"Loosening" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... reversed just before striking the frigate, her headway would have carried her clear to the opposite side of the doomed ship, and the "Cumberland," in sinking, would have carried her destroyer to the bottom with her. As it was, the "Merrimac," with a powerful wrench, drew out of the wreck she had made, loosening her iron prow, and springing a serious leak in the operation. She drew off a short distance, paused to examine the work she had done, and then, as if satisfied, started to complete the destruction of ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... life would be too hard to bear if she had to climb any stairs now; so it was very gladly that she let Mrs. O'Mara establish her in a rude chaise-longue sort of thing, facing a huge fire in a roughly built fireplace. The housekeeper bent over her, loosening knots and taking off wraps in a very comforting way. Then she surrounded her with pillows—not too many, or too much in her way—and slipped from the room to return in a moment ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... has remained very wide awake, and, observing that his guard is not over watchful, proceeds to strain stealthily upon his bonds, which, he has noticed, are not drawn quite so tight as usual. Gradually he succeeds in loosening them to such an extent that eventually he is able to free one hand. To free the other at once becomes easy, and, this done, the prisoner very cautiously raises himself sufficiently to assure himself ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... creeds and doctrines and faiths was coming over the minds of men. Social conventions were loosening, new customs and habits were becoming folk-ways. In short, society and life were growing more fluid and adaptable. The growth of property holdings created new desires and new temptations. The accumulation of large fortunes brought envy and hatred and ambition. ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow
... architectural masses, continues on either side of the main building. In Machinery Hall, on the one hand, and the Fine Arts Palace on the western side, perfect balance is again maintained. That is, however, not the end of it all. Loosening up in a very subtle way, we find cleverly arranged the buildings of the various States of the Union and of Foreign Nations on the western side of the Fine Arts Palace, while at the other extremity of the main group, ...
— The Art of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... floor, clutching with her blackened hands at her throat. Keith caught her, and lowering her gently, straightened her dress. The next moment a woman sprang out of her box and knelt beside him; a woman's arm slipped under the dancer's head, and Lois Huntington, on her knees, was loosening Terpy's bodice as if she had ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... apparent effort, and when at last a halt was called, not a man looked the least bit tired. As for Alzura and me, we were exhausted, and lay down just as we were. The Indians lit a fire, roasted some maize, and loosening our bonds, gave us a share of the food, a drink of water, and a little coca. Whether they were friends or foes we could not tell, but despite their ferocious looks they did us ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... elephants in Ceylon are what are called mucknas in India, that is, tuskless males—not one in a hundred, according to Sir Emerson Tennent, being found with tusks; nearly all, however, are provided with tushes. These, he says, he has observed them "to use in loosening earth, stripping off bark, and snapping asunder small branches and climbing plants, and hence tushes are seldom seen without a groove worn into them near their extremities." Sir Samuel Baker says that the African elephant uses his tusks in ploughing ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... waterborne themselves. Then she sags, and the strains of racking and compressing are reversed, because her centre tends to sink and her ends to rise. Now, a series of hogging and sagging strains alternately compresses and opens every resisting join in every {85} timber, with the inevitable result of loosening the whole. To meet these strains longitudinal strength must be supplied. The keel supplies much of it, so does the planking (or skin) to a lesser degree; but not enough; and the ribs, by themselves, are for transverse stiffening only. Four means are therefore employed to hold the parts ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... surprising; but that she should be willing to sacrifice herself went beyond the limits of thought. The revelation that Marion could actually love the man was so startling that it shocked her out of her timidity, loosening the strings of her eloquence and unsealing the sources of her maternal tenderness. There was nothing original in Miss Lucilla's subsequent line of argument. It was the old, oft-uttered, futile appeal to the head, ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... stood pleading for an explanation of the strange scene before him. Loosening the bell from the grasp of the dead man, the minister took the little hand, and, with a heart overflowing with emotion, set out for his cabin. It was his wish to give the hunter a Christian burial; but, for the present, ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... covered with a picture pasted to the ceiling with breadcrumbs. On the 8th of October he wrote to say that he had passed the whole night in working at the partition wall, and had only succeeded in loosening one brick. He told me the difficulty of separating the bricks joined to one another by a strong cement was enormous, but he promised to persevere, "though," he said, "we shall only make our position worse than it is now." ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... that, you are loosening the tendrils that hold you to the institution, and the first high wind that happens along, you will be uprooted and blown away in the blizzard's track—and probably you will never know why. The letter ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... you'll have to go," Ned said at last, smothering one more sob, and loosening his arms. "Take him, boy, please, quick ...
— Harper's Young People, May 25, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... frequent, they may be taken as an evidence of a poor, clay subsoil. The rain soaks through the surface; and not being able to percolate through the clay with sufficient rapidity, it lodges between the two strata, loosening the upper surface, which slides from the greasy clay; launched, as it were, by its own gravity into the ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... him, Leslie crossed the room with a quietness rare in one so roughly natured and so strongly built. But Louis had the power of winning men's affections when it so pleased him, and it was politic to win the man who held his life in care. Loosening the wick in its socket with the silver pin hanging from the lamp for that purpose, Leslie returned ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... reward. Humanity is yet on the low moral plane, where penal laws, human or divine, are the most potent forces in regulating human life. Hence the sad fact appears that when theism seems most successfully assailed we hear from many quarters ill-concealed rustlings of exultation at the welcome loosening of the bonds of morality and religion. It seems to be overlooked that a very stern theological system may be quite rationally evolved from atheistic premises; and there is now a new and very tempting field inviting some ...
— The Christian Foundation, February, 1880
... still capable of giving a musical sound. The best workmen of the present time, we are assured, could not finish a harp more exquisitely than these are finished; yet they have no mechanism for tightening or loosening the strings, and no strings except such as were furnished by the harmless, necessary cat. The Egyptian harp, with all its splendor of decoration, was a rude and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... nothing—nothing but plenty bad stink," said Moran. "No, you don't!" she exclaimed, putting herself in Hoang's way as he made for the cabin. The other beach-combers came crowding up; Wilbur even thought he saw one of them loosening his hatchet ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... was split, peel it down next, beginning at tip. Now return to the abdominal incision and neatly peel the skin from the body, in many instances using only the thumb nail for loosening it. ...
— Taxidermy • Leon Luther Pray
... Africa is sometimes cited as a precedent for loosening the bonds in the United Kingdom. It is a strong precedent for closer union. The South Africa Act, 1909, created in fact as well as in name, not a Federation but a true Legislative Union. Under the Act, the South African colonies were "united in a legislative union under one government ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... opening to get aboard unobserved," I replied, loosening as I spoke the slender rope coil from about my waist. "Nor would it be any trick if the light were a trifle better. As it is, I may miss a throw or two in getting firm hold. It would prove risky business attempting to pass across a line insecure at one end. Lie down now, ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... slowly, his head hung forward, loosening the fold of flesh about his jaw. His eyes blinked in the soft November sunshine. His eyelids were tight as though they had ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... Black Pearl, held cheap!" she muttered and raised her stag-like head superbly, "and by you! You that pick up women and drop them when you're tired of them. Me, the Black Pearl." She turned quickly and ran to her waiting horse, loosening the tether with quick, ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... wholly brute. To us remains A clean, sweet city lulled by ancient streams, A place of visions and of loosening chains, A refuge of the ...
— Spirits in Bondage • (AKA Clive Hamilton) C. S. Lewis
... pursuing her own line of thought, "something in me seems to say that that wide view, that merging of individuality, has the right idea at the root of it. It's an old strain of Puritanism in me, I suppose, that tells me anything is good which implies a loosening of individualism." ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... dances, even the spindling little shafts of romance that you shot out into it, could be felt to dig in and take hold. It never occurred to her to think of it with a plural pronoun; it was "it" simply, an inchoate monster, which was, as the show progressed, delightfully loosening up, becoming good-humored, undiscriminating, stupidly infatuate; laughing at things no human being would consider funny, approving with a percussive roar things not in the least good; a monster, all the same, whose ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... hysteria the so-called higher centres have an abnormally strong inhibitory influence over the lower centres. Gioffredi (Gazzetta degli Ospedali, October 1, 1895) has shown that some hysterical symptoms, such as mutism, can be cured by etherization, thus loosening the control of ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... against any further experiments which tend to put to the proof any more of these allowed opinions which contribute so much to the public tranquillity. In effect we suffer as much at home by this loosening of all ties, and this concussion of all established opinions as we do abroad; for in order to prove that the Americans have no right to their liberties, we are every day endeavoring to subvert the maxims which preserve the whole spirit of our own. To prove that the Americans ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke
... crumbly and mellow. The frequency with which land should be thoroughly stirred to full plow-depth depends upon the condition of the soil and the character of the crops. Oftentimes a disk or cutaway harrow may replace the plow. Its action is the same as that of the plow, loosening and turning the soil over. When land has had a good plowing within the year, and has not become compact, stirring to a depth of four inches may give a better seed-bed for some crops than could be made by use of a plow. This is true of land that has produced a cultivated crop and is ...
— Crops and Methods for Soil Improvement • Alva Agee
... trampling hoofs and shouting, Petya lashed his horse and loosening his rein galloped forward, not heeding Denisov who shouted at him. It seemed to Petya that at the moment the shot was fired it suddenly became as bright as noon. He galloped to the bridge. Cossacks were galloping along the road in front of him. On the bridge he collided with a ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... Dale shook himself free of the admiral and Margot, loosening Myra's wrist in the act, and with an angry snarl, like that of some wild beast, fixed ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... had slipped out, leaving the others astonished at his cunning. He proceeded gloriously towards the lower room, loosening a little the strings of his purse; but when he opened the blessed little door he found the lady at her functions upon the throne, like a pope about to be consecrated. Then restraining his impatience, he descended the stairs to go ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... night or two I had found it very cold, and the wind too high for tents. I may observe here, conveniently, the cold was so great in this portion of Sahara, that I never could undress myself for dread of the cold. After loosening my neckcloth and shoes, I lay down in the dress which I wore during the day. My bed was a simple mattress laid over a piece of matting, which latter was spread on the hard earth or sands of The Desert, as it might be, with a small sofa cushion for a pillow. After I had laid down the ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... and friends, and a fair prospect of a long and happy life. Sick and sorrowful and alone lay the other, her life silently ebbing away, her hold on the world and all it has to give slowly but surely loosening. Yet, in the new light which was beginning to dawn upon him, Mr Sherwood caught a glimpse of a contrast more striking still. On the couch before him lay a little suffering form, wasted and weary, soon to be hidden from ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... then?" said Caleb, loosening his hold upon the Master's cloak, and changing his didactics into a pathetic and mournful tone—"and you WILL go, for a' I have told you about the prophecy, and the dead bride, and the Kelpie's quicksand? Aweel! a wilful man maun hae his way: ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... feeding for a few days prior to farrowing of slops, free from soap or washing powders; cool food, such as wheat bran mashes, with hog tonic and regulator as prescribed on the first page of this chapter. This is loosening to the bowels and also contains mineral matter and blood purifiers which are very valuable in the ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek
... a feller doing this on my farm once," he drawled, "and it's kind of stuck in my head ever since." It had certainly stuck remarkably well, for the farmer attacked the shoe with the precision of a veteran. Loosening the lugs, and using the two strippers against each other with adroitness and strength, he quickly reached the point where he could easily ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... never afterwards forgot; namely, that both ships and sea were things that broke to pieces. He never afterwards painted a ship quite in fair order. There is invariably a feeling about his vessels of strange awe and danger; the sails are in some way loosening, or flapping as if in fear; the swing of the hull, majestic as it may be, seems more at the mercy of the sea than in triumph over it; the ship never looks gay, never proud, only warlike and enduring. The motto he chose, in the Catalogue of the Academy, for the most cheerful marine ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... foot of the northern cliff. Here, with the rope around my waist, I worked my way diagonally up along a cleft in the rock, which, like others parallel to it, marked the face of the precipice. A slip would be fatal. The loosening of a stone would give warning to the sentinel, whose slow steps I heard on the wall above me, but at last I reached a narrow ledge without accident, and standing up in the darkness, my chin was level with the top of the wall on which ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... have raised questions about the erosion of national cultures and the imposition of a flood of regulations from the EU capital in Brussels. Failure by member states to ratify the constitution or the inability of newcomer countries to meet euro currency standards might force a loosening of some EU agreements and perhaps lead to several levels of EU participation. These "tiers" might eventually range from an "inner" core of politically integrated countries to a looser ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... log-line. But Ahab can mend all. Haul in here, Tahitian; reel up, Manxman. And look ye, let the carpenter make another log, and mend thou the line. See to it. .. There he goes now; to him nothing's happened; but to me, the skewer seems loosening out of the middle of the world. Haul in, haul in, Tahitian! These lines run whole, and whirling out: come in broken, and dragging slow. Ha, Pip? come to help; eh, Pip? Pip? whom call ye Pip? Pip jumped from the whale-boat. pip's missing. let's see now if ye haven't fished him up here, fisherman. ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... apparently running in for the Cuba shore, as fast as canvass could carry him. If this was his object, we had proved too quick for him, as by casting off stays, and slacking shrouds, and, in every way we could think of, loosening the rigid trim of the little vessel, we had in a great measure recovered her sailing; so when he found he was cut off from the land, he resolutely bore up, took in his top—gallant sails, hauled up his courses, fired a gun, and hoisted his large Spanish ensign, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... struggle, he looked out upon the wilderness, and in the wilderness he felt the old, inimical Presence as he had felt it for forty years. The scars of that long combat throbbed through his consciousness. The twisting of his strong hands, the loosening of the elasticity, the humbling of the spirit, the caution that had displaced the carelessness of youth, the keenness of eye, the patience,—all these were at once the marks of blows and the spoils of victory received ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... that three or four boats were lying by the bank. Leigh chose the smallest of these and, loosening the head rope from the post to which it was fastened, took his place in her with the others. Accustomed as he was to rowing, from his childhood, he soon reached the opposite bank. Here he fastened the boat up, and struck across country until ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... humbly prostrating themselves before Lysia, kissed the ground at her feet. This done, they rose, and began to undo the fastenings of her golden, domino-like garment; but either they were slow, or the fair priestess was impatient for she suddenly shook herself free of their hands, and, loosening the gorgeous mantle herself from its jewelled clasps, it fell slowly from her symmetrical form on the perfumed floor with a rustle ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... Master?" exclaimed Savili, loosening his prisoner. "You were so good as to call Marina? But," after a pause, ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... top of the pole in the middle of the lodge. The first young man, when thus prepared, commenced dancing around the circle in a most frantic manner, pulling with all his might, so as to stretch out the rope, and by his jerking movements loosening himself by tearing out the flesh. The young man's dance was accompanied by a chant by those who were standing around, assisted by the thumping of a hideous drum, to keep the time. The young brave who ...
— Three Years on the Plains - Observations of Indians, 1867-1870 • Edmund B. Tuttle
... necessary that he should pass directly across the contemned spot, or make such a circuit as would have been inconvenient. Crossing himself, with a superstition that was interwoven with all his habits and opinions, and loosening his rapier, in order that he might not miss the succor of that good weapon at need, he moved across the heath tenanted by the despised dead, taking care to avoid the mouldering heaps of earth which lay above the bones of heretic or Jew. He had not threaded more than half the ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... languor and bluntness of the mind: for sleep is very necessary to refresh us, and yet he that would do nothing else but sleep night and day, would be a dead man and no more. There is a great deal of difference between loosening a thing, and quite unravelling it. Those who made laws have instituted holydays, to oblige people to appear at public rejoicings, in order to mingle with their cares a necessary temperament. There have been several very great men (as I have mentioned) who would set apart certain days of ...
— Ebrietatis Encomium - or, the Praise of Drunkenness • Boniface Oinophilus
... Ernshaw was getting his boots off ready for the hot-water bottle that the housekeeper was preparing. By the time the Doctor had arrived, Koda Bux's elixir had already done its work. His eyes had closed and opened again with a look of recognition in them, his jaws had relaxed and his limbs were loosening. The Doctor listened to what Ernshaw had said while he was feeling his almost imperceptible pulse and Koda was wrapping his feet up in a blanket with a ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... daddy, speak to me," he cried, loosening his father's neckcloth and unbuttoning his shirt. "Oh, quick! get better before he does," cried Billy wildly, as he shook his father and laved water on his face; "oh! he'll get well first ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... compensated for the absence of daylight, enabling us to see plainly our landmarks. We jogged along toward the spring and I sang Oh the Lone Starry Hours, Give Me Love, when I was suddenly interrupted by old Thunderbolt's pack loosening. Thunderbolt was a horse that waited for such an event with remarkable docility and when it arrived he made the best of the opportunity to get even with us for drawing the lash-rope so tight. Before I could ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... but that is because it's so cold," said Isabelle, loosening her scarf, and putting it carefully inside the ruff that encircled her slender, white neck. In a few minutes she took it out again, inhaled its rich perfume, pressed it furtively to her lips, and offered it to ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... crescendo. The whole dim, gigantic forest was roaring with sound. The tones came from all sides, from above, from the ground under their feet. It was so grandly passionate that Maskull felt his soul loosening from ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... manoeuvre, and at the third onslaught I saw to my horror that the roots were loosening. I heard some of them snap, and a crack appeared in the ground not far from the bole. Fortunately Jana never noted these symptoms, for abandoning a plan which he considered unavailing, he stood for a while swaying his trunk ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... will do this to please thee," she said, and loosening her hold of the bundle, she flung it suddenly into an empty red cart which was rattling by. "Take care of them, Shemi, thou know'st my corner ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... long-boat," and she busied herself, at once, in repairing so imminent an evil. It was far easier for the good woman to talk than to act; she became what is called "all fingers and thumbs," and in loosening the third half-hitch, she cast off the two others. At that instant, a puff of wind struck the schooner again, and the end of the painter got away from the widow, who had a last glimpse at the boat, as the vessel darted ahead, leaving its ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... heart the amusement of the scene—the assembled ladies, the attendant cavaliers; the hood-winked hawks, the ringing of their brass bells; the falconers anxiously watching the clouds for the first appearance of the bird; their skill in loosening the hoods, as, having but one hand at liberty, they used their teeth to untie the string:——And now the hoods are off, and the ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... saws, excepting their belt-axes, but as much of the work consisted of gathering and piling the lumber, and removing nails from it, there were implements enough for all. Some of the scouts worked above, loosening the boards from the roofs, while others on the ground pulled the tar-paper and nails from these and made ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... discourse concerning it. By this my mind and my wife's is much eased, for I confess I should have been troubled to have had my wife cut before my face, I could not have borne to have seen it. I had great discourse with him about my disease. He tells me again that I must eat in a morning some loosening gruel, and at night roasted apples, that I must drink now and then ale with my wine, and eat bread and butter and honey, and rye bread if I can endure it, it being loosening. I must also take once a week a clyster of his last prescription, only honey now and then instead of butter, which things ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... about half their length in the middle with elastic threads. As the pollinia are attached parallel to the disk, they stick parallel on the bee's tongue, yet she may fold up her proboscis under her head, if she choose, without inconvenience from the pollen masses, or without danger of loosening them. Now, having finished sucking the newly-opened flowers at the top of the spike, away she flies to an older flower at the bottom of another one. Here a marvellous thing has happened. The passage which, when the flower first expanded, scarcely ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... when she confided the matter to the two old people and their consent was accorded rather for her sake than their own. They felt a revivifying impetus in the thought that after their death Valeria would have a good husband to care for her, for to them the chief grief of their loosening hold on life was her inheritance ...
— Una Of The Hill Country - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... darkest days of their suffering, the farmers and labourers shouldered their troubles and their sorrows in a community of sympathy, which at least lessened their intensity. It is only with the growth of a greater independence among either class that the old friendly bonds and relationships have shown a loosening, and newer and more personal interests have tended to divide them into distinctive bodies, with separate ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... the cause was so slight that it might have brought a smile, being nothing more than a pebble rolling down the ravine, up which the fugitives had passed the day before. The stone came slowly, loosening several similar obstructions, which joined with it, the rustling increasing and continuing until all reached the bottom and lay at rest a few feet from ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... away and back to the schooner. Lovaina was sitting in her shabby surrey under the flamboyants, the Dummy at the horse's head. Lying Bill was giving orders for raising his bow anchor, and the loosening of the shore lines. McHenry and Lieutenant L'Hermier des Plantes shouted to me to come aboard. Lovaina hugged me to her capacious bosom, the Dummy stroked my back a moment, and I was off for ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... interval of leisure that followed, Mr. Gladstone was pressed, perhaps by Bishop Wilberforce, thoroughly to consider the matter. With his prepossessions, there could be little doubt that he would incline to that view of marriage, and the terms and legal effects of loosening the marriage tie, that the Council of Trent had succeeded in making the general marriage law of catholic Europe. The subject was one peculiarly calculated to interest and excite him. Religion and the church were ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... like your father's son. It was only one of my growls. I don't mind. He's one of the finest men that ever stepped, and what he says is right. But you and me, we don't want him to let these young ragamuffins off without loosening their skins a bit to ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... to answer, but no words would come, and I wanted to look hopelessly at Morgan, but I could not take my eyes off the great, grey, writhing knot which was always in motion, heaving and working, now loosening, now ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... evening, after a three days' absence, Abner Herrick returned to West Twentieth Street, bringing with him a little girl wrapped up in a shawl, and a wooden box tied with a piece of cord. He put the box on the table; and the young lady, loosening her shawl, walked to the window and sat down ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome
... and the waywardness and wanderings of our poor, unreliable natures, there come in, of course, as hindrances, all the interruptions and distractions of outside things, which work in the same direction of loosening our hold on God. If the shipwrecked sailor is not to be washed off the raft he must tie himself on to it, and must see that the lashings are reliable and the knots tight; and if we do not mean to be drifted away from God without knowing it, we ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... gods. We hear also a good deal of witches and valkyries, and of charms and magic; as an instance we may cite the fact that certain (Runic) letters were credited, as in the North, with the power of loosening bonds. It is probable also that the belief in the spirit world and in a future life was of a somewhat similar kind to what we find in Scandinavian religion. (See ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... voice ceased and she lay staring calmly upwards. From three to four o'clock the last cords were loosening. Suddenly John arose, and lifting his hand in benediction, spoke the words of the Commendatory Prayer: "O Almighty God, in whom do live the spirits of just men made perfect, after they are delivered from their earthly prison; we humbly commend the soul of this Thy servant, our ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the joy of holding a living, terrified body. I'll know the intoxication of battle! I'll prance victoriously, shaking my head to torment the bird a little, for it faints away too soon between my teeth! Terrible to see I'll gallop towards the house, singing in a strangled voice, without loosening my grip, for He must stop his scratching to admire me, and She must give chase with distracted cries: "Wicked, savage cat! Drop that bird! drop that bird!! Oh, I beg of you! It hurts me so...." Ha! She ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette
... disentanglement of a part of his personality from the rest against which Stahl had warned him. That portion of his complex personality in which resided desire and longing, matured during these many years of poignant nostalgia, was now slowly and deliberately loosening out from the parent center. It was the vehicle of his Urwelt yearnings; and the Urwelt was about to draw it forth. The Call ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... poor Hypatia, in an agony of curiosity and self-distrust, while she felt her eye quailing and her limbs loosening more and more every moment under ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... which the two double leaves, 13, 18, and 14, 17, had already been inserted.[84] Although the fourth fascicule had kept its place, it was not on this account preserved from the effects of the confusing changes caused by the loosening of the ligature, for between its two first leaves the remaining sheet of the third fascicule[85] found a place. Finally, leaf 17 becoming separated from its new environment, found a definite resting-place between 19 and 21.[86] The result of this dislocation was the utter disappearance ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... pilgrims to make ready to cross the 'dark river', the messenger gave him this token that he brought a true message, 'I have broken thy golden bowl and loosed thy silver cord.' I think I have the same token, Walter. I feel that the golden bowl is well-nigh shattered, and the silver cord of my life is loosening, and soon the last strand will be severed, and to me it is rather a matter of joy than of sorrow. I know in whom I have believed, and all is peace. Continue, my child, as you have begun in life, and should you be spared to old age you will never regret ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell
... of the ruin; and that these could not block up this staircase very far. The question is, will it be possible to clear them away? Evidently it will be frightfully dangerous work. One might manage to get one stone out, at a time, in safety. But at any moment, the loosening of one stone might bring a number of others down, with a run; and anyone on this narrow staircase would be swept away like ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... they doubtless carry a signification to you, though they are jargon in a fog to me. Some months later the government took a step upon very different motives, which incidentally had a powerful effect in loosening capital and setting it in agitation. They reduced to four per cent the Navy Five per Cents, a favorite national investment, which represented a capital of two hundred millions. Now, when men have got used ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... will ever return from the mysterious misty heights towering before him far aloft in the clouds. The pursuit of the chamois will often lead him to the narrowest boundaries between life and death, to overhanging cliffs, and across gorges where even the falling of a bit of turf or the loosening of a stone would be fatal. Up, up, the hunter must go in search of the cunning game, until lost among the cliffs, and blinded by the thick mists which appear as clouds to those in the valley below, he may often ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... soothingly. "It's all right now. I'm so sorry—so very sorry," and he patted her on the shoulder and laid his hand across her temple and hair, and pressed her head tight to his breast. Almost as suddenly she stopped sobbing and loosening herself turned ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... His self-imposed penance makes him steadfastly refuse the comparative comfort of our meagre infirmary, and it is his wish to die, where he has spent so many nights in penitential prayer. For several days, the paralysis of years has been gradually loosening its fetters, and this morning, the distressing and ghastly distortion of one side of his face almost disappeared. Though his voice is well nigh gone, it returns fitfully, and his strength seems supernatural. Fearing that you might not arrive in ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... explain a little more," he said, "what I mean by 'going on.' I think that this loosening of the ties of association that bind a man to his everyday life and his everyday self is in nine cases out of ten a loosening of the ties that bind him to everyday sanity. One common form of this detachment is the form you have in those cases of people who are ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... only his eyes were above the surface and his lungs seemed bursting for want of air. A great shark swept past him, and the wave from the big fish rolled over him. He felt his senses going, his muscles refused to respond to the call of his brain. His grasp on Dick was loosening, and the thought of this roused him to renew the struggle. To save Dick he must save himself; he must breathe; he must not exhaust himself, and above all his mind must not wander. He was so tired; for himself he would have given up the struggle and dropped into rest, but for Dick—never! ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... just added an invaluable one: I have done a service to one of the most influential men who work the elections. Like the critics, who make other men's reputations but can never make their own, he makes deputies though he never can become one. The worthy man wanted to show his gratitude without loosening his purse-strings by saying to me, 'Would you care to sit in the Chamber? I can get ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... monsieur," responded Jean, laying his iron fingers upon the hand that held me, and loosening its grip as easily as if it had been the hand of a child.—"Voila! madame, you are free. Leave Monsieur the Englishman to me, and go away into the ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... think it necessary to answer. It was no business of his, after all. He lit a cigar and leaned back in his seat, letting his eyes take their fill of indolent pleasure. In the throes of invention she had pushed back her hat, loosening the stray lock which had invited his touch the night before. After looking at it for a while he stood up and wandered ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... di-nitro-benzol. Nitro-naphthalene is also used. Nitrate of soda and sulphate of ammonium are allowed to be mixed with it. The advantages claimed for the introduction of chlorine into the nitro compound are that chlorine exerts a loosening effect upon the NO{2} groups, and enables the compound to burn more rapidly than when the nitro groups ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford
... climbed up into a chair and, loosening the cage from the golden chain by which it hung, he carried it carefully to the nearest crack of light and placed it close to the narrow opening. Again was heard the harsh, grating sound, and the ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... deck for exercise, and then Jack was particularly happy: hiding himself behind a cask, he would suddenly spring on to the back of one of them, his face to the tail, and away scampered his frightened steed. Sometimes an obstacle would impede the gallop, and then Jack, loosening the hold which he had acquired by digging his nails into the skin of the pig, industriously tried to uncurl its tail, and if he were saluted by a laugh from some one near by, he would look up with an assumed air of wonder, as much as to say; What ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... this train of logic his fingers were busy. Palming a wrench, he was swiftly loosening the main retaining nut on his hip joint. It dropped free in his hand, only the pivot pin remained now to hold his leg on. He climbed slowly to his feet ...
— The Velvet Glove • Harry Harrison
... "At eighteen, Andras Zilah could have said: 'I am old.' He was in mourning at one and the same time for all his people and for our country. But you! You have grown up, my dear fellow, in happy times. Austria, loosening her clutch, has permitted you to love and serve our cause at your ease. You were born rich, you married the ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... threshing about in the water in an effort to release this desperate clutch without altogether loosening his hold upon the lad. Frank's lungs seemed about to burst now and he struggled desperately to push Davis away from him, at the same time maintaining his grip. Things grew blacker than ever beneath the dark water; and then, suddenly, ...
— The Boy Allies Under the Sea • Robert L. Drake
... before any overt military act, aggression begins with preliminaries of propaganda, subsidized penetration, the loosening of ties of good will, the stirring of prejudice and the incitement ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt • Franklin D. Roosevelt
... chicken is found that appears to be satisfactory, the buyer and the market man take him by the arms, one on either side, he still remaining in his first position with hands clasped under the knees, and swing him forward and backward three times. Should he stand this test without loosening his own grasp, he is supposed to be all right, and the buyer leads him off to the opposite side of the playground, or home. The game continues until all of the chickens are sold. Any chicken that smiles, or ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... into balls make good packing for pots and hold them firmly, but this method is dangerous if the packing becomes wetted. Pots should always be packed tight. Old sacking or cotton stuff may be tied on over the mouth of large pots, to prevent straw slipping in, and loosening the packing. ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various
... always present in multiples of a definite unit. In the process called electrolysis the electric current is driven across a cell full of liquid containing molecules of some substance. When the electricity passes there is a loosening of the bonds that bind together the atoms of the molecule, and a separation; atoms of one kind travel with the electricity across the cell and are deposited where the current leaves the cell; the other kind travel the opposite way. In this way for example we deposit silver on metal objects ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... of the thorn-bushes was directly between him and the troopers, and effectually concealed him. At last Jacob ventured to raise his head and peep through the bush; and he perceived that the men were loosening the girths of their black horses, or wiping away the perspiration from their sides with handfuls ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... and quasi-persecution was a loosening of the tendrils, and a preparation for transplanting. Growth is often a painful process. Socially, Parker had been snubbed and slighted by the best society, and his good wife was in tears of distress because the meetings of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... some underbough, Or cradled in a leaf, 'mid glimmering light, Like Puck thou crouchest: Haply watching how The slow toadstool comes bulging, moony white, Through loosening loam; or how, against the night, The glowworm gathers silver to endow The darkness with; or how the dew conspires To hang, at dusk, with lamps of chilly fires Each blade ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... quiet, Gleeson," the other replied. "They haven't all started yet. Besides——" he glanced towards their two companions, who were loosening the horses from the fence ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... government continues to balance the need for economic loosening against a desire for firm political control. It has undertaken limited reforms to increase enterprise efficiency and alleviate serious shortages of food, consumer goods, and services. A major feature of the economy is the dichotomy between relatively efficient export enclaves and inefficient ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... carelessness or bad treatment, the worst of which is the filling up with whiskey, which aids the poison rather than counteracts it. The essential things in case of snake bite are: (1) keeping one's wits; (2) tying a string, or the like, tightly around the wounded limb between the wound and the heart, and loosening it about once in fifteen minutes, so as to admit the poison slowly into the circulation; (3) making the wound bleed freely by enlarging it with a knife or otherwise; (4) if permanganate of potash be handy it should ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... absence of a single leaf would somewhat mar the general effect, but still the remaining pages might retain their worth if pregnant with good. On the other hand, if every leaf that was torn out had the effect of loosening the rest, and causing them to be lost, till but a few would be left in the cover, the effect would ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... There can be, so far as my observations go, no certainty as to when, after this, another form of organism will present itself; nor, when it does, which of a limited series it will be. But, in a majority of observed cases, a loosening of the living investment of bacterial forms takes place, and simultaneously with this, the access of one or two forms of my putrefactive monads. They were among the first we worked at; and have been, by means of recent lenses, among the last revised. Mr. S. Kent named ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... back," said Beltane, loosening sword in scabbard, "for needs must I this night have word ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... over the meal, they became very friendly and confidential with each other, and the sam-shu that the son kept drinking from a tiny cup, into which it was poured from a steaming kettle, had the effect of loosening his tongue and causing him to speak more freely than he would ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... mount—that is, that I may arrive at such altitude of mind, as transporting me shall bring me into those outer and inner courts where I may behold and count those rare beauties? When shall it be, that he will effectually comfort my pain, loosening me from the tightened bonds of those cares in which I find myself, he, who formed and united my members, which before were disunited and disjoined: that is Love; he who has joined together these corporeal parts, which were as far divided as ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... squeeze!" she protested, loosening his arms. "But you look splendidly—and how you've grown!" She turned away from him and began to inspect the tapestries critically. "Somehow they look smaller here," she said ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... they "turned in" without a grumble into a wet bivouac. There was no complaining, and the men were never required by their officers to bring along the stones faster. The only noise that broke the stillness of the night was the incessant "click, click, click" of the picks at work loosening the stones, and the men, in spite of the conditions under which the work was being carried on, joked among themselves ...
— The Record of a Regiment of the Line • M. Jacson
... said, kicking at the flooring and loosening a shaley piece of stone about as big as my hand; ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... which I would ask your help, Nigel, and a side of venison from the King's own chase. The tinemen and verderers have not forgotten me yet, and my larder is ever full. Blow three moots on the horn, Mary, that the varlets may set the table, for the growing shadow and my loosening belt warn ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... we came on a large flagstone, which we lifted out of the cavity. Then we dug a hole about 3 feet square, and the same depth in the loose earth, disclosing the mouth of a large earthenware gharra, or jar. Loosening the soil all around, we attempted to raise the jar out of the ground, but all our efforts were unavailing—its great weight preventing us from lifting it one inch out of the bed. Then, trembling with excitement, for we felt sure that a rich display would greet our eyes, we began slowly to remove ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... the North is engendering social anarchy; it is tending to the loosening of the bonds of society. Society is not governed by the will of a mob, but by education and talent. Therefore the South, resting on slavery as a stable foundation, is a principle of authority: it must restrain the North; must resist the anarchical influence of the North; must counterbalance the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... in silence, and thought at once: 'Why, the name too is not the same sort as the others,' while Susanna rose slightly, without smiling or loosening ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... be will always advocate a loosening of the marriage bond, others who will seek to make it ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... incentive to his speed, now that his course lay so plainly before him, but loosening his pistols in his belt, and poising his harpoon, he crossed the fields at a gait that compelled his companion to exert his utmost powers, in the way of walking, to equal. Once or twice, Dillon ventured ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... as it always comes in that snow-washed northern land, with a ramp of the ice loosening its grip from the turbulent waters, and a whirr of the birds winging north in long, high, wedge-shaped lines, and a crunching of the icefloes riding turbulently out to sea, and a piping of the odorous ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut
... Rube both accompanied him. They went down to Grizzly Notch, where the still loaded canoe had been left overnight. While Rube was loosening the painter, Kiddie went aside to the spare canoe, and searched about on the bank. Presently he stood still, and called Rube ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... Woman hovered. And now a circle-dais from the floor came up to her. She rested upon it; began a slow, sinuous dance; one by one loosening the veils; the red light deepening until it painted her body red in lieu ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... back. Her sister was bending over her in an instant, was loosening her dress, doing all that may restore one who has fainted. But for Thyrza there was ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... in those first months of his madness grew pale. It seemed to the man who went stalking down the street past her house night after night that the one great, unselfish passion of his life was upon him, loosening the roots of his being, so that any sacrifice he could make, whether of himself or of any one or anything about him, would give him infinite joy. When he met Henry Fenn, Van Dorn was always tempted and often yielded to the temptation to rush up to Fenn with some foolish question ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... every army, were equally held by their deep-rooted loyalty to the memory of Alexander, whether they were fighting for Ptolemy or for Antigonus, and equally thought that they were guarding a province for his heir; and it was through fear of loosening their hold upon the faithfulness of these their best troops that Ptolemy and his rivals alike chose to govern their kingdoms under the unpretending title of lieutenants of the King of Macedonia. Hence, upon the death of Alexander ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... time, as Buelow was little known outside diplomatic circles. The explanations suggested were that he had made himself very popular at Rome and that his appointment was therefore calculated to strengthen the loosening bonds of the Triple Alliance, and also that his early close association with Bismarck would ensure the maintenance of the Bismarckian tradition. As foreign secretary Herr von Buelow was chiefly responsible for carrying out the policy of colonial expansion ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... spoke up bravely, never loosening her hold upon the bridle of the horse. 'I am not insane,' she said. 'I am a nurse, but not a common one; I am a bushwhacker nurse, and that means I am entirely independent. These men are under my control. They are from the opposing armies, ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... if he might, by a kind assumption that there was no conceivable matter that could not be at once put right, gave her a chair and himself went back to his judicial seat. Anne, not loosening her jacket, looked at him, her face pure and appealing above the fur about her throat, as if to beg him to be as kind as he possibly could, since ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... moustache set close. "Yes, sir," answered the orderly, loosening his lips for a moment. He again turned to the door. "And why have you a piece of pencil in ...
— The Prussian Officer • D. H. Lawrence |
