"Bent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this the persistence of a self-seeking and ambitious man, bent on attaining something for himself. It occurred to him, not unnaturally, that possibly if the State of Connecticut were to be asked to give permission for a bishop to reside within its borders, it might be easier to secure such permission for another than for one who ...
— Report Of Commemorative Services With The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885. • Diocese Of Connecticut
... going over to the bed bent and kissed the tired, wistful face. Patricia had a fashion of exciting sympathy at the wrong time, in a way that was perilous to discipline. "For this time, then, Patricia," she said. "Now ...
— Patricia • Emilia Elliott
... The canoes were of the Siwash type, cut out of cedar logs and burned smooth outside. The high bow was rudely carved like a bird's head; the floor was long and flat. They paddled well and a strong man could carry one, upside down, on his bent shoulders. Jim had loaded them heavily, and the tools and provisions had cost ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... Napoleon was the sole and absolute master, so that it was of no use attempting to influence any of his subordinates, save in so far as these subordinates might in their turn influence him. For some time it appeared that Napoleon was bent upon occupying Louisiana in force and using it as a basis for the rebuilding of the French colonial power. The time seemed ripe for such a project. After a decade of war with all the rest of Europe, France in 1802 concluded the Peace of Amiens, which ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... the canyon, a river sang, as it threaded its way among the boulders; and, far in the distance, the mountains reared their snow-covered summits to the evening sky. The flickering camp-fire played strange tricks upon those gathered round it, for it gave to the care-worn faces and bent forms of the miners the appearance of ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... building, and they crossed the road to see what the disturbance was about. They soon perceived that the building was a gunsmith's shop, and that the excitement was due to the fact that the people outside were bent on securing arms and ammunition for themselves, as a protection against the marauders who were wont to infest the town upon the slightest excuse, and who were now, under cover of the excitement caused by the impending war, committing all sorts of atrocities, which the ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... studying eyes, and if you seem to be a likely purchaser, they will draw from the folds of their garments some little object which they will offer for sale. Along the road in the glory of the setting sun there will come as fine a young man as you will see on a day's march. Surely he is bent on some noble mission: what lofty thoughts are occupying his mind, you wonder. But as you pass, out comes the scarab from his pocket, and he shouts, "Wanty scarab, mister?—two shillin'," while you ride on your way a greater ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... the hands and crushed them against my lips, the rosy fingers that smelled of orris, and the polished nails like pink jewels. As I bent over my love, the curtain which covered the doorway waved as in a gust ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... beam, Rise various wreaths that into one unite Which high and higher mounts with silver gleam: Fair spectacle,—but instantly a scream Thence bursting shrill did all remark prevent; 465 They paused, and heard a hoarser voice blaspheme, And female cries. Their course they thither bent, And met a man ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... gentleman, with one involuntary gaze of enthusiastic admiration that called all the roses out in full bloom upon the maiden's cheeks; then governing himself, he bent his eyes to the ground, and said, with great deference: "You will pardon the liberty I have taken in calling here, Miss Mayfield, when I tell you that I am in search of an unhappy young relative, who, I am informed, passed here ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... doctor remembered. He was dead, sure enough, at peace at last, and the special cause for the ending was of little importance. Sommers proceeded to make an examination, however; he would have to sign a certificate for the health officers. As he bent over the inert form, he had a feeling of commiseration rather than of relief. Worthless clay that the man was, it seemed petty now to have been so disturbed over his living on, for such satisfactions ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... and sore it gets when you have taken an unusually long tramp, particularly if there has been much hill-climbing in it. On the back of the thigh, runs another great group of muscles, which bend or flex the limb when they shorten. When the knee is bent, you can feel their tendons, or sinews, stand out as hard cords beneath the knee; hence, this group is ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... other visitors were gone, Mr. Eliot bent himself again over the half written page. He dared hardly relax a moment from his toil. He felt that, in the book which he was translating, there was a deep human, as well as heavenly wisdom, which would of itself suffice to civilize and refine the savage tribes. Let the ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... maturity of extraordinary powers. In Coleridge's case a boy of truly extraordinary qualities was father to one of the most remarkable of men. As the youngest of ten children (or of thirteen, reckoning the vicar's family of three by his first wife), Coleridge attributes the early bent of his disposition to causes the potency of which one may be permitted to think that he has somewhat exaggerated. It is not quite easy to believe that it was only through "certain jealousies of old Molly," his brother Frank's ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... the most common type is, (a) the visual image. Children who more readily recall things seen than things heard are called by psychologists "eye-minded," and most of us are bent in this direction. Close your eyes now and re-call—the word thus hyphenated is more suggestive—the scene around this morning's breakfast table. Possibly there was nothing striking in the situation and the image is therefore not striking. Then image any notable table scene in your experience—how ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... freely from one end to the other: a similar passage was observed by Michalet in V. alba. The pistil therefore differs considerably from that of the perfect flower; for in the latter it is much longer, and straight with the exception of the rectangularly bent stigma; nor is it perforated by ...
— The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species • Charles Darwin
... Dave Dockery, Doctor Dick bent over the form of the wounded stranger. He found him lying in a state of coma, breathing heavily and ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
... letters, it is here, for the contrary reason, insufferable; for one must dance and enjoy one's self whether one like it or not. Pleasure, I take it, is a duty not to be shirked at the command of disinclination. Youth, following the bent of inherited instinct, and loyally conforming himself to the centuries, must shake a leg in the dance, and Age, from emulation and habit, and for denial of rheumatic incapacity, must occasionally twist his heel though he twist it off in the performance. Dance ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... rapidly downward, and in half an hour reached marshy ground. The cane-brake now lay before him. On his left he saw the sea on the south, about a third of a mile. He knew that to the right must be the sea on the north, about half a mile or so. He bent his way thither. The edge of the swamp was very clear, and, though somewhat spongy, afforded good walking unimpeded. As he approached the spot where he judged the boat to be, the underwood thickened, the trees again interlaced their ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... called out, 'Mother,' and Mrs. Eden bent down to her, but she only repeated, 'Mother' two or three ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... always hitherto been kept, as far as regards spontaneous development, in so unnatural a state, that their nature cannot but have been greatly distorted and disguised; and no one can safely pronounce that if women's nature were left to choose its direction as freely as men's, and if no artificial bent were attempted to be given to it except that required by the conditions of human society, and given to both sexes alike, there would be any material difference, or perhaps any difference at all, in the character and capacities which would unfold themselves. ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill
... later to make a report about the situation in the Senate, with reference to the Federal Reserve Act. His report was most discouraging as to the final passage of the bill. He said that his information from the Hill was that the leaders of the opposition in the Senate were bent upon a filibuster and that the probabilities were that the Senate would finally adjourn without any action being taken on ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... discussing this wonderful subject, when, half an hour later, the tall figure of the Count emerged from the companionway. As he bent his steps toward the other side of the deck he was visible only to the child, who stood facing the rest of the group. She promptly dropped the glasses upon Blythe's knee, and crying, "Il Signore!" ran and took hold of his hand; whereupon ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... he heard it, he suddenly caught Dolly's eye and saw that both eyebrows, and nose, and chin were up as marks of unusual disapprobation, for how could she guess of what he was thinking as he sat with his head bent down, and his eyes seemingly half shut. But they came open wide enough, and his head was high enough when he saw Dolly's frown; and turning to Mrs. Raymond he began to talk rapidly and at random. She had just ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... still on them, whilst others retained some of the chopped straw with which the domestic animals had evidently been fed. The most curious of all are those which are supposed to represent a woman; the front part projecting and surmounted by a narrow neck bent backwards, with two brown prominences supposed to stand for breasts, and dots round the upper part representing a necklace, while ear-rings are indicated by elliptical bands of different colors. We shall have to refer again to these curious vases ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... they were all still more unlike the rude hunting and pastoral people among whom they came. They were miners, traders, financiers, engineers, keen, nimble-minded men, all more or less skilled in their respective crafts, all bent on gain, and most of them with that sense of irresponsibility and fondness for temporary pleasure which a chanceful and uncertain life, far from home, and relieved from the fear of public opinion, ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... caryatides, of which there must have been three, replacing ordinary columns as supporters of the sarcophagus. They can hardly be Virtues, for they are obviously muscular men with curly hair and brawny arms. They are not quite free from mannerisms: the attitudes, granting that the bent position were required by their support of the tomb, are not quite easy or natural. But, in spite of this, they are really magnificent things, placing their author high ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... at his wife, who did not like such allusions as this; but she bent over her frame and ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... He bent toward her and, throwing his arms about her, again endeavored to draw her back into his embrace, but ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... mournful cry of pain. A narrow shouldered, sickly-looking man, who spite of his very plain clothing, seemed to belong to the better classes, heard it too, and the word "Horrible!" in tones of the warmest sympathy escaped his lips. Then he bent over the black smoking space, and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... to carry on," observed Captain Dinks, seeing the anxious glance Mr Meldrum bent to windward. "I've heard of a ship outrunning a hurricane before; and so ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... and shady bed A modest violet grew; Its stalk was bent, it hung its head, As if to hide ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... bent on making a fortune; in two years she was another creature. In 1811 the peasant woman had become a very ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... plunder. They butchered all indiscriminately, armed and unarmed, male and female. Their cruel resentment extended to the slaughter of infants. They then set fire to the houses, and pulled down those which could not be consumed by fire, so bent were they upon erasing even every vestige of the city, and blotting out the memory of their enemies. Scipio marched his army thence to Castulo, which was defended, not only by Spaniards who had assembled there, but also by the remains of the Carthaginian army, which had gone there from ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... most violent reproaches. Hastening to the tent of Pizarro, he rudely pushed aside a sentinel who guarded the entrance, and found the culprit seated on a low stool, affecting the attitude of a mourner. A large slouched hat was bent over ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... lifted it free from the chair and carried it in his arms to the coffin. It was most unsightly, and streams of rusty-brown liquid ran from it. It was placed face up, head elevated even with the rim, and legs bent close at the knees but only slightly at the hips. The old woman arose from beside the olla and helped lay two new breechcloths and a blanket over the body. The face was left uncovered, except that a small patch of white cloth ravelings, called "fo-ot'," was laid ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... catch in his voice. Mrs. Budge shut her eyes tight from sheer nervousness. There was a visible straightening and a rustling of the line. Then Harkness threw the door open and bent low. ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... axle is formed with yoked 90 ends, the yoke members, f, f, being above and below the longitudinal line of the axle. The short journal, g, shown for each wheel, has at its inner end an upwardly and downwardly extended arm, h, which is return-bent to be 95 loosely embraced by the axle yoke, f, f. The cone pointed screws, c, passed through the yoke members, f, and into sockets therefor in the arms, h, of the journals, g, constitute the means for the swivel connection between said 100 parts. ...
— The 1893 Duryea Automobile In the Museum of History and Technology • Don H. Berkebile
... always trying to climb into the bunk above over your slightly bent back while you shave—for it is impossible to get your little trench mirror directly in front of your face while you are in an upright position. In outdoor shaving—usually performed in the middle of a village square, near the town fountain—one is ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... of accomplished time, Comes brother Forepaugh, upon business bent, Tracks her through frozen and through torrid clime, And shows us, neatly labeled in a tent, The stages of her ...
— Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody
... uneasy, he revealed to some of his father's domestics the miserable state in which he found himself, and entreated them to procure him some succor. At the same time the demon seized him, and bent his body back, so that he was near breaking his bones. His mother, who had adopted the heresy of Suenfeld, and had induced her son to follow it also, not finding in her sect any help against the demon ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... were at work of some kind, I know, and I have very selfishly thought only of myself. But the whole scene was so new to me, and I so rarely meet any one who sees things as I do, that I know you will forgive me." She bent her eyes upon him with a certain soft ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... boarders! Retreat boarders! Pikemen cover cutlass division! Fire! Repel boarders!' The second hand scarcely sweeps over a quarter of its dial before the men have crowded around the port bulwarks, and are slashing the air with a most Quixotic fury—then crouch on bent knee, to make ready their pistols, while in their rear, marines and pikemen, musket and rifle armed, snap their pieces, and pour into an imaginary foe a vast volley of imaginary balls; then pierce the air with savage bayonet thrusts. The farce, and yet a most useful ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... of everything he wished to believe about himself and the universe, that had been her delightful role in the early stages of their romantic friendship. She maintained her hostility to Edith; she seemed bent on making things impossible. And yet there were one or two phases ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... bent to their oars, and the boat sped swiftly along. The current was very slight, and after two hours' rowing, the lieutenant judged that they must be but a short distance from the village Hassan's messenger spoke of. Accordingly, he told the coxswain to steer across to the other ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... seemed bent on doing its best, though the more it strove to reach the goal, the greater was ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Ozarks • Frank Gee Patchin
... again with her mantle; her eyes were now bent upon the ground and, standing there before her companion with her umbrella and her air of momentary submission and self-control, she might very well have been a young person in reduced circumstances applying for a place. 'It was short enough but it seemed—some parts of it—terribly long and painful. ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... destruction," he sighed, adjusting his power switches. "Since they are bent upon mutual destruction I can see no purpose in refraining from destroying all of them. We need the iron, and they are ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... least temporarily, the object that he had in view when he accepted the English crown. He had succeeded in drawing the English into a close defensive alliance against Lois XIV,[2] who, as we have seen, was bent on destroying both the political and the religious liberty of the Dutch ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... been in about these savage wretches, and the concern I had been in for my own preservation, had taken off the edge of my invention for my own conveniences, and I had dropped a good design, which I had once bent my thoughts upon; and that was, to try if I could not make some of my barley into malt, and then try to brew myself some beer: this was really a whimsical thought, and I reproved myself often for ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... delight a learned audience, and at the same time preach with a learned plainness, having so learned to conceal his art. He had such a clear notion of high mysteries, as to make them stoop to the meanest capacity. He had so learned Christ, and being a man of a most zealous temper, the great bent of his spirit and that which he did spend himself anent, was to make people know their dangerous state by nature, and to persuade them to believe and lay ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... that the admirers, who had before fluttered round her, gradually dropped off; that the ladies of the court, the damsels who shared her light duties, grew distant and silent at her approach; that strange looks were bent on her; that sometimes when she and Hastings were seen together, the stern frowned and the ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that Chia Yn held in his hand a handkerchief very much like the one she herself had dropped some time ago and was bent upon asking him for it, but she did, on the other hand, not think she could do so with propriety. The unexpected visit of the bonze and Taoist priest rendered, however, superfluous the services of the various male attendants, and Chia-yn had therefore to go again and oversee the men planting ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... Master met Ensign Schaw, and taking a stick from underneath his coat, struck the Ensign two blows over the head with it. They both drew, and fought with such fury that the Master's sword was broken, and that of the Ensign bent; upon which Sinclair retired behind a sentinel, desiring him "to keep off the Ensign, as his sword was broken." Schaw then said, "You know I am more of a gentleman than to pursue you when your sword is broken." But the young soldier Schaw had at this time received ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... will be twenty-one next January, but he will be my boy still, and he will not say nay, if I ask him to return again. I have expected this. If Louis Robert had not left so strong a message—" and she folded her hands, and with her head bent, she sat in deep thought and motionless for more than half an hour. Then rousing ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... proud bearing was only momentary. The wonted look of troubled wistfulness again settled over his face, and his shoulders bent to their accustomed stoop, as if his frail body were slowly crushing ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... an old-fashioned energy which had long been unfamiliar to me. This third storm was accompanied by a raging wind. We tied up to the bank when we saw the tempest coming, and everybody left the pilot-house but me. The wind bent the young trees down, exposing the pale underside of the leaves; and gust after gust followed, in quick succession, thrashing the branches violently up and down, and to this side and that, and creating swift waves of alternating ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and the cavalier bent low in their saddles, and seemed to join devoutly in the worship ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... door a silvery bell—not an annoying, jangling bell—played a very lively tune to attract the attention of a girl who sat at the back of the shop, her head bent close above the work on which she was engaged. Although the bell stopped quivering when Betty closed the door, the girl did not look up from ...
— Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp • Alice B. Emerson
... in thoughtful silence for a moment, the old lawyer bent over his ward, and hugged and kissed her with an unctuousness justified by his great age and extreme goodness. It was his fine old way of bestowing an inestimable blessing upon all the plump younger women of his acquaintance, and the benediction was conferred on ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2., No. 32, November 5, 1870 • Various
... majesty devoted himself to pleasure and intrigue, neglectful of affairs of state, and heedless of public scandal, his brother of York, whose disposition was not less amorous, likewise followed the bent of his inclinations. Soon after her appearance at court he professed himself in love with the beautiful Elizabeth Hamilton, whom to behold was to admire. But the duke being a married man, and she ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... fine, father?" cried she, with a loud laugh. But Marianne, coming forward with the emperor, bent gracefully before her ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... Milton had taken poetry to be his vocation, in the most solemn and earnest mood. The idea of this devotion was the shaping idea of his life. It was, indeed, a bent of nature, with roots drawing from deeper strata of character than any act of reasoned will, which kept him out of the professions, and now fixed him, a seeming idler, but really hard at work, in his father's house at Horton. ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... the table, and we all bent over it. It was of common quality, grayish in colour. The address, "Sir Henry Baskerville, Northumberland Hotel," was printed in rough characters; the postmark "Charing Cross," and the date of ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle
... in the hole and heated well, after which the fire was taken out a seat placed in the center of the hole for the patient with a board at bottom for his feet to rest on; some hoops of willow poles were bent in an arch crossing each other over the hole, on these several blankets were thrown forming a secure and thick orning of about 3 feet high. the patient being striped naked was seated under this ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... they chose, and regarded the management of it, at least so far as one gathers from the epitome of the "Book of the Kings," as the main business of their government. They introduced new usages and abolished old ones; and as they did so the priests always bent to their will and were merely their executive organs. /1/ That ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... very much alarmed at his perilous position, when suddenly a Buddhist priest appeared before him, with clasped hands and bent head, who bade him not be alarmed, as with Heaven's assistance he would soon disperse the water. Hereupon the priest recited a short prayer or spell, and the waters receded as rapidly as they had risen, and finally returned to their ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... Hamilton had gone to Folkestone, and that he had tried to induce Uncle Max to go with him. 'But it is no use telling him he wants a change,' finished Mr. Tudor, with a sigh; 'he is bent on wearing ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... "That woman's bent on mischief," Teale went on. "I got chivalry and I've got honour for womanhood in my nater when womanhood keeps to its place, but I tell you, Moore, right here and now, if that young person from Trouble Neck comes loitering 'round my business, I'm going to treat her like what I would ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... which have assailed us so often as to create the kind of familiarity that breeds contempt. In how many Sunday school addresses—and a Sunday school address is preaching in a way—in how many such addresses have we seen the twig bent; in how many the giant oak which none can train? How often have we heard of that boy in Holland who saved his country by the simple expedient of pushing his finger into a hole in the dyke through which the dammed-up waters had begun ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... Royaume," said the minister. "New Wine of the Kingdom, you call it." And then he bent down and murmured in ...
— The Angels of Mons • Arthur Machen
... perhaps approaching me? Suddenly the buffalo made his appearance. He stopped for an instant; gazed, as if frightened, around him; sniffed up the air of the plain which extended in the distance; then, with distended nostrils, head bent, and horns projected, he rushed towards me, terrible and furious. The moment was come. If I had longed for an opportunity of showing off my courage and sang-froid to the Indians, these two precious qualities were now put to a severe test. There I was, face ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... did find some sympathy;—but then she would have sympathised with him on any subject under the sun. If he would only come to her and sit with her she would fool him to the top of his bent. He had resolved that he would go to Portman Square as little as possible, and had been confirmed in that resolution by the scandal which had now spread everywhere about the town in reference to himself ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... thickly at the foot of the hedgerow, and on the line of rough, weatherbeaten neck which showed between his fur cap and his turned-up collar there was a patch of dried blood. Very still and apparently lifeless he looked, but Vickers suddenly bent down, laid strong hands on him ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... their horses this way and that, I heard the cries of the foot-passengers, and then I was through, I know not how. Once more I summoned all my power, recalled the twist Astley had spoken of, and tried it. I bent his neck for an inch of rein. Next I got another inch, and then came a taste—the smallest taste—of mastery like elixir. The motion changed with it, became rougher, and the hoof-beats a fraction less ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... This narrowed rapidly and the lad got out from his boat into the water, as the coracle could proceed no further between the lines of rushes. The water was knee-deep and the bottom soft and oozy. At the end of the creek it narrowed until the rushes were but a foot apart. They were bent over here, as it would seem to a superficial observer naturally; but a close examination would show that those facing each other were tied together where they crossed at a distance of a couple of feet above the water, ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... the brief statement of ex-Minister Charles Denby, "are bandaged at an age varying from three to five years. The toes are bent back until they penetrate the sole of the foot, and are tightly bound in that position. The {134} parts fester and the toes grow into the foot." The result is that women grow up with feet the same size as when they were children, and the flesh withers ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... upon what readers consider to be a Nemesis. If to have found England one of the greatest countries in Europe, and to have left it one of the most inconsiderable and despicable; if to be fooled by flatterers to the top of his bent, until he fancied himself all but a god, while he was not even a man, and could neither speak the truth, keep himself sober, nor look on a drawn sword without shrinking; if, lastly, to have left behind him a son who, in spite of many chivalrous instincts unknown ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... hunter does not chase the deer, but brings it before his gun by a magic power; the mystic fisher calls the fishes; the enchanted bullet finds its own game and needs only to be shot off; the tanner even lays a spell upon the water in his vat and makes it run up hill through a tube bent in a charm. But back of all this enchantment intelligence is working and assumes her mythical, supernatural garb when the poet images ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... held his tresses in my fingers wound, And more than one tuft had I twitched away As he, with eyes bent down, howled like a hound; When one cried out, 'What ails thee, Bocca? say,— Canst thou not make enough clack with thy jaws, But thou must bark too! What fiend pricks thee now?' 'Aha!' said I, 'henceforth I have no cause To bid thee speak, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... mother softly. "I must needs petition the King, both for the riches from His treasury, and for the arms from His armoury." And then she bent down to kiss Jack. "O my boy, lay not up treasure for thyself, and thus fail to be ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... Lourdes for the working of miraculous cures during the September pilgrimage. A gilded statue of the Virgin and Child stood on an iron stalk on the summit of the church tower. During a bombardment of the town at a little after three o'clock in the afternoon of Friday, January 15, 1915, a shell so bent the stalk that the statue bent down over the Place as though diving. Perhaps few of our soldiers will remember Albert for anything except this diving Virgin. Perhaps half of the men engaged in the Battle of the Somme passed ...
— The Old Front Line • John Masefield
... novels with rapt attention. Her mother was proud of her beauty and her supposed learning, and loved, when she looked up from her work, to let her eyes rest upon her tall and handsome child, whose cheeks were flushed with eager interest as she bent her graceful head over her book. But Saul Matchin nourished a vague anger and jealousy against her. He felt that his love was nothing to her; that she was too pretty and too clever to be at home in his poor house; and yet he dared not either reproach her or appeal to her ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... red with the Three Legs of Man emblem (Trinacria), in the center; the three legs are joined at the thigh and bent at the knee; in order to have the toes pointing clockwise on both sides of the flag, a ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... something distinctive," she sighed. At the counter she found a friend, bent on the same errand, and conversed with her insipidly, wasting much time. "My husband and our daughter ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... the pommel and bent dizzily forward in the saddle. Silvermane was going down, step by step, with metallic clicks upon flinty rock. Whether he went down or up was all the same to Hare; he held on with closed eyes and whispered to himself. Down and down, step by step, cracking ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... rest. Then, mother, my darlin', don't cry any more, Don't make me seem broken, in this, my last hour; For I wish, when my head's lyin' undher the raven, No thrue man can say that I died like a craven!" Then towards the judge SHAMUS bent down his head, An' that minute the solemn ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... wait by the horse's head; Britons, brown East Indians, blacks from Jamaica, swart Italians, Polaks, Russian Jews, wire-drawn Yankees, Spaniards, Portuguese, Greeks, even a Nubian or two: uniform in these things only, that their backs were bent with toil, bowed beyond mending, and their faces stamped with the blurred type-stamp of the dumb laboring brute. A strangely hideous procession, they shambled on, for the most part silent, all uncouth and unreal in the ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... have no means of living left but robbery, and Sheykh Hassan's party is good for seven or eight guns. You will laugh at my listening to such a cowardly proposition (on my part) but my friends here are rather bent upon it, and Hassan is a capital fellow. If therefore the dahabieh is in rerum naturae and can start at once, well ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... tongue dropped the name of Agricola. The black man's eyes came so quickly round to Palmyre that she thought he would speak; but no; his words were all in his eyes. She answered their gleam with a fierce affirmative glance, whereupon he slowly bent his head and spat upon ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... Mrs. Beale, Maisie, giving a sigh of relief, looked round at what seemed to her the dawn of a higher order. "Then EVERY ONE will be squared!" she peacefully said. On which her stepmother affectionately bent over ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... my own house, for which I was forced to inquire, one of the servants opening the door, I bent down to go in (like a goose under a gate), for fear of striking my head. My wife ran out to embrace me, but I stooped lower than her knees, thinking she could otherwise never be able to reach my mouth. My daughter ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... nation's activity, and to extend the scope of their dominion. "This country," said the late Mr. Harriman in an interview a few years ago, "has been developed by a wonderful people, flush with enthusiasm, imagination and speculative bent. . . . They have been magnificent pioneers. They saw into the future and adapted their work to the possibilities. . . . Stifle that enthusiasm, deaden that imagination and prohibit that speculation by restrictive and cramping conservative law, and you tend to produce a moribund and conservative ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... to Shakespeare) by Richard Barnfield. Dowland was born at Westminster in 1562. At the age of twenty, or thereabouts, he started on his travels; and, after rambling through "the chiefest parts of France, a nation furnished with great variety of music," he bent his course "towards the famous province of Germany," where he found "both excellent masters and most honourable patrons of music." In the course of his travels he visited Venice, Padua, Genoa, Ferrara, and Florence, ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... drove me here this morning, we returned together," said Pyotr Stepanovitch, appearing not to notice Stavrogin's momentary excitement. "What's this? I dropped a book." He bent down to pick up the "keepsake" he had knocked down. 'The Women of Balzac,' with illustrations." He opened it suddenly. "I haven't read it. Lembke writes ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... replied his sister calmly, "that God, who has put such a loving thought into the heart of Walter, will keep him from harm? Would it be right to check him when he is bent on such a work? Besides, as to the wretched and unhappy man who has caused all this trouble, are not such characters, with all their bluster, commonly arrant cowards when they find ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... afternoon. The griffins on the doorstep stared straight before them with an expression of utter indifference; the feathery foliage of the white birch swayed gently back and forth; the peonies lifted their crimson heads airily; the snowball bush bent under the weight of its white blooms till it swept the grass; the fountain ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... transmitters was a rough model of the human ear, carved in oak, and provided with a drum which actuated a bent and pivoted lever of platinum, making it open and close a springy contact of platinum foil in the metallic circuit of the current. He devised some ten or twelve different forms, each an improvement on its predecessors, which transmitted music fairly well, and even a word or two of speech ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... the dark roads, his arms in the window-straps and his head bent forward. The head of the Mangadone Banking Firm was suffering, if not from insomnia, from something that was heavier than the heaviest night of sleeplessness, and something that was darker than the dark road, and something that was ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... face was bent over West's pillow, and the poor fellow jumped at the idea that this must be ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... Then the lady, who had been happy and idle enough before, became anxious, preoccupied with me, always intriguing, conspiring, pursuing, watching, waiting, bent wholly on making sure of her prey—I being the prey, you understand. Now this was not what I had bargained for. It may have been very proper and very natural; but it was not music, painting, poetry and joy incarnated in a beautiful woman. I ran ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... fourth, I discovered at some distance a wood of no ordinary dimensions. Before me, scarcely a single track could be found, to mark that any human being had ever visited the spot. As the best expedient I could devise, I bent my course towards the wood I have mentioned, and then pursued, as well as I was able, the windings of the inclosure. This led me, after some time, to the end of the heath; but I was still as much at ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... and climbed the hill again. He seemed to tread on air; and no doubt, when he reached the plateau where the ploughmen were driving their teams to and fro before the judges, with corrugated brows, compressed lips, eyes anxiously bent on the imaginary line of the furrow to be drawn, this elation gave his bearing a confidence which to the malignant or uncharitable might have presented itself as bumptiousness. He mingled with ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... and hollow like a bell, sounded a note of warning. "Speak quickly," he commanded. "Her time on earth is brief." Mr. Hallowell's hold upon the arm of his friend relaxed. Fearfully and slowly, he bent forward. ...
— Vera - The Medium • Richard Harding Davis
... into a condition of restraint, and remain thus suspended and latent for an indefinite period—ready, however, to break into action again the moment that the restraint is removed. Thus a perfectly elastic spring may be bent by a certain force, and retained in the bent position a long time. But the moment that it is released it will unbend itself, exercising in so doing precisely the degree of force expended in bending it. In the same manner air may be compressed ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... that," she made haste to say. "Aunt Hetty tried to dissuade Uncle Sidney, but he was bent on showing us how modern railroad building is rushed at the 'front'—is that the right word?—and ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... said the General, with a grim smile on his lip, which seemed to intimate that he was not quite inaccessible to flattery; "yea, truly, thou dost not lie in that—we have been an instrument. Neither are we, as I have already hinted, so severely bent against those who have striven against us as malignants, as others may be. The parliament-men best know their own interest and their own pleasure; but, to my poor thinking, it is full time to close these jars, and to allow men of ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... that discord reigned among the mutineers. Some wanted to take the Grampus towards the Cape Verde Islands; others, and Dirk Peters was of this number, were bent on sailing to the ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... wooden pegs. Near to the opening of the tent, upon a piece of rock, sat a little girl of about ten years old. By her side was a quantity of the coarse green gauze of which the diggers' veils are made. She was working at this so industriously, and her little head was bent so fixedly over her fingers that she did not notice our approach. We stood for some minutes silently watching her, till Frank, wishing to see more of her countenance, clapped his hands noisily together for the ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... Young Poquelin's bent, early encouraged by seeing plays and ballets, was strongly toward the stage. The drama, under the quickening patronage of Louis XIII.'s lordly minister, Cardinal Richelieu, was a great public interest of those times in Paris. Moliere's evil star, too, ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... pressure and over-powering force of government—until perhaps now. Mabie says that the American has conceived of his government as existing to keep the house in order while the family lived its life freely, every individual following the bent of his ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge
... a smother of foam, as Frank, with desperate energy, bent to his oars and swung his boat in the direction of the sinking one containing ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum
... art, The butter from the whey to part: Behold a frothy substance rise; Be cautious or your bottle flies. The butter comes, our fears are ceased; And out you squeeze an ounce at least. Your reverence thus, with like success, (Nor is your skill or labour less,) When bent upon some smart lampoon, Will toss and turn your brain till noon; Which in its jumblings round the skull, Dilates and makes the vessel full: While nothing comes but froth at first, You think your giddy head will burst; But squeezing out four lines in rhyme, Are largely paid ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... went the army back again to the west, that before were bent eastward; and proceeding upwards along the Seine, fixed their winter-quarters in the city of Paris. (37) The same year also King Alfred fortified the city of London; and the whole English nation turned to him, except that part of it which ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown
... followed the narrow footpath rounding the corner of the small country church, as the old minister raised his voice slowly and impressively to repeat the command he had selected for his text. Fearing that her head would be level with the windows, she bent and walked swiftly past the church; but the words went with her, iterating and reiterating themselves in her brain. Once she paused to glance back toward the church, wondering what the minister would ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... of pain in his throat he bent forward and seized her in his arms. The car was now in the park and between the light globes were spaces ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... his fingers into hers and bent over the wound. He noted two things, now: what strong hands she had, shapely, with sensitive fingers ignorant of rings; how richly alive and warmly colored her hair was, full of little waves ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... true, Josh," said Rod hurriedly, "we must do something to baffle the terrible game he is bent on playing. Can you lead us to the place where the man is hiding, and is it possible to get close to him without his knowing ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... pored over the manuscript, he bent and suddenly planted a great awkward kiss on the side of ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... going to have a stroke," thought Puddifoot. Then very carefully, as though he were moving in darkness, he turned and groped his way downwards. With bent head he walked ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... gun. I should not be surprised if he had met with the blackcock; if so, we shall have an addition to our larder, for Walter is a pretty sure shot." I inquired into the nature of Walter's studies. "Faith," said Scott, "I can't say much on that head. I am not over bent upon making prodigies of any of my children. As to Walter, I taught him, while a boy, to ride, and shoot, and speak the truth; as to the other parts of his education, I leave them to a very worthy young man, the son of one of our clergymen, ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... touch on the question of the purchasing of this alleged invention, but shall offer to facilitate in every way his mission as peacemaker. I shall take him at his word that he does not intend to sell to any one, and try to persuade him that, if he is bent on coercing any people, the English are not the ones that require this, as they are in perfect accord with him, and that he would accomplish his purpose much more quickly if he would bring force to bear upon the ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... continued to climb the air grew keener, and when she passed from the shelter of the pines to the open grassy roof of the Mountain the cold wind of the night before sprang out on her. She bent her shoulders and struggled on against it for a while; but presently her breath failed, and she sat down under a ledge of rock overhung by shivering birches. From where she sat she saw the trail wandering across the ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... upon his native palace[7] bent, Close by, suggest a greater argument. His thoughts rise higher, when he does reflect On what the world may from that star expect Which at his birth appear'd,[8] to let us see Day, for his sake, could with the night agree; 130 A prince, on whom ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... this supposititious case was addressed to the company generally, Hiram did not at first consider himself called on for a reply; but finding the eyes of the listeners bent on him in expectation, he remembered his character for judicial discrimination, and spoke, observing a due degree of ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... bent over some papers he had before him and toyed with a gold pencil, while she stated her case as clearly and concisely as ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... click of many books opened. The children found the page, and bent their heads obediently to read. ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... who do not succumb to the anti-theological fury are bent on convincing men that there are motives for living and consolations for having been born, even though there shall come a time, at the end of some tens or hundreds or millions of centuries, when all human consciousness shall have ceased to exist. And these motives ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... he had not seen. There remained much to do and the hours fled so swiftly. He set to work making the clumsy snow-shoes. He imitated a crude native shoe he had once seen in Alaska; he bent willow wands he had brought from along the edge of the stream, whipping them about with narrow strips of canvas, binding other wands crosswise, making, also of canvas strips, a sort of stirrup for each foot. The last of the weak daylight passed and died gloomily and he was still at his ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... of grace! oh, at that throne Our knees have often bent, And God has showered his blessings down As often as ...
— The Otterbein Hymnal - For Use in Public and Social Worship • Edmund S. Lorenz
... workers and the hills. The little party was digging tubers from the ground. She had noted this and that nearly always they were stooped low over their work, the hideous eyes bent upon the upturned soil. She led Ghek quite close to them, pretending that she wished to see exactly how they did the work, and all the time he held her ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... The boatmen bent to their oars with a will, and the boat leaped upon the water. They had rowed for fifty yards when suddenly far away a cannon boomed. The crew stopped, and every one in the boat strained his eyes seawards. ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... prepared for experimental purposes by causing dilute hydrochloric acid to act upon fragments of marble placed in a bottle with two necks, into one neck of which a funnel passing through a cork is fixed, and into the other a bent tube for conveying the gas into any suitable receiver. The evolution of carbonic acid by this method is rapid, but easily regulated, and the gas may be purified by causing it to pass through some water contained in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... slow to act upon this suggestion. He bent over the still prostrate Pete and tried to ascertain if his pulse was beating. It not being immediately apparent whether it was or not, and Mr. Dootleby not caring about it a great deal anyhow, he caught up his hat and ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... his arms around her and drew her to him. Then he bent his head and kissed her gently. There was no passion in his embrace, but there was infinite tenderness. He felt spiritually and physically weak, as if all his emotional ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... nurses were concerned; and in every way showed her true and untiring devotion to her country, and its suffering defenders. She undertook long journeys by land and by water, and seemed ubiquitous, for she was seldom missed from her office in Washington, yet was often seen elsewhere, and always bent upon the same fixed and earnest purpose. We cannot, perhaps, better describe the personal appearance of Miss Dix, and give an idea of her varied duties and many sacrifices, than by transcribing the following extract from the printed correspondence of a lady, herself ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... expedient to repose a little sooner. The pilgrims looked about them, and observed close at hand a crag of a rock, in the shade of which some spirits were standing, as men stand idly at noon. Another was sitting down, as if tired out, with his arms about his knees, and his face bent down between them.[8] ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... more he set forth upon the Channel, he turned his back on Jersey and shaped his course towards France, having sent Elizabeth his last excuses for declining a service which would have given him honour, fame and regard. He was bent upon a higher duty. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... played and laughed and enjoyed herself. And she at his sight played with a ball and while thus employed, looked like a creeping plant broken in two. And she touched his body with her own and repeatedly clasped Rishyasringa in her arms. Then she bent and break the flowery twigs from trees, such as the Sala, the Asoka and the Tilaka. And overpowered with intoxication, assuming a bashful look, she went on tempting the great saint's son. And when she saw that the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... discussions were raging in the Continental Congress on the eastern side of the continent, which, two days later, were to result in the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson had undoubtedly written it at this time, but Garces knew not the name of the great patriot and his compeers. He was bent on a different mission. He wished to declare to the Hopis how they might have freedom,—freedom from sin and the fear of hell. For, as Elliott Coues (the scholarly translator of Garces's diary, published a few years ago by F. P. Harper of New York) expresses ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... She bent her head sideways as though to listen, rose to her feet, and standing back against the bed, looked down at the shadows which danced about the hem of her garment. A swift furtive glance over her shoulder and ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... you ever been at a drunkard's funeral? I do not ask, did you look at his corpse? It was cadaverous before he died. But did you look at his father as he bent over the grave and exclaimed in agony, "O, my son, my son, would to God I had died for thee, my son." Did you look at his widow, pale with grief, and at his ragged, hunger-bitten children at her side, and see them turn away to share the world's cold pity, or, perhaps, rejected and ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... rather bear ten children than live that night over again. When I had carried my child out into the cold, my mind gave way. In my ravings, I thought the child lay by my side, and above us was a flock of birds— pitch black. I bent over it to shield it, and the birds pecked into my back, into my lungs they pecked. (Stops short ...
— Modern Icelandic Plays - Eyvind of the Hills; The Hraun Farm • Jhann Sigurjnsson
... campaign had given the Australians work suited to their bent when this war of machinery, attaining its supreme complexity on the Somme, left the human machine between walls of shell fire to fight it out individually against the human machine, in a contest of will, courage, audacity, alertness and resource, man to man. "Advance, Australia!" is the Australian ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... thrust at him with spears to sate their rage. There was among them no sword so good but had Sir Gawain held it, and smote with it three such blows as he was oft wont to deal with his own, it had broken, or bent, and profited them no whit. But of those things which had stood him in good stead many a time before, when he was hard beset, his good steed, and his sword, the which was a very haven, of these was he ...
— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston
... you begin to form the habit when you touch your lips to any sort of intoxicating drink the first time. I have drank the sparkle and foam, and the gall and wormwood of all liquors. Do you envy me the horrors through which I have passed? You know how to avoid them. Never touch liquor. If you are bent on going to hell and destruction, choose a nearer and more honorable way by blowing your brains out ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... tree-tops, no more hunting of the beetle in stripes; food more delicate was needed now, and he found it among the brakes that grew in clumps all about under my window. It was curious to see him searching, hopping upon a stalk which bent very much with his weight, peering eagerly inside; then on another, picking off something; then creeping between the stems, going into the bunch out of sight, and reappearing with his mouth full; then flying off to his home. This bird was peculiarly marked, so that I knew him. ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller |
