"Unstring" Quotes from Famous Books
... dexterity by other means to make success secure. His liveliest sallies, his bitterest jests, were all reserved for these occasions, so that mirth or anger was forever unstringing the nerves of his competitors, and diminishing their chance of gain. It was difficult to unstring the nerves of Parson Whymper, who ran him very close in skill, and sometimes divided the spoil with him; but on the present occasion he had a wordy weapon to baffle even that foe. This consisted in constant allusion to the latter's ... — Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... at least such as no man ever survived to tell of—and the six hours of deadly terror which I then endured have broken me up body and soul. You suppose me a very old man—but I am not. It took less than a single day to change these hairs from a jetty black to white, to weaken my limbs, and to unstring my nerves, so that I tremble at the least exertion, and am frightened at a shadow. Do you know I can scarcely look over this ... — Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... dirty work in the blackness, by the squalor in which the company houses are built, turns men to drink for reaction and lamplight and comradeship. The similar fevers and exasperations of factory life lead the workers to unstring their tense nerves with liquor. The habit of snuggling up close in factories, conversing often, bench by bench, machine by machine, inclines them to get together for their pleasures at the bar. In industrial America there is an anti-saloon minority in moral sympathy with the ... — The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay |