"Spine" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a small hut, lay MYalu motionless. His mind was a whirling red spot of rage and pain, obliterating the image of Bakuma, his ivory, and everything. From the base of the spine to his neck he was criss-crossed with bloody weals administered with a kiboko (whip of hippopotamus hide) by one of the black giants who formed the door guard at the tent of Eyes-in-the-hands. More stimulating to ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... he went over to Boston, and those of the Boston man when he went over to Middlesex; and told one or two stories of his early days in Boston, where he was born. That was all. I felt as I listened as though a pail of ice- water had been poured down my spine. ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... had ever curved That mute unearthly porter's spine. Like sleeping dragon's sudden eyes The signals ...
— The Wild Knight and Other Poems • Gilbert Chesterton
... a fall when hunting," replied the agent. "He was attempting to clear a stone wall, the horse fell back on him, and dislocated his spine. I was on the spot when the ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... up my spine—crept up, crept down, and then criss-crossed. But she must know of her mistake before we had gone so far that putting me ashore would be a serious inconvenience—for I knew he would put me ashore at the nearest point, if not, indeed, set me adrift in ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... "toothless," he cheered on to assail a boar at bay, but the poor dog recoiled "covered with blood, cut nearly in half, with a wound fourteen inches in length, from the lower part of the belly, passing up the flank, completely severing the muscles of the hind leg, and extending up the spine; his hind leg having the appearance of being nearly off." In this state, forgetful of the character he had so lately given of the true sportsman, as a lover of nature and a hater of cruelty, he encouraged "the poor old dog," as he calls him, to resume the fight with the boar, ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... Main Street, and was waiting for the dragon to clear the way so it could proceed. Hill looked at the machine across the papier-mache spine of the chink monster, and he gave a yell of surprise when his gaze took account of the one man in the ...
— Owen Clancy's Happy Trail - or, The Motor Wizard in California • Burt L. Standish
... frame the bones stand conspicuous. Their use is, to give firmness and shape to the body. Some of them likewise serve as armour, or defense, to guard important parts; thus the skull is admirably contrived to defend the brain; and the spine or backbone is designed, not only to strengthen the body, but to shield that continuation of the brain, called the spinal marrow, from whence originate great numbers of nerves, which pass through convenient openings of this bone, and are distributed ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... but neither turned nor interrupted her toilet. As the grime was slowly removed Severn observed that nature had intended her for a white cat. Her fur had disappeared in patches, from disease or the chances of war, her tail was bony and her spine sharp. But what charms she had were becoming apparent under vigorous licking, and he waited until she had finished before re-opening the conversation. When at last she closed her eyes and folded her forepaws under her breast, he began ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... Nithsdale drew near, accompanied by a tall, grave gentleman, and bringing with them a still taller youth, with the stiffest of backs and the longest of legs, who, when presented, made a bow apparently from the end of his spine, like Estelle's lamented Dutch-jointed doll when made to sit down. Moreover, he was more shabbily dressed than any other gentleman present, with a general outgrown look about his coat, and darns in his ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... they wear flat-heeled shoes or moccasins; they eat plain, nourishing food; and they walk and ride and work until almost the minute the child is born. They take the newborn babe to a water hole, bathe it, then strap it on a straight board with its little spine absolutely supported. Here it spends the first ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... any spine in him he will lay the thing to you as a theft," I suggested. I was not afraid of angering Hazen. He allowed me open speech; he seemed to find a grim pleasure in my distaste for him and ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... point out Notre-Dame by name, for Christine did not recognise the edifice from the rear, where it looked like a colossal creature crouching down between its flying buttresses, which suggested sprawling paws, while above its long leviathan spine its towers rose like a double head. Their real find that day, however, was at the western point of the island, that point like the prow of a ship always riding at anchor, afloat between two swift currents, in ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... map of Central Africa since the discovery of the gorilla. There were the cradle in which I had lain, as a child, stupefied with soothing syrups; the perambulator, seated in which and propelled from behind, I overthrew the schoolmaster, and in which my infantile spine received its curvature; the nursery-maid, surrendering her lips alternately to me and the gardener; the old home of my youth, with the ivy and the mortgage on it; my eldest brother, who by will succeeded to the family debts; my sister, who ran away with the Count von Pretzel, coachman ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... girl. But now—friendship! There's as much difference between that and love as there is between a photographic copy of a Tintoretto and the original Tintoret itself. When I think of any other man getting Patricia Moore, a link seems to drop right out of my spine. Yet she's not born for an old maid. Love and a "happy ending" for her story ought to be attached to her like a label. If I can't work to get her, some one else will. Caspian is doing it already, but in spite ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... or two ago hundreds of fellows were taken on without any real examination at all. Only yesterday, when I was down at S——, I was talking with a doctor there, and he told me that a fellow had actually been passed who had a weak spine, and wore instruments to support his back. Of course he was sent home at once, but it shows how, under the new conditions, things were conducted in a loose fashion. However, that's all over now. We are taking only sound men. ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... and the jolly he gives me before he lugs me out was somethin' fierce. I reckon I was blushin' some when I went on. I took just one squint at the mob and felt a chill down my spine. Say, it's one thing to step up before a gang of sports in a hall, and another to prance out in ring clothes on a platform in front of two or three hundred real ladies and gents wearin' ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... as I do Cousin Julia—though I don't see how you can—quite. It came to me the night before I got your letter—suppose you should want to swap back? The cold shivers chased one another up and down my spine and nearly splintered it. Of course, I should have done it without a word, but oh, Elsie-Honey, I don't mind telling you now that it would have broken my heart for sure. For I'm simply mad about Cousin Julia—so ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... to our memorial hospital with internal injuries and dislocation of his spine. He remained there many weeks. In fact, he had been home only a couple of days when the evening stage left in the McBride letter-box the daily paper containing the story of Ruggam's "break" and of the reward offered ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... thick, and green, And, sessile, out of the snakelike stem Rose spine-like fingers, alert and keen, To catch ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.
... up the morning bath, and was more interested in the chapel exercises when the great Head Center was there, and bought cream every morning of Mrs. King, and sat up at night long after the gas was turned off, and was there at Clifton for spine in the back and head difficulties generally. These few items, together with the surmise that she had had some great trouble—a disappointment, most likely, which affected her health—were all Mrs. Pry could learn, and ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... hounds," he said; "sends a chill down a fellow's spine, and makes one's hair feel like rising. But isn't there a way out? If those hounds are put on our track—and it beats me how it is that they didn't discover that we had passed along the road—they'll soon trace us into this cover, unless we can, ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... breathless with interest, watched him go. On the trunk, of course, they felt comparatively safe, for it was "home"; but none the less the "girls" drew up their skirts a little, and Tim felt premonitory thrills run up his spidery legs into his spine. The wallflowers shook their tawny heads as a sudden breath of wind swept past them across the End of the World. It seemed an age before the audacious thing was accomplished and the door swung wide ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... was sent after him; at that instant he was recognized as a fine buck deer, with branching antlers thrown back so that they seemed to rest on his spine, while his legs were flung straight in front and then backward, as he ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... to match, and sank both horns deep into her great antagonist's flank. Before she could spring back again beyond his reach, however, with a harsh groan he swung about, and with the readiness of an accomplished boxer brought down his other forepaw across her neck, smashing the spine. Without a sound the gallant little cow crumpled up and fell in a ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... doubt if any aid would avail Mayes. He was the under man in the fall, and he had dropped across a little heap of bricks. He now lay unconscious, breathing heavily, with a terrible wound at the back of the head, and Hewitt foretold—and rightly—that when the doctor did come he would find a broken spine. Peytral, on the other hand, though unconscious, showed no sign of injury, and just before the doctor came sighed heavily and ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... experienced a sense of satisfaction at finding himself once more upon the deck of a vessel floating upon the open sea. He felt that he was in his element, and that the time had come for him to assume his proper position as a sailor; but this feeling soon passed, and he declared that his spine was ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... is now inclined forward until the front of the thighs is directly over the point of the toes; the hips are square and the waist is extended by the erection of the entire spine, but never to such a degree that mobility of the waist ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... beat fast with excitement. In the shadowy darkness of that room death might be lurking, its hand already outstretched toward him. He peered in, accustoming his eyes to the blackness. A prickling of the skin ran over him. The tiny cold feet of mice pattered up and down his spine. For he knew that, though he could not yet make out the objects inside the room, his face must be like a framed portrait ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... made his legs move. He walked on through the shrouds of Death until he felt a taut singing in his nerves. An irrational fear sprang out in him, cascading down his spine, and Cully shuddered. Ahead there was something. Two motives: get there because it (they?) calls; get there ...
— Cully • Jack Egan
... at his coat. When his hand went slowly to the place, he found the lump on which he had been lying. He pulled it out—a cold, cylindrical affair, of metal, with a thick cord hanging from its end. Then a chill crept all the distance down his spine. ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... stake has started, the body, flesh from flesh, has parted. But the bones hold tight, socket and ball, and clamping them down in the hard, black ground is the stake, wedged through ribs and spine. The bones may twist, and heave, and twine, but the stake holds them still in line. The breeze goes down, and the round stars shine, for the stake holds ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... by, however, the child will make its first attempts to walk. Now it is important that none of the many plans which have been devised to teach a child to walk, should be adopted—the go-cart, leading-strings, etc.; their tendency is mischievous; and flatness of the chest, confined lungs, distorted spine, and deformed legs, are so many evils which often originate in such practices. This is explained by the fact of the bones in infancy being comparatively soft and pliable, and if prematurely subjected by these contrivances to carry the weight of the body, they yield just like an elastic ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.
... these last have been. Waiting for Jack; amusing him when time hangs heavy—even unto reading pages of scientific books with words so big the spine of my ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... eight o'clock every morning, and that was before Peter got up; but Jennie stayed at home, and fixed his breakfast, and opened the door for his visitors, and in general played the hostess for him. She was a confirmed invalid; twice a week she went off to a doctor to have something done to her spine, and the balance of the time she was supposed to be resting, but Peter very seldom saw her doing this. She was always addressing circulars, or writing letters for the "cause," or going off to sell literature and take ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... Rice Lake, a young beaver; an animal more completely amphibious, it would be difficult to find. The head and front part of the body resemble the muskrat. The fore legs are short, and have five toes. The hind legs are long, stout, and web-footed. The spine projects back in a thick mass, and terminates in a spatula-shaped tail, naked and scale-form. The animal is young, and was taken about ten days ago. Previously to being brought in, it had been taken out in a canoe into the lake, and immersed. ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... brain and sturdy spine and strong arm of paid workmen, he forced into his manufactories the flaccid muscle of serfs. These, thus lifted from the earth, lost even the little force in the State they before had; great bodies of serfs thus became slaves; worse than that, the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... simple, merely the securing of a blanket over the roan's distressingly bony spine, and putting a bit in his refractory mouth. As I anticipated, there had been a crisis over my lack of a saddle at the last moment, various officers and N.C.O.'s laying the blame, first on me (of all people), and then on each other, but chiefly on me, because it was safest. Not having yet learnt ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... even then took pity on me in my loneliness, and sent a tall antlered stag across my very path. He was coming down from his pasture in the woodland to the river to drink, for verily the might of the sun was sore upon him. And as he came up from out of the stream, I smote him on the spine in the middle of the back, and the brazen shaft went clean through him, and with a moan he fell in the dust, and his life passed from him. Then I set my foot on him and drew forth the brazen shaft from the wound, and laid it hard by upon the ground ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... chilly for the time of year. It's ages since we saw you here.' Then, heart a-flutter, speech precise, Describes the shoes and asks the price. 'Them, Miss? Ah, them is six-and-nine.' Miss Thompson shudders down the spine (Dream of impossible romance). She eyes them with a wistful glance, Torn between ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... thanked me and reached Port Tampa just in time to save being left. It was this same Edward Marshall who so daringly pushed to the front during the Guasimas fight of the Rough Riders, and was seriously wounded by a Mauser bullet near his spine. He was supposed to be dying, but true to his newspaper training and full of loyalty to his paper, he dictated a message to his journal between the puffs of a cigarette, when it was supposed each breath would be ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady
... spoke he glanced casually at Tex Lynch, and despite himself a little shiver flickered on his spine. The foreman, who had not spoken, sat motionless on the further side of the table regarding Stratton steadily. His lids drooped slightly and his face was almost expressionless. But in spite of that Buck got a momentary impression ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... buffalo as Auberry had showed me, from the backbone down, as he sat dead on his forearms, splitting the skin along the spine, and laying it out for the meat to rest upon. Again I made a fire by shooting a tow wad into such tinder as we could arrange from my coat lining, having dried this almost into flame by a burning-glass I made out of a watch crystal filled with water, not ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... by the ingenious Mr. Skinner and a few friends as especially fitting and convenient for a chase of the fugitives. The bell brought no suggestion of this—though the dog snapped under his breath and stiffened his spine. And then he heard another sound, far off and vague, yet one that brought a flash into his murky eye, that lit up the heaviness of his Hebraic face, and even showed a slight color in his high cheek-bones. He lay down on the ground, and listened with suspended breath. He heard it now ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... "Mr. Bertrand," and for a flitting instant I saw something at the back of the brown eyes that made cold chills run up and down my spine. And her first words increased rather than diminished the burden ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... powdered gum arabic and alum, and plug the nose. Or the plug may be dipped in Friar's balsam, or tincture of kino. Heat should be applied to the feet; and, in obstinate cases, the sudden shock of a cold key, or cold water poured down the spine, will often instantly stop the bleeding. If the bowels are confined, take a purgative. Injections of alum solution from a small syringe into the nose will often ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... water plainer now, and though I swooned once or twice from agony, I gradually worked my limbs clear of the incubus pressing on them, and tried to stand up. But this I could not do, some injury to my spine preventing me, and it was as a beast, on all fours, that I at length made shift to crawl in search of the water I was dying for. Each yard I crawled was agony to me, but at last I came to a rock-encircled pool in which lay water clear ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... had been killed in the summer. The wolves and birds of prey had picked them clean but there still remained a quantity of the spinal marrow which they had not been able to extract. This, although putrid, was esteemed a valuable prize and the spine being divided into portions was distributed equally. After eating the marrow, which was so acrid as to excoriate the lips, we rendered the bones friable by ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... shift, with the rope about her neck, shoulders bare, feet bare, almost nude, as he had seen her on that last day. These images of voluptuousness made him clench his fists, and a shiver run along his spine. ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... long and narrow, of a lively green color, erect, fleshy at the base, and terminating in a sharp, brownish spine, or thorn; leaves of the plant deep-green. Most esteemed in its crude state; eaten as a salad in ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr
... I wanted to go to war," said Mr. Dooley, "an' I niver did, th' desire has passed fr'm me iv late. Ivry time I read iv th' desthructive power iv modhern explosives col' chills chase each other up an' down me spine." ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... up in David's big arm-chair and have a good cry, after which she would take a book and read until the creeping chills down her spine warned her she must stop. Even then she would run up and down the hall or take a broom and sweep vigorously to warm herself and then go to the cold keys and play a sad little tune. All her tunes seemed sad like a wail while ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... They yelled and shouted, one could see it by their open mouths and glittering eyes; but not a sound from human lungs could reach our ears. The overwhelming incessant thunder of the bells drowned all. It thrilled the tympanum, ran through the marrow of the spine, vibrated in the inmost entrails. Yet the brain was only steadied and excited by this sea of brazen noise. After a few moments I knew the place and felt at home in it. Then I enjoyed a spectacle which sculptors might have envied. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... a cold finger down Jeff's spine. "That would mean other cultures out here. And in all our years of planet-hunting, we ...
— Traders Risk • Roger Dee
... one of the leaflets, and cutting out the central spine or stalk, hurried back with it to our camp. Having made a small fire, he baked the nuts slightly and then peeled off the husks. After this he wished to bore a hole in them, which, not having anything better ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... the snarl of a wild beast Kazan had leaped to his feet. His lips drew up and bared his long fangs. His spine stiffened, and with a sudden cry of warning, Thorpe dropped a hand to the ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... on revolving and joyously thrummed the Rakoczy March. All the sinews in the Lieutenant's body grew tense. Again and again he felt his head slip from between his hands—his spine was already rising before his eyes! With a last, frantic effort he tried once more to get his hands inside the bandages and press his head forward. Then one more dreadful gnashing of his teeth and one more horrible groan and—the ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... celebrated lady stood before him. 'She certainly formed a strange figure in the midst of that dazzling scene of beauty and splendour. Every female present wore feathers and trains; but Lady Morgan scorned both appendages. Hardly more than four feet high, with a spine not quite straight, slightly uneven shoulders and eyes, Lady Morgan glided about in a close-cropped wig, bound with a fillet of gold, her large face all animation, and with a witty word for everybody. I afterwards saw her at the theatre, where she was cheered enthusiastically. ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... his head drop on his breast, his arms hung down by his side, and he sank into his chair, as if his spine had come unhinged. ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton
... within seventy yards of the waggon, I put up an old Impala ram from behind a mimosa-thorn. He ran straight for the waggon, and it was not till he was passing within a few feet of it that I could get a decent shot at him. Then I pulled, and caught him half-way down the spine; over he went, dead as a door-nail, and a pretty shot it was, though I ought not to say it. This little incident put me into rather a better temper, especially as the buck had rolled right against the after part of the waggon, so I had only to gut him, fix ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... seemed to be aware of it; and he worked the more diligently while "it was yet day." It was not the number of his years that made him feel old, for he was only sixty, and many men are hale and strong at that time of life; in all probability, it was that early injury to his spine which affected the constitution of his mind as well as his body, and predisposed him, in the opinion of some at least, to a feminine morbidness of conscience. He had shaken off somewhat of this since ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... answer not, I will take his clothes as lawful prize.' 'Ask on,' quoth the Khalif. So she said to the physician, 'What is that which resembles the earth in [plane] roundness, whose resting-place and spine are hidden, little of value and estimation, narrow-chested, its throat shackled, though it be no thief nor runaway slave, thrust through and through, though not in fight, and wounded, though not in battle; time eats its vigour and water wastes it away; now it ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... head and said good morning to him just as cheerful and unconcerned as I could. He grunted something, and kept coming along, watching me like a hawk all the while, I could see. Why, I had a cold shiver chase up and down my spine just like somebody had thrown a bucket of ice-water over me; because all sorts of horrible things began to flash through ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... of method. He has separated the head from the spine, instead of cutting through the spine lower down, as most persons would have done: he removed the arms with the entire shoulder-girdle, instead of simply cutting them off at the shoulder-joints. Even in the thighs the same peculiarity appears; for in neither ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... dozen young cocoanuts—stripped of their husks—three pipes, as many yams, and me on his back a part of the way. Something of a load; but Kory-Kory was a very strong man for his size, and by no means brittle in the spine. We had a very pleasant day; my trusty valet plied the paddle and swept us gently along the margin of the water, beneath the shades of the overhanging thickets. Fayaway and I reclined in the stern of the canoe, on the very best ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... alone again for a while. A handsome girl, with her hair cut short and parted at the side, was discussing diseases of the spine with a curly-headed young man in a velvet suit. The gentleman was describing some of the effects in detail. Joan felt there was danger of her being taken ill if she listened any longer; and seeing Madge's ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... of shade. The water does not bubble up, but comes straight out with great speed, like a courier with important news, and as if its course underground had been a direct and an easy one for a long distance. Springs that issue in this way have a sort of vertebra, a ridgy and spine-like centre that suggests the gripe and push there is in ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... and saw the silent throng following them, and the sight sent such a cold shiver creeping up his spine that he smiled with pleasure. There was no way to avoid the Gray Men, for the path was so narrow that the horsemen could not turn aside; but Prince Marvel was not disturbed, and seemed not to mind being followed, so long as no one hindered ...
— The Enchanted Island of Yew • L. Frank Baum
... Jeejeebhoy in wasted benevolence, than he heard the deafening report of the bomb which had wrecked his studio, reduced it to a tangle of iron girders and stanchions, strewn its floor with brick rubble and thick dust, and left his wife a human wreck, lying unconscious with a broken spine, surrounded by splinters of glass, broken jars, porcelain trays, and nasty-looking fragments of sponge and vertebrate anatomy. With an almost paralyzing premonition of disaster he ran as quickly as possible towards Park ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... sometimes she would be on the brink of fainting. I began to see that if something was not done at once she would faint, and then we would probably both fall to the ground together and be killed outright. Something had to be done, and I had to do it. I went creepy cold all down my spine, for I knew what it was I had to do, and was in mortal terror of ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... care of some neighbor, who most likely would fail in her task or teach the children bad things, and demand some compensation all the same. If the eldest child were left in charge of younger infants, as is so often the case with the honest poor, the chances are that it will break or injure its spine by carrying the little ones. All this anxiety is avoided by this beautiful and inviting arrangement, which is generally under the management of the Sisters of Charity. The London creches have a night ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... interrupt my cherished "Smoke O," something that caused me to sit up suddenly and stiffly on the bench, while my pipe fell unheeded from my slackened mouth, and an unpleasant prickle ran over my scalp and down my spine. ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... 1524 he was sent to reduce Genoa; but the French were unsuccessful, and were forced to retreat; and while passing the river Sesia (April 30), Bayard was covering the rear of the army, when a stone from an arquebuse shattered his spine. "Mon Dieu!" he cried, "I am a dead man," and fell heavily ...
— Harper's Young People, August 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... great neck I caught him from behind, and setting my knee at his spine I wrenched him backward, and so flung him over on the floor. Down I went with him, my hand reaching for the dagger at his jewelled girdle, and I had found and drawn it in that swift action of mine ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... "My spine is affected. I look well, but I cannot walk. I hope to be better after a while, but at present I ...
— The Young Bank Messenger • Horatio Alger
... time I remembered nothing; but slowly my senses returned. My feet seemed positively racked with pain, yet I could not move them. They seemed to be numbed. There was an icy feeling at the back of my neck and all down my spine, and my ears, like my feet, were dead, yet in torment; but there was in my breast a sense of warmth which was, by comparison, delicious. It was as a nightmare—a physical nightmare, if one may use such an expression; for some heavy ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... agony that should rouse the whole neighbourhood, when Clare, having reached the top, seated himself upon the wall, and Tommy restrained himself in the hope of what a parley might bring. But he sat down only to wheel on the pivot of his spine, as he had seen them do on the counter in the shop, and sit with his legs alongside of the water-but. Then he drew Tommy from his shoulder, in spite of his clinging, and laid him across his knees; and Tommy, ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... indignantly wailed that unfortunate. "Gee, it feels funny," he added, grinning as he pulled the wet shirt away from his spine. ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... fragrant, with a flame-colored, crumply heart. Varick stared at it, shut his eyes, opened them, and stared again. It was still there, and, with the discovery that it was, Varick became conscious of a prickling of the scalp, a chill along the spine. ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... and want of exercise. A girl is kept for hours sitting on a form writing or reading, to do which she must lean forward; and if her schoolmistress cruelly attempts to make her sit upright, and thereby keep the spine in an attitude for which Nature did not intend it, she is thereby doing her best to bring on that disease, so fearfully common in girls' schools, lateral curvature of the spine. But practically the girl will stoop forward. And what happens? The lower ribs are pressed into the body, thereby ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... What the correspondent does need is less hours of work; more physical exercises of a brisk back-stretching nature, and certain spinal stretching manipulations of an Osteopathic nature. Full deep breathing in fresh air will also be beneficial. The lower part of the spine, from which the sciatic nerves originate, needs ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... coolly at the dog. Baree was a changed beast. His one eye was fastened upon the fox breeder. His bared, bleeding lips revealed inch-long fangs between which there came now a low and menacing snarl. The tawny crest along his spine was like a brush; from a puzzled toleration of David his posture and look had changed into deadly hatred for Thoreau, and fear of him. For a moment after his first warning the Frenchman's voice seemed to stick in his throat as he saw ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... the same extent as a man, is utterly powerless on a rearer. I have seen men slip off over the animal's tail, when he was standing on his hind legs, but this is a feat which a woman is unable to accomplish, as I found when a horse reared and came over with me at Tientsin in China, and hurt my spine so much that I felt its effects for several years afterwards, especially after a hard day's hunting, or a long swim. Swimming appears to tax the soundness of the spinal bones quite as much as does riding. The best ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... astonishing or charming than to see in the evening, in one of the most simple little drawing-rooms, antiquely furnished with tables, cushions of old velvet and screens of the eighteenth century, this woman, her spine injured, reclining in her invalid's chair, languid, but without affectation. This woman—with her profile more Roman than Greek, her hair falling over her high, white brow—was the Duchesse de Castries, nee de Maille, related to the ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... pain. Ricky whispered that she did not wonder models were hard to get. After a while Rupert went away without Charity noticing his leaving. The sun burned Val's cheek where the paint had dried and he felt a trickle of moisture edge down his spine. But Charity worked on, thoroughly intent upon what was ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... bidding her go up higher, and crisp enquiries as to whether this were the end of the performance. Her Saint—she that had not prevailed against the Nuns—would not help Sister Ursula, and it came over her, as cold water slides down the spine, that at her journey's end she would have to—go—through—the window. There is no vestibule, portico, or robing-room at the upper end of a fire-escape. It is designed for such as move in a hurry, unstudious of the graces, being for the most part not over-dressed, and yet seeking ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... said. "And I find a marvellous improvement. No, I shouldn't try to move at present. But I don't suppose you can for a moment. You have had a wonderful escape, my dear lady, a most wonderful escape. But for all that I shall keep you where you are for the next fortnight or so. A badly jarred spine is not a thing ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... like a wild man. Then he stood up in the canoe to make a cast with the rod, and he looked for all the world like an Indian. I recalled the expression of his face as I had seen it once or twice, notably on that occasion of the evening prayer, and an involuntary shudder ran down my spine. ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... directed to natural history, have been engraved, and a short account of them is thrown together in this chapter. Of reptiles few have been seen that are at all curious. A large Lizard, of the Scincus kind, with the remarkable peculiarity of a small spine or horn standing near the extremity of the tail, is said to be among some specimens sent over as private presents; and also a kind of frog, whose colour is blue; but these do not in other respects differ materially from the usual ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... mountains, and they have alway the throat open, of whence they drop venom always. And there be also wild swine of many colours, as great as be oxen in our country, and they be all spotted, as be young fawns. And there be also urchins, as great as wild swine here; we clepe them Porcz de Spine. And there be lions all white, great and mighty. And there be also of other beasts, as great and more greater than is a destrier, and men clepe them Loerancs; and some men clepe them odenthos; and they have a black head and three long ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown
... "Good old dog!" And he gave the animal a few more of his tender caresses, with the result that the dog wriggled himself along snake-like fashion upon his spine, and then made a playful dab at his ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... hit him just on the right spot—an inch higher, you will miss him; half an inch lower, you will kill him. You have got to put a bullet through his neck two or three inches behind the ears and just above the spine. Of course if you hit the spine you kill him, and he is no good except to give you a meal or two if you are hard-up for food; but if the ball goes through the muscles of the neck, just above the spine, ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... be his life? He turned to the rows of scuffed-backed law books on their shelves. Then he turned again to his letter, and to the window, and to the birds and the grass. He caught himself noting how long the dog's hind leg looked, how impossible the angle between the fore leg and the spine, as it ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... my spine. Many a fine ship I had seen strike that invisible network of rays, and puff into smoke. Was that to be the ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... The bullet had cut clean through the bull's spine at the neck, and the crowd dragged him lifeless, a board of the sentry-box still impaled on his horns, off the legs of the black-avised man—who, at first supposed to be dead also, awoke out of his swoon to ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... fields—were more sharp and trenchant than those of the crocodile of the Nile, and in the larger specimens fully four times the bulk and size of the teeth of the hugest reptile of this species that now lives. The dorsal spine of its contemporary, the Gyracanthus, a great placoid, much exceeded in size that of any existing fish: it was a mighty spear head, ornately carved like that of a New Zealand chief, but in a style that, when he first saw a specimen in my collection, greatly excited the admiration ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... big-lipped surprise, Breast-deep 'mid flower and spine: Her skin was like a grape, whose veins Run snow instead ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... a shot cut away the whole of his bowels, which were scattered over another midshipman and myself, and nearly blinded us. He fell—and after lying a few seconds, sprang suddenly on his feet, stared us horribly in the face, and fell down dead. The spine had not been divided; but with that exception, the lower was separated from the ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... in the Senate—a hand to hand fight between William L. Yancey and Ben Hill. The Senator from Georgia threw his antagonist across a desk, held him there in a grip of steel and pounded his face until dragged away by friends. Yancey's spine was wrenched in the struggle, and it was rumored that this injury caused his death. It possibly hastened the end already sure from age, ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... heavy to lift in his present lumpish condition of dead-weight! She had to tug mightily to get him up into a sitting position. When he was raised, all the backbone seemed gone from his spine, and it took the whole force of her vigorous arms to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... and longer at Philip's face, for he could see it without noticing the hump, and it was really not a disagreeable face,—very old-looking, Tom thought. He wondered how much older Philip was than himself. An anatomist—even a mere physiognomist— would have seen that the deformity of Philip's spine was not a congenital hump, but the result of an accident in infancy; but you do not expect from Tom any acquaintance with such distinctions; to him, Philip was simply a humpback. He had a vague notion that the deformity of Wakem's son had some relation to the lawyer's rascality, ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... pleasing young woman married to a young man Aery Gridley, a carpenter and also farmer, a steady active young man not too good for her. James assists his father but prefers the joiner's business; Hannah rather lusty, does a good deal in the house and also assists Ann; Martha the youngest, her spine injured in her youth, a very sly little person and says very droll things. Noah often affected when talking of old friends in England; related some grievances of the family not treating him with ...
— A Journey to America in 1834 • Robert Heywood
... neck and walked gently down his spine. Nothing was missing in this setup—synthetic blood, two hearts, oversize kidneys. Hagen got a quick mental flash of a barker outside a circus sideshow: He walks like a man. He talks like a man. But for a thin dime, ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... body of the scapula are of infrequent occurrence in horses for the reason that protection is afforded this bone because of its position. Its function, too, is such that very unusual conditions are necessary to subject it to fracture. The spine is occasionally broken due to blows such as kicks, etc., and here ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... vests, struck at him. Lampognano gave him two wounds, one in the belly, the other in the throat. Girolamo struck him in the throat and breast. Carlo Visconti, being nearer the door, and the duke having passed, could not wound him in front: but with two strokes, transpierced his shoulder and spine. These six wounds were inflicted so instantaneously, that the duke had fallen before anyone was aware of what had happened, and he expired, having only once ejaculated the name of the Virgin, as if imploring her assistance. A great tumult immediately ensued, several swords were drawn, ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... slackening!" cried the prince again; and the brave Firedrake made one last furious effort, and rising on his wings, dropped just on the spine of ...
— Prince Prigio - From "His Own Fairy Book" • Andrew Lang
... at that time lived in the country. She was a constant rider, and fond of saddling her pony; and one day, when she was about fourteen, she overbalanced herself in lifting the saddle, and fell backward, inflicting injuries on her head, or rather spine, which caused her great suffering, but of which the nature remained ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... Switzerland is a settled thing. Father is not home tonight and I cannot apeal to him. Susan Paget said I was drinking to, and mother is having the vibrater used on her spine. If I felt better ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... it was a question of time, but that there was no reason why Legrand should not get over the injury to his spine—"not that he will ever be the same ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... constellations of the night sky were different. He was used to solitude, but this was a loneliness that touched some deep-buried instinct. A shiver that wasn't from the desert cold touched lightly along his spine, prickling at the hairs on ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... the hangings. Privacy is unknown, and though I have travelled for thousands of miles I have not yet met the train that, unless you have the balance of a ballet girl, will not give you concussion of the spine or brain. ...
— My Impresssions of America • Margot Asquith
... hospitalities I hope they enjoyed as much as we did. One or two short extracts from A——'s diary will enliven my record: "The Princess had a huge bouquet, and going down the aisle had to bow both ways at once, it seemed to me: but then she has the Guelph spine and neck! Of course it is necessary that royalty should have more elasticity in the frame than we poor ordinary mortals. After all this we started for a luncheon at All Souls, but had to wait (impatiently) for H. R. H. to rest herself, while ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... stem bristling with thorns. Leaves twice abruptly pinnate, a thorn taking the place of the terminal leaflet. Leaflets in 10-14 pairs, ovate, expanded, with a spine at the apex. Common petioles thorny, with 4 leaf-like stipules at the base. Flowers yellow, in racemes. Calyx 5-parted, curved downward. Corolla inserted on the calyx, 5 petals, 4 nearly equal, the uppermost ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera
... really my only difficulty was in selecting a pleasure. The sun had climbed well over the high barriers which lay eastwards, and was shining brightly down through the quivering blue ether overhead; the frost sparkled on every broad flax-blade or slender tussock-spine, as if the silver side of earth were ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... others the solution of the problem, although the task was a gruesome one and they would have gladly evaded it if they could. It made chills run down the spine to trudge along leading the horse with that huge figure towering behind them in the darkness, mocking at them because he had escaped to the silent land from which they ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... uncle Robert believe her. My aunt trusts the nurse, you must know, and lets her ride rough-shod over every one in the nursery. The poor little thing was always whining and fretting whenever she was not in Essie's arms or the Monk's, till the Monk declared she had a spine, and he and mother gave uncle and aunt no peace till they brought her here for advice, and sure enough her poor little spine is all wrong, and will never be good for anything without a regular course of watching and treatment. So we have ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Silas, that was! Just!... He died from a motor accident. He was perfectly conscious and knew he'd only a few hours to live. Spine. He made his will in hospital, and died about a couple of hours after he'd made it. I wasn't there myself. I ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... cockpit, which was crowded with the wounded and the dying, and where it was too soon discovered that his wound was mortal, the ball had entered his left shoulder, through the forepart of the epaulette, and had lodged in his spine. In the meantime the battle raged with fury. In the midst of the roar of cannon and the shrieks of the wounded and the dying, the crew of the "Victory" ever and anon by their shoutings announced that some ship of the enemy had struck. On hearing their ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... is dislocated at the shoulder, without fracture," said the surgeon. "Lend me a hand, will you? Hold his body firmly—here and here—with all your might, while I pull the joint into place. If his head or spine are not injured the pain may bring him to consciousness. That will be a good thing. Now, ready—one, two, ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... at attention. But as the long, long minutes dragged on and on, he found his hands, his spine and his forehead cold with the sweat of fear. He tried manfully to keep his eyes fixed steadily on that emotionless face before him, but found it almost impossible ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans
... to sleep for a few hours, and then some part of the boat which seemed to have grown up in the night - for it certainly was not there when we started, and it had disappeared by the morning - kept digging into my spine. I slept through it for a while, dreaming that I had swallowed a sovereign, and that they were cutting a hole in my back with a gimlet, so as to try and get it out. I thought it very unkind of them, and I told them I would owe them ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... a like condition from the knee downward. Then he was damp with perspiration; while ever and anon, when he had to lie prone in the moist grass, or crouch like a frog behind a rock, the cold wind from the hills sent a shiver down his spine or seemed to strike like an icy dagger through his chest. But he took it all as part of the day's work. There was in his possession a little silver token that afforded him much content. He would acquit himself like a man—if he could; ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... compelled to cross the river twice, and the planks bent under our weight until I was assured that they would snap. My arms were beginning to ache and the sweat to trickle down my spine. My right boot had rubbed my heel. We left the river behind us and then, suddenly, my right hand began to slip off the iron handle ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... first?) in order to have indicated the low order of his intelligence; just as a little child says, "Don't hurt her: she hasn't done anything wrong." He is lying in liquid refuse, with little lizards deliciously tickling his spine (such things are entirely a matter of taste, what would be odious to us would be heaven to a sow) and having nothing to do for the moment, like a man in absolute leisure, turns his thoughts to God. He believes that God is neither good nor bad, but simply capricious. What's the ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... "I take a hand now. I'll pick him up, Bell.... Right. I've got him. With a grenade hanging down his back. If he jerks away from me, or I from him, it will blow his spine ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... glowering at the wreckage, water pouring over his head and shoulders, when, as suddenly as it had begun, the rain ceased. Roger looked out the door. Every grain of sand, every cactus spine bore a tiny rainbow. The whole desert floor was a mosaic of opals. The sky was of a blue too deep, too brilliant for the eye to endure. As Roger stood with mouth agape he was thrilled by a sensation he had not before experienced. The desert, ordinarily entirely odorless, gave forth a scent. ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... into further deeps. "It's the other men," he said, "it's the things that have been. Don't you understand? Can't you understand? The memories—she must have memories—they come between us. It's something deeper than reason. It's in one's spine and under one's nails. One could do anything, I perceive, for one's ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... their gregoes. Indeed, come to look at it, what more does a man-of-war's-man absolutely require to live in than his own skin? That's room enough; and room enough to turn in, if he but knew how to shift his spine, end for end, like a ramrod, without ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... real truth, she gave me a shiver down the spine. I believe that girl capable of anything. That dark skin with those pale blue eyes! I strongly suspect she has a touch ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... ridge would give the man scant opportunity for trailing him to his position. The figure was coming up the ridge now. As it passed a twisted pine, Wentworth got a good look into his face, and the sight of it sent cold shivers up his spine that prickled uncomfortably at the roots of his hair. For the face was that of Alex Thumb, and at close range Wentworth could see that the black eyes glittered evilly. Icy fingers gripped the engineer's heart. He felt suddenly weak ...
— The Challenge of the North • James Hendryx
... white people with suspicion, aloofness, and reserve. When we fatuously sought to make friends with him, he tucked his tail between his legs, and shivered as if we made goose-flesh come out on his spine; and once when I took him by his rope collar he fell down and shrieked. But just let Mary Magdalen roll out an unctious, "Whah is yuh, Beaut'ful Dawg?" and his ears and tail went up, he curveted, and made uncouth movements ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... the king would urge him, takes the rest, Or, when he curbs him, runs in giddy rings; And drops his head beneath his spreading chest, And plays his spine, and runs an-end and flings. And now the furious Saracen distressed, Sees 'tis no time to tame the beast, and springs, With one hand on the pummel, to the ground; Clear of the restless courser ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... ending of everything in something else; no more disputing for spare legs among bewildered bodies; no more setting on of heads wrong side foremost. The fragments have come together: we are out of the Inferno with its weeping down the spine; we are in the fair hunting-fields of the Lucchese mountains (though they had their tears also),—with horse, and hound, and hawk; and merry blast of the trumpet.—Very strange creatures to be hunted, in all truth; but still creatures with a single head, and that on their shoulders, which is exactly ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... mare sank so deeply that, had not the rider thrown his feet backward along her spine, with his body extended over the saddle and her neck, he would have been saturated to the knees. As it was, Sally was within a hair of being carried off her feet by the force of ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... third day, Pete was taken to the operating room and another examination made. The X-ray showed a curious blur near the right side of the spine. To extract the bullet would be a difficult and savage operation, an operation which the surgeon thought his patient in his present weakened condition could not stand. Pete lay in a heavy stupor, his left arm and the left side of his ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... there was a Miss Belton, a poor sickly creature, with a twisted spine and a hump back, as to whose welfare she ought to ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... tail, a central highly notched ridge runs up about midway of it, and there splits into two branches, which pass up on each side of the spine over the back, as far as the shoulders, gradually diminishing in height ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes |
