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More "Taut" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Quick as thought the lee braces are slacked off, and those on the weather side made taut. Still she is not checked. Strange, too, for the breeze is stiff. Anderson feels she is in the stream of ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various
... had been a stream thirty feet wide. It was now a feeble rivulet, the old mouth being filled up and overgrown with willows. Approaching Mohave Canyon, a rapid was encountered, necessitating the carrying forward of an anchor, from which a line was brought to the bow, and this being kept taut, with the boat under full steam the obstruction was surmounted without damage. This was the common method of procedure at rapids. This canyon, Ives, says was a "scene of such imposing grandeur as he had never before witnessed," yet it is only a harbinger of the ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... say that: I have hold of his mind. And I can slack it off or fetch it taut. And make him dance a score of miles away An answer to the least twangling thrum I play on it. He thought he lurkt at last Safely; and all the while, what has he been? An eel on the end of a night line; and it's time I haul'd him in. You'll see, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... on the saloon-keeper, Vorse. The man's right hand was under the bar and he seemed to be awaiting the engineer's next move, taut, ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... felt as though it were in a vise. His muscles ached with strain. So taut were his nerves that he leaped as though stung when Major nuzzled a cool nose into his hand again. Automatically, he began to stroke the ...
— The Day Time Stopped Moving • Bradner Buckner
... fashioned one end into a noose; and, mounting upon the banqueta, knotted the other over the beam. He then placed the noose around his naked threat—calculating the height at which it should hang when drawn taut by the weight of his body! and, placing himself on the elevated edge of the banqueta, he was prepared to ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... no thought of anything but to make him open up his mind and heart to her, most easily and painlessly to break the taut strain in him. ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... protection. It was much more reassuring than to stand poised in a narrow trail with no possibility of sidestepping a charge. We waited at the crossing for further sounds of the elephants—waited for some time with rifles ready and then gradually relaxed our taut nerves. A line of porters with their burdens were huddled in one of the trails awaiting developments. I took a picture of the situation and had stood my rifle against the tree, and sat down to whisper the situation ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... sternness in Wayne Shandon's voice that made his cousin start in a way which, to Shandon's taut nerves, seemed instantly a sign of guilt. Conway finished the work he was doing, snapped the heavy padlock into the log chain, which fastened the double doors of the small building where odds and ends were stored during the ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... without sails. He had so much interest in keeping at least his top-sail, that he resolved to do so so long as it was not likely to be carried away. But, to secure the solidity of the masts, he had the shrouds and backstays hauled taut. Above all, all unnecessary risk must be avoided, as the situation would become one of the gravest, if the "Pilgrim" should be disabled by ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... memory. A fine stocky lad, with a great square jaw, heavy beery jowls, and a blue-black, bearded chin; in a blue striped collar. He put both hands firmly on the bar-rail at a good distance apart; straightened his arms taut and his body at right angles with them, so that he resembled a huge carpenter's square; then curled his back finely in, and said, with a significant look at the man behind the bar, "Gimme one o' them shells." A thin glass of beer was set before him; he relaxed, ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... door opened, and McKelvie entered in high sea-boots, but the fear did not leave them, for the Laird was wont to wear sea-boots when the weather was bad on his rocky isle; and with their minds all a-taut for warnings and signs, the tramping in the flagged passage was fearsome enough. Indeed, I breathed the more freely myself when McKelvie entered with ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... was not the bent, deferential old gardener, nor was he the Feller changed to youth as he thought of himself at the head of a battery. His features were hard-set, a fighting rage burning in his eyes, his sinews taut as if about to spring upon an adversary. When he recognized the intruders he turned limp, his head dropped, hiding his face with his hat brim, and he steadied himself by resting a ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... and taut, The weaker lashed to port, On we sailed, two by two— That if either a bolt should feel Crash through caldron or wheel, Fin of bronze or sinew of steel, Her mate might bear ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... IN KITES NOT CONCLUSIVE AS TO PLANES.—This is instanced to show that while such a form is admirably adapted for kite purposes, where vertical curtains are always in line with the wind movement, and the structure is held taut by a cord, the lateral effect, when used on a machine which does not at all times move in line with the moving air current. A condition is thus set up which destroys the usefulness of ...
— Aeroplanes • J. S. Zerbe***
... needle through the fabric in abrupt and forceful jerks. A light breeze fluttered in through the window, but it could not ruffle the wisp-locked hair that showed traces of a water-dipped comb and was strained back so taut that a little mound of flesh encircled each root. Her eyes were bead bright and swift moving. Everything about her, to the aggressively prominent knuckles, betokened energy and industry. She was attired in ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... stout twine that reached from Willie's shop to the home of Janoah Eldridge, two fields beyond, just at the junction of the Belleport and Harbor roads. This string not only linked the two cottages but sustained upon its taut line a small wooden box that could be pulled back and forth at will and convey from one abode to the other not only written communications but also such diminutive articles as pipes, tobacco, spectacles, balls of string, ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... the sockets. The rope cut cruelly into her body under her shoulders. She wanted to cry—to scream—to laugh. She did neither. She threw back her head and clung with all her strength to the rough lariat, stretched taut as ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... of the knots shown on these pages are open so that you may more easily see their working, but when in use they should always be drawn taut. ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... the northern sky. But in any event there was no time to spare. Renwick tied a large knot and a loop in the end of the rope and then carefully lowered it over the northern wall, measuring its length by his arms, as it went over. Fifty yards, sixty, seventy, eighty—when it stretched taut. Eighty yards! Sick with anxiety, he crawled upon his stomach to the edge of the precipice and ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... began to count again; and so, tense, watching with eager-burning eyes and taut muscles, the man and woman made ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... them emotionally taut was ended. With outstretched hands Diane ran toward him, and her broken laugh betrayed the hysteria she ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... feeding ground of the stoot, cast your line well out from the boat with a small howitzer. You wait anxiously for the first bite; suddenly the hawser runs taut and there is a scream from the reel. But do not be afraid of the reel screaming. In the circumstances it is a very good sign. Plant the butt of your rod or pole firmly in the socket fitted for the purpose in all motor-stooter boats and let the fish run for about a parasang, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 8th, 1920 • Various
... went on to the tale of Conoclach and the first harp. Conoclach, he said, hating Cull, her husband, had run away from him toward the sea. There upon the sand lay the skeleton of a whale and the wind playing upon the taut sinews made sounds low and soothing enough to lull her to sleep. And Cull, coming up, marveled at her slumber, heard the murmuring of the wind through the sinews and made the first harp. Kenny liked the tale and he liked the ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... and drew her dress taut, and put forward two small feet, trigly protected by high-laced boots. Then, looking at her mother, she asked: "Are the boots sufficient, or shall I wear over them ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... mast with the aid of the hatchet and more splinters from the thwarts, did not take long. The only thing that bothered him was the main sheet, or—to explain—the rope which should hold the sail taut ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... left arm, he began to climb, at every few steps jerking his right hand upward along the lasso. It sagged at each forward movement he made, but he balanced himself lightly during the interval when he lacked the support of a taut rope. He climbed as if he had wings, the strength of a giant, and knew not the sense of fear. The sharp corner of cliff seemed to cut out of the darkness. He reached it and the protruding shelf, and then, entering the black shade of the notch, he moved blindly ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... increase the speed of the brig. There was but a solitary hope remaining, that they might fall in with some national vessel able to protect them from the pirate. The sails were frequently wet, the halyards drawn taut, and the captain himself took the helm. When all this was done, each sailor stood gazing upon the pirate as if to calculate the speed of his approach by the lifting of his sails above the water. The greater part of his top-sails were already in sight, and soon the heads of her courses ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... that Rutolo would adopt this plan. He stood on guard, bent like a taut bow, watching for ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... was a-soak, but in the snug cabin of the sloop dry blankets and a dry bunk were mine; and we lay and smoked and yarned of old days, while overhead the wind screamed through the rigging and taut ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... halter and led the animal down to the village, with Janice trembling a little in the saddle. He talked in a tight, taut, hysterical tone. He told what he'd found up on the cliffside. He described in detail the similitude of a man's body he'd found deflated ...
— The Invaders • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... forty or fifty paces of the end of the trail. It was small, a two-man scow, with a tight little house built amidships. And it was tied close up against the shore. Marette told him this as they felt their way through brush and reeds. Then he stumbled against something taut and knee-high, and he found it was ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... wolves pulling down a deer. But even as Jack came into sight, the strangers had mastered Me Dain, and in a second he was dragged to the ground. With incredible speed and quickness they flung loops of rope around ankles and wrists, ran them taut, and made the Burman a prisoner. Then two of them dropped on Me Dain's legs and arms, and the third seized his hair and dragged his head forward. The fourth leapt a pace back as nimbly as a panther, and swung up a short, ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... as it always comes in a lion hunt, unerringly, unexpectedly, and with lightning swiftness. The three men were nearing the bottom of the second hollow, well spread out, lassos taut, facing one another. Jones stumbled and the lioness leaped his way. The weight of both brought Jim over, sliding and slipping, with his rope slackening. The leap of the lioness carried her within reach of Jones; and as he raised himself, back toward her, she reached a big paw for him just ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... the moonbeams in their tear-like moisture. From time to time Rafael saw her quiver with a mysterious tremor; then extend her arms and cross them behind her head of golden hair, in a voluptuous stretch that made her white robe rustle, while her limbs grew taut in a delicious tension. She seemed upset, ill almost; at times her panting breath was like a sob. Her head drooped over a shoulder and her breast heaved ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... stood a while in somber reflection, then shrugged his trim shoulders and passed through the shadowy rooms out into the barn. In five minutes he had cleaned and oiled his rifle, but an hour passed while he carefully removed the pelt and tacked it taut upon a stretching board. ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... the boat again was a help to me. Across it, running fore and aft, I stretched a heavy wire rope on which I had placed a big block for a traveller, and carrying the end of the rope forward to the capstan I fell to work with the hand-bars and got it strained so taut that it was like a bar of iron. Then to the traveller block I made fast my hoisting tackle—and so was able to swing up the heavy pieces from where they were stowed, and to run them along the taut rope until they ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... ear just a shade too reasonable. It had been thought out as an excuse. Because it wasn't for the Turkish bath nor the extra hour's sleep that he was staying away from home. It was herself he was staying away from. He wanted his mind to stay cold and taut, and he was afraid to face the temptation of her eyes and her soft white arms. And in the mood of that hour, it pleased her that this should be so—that the ascetic in him should pay her the tribute ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... his knees he felt for it, and after a long time found it. He now had a knife, but he could not move the hand that held it six inches from his side. Stooping, he took the splinter between his teeth, and making the rope taut, drew the sharp edge of the glass across it. Again and again he drew it across, and at length he perceived that a strand was severed. With a thrill of joy he settled to the slow, laborious and painful task. Time ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... danced fitfully over the greenish stretches, growing wilder and wilder under the whip of a flouting wind. The two patchwork sails on the lumbering Doraine flapped noisily for awhile, as if shaking off their tor-por, then suddenly grew taut and fat with prosperity. The twisted, half-jammed rudder,—far from worthy despite the efforts of its repairers,—whiningly obeyed the man at the wheel, and once more the ship felt the caress of the deep ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... little I opened my eyes and stared about me, scarcely comprehending where I was or what had happened. Ortez called upon his men to raise me. Being placed erect the cord was drawn just taut enough to sustain me standing. Now the ghastly woman I had seen in the hall pushed her ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... high, Harry felt as if they were in a black canyon. He could see but dimly the surface of the river. All else was lost in the heavy gloom. But the boat had been built so well and the canvas cover was so taut and tight that not a drop entered. His sense of comfort increased, and the regular, even, musical thresh ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... exercise here on page twenty that I hate worst of all. You screw up your face tight until you look like a Christmas mask to get your neck muscles taut and then wobble your head around like a new-born baby until it swims. I did that one twenty extra times and all the others in proportion to make up for those two hours in bed. Hereafter I'll get up at the time directed on page three, or maybe ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... eyes that peered roguishly out from under their heavy hanging cabbage-leaves of ears. In one corner was the field-cooker. The cooks were busy making dixies of bully beef stew. Their clothes were dirty and greasy, so were their arms, bare from the shoulders almost, and taut with muscles. (p. 221) Through a path that wound amongst a medley of agricultural instruments, ploughs harrows and grubbers, the farmer's daughter came striding like a ploughman, two children hanging on to her apron strings. ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... of sound there is But his motion's gentle hiss, Till one fluent arm and hand Suddenly circles, and the wand Taps a bough far overhead, "Crack," and then all noise is dead. For he halts, and for a space Stands erect with upward face, Taut and tense to the white Message ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... at length, her face again darkened by a frown, her small hands clenched, every muscle of her lithe young body drawn as taut as a wild animal's before a spring. "I sometimes feel as if I'd like to do as other mountain women have been known to do when killin' of that sort has blackened all their lives—I sometimes feel as if I'd like to take a rifle in my elbow an' go lookin' ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... for an instant like a gray-white phantom in the outer shadows, then, with a laugh as foreign to her own ears as to another's, snatched up a great, square, shimmering silver scarf that gleamed across a deserted chair, stretched it taut by its corners across her hair and eyes, and with a queer little cry—half defiance, half appeal—a quick dart, a long, undulating glide—merged herself into the dagger-blade, the nightingale, the grim mountain fortress, the gay mocking brook, all the love, all the rapture, all the ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... and others. You will embroider life with sunshine if there is any sunshine at all. Like myself, you will be able to smile and laugh whenever the pain is not too severe, yet I fear it will be very hard sometimes. Bat, as my husband would say, you are taut, trim and well ballasted, and good for a long, safe voyage. You have obeyed the Fifth Commandment, and its promise ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... taut, or he'll be wriggling through them and carry off the hook and line!" cried Tom. At last it was got up flush with the bulwarks, when down it came, knocking over poor Billy and two of the native crew. Had not Tom and Desmond rushed forward and hauled Billy out of the ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... action of the scenes. There were four arcs and two small portable banks of Cooper-Hewitts, the latter used to cut the sharp shadows and give a greater evenness to the photography. Also there were diffusers constructed of sheets of white cloth stretched taut on frames. These reflected light upward upon the faces of the actors, softening the lower features, and so valuable in adding to the attractiveness of ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... hundredth time that night, Bill's icy self-control, his really marvelous command of his impulses, was sorely tried. His enemy actually was recumbent in the snow before him, while he, taut as a strung bow, was most exquisitely poised for the attack. Why fight? Why not swift delicious murder, and the gush of the loathed one's throat-blood between his fangs? Bill knew well why it must not be. But given the knowledge, how many dogs in his case, nay, ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... him whom she hated—or to him from whom she had been infamously stolen, who loved her and whom she loved? These were not clearly defined thoughts, but countless detached sensations which, borne along in a stream of deep, wild feeling, rushed through his veins and made taut the muscles in his arms—to clasp to his heart that which was his! But a vague, dark fear rose counter to this current and stiffened his muscles in a convulsive cramp—the feeling that he wanted to do something and did not know what it was or ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... it!" His face had changed remarkably. His facial muscles seemed to have relaxed, revealing kindness and equanimity under what had been taut lines of bad temper. It was almost as though his trial package of Super-anti-gerasone had already arrived. When something amused him on television, he smiled easily, rather than barely managing to lengthen the thin line ...
— The Big Trip Up Yonder • Kurt Vonnegut
... snapped viciously at it, and retained it in her mouth. Discovering that she persisted in holding on, and that the rope was far back in her jaws, we shortened hand rapidly, and ran round, crossing each other in a circle, keeping the rope taut meanwhile. By this means we quickly twisted the rope firmly over her snout, so that had she now desired she could not have rid herself of it. The rest was easy; we shortened hand till near enough to despatch her with our clasp ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... he threw the noose up and away from him. It circled through the air and fell over the nearest branch of the tree. Hauling it taut, Pawnee Brown tested it, to make sure it would not slip, and then began to haul himself up, as Rasco had done at the ...
— The Boy Land Boomer - Dick Arbuckle's Adventures in Oklahoma • Ralph Bonehill
... a telegraph wire. The pole on the opposite side of the canyon had been washed from its footing, and was hanging by its full weight from the wire, thus drawing it very taut ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... postcards and feverishly restless, watching the movements of the other people. Finally I went up to my room and sat down by the windows, staring out. There came a little tap at the unlocked door and in an instant, like the go of a taut bowstring, I was up ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... go down as I lashed myself to the jib." He groaned deeply; but speedily assuming a gayer tone, requested a quid and a quiet hammock. "My lights are nearly stove in,—my head hangs as loose as a Dutchman's shrouds; a night's sleep will make all taut again." ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... Clinging to the rope with his left hand, he had wound a leg about it, leaving his right hand free for his long-sword which he had not sheathed. A downward cut clove the soft head of a kaldane, and another severed the taut rope beneath the panthan's feet. The girl heard a sudden renewal of the shrill whistling of her foes, and at the same time she realized that the craft was rising again. Slowly it drifted upward, out of reach of the enemy, and a moment later she saw the figure ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... drawn against its inroads into the window display, Mrs. Shila Coblenz, routing gloom, reached up tiptoe across the haberdashery counter for the suspended chain of a cluster of bulbs, the red of exertion rising up the taut line of throat ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... that roused her. And after that came the clatter of early milk-wagons and the rose hues of dawn over the roofs. Twice in the night, once at supper and again toward dawn, she drank strong black coffee. But after a week or two her nerves were stretched taut as a string. ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... that, moonlight'll do, if there's no stars. I think it's good for the mind, Minnie, and keeps all taut. Contemplation is just like takin' an extra pull on the lee braces. So you may ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... yourself all loose into a woman's lap. You should stand by yourself and learn to be by yourself. Why don't you be more like the Japanese you talk about? Quiet, aloof little devils. They don't bother about being loved. They keep themselves taut in their own selves—there, at the bottom of the spine—the devil's ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... drew on the line a little harder, and swung an eel weighing half a pound or more to the bank, where he promptly put one foot on the eel and drew the line taut. ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... fixed on the tops of the agitated bushes. Then a large bear, a grizzly, crashed into view, and likewise stopped abruptly, at sight of the humans. He did not like them, and growled querulously. Slowly the boy fitted the arrow to the bow, and slowly he pulled the bowstring taut. But he never removed his eyes ...
— The Scarlet Plague • Jack London
... the sewing-machine. When she brought the pile of hemmed sheets to her mother her heart swelled with joy in her own goodness. There was Mark Olivier's sister, who rejoiced in the movements of her body, the strain of the taut muscles throbbing on their own leash, the bound forwards, the push of the wind on her knees and breast, the hard feel of the ground under her padding feet. And there was Mary Olivier, the little girl of thirteen whom her mother ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... around too, and now he picked up a loose end of stout wire that was attached at one extremity to a sapling. There could be no question as to what it was doing there. Until Krech's shin had snapped it, it had been stretched taut across the trail a ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... bridles taut. He feared the tremendous strain would break them. The heads of the horses were now held as in a vice, but they snorted and continued to plunge forward with ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman
... an angle, and, calculating the proper slope aright, performed their share of the task without mishap. At the Hellespont the Phoenicians had for co-partners the Egyptians only, and the two nations appear to have displayed an equal ability.[14297] Cables were passed from shore to shore, made taut by capstans and supported by an almost continuous line of boats; planks were then laid upon the cables, and covered with brushwood, while a thick layer of earth was placed upon the top. A solid causeway was thus ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... as if a cord in his soul had been made taut and were vibrating without making a sound. The steps of the eight people, as they died away in the distance, developed gradually into a rhythmical, musical movement. What had been confused became ordered; ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... see it?" he demanded. "Have you any idea of the moral effect of that step? You see those men marching by, every muscle in their bodies taut and tingling as steel wire, every eye on the Emperor, and when they bring those feet down—bing! bang!—the physical fitness it stands for, the unity, determination—why, it's the whole ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... to be in two lots, some at the top and some at the bottom of the plankway, were entirely out of my sight as yet, though I had a good view of their sliding-plane. But presently the ropes began to strain and creak, drawn taut—as our fishermen express it—either from the upper or the lower end, and I saw three barrels come sliding down—sliding, not rolling (you must understand), and not as a brewer delivers beer into a cellar. These passed by me; and ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... were let fall and sheeted home, braces hauled taut, and the Doris, with a rattling breeze, under all sail, stood through the Needles Passage and down Channel. Those were stirring times. The cruisers of the various nations then at war with old England swarmed in all ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... to tell what a clever set of lieutenants and ward-room officers we had, and how the twenty-three reefers in the two steerage messes kept up a racket and a row all the time, in spite of the taut rein which the first lieutenant, Mr. Bispham, kept over us. He wore gold-rimmed spectacles; and I can see him now, with the flat eagle-and-anchor buttons shining on his blue coat, as he would pace the quarter-deck, eyeing us young gentlemen of the watch, as demurely we planked up and down ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... look like a statue now. His cheeks were burning with evident pain, and his yellow-brown eyes, wide-open, and dilated to darkness, stared straight out. His hands were clenching and unclenching, and his head moved restlessly from side to side. Every nerve and muscle, she could see, was taut. ...
— The Rose Garden Husband • Margaret Widdemer
... automatically. But the act was enough to bring him back. A moment gone the room had grown misty. Something had made his throat ache. He felt taut with a great unexpressed yearning. He became conscious of his breakfast again. He ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... Hartog, "for, between ourselves, I doubt not I am more at home on the sea than in making a bargain with land-rogues ashore. Take you command of the ship until she is once more taut ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... Mexican soldiers with deadly effect in foraging or scouting parties. Two Mexicans, each with the end of a riata wound round the horn of his saddle, would charge suddenly from ambush upon some unsuspecting Franceses, tearing them from their horses with the taut rope. "The Mexicans have a terrible and barbarous weapon—the riata!"—was recorded by the French soldiery ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... answered Riderhood. 'Not so easy done. His luck's got fouled under the keels of the barges. I tried to haul in last time, but I couldn't. See how taut ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... good." I had an idea that the solution was beyond me. It was as if the controlling powers were flitting, invisible, just above my head, just beyond my grasp. There was obviously something vibrating; some cord, somewhere, stretched very taut and quivering. But I could think of no better solution than: "You must have done with him." It seemed obvious, too, that that was impossible, was outside the range of things that could be done—but I had to do my best. "It's a—it's vile," I ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... street broke the tense silence that had followed the mayor's soliloquy. He turned from the window quickly and strode back to his desk and the suggestion of weariness dropped from him like a cloak and he emerged, alert, taut, ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... padding the lettering they must make it stand high in order to look effective, but they must never work it tight or it would draw. Another point worth recalling was that while the banner was still in the embroidery frame and was held taut they should put flour paste on the back of the embroidery to replace the pressing which was not possible with letters raised ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith
... the cable to be, while at the end of a long rope, fast either to the bow or stern, a grapnel drags along the ground. The grapnel is a small anchor, made like four pot-hooks tied back to back. When the rope gets taut the ship is stopped and the grapnel hauled up to the surface in the hopes of finding the cable on its prongs. I am much discontented with myself for idly lounging about and reading WESTWARD HO! for the second time instead of taking to electricity ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... objects like poles, wires, etc., are visible at incomparably greater distances than, e. g., squares of the same length. In examination it has been shown that the boundary of accurate perception can hardly be determined. I know a place where under favorable illumination taut, white and very thin telephone wires may be seen at a distance of more than a kilometer. And this demands a ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... the boma gate, going full-pelt, fastened neck to neck, the chain taut and each man carrying a water-jar. The minute they had crossed the square Schubert commenced with company drill, and for two hours after that, with but one interval of less than five minutes for rest, he kept them pounding the gravel in evolution after evolution—manual exercise at ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... cursing, his hands knotted round the spokes, his back taut and muscle-ridged under the thin shirt. The cracked voice of Daddy John came from beyond the canvas hood and David's urgent cries filled the air. The mules, necks outstretched, almost squatting in the agony of their endeavor, held their ground, but could do no ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... eyes. The soldiers stood up very straight, but not at all stiffly. I noticed one man, because I could not notice them all. He threw his head back, and slightly to one side, and his brown beard stuck out. His eyes sparkled. Every muscle was taut. He seemed to be saying, "My Commandant, I know my worth; I am utterly yours—you won't get anything better." A young officer said to me that these men had in them a wild beast and an angel. It was a good saying, and I wished I had thought of it myself. This regiment ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett
... by a supreme effort that he mastered his overwhelming need of some physical outlet for the passion of disgust and anger which swept him bare of any gentler emotion as the incoming tide sweeps the shore bare of sign or footprint. His body grew taut and rigid with the pressure he was putting on himself. When at last he spoke ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... stair, then dragged him along the lower deck. They passed a line of sleeping deck-hands too stupid to observe them. Dragging astern of the boat, high between the two long diverging lines of the rolling wake, there rode a river skiff at the end of its taut line. ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... embers of the fire with sand, and then turned in. The flap of the tent door was up, and I saw the branches and the stars and the white moonlight. The shaking willows and the heavy buffetings of the wind against our taut little house were the last things I remembered as sleep came down and covered all with its soft ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... you, my loves?' and Amanda appeared, rosy, calm, and gay, with her pea-jacket on, skirts close reefed, hat well to windward, and everything taut and ship-shape; for she was a fine sailor, and ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... rare craft that may be said to steer herself. I had time to think, and receive impressions, as I half lounged at the wheel. The round moon brightened the world, the west pyramids of canvas above me bellied taut, the cordage wrung a stirring whistle from the wind, the silver spray cascaded on the weather deck. I watched the scene with delight, drank in the living beauty of that ship, and felt the witchery the Golden Bough practiced upon sailors' minds steal over and possess ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... jumping from star to star in the thrilling blue sky. As it was she stood on one foot, as if poised for flight with a sort of spring in her movements that his softer muscles had never experienced. He caught at her hand, and felt it taut, ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... before sunset. Birds were gossiping in the sycamores on the bank. At the foot of the garden, near the creek, there were some tall hydrangea bushes, flower-laden, and, beyond them, one broad shaft of the sun smote the creek bends for a mile in that flat land, and crossed the garden like a bright, taut-drawn veil. Harkless passed the bushes and stepped out into this gold brilliance. Then he uttered a ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... I did not inquire who the men were. I found afterwards that they were idle rascals who deserved punishment, and always went about their duty in a lazy, sluggish way. However, there was no doubt that our captain was a very taut hand. The ship had just come out of harbour. He had found out that the greater part of his crew were a bad lot, and he was getting them into order. He treated us who had belonged to the Montezuma in a very different way. He saw that we were seamen, ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... small head sideways, as if about to deliver a speech or message it had learned by heart; stared intently into the bearded human visage close in front of it; abruptly opened its wings; whirred them with a rapidity that made a sound like a shower of peas striking a taut sheet; and then, with a single, exquisitely-chosen curve—vanished through the open window and ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... have no doubt of the outcome, for Kay saw him make a quick turn of his rope round the pommel of his saddle, whirl at a right angle, and, with a whoop of pure, unadulterated joy, go by her at top speed, dragging the panther behind him. The loop had settled over the animal's body and been drawn taut around his loins. ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... "For active exercise, a dress ought to be cut all in one—'princess,' as the milliners call it—and so arranged in the skirt that there is no drapery which will catch in things, come unstitched, and look untidy; everything wants to be taut and trim, like tailor's work. But even the ladies' tailors will insist upon making a skirt and little jacket-bodice, instead of a dress in one piece. It is almost impossible to use the arms freely—to ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 356, October 23, 1886. • Various
... certainly going too far. I opened my mouth to voice the angry words but a look at her stopped me. I couldnt help but feel her imperviousness was fragile, that harsh speech might shatter a calm too taut to be anything but hysterical. I drove on without speaking until the hummocks gave way again to smooth desert. "We'll soon be in Yuma," I announced. "Arent you going to tell me ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... Here they were both found the next morning with their limbs broken. How far did they fall? One of the ropes when they found it was just touching the floor, and when you pulled the end to the wall, keeping the rope taut, it touched a point just three inches above the floor, and the wall was four feet from the rope when it hung at rest. How long was the rope ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... facing each other, inside the area and about ten rods apart. Every man was armed with a strong stick three and a half to four feet in length, and curving toward the end. Upon this curved end was tightly fastened a network of thongs of untanned deerskin, drawn until they were rigid and taut. The ball with which they were to play was made of closely wrapped elastic skins, and was about the size of an ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... himself that his nerves seemed to be about as taut as piano wires. He told himself that possibly he was "up against it," and yet he had stood on the brink of disaster so often during his college career without acquiring vertigo, that the experience of the afternoon was like a joyous ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... moment before the crowd realized what was about to happen; they saw it reflected first in the face of Hurley, which suddenly went taut and pale, and then, even as they looked with a smile of curiosity and derision toward Pierre le Rouge, they ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... waited within reach of its friendly protection. It was much more reassuring than to stand poised in a narrow trail with no possibility of sidestepping a charge. We waited at the crossing for further sounds of the elephants—waited for some time with rifles ready and then gradually relaxed our taut nerves. A line of porters with their burdens were huddled in one of the trails awaiting developments. I took a picture of the situation and had stood my rifle against the tree, and sat down to whisper the situation over. All immediate danger ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... and refilled his glass, and held it steadily before him. His voice, when he spoke, was gentle, and, like his face, strung taut with pain. ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... supposed, but two harmless merchant-vessels lying on either side of the channel, the young earl bade his rowers pull between the two. Suddenly there is a stir on the quiet merchant-vessels. The capstan bars are manned; the sunken cable is drawn taut. Up goes the stern of Earl Hakon's entrapped warship; down plunges her prow into the waves, and the water pours into the doomed boat. A loud shout is heard; the quiet merchant-vessels swarm with mail-clad men, and the air is filled with a shower of stones, and spears, ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... yourself. You shouldn't want to fling yourself all loose into a woman's lap. You should stand by yourself and learn to be by yourself. Why don't you be more like the Japanese you talk about? Quiet, aloof little devils. They don't bother about being loved. They keep themselves taut in their own selves—there, at the bottom of the spine—the devil's own ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... when we get there—and so I bid you agin lay me alone,—just keep your toe in your pump. Shure I'm here at the helm, and a weight on my mind, and it's fitther for you, Jim, to mind your own business and lay me to mind mine; away wid you there and be handy, haul taut that foresheet there, we must run close on the wind; be handy, boys; make ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... hollow and is considerably higher in the middle than at the sides. The neater this work is done, the more comfortable will be your ride home. When the rope tire is complete, pry up the side lap and force the free end of the rope diagonally under it until it comes out on the other side. Draw it taut and cut off the end flush with the outer wrapping. Now pour water all over the rope until it is thoroughly wet; this will cause it to shrink and become firm ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... in either place, was impossible. Sometimes the rain beat down upon the decked over portion of the boat with the sound of a drumstick beaten upon taut calfskin. Again the wind blew in such sharp gusts that the rain seemed to be swept over the face of the sea and then, if I chanced to glance over my shoulder, the drops stung ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... pale lips unbent. At that moment, the face of her father seemed floating on the sunbeams that gilded the pulpit, and the tones of her mother's voice rang in her ears. The terrible tension of many days and nights of torture gave way suddenly, like a silver thread long taut, which snaps with one last ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... canvas to the wind; I saw them all go down as I lashed myself to the jib." He groaned deeply; but speedily assuming a gayer tone, requested a quid and a quiet hammock. "My lights are nearly stove in,—my head hangs as loose as a Dutchman's shrouds; a night's sleep will make all taut again." ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... top deck at that end. The wind is blowing a perfect gale and almost drives us off our feet; it catches the side of the ship and makes it far harder work for the gallant grimy tugs, which are pulling and straining at the taut ropes till they look like bars of iron lying between us and them. They churn the water to a fury, and pour forth volumes of black smoke; inch by inch we feel the ship moving out; her stern is dragged ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... promptly trussed the other in the bridle reins. Out of a pillowcase folded hard he made a gag and tied it into the mouth of the man. Then he ran his hands over the straps; they were drawn taut. ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand
... was at hand, and Aziel saw a little wreath of smoke rise in the still air and bade his wretched servant close his eyes. Then came the end. Suddenly the taut rope, eaten through by the sun's fire, flew back and the cage with the soldier in it vanished from his sight, while, from far below, rose the sound of a heavy fall, and from the tomb of Baaltis rang the echo ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... similes, which arrest the attention and stimulate the imagination. "His voice sounded hoarse and awkward, like a rusty lock." "I saw her sway, like something stricken by the wind." "His laugh rang false, like a cracked bell." "His voice shook like a taut rope." "My mind flying like a weaver's shuttle." "His blows resounded on the grave as thick as sobs." "The private guilty considerations I would continually observe to peep forth in the man's talk like rabbits from a hill." Nothing could be more effective than these ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the room. He thought he had frightened her. But in a moment she was back with some whiskey, hot, in a glass. The colonel wanted to order her off and swear his nerves would be as taut without it. But how could he? There was the same traitorous trembling in his legs, and he put out his hand and took the glass, and thanked her. The thanks sounded like the courteous, kind father she knew; but when she had carried the glass into the kitchen she stood ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... But the act was enough to bring him back. A moment gone the room had grown misty. Something had made his throat ache. He felt taut with a great unexpressed yearning. He became conscious of his breakfast again. He sipped ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... degradation of the clog shoes, the cotton shirt, the striped suit, the reputation of a convict, permanent and not to be laid aside. He drew himself quickly away from her, turned his back, clinched his hands, drew his muscles taut; but it was too late. He was crying, and he ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... the wrong thing. The Mentorian's mouth was taut, forbidding. "Try again. I happen to know that David ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... meant, at the time, but I at least kept up with him. We went floundering through one end of a slough until the blanket was wet and heavy and I could hardly hold it. But I hung on for dear life. Then we swung off across the dry grass toward that advancing semicircle of fire, as far apart as the taut reins would let us ride. Dinky-Dunk took the windward side. Then on we rushed, along that wavering frontier of flame, neck to neck, dragging the wet blanket along its orange-tinted crest, flattening it down and wiping it out as we went. We made the full circle, ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... Phoenicians, preserved by Sanchoniathon, tell us that Taautos, or Taut, was the inventor of the alphabet and of the art ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... son stood there, erect and taut with life, gleaming in his blondness. The gleaming blondness of his strange, imminent being put the father into a fever of fretful irritation. He could not bear to meet the uncanny, downward look of Gerald's blue eyes. But it was only for a moment. Each on the brink of departure, the father ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... huntsman was I? See how taut My bow was bent! Strongest was he by whom such bolt were sent— Woe now! That arrow is with peril fraught, Perilous as none.—Have yon ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... had now settled down thick and dark, and, as the banks on either side of the river were very high, Harry felt as if they were in a black canyon. He could see but dimly the surface of the river. All else was lost in the heavy gloom. But the boat had been built so well and the canvas cover was so taut and tight that not a drop entered. His sense of comfort increased, and the regular, even, musical thresh of the ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... precision of temperatures. There were gleaming metal racks with calibrated slide-rods and spring dials to denote just what pull was being exerted on whatever unhappy creature might be stretched taut on them. There were tiny cones of metal whose warped, baked appearance testified that they were little portable furnaces that could be placed on any desired portion of the anatomy, to slowly bake the selected disk of ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... some taut cable and looked out into all this uncontrollable exuberance. An exultation winged its way upward within him, and it seemed to him powerful enough to drown out both tempest and flood. A song to the sea, inspired by love, rang out within him. Wild comrade of ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... him, jumping from star to star in the thrilling blue sky. As it was she stood on one foot, as if poised for flight with a sort of spring in her movements that his softer muscles had never experienced. He caught at her hand, and felt it taut, ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... laugh maddened Holman. He clutched the rope and started to climb rapidly upward. I couldn't see him, but I felt his shoes as he wriggled away into the darkness above me, and I held my breath, I gripped the rope and kept it taut so that Leith and Soma might not ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... to the dinghy, and they rowed him away through the fog. It was a touchy job, picking his way through that murk. He stood up, leaning forward holding to his taut tiller-ropes, and more by ears than his eyes directed his course. A few of the anchored craft, knowing that they were in the harbor roadway, clanged their bells lazily once in a while. Yacht tenders were making their rounds, carrying ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... the same lovely weather continued, and the sea lay as smooth as oil in the bright sunshine. An English lobster-cutter was in the offing, with sails flapping against the mast, and the slack in the taut rigging could be seen as the craft heaved lazily to and fro on the gentle swell. Madeleine sat by the window; she did not care to go out. Her eye followed the lobster-cutter, which she knew well: it was the Flying Fish, ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... like a sharp knife cutting a taut cord. The tense muscles relaxed and Keith gave a sudden laugh. True, it was a short laugh, and a bitter one; but it ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... to me, pointed to a bird in the trunk of a cedar. Raising the bow, it bent taut under his firm, cautious pull. "Whiz," went the arrow, and there, pinned to the tree with the iron spike, fluttered a hairy woodpecker. To my wondering child-mind it was a great feat—my inherent instinct for hunting ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... forehead. Eyebrows she had none, having long since shed them. Her eyes, of pin-hole tininess, were blackest black. She was shockingly cadaverous. Her shrivelled forearm, exposed by the loose sleeve, possessed no more of muscle than several taut bowstrings stretched across meagre bone under yellow, parchment-like skin. Along this mummy arm jade bracelets shot up and down ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... feet, save when they dipped and lifted to the uneven currents over the mountains. The Thunder Bird seemed alive, glorying in her native element. The earth slid away like a map unrolled endlessly beneath them. Desert and little towns on the railroad like broken beads strung loosely on a taut wire. Salton Sea was cool and tempting, though the air shimmered all around it with heat. They flew the full length of it and on up the valley. Then they climbed higher and so breasted the currents ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... was beyond me. It was as if the controlling powers were flitting, invisible, just above my head, just beyond my grasp. There was obviously something vibrating; some cord, somewhere, stretched very taut and quivering. But I could think of no better solution than: "You must have done with him." It seemed obvious, too, that that was impossible, was outside the range of things that could be done—but I had to do my best. "It's ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... different matter. In an episode like this, a woman's imagination, given the darkness such as usually fills a carriage at night, becomes a round of terrors. Every moment is freighted with death or disfigurement. Her nerves are like the taut strings of a harp in a wintry wind, ready to snap at any moment; and then, hysteria. With man the play, and only the play, ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... the commencement of 13', the legs in elevation; 12' being a front view. An ordinary band, made by several turns of a small rope, is lapped round them and hauled taut, and then interlaced at the ends. This done, the legs are shifted into the shape of a St. Andrew's cross. Thus the lashing is tightened, and, for further security, we pass the line several times over the tie and between the spars, knotting ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various
... beaver hat and the silk vest, but what struck me most, was the wearer, a slim youth, hardly out of his teens. In the distance, the New York pilot-boat, a build rendered famous by the achievements of the "America," at Cowes, lay on the water like a duck, with her canvas white as snow, and taut as a deal board. The perfect ease and nonchalance of the young pilot amused me immensely, and all went on smoothly enough till the shades of evening closed in upon us; at which time, entering the Narrows, the satin-vested youth felt himself ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... house, vanish into space, and then, a few minutes after, will come smiling around the nearest street corner. Or, if that is not wonderful enough, they will take an ordinary rope, whirl it around their head, toss it into the air, and it will stand upright, as if fastened to some invisible bar, so taut and firm that a ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... sailors would come ashore and raid fruit orchards. Once some of them stole a sheep and took it out to the schooner. The owner of the sheep came after the sailors with a search warrant but the mischievous sailors pulled the anchor chain up taut and tied the sheep to the chain and lowered away until the sheep, which they had butchered, was under water and the search warrant even could ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... directly over the boat again was a help to me. Across it, running fore and aft, I stretched a heavy wire rope on which I had placed a big block for a traveller, and carrying the end of the rope forward to the capstan I fell to work with the hand-bars and got it strained so taut that it was like a bar of iron. Then to the traveller block I made fast my hoisting tackle—and so was able to swing up the heavy pieces from where they were stowed, and to run them along the taut rope until they were clear of the boat ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... you by the evil one. That's where you came from!' - a walk up and down the pulpit: 'and where are you going' - stopping abruptly: 'where are you going? Aloft!' - very softly, and pointing upward: 'Aloft!' - louder: 'aloft!' - louder still: 'That's where you are going - with a fair wind, - all taut and trim, steering direct for Heaven in its glory, where there are no storms or foul weather, and where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.' - Another walk: 'That's where you're going to, my friends. ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... strong and taut, The weaker lashed to port, On we sailed, two by two— That if either a bolt should feel Crash through caldron or wheel, Fin of bronze or sinew of steel, Her ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... Baree had sensed it. His muscles grew taut as pieces of stretched rope as he stood up in the moonlight, facing the direction from which floated the mystery and thrill of the sound. They could hear him whining softly; and Pierrot, bending down so that ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... engaged in picking oakum, spinning yarns (not such yarns as those amiable gentlemen, the naval novelists, talk so much about, but rope-yarns, by the aid of spinning-winches), platting sinnet, preparing chafing-gear, bowsing slack rigging taut, painting boats and bulwarks, scraping yards and masts, fitting new running-rigging, overhauling the spare sails, and fifty other things—doing, in fact, everything but idling. And, mind, no conversation ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various
... Theuth, Thoth, Taut, Taautes, are the same title diversified; and belong to the chief god of Egypt. Eusebius speaks of him as the same as Hermes. [41][Greek: Hon Aiguptioi men ekalesan Thouth, Alexandreis de Thoth, Hermen de Hellenes metephrasan.] From Theuth the ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... ground of the stoot, cast your line well out from the boat with a small howitzer. You wait anxiously for the first bite; suddenly the hawser runs taut and there is a scream from the reel. But do not be afraid of the reel screaming. In the circumstances it is a very good sign. Plant the butt of your rod or pole firmly in the socket fitted for the purpose in all motor-stooter boats and let the fish run for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 8th, 1920 • Various
... and he stood a moment absolutely still, every nerve in his slim young body taut as wire, every muscle rigid. For along the passage—not so very far in front of them, from where it seemed to terminate—came the thud of men's feet upon the soft clayey ground. The torch went out in an instant. In another, Cleek had caught Dollops's arm and ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... that time there came on a squall with rain, which almost blinded us; the sail was taken in very neatly, the clew-lines, chock-a-block, bunt-lines and leech-lines well up, reef-tackles overhauled, rolling-tackles taut, and all as it should be. The men lied out on the yard, the squall wore worse and worse, but they were handing in the leech of the sail, when snap went one bunt-line, then the other; the sail flapped and flagged, till away ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... are become hyenas. Behold, I gather together the charm [from every place where] it is, and from every man with whom it is, swifter than greyhounds and quicker than light. Hail, thou who towest along the Makhent boat of Ra, the stays of thy sails and of thy rudder are taut in the wind as thou sailest up the Pool of Fire in the underworld. Behold, thou gatherest together the charm from every place where it is, and from every man with whom it is, swifter than greyhounds and quicker than light, [the charm] which created the forms of being from the ...
— Egyptian Literature
... we are and the island ahead is a stretch of roaring water dangerous enough looking. We have learned ere this, however, to sit tight and watch for events. The careless Indians have straightened into keen-eyed, responsible voyageurs, each muscle taut, every sense alert. Our boat goes first, one half-breed with huge pole braces himself as bowsman, the most able man takes the stern sweep, the others stand at the oars. Fifteen minutes of good head-work brings us to the island and we step out with relief. The other boats ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... I could have sworn we were dashing through, the water at the rate of twenty knots an hour. (Prue has a great, but a little ignorant, admiration of my technical knowledge of nautical affairs and phrases.) I looked aloft and saw the sails taut with a stiff breeze, and. I heard a faint whistling of the wind in the rigging, but very faint, and rather, it seemed to me, as if it came from the creak of cordage in the ships of Crusaders; or of quaint old craft upon the Spanish main, ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... squared to the satisfaction of the boatswain, the ropes were hauled taut, and coiled down, and the men sent below to their dinners. Newton walked aft, and the first person he met was the dubash who had attended the Bombay Castle. The cheeks of Newton flushed, and his heart throbbed quick, and his lips quivered, as he asked intelligence ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... homeward, one of the party noticed a black cloud drifting in from the sea, which grew and spread and thickened until it covered the whole sky. The wind rose, and the waves chopped angrily at unseen barriers. Our little boat confronted the gale fearlessly; with sails spread and ropes taut, she seemed to sit upon the wind. Now she swirled in the billows, now she spring upward on a gigantic wave, only to be driven down with angry howl and hiss. Down came the mainsail. Tacking and jibbing, we wrestled with opposing winds that drove us from ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... at the yellow, singing gaslight. Soon he walked to the bed and began to tear the sheets into strips. With the blade of his knife he drove them tightly into every crevice around windows and door. When all was snug and taut he turned out the light, turned the gas full on again and laid himself ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... are subject to similar changes. A metal ball which when cool will just slip through a ring (Fig. 2) will, when heated, be too large to slip through the ring. Telegraph and telephone wires which in winter are stretched taut from pole to pole, sag in hot weather and are much too long. In summer they are exposed to the fierce rays of the sun, become strongly heated, and expand sufficiently to sag. If the wires were stretched taut in the summer, there would not ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... for her, found herself in the arms of a masterful expert, a man who danced better than she did, and suddenly there came to her a feeling that was almost gratitude, a miraculous slackening of her taut nerves, a delicious peace. Soothed and contented, she yielded herself with eyes half closed to the rhythm of the melody, finding it now robbed in some mysterious manner of all its stale cheapness, and in that moment her whole attitude towards Bruce ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... resembled a beautifully curved sheet of steel, stiff and unyielding. Both sails were snow-white, semi-transparent and supple in movement, like the ivory sails on the model ships in Rosenborg Palace. The mast seemed to bend slightly and the stays were as taut as fiddle-strings. The boat quivered like a leaf. The waves pounded hard against the thin strakes of the boat's side. I could feel them on my cheek, though their dampness never penetrated; but in between these hammer blows their little pats were wonderfully ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... somehow he was clinging at last like a limpet to the very end of the gaff, his legs already dangling over the fatal edge, and with nothing to keep him from the clutch of death beyond it but his grip of the floating spar. To this he must cling until the mocking boat should again come taut on the line and possibly run within his reach. The next second out of the darkness what seemed to the man in the sail a mountain of blackness rushed hissing at him from the chaos beyond, actually swept ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... his empurpled face, and my madness came back on me like a rush of fire through my veins—and I shut down on his throat again until I could feel the cords draw under my fingers like taut ropes. ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... laughter as Paula nodded to the grooms to release the horses' heads, took the feel of the four mouths on her hands, and shortened and slipped the reins to adjustment of four horses into the collars and taut on the traces. ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... stiffness in the muscles of mastication, notably the masseter, so that he has difficulty in opening the mouth—hence the popular name "lock-jaw." The muscles of expression soon share in the rigidity, and the face assumes a taut, mask-like aspect. The angles of the mouth may be retracted, producing a grinning expression known ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... Spanish, eked out by signs, to bid Suarez hold the siren cord taut for a minute. While the Kansas was still trumpeting forth her loud blare of defiance, he ran down the bridge companion. Mr. Boyle and the tiny garrison of the port promenade deck received him jubilantly; they had escaped without ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... desperate effort to dismiss the image of the girl before he again reached Leila. She was still sitting there, with her arms crossed, in the stillness of one whose every nerve and fibre was stretched taut. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... and twisted and bent half double in the pangs of a fearful tummy-ache, and at every paroxysm the car lurched in sympathy, only to be brought up short by the pull of the taut cable; so that we two, wedged in together as we were, nevertheless jostled each other violently. I am a poor sailor, both by instinct and training. By rights and by precedents I should have been violently ill on the instant; but I did not have ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... planes drove in from beyond. Formations were blocking space above.... Every branch of the service was there, Thurston exulted, the army, Marine Corps, the Navy. He gripped hard at the dry ground in a paralysis of taut nerves. The battle was on, and in the balance hung the fate of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... others crowded around, each eager for the last word, he turned away and busied himself with his tiller-rope, sick at heart. At last the good-bys were all said; Morton had taken his seat at the rudder, and Molly was nestled with baby on a cushion in the bottom of the taut little boat, when, just as Jasper was holding out a hand to help Sara aboard, she turned and gave a last, long, lingering look over the quaint little town in its radiant setting ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... be those of an ocean steamer, and the great leviathan, with its precious freight of human souls, plowed past the taut little yacht distant only ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"
... the range-riders had thrown a coat over the head of the stallion, and while he stood quivering with helpless rage they flung a saddle on and drew the cinches taut. ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... sing, his eyes dwelt on her. She was the most vital thing he had ever seen. The tendrils of burnished hair about her forehead and ears curled and shone with life; her eyes danced with life; her body was taut as a slim arrow ready to ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... my answer to suit myself. I study hard work and honesty, but never was known to carry a grammar in my pocket. But, my taut friend, I should know'd I was in South Carolina if you hadn't said a word about it, for no other nation under the sky would a dragged a poor cast-away sailor to prison because he had the misfortune to have a tawny hide. It's a ten-to-one, my hearty, if you ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... you feel anything, Javo?" Strain was apparent in every line of Tula's taut, bare ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... the types of men who have to do with horses—huntsmen, trainers, jockeys, riding masters and the rest, but the Australian bush-rider is a product by itself. She liked this son of the gum forest-tanned face, taut nerves, alert eyes piercing long distances—a man, vital, shrewd, simple as a child, cunning as an animal. And the way he sat in his saddle, the poise of the lean, lanky muscular frame! No wonder the first stockman seemed to the wild blacks a new sort of beast with four legs and two ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... count again; and so, tense, watching with eager-burning eyes and taut muscles, the man and woman made their way of ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... aside. Foyle smiled, and although his whole body was taut in anticipation of any fresh attempt at violence, he quietly struck a match and ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... buttoned across the front of the buggy, extending from the dashboard to just below the level of the driver's eyes. The lawyer clambered in behind it, the captain followed, the end of the reins was passed through a slit in the boot, Mr. Shattuck, after inquiring if they were "all taut," gave the command, "Gid-dap!" and horse and buggy moved around the corner of the station, out ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... is not serious," Saunders said. "I have seen him break down before. He is too intense, too strenuous; whatever he does he does with every nerve in his body drawn as taut as ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... adjusted weights at W or W{2}, an exact equilibrium of forces and conditions cannot be obtained. Or, again, if, as in Fig. 5, the face, P Q, is sheeted and rodded back to the surface, keying the rods taut, there is undoubtedly a stable condition and one which could not fail in theory or practice, nor can anyone, looking at Fig. 5, doubt that the top timbers are stressed more heavily than those at the bottom. The ...
— Pressure, Resistance, and Stability of Earth • J. C. Meem
... thought, this is certainly going too far. I opened my mouth to voice the angry words but a look at her stopped me. I couldnt help but feel her imperviousness was fragile, that harsh speech might shatter a calm too taut to be anything but hysterical. I drove on without speaking until the hummocks gave way again to smooth desert. "We'll soon be in Yuma," I announced. "Arent you going ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... shoving, and pulling at the rope, the nuggar was floated once more at last, and on they went again, and by-and-by the river widened, and the current was not so strong, and so long as they kept the rope pretty taut the boat came along without any ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... lucky stroke of the oar, he failed to see a long length of grapevine floating like a brown snake of the water below. In the excitement they heeded not the barking of Mose. Nor did they see the grapevine straighten and become taut just as they drifted upon it; but they felt the raft strike and hold on some submerged object. It creaked and groaned and the foamy water surged, gurgling, ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... listen cautiously for the trombone, the bassoon and the bull fiddle. They have a liaison with the umpah umps—the feet. Long ago they danced only to the umpah umps. There were no cadenzas, glissandos, arpeggios then. There was only the thumping of cedar wood on cedar wood, on ebony or taut deerskin. ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... had a taut way of putting on even a silk kimono, and she could not have been sloppy had she tried; her lines ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... holding the rope taut, the middle was attached by similar knots to Dale's waist, and Melchior walked on, and on reaching his end ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... of agony. Alongside the baskets lay the bigger fish, broad-tailed sea-bass, their circular jaws wide open, showing the white, round tongues and the dark throats, while their bodies were stretched backward, taut in the contraction of death; and flat, enormously wide skates, their fins spread out on the ground like kites of brown cloth, slimy and viscous to ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... generous hearts would condemn that. He would keep every inch of the deck scoured, every piece of metal polished like a mirror, the sails set full and clean, and, with shining muzzles out, ropes hauled taut in their blocks, and every man at his post, he would sweep towards the reef, and go down into the sea firing a farewell salute of honor to the sun, his flag flying above him ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... is of bark from the white birch-tree, A butterfly's wing is my sail, And twisted grasses my cordage be, Stretched taut by ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... went below at the same time as Job Howland, thus keeping out of the way of Daggs, the man with the broken nose. As Howland was in the port watch, on deck from sunset to midnight, Jeremy often took comfort in the sight of his loved stars wheeling westward through the taut shrouds. He would stand there with a lump in his throat as he thought of his father's anguish on returning to the island to find the sheep uncared for and the young shepherd vanished. In a region desolate as that, he knew that there was but one conclusion for them ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... while from either side of his bed, from the ceiling above, from the headboard behind him, and from the footboard, strong lights played full and flary upon his twitching, aching eyelids; and finally, towards dawn, with every nerve behind his eyes taut with pain and strain, awakening unrefreshed to consciousness of that nimbus of unrelieved false glare which encircled him, and the stench of melted tallow and the stale reek of burned kerosene foul in his nose. That, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Maria—and so these fellows, who seemed to be in two lots, some at the top and some at the bottom of the plankway, were entirely out of my sight as yet, though I had a good view of their sliding-plane. But presently the ropes began to strain and creak, drawn taut—as our fishermen express it—either from the upper or the lower end, and I saw three barrels come sliding down—sliding, not rolling (you must understand), and not as a brewer delivers beer into a cellar. These passed by me; and after a little while ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... you blind old mole! I am bent on to a bight of the whip falls," I answered, with a chuckle. "Keep the other end of the rope taut, old chap, and I'll be able to climb up back into the port without anybody being the wiser but ourselves, my hearty, and so we'll all ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... what a heavy task it has proved to render verse in verse, particularly verse so varied and unfamiliar, and to do this from a writer not merely so remote in time, and withal a tragedian, but also marvellously concise, taut and unadorned, in whom there is nothing otiose, nothing which it would not be a crime to alter or remove; and besides, one who treats rhetorical topics so frequently and so acutely that he appears to be everywhere declaiming. ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... breeze stiffened. The sea became choppy, and white-caps danced fitfully over the greenish stretches, growing wilder and wilder under the whip of a flouting wind. The two patchwork sails on the lumbering Doraine flapped noisily for awhile, as if shaking off their tor-por, then suddenly grew taut and fat with prosperity. The twisted, half-jammed rudder,—far from worthy despite the efforts of its repairers,—whiningly obeyed the man at the wheel, and once more the ship felt the caress of the deep ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... stood there with taut drawn bow Tarzan recognized him not so much the NEGRO as the ARCHER ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... him, braced against the strain she knew was coming. The taut lariat hummed, it bruised into Sandy's thigh. Behind, the bay snorted, struggling gallantly. They were poised on the brink of death for a moment, two—three—and then the mare began to move slowly forward, neck curved, ears cocked to her master's ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... Things went lovely for ever so long, and though, after a spell, we had our ups and downs, as is but natural to human creeters, we never come to such a pass agin. Both on us tried real hard; whenever I felt my temper risin' or discontent comin' on I remembered them days and kep' a taut rein; and as for Lisha he never said a raspin' word, or got sulky, but what he'd bust out laughin' after it and say: 'Bless you, Cynthy, it warn't ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... think we might manage to knock together a contrivance of this sort. There would be two of them, you understand, one on each side of the ship. This represents a stout timber frame, which would be secured in place by short lengths of chain bowsed taut by tackles, so that it would remain rigidly in position. It would reach from the rail down to about three feet below the surface of the water. This outrigger arrangement, which should be about nine feet long, will serve as ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... fold. Courage came back. Now she had let go of O'Reilly's window frame. She had passed on beyond hope of return, and yet she had no firm grasp upon the curtain. Before it could give the support a rope gives a climber, she must slowly, patiently, draw it toward her inch by inch until she had it taut. ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... passenger that was one of three who, slow in collecting their luggage, were just descending. A second look convinced him, and he not only let out a bloodcurdling yell of welcome, but inadvertently slackened the lines that had been taut as fiddle strings over the backs of the horses. The leaders jumped over "the Innocent Bystander" before he had time to use his pickhandle, reared and fell on their backs, where they lay kicking ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... more triumph by bringing Rollitt up to the scratch, and so completing as sound and taut a team as Yorke had ever ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... themselves astride. He then gave orders to the people on the shore to hold fast to the end of the rope which was tied to the log, and leaving his rope in the tree he turned the log adrift, and the force of the current acting against the taut rope swung the log around against the bank, and all 'on board' were saved. The excited people, who had watched the dangerous experiment with alternate hope and fear, now broke into cheers for Abe Lincoln and praises for his brave act. This adventure made ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... were no broken masts or tattered sails or ropes dangling from the yards. On the contrary, the masts were straight and sound; such of the yards as had not been lowered were squared, and all the ropes were trim and taut. ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... the Speedwell was fairly before the wind, the sails were hauled taut, the boys seated themselves on the windward gunwale, and the race began in earnest. But they soon found that it would be much longer than they had imagined. Instead of the slow, straining motion which they had expected, the Speedwell flew through ...
— Frank, the Young Naturalist • Harry Castlemon
... dancing about the deck with excitement; and, then he banged his fist down on the brass rail with a thump that almost doubled it in two, while his wiry billy-goat beard bristled out and wagged to and fro. "Brace up yer yards sharp, an' keep them bowlin's taut! Lay her ez near due north ez she'll fetch, an' we'll fix her on a bee-line fur 'Frisco. An', ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... sound there is But his motion's gentle hiss, Till one fluent arm and hand Suddenly circles, and the wand Taps a bough far overhead, "Crack," and then all noise is dead. For he halts, and for a space Stands erect with upward face, Taut and tense to the white ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... saw the feathers erect, vibrating. I saw the spread claws outstretched, and I struck furiously at them, crying to Daisy to run into the iron shelter. Backing, swinging my clubbed rifle, I retreated, but I tripped across one of the taut pallium wires, and in an instant the hideous birds were on me, and the bone in my forearm snapped like a pipe-stem at a blow from their wings. Twice I struggled to my knees, blinded with blood, confused, almost fainting; then I fell again, rolling into the mouth ...
— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers
... half-breeds, had let slip his lasso, which fell squarely over the head of the grizzly; then drawing it "taut," he kept it so while he slowly walked his horse around the tree, binding ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... have gone there anyway," said Lois, still all a-quiver, and shivering close to my shoulder. I put my arm around her; every muscle of her body was rigid, taut, yet trembling, as a smooth and finely turned pointer trembles with eagerness and ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... from the street broke the tense silence that had followed the mayor's soliloquy. He turned from the window quickly and strode back to his desk and the suggestion of weariness dropped from him like a cloak and he emerged, alert, taut, energetic, ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... example, towns. The fairest and most beautiful towns are those which have built themselves—those in which each man has built to suit his own exclusive circumstances and needs; whereas towns which men have constructed on regular, string-taut lines are no better than collections of barracks. Put beauty aside, and look ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... hand is first placed in position, either at the keyboard or on a table; the fingers are taught to start with up movements, as the lifting muscles need special attention. A muscle or a finger, is either taut, flabby or stiff; it is the taut condition I strive for—to make the finger responsive, like a ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... The tree had begun to lean, and two of the guides were straining taut. He wondered. He wondered if the men at the guides were used to the work. Now, for the first time, he realized that the crest of the tree had a vast overhang of foliage on one side, and mighty misshapen ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... girl, who was crouching in real dismay, he leaned against the wall, his hands behind him, every muscle strained and taut. ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... sitting-room. He was not the bent, deferential old gardener, nor was he the Feller changed to youth as he thought of himself at the head of a battery. His features were hard-set, a fighting rage burning in his eyes, his sinews taut as if about to spring upon an adversary. When he recognized the intruders he turned limp, his head dropped, hiding his face with his hat brim, and he steadied himself by resting a hand on the ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... facing her father, every nerve taut with protest. "You don't mean to tell me, dad, that you and Frank Johnson and Lone Morgan and—everybody in the country are cowards, ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... on duty till the next morning, and after the first bustle, which always takes place on board when settling down in harbor—(boats to lower, booms to swing out, running rigging to make taut)—we had nothing more to do but to look on. We said to one another: "Where are we in reality?—In the United States?—In some English Colony in Australia, or ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... stood up, tall and slim. The rawhide rope in his hand strung taut. A moment later he secured the end of it by the simple process of resting a small boulder upon its ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... Drew was taut inside. To say the wrong thing, to admit the line of that breeding, might be a bad slip. Yet he could only evade, not ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... his steps, and Lord Douglas immediately after him. All this was the work of a moment. Immediately we heard Croz's exclamation, old Peter and I planted ourselves as firmly as the rocks would permit; the rope was taut between us, and the jerk came on us both as on one man. We held; but the rope broke midway between Taugwalder and Lord Francis Douglas. For a few seconds we saw our unfortunate companions sliding downward on their backs, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... friends are certain little toy-boat builders, who bestow upon me from time to time boats fashioned by their knives; vessels which would not, it is true, encounter stormy seas, and therefore are not fitted for use, but which look taut and trim as they lie in the quiet harbour of bracket or slab amongst other choice ornaments. A rowing-boat, a yacht, a schooner, a man-of-war—all these varieties are somewhat commonplace. The construction of them requires skill ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... not even turn his head to look. He's gone without a word. Here comes another, A different kind of craft on a taut bow-line,— Deacon Giles Firmin the apothecary, A pious and a ponderous citizen, Looking as rubicund and round and splendid As the great bottle in ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... not slow to assert itself. Moreover, Ramon was now caught in the inevitable reaction from a purpose which had gathered and concentrated his energies with passionate intensity for almost four months. During that time he had lived with taut nerves for a single hope; he had turned away from a dozen alluring by-paths; he had known that absorbed singleness of purpose which belongs only to lovers, ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... hand, the man in advance stood stock-still, his whole figure taut, poised, alert, in an attitude of listening. All at once he wheeled about, discovering the man close behind him. He sprang at once for his pursuer. The latter took to his heels, dashing around the corner, ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... minds, of equal natural strength, may be fully employed during a given period and yet show a wide difference in the quality and quantity of the results. The one may be busy all the while but slouch through the minutes. The other may be taut and intensive, working at white heat, and the output will be more extensive and of better quality. The mind that ambles through the period shows forth results that are both meager and mediocre; but the mind whose impact is both forceful and incisive produces results that serve to magnify the ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... water, and I after her; for you must know, children, I was so anxious to see the boat launched properly that as she struck the water I ran to the open gangway, and not noticing the boat's warp, which the steward had taken the precaution to fasten taut to the ship's rail, was struck by it and ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... anything her fancy had ever pictured. She liked best the cities through which they passed, their life, the bustle and confusion, the hurrying throngs, the rushing automobiles, the gleaming railroad tracks like taut bands of silver, the smoke-screened factories with their belching stacks, the rows upon rows of houses, snuggling in friendly ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... worked willingly, and yet with a silent decorum which showed what their feelings were. Never were the decks better cleaned, never were the ropes more carefully flemished down; the hammocks were stowed in their white cloths, the yards carefully squared, and the ropes hauled taut. At eight o'clock, the colours and pennant were hoisted half-mast high. The men were then ordered down to breakfast, and to clean themselves. During the time that the men were at breakfast, all the officers went into the cabin to take a last farewell look at our gallant ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... shoulder and exhibited a momentous piece of paper. The captain took an observation and hauled down his colors as a free man. He was a prisoner and put himself promptly in tow. After a short run and a few tackings they ran into Ludlow Harbor, and all was made taut for ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... favorite amusement was cutting down hammocks. Dark forms might be seen on all fours making their way on the greasy and slippery deck in the direction of selected victims. The sharp blade of a knife would be drawn across the taut cord that supported the hammock. Then an uproar that awakened the entire steerage would take place. If the one who was cut down happened to be an Irishman, he would loudly challenge all the passengers to come up and fight him, not caring whether they came in ones or ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... Michael away, and after several minutes returned along the deck, Michael stretched out ahead on the taut rope seeking Steward. ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... in shining bronze come crying Into a silver sky, Piercing and jubilant is the shape of their flying, Their beaks are pointed with delight, Curved sharply with desire, The passionate direction of their flight, Clear and high, Stretches their bodies taut like humming wire. The cold wind blows into angry patterns the jet-bright Feathers of their wings, Their claws curl loosely, safely, about nothingness, They clasp no things. Direction and desire they possess By which in sharp, ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Marjorie Allen Seiffert
... a peculiar sternness in Wayne Shandon's voice that made his cousin start in a way which, to Shandon's taut nerves, seemed instantly a sign of guilt. Conway finished the work he was doing, snapped the heavy padlock into the log chain, which fastened the double doors of the small building where odds and ends were stored during the winter, and came on through the snow, smiting his hands ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... reef-tackles lead to the slings of the yard, there is no impediment in swinging the yard when the reef-tackles are taut ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 829, November 21, 1891 • Various
... close to thee draw nigh, How often have my glances pierced the taut, Straight fold of thine austerest drapery, Fast at the end about ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... all peril unharmed, it reaches him harmless at last, And to its proven strength he lashes his weakness fast. Now, for the shore! But steady, steady, my men, and slow; Taut, now, the quivering lines; now slack; and so, let her go! Thronging the shores around stand the pitying multitude; Wan as his own are their looks, and a nightmare seems to brood Heavy upon them, and heavy the silence ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
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