"Unstrung" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... creatures so general a malevolence, that her consistent and superlative wickedness cowed and paralysed them. The enigma grew more horrible every day and night, and they felt, or fancied, a sort of influence stealing over them which benumbed their faculty of resistance, and altogether unstrung their nerves. ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... room to room, describing one, explaining another, and apologizing for a third, but all the while trying to break down her guard, only to find, as they returned to the point at which they started, that he had failed. It was with nerves all unstrung, and with a lack of self-command he would have been, in his saner senses, the first to condemn, that he strode up at last and rapped sharply at the door of ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... thy name appears, The weeping verse a sad memento bears; Ah! what avail'd the enormous blaze between Thy dawn of glory and thy closing scene! When sinking nature asks our kind repairs, Unstrung the nerves, and silver'd o'er the hairs; When stay'd reflection came uncall'd at last, And gray experience counts ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... though she could not help smiling at the source from whence it came, for Mac sent her a Cupid not the chubby child with a face of naughty merriment, but a slender, winged youth leaning on his unstrung bow, with a broken arrow at his feet. A poem, "To Psyche," came with it, and Rose was much surprised at the beauty of the lines, for, instead of being witty, complimentary, or gay, there was something nobler than mere sentiment in them, and the sweet old fable lived again in language which ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... has happened him. No, I'm really too unstrung by my fall to walk." She sank again to the bowlder on which she had ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... and unstrung the bow, putting it away in its niche. But from the same place he produced a ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... else is there to think? You saw where the arrow came from. You saw that the only bow the place contained was hanging high and unstrung upon the wall, and you are witness to this woman's irresponsible condition of mind. The sight of those arrows well within her reach evidently aroused the homicidal mania often latent in one of her highly ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... very pulse of living could be felt. Ab carried his new weapon proudly, hungering for the love and admiration of this girl of his, and eager to show her its powers and to exhibit his own skill. At his back hung his quiver of mammoth bone. His bow, unstrung, was in his hand. In front of the cave was a bare area of many yards in extent, then came a few scattering trees and, at a distance of perhaps two hundred yards, the forest began. Across the open space ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... to mind a more powerful lecture on temperance, than the silent pantomime of a man trying to hang his plug hat on an invisible peg in his own hall, after he had been watching the returns, a few years ago. I saw that he was excited and nervously unstrung when he came in, but I did not fully realize it until he began to hang his hat on ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... in believing that my nerves were all unstrung. Trifles that would not have cost me a second thought at other times weigh ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... young man's nerves were quite unstrung as he put spurs to his horse for a rush by the object of his fright. As he dashed past, his hair almost bristling with apprehension, the supposed phantom leaped upon the back of the horse and clasped the frightened man about his waist. His apprehensions ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... of his selfish soul; Let Freedom perish, if, to Freedom true, In the same ruin Wilkes may perish too. With all the symptoms of assured decay, With age and sickness pinch'd and worn away, 420 Pale quivering lips, lank cheeks, and faltering tongue, The spirits out of tune, the nerves unstrung, Thy body shrivell'd up, thy dim eyes sunk Within their sockets deep, thy weak hams shrunk, The body's weight unable to sustain, The stream of life scarce trembling through the vein, More than half kill'd by honest truths which fell, Through thy own fault, from men who wish'd thee well— Canst ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... a memory!" For she could play the banjo, and it appeared that she must have said so to Francis in those first days. "He must have dashed home and made out lists every night!" she concluded as she dragged it out. It was unstrung, but new strings lay near it, coiled in their papers. And under the papers, so like them that he had forgotten to destroy it, lay a ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... "Don't you see, I am sick with an infernal cold," he said. "Got it tramping in the rain without my overcoat, and that fight I told you of has unstrung me. It was a regular battle. But you go yourself, and perhaps Eloise will come to see me. I shall show her the Colonel's confession, and she can do as she ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... and these minutes were precious, for they afforded time for Captain Montague and his officers to cut their way to the spot where he fought, just as a murderous club was about to descend on his head from behind. Montague's sword unstrung the arm that upheld it, and the next instant the pastor was ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... the coming evil, possibly close at hand, ought to make a serious effort to become so. She found herself, even at this early hour of the day, tired with the strain of a misgiving that an earthquake was approaching; and as those who have lived through earthquakes become unstrung at every slightest tremor of the earth's crust beneath them, so she felt that the tension begun with that recurrence of two days ago had grown and grown, and threatened to dominate her mind, to the exclusion of all else. Every little thing, ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... the deepest philosophy, and most profound wisdom; yet speaks the language of the heart, touching the secret spring of every sense and feeling. Here we have no ideal exaltation of character, but life with its blended faults and virtues,—a gentle nature unstrung by passing events, and thus rendered "out of tune ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... and for a long time in the Dutch colonies. Here for a while absolutely no coin was in circulation, and wampum being the feasible substitute was universally adopted. So great was the popular demand, that even the unstrung wampum, prohibited in the eastern colonies, passed at but a trifling discount.[50] For many years the easy-going government at New Amsterdam does not seem to have regulated the currency by law, as did its more thorough neighbors, and ...
— Wampum - A Paper Presented to the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society - of Philadelphia • Ashbel Woodward
... the Church were right, and there was a resurrection, her soul was lost. She took up the book and read till her fears became so intense that she could read no more, and she walked up and down the room, her nerves partially unstrung. In the evening she talked a great deal and rapidly, apparently not quite aware of what she was saying, or else her face wore a brooding look; sometimes it awakened a little, and then her eyes were fixed ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... left him not, till penitence had won Lost favour back again, and closed the breach. But Discipline, a faithful servant long, Declined at length into the vale of years; A palsy struck his arm, his sparkling eye Was quenched in rheums of age, his voice unstrung Grew tremulous, and moved derision more Than reverence in perverse, rebellious youth. So colleges and halls neglected much Their good old friend, and Discipline at length, O'erlooked and unemployed, fell sick and died. Then study languished, emulation slept, And virtue ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... being in life and death simultaneously. That these trials surpassed any that had hitherto ruffled the noiseless tenor of our way was a truism. But coming at a moment when our nerves were sufficiently unstrung by the dearth of tonics, they were doubly enervating. Stomachal grievances were forgotten, and few ventured to desert the imaginary security of their homes to face the risks the redress of grievances would entail. Thus did the hours ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... brightness on the earth. The stillness was positively oppressive. Rose felt as if every time she inhaled the air, she disturbed the death-like quiet of the scene. A huge shadow passed along the ledge of the opposite cottage; her nerves were so unstrung that she started back as it advanced. It was only their own gentle cat, whose quick eye recognised its mistress, and without waiting for invitation, crawled quickly from its eminence, and came rubbing itself against the glass, ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... nearly so confident as his actions seemed to imply. In fact, before he reached his destination, he heartily wished himself back again, and by the time he arrived at the point where the enemy was expected his nerves were completely unstrung. It was not the fright of cowardice that unmanned him, but rather the terror of responsibility. Again and again he had braved death in battle but now, for the first time, the safety of an entire regiment depended solely upon him as he approached the summit of the hill from which ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... when they were both in the house. What did such a departure from established habits mean? Had she received her notice of dismissal? Had Lady Janet's quick intelligence found its way already to a suspicion of the truth? Mercy's nerves were unstrung. She trembled pitiably as ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... was too easily touched. There are many politicians in every epoch whose principles grow slack and flaccid at the approach of the golden sun of royalty. Barnave was one of those who was sent to bring back the fugitive King and Queen from Varennes, and the journey by their side in the coach unstrung his spirit. He became one of the court's clandestine advisers. Men of this weak susceptibility of imagination are not fit for times of revolution. To be on the side of the court was to betray the cause of the nation. We cannot take too much pains to realise that ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... length By no man's arrow reach'd; I fear no foil 280 From the Phaeacians, save in speed alone; For I have suffer'd hardships, dash'd and drench'd By many a wave, nor had I food on board At all times, therefore I am much unstrung. He spake; and silent the Phaeacians sat, Of whom alone Alcinoues thus replied. Since, stranger, not ungraceful is thy speech, Who hast but vindicated in our ears Thy question'd prowess, angry that this youth Reproach'd thee in the presence of us all, 290 That no man qualified to give his ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... the street and passed closed by me. The light of a passing lamp just brushed the flying horseman; not enough to discover him, but enough to lift my heart into my mouth. I could not tell whether it were Mr. Thorold; I cannot tell what I saw; only my nerves were unstrung in a moment, and for the rest of that night I tossed with impatient pain. The idea of being so near Mr. Thorold, was more than I could bear. One other time, in a crowd, I heard a bit of a laugh which thrilled me. My efforts to see the person from whom it came were good for nothing; nobody like ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... parents do not think of themselves so much as they do of them.... That is not practical. I did not get spoiled, and did not grow obstinate (both these things happen with only children), but my nerves were unstrung before their time; in addition to which I was of rather feeble health—I took after my mother, to whom I also bore a great facial resemblance. I shunned the society of lads of my own age; in general, ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... boar-skin was thrown across his broad shoulders. Altogether, he seemed to his visitor the very personification of ferocity. A huge bow, ready strung, leaned against his hut. As Bladud advanced with his own bow unstrung, the man apparently scorned to take it up, but he grasped and leaned upon a staff ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... it lack the rare sentiment of that beautiful story; with more detail and consistency, if with less variety, than the history of Gudrun and her lovers in the Laxdaela; and more a work of art than that, or than the unstrung gems of Eyrbyggja, and the great compilation of Snorri Sturluson, the History of ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... adjust the straps about his body, three men burst into loud sobs and rushed from the room, bitterly denouncing the electrocution as savagery, and refusing to witness the proceedings any further. With the exception of the condemned man, everybody was completely unstrung. But John Convert, in the shadow of death, did not lose his wonderful self-control for a moment, but sat with perfect equipoise in that murderous chair, calmly watching with apparent interest the work of fastening him in. "'You have that strap around the abdomen ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... sister discussing, almost wildly she thought, the possibility of a bird's flying against such a gale; and after everyone else had settled down again for the night she could hear Ellen pacing the floor of the living-room. Poor Ellen, thought the girl, she was all unstrung over Shane's accident and frightened at the ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... I got back and my nerves were rather unstrung, what with wandering from the path here and there, with nothing to eat since morning, and running into a tree and taking the skin off my nose. When I limped into camp at last, I didn't care whether Percy lived or died, and ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... building again. There was wine. Over the balcony rail, they watched the Pasig running wickedly below; and across, stretching away to where the stars lay low in the rim of the horizon, the wet teeming rice-lands brooded in the night-mist.... The piano, which had seemed unstrung from the voyage, as he passed through the house, sounded but faintly now through several shut doors. The ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... unstrung by excitement, by the strain of her trying labor, by the loneliness of her life, uncertain, misunderstood, perhaps, as it was. I wondered if she could be more unhappy than I myself, if life could offer her less than it did to me. ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... disease produced upon him. At first he could not be persuaded to be quiet; the muscular energies were still unaffected, and, with continual hemorrhage from the lungs, he could not understand that work or exercise could hurt him. But as the disease gained ground, its characteristic languor unstrung his force; the hard and sinewy limbs became attenuated and relaxed; his breath labored; a hectic fever burnt in his veins like light flame every afternoon, and subsided into chilly languor toward morning; profuse night-sweats increased the weakness; and as he grew feebler, offering ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... ten minutes she can talk to you. Not now. But have no fear, sir. She is perfectly safe and—barring her wound, which will probably heal almost without a scar—is as well as ever. A little nervous and unstrung, of course, but ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... the option and waited. He waited in the overpowering heat, amid the low humming of bees. The minutes passed; there was neither sound among the vines nor footstep beside him; and so, with head bent and eyes streaming and head aching and nerves unstrung and conscience clamoring reproachfully, he turned and ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... proposal with a sudden realization of what a desperately brutal thing this unstrung creature was about to do, with a terrible arraignment of self-reproach because she had made no effort to dissuade him or place an obstacle in the way of accomplishing his design. It was not strange, thought she, with a revulsion of self-loathing, ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... changed her dress, and put on her walking things, more than half inclined all the time to press her mother to go with them. She was a little unstrung and tremulous, pursued by a feeling that she was somehow letting herself go, behaving disloyally and indecorously towards whom?—towards Aldous? But how, or why? She did not know. But there was a curious sense of lost bloom, lost dignity, combined with an odd wish that Mr. Wharton ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and when the clouds cleared some of his batteries on new positions were ready to join the diabolical concert that went on at intervals until dark. The concert, however, was mere sound and firing signifying nothing—except in its effect on nerves already unstrung—as we had no serious casualties that day. And the next brought peace, for the Boers do not willingly fight on Sunday, and we have no reasons at present for provoking them to a breach of the tacitly-recognised ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... been patronized by a few stout-hearted individuals, who had subscribed a small capital, in shares, I think, of six pounds Pennsylvania currency; but this last disaster so staggered their faith and unstrung their nerves, that they never again had the hardihood to make other contributions. Indeed, they already rendered themselves the subjects of ridicule and derision for their temerity and presumption in giving countenance ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... in the middle!" old lady Chia exclaimed. "These women have never known what good manners mean. Put the table down." Saying this, she picked up the cash, and loosening the knots, she unstrung them and piled ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... you?" Tarrano's voice simulated sudden alarm; he scuffled his feet on the floor. The men jumped with fright; nerves unstrung, ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... died, and who wanted, by transcribing Mozart's score, to pass it off as his own composition—and this he actually did after the composer's death. Poor Mozart, in the weak state of health in which he now was, with nerves unstrung and over-excited brain, was strangely impressed by this visit, and soon the fancy took firm possession of him that the messenger had arrived with a mandate from the unseen world, and that the "Requiem" he was to write ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... was sent to take the rattles from the snake, and the men drew apart, with Alf and Fred, to discuss the adventure, for it was tacitly agreed that it would be unwise to talk about snakes to those whose nerves were already unstrung at the thought of such fearful neighbors. Dr. Marvin would have gone with Lumley had not his wife interposed. As it was, he had much to say concerning the habits and character of the reptiles, to which the boys listened with awe. ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... source was light, without a blot; No moment of unkindness shrouding, No speck of anger overclouding: An awful and a sweet controul, A rainbow arching o'er the soul; A soothing, tender thrill, which clung Around the heart, while, all unstrung, The thought was still, and ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... So, wading and swimming, he gained the little dry knoll in the centre of which stood an enormous bean-tree, and there, a long way up, was the "bees' nest." With a piece of cane from a creeping palm and a stone tomahawk he slowly ascended the tree, for he was weak and his nerves unstrung. But he joyed when he reached the "bees' nest," for it was large and full of honey and brood comb—a feast in prospect for the whole camp. Then, as he set to work to chop out the comb, he heard, to his astonishment, voices ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... it would be dangerous. Your health is weak, your nerves unstrung. That elixir is a powerful vivifying tonic, acting with great rapidity on the entire system, and rushing through the veins with the swiftness of ELECTRICITY. I am accustomed to it; it is my daily medicine. But I was brought to it by slow, and almost imperceptible degrees. A single ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... way Anstice would have deemed it his duty to scoff at such superstition; but to-night, his nerves unstrung, by the happenings of the last few days, his bodily vigour at a low ebb, his mind a chaos of miserable, hopeless memories and fears, Chloe's words woke a quite unexpected response ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... no condition to meet the other girls to-night, dear. They cannot understand your feelings, and, without meaning to be unkind or curious, would ask questions which it would embarrass you to answer. You are nervous and unstrung, so lie down on my couch and I will see that your dinner is brought up. I shall say to the other girls that you are not feeling well, and that it would be better not to disturb you." Then, going into her bedroom, ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... charged me fifty cents a pound for onions when I had the scurvy at Atlanta.' Another said, 'He beat me out of my wages playing draw poker with a cold deck, and the aces up his sleeve. Let us hang him.' By this time Pa's nerves got unstrung and began to hurt him, and he said he wanted to go home, and when we got around the corner he tore off his badges and threw them in the sewer, and said it was all a man's life was worth to be a veteran now days. ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck
... his else solitary kingdom. It was a sort of tame familiarity, a perfect indifference to the approach of strangers, such as I never noticed in other children. I accounted for it partly by their nerveless, unstrung state of body, incapable of the quick thrills of delight and fear which play upon the lively harp-strings of a healthy child's nature, and partly by their woful lack of acquaintance with a private home, and their being therefore destitute of the sweet ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... a brave man; ordinarily his nerves were of steel; but to be at the mercy of some unknown and nameless horror, to be unable to defend himself—it was these things that almost unstrung him, for at best he was only human. To stand in the open, even with the odds all against him; to be able to use his fists, to put up some sort of defense, to inflict punishment upon his adversary—then he could face death with a smile. ...
— Out of Time's Abyss • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... already, and Ezra, with his hands folded behind him, paced twice or thrice along the room. Pausing before one of the green baize bags, he lifted it from its nail, and having untied the string that fastened it, he drew forth with great tenderness an unstrung violin, and, carrying it to the light, sat down and turned it over and over in his hands. Then he took the neck with his left hand, and, placing the instrument upright upon his knee, caressed it with ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... it for this the Spanish maid, aroused, Hangs on the willow her unstrung guitar, And, all unsexed, the anlace hath espoused, Sung the loud song, and dared the deed of war? And she, whom once the semblance of a scar Appalled, an owlet's larum chilled with dread, Now views the column-scattering bayonet jar, The falchion flash, and o'er the yet warm dead Stalks ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... when the pale shadow spoke; For there was striving in its piteous tongue, To speak as when on earth it was awake, And Isabella on its music hung: Languor there was in it, and tremulous shake, As in a palsied Druid's harp unstrung; And through it moaned a ghostly under-song, Like hoarse night gusts sepulchral ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... "Mr. Lund is unstrung," said the captain. "He is under the delusion that we deliberately deserted him and, later, found the gold he speaks of. The first charge is nonsense. We did all that was possible in the frightful weather. We barely ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... who were thoroughly at ease. Barclay and Natalie, unstrung by the events of the day, ate little and talked listlessly. Dorothy, victim to an inward excitement which was half happiness and half disappointment, chattered feverishly. Rathbawne was wrapped in his own thoughts, and his wife, innocently ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... strife and the tumult, Pain, and the shadow of pain, sorrow in silence endured; Fighting, at last I have fallen, and sought the breast of the Mother,— Quite cast down I have crept close to the broad sweet earth. Lo, out of failure triumph! Renewed the wavering courage, Tense the unstrung nerves, steadfast the faltering knees Weary no more, nor faint, nor grieved at heart, nor despairing, Hushed in the earth's green lap, lulled ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... and yet failed to explain. To his urgent plea to be told the cause of her fright and distress she could give no intelligible reply. "Oh, I don't know. I heard noises, or voices, or something. I was all—all unstrung, I suppose. You—you talked to me so strangely, so cruelly the other night, and I've—I've been thinking of it all day—all day, and when you went away—and didn't come back, I—I thought all sorts of things. I supposed you'd gone there, you know where,—to ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... quietly, "I don't think you are 'playing good;' I don't positively. I believe you are thoroughly in earnest, but I think you have been through some very severe scenes of late, sickness and watching, and death, and your nerves are completely unstrung. I don't wonder at your state of feeling, but you will get over it in a little ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... The iron nature, so long overwrought, now utterly unstrung, had yielded for the first time to the stress of nature and of events. The relief from what he had taken to be death had come swiftly, and the reaction brought a lethal calm of its own. If he had indeed recognized the face of the woman who had touched him with her hand, it was as though ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... stay in the turmoil, and abruptly left his father's home. Going to town he obtained a boarding-place and settled down to work. This course again failed to bring the desired results; and he found himself as restless and unstrung as when he was at home. He was not happy, could not feel he was doing his duty, and carried about with him an atmosphere of despondency that gave his friends alarm. They sympathized with him in his difficulties, but none could help him. He was face to face with his opposing giant and must ...
— The Hero of Hill House • Mable Hale
... and brushed tears from her eyes; the struggle had unnerved her. Very helplessly against her swayed the man she had laughed at half an hour before. And he had been crushed saving her! But that was not why the tears came—not at all. She was unstrung. "And he's got grit," she kept muttering to herself; "he has ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... that there was no philosophy which he could heartily adopt, he replied that philosophies do not subsist in order to be adopted. A Thomist or a Cartesian seemed to him as a captive, or a one-armed combatant. Prizing metaphysicians for the unstrung pearls which they drop beyond the seclusion of system, he loved the disjecta membra of Coleridge, and preferred the Pensieri, and Parerga und Paralipomena to the constructed work of Gioberti and Schopenhauer. He knew Leibniz chiefly in his letters, ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... of rage in the Texan's eyes, Newt Copley was not at all disposed to repeat the trick with him. Apparently Grant's nerves had been somewhat unstrung, for when the game was again resumed he missed one of Sanger's shoots by something like a foot, and the second strike was called by the umpire. Then Rod smiled; it was barely a faint flicker, but Sanger saw it and wondered. His wonderment ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... Unstrung, unmanned, almost bereft of reason, his old dissatisfaction with himself and the world overtook him—a longing to be out of it all, for forgetfulness, for peace, yea, even the ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... before we could resume the pursuit. Every minute seemed an age, as we well knew that the tiger would thus gain time to devour his prey. Probably I was less agitated than the natives, but I freely and gladly admit that I have never had my nerves more unstrung than on that occasion, though I have been in much greater peril. We searched through several clumps of bushes, and examined several thickets, in the hope of finding where the tiger had concealed himself. The ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... first—it's her third. Old Schafer told me, yesterday, his wife simply 'dropped' her fourth. Anna ought to have had a qualified nurse. Mother gives way to her. Mother spoils her. I wonder what she meant by saying I'd worried Anna yesterday. Nice remark to make to a husband at a time like this. Unstrung, I ...
— In a German Pension • Katherine Mansfield
... ails me to-night," said he, "my nerves are unstrung. I will leave you, for I need rest myself. I shall start to-morrow morning before you are up, and ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... and asked me if I had a match. I had none; but there was a small fire under my frying-pan, and I brought him a coal on a chip. Miss Imogen, when she saw the coal on the chip, began to laugh again. That embarrassed me. My nerves were already unstrung, and my trembling fingers unfortunately spilled the burning ember just as the old gentleman was about to stoop over it with his cigar. It fell between his knees, onto the head of the keg, rolled over, and dropped plumb through the bung-hole ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... to her in a low tone I do not know how long. Her ill-nature had quickly vanished; she was, in her way, provoking, charming. I was sitting close to her. The moonlight played upon her daring, wilful face through the leaves of the grape-vines. It was unpremeditated; my nature was, most probably, unstrung at the instant by ungratified longings for Georgiana; but suddenly I ...
— Aftermath • James Lane Allen
... the mesa, the storm had increased to a steady dull roar of rushing rain. He hesitated to face the open and reined up beneath a spruce. He was drenched and shivered. The fever of drink had died out leaving him unstrung and strangely fearful of the night. His horse stood with lowered head, its storm-blown mane whipping in the wind like a wet cloth. A branch riven from a giant pine crashed down behind him. Corliss jerked upright in the saddle, and the horse, obeying the accidental touch of the spurs, plodded out ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... and Lord Reggie fitfully took part; and after tea had been munched with trembling delight in the largest of the tents, and more games had been got through, Mr. Smith distributed small presents to all the children, some of whom were quite unstrung by the effort they had to make not to seem too happy in the presence of "the quality." The curate then took his leave, as he was obliged to visit a sick parishioner, and, as the sun was evidently on the point of beginning ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... the frauds, which forged in his black breast, Come forth so white and silvery from his tongue, My potency he soon shall prove; nor rest To banquet on the blood of hearts by him unstrung, ...
— Zophiel - A Poem • Maria Gowen Brooks
... heart went round, and he was forced to drain them in honor of the Master. An inward shivering disjointed his members, unstrung his nerves, heart and frame fainted into weakness, a dew cold as death covered his temples, and his head fell wearily upon his breast—the walls, the floors, the ceilings, the men, the burning urns, danced, reeled, and tottered in wild confusion before him. The murmuring voices, the buzz of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... Gabriella," were the first words he uttered. "If my nerves are all unstrung, how will yours sustain the shock? He told me not to bring you, that your presence would only aggravate ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... perish:" and he drew back his arm to give vigour to the fatal stroke, when an arrow from the bow of the brave boy pierced his breast, and he fell insensible at his sister's side. A moment after Garanga was in the arms of her husband, and Louis, with his bow unstrung, bounded from the shore, and was received in his father's canoe; and the wild shores rung with the acclamations of the soldiers, while his father's tears were poured like rain upon ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... writes in July, 1831] except more life, more spirit! I often feel unstrung, but sometimes as merry as I used to be at home. When I am sad I go to Madame Szaszek's; there I generally meet several amiable Polish ladies who with their hearty, hopeful words always cheer me up, so that ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... oh! how oft by sorrow overborne, By care oppressed, or bitter malice wrung, By friends betrayed, or disappointment torn, My weary heart, all sickened and unstrung— ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich
... he, 'converse with thee may not content me nor gazing upon thee assuage the fire of my heart, nor will the love of thee, that hath mastered my soul, leave me, but with the passing away of my life.' So saying, he wept and the tears ran down upon his cheeks, like unstrung pearls. When Shemsennehar saw him weep, she wept for his weeping; and Aboulhusn exclaimed, 'By Allah, I wonder at your plight and am confounded at your behaviour; of a truth, your affair is amazing and your case marvellous. If ye weep thus, what while ye are yet together, how will ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... and the stars, she lay down to rest, if not to sleep. The darkness did not keep her from seeing the prostrate figure of Kells. He lay there as silent as if he were already dead. She was exhausted, weary for sleep, and unstrung. In the night her courage fled and she was frightened at shadows. The murmuring of insects seemed augmented into a roar; the mourn of wolf and scream of cougar made her start; the rising wind moaned like a lost spirit. Dark fancies beset her. Troop on troop of specters moved ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... from the male both in the diseases it is subject to and in its capacity or non-capacity of recovery. The bracing effect of toil, exercise, and open air gives firmness and tone to the male; the female is soft and unstrung from its sheltered existence, and pale with anaemia, deficient caloric and excess of moisture. It is consequently, as compared with the male, open to infection, exposed to disease, unequal to vigorous treatment, and, in particular, liable to mania. With their emotional, ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... needna upset ma glass of auld Madeira in yer mickle fright, for I've seen the time when ye ha' laughed at the music in the report of a peestol and the ping of a bullet! But your nervous seestem seems to be unstrung ever since the sma' French dancing count untied the string o' your ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... to sleep as unto soothing dreams. What terrors could its darkness hold for him, Familiar with all anguish, but with fear Still unacquainted? On his martial bier They laid a sword, a helmet, and a crown— Meed of the warrior, but not these among His voiceless lyre, whose silent chords unstrung Shall wait—how long?—for touches ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... He was thoroughly unstrung. The cold, desperate mood had passed. In its place came the old feeling of desolation. He was a child, aching for sympathy. He wanted to tell his troubles. Punctuating his narrative with many gestures and an occasional ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... him to consider the conditions that distressed the Court of Graustark. Not at all. He was a grand duke and he would take his own time in paying his respects. What cared he that every one in the Castle was tired and unstrung and sad and—sleepy? Any one but a grand duke would have waited a day or two before requiring a royal audience. When he finally presented himself at the Castle doors, a sleepy group of attendants ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... him," replied Japhet, who seemed quite unstrung by all that he had gone through. "All I know is that the prophecy is fulfilled, and Harmac has come to Mur, and where Harmac goes ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... of an owl outside made Joyce start nervously. She was unstrung and superstitious—the fun of the game died in her, and she felt weak and nauseated. She spoke as if she wanted to finish the matter and have done ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... felt wet. The deuce, what was that? He rubbed them angrily, but they were wet the next moment again. Here, here they had driven last summer—only a few months ago—with hay and flowers on the wagon, and had been so gay. And now? His lips trembled, he felt unstrung. At last he had really seen that things ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... went straight to Sara, and took the poor, unstrung little bundle of nerves into her arms, her very touch, both firm and gentle, bringing comfort to the half-crazed girl. She did not say much of anything, only kissed her and wept with her; but soon the violence of Sara's grief was subdued, ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... nerves are terribly unstrung; or you wouldn't be ready to jump out of your skin at the sound of ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... did not dare to leave the shelf unwatched, even to run downstairs to ring the bell. Morton the butler often used to come round about eleven to see that the windows were fastened, but he might not come. Eustace was thoroughly unstrung. At last he heard ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... you did right, after all—at least, you thought you did. I am sure of that. I do not know why I was so angry at you. I am unstrung, and nervous, I suppose. Did I say very dreadful things to you, dear? I do ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... my will had to capitulate to Unreason—that unscrupulous usurper. My previous five years as a neurasthenic had led me to believe that I had experienced all the disagreeable sensations an overworked and unstrung nervous system could suffer. But on this day several new and terrifying sensations seized me and rendered me all but helpless. My condition, however, was not apparent even to those who worked with me at the same desk. I remember trying ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... put outside the room, and went to her own apartments astonished and frightened. The young wife had hardly left the room when Madame Desvarennes suffered the reaction of the emotion she had just felt. Her nerves were unstrung, and falling on a chair she remained immovable and humbled. Was it possible that her daughter, her adored child, would abandon her to obey the grudges of her husband? No, Micheline, when back in her ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... feet—he found it exceedingly difficult to keep his balance. Had he been on the ground, there would have been no difficulty about it; but, perched as he was full twenty-feet aloft, the thing was quite different; and, with nerves unstrung by the fearful danger that threatened him below, it was just as much as he could do to keep ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... switch off onto the trivial piece of paper had braced her unstrung nerves for a final effort: that, and the terror of ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... soul. The music, that distant, mellow phrasing of the call of love, the music had unstrung him. While he paced the bridge before her coming that music had been melting the ice of his natural reserve. But he did not pardon himself because he ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... not heartily. He felt that this marble ship was a conception of high humor and was not without its pathetic element. The whimsicality of the idea amused him, but the sad earnestness of the nervous, unstrung visionary at his side ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... "You're all unstrung, but this brandy will help you—if you don't object to a swallow of it. Then come right in here and lie down for a moment and you'll be all right." She spoke with such genuine kindness and sympathy that Helen flashed a grateful glance at her. She was tall, slender, and ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... harps, unstrung, At Babylon upon the willows hung; Yours sounds aloud, and tells us you excel No less in courage, than in singing well; While, unconcern'd, you let your country know They have impoverish'd themselves, not you; 10 Who, with the Muses' help, can mock those fates Which threaten ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... drugged: that craving was not yet known to him. But the habitual intemperance had exacted even from his iron constitution its forfeit of shakiness in the morning, and the rare sobriety left the man suffering and unstrung. ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... each stream, quick with Promethean flame, Peopled the world with imaged grace and light. The lyre was his, and his the breathing might Of the immortal marble, his the play Of diamond-pointed thought and golden tongue. Go seek the sun-shine race, ye find to-day A broken column and a lute unstrung. ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... proofs for this edition of the 'Precieuses Ridicules,' when he first discovered "what a labour it is to publish a book, and how GREEN (NEUF) an author is the first time they print him." Or it may be that Campanella turned over, with hands unstrung, and still broken by the torture, these leaves that contain his passionate sonnets. Here again is the copy of Theocritus from which some pretty page may have read aloud to charm the pagan and pontifical leisure of Leo X. This Gargantua is the counterpart of that which the ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... he went on, "her nerves are completely unstrung. She seems to have been under a great mental strain and her surroundings are not—" He paused, and then added, "Is the young lady a ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... had tinned things, and the former some cake, which by tea-time that afternoon—so appallingly soon does the spoiled child of town get down to fundamentals—seemed an almost immoral luxury. But the luckless fifty, already unstrung by the worry of the last forty-eight hours, fed on salt sea air, and it was not until sundown that one of the British came to ask what should be done. Philip dug into his corned beef and what was left of the bread, and so we curled up ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... down the bow, that hung within Its shining case, and sat her down, and laid The case upon her knees, and, drawing forth The monarch's bow, she wept aloud. As soon As that new gush of tears had ceased to fall, Back to the hall she went, and that proud throng Of suitors, bearing in her hand the bow Unstrung, and quiver, where the arrows lay Many and deadly. Her attendant maids Brought also down a coffer, where were laid Much brass and steel, provided by the king For games like these. The glorious ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... made no reply. There was an arduous task before him, and his nerves were unstrung. After he had unfastened the end of the rope and passed it to Ram, who did not secure the end about him, but the middle, after he had nearly drawn it tight, so that, if he did slip, the fall would not be so long. Then reluctantly, but feeling that it must be ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... days that was the last heard, by the garrison, at least, of these most recent captives of the Sioux. Gentle and sympathetic women, however, who called on Mrs. Hay, were prompt to note that though unnerved, unstrung, distressed, she declared again and again her faith that the Indians would never really harm her husband. They might hold him and Nanette as hostages for ransom. They might take for their own purposes his wagon, his mules and that store ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... portion of the new moon—and, the power shut off, they felt themselves falling toward it with sickening speed. Perkins screamed with mad fear and flung himself grovelling upon the floor. Margaret, her nerves still unstrung, clutched at her heart with both hands. Dorothy, though her eyes looked like great black holes in her white face, looked DuQuesne in the ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... he looked like a man who is suddenly confronted with some fearful difficulty. And when Bryce, having looked long enough to satisfy his wishes, coughed gently, he started in such a fashion as to suggest that his nerves had become unstrung. ...
— The Paradise Mystery • J. S. Fletcher
... a stand at my tent door. At the same time I tried to show by signs that I could, if I liked, kill two or three of them, but that I was ready for peace if they were. At last I lowered my rifle from my shoulder, and they unstrung their bows and advanced with outstretched hands towards me. Knowing their treacherous character, however, of course I could not depend on them. I bethought me that the best way to win their friendship was ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... cry of Fouchette seemed yet to linger in the misty morning air, thrilling the distant ear, vibrating upon the unstrung nerves of the outcasts beneath the far-away bridges, borne upon the surface of the waters, when it was answered out of the darkness by a ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... thrown in his path through life, no matter how high or how steep the mountain may be, but which often forsakes him the moment the summit is gained, the point of difficulty passed, and leaves him prostrated, with energies gone, nerves unstrung, and a feeling of incapacity pervading the entire frame that renders the most trifling ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... though in tears, with Fatal shears, Time scattered all those pearls! They fell, unstrung, old graves among; ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... he said, "of course," mopping at his forehead and so unstrung that she could have laughed. "I'm sorry. I beg your pardon. Is this where ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... are aroused. For the moment you must accept my protection, whether you wish to or not. Tomorrow"—Longorio smiled warmly, meaningly-"perhaps you will not be in such haste to refuse it, or to leave La Feria. Wait until you understand me better. Then—But enough of this. You are unstrung, you wish to be alone with your thoughts, and what I have to say can wait for a few hours. In the mean time, may I beg the hospitality of your ranch for myself ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... went in an uncertain mood to see either Sir Douglas or Sir William left with a sense of stalwart conviction. Both had the gift of simplifying any situation, however complex. When a certain general became unstrung during the retreat from Mons, Sir Douglas seemed to consider that his first duty was to assist this man to recover composure, and he slipped his arm through the general's and walked him up and down until composure had returned. Again, on the retreat from Mons Sir Douglas ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... his own equilibrium. And his constant study of the Apocalypse and the Hebraic revelations—it has filled him with strange notions. Understand me: a man who can swim in the air like a fish in the sea is apt to become unstrung. He has begun to identify himself with the prophets. He insists on showing biblical pictures,—worse still, appearing ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... parsonage, Captain Monk was softly closing the garden gate behind him—for when in sorrow we don't do things with a rush and a bang—when a whirring sound overhead caused him to start. Strong, hardened man though he was, his nerves were unstrung to-night in company with his heartstrings. It was the church clock preparing to strike twelve. The little doctor, Speck, who had left the house but a minute before, was standing at the churchyard fence close by, his arms leaning on ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... Aylward, having unstrung his bow, had remounted his horse during this conversation, and the two rode swiftly past the little squat Chapel of the Martyr and over the brow of the hill. From the summit they looked back. The injured archer lay upon the ground, ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... all probability, had he not been unstrung by the knowledge that four of his comrades were working to secure the evidence which should warrant his expulsion from the Naval Academy. Oppressed by dread, this young scoundrel was not capable of doing his best ...
— Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... it would be wiser, Alice, for you to leave Sally and me alone for a little time; she is tired and unstrung. If you and the other girls have been unfair, you will have an opportunity to apologize later. Then Sally herself will feel ...
— The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor • Margaret Vandercook
... her, "I must go, for that word 'plan' worrys me; it worrys me far more than the creek: and I see my partner is all unstrung, and I must be there to try ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... she should have forbidden it!" replied Nattie, coldly, yet looking somewhat startled. Poor Nattie's nerves were decidedly unstrung to-night. ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... I wrote thus far, a friend has come in, and we have been talking and buffooning till I have quite lost the thread of my thoughts; and, as I won't send them unstrung to you, good ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... a heroic effort to obey, but she was too late. She sneezed, and to poor Ruth's unstrung nerves, the sound was only to be compared in volume to a peal of thunder. The mysterious rustling ceased, and just outside the door ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... only to maintain her prestige to the end, and when she had got her encore for the cider song, and had been recalled before the curtain at the end of the third act, with unstrung nerves she wandered to her dressing-room, thinking of what Dick would say when they got home. But the pleasures of the evening were not over yet: there was the supper, and as she came down from her dressing-room she whispered to Montgomery in the wings that ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... near to bid adieu with heart unstrung, * While care and longing on that day her bosom wrung Wet pearls she wept and mine like red carnelians rolled * And, joined in sad riviere, around her neck ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... were unstrung, and no wonder, considering how she'd worked, and what she'd seen. Jason came vigorously to her rescue. He advised her to go off somewhere and get acquainted with herself. To drop out of things for a while, and treat herself ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... evening I hope to see you playing tennis. If you ask the cook for a screw-driver you'll probably be able to wedge open your desk easily. But in future you'll be wiser to confine your work to the preparation hours. The bow must be unstrung sometimes, or your health will suffer. If you join with the other girls at their games you'll soon get to know them, and feel more at home here. Try to be sociable and make yourself liked. Part of the training of school life ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... I whispered to Denviers, as my nerves seemed to be almost unstrung at the unknowableness ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... speak and every night the minute I get to sleep I find myself diggin' in first one outlandish place and then another. And if I'm not diggin' in my sleep, your father is, with jerks and starts and grunts enough to wake the dead. I'm all unstrung. So far as I can see the only thing we're findin' is nerves. One thing I will say: It was dull and lonesome before Mr. O'Neill came and I missed him when he went but dear knows, it was peaceful. It's been one thing right after the ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... time in discussing impossibilities. And I am really so depressed and unwell that I must return to my room. I hope to hear you are better in the morning, and I think you will be. The excitement of this night and your anxiety about the girl have unstrung your nerves, and you have lost that courage and endurance ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... that my nerves were somewhat unstrung during the days that followed. I wakened one night to a terrific thump which shook my bed, and which seemed to be the result of some one having struck the foot-board with a plank. Immediately following this came a sharp knocking on the antique bed-warmer which ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... faced the two men almost defiantly. She too had had a sleepless night. Although she herself had been physically uninjured in the accident the shock to her nerves had left her unstrung, and besides she had been bothering all through the dark hours as to how much of what had happened in the last few hours it was her duty to ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... my lord, my deepest thanks." He unstrung his bow and leaned upon the stave; a fine figure in forest green and velvet bonnet, a black mask over eyes and nose, a generous mouth and strong chin below it. "Will your worship favor me ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... the sheriff they called upon the cashier, who was in bed with his head bandaged and his nerves very much unstrung. He was much calmer, however, than when he had hysterically accused Luck of betraying him into putting the money out to be stolen. He admitted now that he was not at all sure of the voice which talked with him over the phone; indeed, now when he heard luck speak, he felt extremely doubtful ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... sheep-brown kirtle and leggings of like stuff bound about with white leather thongs; he bore a short- sword in his girdle and a little axe withal; the sword with fair wrought gilded hilts and a dew-shoe of like fashion to its sheath. He had his quiver at his back and bare in his hand his bow unstrung. He was tall and strong, very fair of fashion both of limbs and face, white-skinned, but for the sun's tanning, and ruddy-cheeked: his beard was little and fine, his hair yellow and curling, cut somewhat close, but for its length so plenteous, and so thick, that none could fail ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... your pardon,' he said for perhaps the seventh time. He was thoroughly unstrung. Always excessively shy, he was embarrassed now by quite a variety of causes. The world was full of eyes—Mrs Ford's saying 'Go!' Ogden's saying 'Fool!' the portrait saying 'Idiot!' and, finally, the eyes of this wonderfully handsome ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... chimney-piece. He hastened to obey, and found himself kneeling beside the sofa, holding the bottle to her nose. After a while she recovered sufficiently to tell him that she had not slept at all during the night, and felt extremely unwell and quite unstrung in consequence. Another fit of immoderate and tearful laughter followed, and Hyacinth, embarrassed and alarmed, fetched a tumbler of soda-water from the syphon on the sideboard. The lady refused to swallow any, and, just as he had made up his mind to risk an external application, ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... could once; and bravely, too, inspire With luscious numbers my melodious lyre. Draw I could once, although not stocks or stones, Amphion-like, men made of flesh and bones, Whither I would; but ah! I know not how, I feel in me this transmutation now. Grief, my dear friend, has first my harp unstrung, Wither'd my hand, ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... bathed, as texts ordain, To Lanka went the mourning train. Vibhishan, when his task was done, Stood by the side of Raghu's son. And Rama, freed from every foe, Unstrung at last his deadly bow, And laid the glittering shafts aside, And mail by ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI |
