"Unstrung" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of our friends say that their minds get unstrung, if they are long away from town, but I should have thought that country quietness would be much better than London noise. My husband certainly ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... glad to see you," half laughed Elaine as she literally flung herself into her nurse's arms. "I feel so unstrung—and I thought that if I could just run off for a few days with you and Joshua in the country where no one would know, it might make me feel better. You have always been so good to me. Marie! Are my things packed? Very well. Then, ...
— The Romance of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... Inquisition. To the victims of its tyranny, there was the choice of death with its direst physical agonies, or death with its most hideous moral horrors. I had been reserved for the latter. By long suffering my nerves had been unstrung, until I trembled at the sound of my own voice, and had become in every respect a fitting subject for the species of torture which ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... just like girls? Because they got a little wet they must go to bed and take catnip tea, or something, and be quiet. Their nerves are all unstrung! Gee! wouldn't ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... I. "Is it not true that words are the only things that live forever? Are we not mortal, and are not books immortal? Homer's harp is broken and Horace's lyre is unstrung, and the voices of the great singers are hushed; but their songs—their songs are imperishable. O friend! what moots it to them or to us who gave this epic or that lyric to immortality? The singer belongs to a year, his song to all time. ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... much in that telegram," he said. "If Miss Gray wasn't a bit tired and unstrung I'd let her explain. I want you to tell Mrs. Blackton that she has come to Tete Jaune on a rather unpleasant mission, old man. Nothing less than to attend to the grave ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... fight to beat her down, and she was unstrung. She seemed to have a queer physical ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... deepest thanks." He unstrung his bow and leaned upon the stave; a fine figure in forest green and velvet bonnet, a black mask over eyes and nose, a generous mouth and strong chin below it. "Will your worship favor me with your ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... vicious words, words tending to instil into the mind unauthorised impulses, that shew in the man who speaks "a will most rank, foul disproportion, thoughts unnatural," and are calculated to render him by whom they are listened to, light and frivolous of temper, and unstrung for the graver duties of ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... nothing, the horror of watching a man dying in agony for a whole night had unstrung his steady nerves. On reaching the parsonage, he went to his room, and, wearied ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary
... self-reproaching spirit. He considered himself instrumental in taking the life of his best friend—of one, richly endowed with the loftiest feelings humanity can boast. His nerves previously had been unstrung; body and mind sank under the picture his imagination had conjured up. His servant was alarmed by startling screams, entered his room, and found his master in fearful convulsions. A fever ensued, during which George's life hung by a thread. To this succeeded a long state of unconsciousness, occasionally ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... sea, mounted to my head like the first flush of wine to a man long fasting; or was it the enchantment of her youth and loveliness—the subtle influence of physical vigor and spiritual innocence on a tired, unstrung man? ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... there in the oak and the rabbit under the hedge. I listen as of old to the chirp of the grasshopper in the stubble, to the hum of the bees among the foxgloves, to the song of the blackbird on the hawthorn, and, best of all—yes, best of all for brain unsteadied and nerve unstrung—I see the ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... bird's flying against such a gale; and after everyone else had settled down again for the night she could hear Ellen pacing the floor of the living-room. Poor Ellen, thought the girl, she was all unstrung over Shane's accident and frightened at the thought ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... more; he was what not one of the great Latin poets was, a Christian; that is, in his latter days, when he began to feel the vanity of all human pursuits, when his nerves began to be unstrung, his hair to fall off, and his teeth to drop out, and he then composed sacred pieces entitling him to rank with—we were going to say Caedmon—had we done so we should have done wrong; no uninspired poet ever handled sacred ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... intimate friends and favourites tried to console him he was wont to lead them to his bedroom and there show them a picture, painted by himself (for he was an excellent painter), depicting a Turkish bow unstrung, beneath, which was written, Arco per lentare piaga non sana (The bow although unstrung heals not ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... care and education. At noon, the so-called lunch is swallowed down in hot haste,—supposing that the parents have at all time to rush home, which, in thousands of cases is impossible, owing to the shortness of the hour of recess, and the distance of the shop from the home. Tired out and unstrung, both return home in the evening. Instead of a friendly, cheerful home, they find a narrow, unhealthy habitation, often lacking in light and air, generally also in the most necessary comforts. The increasing ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... than man [puts ring on], therefore she is called faithless. Oh, let me sit, I'm so unstrung! [Pehr leads her to a chair ...
— Lucky Pehr • August Strindberg
... of an owl outside made Joyce start nervously. She was unstrung and superstitious—the fun of the game died in her, and she felt weak and nauseated. She spoke as if she wanted to finish the matter and have done with ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... by a large boy, who spoke to him disdainfully as "greenie," and cautioned him as to the laying down softly and taking up gently of those poor dusty shoes, so that his spirit was quite broken and his nerves were all unstrung when he was pushed into a room full of bright sunshine and of children who laughed at his frightened little face. The sunshine smote his timid eyes, the laughter smote his timid heart, and he turned to flee. But the door was shut, the large boy gone, ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... neared the shore, a tall and dignified chief, his dress of the richest skins, and ornamented with gaily-coloured feathers, with a circle of plumes on his head, holding an unstrung bow of great strength in his hand, was seen standing on the beach to receive the new-comers. By his side was a youth, strongly resembling him in features, bearing his shield and quiver, and also handsomely dressed, while other chiefs were drawn ...
— Villegagnon - A Tale of the Huguenot Persecution • W.H.G. Kingston
... so confident as his actions seemed to imply. In fact, before he reached his destination, he heartily wished himself back again, and by the time he arrived at the point where the enemy was expected his nerves were completely unstrung. It was not the fright of cowardice that unmanned him, but rather the terror of responsibility. Again and again he had braved death in battle but now, for the first time, the safety of an entire regiment depended solely upon him as he approached the summit of the ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... monopolies, encouragements, prohibitions, restrictions, cramped the national energy. Mistress of the Indies, Spain swarmed with beggars. Yet, verging to decay, she had an ominous and appalling strength. Her condition was that of an athletic man penetrated with disease, which had not yet unstrung the thews and sinews formed in his days of vigor. Philip the Second could command the service of warriors and statesmen developed in the years that were past. The gathered energies of ruined feudalism ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... of a lark, And gathered her hair from the wanton wind. Ah, little he thought of the leagues of snow He trode on the trail of the buffalo; And little he recked of the hurricanes That swept the snow from the frozen plains And piled the banks of the Bloody River. [40] His bow unstrung and forgotten hung With his beaver hood and his otter quiver; He sat spell-bound by the artless grace Of her star-lit eyes and her moon-lit face. Ah, little he cared for the storms that blew, For Wiwaste had found her a way to ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... relation—which meant he had taken even that on trial—without knowing what it so dazzlingly masked; for a social relation it had become with a vengeance when it drove him about the place as now at his hours of freedom (and he actually and recklessly took, all demoralised and unstrung and unfit either for work or for anything else, other liberties that would get him into trouble) under this queer torment of irreconcilable things, a bewildered consciousness of tenderness and patience and cruelty, of great ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... jerked out a small parcel. "Shows how much you know!" he cackled. "There! See that! That's my ring she sent me back, being too unstrung for marriage. So she don't remember me, don't she? Ha-ha! Always said ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... needna upset ma glass of auld Madeira in yer mickle fright, for I've seen the time when ye ha' laughed at the music in the report of a peestol and the ping of a bullet! But your nervous seestem seems to be unstrung ever since the sma' French dancing count untied the string o' your waistcoat ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... to stop, and that at once. I had reached a point where my will had to capitulate to Unreason—that unscrupulous usurper. My previous five years as a neurasthenic had led me to believe that I had experienced all the disagreeable sensations an overworked and unstrung nervous system could suffer. But on this day several new and terrifying sensations seized me and rendered me all but helpless. My condition, however, was not apparent even to those who worked with me at the same desk. I remember trying ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... which stood an enormous bean-tree, and there, a long way up, was the "bees' nest." With a piece of cane from a creeping palm and a stone tomahawk he slowly ascended the tree, for he was weak and his nerves unstrung. But he joyed when he reached the "bees' nest," for it was large and full of honey and brood comb—a feast in prospect for the whole camp. Then, as he set to work to chop out the comb, he heard, to his astonishment, ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... taken—nothing but scorn for us all and the hope that we should reap our deserts when Germany defeated England and invaded us. Well? What of it? Here was a stricken person, writing in stress, in a land of desolation, mourning for the dead already, waiting for the next who should die, a poor, unstrung average person, who had not long before read that remark of our President's made on the morrow of the Lusitania: that there is such a thing as being too proud to fight; had read during the ensuing weeks those notes wherein ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister
... austerities to which he had condemned himself, the monotonous solitude of his existence, all tended to exalt the vivacity of the nervous system, which, in the Italian constitution, is at all times disproportionately developed; and when those weird harp-strings of the nerves are once thoroughly unstrung, the fury and tempest of the discord sometimes utterly bewilders ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... used to be. Jack was the same kindly brother I had always known, and yet there seemed in his manner a tinge of something different. I did not know what. I only knew that I felt very nervous and unstrung. ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... endured; Fighting, at last I have fallen, and sought the breast of the Mother,— Quite cast down I have crept close to the broad sweet earth. Lo, out of failure triumph! Renewed the wavering courage, Tense the unstrung nerves, steadfast the faltering knees Weary no more, nor faint, nor grieved at heart, nor despairing, Hushed in the earth's green lap, lulled ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... life of most of our women is a ceaseless treadmill of work. How much harder the daily tasks become when some derangement of the female organs makes every movement painful and keeps the nervous system all unstrung. One day she is wretched and utterly miserable; in a day or two she is better and laughs at her fears, thinking there is nothing much the matter after all; but before night the deadly backache reappears, the ...
— Treatise on the Diseases of Women • Lydia E. Pinkham
... peasant's house in the village of Gross-Graupen, which is half- way between Pillnitz and the border of what is known as 'Saxon Switzerland.' Frequent excursions to the Porsberg, to the adjacent Liebethaler, and to the far distant bastion helped to strengthen my unstrung nerves. While I was first planning the music to Lohengrin, I was disturbed incessantly by the echoes of some of the airs in Rossini's William Tell, which was the last opera I had had to conduct. At last I happened to hit on an effective ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... to leave them behind her and die in bitterness less bitter for its solitude. But Maya fled not from herself: the winds wailed like the crying of despair in her harp-voiced pines; the shining oak-leaves rustled hisses upon her unstrung ear; the timid forest-creatures, who own no rule but patient love and caresses, hid from her defiant step and dazzling eye; and when she knew herself in no wise healed by the ministries of Nature, in the very apathy of desperation ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... think I should let him return naturally,' said Tancred; 'sending for him is a scene; and I do not know why, Baroni, but I feel—I feel unstrung. I am surprised that there are no letters from England; and yet I am rather glad too, for ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... companions or other baggage save the bicycle, the Che-hsein ferrets out a bottle of samshoo and tenders me a liberal allowance in a tea-cup. This is evidently administered with the kindly intention of quieting my nerves, which he imagines to be unstrung from the alarmingly rough treatment at the hands of ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... Hebrews' banish'd harps, unstrung, At Babylon upon the willows hung; Yours sounds aloud, and tells us you excel No less in courage, than in singing well; While, unconcern'd, you let your country know They have impoverish'd themselves, not you; 10 Who, with the Muses' ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... she listen to thy glowing song, And dwell with rapture on each vivid line, Shall round thy lyre, neglected and unstrung, Of sweetest flow'rs a fun'ral ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... who might have been the glory of succeeding generations, brought in with frames shattered beyond recovery, with brave lip compressed to check the rising cry of agony, with eyes glaring in the terrible conflict between lusty manhood and sudden death, or, with nerves utterly unstrung, giving vent to the shrieks of ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... would stop to think," said Henry, "you would know that your trouble is mostly physical. Your nerves are unstrung. The public is not so willing to believe any story that Brooks may tell. The Colossus will not be injured. But I know that you place very little faith in what I say." The merchant looked at him. "But mark my words: Your standing will not be lowered—the Colossus ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... nobleman, whose wife had died, and who wanted, by transcribing Mozart's score, to pass it off as his own composition—and this he actually did after the composer's death. Poor Mozart, in the weak state of health in which he now was, with nerves unstrung and over-excited brain, was strangely impressed by this visit, and soon the fancy took firm possession of him that the messenger had arrived with a mandate from the unseen world, and that the "Requiem" he was to write ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... its branches—a diamond of the heavens, shedding its brightness on the earth. The stillness was positively oppressive. Rose felt as if every time she inhaled the air, she disturbed the death-like quiet of the scene. A huge shadow passed along the ledge of the opposite cottage; her nerves were so unstrung that she started back as it advanced. It was only their own gentle cat, whose quick eye recognised its mistress, and without waiting for invitation, crawled quickly from its eminence, and came rubbing itself against the glass, ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... please her save a canter round Jakko. With my nerves still unstrung from the previous night I feebly protested against the notion, suggesting Observatory Hill, Jutogh, the Boileaugunge road—anything rather than the Jakko round. Kitty was angry and a little hurt: so I yielded from fear of provoking further misunderstanding, and we set out ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... been wonderfully kind and good to Josiah [his stepson]. She is a young woman of amiable manners, and who does honour to the station to which she is raised." His mind was then too full of what was to be done; not as after the Nile, when, unstrung by reaction from the exhausting emotions of the past months, it was for the moment empty of aspiration ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... Claire, momentarily unstrung, caught Gavin by the arm and clung to him. He could feel the shudder of her slender body as it pressed to ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... on being obtuse, for though this fencing with an unstrung girl was hateful work, the quest was at stake. We were going to Norderney, come what might, and sooner or later we must see Dollmann. It was no use promising not to. I had given no pledge to von Brning, and I would give none to her. The only alternative was to violate the compact (which ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... the boat, which was but a small craft that had been unstrung the day before, in order that the ship's carpenter might examine some fancied defect in the rudder. Fortunately a pair of oars had been left in her, and these Pharaoh now took in hand, bidding me steer for the volcanic flame, which played over the peak of Tuxtla, ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher
... promised to accompany her over to Dr. Mead's after he had made his examination of the wrecked car to confirm what the doctor had already observed. It took several minutes for them to satisfy themselves and meanwhile Violet Winslow, already highly unstrung by the news from Garrick, waited more and ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve
... rose and dressed and moped about the room feeling very miserable and unstrung, with a vision of the County Asylum for ever in his mind. He had the doctor's word for it that if he could get through to evening in safety he would be all right; but it is not very exhilarating to be waiting for symptoms, and to keep on ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... said. "I'm rather—rather unstrung to-night, and this thing gave me a jar. To be candid, my imagination took head in the fog, and I got to fancy I was talking ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... completely unstrung," said he. Mrs. Brigham rocked. A confidence in him inspired by his manner was stealing over her. Out of that confidence she spoke quite ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... haven't turned a hair. We are as fit as a fiddle," they exclaimed, and looked anything but unstrung. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... the middle!" old lady Chia exclaimed. "These women have never known what good manners mean. Put the table down." Saying this, she picked up the cash, and loosening the knots, she unstrung them and piled them ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... enmity between us! Cease your mirth! Damned be a friendship that so shames my worth! Never may I set eyes on one so low! I fling you off, an unstrung, broken bow. 41 ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... question and the girl too unstrung to stand further interrogation. In response to Manton's call several people came up and willingly helped the two toward the ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... nothing [he writes in July, 1831] except more life, more spirit! I often feel unstrung, but sometimes as merry as I used to be at home. When I am sad I go to Madame Szaszek's; there I generally meet several amiable Polish ladies who with their hearty, hopeful words always cheer me up, so that I ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... in an instant as his hereditary foes,—the one breed that had not yet learned to give him right-of-way on the trail. They were tall, fearful forms, and something in their eyes sent a shudder of cold clear to his heart, yet he was not in the humor to give ground. His nerves were jumpy and unstrung from the fall of the tree, his jaw wracked him; a turn of the hair might decide whether he would merely stand and let them pass, or whether he would launch into that terrible, death-dealing charge that most grizzly hunters, ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... at Gettysburg, and of my Captain, lying in a soldier's grave in the far-off land of the enemy. My brain was not clear. I had a buzzing in my ears. I doubted all reality. My fancy bounded from this to that. My nerves were all unstrung. I felt upon the boundary edge of heaven and hell. I knew enough to craze me should I learn no more. I watched the moon; it took the form of Lydia's face; a tree became the strange Man who ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... unstrung, I opened my door with my latch-key and returned to my room, where the reading-lamp had burned low, for it had been alight all through the night. I mixed myself a stiff brandy and soda, tossed it off, and then turned to look at ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... reply. There was an arduous task before him, and his nerves were unstrung. After he had unfastened the end of the rope and passed it to Ram, who did not secure the end about him, but the middle, after he had nearly drawn it tight, so that, if he did slip, the fall would not be so long. Then reluctantly, ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... voice asking where Drake was, and what in the world was the matter with him. Captain Le Mesurier replied, and the reply rang boisterously. 'He's behind. He's a bit unstrung, I fancy, and reason enough too, after all his work, eh? You see, Drake's not in the habit of taking holidays,' and the Captain grew hilarious ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... complacency, rudely disturbed by an enforced realization of his own back-sliding. He had been quite furious upon discovering that the "little episode" of the moonlit cottage had filched from him all his new won strength and nervous stamina, leaving him sleepless and unstrung, ready to jump at the rattling of a stone. More and more, there grew in him a fierce disdain of weakness and a cold determination to beat Nature at her own game. Let him once again be "fit" and wily indeed would be the trick which would ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... cry of Fouchette seemed yet to linger in the misty morning air, thrilling the distant ear, vibrating upon the unstrung nerves of the outcasts beneath the far-away bridges, borne upon the surface of the waters, when it was answered out of the darkness by a sharp, shrill ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... that craving was not yet known to him. But the habitual intemperance had exacted even from his iron constitution its forfeit of shakiness in the morning, and the rare sobriety left the man suffering and unstrung. ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... was the last heard, by the garrison, at least, of these most recent captives of the Sioux. Gentle and sympathetic women, however, who called on Mrs. Hay, were prompt to note that though unnerved, unstrung, distressed, she declared again and again her faith that the Indians would never really harm her husband. They might hold him and Nanette as hostages for ransom. They might take for their own purposes his wagon, ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... of what Pindar sung in these words, ossa de me pephileke Zeus atuzontai boan Pieridon aionta; for he had no sooner begun to repeat the mellifluent strains of that divine poet, than the wretch his antagonist was confounded, and his nerves unstrung. ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... the room and put her arm around Lois, standing by her mother. "Let's you an' me get her in her bedroom, an' have her lay down on the bed, an' try an' quiet her," she whispered. "She's all unstrung. Mebbe ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... what ails me to-night," said he, "my nerves are unstrung. I will leave you, for I need rest myself. I shall start to-morrow morning before you are up, and I shall ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... it was, when the pale shadow spoke; For there was striving in its piteous tongue, To speak as when on earth it was awake, And Isabella on its music hung: Languor there was in it, and tremulous shake, As in a palsied Druid's harp unstrung; And through it moaned a ghostly under-song, Like hoarse ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... voice simulated sudden alarm; he scuffled his feet on the floor. The men jumped with fright; nerves unstrung, they cowered. ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... her, "I must go, for that word 'plan' worrys me; it worrys me far more than the creek: and I see my partner is all unstrung, and I must be there to try to string ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... the opportunity of showing forth an example of resignation.' Poor Mr Holman visibly winced at this word. I could fancy how he had tossed aside such brotherly preachings in his happier moments; but now his whole system was unstrung, and 'resignation' seemed a term which presupposed that the dreaded misery of losing Phillis was inevitable. But good stupid Mr Robinson went on. 'We hear on all sides that there are scarce any hopes of your child's recovery; and it may be well to bring you to mind of Abraham; and how he was willing ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... was used extensively and for a long time in the Dutch colonies. Here for a while absolutely no coin was in circulation, and wampum being the feasible substitute was universally adopted. So great was the popular demand, that even the unstrung wampum, prohibited in the eastern colonies, passed at but a trifling discount.[50] For many years the easy-going government at New Amsterdam does not seem to have regulated the currency by law, as did its more thorough neighbors, ...
— Wampum - A Paper Presented to the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society - of Philadelphia • Ashbel Woodward
... through that rear door again should be enough to send the man flying back for shelter to the recesses of the underworld. The Pippin's nerves, as he crept back to the scene of his crime, would be badly frayed and unstrung, unless he was a man lacking wholly in imagination, which the Pippin, once having been an actor, inherently could not be; and, coupled with this, prompting the Pippin to run at once for cover, would be the fact that he could not ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... attending peers obey; In state they move, Alcinous lends the way; His golden lyre Demodocus unstrung, High on a column in the palace hung; And guided by a herald's guardian cares, Majestic to the lists of ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... hungry gulls were following the ship, sometimes flying near, sometimes dropping back, ever and anon swooping down into the foamy wake with a mournful cry, as of condemned souls. This was no vision, and yet Frederick scarcely distinguished it from a dream. With his nerves unstrung, with his being still penetrated by the marvels of his sleeping life, which remained partially present to him, the strange heaving waste of the ocean seemed no less miraculous than his dreams. Thus the ocean had been tossing ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... up and down the tiny room, still maintaining that ominous silence. But she sobbed on, utterly unstrung, utterly hopeless, ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... discussing impossibilities. And I am really so depressed and unwell that I must return to my room. I hope to hear you are better in the morning, and I think you will be. The excitement of this night and your anxiety about the girl have unstrung your nerves, and you have lost that courage and endurance ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... for him to reply. His shoulders quivered, but he remained silent. She went on soothingly: "You are all unstrung. The shock was too sudden. It must have been a terrible one! Won't you tell me about it? Perhaps that ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... whom I was so curious to know; but I saw him with the Quartan hanging on me, and my mind as unstrung as my body. With men of his kind one ought not to be sick; one ought even to be specially well, and in better health than ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... over every obstacle that may happen to be thrown in his path through life, no matter how high or how steep the mountain may be, but which often forsakes him the moment the summit is gained, the point of difficulty passed; and leaves him prostrated, with energies gone, nerves unstrung, and a feeling of incapacity pervading the entire frame that renders the most trifling effort ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... it is necessary for me to take a short rest. Recent excitement in Manti has left me very nervous and unstrung. I shall be away from Manti for about two weeks, I think. During my absence any pending litigation must be postponed, ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Miss Jennings scrutinized her companion's face. Her trained ear had caught an indrawn, fluttering sob which she recognized as belonging to a certain form of hysteria. Brooding over her troubles, combined with the effects of the sea air, had unstrung the ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... eyes abruptly seemed to turn white, and instantly her face became ashy pale. One last convulsive effort,—the jaw dropped, the features relaxed, the limbs were unstrung, and Laleli Khanum fell forward to her full length upon her face on the peach-colored satin ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... Folsom (of course not counting Hal, who was defenseless), altogether too small a number to successfully protect so large a knot of buildings against an insidious and powerful foe, and even of these six there were two who seemed so unstrung by tidings of the massacre as to be ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... get excited when the doctor came. They told him everything, so that he could form an opinion. But Jeanne suddenly burst into tears, her nerves all unstrung, and almost screamed: "I want Rosalie; I ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... so; but I am out of sorts this afternoon. I have sent my model away because I am too much unstrung ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... bolting right across the clearing. After the manner of hares where objects directly in front of them are concerned, the fugitive entirely failed to perceive Excalibur and, indeed, ran right underneath him on its way to cover. Excalibur was so unstrung by this adventure that he ran back to where he had ...
— Scally - The Story of a Perfect Gentleman • Ian Hay
... the smallest of bows should sometimes be unstrung, and that if my little arrows are flimsy and light they will, I ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... Peter's voice rang out; and in another moment the clash of arms was resounding through the ship. Had the pirates kept together it is certain that they would have won; but the onset came when they were all unstrung, and they ran hither and thither, striking wildly, each thinking himself the last survivor of the crew. Man to man they were the stronger; but they fought on the defensive only, which enabled the ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... later I was hurrying back toward the apartment-house. My nerves had suddenly become unstrung. I felt sure now that some imminent danger was threatening Jacqueline. I could not bear the suspense of waiting till morning. I wanted to save her from something that I felt intimately, but did not understand, and at which ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... that in another hour this unnatural excitement abated, my nerves became unstrung, and from the depths of the abysses of this earth I ascended to its ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... me a horrible sense of guilt." She shuddered again. Then suddenly, with the nervous quickness of a woman unstrung, thrust a small black golliwog into his ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Aylward, having unstrung his bow, had remounted his horse during this conversation, and the two rode swiftly past the little squat Chapel of the Martyr and over the brow of the hill. From the summit they looked back. The injured archer lay upon the ground, ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... you to spend your leisure time at games instead of lessons. To-morrow evening I hope to see you playing tennis. If you ask the cook for a screw-driver you'll probably be able to wedge open your desk easily. But in future you'll be wiser to confine your work to the preparation hours. The bow must be unstrung sometimes, or your health will suffer. If you join with the other girls at their games you'll soon get to know them, and feel more at home here. Try to be sociable and make yourself liked. Part of the training of school life is to learn to ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... right, eh? Good! Good! You see, I was just a-wonderin'—you know, ha! ha!—goin' to get married and the rest—thought you might be unstrung, eh, a trifle?—nerves just a bit off, you know. Know how gettin' married is myself. But you're all right, eh? Of course you are. No use asking you that. Ha! ha! Well, good luck, my boy! I know you'll win. Never had the least doubt, of course, ...
— The Game • Jack London
... unstrung heart to others leaves The music of a feebler woe, Her numbers are the sighs she heaves, Her off'ring tears that ever flow. Where could I gather fancies now? They 're with'ring on thy lowly tomb,— My summer was thy cheek and brow, And perish'd ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... which she never seemed to hear. But when he tried to touch her she flew at him like a she-panther. That's what he called her. She said she'd kill him! And she drove him out of her house.... He was all weak and unstrung, and I believe scared, too, when he came to me. She must have been a fury. Those quiet, gentle women are furies when they're once roused. Well, I was hours up with him and finally he got over it. He didn't pray any more. ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... know. She could not tell. Her nerves now were somewhat unstrung, and the tears that always came so readily to her eyes flowed quite unchecked. She could not very well move, for he held her knees imprisoned in his arms, but she was quite content to remain like this, and to yield her hands to him so that he might ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... don't think you are 'playing good;' I don't positively. I believe you are thoroughly in earnest, but I think you have been through some very severe scenes of late, sickness and watching, and death, and your nerves are completely unstrung. I don't wonder at your state of feeling, but you will get over it in a little while, and ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... luscious fat distilled upon his chin, Exuded from his nostrils and his eyes, While still like hungry death he fed his maw; Till every minor crocodile being dead And buried too, himself gorged to the full, He slept with breath oppressed and unstrung claw. O marvel passing strange which next I saw: In sleep he dwindled to the common size, And all the empire faded from his coat. Then from far off a winged vessel came, Swift as a swallow, subtle as a flame: I know not what it bore ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... had already left him; and for his part, he must needs return the way he came,—frustrated, yet not enlightened; cursing, in no measured terms, the unfathomable ways of women. No doubt she was upset, unstrung by the knowledge of all that her confession implied; and woman-like, showed small regard for his consuming impatience to possess her. But to-morrow he would ride home with ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... young kinsman," wrote the recluse—"in truth I am, with slowness, and with frequent relapses, labouring through convalescence from a moral fever. My nerves are yet unstrung. I am as one to whom is prescribed the most complete repose;—the visits, even of friends the dearest, forbidden as a perilous excitement. The sight of you—of any one from the great world—but especially of one ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... angels might retire in silence and weep, or fly through infinite space seeking some token of the Father they had lost. With unbounded grief and despair they might wing their way farther and farther, with their harps all unstrung, and every song silent, and the soul-harrowing words, 'We have no Father, no God, a blind chance rules,' might be all that would break the awful silence of heaven. Let the glorious words once more be heard, 'God reigns, he lives, he reigns,' and what joy would fill the heavens and the ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 7, July, 1880 • Various
... was still looking at him with that directness which hinted at some thought foreign to her words—something as yet unmentioned which had left her unstrung. "It's not really a congenial role to you—this one of reshaping your life. At heart you hate it.... This house proves that. So ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... to know our neighbors the English, the Germans, the French? I for one consider that not to know German and Germany, for example, is nowadays not to be fully educated. Most of us, however, have had our nerves unstrung by the speeding-up process that has gone on all over the world of late. We have lost somewhat the power to know people and to let them alone at the same time. Goethe, one of the coolest and wisest of men, maintains: "Certain defects ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... until, with weary feet and panting lungs, I rushed up the final slope of stones, broke through the tangle of briars, and flung myself exhausted upon the soft grass under the peaceful light of the stars. It was three in the morning when I reached the farm-house, and today I am all unstrung and quivering after my terrific adventure. As yet I have told no one. I must move warily in the matter. What would the poor lonely women, or the uneducated yokels here think of it if I were to tell them my experience? Let me go to someone ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Sheds, even now, the fruits of graver age,— By the long wrestle in which inward ill Fell like a trampled viper to the ground. By all that lifts me o'er my outward peers To that supernal stage Where soul dissolves the bonds by Nature bound,— Fall when I may, by pale disease unstrung, Or by the hand of fratricidal rage, I cannot now ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... red faded out of Benjamin's cheeks. He had never been encouraged in superstitious beliefs, but he was an imaginative child, and just now bewildered and unstrung. He stared at the shed roof. Yes! he saw Seventoes there, and Seventoes was at the bottom of the old well. Had he not seen ...
— Young Lucretia and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... forgot, Whose source was light, without a blot; No moment of unkindness shrouding, No speck of anger overclouding: An awful and a sweet controul, A rainbow arching o'er the soul; A soothing, tender thrill, which clung Around the heart, while, all unstrung, The thought was ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... who had lost his wits. Yet at odd moments his cloudiness was illumined by a gleam of intelligence such as had not been detected in him previous to his mischance. As Polonius said of Hamlet—another unstrung mortal—Tilton's replies had "a happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of." One morning, he appeared at the flour-mill with a sack of corn to be ground for the almshouse, and was asked what he knew. "Some things I know," replied poor ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... retreated, resolving to make a stand at my tent door. At the same time I tried to show by signs that I could, if I liked, kill two or three of them, but that I was ready for peace if they were. At last I lowered my rifle from my shoulder, and they unstrung their bows and advanced with outstretched hands towards me. Knowing their treacherous character, however, of course I could not depend on them. I bethought me that the best way to win their friendship was to offer them food, as is practised in civilised communities with some success; ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... company did not take the Englishman's view, they were all anxious to go. They were quite unstrung by what had occurred, this combat between the living and the dead. They looked with horrified awe at the spot where it had taken place. There stood the living combatant, still full of the fire of battle. Him whom he had fought was gone ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... for him, Familiar with all anguish, but with fear Still unacquainted? On his martial bier They laid a sword, a helmet, and a crown— Meed of the warrior, but not these among His voiceless lyre, whose silent chords unstrung Shall wait—how long?—for touches like ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... it lack the rare sentiment of that beautiful story; with more detail and consistency, if with less variety, than the history of Gudrun and her lovers in the Laxdaela; and more a work of art than that, or than the unstrung gems of Eyrbyggja, and the great compilation of Snorri Sturluson, the History ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... the bunch enough drink to keep 'em asleep until two-thirty to-morrow," Mr. Rooney remarked to Fido as he spat out into the Atlantic Ocean. "I'm going to put the gaff to 'em to-morrow night, and I want to start with 'em unstrung and string 'em to suit myself. That little author is some girl, but I wonder why Vandeford wanted to shunt that white devil onto a nice boob like Farraday, and him his friend, too," he further remarked ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... more or less unstrung from her mental struggles of the night, and the memory of her dream came to her like a dim foreboding of misfortune. As though in sympathy with its mother's feelings, the baby did not seem as well as usual. ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... went round, and he was forced to drain them in honor of the Master. An inward shivering disjointed his members, unstrung his nerves, heart and frame fainted into weakness, a dew cold as death covered his temples, and his head fell wearily upon his breast—the walls, the floors, the ceilings, the men, the burning urns, danced, reeled, and tottered in wild confusion before ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... the truth. The iron nature, so long overwrought, now utterly unstrung, had yielded for the first time to the stress of nature and of events. The relief from what he had taken to be death had come swiftly, and the reaction brought a lethal calm of its own. If he had indeed recognized the face of the woman ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... "What a memory!" For she could play the banjo, and it appeared that she must have said so to Francis in those first days. "He must have dashed home and made out lists every night!" she concluded as she dragged it out. It was unstrung, but new strings lay near it, coiled in their papers. And under the papers, so like them that he had forgotten to destroy it, ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... seeing Aesop in a crowd of boys at play with nuts,[34] stopped and laughed at him for a madman. As soon as the Sage,—a laugher at others rather than one to be laughed at,—perceived this, he placed an unstrung bow in the middle of the road: "Hark you, wise man," said he, "unriddle what I have done." The people gather round. The man torments his invention a long time, but cannot make out the reason of the proposed question. At last he gives up. Upon this, the victorious Philosopher says: "You will ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... I could not believe my father had neglected to set those two free—he—he loved them both. Delia and Rene had gone down to the Landing that night to see if he had returned. We were both of us afraid to leave Rene alone—she was so despondent, so unstrung. It was dark and I was all alone in the house. Then these men came. They did not know me and I did not know them, but I was sure what they came for. I was terribly frightened, without an idea what to do—only ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... He represents the tale as told to himself by an old man with white hair, weakened limbs and unstrung nerves that tremble at the least exertion. The old man claims to be frightened at a shadow, yet he is able to throw himself down to rest with the weightier portion of his body hanging over a precipice and held back from the slippery edge of the cliff of black shining ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... have borne that noisome atmosphere and heat would have tested the constitutions of salamanders, and engineers were only human. With brains kept in a state of excitement during the entire day, no wonder their nervous systems became unstrung. Their only chance of refreshment was during an occasional rush to the bun and sandwich stand in the lobby, though sometimes even that resource failed them. Then, with mind and body jaded—probably after ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... Dolls,' remarked Eugene to Lightwood, 'are considerably unstrung. And I deem it on the whole expedient to ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... joy should brighten o'er the land, This sullen gloom in Judah's captive band? Ye sons of Judah, why the lute unstrung? Or why those harps on yonder willows hung? 80 Come, take the lyre, and pour the strain along, The day demands it; sing us Sion's song. Dismiss your griefs, and join our warbling choir, For who like you ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... matters which ordinarily a general officer would not permit himself to be troubled with, might need attention and action from him at such a time. Irascible and impetuous as General Floyd seemed to be by nature—his nerves unstrung, too, by the fatigues of so many busy days and sleepless nights—and galled as he must have been by the constant annoyances, he yet showed no sign of impatience. I saw him give way but once to anger, which was, then, provoked by the ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... breaking seasonably in upon the conversation of the lovers; "on that hill to the left, what once was an abbey is now an asylum for the insane. Does it not seem a quiet and serene abode for the unstrung and erring minds that tenant it? What a mystery is there in our conformation!—those strange and bewildered fancies which replace our solid reason, what a moral of our human ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... unstrung, On Babylonian willows hung, And mute their songs—with sorrow wrung, They mourn'd their ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins
... Philip, eh? Give me your arm that I may lean upon it, for I grow tired. It is the heat, not that I am ill or weaker; the heat, the heat, and I grow tired. And yet I must walk: I cannot rest; no, not for a moment; this—this horror has unstrung me." ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... though she could not help smiling at the source from whence it came, for Mac sent her a Cupid not the chubby child with a face of naughty merriment, but a slender, winged youth leaning on his unstrung bow, with a broken arrow at his feet. A poem, "To Psyche," came with it, and Rose was much surprised at the beauty of the lines, for, instead of being witty, complimentary, or gay, there was something nobler than mere sentiment in them, and the sweet old fable lived again in language ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... supper. She seemed completely unstrung, for some mysterious reason. They persuaded her to go to bed early; but she was not asleep when they went up-stairs, about ten o'clock, for she called out sharply to know if it ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... at the uncertain trees behind me. One black shadow seemed to leap into another. I listened, rigid, and heard nothing but the creep of the blood in my ears. I thought that my nerves were unstrung, and that my imagination was tricking me, and turned resolutely towards the sound of the ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... on, "I don't believe it. Good heavens, what is that?" she added, as a footstep crunched in the hall-way. "You've got me all unstrung, you and ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... Unstrung, unmanned, almost bereft of reason, his old dissatisfaction with himself and the world overtook him—a longing to be out of it all, for forgetfulness, for peace, yea, even the ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... the thoughts, desires and interests of the others. Such sentiments, fixed by repetition, remain as a habit during the life of the group, and provide the base for disciplined action. But when men are not thus drawn together and the cord of sympathy remains unstrung, there is no basis for control, nor any element of contact by which the group may identify itself with some larger entity and profit by transfusion of its ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... The deuce, what was that? He rubbed them angrily, but they were wet the next moment again. Here, here they had driven last summer—only a few months ago—with hay and flowers on the wagon, and had been so gay. And now? His lips trembled, he felt unstrung. At last he had really seen that things must take ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... None but the girl's mother was stiff against the wooer's suit; and she privately spoke to her daughter in order to search her mind. The daughter warmly praised her suitor for his valour; whereon the mother upbraided her sharply, that her chastity should be unstrung, and she be captivated by charming looks; and because, forgetting to judge his virtue, she cast the gaze of a wanton mind upon the flattering lures of beauty. Thus Alfhild was led to despise the young Dane; whereupon she exchanged woman's for man's ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... quite taken aback by the suddenness of this outburst. He tried to stop it, for he felt almost indecent in listening—it was not fair to take a man off his guard like this. But the stranger could not be stopped—he was completely unstrung, and his voice grew ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... doctor, I will not trust the hand of Doctor Kline, skillful as it may be, to do this work; for I cannot be sure that a glass too much may not have been taken to steady the nerves a night's excess of wine may have left unstrung." ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... unstrung and nervous in this hardness of circumstance and her terror of destitution. As she told her story, she sobbed and wrung her hands. In the next six months she had better occupation, however, in spasmodically ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... run of their readers. Their God is not a Being, their religion is not a worship, their duty is not a law, their immortality is not the hope of a world to come. Amidst these equivocations and contradictions thought is blunted, and the sinews of the intellect are unstrung. The public, bewitched by talent and captivated by success, is deluged with writings which have the same effect as the talk of a frivolous man, or the showy tattle of a woman of the world. They give an agreeable exercise to the mind, ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... less mutually erroneous, and this condition had lasted over a prolonged period of time. Then one of these persons had the experience of waking in the night, simply engulfed in an overwhelming wave of tender and compassionate feeling toward the other: seeing, as if with spiritual vision, a nature unstrung, hardly responsible, and one that invited only the most infinite tenderness and care. This wave of new and perfectly clear perception was like a magnetic trance. It was an hour of absolute spiritual clairvoyance, and ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... living could be felt. Ab carried his new weapon proudly, hungering for the love and admiration of this girl of his, and eager to show her its powers and to exhibit his own skill. At his back hung his quiver of mammoth bone. His bow, unstrung, was in his hand. In front of the cave was a bare area of many yards in extent, then came a few scattering trees and, at a distance of perhaps two hundred yards, the forest began. Across the open space of ground, with its ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... onto the trivial piece of paper had braced her unstrung nerves for a final effort: that, and ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... hand; but the girl's eyes were no longer closed; they were open and fixed on his face. The great fellow was trembling like a leaf. The past hour had been almost more than he could bear. He was entirely unstrung. ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Krafft-Ebbing, to suggest that some anarchist crimes can only be looked upon as a means to indirect suicide. They are outbursts that lead to a spectacular martyr-like ending to brains that "too much thought expands," to hearts overladen, and to nerves all unstrung. Life is a burden to them, though they lack the courage to commit suicide directly. Such is the view of these students of criminal pathology, and they cite a long list of political criminals who can only be explained as those who have sought indirectly self-destruction. ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... music, that distant, mellow phrasing of the call of love, the music had unstrung him. While he paced the bridge before her coming that music had been melting the ice of his natural reserve. But he did not pardon himself because he had ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... of the Palazzo Scorpa, Nina had thrown herself into the corner of the sofa in her own room. She had a perfectly normal constitution, but she had been not only infuriated and horrified, but really frightened, and her nerves were unstrung. ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... frequent use of an infusion of the herb, upsets our nerves, impairs healthful digestion, and brings on sleeplessness. I have several patients—old ladies, and those in middle life—whose nerves are so unstrung that I am obliged to dose them with opium occasionally, to ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... for YOU it would be dangerous. Your health is weak, your nerves unstrung. That elixir is a powerful vivifying tonic, acting with great rapidity on the entire system, and rushing through the veins with the swiftness of ELECTRICITY. I am accustomed to it; it is my daily medicine. ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... him, laying her hands on his shoulders. "You are tired and unstrung; how can you judge? Why not let me look ...
— Sanctuary • Edith Wharton
... I went out to get a breath of fresh morning air to quiet my nerves, which were somewhat unstrung. As I passed by a little second-hand clothing-store of the meanest kind, in a poor, back street, I saw hanging up outside an old gray jacket. I stopped to examine it. It was stained behind with mud, and in front with a darker ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... cabin and took his position on deck. The moon was full, which was gratefully noticed by the captain, for he could easily keep awake all night, and thus detect the approach of his enemies. In fact, his nerves were so unstrung that he would not be able to sleep ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... longer, trying to compose his nerves, which had been sadly unstrung, both by the wine he had drank in much larger quantities than usual, and the incidents that had just occurred, and then sought his own room, where he rang for a brandy-and-soda, and after taking it, went below to attend to ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... again, and closed the breach. But Discipline, a faithful servant long, Declined at length into the vale of years; A palsy struck his arm, his sparkling eye Was quenched in rheums of age, his voice unstrung Grew tremulous, and moved derision more Than reverence in perverse, rebellious youth. So colleges and halls neglected much Their good old friend, and Discipline at length, O'erlooked and unemployed, fell sick and died. Then study languished, emulation slept, And virtue fled. The schools became ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... a coupe, having ordered a carriage to follow him to the Grand Central Station. It was ten minutes yet before the express was due. Nervously he puffed at his unlighted cigar, wishing he had a match; in fact, his nerves were never more unstrung. It was a happy surprise, and no doubt his youthful vanity was elated, that his father should have named his new palace car "Alfonso." At least it convinced him that his ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... which stood on the worst land of the farm, but when it was raised the woods around were dark and drear, and he knew not the good soil from the bad; yet now he thought how, in this unseemly place, he had stored his crop and toiled for years with unfailing health, where his arm retained its nerve, unstrung neither by summer's heat nor winter's cold, when the voice of his son, a tall stripling, who had managed affairs during his illness, recalled him to the present, which certainly to him I thought might wear no unfavourable aspect. He had literally ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan
... hair from the wanton wind. Ah little he thought of the leagues of snow He trod on the trail of the buffalo; And little he recked of the hurricanes That swept the snow from the frozen plains And piled the banks of the Bloody River.[40] His bow unstrung and forgotten hung With his beaver hood and his otter quiver; He sat spell-bound by the artless grace Of her star-lit eyes and her moon-lit face. Ah little he cared for the storms that blew, For Wiwaste had found her a way to woo. When he spoke with Wakawa her sidelong eyes Sought the handsome chief ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon |
