if their superiors did not provide to bridle their indevors. In some grammar schooles likewise, which send scholers to these universities, it is lamentable to see what briberie is used; for yer the scholer can be preferred, such briberye is made, that pore men's children are commonly shut out, and the richer sort received (who in times past ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various

... suddenly bolted across the open field with a slight cut on one flank, and half a dozen men made wild grasp at its bridle before one succeeded in recapturing the brute. And here and there groups of men finding their corner of the field a bit too "hot" for comfort would just as suddenly bolt across to another part and start feverishly ...
— From the St. Lawrence to the Yser with the 1st Canadian brigade • Frederic C. Curry

... the Brockhurst country when the sap is up, and the easterly wind and May sun have scorched all moisture from the surface of the moorland. He and Mary had bumped over fir roots and scuttled down bridle-paths in the pony-carriage, to avoid the rush of flame and smoke; had skirmished round at a hand gallop, in search of recruits to reinforce Ormiston, and Iles, and a small army of beaters, battling against the blazing line that threatened ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... in his manners, and seemed delighted to talk to him about his meadows, his woods, and his rabbit-warrens. Porthos had all the taste and pride of a landed proprietor. When D'Artagnan saw his two companions in earnest conversation, he took the opposite side of the road, and letting his bridle drop upon his horse's neck, separated himself from the whole world, as he had done from Porthos and from Planchet. The moon shone softly through the foliage of the forest. The breezes of the open country rose deliciously perfumed to the horse's nostrils, and they snorted and pranced ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... than an hour, Romeo had completed the plans for remodelling the barn. They had no horse, but as a few bits of harness remained from the last equine incumbent, they usually alluded to the barn as "the bridle chamber." ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed

... than we can say it, the whole party were over the fence, making with all speed for the rocks, while Michael, throwing himself from his horse, and fastening the bridle to the wagon, ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... by those utensils, such as the old poet called sartago loquendi. When he was a captain he made all the furniture of his horse, from the bit to the crupper, in beaten poetry, every verse being fitted to the proportion of the thing, with a moral allusion of the sense to the thing; as the bridle of moderation, the saddle of content, and the crupper of constancy; so that the same thing was both epigram and emblem, even as a mule is both ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... many years in health and affluence, and, at his death, one of his relatives having bought the house where he resided, turned it into an inn, having for his sign, "The Dule upo' Dun." On it was depicted "Old Hornie" mounted on a scraggy dun horse, without saddle or bridle, "the terrified steed being off and away at full gallop from the door, while a small hilarious tailor with shears and measures," viewed his departure with anything but grief or disapprobation.[34] The authors of "Lancashire ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer

... Fitzgerald, losing sight of him in the heat of the fight when enveloped in smoke and dust, dropped the bridle on the neck of his horse and drew his hat over his eyes, giving him up for lost. When he saw him, however, emerging from the cloud, waving his hat, and beheld the enemy giving way, he spurred up to his side: "Thank God," cried he, "your Excellency is safe!" "Away, my dear ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various

... tall grasses, and was beside the horse before the boy could mount. She grasped the bridle, and, at the same time, more firmly ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose

... nothing, and, with a firm hand, gathered up the bridle of my horse, and drew it within my fingers, which were ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman

... my Lord Cardinal," said a quick voice, and, turning, Giovanni saw a masked figure and felt a touch upon his bridle-arm. "'T is I, Buonarotti," said the new-comer, slightly raising his visor. "The Signory have declared both thee and Pietro rebels and outlaws! A price is set upon thy head. Pietro has fled already, and when once the news ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks

... father, like great Caesar and Duke Casimir, is but mortal, and may stumble across the wooden stump some day himself and find his neck-bone in twain! None so wise that he can tell when the Silent Rider shall meet him in the wood, leading by the bridle the pale horse whose name is Death, and beckoning ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... of life which to Brian's fancy haunted the highway, Kenny had delightful substitute, fairies quaffing nectar from flower-cups of dew or riding bridle paths of cloud on bits of straw. In everything he chose to find an augury, from the night of birds to the way of the wind, the curl of smoke or the color of a cloud. Thirsty he longed for the drinking horn of Bran ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple

... they had spread on the ground the robes found in the car. The men now added their coats, and Wemple, for additional traction, unsaddled the roan, and spread the cinches, stirrup leathers, saddle blanket, and bridle in the way of the wheels. The car took the treacherous slope in a rush, with churning wheels biting into the woven fabrics; and, with no more than a hint of hesitation, it cleared the crest and swung ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London

... known this, had I but surmiz'd it, you should have hunted three trains more, before you had come to th' course, you should have hankt o'th' bridle, Sir, i'faith. ...
— The Scornful Lady • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... or quilts upon the summit of the hump. It happened that my dromedary veered rather suddenly from her onward course. Meeting the movement, I mechanically turned my left wrist as though I were holding a bridle rein, for the complete darkness prevented my eyes from reminding me that I had nothing but a halter in my hand. The expected resistance failed, for the halter was hanging upon that side of the dromedary’s neck towards which I ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake

... direction, and in a quarter of an hour came to the mouth of a narrow gut between two icebergs. The stick of the harness had caught in the fissure, and checked the dogs, who were barking with rage. Sakalar caught the bridle, which had been jerked out of his hand, and turned the dogs round. The animals followed his guidance, and he succeeded, after some difficulty, in bringing them to where lay his game. He then fastened the ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various

... lieutenant, well called the Lion of God. Time lays his touch so lightly on these generous steeds, that the mare on which thou now sittest has seen five times five years pass over her, yet retains her pristine speed and vigour, only that in the career the support of a bridle, managed by a hand more experienced than thine, hath now become necessary. May the Prophet be blessed, who hath bestowed on the true believers the means of advance and retreat, which causeth their iron-clothed enemies to be worn out with their own ponderous weight! How the ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott

... told me not to go when I spoke to him about it. And now if I went back I feared he would kill me; for I knew there would be no escape for me from being run into the bull ring, and that torture I could not think of enduring. I, therefore, stopped, and, taking the bridle and saddle from the horse, hid them in the corner of a fence in a cornfield. Then I went into the woods. The papers which I had were in the saddlebag safe. The place where I stayed in the daytime was in a large shuck-pen—a pen built in ...
— Thirty Years a Slave • Louis Hughes

... Merry, as he dismounted, dropping the bridle rein on Dick's neck. "We'll see what ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish

... satisfaction, as the wave of joyousness crept up higher and higher round her, till the elders, who stood keeping time with their heads and feet, began to tell one another how they had danced with their sweethearts in good old days gone by, and the elder women began to blush and bridle, and boast of steps that they could take in their youth, till the music finally subdued them, and into the ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... but the smile did not come from his heart. "Me, I shall surely bring the senor a riata worthy even of his skill," he declared sententiously, as he walked away with his bridle slung over his arm and ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower

... yokel came to the door with the bridle of Swart's best horse over his arm. "Take this," Padraig directed, "to Robert Edrupt, the wool merchant at Long Lea near Stratton. If he be from home give it to his wife Barbara and tell her to open and read it. She is wise and will do what is right. Here is money—all I have—but you shall ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey

... was, I was well frightened, and grasped both bridle and mane with the utmost tenacity. After this we travelled on as rapidly as possible, in order to reach our ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie

... exceptions, the people are nothing to me, and the less I see of them the better I am pleased. But the places grow ever more dear to me. I like to know of anything that has happened at Heavitree, or Brampford Speke, or Newton St. Cyres. I begin to pride myself on knowing every road and lane, every bridle path and foot-way for miles about. I like to learn the names of farms and of fields. And all this because here is my abiding place, because I am ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing

... idea seized me to let my pursuer believe that I was that dead man; so I dressed him in my uniform, killed the horse near him, left the scout's saddle and bridle there, and started off on foot over the desert, attired as the man whom I had ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham

... mere industry, however well applied, will make an artist. The gift comes by nature, but is perfected by self-culture, which is of more avail that all the imparted learning of the schools. But even genius without good judgment may be an unbroken steed without a bridle. ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon

... nearly done when the long roll began to beat. The men at once took their places behind their stacked arms. Col. Cone was rushing about in a highly excited manner, holding a revolver in one hand and his bridle reins in the other, resolved, no doubt, to die bravely, if need be. There was not a round of ammunition in the regiment. I never learned that there was a show of the enemy. Perhaps it became known at headquarters that we had no loading ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller

... that the old gentleman should want to rest when he was not a mile from his own house, but of course he consented to the proposed plan, and imitated Mr Brandon by riding under a large tree, and fastening his bridle to a low-hanging bough. The two gentlemen seated themselves on the log, and Mr Brandon, ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton

... morning Frank Harland, for such was the name of Roland's friend, rode away towards Oatland's, the residence of the coarse-haired Mr. Ham. He alighted at the gate, and throwing his bridle rein over a post entered the grounds. Mr. Ham was at the moment crossing the field towards his residence; but when he perceived the early visitor he changed his course and proceeded ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins

... it by the bridle, and descended the steep bank again, preceding Dick Sand. The latter had thrown a rapid glance, as well over the river as toward the forest which shut up its two banks. But he saw nothing of a ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne

... Geoffrey lands at Dover, the castle of which was held by Richenda, sister of the Chancellor. He mounts on horseback and gallops towards the priory of St. Martin; Richenda sends after him, and one of the lady's men was putting his hand on the horse's bridle, when our lord the archbishop, shod with iron, gave a violent kick to the enemy's steed, and tore his belly open; the beast reared, and the prelate, freeing himself, reached the priory. There he is under watch for four days, after which he is dragged from the very altar, and taken ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... this to Beaumanoir," remarked he at length, drawing bridle to allow Master Pothier to rejoin him. "It is as mazy as the law. I am fortunate, I am sure, in having a sharp notary like you ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... to a beautiful house in a green dingle, musical with splashing water, and surrounded on almost every side by twenty miles of poisonous and rocky desert. The city was thirty miles away; there was but one road, which went no farther than my father's door; the rest were bridle-tracks impassable in winter; and we thus dwelt in a solitude inconceivable to the European. Our only neighbour was Dr. Grierson. To my young eyes, after the hair-oiled, chin-bearded elders of the city, and the ill-favoured and mentally ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... slipped off, in the creek I suppose, and I let the bridle-rein go and held Jim up to me like a baby the whole way. Let the strongest man, who isn't used to it, hold a baby in one position for five minutes—and Jim was fairly heavy. But I never felt the ache in my arms that night—it must ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson

... had gone to "cockatoo"—to sit on the top rail of the enclosure and look down at the maddened creatures, so at length he fastened his bridle to a tree and proceeded gingerly ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner

... no sympathy for the first rider. He felt, though, a slight curiosity over the probable outcome of the affair, and so, working rapidly, he broke camp, threw saddle and bridle on the white horse, strapped his slicker to the cantle of the saddle, and rode the brown horse up the slope of the arroyo, taking the direction in which ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer

... proceeded with wonderful steadiness; but on coming to a part of the road where the ground was comparatively level and firm, they quickened their pace, and at length dashed forward through the wood, uncontrolled by the bridle. The long narrow saddle, with its woollen covering, the crescent-shaped wooden stirrups, and the heavy spurs, with their clumsy rowels, baffled all our skill in horsemanship, and it was with no little difficulty we kept our seats. We thought it best to give the ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi

... life and an idle He lives from year to year, Unknowing bit or bridle (There are no proctors here), Free as the flying swallow Which Ida's Prince would follow If but his bones were hollow, Until the ...
— The Scarlet Gown - being verses by a St. Andrews Man • R. F. Murray



Words linked to "Bridle" :   bridle up, headpiece, headgear, rein, unbridle, cumber, noseband, bridle road, bridle path, restrain, encumber, cheekpiece, answer, anger, constrain, snaffle, check, reply, nosepiece, see red, bit, headstall, harness, respond, bridle at, restraint, curb



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