"Tensely" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... caissons as they thundered on their mission of death; the glittering sheen reflected from a thousand sabres, had all passed by and left us in the desolated town. We lived, as it were, with bated breath and eager ears, our nerves tensely strung with anxiety and suspense waiting to catch the first sound of that coming strife, where we knew so many of our bravest and best must fall. At last came the news of that terrible fight at Buzzard's ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... flew on, waiting tensely for the first sign of a glow from the tiny neon tube indicator on ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... stood tensely still, with lips slightly parted, and a strained look in her eyes, while Hastings gazed at the waggon for another ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... had been. They crumbled without much pressure, and we ate them. No trout were jumping in the lake now—its mirror-like surface was unbroken. All was still, very still. To our somewhat feverish imagination it seemed as if all nature were bating its breath as if tensely waiting for the outcome at ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... you from the kitchen window," Marian whispered tensely. "I was afraid you hadn't read my note, or perhaps wouldn't pay any attention to it. I heard you and Jerry—of course he won't dare go with you and show you the short-cut, even if he knows it. There's a quicker way than up the creek-bed. I have Boise out in the bushes, ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... and secured to the equipment. As the Planeteers worked, the ship's spinning slowed and stopped. They were in no-weight. Rip grabbed for a hand cord that hung from the wall and hauled himself out into the engine control room. The deputy commander was at his post, waiting tensely for orders. Rip thrust against a bulkhead with one foot and floated to his side. "I need two landing boats, sir," he requested. "One stays on ...
— Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet • Blake Savage
... tried to utter them, yet they would be said. She longed to hide her burning face in some cool shelter and get away from this terrible talk, but she could only sit rigidly quiet, her fingers fastened tensely in the coarse ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... oppressed him. He drew nearer and nearer, yet he heard no sound of voice or of the dogs. At last he reached a point where he could look out from behind a young ground spruce and see the fire. It was not more than thirty feet away. He held his breath tensely at what he saw. On a blanket spread out close to the fire lay Scottie Deane, his head pillowed on a pack-sack. There was no sign of Isobel, and no sign of the sledge and dogs. Billy's heart thumped excitedly as he rose to his feet. He did not stop to ask himself where Isobel and the dogs had gone. ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... Hawk had given no slightest intimation that he might attempt anything. He sat quietly, a little tensely, his face an icy mask, only the freezing shock of his steady gray eyes betraying his emotion as they bore straight into those of the Eurasian. No man could meet such eyes for long, and even the tiger ones of Ku Sui the all-powerful went aside ...
— The Affair of the Brains • Anthony Gilmore
... now," said Peg, breathlessly. She rushed at once to her point. "I went home this morning. I saw my stepfather and Ben Travers. You don't know him, but he works at Heeler's." She stopped, breathless. "Is there any trouble round there?" she asked tensely. ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres
... an aide came toward her, spruce and alert, holding a paper in his hand. She rose at his approach, leaning on the back of her chair, her body bent forward tensely. He spoke to her in a low voice, consulting the slip of paper in his hand. All at once she straightened herself, and a burning expression came into her face. One hand went to her heart, exactly as though a bullet had pierced her breast. Then she gave a ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... unnaturally distinct. Darkness brought, not a sense of rest, but that dread knowledge that she was going to lie there staring through all the hours of it. Since that night that the pitcher had broken, she was ever waiting tensely for the day to bring her something that it never brought. Lawson's death—Girard—Billy, who was getting a little troublesome lately—the dear little brothers far away, mixed up with tiny household perplexities, kept going through and through her mind. Her heart ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... to the girl's pride went for once unheeded. "If they lied," she said tensely, "they must be punished for it. If they did not—Mother, what they said was that my father was not killed by accident. They said the man who killed him was Dr. Benoix. ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... the wilds, your highness," he said tensely; "I am trusting you now." Before she could reply the officer in charge of the Ganlook gates appeared at the coach window. There were lights on all sides. Her heart sank like lead. It would be a miracle if she passed ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... hurried. The little clock on the mantelshelf said a quarter to twelve as she closed the door behind her and then she saw that there was a customer at a far table in the corner and realized how late she was. A short, fat little woman was sitting tensely on the edge of a chair, looking about her with quick, restless, stabbing glances. She had on an atrocity of a hat that looked as though someone had plumped down on her head a flimsy crate of refuse blossoms and vegetables. It was a riot of colour ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... back this gold to you and Melisse a hundred times!" he cried tensely. "I swear it, an' I swear that Jan Thoreau mak' ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... plan," he whispered tensely. "Oh! you shall hear me! He watch you grow from a little lovely child, as he watch his death-spiders and his grey scorpions grow! He tend you and care for you and make you perfect, and he plan for you as he plan for this other creatures. Then, he see what I see, that ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... on his feet, his eyes suddenly bright with excitement. "Wait a minute," he said tensely. "To tell them a lie that they'd have to believe—a lie they simply couldn't help but believe—" He turned on Meyerhoff, his hands trembling. "Do they think the way we do? I mean, with logic, cause and effect, examining evidence and drawing ...
— Letter of the Law • Alan Edward Nourse
... a sound from the street level. Calendar held up a hand of warning. "Here they come! Steady!" he said tensely. Kirkwood, listening intently, interpreted the noise as a clash of ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... ami!" he said, tensely. "I understand so perfectly that, were you dying, and were this request your last, I would refuse it! I hope ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... and leaned against the mantelpiece, looking down at the fire. She watched him tensely. At length, "Oh Jacynth," ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... by a ladder to the thickly carpeted floor. Grasping the end of the bar, he pulled that weapon down; then he twisted the button which converted his timepiece into an electric lantern, and, holding the bar in one tensely quivering ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... night. The house was very still, but every quarter of an hour the Cathedral chimes across the Close—our rooms lay in a quiet wing of the hotel, which formed a hollow square with the Cathedral, Chapter-house, and Canonries—furnished a musical break in the silence. So tensely mechanical does one's brain become under such circumstances, that presently I found myself anticipating the exact moment when the next quarter would strike; and I remember feeling quite disappointed and irritable if, when I said to myself "Now!" the chime did not ring out for another fifteen ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... heart welled up and vibrated in the word. "Go! We can't go, now or ever. It's death to Steve if we leave. I've got to stay here, month after month, year after year, dragging my life out until I grow gray-haired—until I die!" She halted, her arms tensely folded, her breath coming quick. Only the intensity of her emotion saved the attitude from being histrionic. In a sudden outburst, she ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... shaven chin. There was a very great air of dignity in his stand-up collar, in his blue chin, in his small bald patch and his cane. His neck was so strained from excess of dignity, and his chin was drawn up so tensely, that it looked as though his head were ready to fly off and soar upwards any minute. The lady, who was stout and elderly and wore a white silk shawl, held her head on one side and looked as though she had done someone a favour, and ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... die is cast," whispered the Onondaga tensely. "In twenty seconds we shall know our fate, and I think the good spirit that has gone into our ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... day, but the second hand, whose watch it was, had t' help with the fish, for 'tis a poor harbour there, an' we was in haste t' get out. The folk was loafin' about the deck, fore an' aft, waitin' turns t' weigh fish or be served in the cabin. An' does you know what happened?" Docks asked, tensely. "Can't you see how 'twas? Believe me, sir, 'twas a cold, wet day, a bitter day; an' 'tis no wonder that one o' they folk went below t' warm hisself at the forecastle stove—went below, where poor Tommy Mib was lyin' sick. Skipper, ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... but it did not fail me utterly. I have more than once observed that, in my second character, my faculties seemed sharpened to a point and my spirits more tensely elastic; thus it came about that, where Jekyll perhaps might have succumbed, Hyde rose to the importance of the moment. My drugs were in one of the presses of my cabinet; ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... Henry's plan was not miscarrying. But he had a very great deal to do, and very little time in which to do it, and whereas the muscles of the other passengers were relaxed as the ship drew to her berth, Edward Henry's muscles were only more tensely tightened. He had expected to see Mr. Seven Sachs on the quay, for in response to his telegram from Queenstown the illustrious actor-author had sent him an agreeable wireless message in full Atlantic; the which had inspired Edward Henry to obtain news by Marconi ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... six minutes before he moved again from that attitude of clenched hands and tensely strung muscles into which his sudden ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... of filling the jar with least muscular strain. She does not try to plunge it down into the water, but holding it on its side, slightly tipped, draws it along with the mouth half under the surface, sucking in the water as it moves. We see what hard, firm muscles she has to hold the arm out so tensely. Her arm acts like a compass describing the arc of a circle through the water with the jar. As we look, we can almost see her completing the circle, and drawing up the full jar upon ...
— Jean Francois Millet • Estelle M. Hurll
... that night when darkness had made this practicable, and under his blankets whiled away a couple of wakeful hours by running tensely dramatic films of breakfast, dinner, and supper at the Gashwiler home. It seemed that you didn't fall asleep so quickly when you had eaten nothing since early morning. Never had he achieved such perfect photography as now of the Gashwiler corned-beef ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... was bowed, his eyes focused tensely up at hers, his arms hanging beside him; the sensitive smile hovered more and more dimly on his lips; his whole body swayed imperceptibly, like the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... I ever had," she said tensely. "I have given you all I would have given my mother, had she lived—my love, my trust. And now, when I need you most, you fail me. I tell you, John Bailey is a good man, an honest man. If you ...
— The Circular Staircase • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... just within the library door and listened again. A profound stillness seemed to beat through the deserted rooms—then he saw her! She sat with her arms outspread across the table and her head bent upon a pile of papers. She was tensely still as if waiting for ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Tensely he watched the red hand crawl up the face of the chronometer and he gripped the intercom microphone tightly. "Blast off," he began, "minus five, four, three, two, ...
— Sabotage in Space • Carey Rockwell
... conviction, intensity, intention lit her eye for the moment. "Very well, then," she said, coolly, tensely. "I know what I'll do. I'll not live this way. I'll not live beyond to-night. I want to die, anyhow, and ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... that here was a derelict ship of manliness being irresistibly driven by a hurricane of Fear; that a complete wreck was imminent unless she were the master-pilot. Her cheeks were aflame with indignation, her body bending tensely forward might have been a spring of steel set to release some instrument of torture—and then she let the bolt descend ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... sounds all around him, in the room itself! His nerves were tensely strung: he was overwrought. Someone was certainly walking in the corridor!... He had felt a movement along the wall against ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... said Alice impetuously, and rising to her feet she began to pace the room again with wild steps, her hands behind her, her slender form drawn tensely to its height. ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Commander Walters stood behind Strong and waited tensely for the last report to come in. Mainland's voice crackled through ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell
... The problem engaged me tensely till my ticket was collected at Vauxhall. Just there the solution came. I would be a Bohemian, but a misogynist. People would say, "Dear old Jimmy Cloyster. How he hates women!" It would add to my character a pleasant touch of dignity and reserve ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... tensely, though even now she spoke in a cautious voice so that no echo might reach other ears. "Put ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... all the world like a ragged vagabond. The evening breeze bore the strain he was singing down to where stolid Tom stood and he smiled, then suddenly became tensely interested as he listened. Tom often wondered where Hervey got his songs and ballads. On the present occasion this is what ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... tensely. The preacher looked to him as if weighted with mysterious knowledge, as if something infinitely illuminating were to issue from his bearded lips. The boy had a sudden conviction that Fowler was about to say something that would answer the longing that had so oppressed ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... willows stretched up to it, with mist that moved before a light wind drifting past them; and the blurred shapes of conical tepees showed dimly through the vapor. The night was dark but still, and Harding knew that a sound would carry some distance. He felt his heart beat tensely, but there was nothing to be heard. He had seen dogs about the Indian encampments farther south and he was afraid now of hearing a warning bark; but nothing broke the silence, and he concluded that Clarke's friends were unable to find food enough for sled-teams. This was ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... the summit," she called. "They are waiting already for us. And see!" she exclaimed tensely, as he struggled after her. "It is ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... no harm—nor you. Listen, Marishka," he pleaded tensely. "Look at me. I love you, dear, with all my heart and soul, I love you. You cannot forget what happened to us yesterday. I will ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... its approach in a sort of fascination, for of late she had been upon the water enough to realize that the feat of which she was witness was not without its difficulties. As the sloop drew nearer she made out a bare-headed figure bent tensely at the wheel, and four others clinging to the yellow deck. In a flash the boat had rounded to, the mainsail fell, and a veil of spray hid the actors of her drama. When it cleared the yacht was tugging like a wild ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... in her chair, felt the blood creep into her face. There was no doubt that the sketch was striking. It showed a man standing tensely poised, with a big, glinting ax in his hand. He was lean and lithely muscular, and his face was brown and very grim; but the artist had succeeded in fixing in its expression the elusive but recognizable something which is born of restraint, clean living, and arduous physical toil. It is ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... merits of the advice thus criticized. For the only grave danger before capable young Americans, and, indeed, before our Nation, is that of hastening too much, of sweeping on too rapidly, of straining every nerve too tensely, of living our lives with an ardor all too fierce and hot. Don't hurry—the world will last several ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... of the human nervous system and spread it out on the table. Pointing to the brain, he leaned over tensely, and whispered: ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... Lem, whose heart she had wholly won by her music the night before, and by the deference she paid to his talk. She was eager to find out the cause of all this excitement and placed herself alongside him, as he led off with a military tread and tensely squared shoulders. It wasn't for him to admit that rheumatism commonly bowed those same shoulders, when he was "off duty" and secure in the shelter ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... of here," said Astro tensely. "That's a tyranno, but he's down on all fours now, looking for that monkey! Keep together and make as little noise as you can. No talking. Keep your blasters and emergency lights ready. If he discovers us, you shine ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell |
