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More "Nerve" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... motor—simplest thing in the world. All you have to remember is not to sneeze while you are up in the air. Sneezing is sometimes fatal. It destroys your equilibrium as nothing else does and you are liable to make a disastrous nose dive. Running an airplane is much easier than an automobile. Nerve? Not a bit of it. I tell you, Cousin Ann, when I get my flying machine I'll come get you and ride you to my place and then you will be spared the bumps of that devilish lane. Just as soon as I get it I'll drop you a line. ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... evening, but she dismissed this suspicion scornfully, as slander against the ornament of the Surgical Ward of St. Isidore's. He was tired: the languid summer air thus early in the year would shake any man's nerve. But the head nurse understood well that such a wavering of will or muscle must not occur again, or the hairbreadth chance the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... come! All his doubts of the night wrestled in his mind for a minute; but forcing them down, he strung himself up for the encounter, his whole frame trembling with excitement, and his blood tingling through his veins as though it would burst them. The next minute was as severe a trial of nerve as he had ever been put to, and the sound of a stealthy tread on the grass just below came to him as a relief. It stopped, and he heard the man stoop, then came a stir in the water, and the flapping as of a ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... Peg and his two cowboy guides had had plenty of time to climb that far up the side of Thunder Mountain. If they had taken daylight for the task of course they avoided the danger of getting lost, such as had overtaken the saddle boys. And if the nerve of Spanish Joe and Nick Jennings continued to hold out, when strange things began to happen, the boastful tenderfoot from the East stood a ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... The electrical nerve was again touched—"Oh!—oh!—oh! Caramighty! here comes anoder on dem," roared Pegtop, sticking the slice of melon, which was intended for Mademoiselle Eugenie, into his own mouth, to quell the paroxysm, if possible, (while he ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... from the papers flared up at once, and she ran down the steps with a roar and a bellow that are fearful to imagine, nerve-racking ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... got his nerve back, fathered the book, made corrections; and this edition, too, sold with a rush. Byron returned to Newstead, invited a score of his Cambridge cronies, who came down, entering the mansion between the bear and the wolf, and were received with ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... high positions of bowman and steersman, and when we tell the reader that on these two men frequently hangs the safety of a boat, with all its crew and lading, it will be easily understood how needful it is that they should be men of iron nerve ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... No rest, no respite, till the shades descend; Till darkness, or till death, shall cover all: Let the war bleed, and let the mighty fall; Till bathed in sweat be every manly breast, With the huge shield each brawny arm depress'd, Each aching nerve refuse the lance to throw, And each spent courser at the chariot blow. Who dares, inglorious, in his ships to stay, Who dares to tremble on this signal day; That wretch, too mean to fall by martial power, The birds shall mangle, and ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... nerve to stand fire," faltered Christian. "But as to marrying, I own I've asked here and there, though without much fruit from it. Yes, there's some house or other that might have had a man for a master—such ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... "Why can't I be cool and cutting—pay her back when she is rude, and contradict her when she's absurd? She is absurd often. But I think of the right things to say just five minutes too late. I have no nerve—that's the point!—only l'esprit d'escalier to perfection. And she has been trained to this sort of campaigning from her babyhood. No good growling! I shall never ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... how keen must be his appreciation of the popular taste. The complexities and annoyances of his business are excessive, and he cannot afford to make many mistakes; if he does he will lose his business, and when a man fails in business (honestly), he loses his nerve, and his career is ended. It is simply amazing, when you consider it, the amount of talent shown in what are called the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... part of the business was that in these outbreaks of barbarity she did not seem to be impelled by blind rage. Most people who heave a postman about a peaceful county would do so in a fit of passion, through loss of nerve-control. Not so Liosha. She did these things with the bland and deadly air ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... and yet it can be entirely prevented. A tooth does not ache until it has a hole in it. The tender nerve within gives us warning that it is being hurt. The dentist can stop the ache and mend the tooth so that it will not ache again. Look at your teeth every month and feel about them with a wooden tooth-pick to know when the decay begins. If the little holes are mended as ...
— Health Lessons - Book 1 • Alvin Davison
... to make over two thousand in order to secure the one hundred needed for the present series? The slightest imperfection is enough to render an otherwise perfect record useless. Even the artists themselves would sometimes become discouraged at the enormous difficulties. It is nerve-racking work, for one must be on tension ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... here," he exclaimed, coming sharply to the upright position and running his fingers through his hair in a business-like fashion; "every nerve in my body is just yearning for the cool breath of the woods, and I feel as though I could run and tumble over the mountains all day and feel the better for it. But I must keep it up till the ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... layer. 2. Superficial layer of small cells. 3. Layer of small pyramidal cells. 4. Deep layer of small nerve cells. 5. Layer of polymorphous ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... the villain. "Hear him talk, boys! He acts jest as though he ain't no prisoner. He's got nerve enough fur ten, ...
— Young Wild West at "Forbidden Pass" - and, How Arietta Paid the Toll • An Old Scout
... the rest are Swedes and they haven't got the nerve to fight. They couldn't lick a spoon if they tried. These other men are different, though. There are two of them, the old one and a young fellow. I'm a little afraid to mix it up with them, and if their claim wasn't the best in the district, I'd ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... floor the element of execution feels it may more or less confidently DANCE; in which case puzzling questions, sharp obstacles, dangers of detail, may come up for it by the dozen without breaking its heart or shaking its nerve. It is the difficulty produced by the loose foundation or the vague scheme that breaks the heart—when a luckless fatuity has over-persuaded an author of the "saving" virtue of treatment. Being "treated" is never, in a workable idea, a mere ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... reviewing his performance in that garage. Had he really intended to steal the car, he would not have had the nerve to take the chances he had taken. He shivered when he recalled how he had slid under the car when the owner came in. What if the man had seen him or heard him? He would be in jail now, instead of splashing along the ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... so much stronger a position than they do, in that I am not encumbered with wife and children; so I am resolved to strain every nerve on their behalf." About six o'clock the last bell rang, and, cutting short our conversation, I hurriedly wished him good-bye and good luck, and from the deck of our little steamer we watched the big ship ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... for three things to be, yet bound together by one unity of consciousness. Now we have distincter proof than even this that these things are three. The anatomist can tell you that the localities of these powers are different. He can point out the seat of the nerve of sensation; he can localize the feeling of affection; he can point to a nerve and say, "There resides the locality ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... and wide as a fearless Apache fighter, with a Gaines's Mill-Gettysburg record behind him. Case had never before been heard of afield, but his one exploit in the card room stamped him unerringly, said these frontier experts, as "a man of nerve." Clancy held out his big red hand. "Are ye with me?" said he. "Yours truly," said Case. "Then come on, Pitkeeper," said Clancy, "and we'll leave Book and ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... and flank, plunging deep their bloody muzzles to reach the heart and taste blood at the very fountain;—is it strange that resistance is desperate and unscrupulous? At length the sufferer drags his mutilated carcass aside, every nerve and muscle wrung with pain, and his whole body an instrument of agony. He curses the whole inhuman crew with envenomed imprecations; and thenceforth, a brooding misanthrope, he pays back to society, by studied villanies, the legal wrongs which the relentless justice of a few, ...
— Twelve Causes of Dishonesty • Henry Ward Beecher
... my whole finger and part of my hand shocked me with the most excruciating agony that the hide of man ever felt. Flashes and waves of pain darted up my arm to the elbow and the muscles in my forearm jumped. The sensitive nerve in my elbow sang and sent darting waves of zigzag needles up to my shoulder. My hand was a source of searing heat and freezing cold and the pain of being crushed and twisted and wrenched out of joint all at ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... seventh-son work to locate him. The 'phone book shows he lives on Madison Avenue. Seemed simple enough. But this was no time to risk bein' barred out by a cold-eyed butler. You can't breeze into them old brownstone fronts on your nerve. What I needed was credentials. The last place I'd be likely to get 'em would be Mott, Drew & Mott's, so I goes there first. No, I didn't hypnotize anybody. I simply wrote out an application for ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... collected, and written in the same unconcerned tone,—as though he were a critical spectator of an interesting scene—that characterises all his communications, more especially his despatches. They at any rate give no evidence of shaken nerve or unduly excited brain, nor can I see that any action of his with reference to the occupation of Majuba is out of keeping with the details of his generalship upon other occasions. He was always confident to rashness, and possessed by the idea that every man in the ranks was full of as ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... anguish flows the burning tide— Dark storms of feeling sweep across her breast— In loneliness there needs no mask of pride— To nerve the soul, and veil the heart's unrest, Amid the crowd her glances brightly beam, Her smiles with undimmed lustre sweetly shine: The haunting visions of life's fevered dream The cold and careless seek not ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... Court, he chose to represent that affair as a cowardly, and almost piratical attack on an unprepared Power. Pitt had expected some such misrepresentations. He knew that the Opposition would strain every nerve to overthrow him; and in the Christmas Vacation he made timely overtures through Hawkesbury for the support of Addington. The two old friends met on 23rd December 1804, at Hawkesbury's residence, Coombe Wood, near Richmond Park. The host contrived to be absent when Pitt entered the room, and ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... here a practical, not a theoretical, problem. It is not to be solved by thinking it good, for to think it good is to deaden the very nerve of action; but by destroying it and ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... not frightened by the cannonade. Beurnonville rode up to one of his regiments and told them to lie down, to make way for shot. They refused to obey whilst he exposed himself on horseback. After time had been allowed for artillery to produce its effect on republican nerve, the Prussian infantry made ready to attack. Gouvion St. Cyr, the only general of his time whom Napoleon acknowledged as his equal, believed that the French would not have stood at close quarters. But the word ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... For without special study it is impossible to form any adequate idea of the intricacy of structure which is presented by the human form. Yet it is found that this enormously intricate organization is repeated in all its details in the bodies of the higher apes. There is no bone, muscle, nerve, or vessel of any importance in the one which is not answered to by the other. Hence there are hundreds of thousands of instances of the most detailed correspondence, without there being any instances to the contrary, if ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... with your nerve-system, is there?" inquired Average Jones with mock anxiety. "Now that I'm here, where is L. Livius. And ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... I, "I do. Such opposition would nerve me up to a battle royal. I wouldn't give it up until I'd returned from Barnegat, if I were you," I added, anxious to have him renew his efforts; for an idea had just flashed across my mind, which, although it involved a ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs
... tendency may be a universal nervous system, artists are inclined to ganglionate. The nerve-knots vary in size and importance, and one chief ganglion may serve as a feeding brain, but it cannot monopolize the activity. In America, particularly, these ganglia, or colonies, are an interesting and vital phase of our ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... and, nerve-shattered by her terrible experience with the snake, had made no fight for life when the unwanted boy was born. For the sake of a girl she would have striven to live—but a boy, a boy can fend for himself (and takes after ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... affair.—With it the helpless may expect no higher dignity than that of paupers. The individual must lay society under obligation to him, or society will honor him only as a stranger and sojourner. How shall this be done? In this manner; use every means, strain every nerve to master some important mechanical art. At present, the facilities for doing so are few—institutions of learning are more readily opened to you than the work-shop; but the Lord helps them who will help themselves, and we have no doubt that ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... a gently-written, fascinating tale. Make his acquaintance some dreary, rain-soaked evening and find the vagabond nerve-thrilling in ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... possession of her, while the pain in her injured foot throbbed madly, the cut in her head seemed to burn, and her temples beat with an agonizing headache that contracted the muscles of her eyes. Every nerve in her body, every thought of her brain was a separate torture, and at the same time she felt herself without a stay, without protection, and wholly abandoned to some cruel influence, which tossed and tore her soul as the storm tosses the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... before the hostile canoes could cut them off from it. If they headed them there they would be obliged to run down to the other end of the lake before effecting a landing, while he could not calculate on being able to beat all the canoes, most of which carried four paddlers, who would strain every nerve to retrieve their failure of ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... Her passions are the passions of a queen. When she to murder whets the timorous Thane,[66] I feel ambition rush through every vein; Persuasion hangs upon her daring tongue, My heart grows flint, and every nerve's new strung. In comedy—Nay, there, cries Critic, hold; Pritchard's for comedy too fat and old: 820 Who can, with patience, bear the gray coquette, Or force a laugh with over-grown Julett?[67] Her speech, look, action, humour, all are just, But then, her age and ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... thou too fastidious. It is weak To make thyself a shame of being injured; And is it injury indeed? Nay, is it Anything but a mere opinion hurt? Not thou, but customary thought is here Molested and annoyed; the only nerve Can carry anguish from this to thy soul, Is that credulity which ties the mind Firmly to notional creature as to real. Advise thee, then; dark in thyself keep hid This grief; and thou ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie
... was the secret pleasure in the thought that if they escaped unhurt from the trap in which they found themselves, it would be due to him. To herself she argued that if the chauffeur were driving, her feeling would be the same, that it was the nerve, the skill, and the coolness, not the man, that moved her admiration. But in her heart she knew it would not be ...
— The Scarlet Car • Richard Harding Davis
... contrivance, but very few miles had been covered before I discovered its unlimited powers of inflicting pain. For this machine does not glide like a well-behaved sleigh, but advances by leaps and bounds that strain every nerve and muscle in the body. In anything like deep, soft snow it generally comes to a standstill, and the combined efforts of men and horses are required to set it going again. However, for the first three or four days, good progress was made at the rate of about 200 versts[6] in the twenty-four ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... shall I say to him?" She did not know what she should say to him, nor why she had entered upon this singular adventure. But the consciousness of self, the fine, disturbing sense of being alive in every vein and nerve, was a rich reward for her audacity. She wished that that tense moment of expectation might endure ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... the edge of saying the same thing, now stood quite still. Every nerve was quivering to be off to the fire, which, from all appearances, must be a splendid one. The bells were clanging fast and furiously, hoarse cries were heard, as if raised from hundreds of throats, and now, to add to the general melee, an engine dashed around the corner. They could hear ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... Your very silence, my countrymen, may be construed a submission, and those who would perswade you to be quiet, intend to give it that turn. Will it be likely then that your enemies, who have exerted every nerve to establish a revenue, rais'd by virtue of a suppos'd inherent right in the British parliament without your consent, will recede from the favorite plan, when they imagine it to be compleated by your submission? ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... low moan, repeated at regular intervals. The doctor showed Arlie how to administer the anaesthetic after he had washed the wound. While he was searching for the bullet with his probe she flinched as if he had touched a bare nerve, but she stuck to her work regardless of her feelings, until the lead was found and extracted and ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... is a very difficult case. The emaciation, the weakness, the nerve depression—even if there were no organic disease—are alone enough to threaten life. The morphia is, of course, a contributing cause. The question before us is: Have we here a case of irreparable disease caused by the blow, ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... turns two cocks at the back of the alcove, and holding a basin alternately under the cold and hot streams, floods us at first with a fiery dash, that sends a delicious warm shiver through every nerve; then, with milder applications, lessening the temperature of the water by semi-tones, until, from the highest key of heat which we can bear, we glide rapturously down the gamut until we reach the lowest bass of coolness. The skin has by this time attained an exquisite sensibility, ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... executed, not for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith, to soothe men, demands nerve. You must not hurry, you must not look nervous, though you know that you are a mark for every rifle within extreme range, and above all if you are smitten you must make as little noise as possible and roll inwards through the files. It is at this hour, when the breeze ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... must have been at the hours when we were left discreetly to our own fortitude, through our aunt's availing herself of the relative proximity to go and shop at Stewart's and then come back for us; the ladies' great shop, vast, marmorean, plate-glassy and notoriously fatal to the female nerve (we ourselves had wearily trailed through it, hanging on the skirts, very literally, of indecision) which bravely waylaid custom on the Broadway corner of Chambers Street. Wasn't part of the charm of life—since I assume that there was such a charm—in its being then ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... production. When William Mason was in Leipsic in 1850 he sent home a score and parts to the orchestra in Boston. They held two rehearsals of this symphony and then laid it upon the shelf in the belief that the composer must have been crazy, and it was only five or six years later that they mustered up nerve to produce the work and were astonished to find that it pleased ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews
... the Grave." Reason herself grows pale and trembles, lest she lose her throne; for the thousands of obedient servants, which have never before disputed her authority, are all up in arms against her. Every nerve begins to quiver and vibrate; the whole body is in commotion; and no wonder the trembling Soul sits down amid the ruins of her former self and makes the whole place doleful ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson
... beating, and either remains absolutely quiet, or there is a fine quivering of some of its fibers, as seen on opening the chest in experiments upon animals. 3. A fatal issue may result from the passage of the current through the head, so affecting the nerve centers that govern ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various
... to frequent potations, were quickly maddened by the spirit, which mounted to their brains and rushed through their veins like wildfire, causing every nerve in their strong frames to tingle. Their characteristic gravity and decorum vanished. They laughed, they danced, they sang, they yelled like a troop of incarnate fiends! Then they rushed in a body towards their prisoners, and began a species of war-dance round them, flourishing ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... robes of penitence, telling his beads as he went, that the populace might be edified by his piety, and solemnly offering up prayers in the churches that the blessing of an heir might be vouchsafed to him,—Henry of Valois seemed straining every nerve in order to bring himself and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Prosecution fought such odds. Heney lost his temper frequently in court. He was on the verge of a nerve prostration. Anti-prosecution papers hinted that his faculties were failing. Langdon more or less withdrew from the fight. He was tired of it; had declined to be a candidate for the district attorneyship in the Fall. Heney was the Prosecution's only hope. He consented to run; which added to his ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... he should not be deceived; upon which we drank to his health and to the success of the Republic. He then presented me with a sword, and told me to wear that as my companion through the doubtful struggle in which the republic was engaged. I told him I never would disgrace it, so long as I had a nerve in my arm. I remained on board the ship in the capacity of 5th Lieutenant, for about four months, during which time we had a number of skirmishes with the enemy. Having succeeded in gaining the confidence of Admiral Brown, he put me in command of a privateer schooner, mounting two long 24 pounders ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... one, or, at the most, two legs at a time; they never left the ground, or in leaving, they wished to know the reason why. It was this paralysis'"—Mr. Stone did not pause, but, finding himself close beside his desk, took up his pen—"'it was this paralysis of the leaping nerve which undermined their progress. Instead of millions of leaping lambs, ignorant of why they leaped, they were a flock of sheep lifting up one leg and asking whether it was or was not worth their ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... substance; a human figure created by the hand of Omnipotence to imitate the faculties and actions of a man, and to impose a perpetual illusion on the senses of his friends and enemies. Articulate sounds vibrated on the ears of the disciples; but the image which was impressed on their optic nerve eluded the more stubborn evidence of the touch; and they enjoyed the spiritual, not the corporeal, presence of the Son of God. The rage of the Jews was idly wasted against an impassive phantom; and the mystic scenes of the passion and death, the resurrection ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... to see this? He testified no pleasure by the relaxation of a nerve; but outward tokens of any kind of feeling were unusual with him. If any sunbeam stole into the room to light the children at their play, it never reached his face. He looked on so fixedly and coldly, that the warm light vanished even from the laughing ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... spring of 1906 a large number of interscholastic competitions were held. These were found valuable, not only in broadening the boys' ideas in respect to shooting, but in helping their nerve in competitions. ...
— A report on the feasibility and advisability of some policy to inaugurate a system of rifle practice throughout the public schools of the country • George W. Wingate
... arm firmly, as if to instill into him some of his own hope and confidence, "Fernando, although you're only a boy, I've no fear of your courage; but this Lieutenant Matson is a famous duelist, and he will try to shake your nerve. Now remember that ye take everything that happens quite with an air of indifference; don't let him think he has iny advantage over ye, and you'll see how the tables will be turned in ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... could be ignored, oscillating, according to age, temperament or experience, between resignation and impotent fury, between old-fashioned trade-unionism and the latest fashion in extremism: France, emerging nerve-racked from a fifty years' obsession and a five years' nightmare, half-dead with sorrow and suspense, yet too proud in victory to own her weakness, looking round, half-defiant, half-wistful, among her allies for one who can understand her unspoken ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... public service, so that there may be unity of action. It would be well to have the whole programme laid down in writing. I have served with Admiral Porter, and know that you can rely on his judgment and his nerve to undertake what he proposes. I would, therefore, defer to him as much as is consistent with your own responsibilities. The first object to be attained is to get a firm position on the spit of land on which Fort Fisher ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... quite privately, while every possible exertion was made by Mr. Hobhouse and his friends, aided by the powerful influence, and still more powerful purse, of Sir Francis. The Westminster Committee now found it necessary to exert their utmost, and to strain every nerve. Canvassing committees were formed in every parish, and meetings were called, at which Mr. Hobhouse attended in person, to solicit the favour of the electors. The reports of these meetings I watched ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... mischief. Her least touch was enough to set every nerve in his body a-tingle. "Peggy!" he said hoarsely, as the keys jangled to the floor. Then Mr. Woods drew a little nearer to her and said "Peggy, Peggy!" in a voice that trembled curiously, and appeared to have no intention of ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... said Evelyn, with shining eyes, "to think that all the time we were worrying about you and feeling sure you were lost, you were having the time of your life! Oh, if I'd only had the nerve ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... children with Ellen, and as for taking them with him he did not know how to do it, nor what to do with them when he had got them to America. If he had not lost energy he would probably in the end have taken the children and gone off, but his nerve was shaken, so day after day went by ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... fault in a writer—fatal, indeed, to his permanence. He turns a book or a person inside out, dissects it in a deft and masterly way; but one feels at the end as one might feel about an anatomist who has dissected every fibre of an animal's body, classified every organ, traced every muscle and nerve, and bids you at the end take it on his authority that there is no such thing as the vital principle or the informing soul, because he has shown you everything that there is to see. Yet the finest essence of all, the living and breathing spirit, has ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... may not know, my specific assignment is to locate the nerve center of rebellious activity," said Maya. "It seems that the rebels have an intelligence network about as effective as the government's, and it was felt that a woman tourist from Earth might be successful where any unusual probing by local agents ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay
... the telephone receiver. "Miss Galt, please," he said. Then, aside, "Of course it's nerve to ask a girl who's earning three thousand a year to leave her desk and come up and pose for—Hello! ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... Statesman, gazed in dark reflection upon the prisoner, meditating her sentence; the prisoner, young enough to tremble in the suspense, old enough to enjoy the nerve-tension and the moment of drama, gazed back at him. Her hair lay in damp rings, and hung in rats'-tails about her forehead. Her small face, with the silver-clear skin, stippled here and there with tiny freckles, was faintly flushed, and moist ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... for the fallen house of Bourbon? There is no nerve in France that will respond to such an appeal. That house has no place in the affections of the people. It was forced upon them, at the point of the bayonet, in 1814. It has been tried a second time: found to be incurably despotic, and every indication attests that the ...
— Celebration in Baltimore of the Triumph of Liberty in France • William Wirt
... When all had been packed into the house who could possibly find a place for the sole of the foot, Mrs. Bloomer arose, amid cheers. We watched her closely, and saw that she was perfectly self-possessed—not a nerve seemed to be moved by excitement, and the voice did not tremble. She arose in the dignity of a true woman, as if the importance of her mission so absorbed her thoughts that timidity or bashfulness were too mean to entangle the mental powers. She delivered her lecture in a pleasing, able, and I may ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... time the afternoon was drawing to a close. Everybody realized that a monumental task had been performed. Sleepless nights and nerve-wracking days had been endured. Many pocketbooks were running low. Everybody felt it was time to ...
— The Story of The American Legion • George Seay Wheat
... all the household was panic-stricken and in hopeless disorder, the women-servants scattered and shuddering in far corners of the house; such men as could get out of the way having found work to do afield or in the kennels, for none had nerve to stay where they could hear ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... defended himself later and more effectually by saying that it was not of Nick's having got elected he complained: it was of his visible hesitancy to throw up his seat. Nick begged that he wouldn't mention this, and his gallantry failed to render him incapable of saying: "The fact is I haven't the nerve for it." They talked then for a while of what he could do, not of what he couldn't; of the mysteries and miracles of reproduction and representation; of the strong, sane joys of the artistic life. Nick made afresh, with ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... for another campaign. They could yet regain all that they had lost. There was some truth in Girty's words. Blue Lick and St. Clair's terrible defeat were yet to come, but Clark's blow had destroyed the very nerve-center of the Indian confederacy. The Kentuckians had shown that not only could they fight successfully on the defensive, but they could also cross the Ohio and shatter the Indian power on its own chosen ground. Neither the valor of the warriors, nor the great aid that they ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... will is like ordering your grave clothes. Takes nerve. Mrs. Mosely didn't have any. She was merely a little old gray barnacle sticking to her husband's ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... the room once more in his stealthy fashion, and took from the mantelpiece a small bottle of nerve-tabloids which he had forgotten, and slipped them into his pocket, and then went out into the dark again. Once he paused at the entrance of the corridor and listened attentively, and then crept down the garden path and found the horses tethered to ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... across Blackadon Down at this hour of night! My word, sirs, and saving your reverence, but you had a nerve, if ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... mortal—out in the city—is that if you don't do exactly as everyone else does there's something the matter with you, morally or mentally. In the Village they leave you in peace, and take it for granted that you're decent until you've blatantly proven yourself the opposite. I'd have lost my nerve or my wits or my balance or something if I hadn't had the Village to come ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... Numa by a shrill scream of warning from the Ape. Turning his eyes quickly in the direction of his companion, the boy saw that, standing in the path directly before him, which sent tremors of excitement racing along every nerve of his body. With body half-merging from a clump of bushes in which she must have lain hidden stood a sleek and beautiful lioness. Her yellow-green eyes were round and staring, boring straight into the eyes of the boy. Not ten paces separated ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the dreadful exclamation "La-bas!" the planton almost fell down. The sight which greeted his eyes caused him to excrete a single mouthful of vivid profanity, made him grip his gun like a hero, set every nerve in his noble and faithful body tingling. Apparently however he had forgotten completely his gun, which lay faithfully and expectingly in his ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... cannot see more—the mist boils from the ruin of shattered waters and conceals the bottom of the fall. The roar vibrates like thunder in the rocky mountain, and forces the grandeur of the scene through every nerve. ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... see an energetic heroic age, in the hardy North which steels every nerve. The precise duration of the action cannot be ascertained,—years perhaps, according to the story; but we know that to the imagination the most crowded time appears always the shortest. Here we can hardly conceive ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... obliged to hurry off, but at Garden Green, Burton was compelled to run the gauntlet of their cheers and mockery as he passed down the platform. Good sports and excellent fellows he had thought them yesterday. To-day he had no words for them. He simply knew that they grated upon every nerve in his body and that he loathed them. For the first time he began to be frightened. What was this thing that had happened to him? How was it possible for him to ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... in twenty places, That by a tissue* hung his back behind; *riband His shield to-dashed was with swords and maces, In which men might many an arrow find, That thirled* had both horn, and nerve, and rind; *pierced And ay the people cried, "Here comes our joy, And, next his brother, ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... utmost of his power, and, it will be seen, was as good as his word. For some time I had no opportunity of accosting M. d'Orleans, and was obliged to keep my project in abeyance, but I did not lose sight of it; and when I saw my way clear, I took the matter in hand, determined to strain every nerve in order ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... appearances, and still more irritated by the wine he had drank. A vague feeling of horror moreover began to steal over him. He looked out upon the moonlight and drew his head in with a shudder, for he fancied—it was but fancy, that he saw a body lying upon the ground. He tried to nerve himself to the task of destroying the documents, but could not bring himself to touch the casket. At length he opened the casket; a deep groan seemed to issue from it. The long low musical laugh he had heard before ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite
... forgiven. The longest, most divisive war in our history was winding toward an unhappy conclusion. Many feared that the end of that foreign war of men and machines meant the beginning of a domestic war of recrimination and reprisal. Friends and adversaries abroad were asking whether America had lost its nerve. Finally, our economy was ravaged by inflation—inflation that was plunging us into the worst recession in four decades. At the same time, Americans became increasingly alienated from big institutions. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... had only been climbing among the rocks a very few moments when every nerve was thrilling with warmth and all the arteries of the body were filled with a rushing tide of jubilant life. "This is noble!" I said to myself, as if I had never had a thought of retreat. A glow of heat came through my woollen gloves from the black ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... strike the head for cerebrations), rockers, rackers, shakers, biters, etc. Movements often pass to fixed attitudes and postures of limbs or body, disturbing the normal balance between flexors and extensors, the significance of which as nerve signs or exponents of habitual brain states and tensions Warner ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... Nathan felt there was to be no more trifling, and as I tore his side with my heel he broke at last into his great, fearful stride, and before we reached the lane Harry Dunn's black mare was straining every nerve lengths and lengths behind, and in three minutes more I stood humbly by Lillie's side, winner of the Earl's race. I scarcely heard the shouts of the crowd, or even the questions addressed to myself. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... if Thou disallow, No second fountain can I find but Thee; No second hope or help is left to me, No second anything, but only Thou. O Love accept, according my request; O Love exhaust, fulfilling my desire: Uphold me with the strength that cannot tire, Nerve me to labor till Thou bid me rest, Kindle my fire from Thine unkindled fire, And charm the willing heart from ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... One lad, his nerve gone, pushed his way frantically down the trench. He had "funked it." He was hysterical with fright and crying ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... without good blood to draw upon, and good material to make bone and nerve of, so we'll begin to stoke up, gradually, and meanwhile, I'll camp right here and see what's doing. And if you can bring yourself to sort of—well, sing at your work, you know, it's going to make the job ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... and to the cartilages of the lowest six ribs anteriorly, is a sheet of muscle fibres which form on either side of the chest a dome-like partition between the lungs and the abdominal cavity (vide fig. 2). The phrenic nerve arises from the spinal cord in the upper cervical region and descends through the neck and chest to the diaphragm; it is therefore a special nerve of respiration. There are two—one on each side supplying the two sheets of muscle fibres. When innervation currents ...
— The Brain and the Voice in Speech and Song • F. W. Mott
... purposes of extracting from one to four teeth. Not satisfied with any advance longer than I could find a better plan, I experimented with the galvanic current (to and fro) by so applying the poles that I substituted a stronger impression by electricity from the nerve centers or ganglia to the peripheries than was made from the periphery to the brain. This was so much of a success that I threw aside chloroform and ether in removing the living nerve of a tooth with instruments instead of ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... That during recovery the lungs are heavily taxed in purifying the vitiated blood, as shown by the excessive amount of organic impurities exhaled. 10. That restlessness and jactitation accompany the restoration of nerve function, and that vomiting occurs with returning consciousness. 11. That pains like those of rheumatism are complained of for some days subsequently, these probably resulting from the sudden arrest of nutrition ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various
... your problem suggests when you have reduced it to its simplest terms; you will thus find that all problems, however complex, take on a simplicity you had not dreamed of; accept this simplicity boldly, and with confidence, do not lose your nerve and run away from it, or you are lost, for you are here at the point men so heedlessly call genius—as though it were necessarily rare; for you are here at the point no living brain can surpass ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... profusely. Horses sweat freely when there is a serious impediment to respiration; they sweat under excitement, and, of course, from the well-known physiological causes of heat and work. Local sweating, or sweating of a restricted area of the body, denotes some kind of nerve interference. ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... contrast to this serio-comic strife of the sparrow and the moth, is he pigeon hawk's pursuit of the sparrow or the goldfinch. It is a race of surprising speed and agility. It is a test of wing and wind. Every muscle is taxed, and every nerve strained. Such cries of terror and consternation on the part of the bird, tacking to the right and left, and making the most desperate efforts to escape, and such silent determination on the part of the hawk, pressing the bird so closely, flashing and turning, and timing ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... life—the poet and prophet of the dawn, not of the dark; the herald who announced the force of the positive truth and ultimate greatness; never the interpreter of the mere negations of life. The splendor of color particularly appealed to him, thrilling every nerve; and when driving with Mrs. Bronson in Asolo he would beg that the coachman would hasten, if there were fear of missing the sunset pageant from the loggia of "La Mura." In "Pippa Passes," how he painted the splendor of sunrise pouring into her ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... dear," said Annie again, and pushed Mary down into the rocking chair as she would have busied herself with the kindling. "Let me, now. I wish't coal wasn't so high. There's times I almost lose my nerve." ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... the bear made a louder noise than ever, but not knowing the cause, I thought he was nearer me and I strained every nerve and fibre of my body to widen the distance between us, as I almost imagined his teeth clashing down on me, while Johnnie West was yelling: "Run, ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... breathless, liking the storm—so that no bolt struck him. In every nerve, in every vein, she felt life rouse itself. It was like day to old night, summer to one born in winter, a passion of revival where she had not known that there was anything to revive. The past was as it were not, the future was as it were not; all things poured into a tremendous present. It was ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... by the repeated naval victories of the Venetians, an overture was made to the English ambassador, Lord Winchilsea, for permission to hire the services of a number of British vessels; but this strange request being evaded, the expedition was postponed for a year, while every nerve was strained in the building and equipment of galleys; and at length, in the autumn of 1666, the fleet set sail from Monembasia in the Morea, under the command of the Capitan-pasha Mustafa, surnamed Kaplan, or the Tiger, the brother-in-law of Kiuprili, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... had, failed to appear, and secondly, it considered that the deputy for that famous lady was more than inadequate. To the little man who sweated in the glare of the limelight and juggled desperately with glass balls in a vain effort to steady his nerve it was apparent that his turn was a failure. And as he worked he could have cried with disappointment, for his was a trial performance, and a year's engagement in the Hennings' group of music-halls would have rewarded success. Yet his tricks, things that he had done with the utmost ease ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... at any rate be in love," said she, "else I should lose my poetic fame. With cool blood and a tranquil mind there is no improvising and poetizing. With me all must be stirring and flaming, every nerve of my being must glow and tremble, the blood must flash like fire through my veins, and the most glowing wishes and ardent longings, be it love or be it hate, must be stirring within me in order to ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... that they would all be shot Unless they left the service, The hero hesitated not, So marvellous his nerve is. He sent his resignation in, The first of all his corps, O! That very knowing, Overflowing, Easy-going Paladin, The Duke of Plaza-Toro! To men of grosser clay, ha, ha! He always showed the way, ha, ha! That very knowing, ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... years had laid by six thousand a year at high interest, was wisely invested in the purchase of improved lands. Vinet also undertook and carried out the ejectment of certain peasants to whom the elder Rogron had lent money on their farms, and who had strained every nerve to pay off the debt, but in vain. The cost of the Rogrons' fine house was thus in a measure recouped. Their landed property, lying around Provins and chosen by their father with the sagacious eye of an innkeeper, was divided into small holdings, the largest of which did ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... that his friend was right. The sailors had honest countenances, but they looked horribly stupid. Could men with such vacuous grins, such an air of imbecile good-nature, be capable of acting wisely in any terrible crisis?—could they have nerve and readiness, quickness, decision, all those grand qualites which are needed by the seaman who has to contend with the ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... an assistant appeared. Something outside himself seemed to nerve him up, as he asked: "Look up our account with Reynolds, and see if we have been paid—what is it?—a bill for twenty-five ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... "If you have nerve to leap at the proper time as the boat comes alongside, do so," said Jack to Mr Bradshaw. "If not, wait and I will ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... but few people around; it was hardly possible that he thought his movements had not been perceived by the man he was following. "As a sleuth you're an amateur," thought Evan. "You don't care whether I'm on to you or not. But I must say you have your nerve with you. I'm considerably ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... not get the letter without attracting his attention. I waited, every nerve tense, listening to the sounds in the next room. I heard the rustling of the newspaper; then a sudden silence told me his attention had been arrested by something. Would he read the letter? I did not think so. I knew ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... and drink and ceaseless brooding, nerve centers had rebelled, an infernal blood pressure born of mental agony had inspired the droning, his will had slipped its moorings. That his body was not ill, he now knew for the first time. Fever, nausea, pain and droning, they ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... Drake's vessel stood off the harbor of Nombre de Dios and stealthily approached unseen. It was planned to make the landing in the morning. A long and nerve-racking wait ensued. As the hours dragged on, Drake felt instinctively that his younger men were getting demoralized. They began to whisper about the size of the town—'as big as Plymouth'—with perhaps a whole ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... to give me blazing brands: Here seek your Troy, she said; here is your home. Now is the time to do it; nor do these high portents allow delay. Behold four altars to Neptune; the god himself lends the firebrand and the nerve.' Speaking thus, at once she strongly seizes the fiery weapon, and with straining hand whirls it far upreared, and flings: the souls of the Ilian women are startled and their wits amazed. At this one of their multitude, ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... was quite mad for the moment. His rage and horror caused every nerve and muscle within him to swell. His brain was a mass of fire. His strength was superhuman. Whirling the great lance in club fashion about his head he struck another Mexican across the shoulders, and sent him with a howl of pain from the saddle. ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... at Bartley and then lowered their eyes, wondering what the Easterner would do. Bartley felt that this was a test of his nerve, and, while he didn't like the idea of engaging in a William Tell performance he realized that Cheyenne must have had a reason for choosing him, out of the men present, and that Cheyenne ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... attempted to evade part of the conversation. Lambert turned his commanding eyes upon the culprit, demanding that not one iota of that proposition be left out of his recital. Brought to bay, Macauley had nothing to do, but confess his crime and the proposition made Mr. Lambert, but his nerve had broken loose and he was ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... Through his ear it instantly pierced into his heart; for at once he recognised it to be the voice of his adored Aurelia. Heavens! what was the agitation of his soul, when he made this discovery! how did every nerve quiver! how did his heart throb with the most violent emotion! he ran round the room in distraction, foaming like a lion in the toil—then he placed his ear close to the partition, and listened as if his whole soul was exerted in his sense ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... every nerve on the stretch I strained my eyes to gain a clearer impression. A passing cloud left the room for a few moments in darkness, but, as the beams shone out full and clear once more, that shadowy figure seemed to gather substance, and I felt as if some unknown force were compelling ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... Guy's innocence. Well, I said what I can never conceivably do. Since returning to town I received a letter from Guy himself. What it contained I must never tell you, for Guy's own sake. But what I MUST tell you is this—I can never again see you. Guy and I are so nearly one, in every nerve and fibre of our being, that whatever he may have done is to me almost as if I myself had done it. You will know how terrible a thing it is for me to write these words, but for YOUR sake I can't refrain from writing them. Think no more of me. ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... her knees before him, before his patience and generosity, sobbing her contrition into his forgiving hands. She longed with every nerve—as she had so often before—to lose herself in passionate emotion. She had never been more erect or withdrawn, never essentially less touched. After a little, waiting for him to speak, she saw that he, too, had retreated into the profound ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... flashed away again just as he spied his treasure on the brink of the dashing water. He sprang to save it, intent upon naught else; but in that instant there came a roar such as he had not heard before—a sound so compelling, so nerve-shattering, that even he was arrested, entrapped as it were by a horror of crashing elements that made him wonder if all the fiends in hell were fighting for his soul. And, as he paused, the swirl of a great wave ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... the king were being verified. During the autumn William of Orange had been preparing to invade England, and it was freely said he would come on the invitation of the English people and as the champion of English liberty. From the beginning of the crisis James was badly advised, and showed neither nerve nor discernment, and among other foolish measures was the withdrawal of the regular troops from Scotland and their concentration at London. From London James made a feeble campaign in the direction of the west, and Claverhouse, ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... test of Art. Art from that fund each just supply provides, Works without show, and without pomp presides; In some fair body thus the informing soul With spirits feeds, with vigour fills the whole, Each motion guides, and every nerve sustains, Itself unseen, but in the effects, remains. Some, to whom Heaven in wit has been profuse, 80 Want as much more to turn it to its use; For wit and judgment often are at strife, Though meant each other's aid, like man and wife, 'Tis more to guide than ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... apartments strewed with flowers. The table is adorned with them, and the most exquisite wines are handed to us in crystal goblets. When we have glorified God, by the agreeable use of the palate, and the olfactory nerve, we enjoy a delightful sleep of two hours, in bowers of orange trees, roses, and myrtles. Having acquired a fresh store of strength and spirits, we return to our occupations, that we may thus mingle labour with pleasure, which would lose its zest by long continuance. After our work, we ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... ever came. This was almost too much for some of his admirers and worshippers. One of his most ardent and faithful followers, whose gifts as an artist are well known, mounted the eyeball on legs, and with its cornea in front for a countenance and its optic nerve projecting behind as a queue, the spiritual cyclops was shown setting ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... Do you know anything about the philosophy of the hypnotic trance? Well, that was the relation between us—hypnotist and subject. She had been under another man before my time, but no one was ever so successful with her as I. She suffered from tic douloureux of the fifth nerve. She had had most of her teeth drawn before I saw her, and an attempt had been made to wrench out the nerve on the left side by the external scission. But it made no difference: all the clocks in hell tick-tacked in that poor woman's ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... fitly put into words the feeling which had long lurked within my consciousness, ashamed to express itself against a monument of dismal pity such as Bartholomew Storrs. "He's got a nerve!" he asserted. ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... like nothing better than taking up cases like yours, when they're satisfied there's something in them. I can manage all that for you, and in a few days look out for an article that will do Ashburn's business for him. You needn't be afraid of his fighting—he'll never have the nerve to bring a libel action! But you can't work this yourself; in your hands all that evidence is waste paper—it's the date and manner of its discovery which must be proved to make it of any value—and that's where I come in. I need scarcely tell you perhaps that ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... town, which a few days before would have made every nerve in Elinor's body thrill with transport, now arrived to be read with less emotion that mirth. Mrs. Jennings wrote to tell the wonderful tale, to vent her honest indignation against the jilting girl, and pour forth her compassion towards poor Mr. Edward, who, she was ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... to charm, his early numbers flow, Though strong, yet sweet—— Though faithful, sweet; though strong, of simple kind. Hence, with each theme, he bids the bosom glow, While his warm lays an easy passage find, Pour'd through each inmost nerve, and lull ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... my hand in hers; its icy coldness crept through every nerve. The bones of her face showed plainly through the sallow, almost olive-tinted wrinkles of the skin. The shrunken, ice-cold old woman wore a black robe, which she trailed in the dust, and at her throat there was something white, which I dared not examine. I could scarcely see her wan and ...
— Christ in Flanders • Honore de Balzac
... was wandering in the woods, and there met her a figure in an Oriental robe, with a dark beard, and holding in his hand a silvery veil. He motioned her to stay. Being a woman of some nerve, she did not shriek, nor run away, nor faint, as many ladies would have been apt to do, but stood quietly, and bade him speak. The truth was, she had seen his face before, but had never feared it, although she knew him ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... course my children love me, but, until they grow older, theirs is only an instinctive love. It isn't like the love of a husband, which singles you out of all the other countless women in the world to be his and only his forever. There is power enough in that thought to nerve the weakest woman to do a giant's task. The mere fact that you are all in all, the only woman, to the man you so dearly love, the one person who can make his world; when you think that your being away from one meal or out of the house when he comes in will make ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... the early morning was followed by play of dumb-bells. He had made a cult of physical soundness; he looked anxiously at his lithe, well-moulded limbs; feebleness, disease, were the menaces of a supreme hope. Ideal love dwells not in the soul alone, but in every vein and nerve and muscle of a frame strung to perfect service. Would he win his heart's desire?—let him be worthy of it in body as in mind. He pursued to excess the point of cleanliness. With no touch of personal ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... done in the open air and sunshine, and possesses sufficient variety to be interesting. The rural population constitutes the high vitality class of the nation, and must be constantly drawn upon to supply the brain, brawn, and nerve for the work of the city. The farmer is, on the whole, prosperous; he is therefore hopeful and cheerful, and labors in good spirit. That so many farmers and farmers' wives break down or age prematurely is due, not to the inherent nature ...
— New Ideals in Rural Schools • George Herbert Betts
... build up a nation. He labored unceasingly to lay the foundations of the great empire which, with almost prophetic vision, he saw beyond the mountains, by opening the way for the western movement. His foreign policy was a declaration to the world of a new national existence, and he strained every nerve to lift our politics from the colonial condition of foreign issues. He wished all immigration to be absorbed and moulded here, so that we might be one people, one in speech and in political faith. His last words, given ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... Amasis, too timid to refuse, sent a damsel named Nitetis, who was not his daughter; and she, soon after her arrival, made Cambyses acquainted with the fraud. A ground of quarrel was thus secured, which might be put forward when it suited his purpose; and meanwhile every nerve was being strained to prepare effectually for the expedition. The difficulty of a war with Egypt lay in her inaccessibility. She was protected on all sides by seas or deserts; and, for a successful advance upon her from the direction of Asia, it was desirable ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... little gasp, she bent forward over her horse's mane, urging him onward with every nerve and muscle of her tender body. I could not keep my gaze from her as we swept through the night. Picture Europa in her traverse, bull-borne, through the summer sea, the depths giving up their misshapen deities, and the blind sea-snakes writhing about her ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... her name was the gossip of all Europe. Then all at once she meets a man whom no one knows, falls in love, and is transformed. These women are really extraordinary examples of hysteria. Each time I know one it makes me understand the scientific phenomenon of Mary Magdalene. It is really a case of nerve reaction. The moral fever that is the fiercest burns itself out the quickest and seems to leave no trace behind. In this case love came also as a religious conversion. I should say the ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... little room with the door locked, Innocent opened the sealed packet. She found within it a letter and some bank-notes. With a sensitive pain which thrilled every nerve in her body she unfolded the letter, written in Hugo Jocelyn's firm clear writing—a writing she knew so well, and which bore no trace of weakness or failing in the hand that guided the pen. How strange it was, she thought, that ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... from one end of the room to the other. Every nerve in his body seemed vibrating, but his mind acted rapidly and sequentially. He put the links together one by one, until, from the moment of his last meeting with Sioned Penrhyn at Constantinople to the climax of his vision in his study, the chain was complete. Love, then, as well ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... siege of the orbit-ship had been a nerve-wracking game of listening and waiting for ...
— Gold in the Sky • Alan Edward Nourse
... my mind the only case of any importance—is that of Brown-Sequard's epileptic guinea-pigs, which inherited the mutilated condition of parents who had gnawed off their own gangrenous toes when anaesthetic through the sciatic nerve having been divided.[55] Darwin also mentions a cow that lost a horn by accident, followed by suppuration, and subsequently produced three calves which had on the same side of the head, instead of a horn, a bony lump attached merely to the skin. Such cases may seem to prove that ...
— Are the Effects of Use and Disuse Inherited? - An Examination of the View Held by Spencer and Darwin • William Platt Ball
... course by the stars the fugitives continue on—no longer going in a run, nor even in a very rapid walk. Despite the resolution with which he endeavours to nerve himself, the wounded man is still too weak to make much progress, and he advances but laggingly. His companion does not urge him to quicken his pace. The experienced prairie man knows it will be better to go slowly than get broken down by straining ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... mean just that," replied Dick, quickly. "I meant that I might lose my nerve after the first flight, and not go ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis
... she had been writing almost entirely about fact: and the constraint of the effort to be always correct, and to bear without solicitude the questioning of her correctness, had become burdensome. She felt the danger of losing nerve and becoming morbidly fearful of criticism on the one hand, and of growing narrow and mechanical about accuracy on the other. 'I longed inexpressibly,' she says, 'for the liberty of fiction, while occasionally doubting ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 6: Harriet Martineau • John Morley
... from the layers develop individual forms, which later acquire special functions: these functions are in the most general way subordinate elements of the function of the whole tube, but yet differ from the functions of other sections. Thus the nerve-tube differentiates into sense-organs, brain and spinal cord, the alimentary tube into mouth cavity, oesophagus, stomach, intestine, respiratory apparatus, liver, bladder, etc. This specialisation in development is bound up with increased or diminished growth" (p. ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell
... considered absolutely certain. The Church would never resist his authority. The Bishop of Winchester entreated him not to rely on the passive obedience of Churchmen. James replied that the bishop had lost his nerve. ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... and foot to the enemy; there was no way out of it. I have read in the story-books how men of great nerve and skill have slaughtered five to one, escaping with no great loss of blood. Well, of a brave man I like to believe good things. My own eyes have seen what has made me slow to doubt a story of prowess that has even the ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... needed all his by no means deficient stock of nerve to enable him to present an unmoved countenance to this unexpected attack of geniality. This, he thought, as he returned the other's greeting with as great a semblance of ease as he could muster—this was the uncle who had declined to recognise him when they met a few months ago, in ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... about me; but compared to the sickening dread of the cruel Apache, my fears then had been as naught. Facing the inevitable at sea, I had closed my eyes and said good-bye to Life. But in this mysterious darkness, every nerve, every sense, was keenly alive ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... world of material things, including human bodies with their sense-organs and nerves, if no mind has ever been able to inspect directly anything of the sort? How can we tell that a sensation arises when a nervous impulse has been carried along a sensory nerve and has reached the brain, if every mind is shut up to the charmed circle of its own ideas? The anatomist and the physiologist give us very detailed accounts of the sense-organs and of the brain; the physiologist even undertakes to measure ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... which end in a volition and an act—the loosing of the greyhound from the leash. These several thoughts are the concomitants of a process which goes on in the nervous system of the man. Unless the nerve-elements of the retina, of the optic nerve, of the brain, of the spinal chord, and of the nerves of the arms went through certain physical changes in due order and correlation, the various states of consciousness which have been enumerated would ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... West, the beautiful West, She shall look, and not in vain - For out of its broad and boundless store Come muscle, and nerve, and brain. Let the bards of the East and the South be dumb - For out of the ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... have to get some nerve or else stick mighty close to your friends here," declared the sheriff, who had remained to talk with the boys who ...
— Comrades of the Saddle - The Young Rough Riders of the Plains • Frank V. Webster
... seemed to have no sense that he was placing himself in grave peril. He had no fear in his makeup, and his every nerve was centered on capturing the desperate, revengeful man who had not only assaulted Phil, but who had caused so much damage to the ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... an energetic heroic age, in the hardy North which steels every nerve. The precise duration of the action cannot be ascertained,—years perhaps, according to the story; but we know that to the imagination the most crowded time appears always the shortest. Here we can hardly conceive how so very much could ever have been compressed into so narrow a space; not merely ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... things of life. It had done the same on that day after the Thanksgiving game when he sat in Fenneben's study, and understood for the first time what gives the right to pride in brawny arm and steel-spring nerve. ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... wall hid the road from the three who stood beside the gate, but the gasping breath of the horses could now be heard, whilst the fierce cries of pursuit had changed to an ominous silence, as though not even a breath was to be wasted—every nerve being strained to the ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... my father, claimed me, and I was given a commission in the Artillery. That was two years ago. I volunteered for the Flying Corps, served in it at the outbreak of war, but was invalided after that confounded accident which spoilt my nerve. I fell two hundred feet into the sea, and passed thirty hours in the bitter water before a destroyer picked me up. Thirty hours, my friend. My nerve went, and I was besides crippled by rheumatism of the heart. Then I was for a few weeks liaison officer on the Yser at the point where the English ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... certain fierce passion that rose in him whenever he thought of that world which had rejected him, and had accepted so many others, weaker in brain and nerve, but stronger in one sense, because more dishonest; and as he spoke he went straight to a wall on his right, where a great sea of grey paper was stretched, untouched and ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... its lilt, would suddenly make me start up, wide awake, with every nerve in my body dancing ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... these latter were dazed with deep potations and but half armed after throwing aside their weapons ere lying down to rest. Well was it also that they had amongst them the Master Huntsman and his trusty satellites, who had the strength of men, as well as the trained eye, quick hand, and steady nerve that belong to their calling in life. Then, again, the dress of these huntsmen was so like in character to that worn by many of the band, that the robbers themselves suspected each other of treachery, and many turned one upon the other, and smote ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... created by the hand of Omnipotence to imitate the faculties and actions of a man, and to impose a perpetual illusion on the senses of his friends and enemies. Articulate sounds vibrated on the ears of the disciples; but the image which was impressed on their optic nerve eluded the more stubborn evidence of the touch; and they enjoyed the spiritual, not the corporeal, presence of the Son of God. The rage of the Jews was idly wasted against an impassive phantom; and the mystic scenes of the passion and ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... (Gutta Serena). It was once thought that this sort of blindness was an incurable extinction of vision by a transparent watery humor distilling on the optic nerve. It caused total blindness, but made no visible change in the eye. It is now known that this sort of blindness arises from obstruction in the capillary nerve-vessels, and in some cases at least is curable. Milton, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... army. Even the most inveterate McClellanites admire his activity and indeed are astonished to what degree Hooker has recast, reinvigorated, purified the spirit of the army. To reorganise a demoralised army requires more nerve than to win a battle. Hooker takes care of the soldiers. And now I hope that Hooker, having reorganised the army, will not keep it idly in camp, but move, and strike and crush the traitors. Hooker! En ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... solicitude to accomplish the objects in contemplation, and so deep an interest did the colonists take in the war, that every nerve was strained, to raise and equip ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... of most painful suspense as to the fate of our still surviving companions. Mr. Roper had received two or three spear wounds in the scalp of his head; one spear had passed through his left arm, another into his cheek below the jugal bone, and penetrated the orbit, and injured the optic nerve, and another in his loins, besides a heavy blow on the shoulder. Mr. Calvert had received several severe blows from a waddi; one on the nose which had crushed the nasal bones; one on the elbow, and another on the back of his hand; besides which, a barbed spear had entered his ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... worry about my nerve," Hal replied grimly. "I'll run right through a thousand Germans, if ...
— The boy Allies at Liege • Clair W. Hayes
... understand, in your superb health, just all I mean by change of conditions. It means change of food, air, surroundings; every thing in short, which addresses itself to the senses. It means an entire new set of nerve impressions." ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... wind". It occurred to her at last that she might be going too far, and she made an effort to pull up. But it was of no avail; Victor had got the bit firmly between his teeth, and nothing could hold him. Luckily, the girl did not lose her nerve, but waited until she could tire him out, and get him in hand again; and I verily believe she would have succeeded in mastering him, and turning him safely on his homeward course, had not the way been unexpectedly barred ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... heel a strap we bring, To the centre of the curve, A leather or linen strap is used, And don't affect the nerve. ...
— How to Make a Shoe • Jno. P. Headley
... from on high changed to a crashing blare that shrieked discordantly to send quivering protest through every nerve of the waiting men. Those about them were shouting, and again the name of Torg was heard, as, in the high arch, another character appeared to play his part in a ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... die. They bade be brought four stallions fleet; Bound to them Ganelon, hands and feet: Wild and swift was each savage steed, And a mare was standing within the mead; Four grooms impelled the coursers on,— A fearful ending for Ganelon. His every nerve was stretched and torn, And the limbs of his body apart were borne; The bright blood, springing from every vein, Left on the herbage green its stain. He dies a felon and recreant: Never shall ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... Is one to give free rein to his fancy or imagination; to see animal life with his "vision," and not with his corporeal eyesight; to hear with his transcendental ear, and not through his auditory nerve? This may be all right in fiction or romance or fable, but why call the outcome natural history? Why set it down as a record of actual observation? Why penetrate the wilderness to interview Indians, trappers, guides, woodsmen, and thus seek to confirm your observations, if you have ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... mere boat, not a mere canoe, but a sailing machine. And the man in it sailed it by his weight and his nerve—principally by the latter. I watched the canoe beat up from leeward and run in toward the village, its sole occupant far out on the outrigger and luffing up and spilling the wind in ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... reason this strange cry broke Young Grumpy's nerve. He scuttled for his hole his jet-black heels kicking up the straws behind him. As soon as he began to run, of course, the gander saw him and swept after him with a ferocious hissing. But Young Grumpy had got the start. He dived into his hole just as the gander brought ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... influence of the Portuguese party, and by what meanness and trickery it sought to maintain and augment that influence. "Where the Portuguese party was really to blame," he afterwards said, "was in this,—that, seeing disorder everywhere more or less prevalent, they strained every nerve to increase it, hoping to paralyze further attempts at independence by exposing whole provinces to the evils of anarchy and confusion. Their loyalty also partook more of self-interest than of attachment to the supremacy of Portugal; for the commercial classes, ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... doing, gathered together every little token which John Jr. had given her, together with his notes and letters, written in his own peculiar and scarcely legible hand. Tying them in a bundle, she wrote with unflinching nerve, "Do thou likewise," and then descending to the hall, laid it upon the hat-stand, managing, as he was leaving, to place it unobserved in his hand. Instinctively he knew what it was, glanced at the three words written thereon, and in a cold, sneering voice, replied, "I will, with pleasure." And ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... it necessary to reply. I think his intention was to crake disbelief of his rival's sincerity, to throw cold water on his burning professions, perhaps even to question the excellence of his intentions. But his nerve was obviously shaken by his competitor's undoubtedly fine performance, and he craked indecisively. At 4.30 a.m. I distinctly heard him utter a flat note. At 4.47 he missed the second part of a bar entirely. Thisbe's beak, I must believe, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 21, 1920 • Various
... Michael from Adam's eyes the film removed, Then purged with Euphrasy and rue The visual nerve, for ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... possession. Happiness is not a state. It is the accompaniment of action. It comes from the exercise of natural functions, from doing, thinking, planning, fighting, overcoming, loving. It is positive and strengthening. It is the signal "all is well," passed from one nerve cell to another. It does not burn out as it glows. It makes room for more happiness. Loving, too, is a positive word. It is related to happiness as an impulse to action. The love that does not work itself out in helping acts as mere torture of ...
— The Call of the Twentieth Century • David Starr Jordan
... Harry, however, she had gradually become tranquillized and settled; and every bleeding tie and throbbing nerve, once more entwined with that little life, seemed to become sound and healthful, and Eliza was a happy woman up to the time that her husband was rudely torn from his kind employer, and brought under the iron sway ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... her powers in this line? For when he, Carteret, and Charles Verity, strolling in all innocence along the shore path back from St. Augustin, had to their infinite astonishment met her and her attendant swains face to face, she hadn't turned a hair. Her nerve was invincible. After clasping the hand of each in turn with the prettiest enthusiasm, she had introduced—"My husband, General Frayling—Mr. Marshall Wace, his cousin," with the utmost composure. Thus making over ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... against a master of the art—an art partly lost in an age which better loves the talk of swords than the handling of them. But the advantage was with Iberville, not merely because of more practice,—Gering made up for that by a fine certainty of nerve,—but because he had a prescient quality of mind, joined to the calculation of the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... young infantryman held us up and asked for a lift. He turned out to be the son of the President of the Court of Appeals at Charleroi. He was a delicate looking chap with lots of nerve, but little strength. His heavy infantry boots looked doubly heavy on him, and he was evidently in a bad way from fatigue. He had to rejoin his regiment which was twelve miles along the road from Diest, so we were able to give him quite a boost. He asked me to get word to his father ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... to provide a field-firing demonstration for the Divisional Staff. The demonstration was to include the firing of a number of smoke-bombs—rifle-grenades with a small can of phosphorus at the end. Their successful discharge required considerable practice and nerve. ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley
... the elements. This object is effected by a tent or wigwam which keeps off rain and wind. The first disadvantage of this shelter is, that the vital air which you take into your lungs, and on the purity of which depends the purity of blood and brain and nerve, is vitiated. In the wigwam or tent you are constantly taking in poison, more or less active, with every inspiration. Napoleon had his army sleep without tents. He stated, that, from experience, he found it more healthy; and wonderful have been the instances of delicate persons ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... connected, such as the battles of King Sudas, may have a historical basis. He is represented as a gigantic being of enormous size and vigour and of gross passions. He feasts on the flesh of bulls and buffaloes roasted by hundreds, his potations are counted in terms of lakes, and not only nerve him for the fray but also intoxicate him[150]. Under the name of Sakka, Indra figures largely in the Buddhist sutras, and seems to have been the chief popular deity in the Buddha's lifetime. He was adopted into the new creed ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... that he had shown in handling his crayon. The "resemblance" soon sank beneath the waves, as prophesied, but Little O'Grady continued to ride on the topmost crest with unabated enthusiasm. "Whee! hasn't he got the nerve! hasn't he got the stroke! Doesn't he just more than slather it on!" he cried. "Catch the shadows in that green velvet! R-r-rip!—and the high light on that tan jacket!" he proceeded in a smothered shout, as he nudged Elizabeth Gibbons in ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... contradictory confessions. What he really said and chose to stand by, what he retracted, what he shrieked out in the delirium of the rack, and what was falsely imputed to him, no one now can settle.[2] Though the spirit was strong, the flesh was weak; he had the will but not the nerve to be a martyr. At ten o'clock on the 23d of May 1498 he was led forth together with brother Salvestro, the confidant of his visions, and brother Domenico, his champion in the affair of the ordeal, to a stage prepared in the Piazza.[3] These two men were hanged first. Savonarola was left till the ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... also in animals born of parents having been rendered epileptic by the section of the sciatic nerve. ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... money involved in this transaction is the slightest feature: it is the chronic laxity and carelessness of the American business man that gets on the Frenchman's nerve. ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... of this party was Nathan Galloway, of Richfield, Utah. To him we owe much of the success of our journey. Mr. Galloway hunts and traps through the wilds of Utah, Colorado, and Arizona, and has a fame for skill and nerve throughout this entire region. He makes a yearly trip through the upper canyons, usually in a boat of his own construction; and in addition has the record of being the only person who has made two complete trips through the entire series of canyons, clear to Needles. He it is who has ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... your nerve? Be a man! You'll never make a Rho at this rate. Brace up, for Heaven's sake! ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... in his rear, who were sure to rise the instant the opportunity were given, and avenge the atrocious massacre of neighbors and friends. The only hope that he had was to secure the girl while attempting to reach this place of safety, and there could be no doubt he would strain every nerve to do so. ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... mention, In a moment completely absorb'd his attention. A huge crystal bath, which, with water far clearer Than George Robins' filters, or Thorpe's (which are dearer), Have ever distill'd, To the summit was fill'd, Lay stretch'd out before him—and every nerve thrill'd As scores of young women Were diving and swimming, Till the vision a perfect quandary put him in;— All slightly accoutred in gauzes and lawns, They came floating about ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... not pick the paper up in terror every night To see if V.B.G. is up, or P.D.Q. is down; It does not fill his anxious soul with nerve-destroying fright To hear the Wall Street rumors that ...
— Cobwebs from a Library Corner • John Kendrick Bangs
... which overcame all humanity in that miserable time, the elder woman, though naturally kind, pitiful, and benevolent, fled rapidly away, and soon vanished. Thus left alone with Adrian, who had now, in the fierceness of the fever that preyed within him, fallen on the ground, the strength and nerve of that young girl did not forsake her. She tore off the heavy mantle which encumbered her arms, and cast it from her; and then, lifting up the face of her lover—for who but Irene was that weak woman, thus shrinking not from the contagion of death?—she supported him on her breast, and ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... talismanic "forward!" The refrain is taken up, sent back along the column until the rearmost rider hears and shouts a returning echo, "We are coming, father Abraham!" No cowardice there. No lagging behind from choice. Every man was straining nerve and muscle to get ahead. We were fast gaining on the enemy and they knew it, trembling at every shout wafted to their ears. They grew desperate, dug the rowels into their horses, cursed their prisoners, threatened them, shot at them to make them keep up, and wounded one poor ...
— Bugle Blasts - Read before the Ohio Commandery of the Military Order of - the Loyal Legion of the United States • William E. Crane
... performed in Barnum's circus as a wonderful feat, accompanied by brass bands and breathlessness. We accomplished it on our trip with out any brass bands; I cannot answer for the breathlessness. As for steadiness of nerve, they will walk serenely on the edge of precipices a man would hate to look over, and given a palm's breadth for the soles of their feet, they will get through. Over such a place I should a lot rather ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... wife's heart. Her father supports them chiefly now. The unfortunate has a shingle up, in a small court, among low operators. Such a man as this is unfit for this commercial sphere. He would have been unfit for a pilot, unfit for military command, unfit for any place that demands steady nerve, cool brain, and ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... or kill her," Montoyo snarled. "You call me a feeder, but she shall not be fed to your mill, Adams. You'll get on that horse pronto, madam," he added, stepping forward (no one could question his nerve), "and we'll discuss ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... of fops and toys, Wanting wisdom, void of right, Who shall nerve heroic boys To hazard all in Freedom's fight,— Break sharply off their jolly games, Forsake; their comrades gay, And quit proud homes and youthful dames, For famine, toil, and fray? Yet on the nimble air benign Speed nimbler messages, That waft the breath of grace divine To hearts ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... to show him that we really were his children, and not the kind of men to shrink from danger, we used to march right up to great blackguards of cannon which bellowed and vomited balls without so much as saying "Look out!" Even dying men had the nerve to raise their heads and salute him with the cry of "Long live the Emperor!" Was that natural? Would they have done ...
— Folk-Tales of Napoleon - The Napoleon of the People; Napoleonder • Honore de Balzac and Alexander Amphiteatrof
... even the nerve to ask you to try it a little longer. But believe this, Marjorie; the very hardest thing you ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... every limb of his body; he had received three mortal wounds already; he was fast failing when Arvina grappled him, and at the name of his injured child, his conscience conquered. His sword at length came away, extricated when too late from the tough bull-hide; but, ere he could nerve his arm to strike again, Arvina's point had torn his thigh, had gored his breast, had pierced his naked throat, with three wounds, the least of ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... there was of the mess, six officers in all, sat waiting the summons to their own board, and gazing idly after. Stannard, the only married captain whose wife had had the nerve to go to that desolate and distant station, was sitting under his own figurative vine and fig-tree represented by a pine veranda, about which neither vine nor fig nor other tree had ever been induced to grow, but that was not without other extravagances, since it represented to Uncle Sam ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... courage, but had you been nervous and flurried the first time you were called upon to play the part of a man, it would have seemed to me but natural; now it gladdens me indeed to know that even in your first essay you should have thus shown that you possess nerve and coolness as well as courage. Anyone can rush into a fight and deal blows right and left, but it is far more rare to find one who, in his very first trial at arms, can keep his head clear, and be able to reply to a question, as Edgar says you did, in a calm and ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... his bed of branches, From the twilight of his wigwam Forth into the flush of sunset Came, and wrestled with Mondamin; At his touch he felt new courage Throbbing in his brain and bosom, Felt new life and hope and vigor Run through every nerve and fibre. So they wrestled there together In the glory of the sunset, And the more they strove and struggled, Stronger still grew Hiawatha; Till the darkness fell around them, And the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah, From her nest among the pine-trees, Gave a cry of lamentation, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... down the parlor, disarranging the white draperies which lay about, feeling unutterable contempt for them and for her sister. Angry and miserable, with every nerve quivering, she was at ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... Mr. Severance came in to say that a grand display of the national sport of surf-bathing was going on, and a large party of us went down to the beach for two hours to enjoy it. It is really a most exciting pastime, and in a rough sea requires immense nerve. The surf-board is a tough plank shaped like a coffin lid, about two feet broad, and from six to nine feet long, well oiled and cared for. It is usually made of the erythrina, or the breadfruit tree. The surf was very heavy and favourable, and legions ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... ne nur muskole, sed nerve kaj cerbe. Diru al sxi, ke sxi ripozu kaj ne restu stare, ke ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... controversies, it may be argued whether or not he was a great genius. The world of to-day has but one opinion on both these questions. The force of Berlioz's character was phenomenal. His vitality was so passionate and active that brain and nerve quivered with it, and made him reach out toward experience at every facet of his nature. Quietude was torture, rest a sin, for this daring temperament. His eager and subtile intelligence pierced every sham, and his imagination knew ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... avowed purpose was by killing him on the spot. Only a lunatic or an imbecile or an accomplice would have pursued any other course in Neagle's place than the one he pursued, always supposing he had Neagle's nerve and cool self-possession to guide him ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... the strong line of A. P. Hill, which Alexander seconded by opening with his artillery in full action. The Confederates forged ahead with the watchword, "Charge, and remember Jackson!" And this appeal was one to nerve all hearts to the desperate task ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... Your promising career would have ended before it began, after all your expenditure of time and money for lessons. Don't let anything scare you. Go on when your turn comes. Keep going. No matter what happens, don't give up—keep right on till you get your nerve back. ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... still—silent— not a feature moved. The eyes are more untamable than the tongue. When the wild beast can not get out at the door, nothing can keep him from the windows. The eyes flash when the will is yet lord even of the lines of the mouth. Not a nerve of Hesper's quivered. Though a mere child in the knowledge that concerned her own being, even the knowledge of what is commonly called the heart, she was yet a mistress of the art of self-defense, socially applied, and ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... stared at his face, grinning like an elated gargoyle; herself utterly limp, her every nerve a filament ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... sacred being. All passion is still in her presence: I cannot express my sensations when I am near her. I feel as if my soul beat in every nerve of my body. There is a melody which she plays on the piano with angelic skill,—so simple is it, and yet so spiritual! It is her favourite air; and, when she plays the first note, all pain, care, and sorrow disappear ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... little ambition, only that he might the better serve his country. What he could not remedy he resolved to make as endurable as possible. It was not within the power of a single virtuous statesman to allay the storm and quiet the surging waters; but by good-will, perseverance, and nerve, he might steer the ship of state through many a narrow channel and by many a hidden rock. An ardent lover and earnest advocate of toleration, he yet considered it politic to consent to urge the Parliament of Paris, in the king's name, to register the Edict of Romorantin, in accordance with ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... of the waif's helplessness was repugnance to her conquered. She had no other redeeming quality. In a certain sense she was fearsome; she required unremitting attention and care; her whimpering fits, in beast-like monotone, shook the nerve of the most patient of her attendants. She was a charge to keep and foster, and the duty was performed with devotion, which took little concern for self-sacrifice. Before many months had passed Soosie had been transformed ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... under her scrutiny, which was long, silent, and searching, he felt as he did upon his first interview with the Secretary of the Navy. However, no one had ever accused him of lack of nerve. ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... the same picture. Yes, he knew Beethoven. He's as old as old what's-his-name who ate grass and died of a colic, in the Bible. Golly, wouldn't I like to get out of this hole, but I promised pa I'd stick it out until spring. I play nothing but Klug compositions, his valses, mazurkas—mind his nerve, he says he gave Chopin points on mazurkas; and Bella, Bella, what do you think, I've found out all about his cousins! I wrote ma that all the old hens in his house were his cousins, and I spoke of his wife. Bella, he has no ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... two hours before dark. Rachael was conscious of every nerve in her body, and paced up and down the long line of rooms which terminated in the library, until Alexander's legs were worn out trotting after her, and he fell asleep on the floor. Twice she went to the roof to look for Hamilton's sloop, but saw not a sail ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... interrupted the third. "Any kid that's got nerve enough to down Steve has got a right to git away with it. If you corner him he's goin' to fight—and git bumped off by a bunch of growed men—mebby four to ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... on his knees and breathed out piercing supplications. Every nerve and fibre within him seemed tense with his agony of prayer. It was not the outcry for purity and peace, not a tender longing for forgiveness, not a filial remorse for sin, but the nervous anguish of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... of me," Farland said. "I'm not accusing you of doing anything wrong, am I? I can see that you're a law-abiding man. You haven't nerve enough to be anything else. Suppose you step outside with me for a few minutes. I just want to ask you ...
— The Brand of Silence - A Detective Story • Harrington Strong
... they restored the estates plundered by the Cromwellians thirty-six years before, and gave compensation to all innocent persons—while they strained every nerve to exclude the English from our trade, and to secure it to the Irish—while they introduced the Statute of Frauds, and many other sound laws, and thus showed their zeal for the peaceful and permanent welfare ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... the eye, formed by nervous filaments spreading from the optic nerve, and serving for the perception of ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... Jack, in a loud, authoritative tone, "and what's more, I will be obeyed, Gascoigne. I have nerve, if I haven't knowledge, and at all events I can steer for the beach. I tell you, give me the helm. Well, then, if you ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... moment: but not as I felt in that prison; for I had not heard you, Grace, then. I did not know that I had a Father in heaven, who had been looking after me, when I fancied that I was looking after myself;—I don't half believe it now—If I did, I should not have lost my nerve as I have done!—Grace, I dare hardly stir about now, lest some harm should come to me. I fancy at every turn, what if that chimney fell? what if that horse kicked out?—and, Grace, you, and you only, can cure me of my new cowardice. ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... flag-flyer should always be shunned and condemned. When his loss amounts to only 100 or 200, or when, not detecting his purpose, the adversaries fail to double, and the loss is, therefore, smaller, the odds favor his exhibition of nerve. Flag-flying, however, is like dynamite: in the hands of a child or of one unfamiliar with its characteristics, it is a danger, the extent of which none can foretell; but used with skill, it becomes ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work
... serious matter. There are men that it weakens one to talk with an hour more than a day's fasting would do. Mark this that I am going to say, for it is as good as a working professional man's advice, and costs you nothing: It is better to lose a pint of blood from your veins than to have a nerve tapped. Nobody measures your nervous force as it runs away, nor bandages your brain and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... fired the first shot in more dramatic fashion," she declared. "Even Mr. Phipps lost his nerve for a moment, and I thought that Henry was going to collapse altogether. I wonder what they are ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and cheese, sir," he said, after a pause to collect his wits. "Mr. Hilton is clever and well read, and cares nothing about sport, though he has a wonderful steady nerve. Yes, I mean that——" for Winter's prominent eyes showed surprise at the statement. "He's a strange mixture, is Mr. Hilton. He's a fair nailer with a revolver. I've seen him hit a penny three times straight off ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... were not animated with his heroic spirit, nor inspired with his prophetic foresight, that they failed. They were looking after gain, or actuated by selfish ambition, while he was straining every nerve to avert danger. When he swore hatred to the Roman on the altar at nine years of age, he imbibed a principle which the judgment of his maturer years told him was the only means of saving his country. To the prosecution of this object he devoted his life. From his first entrance ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... impossible; and if he declined, Christendom would cry fie upon him. Two successive popes, John XXII. and Benedict XII., preached the crusade, and offered their mediation to settle the differences between the two kings; but they were unsuccessful in both their attempts. The two kings strained every nerve to form laic alliances. Philip did all he could to secure to himself the fidelity of Count Louis of Flanders, whom the King of England several times attempted, but in vain, to win over. Philip drew into close ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... a blood-stained hand, slipped his gun back into its holster and got up. He swayed a little, with the swinging slide of the air-liner and with the weakness that nerve-shock of a wound brings. But coolly enough he slid open the door leading into the main corridor, and passed through, closing the door after him. Where his hand touched the metal, red stains showed. Neither man of the pair now left in the pilot-house made any comments. This ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... blunting of moral faculty, fruits of death brought forth in the soul of the survivor, which are more horrifying to the enlightened consciousness than the dying groans of the stricken can be to the more bodily nerve. The thing to fear is not pain, but trespass; not suffering, but sin—the peculiar sin of war is that it corrupts while it consumes, that it demoralizes whilst it destroys. It is not because war kills that it is the devil, but because it depraves; ...
— Home Missions In Action • Edith H. Allen
... breast, and every nerve in his body quivering with wrath, the proud, unhappy boy strode through the gay streets. They had betrayed him then, these accursed Beauforts! they circled his steps with schemes to drive him like a deer into the snare of their loathsome charity! The roof was to be taken from his head—the ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... a cause? Let us rather believe with our good King David, that 'Honor must hope always; for no real evil can befall the virtuous, either in this world or in the next!' Were I a man, the justice that leads on the brave Wallace would nerve my arm with the strength of a host. Besides, look at our country; God's gift of freedom is stamped upon it. Our mountains are his seal. Plains are the proper territories of tyranny; there the armies of ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... a look of admiration. "You've got the nerve, all right," he said. "Well, so long, till we meet again," and whirling around he sauntered slowly off in the direction of the forest, ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... celebrated French surgeon, born at Pierre-Buffiere; he was a man of firm nerve, signally sure and skilful as an operator, and contributed greatly, both by his inventions and discoveries, to the progress of surgery; a museum of pathological anatomy, in which he made important discoveries, bears his ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... not fit for the big north. Tall and slim, with blond hair in spite of his French blood and name, a quiet and unexcitable face, and an air that Blake called "damned superiority." He wondered how the Fiddling Man had ever screwed up nerve enough to kill Breault. Undoubtedly there had been no fight. A quick and treacherous shot, no doubt. That was like a man who played a fiddle. POOF! He had no more respect for him than if he ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... replied Rosa, "I do not. I told Mr. Sawyer so on the train. It is hotter in the country than it is in the city. I can't bear the ticking of a clock in my room, and I think crickets and owls are more nerve-destroying than clocks, and I positively detest anything that buzzes and stings, like bees, ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... be afraid. No need of that. It won't be him. It'll be me that comes. But if it should be him, don't let him get close. Shoot him first. It will be to save you from worse than death. Have you got the nerve ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... imitate the faculties and actions of a man, and to impose a perpetual illusion on the senses of his friends and enemies. Articulate sounds vibrated on the ears of the disciples; but the image which was impressed on their optic nerve eluded the more stubborn evidence of the touch; and they enjoyed the spiritual, not the corporeal, presence of the Son of God. The rage of the Jews was idly wasted against an impassive phantom; and the mystic scenes of the passion and death, the resurrection ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... diplomacy winning against politeness, "I never dreamed you'd have the nerve to try that fancy corkscrew throw of yours before all that crowd. Why, after two years to get out of practice, you took an awful chance of making a fool of yourself! Y'see, Bill," he explained with a ...
— The Gringos • B. M. Bower
... While a student in the Old World, he performed leading operations with a skill and natural readiness which astonished his instructors as much as they delighted them. He was possessed of a firmness and dexterity of hand, a calm, cool brain, a quick, unfailing eye, a calmness of nerve, a strength of will, and a physical endurance which were Nature's gifts to him, and which rendered him a great surgeon even before he had received his diploma. He did not trust to these natural gifts alone, however, but applied himself to the theory of his profession with a ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... Lord Airlie's in the previous month Lord Beaconsfield, talking to Matthew Arnold, had described the great (that is, the fourteenth) Lord Derby as having been "a man full of nerve, dash, fire, and resource, who carried the House irresistibly along with him." Bishop Samuel Wilberforce was reckoned by Mr. Gladstone as one of the three men who, of all his acquaintance, had the greatest natural ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... the Planeteer's nerve. He knew Bradshaw was in pain, because bleeding into high vacuum was always painful. The crack in the Englishman's helmet had let most of the air out, and his own blood pressure had done the rest. He would carry the marks for days. A few more moments, and all air and all heat would ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... angry, do against two hundred, when his own followers refuse to support him. The valour of the peasants was distinctly of that quality whose better part is discretion. The thunder of that fusillade had been enough to shatter their nerve, and to Souvestre's exhortations that they should become martyrs in the noble cause, of the people against tyranny, in whatsoever guise it came, they answered with the unanswerable ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... pay the rent which gave her so much uneasiness, and she exerted every nerve to prevail on her father effectually to succour the family; but the utmost she could obtain was a small sum very inadequate to the purpose, to enable the poor woman to carry into execution a little scheme ...
— Mary - A Fiction • Mary Wollstonecraft
... remembered that most British runners can only afford a bare fortnight or three weeks' winter holiday in the Alps, and that they are not always in training when they arrive. Ski-ing is a sport which exercises every nerve and muscle as well as lungs, as is soon discovered during the first 100 feet climb or the first fall in deep snow ...
— Ski-running • Katharine Symonds Furse
... not dwell on the days of anxiety that followed. I do not remember them much myself, except that they were very long and nerve-racking. I will tell you at once how it was that we first actually came ...
— Bear Brownie - The Life of a Bear • H. P. Robinson
... diamond-shaped bed of Parma violets, kept back so long from bloom that I might have a succession of them; these were the last, and their perfume told it, for it was at once a caress and a sigh. I breathed the gale of sweetness till every nerve rested and every pulse was tranquil as the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... he said to Broussard, "but the news you give me takes all my nerve away, and yet it's the best news I ever heard in my life. You know, sir, it was some words of mine—and God knows I never meant to harm Lawrence—that made him strike me, and then he ...
— Betty at Fort Blizzard • Molly Elliot Seawell
... there any man who, having made a fortune at Monte Carlo, will admit that he owes it entirely to chance? Will he not rather attribute it to his wonderful system, or if not to that, at any rate to his wonderful nerve, his perseverance, or ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... produce innumerable bad results. People who eat bread made from fine white flour naturally crave the food elements which have been eliminated from the wheat, and are thus led to an excessive consumption of meat, and the nerve-starvation and consequent irritability thus induced may also lead to the use of alcoholic drinks. We believe that one of the strongest barriers women could erect against the inroads of intemperance would be to supply the tables of the land with good bread made ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... The most sensitive nerve in the British Empire terminates in Afghanistan, and the ghost of the czar is always dancing about the Khyber Pass, through which caravans laden with merchandise find their way across the mountains between India and the countries of Central Asia. ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... through each change of fortune strange, Racked nerve, and brain all burning, His loving faith in mother-land Knew never shade of turning; By Britain's lakes, by Neva's wave, Whatever sky was o'er him, He heard her rivers' rushing sound, Her blue peaks ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... the nerve-worn and sleepless, or thinkers standing with hands to the eyes on some crag above the multitude, see things thus in skeleton outline, bare of flesh? In Surbiton the skeleton is wrapped ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... reinforce his blind faith. Calamities were raining around the family and saddening his relatives, yet not one grazed the intrepid sub-lieutenant who was persisting in his daring deeds with the heroic nerve of a musketeer. ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... up, got his mouth empty enough to talk. "All right, let's have the story," Greg said, still looking as though he couldn't believe his eyes. "The last we saw, you were blown into atoms out there in that Scavenger ... you've got some nerve turning up now and scaring us half out of ...
— Gold in the Sky • Alan Edward Nourse
... to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade. This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens—leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children. This is a regime that agreed to international inspections—then kicked out ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... was in most respects but the pole, focus, or nerve-knot of the surrounding country life; differing from the many manufacturing towns which are as foreign bodies set down, like boulders on a plain, in a green world with which they have nothing in common. Casterbridge lived by agriculture at one remove further from the fountainhead than the adjoining ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... the hind quarters, mentioned by Dr. Provost, accords perfectly with the action of this poison, as it acts on the nerve centers, especially the cerebro-spinal centers, and produces spasms of the limbs, then of the trunk, and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... been rather an aimless man. He was a brilliant sailor, not because he set himself to the task, but merely because seamanship was born in him, together with a dogged steadiness of nerve and a complete fearlessness. It was so easy to be a good sailor that he had not even the satisfaction of having to make an effort. His heart was empty. He had indeed the sea, but his love of it was unconscious. Away from it, he was ill at ease; on its breast, he was not actively happy—he ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... House is cut off. Strain every nerve to open communication with him by James River, or any other way you can. Report ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... hour all the small boats plied back and forth, the rescuers using all their nerve and muscle power ...
— Dave Darrin After The Mine Layers • H. Irving Hancock
... whether they will live slaves or die freemen." To the governors and State assemblies he added: "On your exertions at this critical period, together with those of the other colonies in the common cause, the salvation of America now evidently depends.... Exert, therefore, every nerve to distinguish yourselves. Quicken your preparations, and stimulate the good people of your government, and there is no danger, notwithstanding the mighty armament with which we are threatened, but you will be able to lead them to victory, to liberty, and to happiness." ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... something white in his hand, actually clambered out of the firing-trench and advanced towards our lines. The distance was barely seventy yards. No shot was fired, but you may be sure that safety-catches were hastily released. Suddenly, in the tense silence, the ambassador's nerve failed him. He bolted back, followed by a few desultory bullets. The reason for his sudden panic was never rightly ascertained, but the weight of public opinion inclined to the view that Mucklewame, who had momentarily exposed himself ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... the latter. "And don't blame a man for too much caution; no offence intended; and these China rivers shake a fellow's nerve. All I want is just to see you're what you say you are; it's only my duty, sir, and what you would do yourself in the circumstances. I've not always been a ship-captain: I was a banker once, and I tell you that's the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... but her father could not get away. He consistently spent his days in overworking, and his evenings in wishing he hadn't overworked. He was attractive, fresh, pink-cheeked, white-mustached, and nerve-twitching with years ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... on the morrow. After halting at Belbeis the troopers gave rein to their steeds; and a ride of nearly 40 miles brought them to the city about sundown. Rumour magnified their numbers; while the fatalism that used to nerve the Moslem in his great days now predisposed him to bow the knee and mutter Kismet at the advent of the seemingly predestined masters of Egypt. To this small, wearied, but lordly band Cairo surrendered, and Arabi himself ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... the varied erudition of the more delightful writer? The parallelist compares Erasmus to "a river swelling its waters, and often overflowing its banks; Budaeus rolled on like a majestic stream, ever restraining its waves within its bed. The Frenchman has more nerve, and blood, and life, and the Hollander ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... was certainly nerve-racking. The Indians ate everything in the house, and from my seat in a dim corner I watched them while my sisters waited on them. I can still see the tableau they made in the firelit room and hear the unfamiliar accents of their speech as they talked together. Occasionally one of ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... indeed very strange, sir. You must summon all your nerve and fortitude to help us through. Never before were your strength and good strong common-sense more needed. I've nearly reached the end of my endurance. Please, sir, for Helen's sake, preserve your self-control and the ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... one of the bravest deeds of your life. Only for that, Frank Merriwell would be dead. Only for your nerve and bravery in shooting that ruffian, one of God's grandest men would have been murdered in cold blood. Since my college days I have loved and admired him above all other men. When you saved his ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... headed them there they would be obliged to run down to the other end of the lake before effecting a landing, while he could not calculate on being able to beat all the canoes, most of which carried four paddlers, who would strain every nerve to retrieve their failure ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... away from her rivals, passed the winning-post a bad fifth, even his iron nerve failed him for once. He uttered no word; but he grew pale as death, and staggered as if about to fall. A moment later, however, he had pulled himself together and was helping Lady Aylesbury to count her small losses. ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... sprung, That 'gainst some forest driving all its might, Plucks off the branches, beats them down and hurls Afar; then onward passing proudly sweeps Its whirlwind rage, while beasts and shepherds fly. Mine eyes he loos'd, and spake: "And now direct Thy visual nerve along that ancient foam, There, thickest where the smoke ascends." As frogs Before their foe the serpent, through the wave Ply swiftly all, till at the ground each one Lies on a heap; more than a thousand ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... strange and susceptible softness of fiber. And this blank habit of mind, when she did not think, and now realized that she was not dreaming, seemed to be the body of Carley Burch, and her heart and soul stripped of a shell. Nerve and emotion and spirit received something from her surroundings. She absorbed her environment. She felt. It was a delightful state. But when her own consciousness caused it to elude her, then she both resented and regretted. Anything that approached permanent attachment to this crude and untenanted ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... still gazing at me fixedly. Some nerve snapped in me under the hypnotic stare. I leapt to my feet and cried, "In the name of God and Democracy and the Dragon's grandmother—in the name of all good things—I charge you to avaunt and haunt this house no more." Whether or no it was the result of the exorcism, there ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... you would be in no bad company. I have a sneaking fondness for the fellow myself, and it has been my ill-fortune never to meet him. By all accounts he is a gallant scoundrel, with a nerve of iron, whereas Crosby—Oh, no, whoever Galloping Hermit may be, ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... herself. Alan's nerve was good, but there was a disturbed note in his voice; besides he would not have asked her help unless it was needed. Wriggling back cautiously, she got level with Thorn, although there was not much room for them side by side. Her feet and ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... as regards its form, colour, varieties, and delicious perfume, description is needless, though I may say, in passing, that its fragrance renders it of value to those whose olfactory nerve is dead to the scent ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... made any such gigantic blunder as that," returned Tom firmly, "then we'd deserve to be run out. We wouldn't have the nerve to put in another ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock
... family. He told the girl and her parents lies. They believed them and sent me away. He borrowed huge sums of money of me, and never paid—never meant to pay. Always he was my secret enemy, yet when the world knew he was a murderer I strained every nerve to save his life, for his sister's sake. I did save it. But for every one concerned it was better that he should be removed where he could no longer strike at society, and I could scarcely regret his fate. Four years passed; I loved again, this time a beautiful American girl, ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... music; with the excitement of the battle, the camp, the ever-shifting scenes of war, sustained by the hope of victory; the promise of reward; the ambition for distinction; the fire of patriotism kindling every thought, and stimulating every nerve and muscle to action! How much easier is all this, than to wait and watch alone with nothing to ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... them. Miss Prescott need not know anything of the danger. After all, it may amount to nothing. As for Jess, she has as much, and more, nerve ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... susceptibility and our own experience. See to it, friend, before you pronounce a too hasty judgement, that your own moral sensibilities are not of a hoofed or clawed character. The keenest eye will not serve, unless you have the delicate fingers, with their subtle nerve filaments, which elude scientific lenses, and lose themselves in the ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... back, but she seemed like a person stunned with a great blow, and Alice wished grief had had any other effect upon her. It lasted for days. A kind of stupor hung over her; tears did not come; the violent strain of every nerve and feeling seemed to have left her benumbed. She would sleep long heavy sleeps the greater part of the time, and seemed to have no power ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... not have displayed the nerve evinced by this frail and tender woman, for however callous he may be, some feature will betray the torture he is enduring; but a woman can often turn a smiling face upon the person who is racking her very soul. At ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... lay in bed, shaking with fatigue and nerve tension, Ida mumbled drowsily, "Oh, the fresh butter Ma brought me is down in that cave." And she fell asleep. A few moments later I too ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... voice now shrill and quivering and just out of tune, so that it jarred every nerve in Maggie's body, "Thou seest what we are, miserable sinners not worthy of Thy care or goodness, sunk deep in the mire of evil living and evil 'abits, nevertheless, oh God, we, knowing Thy loving 'eart towards Thy sinful servants, do pray Thee that Thou wilt give us Thy blessing before we ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... intelligence upon the whole superior to Matey's in this matter, and, having already satisfied himself by means of hurried investigation that at present he could not escape from the walled-in yard, the Wolfhound stood half a dozen paces distant from the man, waiting, with every nerve and muscle at concert pitch. The man moved forward, with hand outstretched invitingly. The Wolfhound moved backward, with hackles slightly raised. Thus they followed each other round the little yard perhaps six times, the distance between them being maintained with nicety and precision ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... have the nerve to dive off a high cliff into the sea, as you did. Be that as it may, my gratitude to you is none the less. If you want a friend, if you have any trouble about that boat, or anything else, send for me, for I would cross ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic
... most free-tongued, and therefore the most alive. A classic commonplace becomes in his hands a new intimacy of feeling: where verbal commonplaces have, as it were, glazed over the surface of our sense, he goes behind them to rouse anew the living nerve. And there is no theme on which he does not some time or other dart his sudden and searching glance. It is truly said of him by Emerson that "there have been men with deeper insight; but, one would say, never a man with such abundance of thoughts: he is never dull, ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... along," spoke the captain, loudly, so that it was heard by all the soldiers near at hand. "He never tried to rejoin his detachment. He never had any nerve. He probably saw what was going on and hid himself, never daring even to let us know. Damn these psalm-singing, Sunday-go-to-meeting soldiers anyhow! Here, Howard," he continued, turning to a young trooper who stood silently at his horse's head, "you come with me. Lead ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... deadly coldness. "Keep on, and you'll have the government down on us for violating the anti-trust law. What's the matter? Have you lost your nerve?" ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... sake," I groaned, "for your future, to help you to the better thing. Though God knows I love you well enough as you are, and want you, Diana, want you with every nerve and fibre of me, with every breath. Oh, sir, sir," I cried, "help me to ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... principles of things. Concede intellectual power, or the spiritual element, then add this temperament, and there follows a certain subtile, penetrative, radical quality of thought, a characteristic percipience of principles. And principles are not only seen, but felt; they thrill the nerve as well as greet the eye; and the man consequently becomes highly amenable to his own belief. The primary question respecting men is this,—How far are they affected by the original axiomatic truths? Truths are like the winds. Near the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... another of the players, a grim old jailbird who had escaped from the Ceuta penitentiary and who looked just like a fox. "When a guy has the nerve, he rakes in all the dough," and he made a gesture of scooping up all the coins on the table in ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... found that old textbooks had been discarded and new text-books prepared—books especially suited to Philippine conditions and directed to practical ends. Instead of a general physiology describing bones, arteries, and nerve centres, I found a little book on {169} "Sanitation and Hygiene in the Tropics," written in simple language, profusely illustrated, and with information which the pupil can use in bettering the health of himself, his family, and his neighborhood. Instead of a general ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... lacks nerve, and I have nothing but contempt for him," said the Virginian. "I didn't know but he would challenge me ...
— Frank Merriwell's Nobility - The Tragedy of the Ocean Tramp • Burt L. Standish (AKA Gilbert Patten)
... The author got his nerve back, fathered the book, made corrections; and this edition, too, sold with a rush. Byron returned to Newstead, invited a score of his Cambridge cronies, who came down, entering the mansion between the bear and the wolf, and were received with salvos of pistol-shots. Here they ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... the world would have jumped, or said, "My letter!!!" or shown surprise in some way. But the Old Fellow has a nerve. He looked sideways at Sylvia for a moment and then he said kind of drily, ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... borne by the will of the people will be waged, to be sure, if it has been declared by the constituted authorities who deemed it necessary; it will even be waged pluckily, and possibly victoriously, after we have once smelled fire and tasted blood, but it will lack from the beginning the nerve and enthusiasm of a war in which we are attacked. In such a one the whole of Germany from Memel to the Alpine Lakes will flare up like a powder mine; it will be bristling with guns, and no enemy will dare to engage this furor teutonicus which develops ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... he went on, "that I could make you understand, in your superb health, just all I mean by change of conditions. It means change of food, air, surroundings; every thing in short, which addresses itself to the senses. It means an entire new set of nerve impressions." ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... nothing. I'm sick and tired of framing stuff and then have you throw it down because you've lost your nerve and are afraid of a girl. I'm done, I tell you. If you think you can improve on my plans, go ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... Motets of Lassus. For my own part I had none of this power of detachment, and the day, in consequence, appeared to be interminable. The great national importance of the issue, the suspense in high quarters, the direct nature of the experiment which we were trying—all combined to work upon my nerve. It was a relief to me when at last, after a light dinner, we set out upon our expedition. Lestrade and Mycroft met us by appointment at the outside of Gloucester Road Station. The area door of Oberstein's house had been left open the night before, and it was necessary for me, as Mycroft Holmes ...
— The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans • Arthur Conan Doyle
... shells exploding near by miss you, and you become convinced that Fritz does not really have your name and address, yet each explosion registers its shock on the nerve centers. If this be long-continued, the nerves give way and you find yourself a shell-shock patient, tagged and on your way to one of the quiet back areas where you can forget the war and get a grip upon ...
— The Fight for the Argonne - Personal Experiences of a 'Y' Man • William Benjamin West
... read this plain, unvarnished tale without admiring the stern resolution, the unbending pride, the loftiness of spirit that seemed to nerve the hearts of these self-taught heroes and to raise them above the instinctive feelings of human nature? When the Gauls laid waste the city of Rome, they found the senators clothed in their robes and seated with stern tranquillity in their ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... that sucker to me!" Flixman interrupted. "Actually the feller is got the nerve to ask me a hundred dollars for drawing a will, and this here feller on Center Street wants only fifty. I bet yer if I would go round there to-morrow or the next day ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... the cellar putting in the running gear for the 'cross-the-house conveyors. He has his nerve with him. He's putting in three drives entirely different from the way they are in the plans. He told me just now that there wasn't a man in the office who could design a drive that wouldn't tie itself up in square knots ...
— Calumet "K" • Samuel Merwin and Henry Kitchell Webster
... desire to whistle, as he did in the presence of his models, but realized that his nerve was giving way and feared to commit some stupidity. He cut short the sitting under pretense of having an appointment. When they bowed at parting they felt themselves farther apart than the day they first met at ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... desire to open a conversation, as the widow's departure meant the loss of one who had been almost a mother to us rough and homeless laborers. Just as we made ready to retire someone knocked on the bunk house door, and thinking that perhaps some wandering tramp had the nerve to bother us at this late hour in the night, we roughly ordered the intruder to be gone. Instead of going, the knocks continued, and angry at the persistence of the person, we pulled the door open, and ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... the baronet; "and the next thing, I suppose, is to land and commence our climb without loss of time. What a wild-looking spot it is, to be sure; if I were to stand looking at it long I believe I should lose my nerve and ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... no longer. The commander, an Italian named Morandi, was a brave man; any fate appeared better than that which awaited him from an enemy so malignant. He set fire to the powder magazine; the vessel blew up; Morandi perished in the Nile; and all of less nerve, who had previously reached the shore in safety, were put to death to the very last man, with cruelties the most detestable, by their inhuman enemies. For all this Napoleon cared little; but one solitary fact there ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... skipper, takin' the cook's hand, 'shake! I never knowed a man like you afore,' says he. 'T' my knowledge, you're the on'y man in the Labrador fleet would do it. I'm proud,' says he, 't' take the hand o' the man with nerve enough t' marry Walrus ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... the epidermis (which is in general ciliated) there is over the entire surface of the body a layer of nerve-fibres, occurring immediately outside the basement-membrane which separates the epidermis from the subjacent musculature. The nervous system is thus essentially epidermal in position and diffuse in distribution; but an interesting concentration of nerve-cells ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... to who it might be that thus drove up; the thought was momentous and overwhelming; it might have been sufficient to have destroyed all courage and all presence of mind had her nerves been, by the slightest degree, less strong. But as it was, her nerve sustained her, and her courage did not falter for one single instant. With a calm face and firm step she advanced to the window. With a steady hand she drew the curtains aside and looked out. Little could lie seen amidst the gloom at first; but at length, as she gazed, ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... uncomfortable, he will forget all about it, and I was not scolded, do you understand. It was more manner, but my sisters thought as I did of the significance:—and it was enough to prove to me (if I had not known) what a desperate game we should be playing if we depended on a yielding nerve there. ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... hindered me from doing so. What should I do? I was in the same house with her, I had again rescued her from terrible surroundings, she had spoken kindly to me, and yet I remembered the look she gave me more than a year ago, and I could not nerve myself to ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... true and faithful art, Thy heart can ne'er disown me; Nerve me in fight to bear my part, With victory then crown me! Lay Thou on me The load, by Thee Appointed, that I bear it. When Thou the rod Dost use, my God! In measure may ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt
... me, and I was deeply mortified and annoyed at the discovery of its influence upon me. I first took myself severely to task about it, and then proceeded to seek for the cause of the trouble. I was at first disposed to attribute it to nerve-shock, induced by the occurrences of the preceding twenty-four hours, but a further analysis of my feelings convinced me that my nerves were still to be depended upon as implicitly as ever, and that the real source of my distress lay at my feet, ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... light of day and digs its burrow and seeks its food by wonderfully cooerdinated activities of its muscles and other parts, which are controlled by a double chain of ganglia along its ventral side, connected with a similar pair of grouped nerve-cells above the anterior part of the digestive tract. The ganglia of each segment exercise immediate supervision over the structures of their respective territory, while they pass on impulses to other ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... and that they kept up the drainage, while the pair nearest to me had only had the pressure upon them of the water escaping from the first. And now a good bold swim, and I could have been in the big pit-like opening between the two pairs of gates; but the spirit was gone, the nerve was absent and still clinging to the shelly piece of timber, I closed my eyes, for I felt that near as rescue seemed, I could do nothing to aid it. As for Hodson, in this time of dread, I had forgotten him—forgotten all but the great horror of the water lap, lap, lapping at my lip, ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... accurate scientific instrument, in his experiments. This instrument is so finely adjusted that the faintest current will cause a deflection of the registering needle, which is delicately swung on a tiny pivot. If the galvanometer be attached to a human nerve, and the end of the nerve be irritated, the needle ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... "Darn his nerve, if he ain't wavin' his hand to me to say, 'I see you little boy, you're it!' Spotted me, danged if he didn't, by ginger! an' now the fun's a'goin' to start right along. Wow! this is what I like, an' pays up for a wheen o' lazy days. How the blood does leap through ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... the burning tide— Dark storms of feeling sweep across her breast— In loneliness there needs no mask of pride— To nerve the soul, and veil the heart's unrest, Amid the crowd her glances brightly beam, Her smiles with undimmed lustre sweetly shine: The haunting visions of life's fevered dream The cold and careless seek not ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... virtues, but he was not a good driver, and when the horses grew restive and kicked over the traces, he lacked nerve, hesitated, and was lost. Trained for political life at the side of Pitt,[30] after a distinguished career in diplomacy, which made him known in all the Courts of Europe, he entered the Cabinet of the Duke of Wellington in 1828, and afterwards held the post of Secretary for the Colonies in the first ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... he would exert himself, to have a nerve. I could not have thought it was in the power of his capacity to have given us such ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... in 1796, in which this point is brought out. Being a Quaker, he naturally did not approve of the way those early preachers conducted services. Yet he would not be likely to exaggerate what came under his notice. This is what he says of one he heard: "I thought he exerted every nerve by the various positions in which he placed himself to cry, stamp and smite, often turning from exhortation to prayer. Entreating the Almighty to thunder, or rather to enable him to do it. Also, to smite with the sword, and to use many destroying weapons, at which my mind was led from the more ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... said Doom. He waited for no reply, but paced up and down the room excitedly, the pleats of his kilt and the thongs of his purse swinging to his movements: a handsome figure, as Mont-aiglon could not but confess. "I am still shattered at the nerve to think that I had almost taken your life there in a fool's blunder. You must wonder to see me in ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... switched off, the door closed, she was alone once more, this time in almost complete darkness. Again she strained her ears upon the retreating steps, afraid yet to move her cramped muscles. The punctured arm throbbed and smarted painfully; every nerve in her body was stretched like a fiddle-string. Finally, far below, sounded the door's slam; a moment later, in front of the house, the whir of a starting engine vibrated upon the still air. The doctor was gone. Now or never, quick, not an instant ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... thick enough to make it difficult to see where one was going. People and vehicles passed him, vague phantoms in the darkness. Occasionally the former collided with him. He began to wish he had not accepted his brother's invitation. The unexpected sight of the three masters had shaken his nerve. Till then only the romantic, adventurous side of the expedition had struck him. Now the risks began to loom larger in his mind. It was all very well, he felt, to think, as he had done, that he would ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... hast sped the living light With throat outstretched and every nerve a-strain, Now on thy left hand labors gray-faced Pain, And Death hangs close behind thee on the right. Soon flag the flying feet, soon fails the sight, With every pulse the gaunt pursuers gain; And all thy splendor of strong life must wane And set ...
— Ride to the Lady • Helen Gray Cone
... understood that the flag-flyer should always be shunned and condemned. When his loss amounts to only 100 or 200, or when, not detecting his purpose, the adversaries fail to double, and the loss is, therefore, smaller, the odds favor his exhibition of nerve. Flag-flying, however, is like dynamite: in the hands of a child or of one unfamiliar with its characteristics, it is a danger, the extent of which none can foretell; but used with skill, it becomes a tool ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work
... with a cry of pain and terror, slipped to the ground, his nerve completely shaken. The sorrel lashed out with his hind feet, and missed his head by a hairbreadth. Pedro turned to run, stumbled, and ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... and ridden up and fired their pistols undaunted into the face of death. His father had conquered luxury, and overcome indolence. Here was one who never resisted any temptation; never had a desire but he coddled and pampered it; if ever he had any nerve, frittered it away among cooks, and tailors, and barbers, and furniture-mongers, and opera dancers. What muscle would not grow flaccid in such a life—a life that was never strung up to any action—an endless ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... fixed on Cyril's caricature on my left hand; I stood, every nerve in my body seeming to listen to the talk, while the veil of the goddess-queen in the caricature appeared to become illuminated; the tragedy of our love (from the spectacle of her father's dead body shining in the moonlight, with a cross on his ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... to him. Tell him that you want to become a good shot with the pistol, and are willing to pay for lessons. If he takes you in hand it won't be long before he turns you out as a fair shot, whether you ever get beyond that depends on nerve and eye, and I should think that you ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... Nome was picking her way northward. Her engines were thrumming softly, and her movement was a slow and cautious glide, catlike and slightly trembling, as if every pound of steel in her were a living nerve widely alert. He knew Captain Rifle would not be asleep and that straining eyes were peering into the white gloom from the wheel-house. Somewhere west of them, hazardously near, must lie the rocks of Admiralty Island; eastward were the still more pitiless glacial ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... in the calmness with which Ralph Nickleby spoke, when coupled with his face, the expression of the features, to which every nerve and muscle, as it twitched and throbbed with a spasm whose workings no effort could conceal, gave, every instant, some new and frightful aspect—there was something so unnatural and ghastly in the contrast between his harsh, slow, steady voice (only altered by a certain halting of the ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... atmosphere of warning and aloofness he carried about with him. It is impossible further to analyse the series of little shocks his presence always communicated to my being; but there was that about him which made me instantly on the qui vive in his presence, every nerve alert, every sense strained and on the watch. I do not mean that he deliberately suggested danger, but rather that he brought forces in his wake which automatically warned the nervous centres of my system to be on ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... from him. He crouched, every nerve and muscle tense, lips drawn back in a snarl. She saw that in his hand there ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... thing to set against the wholesome life it is adventure," Chaffery was saying. "But let every adventurer pray for an early death, for with adventure come wounds, and with wounds come sickness, and—except in romances—sickness affects the nervous system. Your nerve goes. Where ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... again! it's all round us! O I wisht I hadn't a'come! I wisht I was to hum!'—and she showed the earnestness of the wish by beginning to cry. Her companion sat still and turned very pale. Paler yet, but with every nerve braced, Wych Hazel stood in the road to see for herself. ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... thundering on the flood. It almost brush'd the helm, and fell before: The whole sea shook, and refluent beat the shore, The strong concussion on the heaving tide Roll'd back the vessel to the island's side: Again I shoved her off: our fate to fly, Each nerve we stretch, and every oar we ply. Just 'scaped impending death, when now again We twice as far had furrow'd back the main, Once more I raise my voice; my friends, afraid, With mild entreaties my design dissuade: 'What boots the godless giant to provoke, Whose arm ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... sword of the Norman duke, and added to the glory of the conquering hero, by their splendid intellectual endowments. All this emulated and roused the Saxons from their slumber; and, rubbing their laziness away, they again grasped the pen with the full nerve and energy of their nature; a reaction ensued, literature was respected, learning prospered, and copious work flowed in upon the scribes; the crackling of parchment, and the din of controversy bespoke the presence of this ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... similar to that experienced by the calling ladies. He could observe no opening that promised anything but an ungracious plunge or an awkward stumble, and the ladies had been wrong in suspecting that his authority as a cleric would nerve him ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... artistic perceptions are moreexquisite than Velasquez's. He knows as much, possibly even a little more, and yet the result is never quite equal. Why? A question of health. C'est un temperament de chatte. He cannot pass from masterpiece to masterpiece like Velasquez. The expenditure of nerve-force necessary to produce such a work as the portrait of Lady Archibald Campbell or Miss Alexander exhausts him, and he is obliged to wait till Nature recoups herself; and these necessary intervals he has employed in writing letters signed "Butterfly" to the ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... permitted to remain in peace, although he had sunk into obscurity. He who was to lead the hosts of Israel through the great and terrible wilderness—who was to endure toil, labours, and privation, needed the nerve, the hardihood, the physical training, which could not be gained in the luxurious courts of the Pharaohs, or in the quiet, and, doubtless, comfortable and abundant homes of the husbandmen of Goshen. Amid the enjoyments of ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... both of which animals the eye is in an almost rudimentary state, and is covered by a tendinous membrane and skin. In the common mole the eye is extraordinarily small but perfect, though many anatomists doubt whether it is connected with the true optic nerve; its vision must certainly be imperfect, though probably useful to the animal when it leaves its burrow. In the tucutuco, which I believe never comes to the surface of the ground, the eye is rather larger, but often rendered blind ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... no battle. It ended as the majority of such jungle encounters end—one of the boasters loses his nerve, and becomes suddenly interested in a blowing leaf, a beetle, or the lice upon his ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... displayed the nerve evinced by this frail and tender woman, for however callous he may be, some feature will betray the torture he is enduring; but a woman can often turn a smiling face upon the person who is racking her very soul. At the mere name of Montlouis the Count ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... not think if I should see that man I could go through my part. It requires nerve, as you know, and my nerves would be so shaken that my life would be in peril. If you ever hear of my meeting with an accident, you may ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... depths of the Canyon. There was no well-defined trail, and the slope was steep enough to make one's flesh creep. The site was marked with disaster. Here a pack mule had slipped, fallen, and been dashed to pieces; there a man had fallen and been killed. It was a difficult descent, but nerve and pluck had accomplished it. Beyond was the Pack-a-tha-true-ye-ba Spring, and after seeing its water I determined ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... fight and falls can be classed only as an idiot. What, in the name of Bacchus, is there to compensate a man in drinking again—after he has won his fight—for all the troubles and rigors of the battle from which he has emerged victorious? If he had nerve enough to go through his novitiate and get his degree, why should he deliberately return to the position he voluntarily abandoned? What has he been fighting for? Why did ...
— The Old Game - A Retrospect after Three and a Half Years on the Water-wagon • Samuel G. Blythe
... didn't mean just that," replied Dick, quickly. "I meant that I might lose my nerve after the first flight, and ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis
... fascination drew me from my seat, drew me with uneven and reluctant footsteps out of the gate and down the narrow straight road. There was still not a soul in sight. I drew nearer and nearer to the spot. Once more I essayed to move him. It was utterly in vain. Such nerve as I possessed had left me wholly and altogether. A sense of repulsion, nauseating, invincible, made a child of me. I stood up and looked around wildly. It was then for the first time I saw what my right foot had trodden into ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... May, And, love extinct, all life were dead to God. And what the charm that at my Laura's kiss, Pours the diviner brightness to the cheek; Makes the heart bound more swiftly to its bliss, And bids the rushing blood the magnet seek— Out from their bounds swell nerve, and pulse, and sense, The veins in tumult would their shores o'erflow; Body to body rapt—and charmed thence, Soul drawn to soul with intermingled glow. Mighty alike to sway the flow and ebb Of the inanimate Matter, or to move The nerves that weave ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... his house, suffering a good deal of physical pain, suffering more from restlessness of nerve caused by his former tense activity, suffering most from the consideration of various things which were ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... in a sickly way at him, and strove to nerve myself manfully for a final exertion. "Very well," I made answer. "Just a moment's more rest, and we'll ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... the north by Hongi, the wretched people of the Thames were between the hammer and the anvil. When at last their persecutors—the Ngapuhi and Te Waharoa—met over their bodies, Te Waharoa's astuteness and nerve were a match for the invaders from the north. In vain the Ngapuhi besiegers tried to lure him out from behind the massive palisades of Mata-mata, where, well-provisioned, he lay sheltered from ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... were released after a discussion in the stifling lodge that had lasted for eleven hours, "with every nerve strained to its utmost tension and momentarily expecting a conflict which must be ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock
... that neither prosecution nor penalty will prevent me from teaching both Atheism and Malthusianism to all who will listen to me, and since Christianity is still so bigoted as to take the child from the mother because of a difference of creed, I will strain every nerve to convert the men and women around me, and more especially the young, to a creed more worthy ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... to other men, he thought; and perhaps he was right. He went slowly through the cool dusk, looking across the fields, up at the pale, frightened face of the moon hooded in clouds: he did not dare to look, with all his iron nerve, at the dark figure beyond him on the road. She was sitting there just where he had left her: he knew she would be. When he came closer, she got up, not looking towards him; but he saw her clasp her hands behind ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... sentenced to transportation, a penalty afterwards commuted to fine and imprisonment. He was a man of few words, remarkably few, but of deep thought and prompt action, and, in moments of crisis and emergency, a man of unshaken and inflexible nerve. To the casual observer, he seemed only a silent man, or a sullen one, astute or stolid; in times of peril he was a man of iron, but a man of action and passion, too, moving with resistless might. To rouse his powers, mental or physical, ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... warning cry from Ned O'Connor, whose anxiety began to make him very uneasy, the amateur sailors strained every nerve to pull through, while their companion who sat at the helm in the stern of the boat seemed to urge them on to redoubled exertions. Of course their efforts were in vain. The next billow caught the boat on ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne
... ruling class suffer. The invocation of the "Rights of the Child" leaves substantially untouched the children of the rich. It is otherwise with woman. The shot that rips up the wrongs done to her touches a nerve that aches from end to end in the capitalist world. There is no woman, whatever her station, but in one way or other is a sufferer, a victim in modern society. While upon the woman of the working class the cross of capitalist ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... the fittings of a little boat as if they were mere trifles because it held only one man, when they may in any degree be useful to yachts of larger size, and thus to that noble fleet of roaming craft which renew the nerve and energy of so many Englishmen by a manly and healthful enterprise, opening a whole new element of nature, and nursing a host of loyal ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... he faintly said when he reached the fireside again, "is right nerve-racking. It's like one ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... you with all this." Selwyn's voice recalled me and the face in the fire vanished. "But there is no one else I can talk to. I should as soon go to a patient in a nerve sanitarium as to Mildred. As a sister Mildred is not a success. She'd first have hysterics and tell me I was brutal to poor Harrie, and then declare that to marry a million dollars was the chance of a lifetime for him. One of the ten thousand things I can't understand about ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... exclaimed Mr. Damon. "You boys must have had your nerve with you to stay around Sandy Hook after that gun went ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... her father's steps, and fled to her room to nerve herself for the part she must act before him. But she was far from successful; her pale face and abstracted manner awakened his attention and his surmises as to the cause. Having an engagement out, he soon left her to welcome ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... gun seems to point right of its own accord, I have not anything to say to it.' You see, shooting is a matter of eye. Some men may shoot all their lives, and they will never be more than just respectable, while others shoot well the first time that a gun is put in their hands. Want of nerve is what spoils half men's shooting; that and taking too long an aim. Well, it is time for us to be mounting and getting back. I have got to see that the dinner is all ready. I never can trust that black scoundrel, Sam, to do things right while I ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... twopenny ride at the Zoo, few Europeans ever mount or ride a camel, thereby missing an art or a pastime or sport, which to the novice, until he has been thoroughly and literally broken in, is the most back, heart, and nerve-wearing means of locomotion he could possibly choose in all the ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... sight of their own wagon, aunt Corinne and her nephew, toughened by this training, would not have owned to each other a wish to go back and sit in safety and peace of nerve again upon the log. Robert plodded carefully ahead, parting the bushes, and she passed through the gaps with his own figure, clinching his jacket with fingers that tightened or relaxed with ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... stay in an hotel he recommended till I heard from him. He said you had sworn to track down the criminals and hang them with your own hands, and so when I saw you suddenly come up behind me in that dark road to-night—oh, you've no idea how terrified I was! Mr. Rattar had frightened away all the nerve I ever had, and then when I thought I was safely away, you suddenly came up behind me in that ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... kept up a shouting that was intended to nerve his own arm, and possibly help to strike terror into the ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... visited because there was in it a little mortal very new to this world, he saw Madame Le Maitre riding up the snowy road that he was descending. He felt glad, at the first sight of her, that he was no longer a youth but had fully come to man's estate, and had attained to that command of nerve and conquest over a beating heart that is the normal heritage of manhood. This thought came to him because he was so vividly reminded of the hour in which he had once before sought an interview with this lady—even ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... considerable knowledge of dentistry. Galen (A.D. 131) taught that the teeth were true bones existing before birth, and to him is credited the belief that the upper canine teeth receive branches from the nerve which supplies the eye, and hence should be called "eye-teeth." Abulcasis (10th cent. A.D.) describes the operation by which artificial crowns are attached to adjacent sound teeth. Vesalius (1514), Ambroise ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... it became a passion to the winners; the little girls strained every nerve never to be late or absent; but, alas! some mischance would occur to one or other, and it passed, in its purple and gold, to some strenuous and luckier class in another section of the building, turning to a funeral-banner ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... halfway up the hill before Courtney moved. Every nerve was aquiver as he raised himself to his feet and looked cautiously about. The thing he feared had come to pass, but even as he crouched there in the shelter of the bushes the means of salvation flashed through his mind. He realized that the next fifteen or twenty minutes ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... stated that the dread of an operation which became necessary for a complaint under which he laboured, was the cause of his suicide; this I much doubt, since I have never met with a man of greater fortitude and stronger nerve. I am rather disposed to think that the depressed state of his finances, severing the only hold he had on his dissolute associates, and the attention paid too often to wealth, though accompanied by vice, having disappeared, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 556., Saturday, July 7, 1832 • Various
... road from the three who stood beside the gate, but the gasping breath of the horses could now be heard, whilst the fierce cries of pursuit had changed to an ominous silence, as though not even a breath was to be wasted—every nerve being strained to the effort ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the king's daughter was shut up in some distant hiding-place, Gunnar strained his wits in every nerve to track her out. Hence, while he was himself conducting the search with others, his doubtful ear caught the distant sound of a subterranean hum. Then he went on slowly, and recognized a human voice with greater certainty. He ordered the ground underfoot ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... It is the sense of the moral death involved, searing of conscience, deadening of heart, blunting of moral faculty, fruits of death brought forth in the soul of the survivor, which are more horrifying to the enlightened consciousness than the dying groans of the stricken can be to the more bodily nerve. The thing to fear is not pain, but trespass; not suffering, but sin—the peculiar sin of war is that it corrupts while it consumes, that it demoralizes whilst it destroys. It is not because war kills that it is the devil, but because it depraves; and ...
— Home Missions In Action • Edith H. Allen
... would come on till almost within springing distance, when he would stop and lift his great head, wrinkling his chops to show the long white fangs, and rumbling a warning deep in his massive chest. Then the caribou would lose his nerve; he would stamp and fidget and bluster, and at last begin to circle nervously, crashing his way into the scrub as if for a chance to take his enemy in the flank. Whereupon the old wolf would trot quietly along the path, paying no more heed to the interruption; ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... Did Mr. Grey have the nerve to come to my house and steal you away to be made a laughing stock of ...
— Pearl and Periwinkle • Anna Graetz
... they were going to have an easy time, and they probably loafed a little this morning. But now, you see, they know that they're in for a licking if they don't do mighty well, and they'll strain every nerve to beat us." ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Mountains - or Bessie King's Strange Adventure • Jane L. Stewart
... between the pair was, that while the father was violent and a bully, the son had thrice the nerve and courage of the parent, and could not merely make an attack, but resist it; and finding that the moment was now come when the contest between him and his father was to be decided, he took his dinner with perfect coolness and appetite before ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... wonder of odds and patches. The generosity of one of our volunteers, Mr. Francis Sayre, the son-in-law of President Wilson, doubled its capacity. But buildings that are made of green wood, and grow like Topsy, are apt to end like Topsy—turvy. Now we are straining every nerve to obtain a suitable accommodation for the children. We sorely need a brick building, economically laid out and easily kept warm, with separate wings for girls and boys and a creche for babies. Miss Storr was obliged ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... echo of every other wall, the murmur of every stream, aye! the hoots and hisses of every street in the nation, ring it in your ears, and deafen you with their din. The people have a voice of their own, and it must, it will be, sooner or later heard: and I, as in duty bound, will always exert every nerve and every power of which I am master, to hasten the completion of so desirable an event." The ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Harry Benbow gently. "His research hasn't done us any good and it hasn't done the Soviets any good. The poor guy's been on edge ever since he got here. All the pale hide around this place stirs up every nerve in him." ...
— Psichopath • Gordon Randall Garrett
... thereby? Being well acquainted with this prisoner, a few days after the doctor had told me of the circumstances I met him, and asked him what object he had in feigning death the time that he was taken from the mines to the hospital? His reply was that he hadn't the nerve to take his own life, as he believed in a future state of punishment, and that he did not desire to step from the Kansas Hell to the hell of the future, and that by feigning death he hoped to be taken to the hospital, placed in a coffin, then taken out to the prison graveyard, ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... the shore nearly opposite the fort. Allen then made a short address to us. He was never a man of many words. He said he knew our spirit, and hoped we would remember the cause for which we were about to strike; that would nerve the arm of a coward. He concluded by conjuring us to obey orders strictly, and to commit no slaughter that could be done without. Then, with Arnold at his side, Allen led us stealthily up the rocks to the sally-port. ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... building materials suddenly illuminated the gathering gloom of night; and the loud cries of the assailants, who had succeeded in kindling this fire by their missiles, proclaimed the fierceness of the attack. Governor Dorp was himself in the fort, straining every nerve to extinguish the flames, and to hold this most important position. He was successful. After a brief but bloody encounter the Spaniards were repulsed with heavy loss. All was quiet again, and the garrison ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... deal of bruising I escaped unhurt. Closer and closer came the hubbub and the din of the town—the market was not yet over. As I approached the big street, throngs of blue-cottoned yokels, quite out of hand, created a nerve-racking uproar, as they thriftily drove their bargains. I shrugged my shoulders, gazed long and earnestly at the motley mob, and putting on a bold front, pushed through in a careless manner. Ponies with salt came in from the other end of the town, and in ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... and when a muscle is strengthened, the tendons, and the crests of bone to which they are attached, become enlarged; and this must likewise be the case with the blood-vessels and nerves. On the other hand, when a limb is not used, as by Eastern fanatics, or when the nerve supplying it with nervous power is effectually destroyed, the muscles wither. So again, when the eye is destroyed the optic nerve becomes atrophied, sometimes even in the course of a few months.[734] The Proteus is furnished with branchiae as well as with lungs: and Schreibers[735] ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... seized the axe from its owner's trembling hand and placed his own sturdy little shoulder in its place. Katharine was not crying now, but her anxiety altered her appearance strangely, and Moses was wholly past speech. Every nerve of his tortured body was strained to reach a spot where he could sink down and yield to the dreadful weakness which assailed him. Even the hard floor of the barn seemed a paradise of rest, ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... French troops had been withdrawn from the Netherlands. It is remembered that he was at the war office when the operations of Wellington in the Peninsula were crippled for want of supplies; it is forgotten that it was he who selected Wellington, and that he loyally strained every nerve to keep him supplied with troops, provisions, and specie, when few but himself believed in the policy of the Peninsular war, and Sir John Moore had assured him that if the French dominated Spain, they could not be resisted in Portugal. ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... for this was the third night of late hours and nerve racking strain. But it was over two hours since we had eaten the cookies, and Felicity suggested that a saucerful apiece of raspberries and cream would not be hard to take. It was not, for any one but Cecily, who couldn't ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... not strong among creatures of the wild; the chances of their daily life are sufficient stimuli for the beneficial excitement of their nerve centers. It has remained for civilized man, protected in a measure from the natural dangers of existence, to invent artificial stimulants in the form of cards and dice and roulette wheels. Yet when necessity bids there are no ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the gun calmly. He had seen guns before. Moreover he didn't believe the man had the nerve to shoot. He wasn't quite so sure of the two dark shadows in the bushes below, but it was well to be ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... back also. The long white slash down his favourite's side caught the woodsman's eye at once. He looked at it critically, touched the flour with tentative finger-tips, then turned on his wife a look of poignant interrogation. But Mrs. Jabe was ready for him. Her nerve had recovered. The fact that her victim showed no fear of her had gradually reassured her. What Jabe didn't know would never hurt ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... self-abandon, whole-hearted enthusiasm, and genuine exuberance of spirit. There is nothing counterfeit about the Irishman in his play. His one keen desire is to win, be the contest what it may; and towards the achievement of that end he will strain nerve and muscle even to the point of utter exhaustion. And how the onlookers applaud at the spectacle of a desperately contested race, whether between horses, men, motorcars, bicycles, or boats, or of a match ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... envy you the power to say No, Mr Schutzmacher. Of course, I knew I oughtnt to lend money to a young fellow in that way; but I simply hadnt the nerve to refuse. I couldnt very well, you know, ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • George Bernard Shaw
... susceptible softness of fiber. And this blank habit of mind, when she did not think, and now realized that she was not dreaming, seemed to be the body of Carley Burch, and her heart and soul stripped of a shell. Nerve and emotion and spirit received something from her surroundings. She absorbed her environment. She felt. It was a delightful state. But when her own consciousness caused it to elude her, then she both ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey
... strongly marked, ascends nevertheless to more than half the height of the parietal bone. On the right superciliary ridge is observable an oblique furrow or depression, indicative of an injury received during life.* ([Footnote] *This, Mr. Busk has pointed out, is probably the notch for the frontal nerve.) The coronal and sagittal sutures are on the exterior nearly closed, and on the inside so completely ossified as to have left no traces whatever, whilst the lambdoidal remains quite open. The depressions for the Pacchionian glands are deep and numerous; and there is ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... is to Romanes' lecture on Medusa, given at the Royal Institution, May 25th. (See "Nature," XVI., pages 231, 269, 289.) It appears from a letter of Romanes (June 6th) that it was the abstract in the "Times" that gave the impression referred to. References to Mr. Spencer's theories of nerve-genesis occur in "Nature," pages 232, ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... around Little Rock is about right. I gets a pension. I'm sixty-two years old but I was down sick with nerve trouble several years. I'm better now. I've been gradually coming on up for over a ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... with an accident while he is learning—some sudden and quite unexpected fall—this may have a serious and a permanent influence on his nerves, even if he escapes without injury. It happened frequently in the early days that a promising pupil, a man who showed both confidence and skill, had his nerve ruined, and all his "dash" taken from him, by some unlucky accident while he ...
— Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White
... She tries to read, is beginning to read, knows she ought to read, in the frame of each man the result of a whole history of all his life, of what he is and what makes him so,—of all his fore-fathers, of what they were and of what made them so. Each nerve has a sort of memory of its past life, is trained or not trained, dulled or quickened, as the case may be; each feature is shaped and characterised, or left loose and meaningless, as may happen; each hand is marked with its trade ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... she told him, hurrying away from the dark street as quickly as he could. He was trembling. Every nerve in his body seemed to be strained, and his eyes had the tired feel they always had when ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... intervene in and counteract America's projects, which might, hereafter, clash with the Aguinaldo party's aspirations. At the same time a group of agitators, financed by the priests in and out of the Islands, was straining every nerve to disseminate false reports and create discord between the rebels and the Americans, in the hope of frustrating their coalition. But, even then, with a hostile host before Manila, and the city inevitably doomed to fall, the fate ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... about Durand, but boy-like made light of the episode though down in their hearts they knew it had required pluck and steady nerve to do as he had done, and their admiration found expression in hauling off their reefers to force them upon him, or in giving him a clip upon the back and telling him he was "all right," and to "come on back to Bancroft for ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... rode through the column toward the spot where the adventurer must alight. The spectators credited the young chief with a generous intent to be of assistance; but agile as a cat, and master of every nerve and muscle, the man gained one of the pillars and slid to the ground. The galleries of ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... because the brain of man is so,—motive and move, motive and move: they sum up life, all life,—from the aspen-leaf turning its back to the wind, to the ecstasy of a saint. See the array of pawns (forces, as the Hindoo calls them): the bodily presence and abilities, power of persistence, endurance, nerve, the eye, the larynx, the tongue, the senses. Do they not exist in life as on the board, to cut the way for royal or nobler pieces? Does not the Imperial Mind win its experiences, its insight, through the wear and tear of its physical twin? Is ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... have planned to attempt during the silent watches of the night, his nerve evidently failed him, for he did not venture to make the least move; possibly the combination of these three determined-looking lads awed him more than he could care to admit, or it might be he had other schemes up his ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne
... this serio-comic strife of the sparrow and the moth, is he pigeon hawk's pursuit of the sparrow or the goldfinch. It is a race of surprising speed and agility. It is a test of wing and wind. Every muscle is taxed, and every nerve strained. Such cries of terror and consternation on the part of the bird, tacking to the right and left, and making the most desperate efforts to escape, and such silent determination on the part of the hawk, pressing the ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... maiden Deeply wronged as I. With grief My true breast is overladen— Tears afford me no relief— Every nerve is strained and aching, And my ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... in every nerve, the probability that a crisis was at hand. It will be remembered that he was profoundly ignorant of the immediate intentions of the Rover. As the fort was not in a state for present service, it would not be difficult for the latter to seize ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... said he. He was in a pitiable state of reaction, with every nerve in a twitter. "I say, Watson, what o'clock ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... Kanchin's shout of 'poshol!' and the horses exerted every nerve without being urged. But with all our speed we could not outstrip the wolves that grew every moment more numerous. If we could only keep up our pace we might escape, but should a horse stumble, the harness give way, or the sledge overturn, we were hopelessly lost. We threw away our furs and cloaks ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... is not free from disease. The disease should be treated properly and judiciously. Whenever disease shows itself we should apply a suitable remedy—one that is suggested by the pharmacy of mutual brotherhood, and yet powerful enough to reach every nerve in our political system. ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... soothing name of peace. We are apt to speak of a low and pusillanimous spirit as the ordinary cause by which dubious wars terminated in humiliating treaties. It is here the direct contrary. I am perfectly astonished at the boldness of character, at the intrepidity of mind, the firmness of nerve, in those who are able with deliberation to face the perils of ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... beside Mrs. Carr, Gabriella soon found out that she was not nearly so rich as her neighbours were, not nearly so rich as her position in society exacted that she should be. She was still not rich enough to be spared the sordid, nerve-racking effort to make two ends meet without a visible break. Her small economies, to Gabriella's surprise, were as rigid as Mrs. Carr's; and though she lived in surroundings which appeared luxurious to the girl, there was almost as little ready money ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... grappled. The battle had begun. Attacked on the other side by another of the ships of Asia, Arminias was in deadly peril. The sight of their comrade's courage and of his danger stopped the retirement of the Greeks. Their rowers were now straining every nerve to come to the rescue of the isolated trireme, and from shore to shore the two fleets met with loud outcry and the jarring crash of scores ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... they were of 'such stuff as dreams are made on,' and vanished at a wink, only to appear in other places; and by and by not only islands, but refulgent and revolving lights began to stud the darkness; lighthouses of the mind or of the wearied optic nerve, solemnly shining and winking as we passed. At length the mate himself despaired, scrambled on board again from his unrestful perch, and announced that we had missed our destination. He was the only man of practice in these waters, our sole ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for his arrival; but when they found he did not come, they had left the city. All that remained to be done was to attempt to save the prince. He was almost beside himself. Apparently he lost his self-command, and men of more nerve and experience did ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... Man, he called him contemptuously—a baby, a woman; not fit for the big north. Tall and slim, with blond hair in spite of his French blood and name, a quiet and unexcitable face, and an air that Blake called "damned superiority." He wondered how the Fiddling Man had ever screwed up nerve enough to kill Breault. Undoubtedly there had been no fight. A quick and treacherous shot, no doubt. That was like a man who played a fiddle. POOF! He had no more respect for him than if he dressed ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... full towards it, they were able to note the chances it offered for their safety. They saw that they were not so bad; and, encouraged by hope, they made efforts more energetic than ever—both of them straining every nerve and muscle in their ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... from the fairy tales; on the contrary, all the fire of the fairy tales is derived from this. Just as we all like love tales because there is an instinct of sex, we all like astonishing tales because they touch the nerve of the ancient instinct of astonishment. This is proved by the fact that when we are very young children we do not need fairy tales: we only need tales. Mere life is interesting enough. A child of seven is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door and saw ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... procession started for the bungalow, the girls, tired out with nerve strain and excitement, bringing up the rear. But they did not know they were tired. The mystery of the three strange little waifs washed up to them by the sea had done a good deal to erase even the ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... lied. The President asked what could be his motive for accusing her unjustly. The widow was silent. Lachaud begged her to answer. "I cannot," she faltered. The President invited her to sit down. After a pause the widow seemed to recover her nerve. ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... "I do not. I told Mr. Sawyer so on the train. It is hotter in the country than it is in the city. I can't bear the ticking of a clock in my room, and I think crickets and owls are more nerve-destroying than clocks, and I positively detest anything that buzzes and stings, like bees, and wasps, ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... practically the end of my story, Miss Morriston. I laid the chisel by the body, went to the window, pulled in the rope, carefully got the centre, adjusted it through the stanchion, and with a last look at the dead man, got out of the window, a rather nerve-trying business, and began to lower myself. I had calculated that the double rope was long enough to take me to within a few feet of the ground, and this proved to be the case. When I came to the end I let go of one side and pulled the other with me as I dropped. Then I drew the rope ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... conception of such an exploit caused his flesh to creep. But he was not of that class of men who fall back dazed before the face of danger. Again and again, led by an impulse he was unable to resist, he studied that precipitous rock, every nerve tingling to the newborn hope. God helping them, even so desperate a deed might be accomplished, although it would test the foot and nerve of a Swiss mountaineer. He glanced again uneasily toward his companion, and saw the same motionless figure, the same sober face turned deliberately ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... of the Cardinal-Archbishop of Toledo, and moved thus in an atmosphere of combined temporal and spiritual dignity such as his soul loved. Very agreeable indeed to him was the honour shown to him at this time. Deep down in his heart there was a secret nerve of pride and vanity which throughout his life hitherto had been continually mortified and wounded; but he was able now to indulge his appetite for outward pomp and honour as much as he pleased. When King ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... back to me. Do as I say. We'll peg a little nerve into this bunch. Now I'll go back of the plate ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... beef-time, from the first kyard out of the box down to the turn, no one ever knows why my grandfather does ring it, for he's too onbendin' to tell of his own accord, an' as I states prior, no one on earth has got nerve an' force of character enough to ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... especially as it is sensibly felt high up in the leg near the tuberosity of the tibia, when pulled by the dangling end, my own impression is that the so-called "Guinea worm" is nothing more than the external saphenus or communis tibiae (nerve) exposed in a peculiar manner, probably by a disease, which, by a curious pathological process, absorbs away the muscular parts, leaving the bare nerve detached at its lower extremity, suspended ...
— Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party • Martin Robinson Delany
... irregular waves, each striving to overtop the other in their plunge upon the city. They broke, indeed, into the back door of the city, and then, with a suddenness that seemed to rock the very foundations of the earth, the wind struck us, in three nerve-racking blasts. ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... hair floated about her as if it were spread upon a wave that upheld her. She was beautiful indeed as she lay there sleeping, and the man, thus suddenly come upon her, anxious and troubled and every nerve quivering, stopped, awed with the beauty of her as if she had been some heavenly being suddenly confronting him. He stepped softly to her side and bending down observed her, first anxiously, to make sure she was alive and safe, then searchingly, as though he would know every detail of the picture ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... set in authority in order that they may pronounce definitive decisions according to the best of their own judgment. It is sometimes their duty to take a decided line. James, who hitherto had always stood between different parties, could not nerve himself at this eventful moment for a firm and straightforward resolve. In the monstrous dilemma in which the various questions at issue were becoming involved he could not come to any decision. The kindest thing that can be said of him is that at this moment his nature was not equal ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... conflicting glances was unbroken for several seconds, and then words came uncontrollably from my mouth and I managed to snap that nerve-cracking tension. ...
— The Homicidal Diary • Earl Peirce
... twice. He said, of course, it would not be so neatly done as by men who had been trained to it; but that, in cases of extreme necessity, anyone who had seen it done once or twice, and had sufficient nerve, could do it; especially if they had, ready at hand, this stuff that makes the wounded man sleep and ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... New England rum, which was the basis of the Jones Bitters? Had not the baker, tremulous from excessive aguardiente, been soothed and sustained by the invisible morphia, judiciously hidden in Blogg's Nerve Tonic? Nor had the wily Ezekiel forgotten the weaker sex in their maiden and maternal requirements. Unguents, that made silken their black but somewhat coarsely fibrous tresses, opened charming ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... was a prize worth racing for! And, moreover, there were two elks, worth twenty-five dollars apiece, buried in the snow under logs. These also would belong to the victor! The poacher dashed ahead, straining every nerve, and reached safely the foot of the steep declivity. The boys were now but a few hundred ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... once more in his stealthy fashion, and took from the mantelpiece a small bottle of nerve-tabloids which he had forgotten, and slipped them into his pocket, and then went out into the dark again. Once he paused at the entrance of the corridor and listened attentively, and then crept down the garden path and found the horses tethered to the paraiso trees. They led them ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... been in detail, so much was proved against him that he was dismissed his ship, and his father was recommended to withdraw him from the service, as being disqualified by want of nerve. Also, it was added more privately, that such vicious tendencies needed home restraint. The big bully, his corrupter, bore witness against him, but did not escape scot free, for one of the captains spoke to him in scathing tones ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... feelings, nor do I pretend to any great virtue in the matter. The truth is, I want the force of character which might enable me to stand against the spirit of the times. The call on all sides now is for young men, and I have not the nerve to put myself in opposition to the demand. Were 'The Jupiter,' when it hears of my appointment, to write article after article setting forth my incompetency, I am sure it would cost me my reason. I ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... hard work for me to obey Mrs. Stewart's command to eat the supper that she soon brought me on a tray. Every nerve was tense in anticipation of the meeting between Dicky and Jack, which I could not avoid, and which I so dreaded. What was happening at my home while I sat here, my hands tied by my ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... hand. She took it and approached, saying, "You are better, and will soon be well." He could only press her hand as the tears flooded over his eyes. With a kerchief white as innocence it was wiped away and the hand that held it laid gently on his brow—that touch thrilled his every nerve. ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... creatures from their hamated station in life; or give them vigour and humour, to imprint the marks of their little teeth. That if the morsure be hexagonal, it produces poetry; the circular gives eloquence. If the bite hath been conical, the person whose nerve is so affected shall be disposed to write upon politics; and so ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 204, September 24, 1853 • Various
... on a hot stove, in an instant a message goes on the nerve telegraph to the brain. It tells that wise thinking part that your finger will burn, if it stays ...
— Child's Health Primer For Primary Classes • Jane Andrews
... indeed. I never had such cause for alarm but once before, and that was a poor widow who was utterly overcome by some good news I was bringing her. My friends usually have sufficient nerve to endure heavy shocks," ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... influence. The Hili-lites in more than a thousand years had fought only one battle, and that five hundred years before; nor had they found necessary any struggle for food, or against rigorous climate. They were a brainy people, and were almost superhumanly perceptive in every sense organ and in every nerve. But they were wanting in that quality possessed by most European peoples and by Americans, which takes practical cognizance of the fact that prompt action and fearlessness is the true protection against danger. In the face of this ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... also be named to the different boats; and their orders ought to be positive never to allow more than the proper crew to enter, nor on any account to permit the boat to be lowered till fully and properly manned. I grant that it requires no small nerve to sanction the delays which an attention to these minute particulars demands; but the adequate degree of faith in their utility will bring with it the requisite share of decision, to possess which, under all circumstances, is, perhaps, one of the most characteristic ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... degrading. Their argument is that it schools the German youth to coolness and courage. If this could be proved, the argument, particularly in a country where every man is a soldier, would be sufficiently one-sided. But is the virtue of the prize-fighter the virtue of the soldier? One doubts it. Nerve and dash are surely of more service in the field than a temperament of unreasoning indifference as to what is happening to one. As a matter of fact, the German student would have to be possessed of much more courage not to fight. He fights ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... the supper-table he had one nerve-racking fear dispelled and another confirmed by his mother's reply to a question put ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... Kautz glacier, and finding their way barred by ice cascades, reached the summit by a thrilling rock climb over the cliff above the South Tahoma glacier. This precipice (see p. 37) they found to be a series of rock terraces, often testing the strength and nerve of the climbers. In Sunset Magazine for November, 1895, Mr. Glascock has told the story of their ...
— The Mountain that was 'God' • John H. Williams
... say, I have taken laborious pains to so trim this book of offense that you'll not lack the nerve to print it just as it stands. I am going to get the proofs to you just as early as I can. I want you to read it carefully. If you can publish it without altering a single word, go ahead. Otherwise, ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... instrument is so finely adjusted that the faintest current will cause a deflection of the registering needle, which is delicately swung on a tiny pivot. If the galvanometer be attached to a human nerve, and the end of the nerve be irritated, ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... disastrous kind; it means to drive the mental machinery at an unreasonable and dangerous rate. Worry gives the brain no rest, but rather keeps the delicate cells in constant and continuous action. Work is wear; worry is tear. Overwork, mental strain, and worry lead to a diminution of nerve force and to a prostration of the vital forces and causes a degeneracy of the blood vessels of ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... me commercially. I give up; my nerve is gone. I suppose I ought to be glad; for we're through the court. I don't know as ever I knew how, and I'm sure I don't remember. If it pans out—the wreck, I mean—we'll go to Europe, and live on the interest of our money. ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... Jay,[118] but it is a source of deep regret that Jay's profound sagacity did not include a country whose existence as a foreign colony on our northern border has given rise to continued embarrassment. The feeling involuntarily possesses one that he, who owned the nerve to stop all negotiations until Englishman and American met on equal terms as the representatives of equal nations, and dared to break the specific instructions of Congress when he believed France favoured confining the United States between the Atlantic and ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... and slipped her pencil into her pocket; she could not write. And although she thrilled through every nerve over the majestic sentences that followed and was carried to a pitch of enthusiasm almost beyond her control, when the jubilant thunder of thousands of voices rang together in the matchless closing words, "Blessing, and glory, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... Food Act requiring printed confession as to fluid contents upon the labels of their own goods. It was no uncommon thing in the Sunny Southland to observe a staunch churchgoer who was an outspoken advocate of temperance rising up and giving three rousing hiccups for good old Dr. Bunkum's Nerve Balm. And distinctly I recall the occasion when a stalwart mother in Israel, starting off to attend a wedding and feeling the need of a little special toning-up beforehand, took three wineglassfuls of her favorite Blood Purifier ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... take a whole lot of nerve to do that. After what happened last year, she could hardly hope to be believed." This was Muriel's ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... vanishes on the shore in little gelatinous pools. During those intervals of idleness, when the absence of thought leaves the hand inert upon the modelling tool, Felicia, deprived of the sole moral nerve of her intellect, became savage, unapproachable, sullen beyond endurance,—the revenge of paltry human qualities upon great tired brains. After she had brought tears to the eyes of all those whom she loved, had striven to evoke painful memories or paralyzing anxieties, ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... than two years later. For more than twenty years longer, Adams continued in public life, but his greatest work was before the Declaration of Independence rather than after. There were times when the cause of the patriots must have fallen through but for the nerve and skill of this man. Bowdoin, Cushing, Hancock, Otis, and even John Adams could not have been thoroughly trusted in the last years of the colony to bring affairs to a successful issue. But Samuel Adams was fitted by intellect and character, adroitness and courage, tireless energy ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... go and less than three hours before sunrise. There was a race yet for the life of Daniel Dean. The gallant little mare could cover the stretch with nearly an hour to spare, and Chad, thrilled in every nerve, but with calm confidence, raced against the ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... see, or a steel knife or anything that might express death. Our family physicians are still against hypnotism, and if I should go to a neurologist of my own selection, it might be to one who believed still only in nerve foods, ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... little shops on either side started playing nasty, cheap European phonographs the noise of which was most disagreeable. Most of the records were of Chinese music, the harsh quality of which was magnified tenfold by the imperfections of the instruments. When the nerve-wracking concert became intolerable, they were always good enough to ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... reach him. Such was the respect with which he had inspired the Spaniards, that no attempt was made to break the blockade; and in the meantime Tromp had sent urgent messages to Holland asking the Prince of Orange and the admiralties to strain every nerve to give him as many additional ships as possible. The request met with a ready and enthusiastic response. In all the dockyards work went on with relays of men night and day. In less than a month Tromp ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... during a wild bluster of wind; but always the inevitable kiss had been delayed, had been averted; and only her eager afterthoughts had made romance of their meagre acquaintance. Yet now, when they were alone, together, when every nerve in her body seemed tense with desire for him, he was somehow aloof—not constrained (for then she would have been happy, at the profoundly affecting knowledge that she had carried the day), but unsympathetically and unlovingly at ease. She could not read his face: in his manner she ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... I'll faint at the sight of real blood," she said, "but I shall know pretty well what to do if I can keep my nerve." ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne
... then, Shirley, did you? It is bright, keen-edged, finely tapered; it is dangerous-looking. I never yet felt the impulse which could move me to direct this against a fellow-creature. It is difficult to fancy that circumstances could nerve my arm to strike home ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... which had been enacted on the hill had been closely watched from the bridge and the town, and Mollie's conduct had been pretty well interpreted though her words could not be heard. The nerve which she had exhibited had excited universal comment, and it needed no second invitation to bring off every hat and send up, in her honor, the shrill yell with which our soldiers ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... verily nerve-strained Being alone, And I moved the things as bidden, One by one, And feigned to push the old ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy
... ripped the tags out of their ears and sheared 'em for what wool they had. Luke, I'm no relative of Lem Ferguson's when it comes to practical politics. I know just as well as you do who's trying to steal this State, a hunk at a time. They've had the nerve to tackle my district. But if they think that I'm going to ungrip and let them grab it they've got a wrong line ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
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