"Steadying" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... finished, we made some preparations for the night, fastening the sail, by the weight of large stones laid on one edge of it, to the top of the rock, and then bringing its other edge, the boom side, to the ground and steadying it there with pegs. In that way we constructed a kind of tent, in which we piled a bedding and ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... Steadying her body against the wall, her arms outspread, she edged her way behind the couch and bent over the sleeping man until by his breathing she had located ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... is now returning to the normal channels of business. There has been no inflation in the prices of commodities; there has been no undue accumulation of goods, and foreign trade has expanded to a magnitude which exerts a steadying influence upon activity in ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Herbert Hoover • Herbert Hoover
... that pessimism which has found expression in modern literature is found in inactivity. He who contents himself with looking at life as a spectator sees its appalling contradictions and its baffling confusions, and misses the steadying power of the common toil, the comprehension through sympathy, the slow but deep unfolding and education which come from participation in the world's work. He who approaches life only through his feelings is bruised, hurt, and finally ...
— Essays On Work And Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... Grim," began she, breathing hard, and steadying herself against the table at which she stood, "that you were a very selfish man—an embodiment of selfishness, absolute and supreme, but I did not ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... exclaimed with a laugh, which showed that his nerves were steadying. "I'm only going to try a shot to frighten it. I don't want to ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms - Or Lost in the Wilds of Florida • Laura Lee Hope
... tender father unconsciously bent his eyes on Eve, who leaned affectionately on his arm, steadying her light form against the pitching of the vessel. She understood his feelings better than he did himself, possibly, since, accustomed to his fondest care from childhood, she well knew that he seldom thought of others, or even of himself, ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... wounded three times in the fight, being finally disabled before reaching the hill, makes the following report: "Sergeant William H. Givens was with the platoon which I commanded; whenever I observed him he was at his post exercising a steadying or encouraging influence on the men, and conducting himself like the thorough soldier that I have long known him to be. I understand to my great satisfaction that he has been rewarded by an appointment to a lieutenancy ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... she started she pushed her chair slightly back from him. It was to conceal her agitation that she rose, steadying herself on the back of the chair in which she ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... was to be sure to take care of the children till father comes home,' she answered, steadying her voice; 'and I'll do it, please God. I can ask Him to help me, and He will. He'll take ...
— Little Meg's Children • Hesba Stretton
... of April I had fallen ill, and it was now actually the 2nd of June. Oh! sickening calculation! revolting register of hours! for in that same moment which brought back this one recollection, perhaps by steadying my brain, rushed back in a torrent all the other dreadful remembrances of the period, and now the more so, because, though the event was still uncertain as regarded my knowledge, it must have become dreadfully certain as regarded the facts of the case, and the happiness of all ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... hope she is also strong of character," the boy said, with a curiously deliberate accent which seemed characteristic of him. "He is a good man and a kind one; but he needs a steadying hand. I shall write ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... madame," replied Rose-Pompon, steadying herself the more bravely the more uneasy she felt. And the interview of the lady and the grisette began in ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... purple bells upon their tops. The bank looked softer, and greener, and more inviting than ever it had done before; but my eyes grew dim and my limbs faint with that last struggle. I felt for my dirk knife, for a desperate rolling swim for life seemed now inevitable, and, steadying myself in the stream, I cut loose the straps of the buck and the slings of the guns, and retaining them only with my hands, held them ready to let go as soon as I should be taken off my legs. When they were free, I dipped my hand in the water, and laved it over my brow and face. The ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... Abraham and Isaac, were travelling up the hill, the son bearing the wood, and the father with the sad burden of the fire and the knife, the boy said: 'Where is the lamb?' and Abraham, thrusting down his emotion and steadying his voice, said: 'My son, God will provide Himself a lamb.' When the wonderful issue of the trial was plain before him, and he looked back upon it, the one thought that rose in his mind was of how, beyond his meaning, his words ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... byways and muddy corners of life. It is surprisingly often the direction of the idle, home-guarded, bored young lady. Flip, if it came to a choice, I believe I would put my money on the worker. It's such a splendid, healthy, steadying thing to have a real purpose and a real occupation; instead of just days and weeks of idle enjoyment. And as for temptations! Well, they abound pretty fully in both cases; it isn't the amount of temptation likely to be encountered that ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... her shoulders. The landlady brought her up the soda-water, and seeing what a state her lodger was in, she placed it on the table without a word, without even referring to the notice to quit she had given overnight; and steadying her voice as best she could, Kate asked her ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... Charlotte that he had acquainted himself further—though doubtless not even now quite completely—with the merits of his majestic scheme. And while, moreover, to begin with, he still but held his vision in place, steadying it fairly with his hands, as he had often steadied, for inspection, a precarious old pot or kept a glazed picture in its right relation to the light, the other, the outer presumptions in his favour, ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... famous Chambord estate is sequestrated on the ground that it is the property of Austrian subjects; the Bank of France releases $1,000,000 gold to the Bank of England for transmission to New York to assist in steadying exchange; French official circles and French newspapers are pleased with the American note to Germany in reply to the von Bernstorff memorandum on the sale of arms to the Allies, and with the expressions of German annoyance ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... ever be in vain?' he asked, gasping painfully as he spoke and steadying himself by the walls of the arbour. 'It is for the last time that I ask it; but if you deny me, my life is done, and I die, I die!' And indeed it seemed as if he were already dead, for he sank in a ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... been more dreadful to Ethel had she known all that was passing below, and that when the little boy, at Leonard's sign, lowered himself towards the out-reaching arms of the young man, who was steadying himself against the wall of the tower, it was with a look of great pain, and leaving a trail of blood behind him. When, at length, he stood at the angle, Leonard calmly said, 'Now go before me, round that corner, in at the door. Hold by the wall, I'll hold ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... mass of hair he inherited from his mother, and a certain farouche air, he had been attractive, especially to women. Clever, alert, and sensitive, brought up in a Bohemian set, without money, or morals, or the steadying factor of position, he had early acquired all the tricks of the artist, the parasite, and the adventurer. He could play the guitar quite prettily, could sing a song, dabbled with pen and brush, and talked with considerable ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... my sense of the ridiculous, and the sight of Basil steadying himself with a pole, and striding through the mire with the long-legged Englishman on his back, fairly upset my gravity. He soon landed him, and came back for me; lifting me on one arm, and carrying me as easily and tenderly as if I ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... shouted to them from below. A long ladder was brought and run up to within twenty feet of them. Lathrop climbed down to it over the scorched face of the oriel, his life in jeopardy at every step. Then steadying himself on the ladder,—and grasping a projection in the wall, he called to the man above, to drop upon his shoulders. It was done, by a miracle—and both holding on, the man above by the projections of the wall and Lathrop by the ladder, descended, till ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... life in any form should be done, and that all desire for pleasures should be checked, are principles which are almost universally acknowledged. When a man attains a very high degree of moral greatness he has to strengthen and prepare his mind for further purifying and steadying it for the attainment of his ideal; and most of the Indian systems are unanimous with regard to the means to be employed for the purpose. There are indeed divergences in certain details or technical names, but the means ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... door. The girl's eyes blinked in the walled twilight of the room. She hesitated on the threshold, but only for a second. The touch of a following frame impelled her forward. Her uncertain foot caught against a bed leg and a white hand gripped the steadying rail. Long-nailed claws laced themselves in the fingers of her other hand and the old woman half drew, half twisted her into sitting down on the edge of the bed. They began to talk quietly. I examined ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... his sister, and in lesser, though very substantial, degree to his wife and daughters. He has left an abundance of poetry which testifies directly and indirectly to these influences. This poetry is not only utterly lovely as poetry; at once sane and passionate, steadying and thrilling, but it is also not to be surpassed, I cannot but believe, as a means for rightly forming the ideals of girlhood. Every year sees an inundation of new collections of poetry. The anthologist might do worse than collect from Wordsworth a small, but precious ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... and on one of these, about twelve feet from the shore, a nude native, beautifully tattooed, with a lasso in his hands, was standing nearly up to his knees in foam; and about a third of the way from the other side, another native in deeper water, steadying himself by a pole. A young woman on horseback, whose near relative was dangerously ill at Hilo, was jammed under the cliff, and the men were going to get her across. Deborah, to my dismay, said that if she got safely over we would go too, ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... captured a lieutenant and sixteen men—thirteen of them wounded. Amid the surprise and confusion, and the black darkness, the gun escort, under two young lieutenants of engineers, held firm, affording a rallying point for the routed garrison; and this mixed body, steadying itself under cover on the reverse side of the hill, stood fast and waited events. The Boers, also expectant, instead of pursuing their success, retired and sought cover on the outer slope; a narrow sixty yards of ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... not criticize, for each was in accordance with the custom of the country: the law is always respectable; and matrimony is an honorable estate, and has a steadying influence, in all climes. It is true my shadow ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... said Peter, changing his position so that he could stand up on Rajah's neck, steadying himself by one of the pendent boughs, and resting the butt of one of the spears upon the ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... years, during which the race bred true. The rate of progress, whether reckoned in physical terms or otherwise, is so slow as to be almost imperceptible. A type suffices for an age. Whereas in the life-history of an individual there is rapid development during youth, and after maturity a steadying down, it is the other way about in the life-history of the race. Man, so to speak, was born old and accommodated to a jog-trot. We moderns are the juveniles, and it is left for us ...
— Progress and History • Various
... Ethel's bullet do its work. A wild cry followed the report: for an instant the Indian reeled in his saddle, and then, steadying himself, turned his horse sharp round, and ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... took little Teddy Garland out of Martha's arms and stood him up on the table by the door, steadying the small chap with one big brown hand. The baby had a mop of yellow curls, and a pink and white face, and big blue eyes. He laughed out at the men before him and waved his hands in delight. Pa Sloane thought he had never seen so ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... back holding the bough that he had caught, at the same time steadying himself with a foot against another branch, ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... and Mr Durfy highly approved of the decision. He was able without difficulty or obtrusiveness to follow his man at a few yards' distance, and even give proof of his solicitude by an occasional steadying hand ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... pocket. I thought it better to climb the steps first, and softly one foot found the tread and then another. I had only three more to climb and then my right hand, now feeling its way along the wall, would be free to strike a match. I climbed the three steps and was steadying myself against the door for a final plunge, when something happened—something so strange, so unexpected, and so incredible that I wonder I did not shriek aloud in my terror. The door was moving under my hand. It was slowly opening inward. I could ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... the ancient navyman, steadying his spy-glass upon a ledge of rock. "In my time we made very little of that; and the breed may be slacked off a little, but not quite so bad as that would be. Ah! you should a' heard what old Keppel—on the twenty-seventh day of July it was, in the year of our ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... replied, steadying her voice as well as she could on the instant. "I am all right, thank you, but I have been calling; you were so long away that I began to fear some accident ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... with open crevasses we "glissaded," which is a very expeditious and exhilarating method of getting down a mountain, although unsafe unless one is certain of his ground. Sometimes we slid on our feet, steadying ourselves with our batons or ice-axes, and sometimes I sat on the hard snow and glided like a Turk on a toboggan slide, the tassel of my woollen cap fluttering behind in the wind. We took the unbridged crevasses with flying leaps, and so plunged rapidly downward, with ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... their business instinctively, and moved down into the water slowly, and the improvised raft not only prevented the body from sinking into the water very low, but it had a wonderful steadying effect, because the side sections served as wings ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... four feet of the noble creature together; having so done I hung him round my neck and walked back to the ship leaning upon my spear, for the stag was much too big for me to be able to carry him on my shoulder, steadying him with one hand. As I threw him down in front of the ship, I called the men and spoke cheeringly man by man to each of them. 'Look here my friends,' said I, 'we are not going to die so much before our time after all, and at any rate we will not starve so long as we have got something to eat ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... to the spot where the guides waited at the butt of a slanting tree trunk spanning the gulf. As they reached it Pedro walked carefully up the trunk, carrying a long slender sapling, which he lowered and fixed in the bottom of the stream. Then, steadying himself with the upper end of this pole, he continued his journey to the other side, where he flipped the sapling back to Lourenco. One by one the others crossed, slipping, almost losing balance, but managing to evade a fall. Tim, walking the ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... its threshold stood the towering form of the man whom Alixe Delavigne had known in other years as Hugh Fraser, the man whose pallid face told her that he knew at last that he was under the sword of Damocles! Clad in white linen, his sun helmet in his hand, steadying himself with a jeweled bamboo crutch-handled stick, the old Anglo-Indian waited until Berthe Louison's voice rang out, as clear as a silver bell: "Marie! I am not to be interrupted." she calmly said. "You may wait beyond, ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... sake of her duty and of her love. He was convinced that, in any opposition between her father's interests and her husband's honour, she would strongly abide by her husband. He recollected all Lady Julia had said of the advantage that her sister's firmness of mind might be in steadying his vacillating temper in any moment of trial. Here was the first great occasion, since his marriage, where his wife's strength of mind could be of essential service to him: yet he hesitated whether he should avail ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... Steadying myself with an effort I repeated: "You summoned me for something touching the Cause, so I have left my household duties to ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... did seem to take a long time. There was no sound from the kitchen. Kyan, steadying himself with one hand on the pipe, waved ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Steadying himself against a post he took aim at the trembling figure of his wife, and fired. She threw up her arms and fell upon her face, and then Sherard, pistol in hand, dashed out ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... deformed arm, proceeded to clear the table. When he had completed his task he asked the detective if he needed him any more, because if he did not it was time for him to go into the bar. On Colwyn saying that he needed nothing further he noiselessly withdrew, steadying the loaded tray with ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees
... them as the representative of a great principle, essential to the welfare of nations. One is, in an especial manner, the guardian of liberty, and the other of order. One is the moving power, and the other the steadying power of the State. One is the sail, without which society would make no progress; the other the ballast, without which there would be small safety in a tempest. But, during the forty-six years which followed the accession of the House ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... quite that way himself; but then what was a steeplechase rider's opinion worth regarding a flat race? The company demurred, and old John alluded to Ginger's magnificent riding when he won the Liverpool on Foxcover, steadying the horse about sixty yards from home, and bringing him up with a rush in the last dozen strides, nailing Jim Sutton, who had persevered all the way, on the very post by a head. Bill Evans, who happened to look in that evening, said that he would not be surprised ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... ready to go to my father," she repeated, steadying her voice with an effort; "but I will go nowhere ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... small opening, the base of which was twice a tall man's height from the floor. A curving flight of broad, low steps led up to it. And now it came to my steadying brain that there was something puzzling, peculiar, strangely unfamiliar about this light. It was silvery, shaded faintly with a delicate blue and flushed lightly with a nacreous rose; but a rose that differed from that ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... the humbug ends and the woman begins, but an earnest soul, one that cannot only laugh when you laugh, but weep when you weep. There will be wide, deep graves in your path of life, and you will both want steadying when you come to the verge of them, I tell you! When your fortune fails you will want some one to talk of treasures in heaven, and not charge upon you with a bitter, "I told you so." As far as I can analyze it, sincerity and earnestness are the foundation of all worthy ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... added Ropes, now very drunk, and very much inclined to make a speech on a barrel which his friends rolled out for him. "A nuisance!" he repeated, with a hiccough, steadying himself on his rostrum by holding a branch of the tree. "And let me say to you, feller-patriots, that one of the glorious fruits of secession is, that every free nigger in the state will either be sold for a slave, or druv out, or hung up. I tell you, gentlemen, we're a goin' to have our own way ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... lash everything well below. We now found our top hamper of some use, for though it is liable to be carried away or sprung by the sudden "bringing up'' of a vessel when pitching in a chopping sea, yet it is a great help in steadying a vessel when rolling in a long swell,— giving more slowness, ease, and ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... He rose, steadying himself by the table, and laid his hand upon her head, with the same fond motion that a father might ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... the great patriots of the seventeenth century; and it has ever since characterised our greatest statesmen. "I know not how it is," says an English writer, "but their commerce with the ancients appears to me to produce, in those who constantly practise it, a steadying and composing effect upon their judgment, not of literary works only, but of men and events in general. They are like persons who have had a weighty and impressive experience; they are more truly than others under the empire of facts, ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... and nothing but his head. This proving exceedingly wearisome, and quickly exhausting the slender stock of patience with which nature supplied me at my birth, I resolved to try what a shot would do in the centre of his forehead, and steadying Nigger for a moment, snapped my left barrel at him, when with the crack down he dropped, and spurring forward in the belief that I had given him his coup-de-grace, I was not a little surprised to see ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... right, as by leading me to new truths, and ridding me of errors. My great readiness and eagerness to learn from everybody, and to make room in my opinions for every new acquisition by adjusting the old and the new to one another, might, but for her steadying influence, have seduced me into modifying my early opinions too much. She was in nothing more valuable to my mental development than by her just measure of the relative importance of different considerations, which often protected me from allowing ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... jumping on his head. She does: she is down, and upon him; but Jack Rapley is not easily to be knocked off his feet. He saw her coming, and in the moment of her leap sprung dexterously off the slide on the rough ice, steadying himself by the shoulder of the next in the file, which unlucky follower, thus unexpectedly checked in his career, fell plump backwards, knocking down the rest of the line like a nest of card-houses. There is no harm done; ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... Steadying himself with a great effort, Sackville played cautiously for a time; but after parrying several of his thrusts, without the slightest difficulty, Fergus ran him through the right arm, halfway between the elbow and the shoulder, and the sword dropped ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... scattered everywhere with the rest of the debris. And the explosion sent up many graves as well as the bodies of the living. One of the British bombers who occupied the crater and spent a crowded hour hurling bombs from the farther lip found that he was steadying himself and getting a lever for the bowling arm by clinging on to a black projection with his left hand. It was a Hessian boot. The soil of the amphitheater was so worked, mixed, and sieved by the explosive action and the effects of the melting snow that it was ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... made on such occasions; but to-day, with the knowledge of the astounding contents of that will on his mind, his lips refused to utter it. He simply bowed, seated himself, and opened the document. The old-fashioned legal phrases soon were steadying him as the harness steadies an uneasy horse; and he was monotonously and sonorously rolling off paragraph after paragraph. Except the judge, young Hargrave was the only one there who clearly understood what those wordy provisions meant. As the reading progressed Dory's face flushed a deep red ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... Yet she never entered the painter's study but with trembling heart, uncertain foot, and fluttering breath, as of one stepping within the gates of an enchanted paradise, whose joy is too much for the material weight of humanity to ballast even to the steadying of the bodily step, and the outward calm of the bodily carriage. How far things had gone between them we shall be able to judge by and by; it will be enough at present to add that it was this relation and the inward strife ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... a note of the wonderful music; each was steadying herself for that moment when the program should end. Their box was very near the little door that led behind the stage. Gyp almost ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... with a military title, so much the better) to prop up its dignity on the other. Indeed, I discovered from what Pickle said that the dignity of the house had already begun to tottle a little, and needed a steadying name and a ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... in the cloak-room until she found her own, then, steadying herself by running her fingertips along the wall, she slipped from the ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... Perry left the bridge, steadying himself by holding on to the railing on both sides of the steps, as the sea was becoming ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... in Denmark and then later went for four months to Bulgaria where she stayed with Mr. and Mrs. Bakhmeteff, my uncle who was Russian ambassador in Sofia and Madame Bahkmeteff who was Nelka's godmother. These two years in Europe were a very happy, steadying and pleasant time for Nelka and she regained a hold of herself. Especially she loved Paris as she always did. She told me once that when in Paris at the time she was so exhilarated that she felt like walking ...
— Nelka - Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff, 1878-1963, a Biographical Sketch • Michael Moukhanoff
... will say," murmured Ethel Brown to Ethel Blue, who was steadying the ill woman's head as it lay against the ...
— Ethel Morton at Rose House • Mabell S. C. Smith
... savagely with ears set back, leading well the big roans, thundering along and gaining at every bound. And now the citizens' team had almost reached the Fort, running hard and drawing away from the bays. But Nixon knew what he was about, and was simply steadying his team for the turn. The event proved his wisdom, for in the turn the leading team left the track, lost a moment or two in the deep snow, and before they could regain the road, the bays had swept superbly past, leaving their rivals to follow in the rear. On came the pintos, ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... a female priest takes the betel-nut omen. Seven quids of betel nuts are placed by one of the family priestesses upon a sacred dish.[16] She then sets it upon the head of the bridegroom and falls into an ecstatic condition, steadying the plate with her hand. Should one of the betel-nut slices become separated from its betel leaf, the omen is considered unpropitious and is followed immediately by the ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... expedition. Unless we were in action or in a locality where we momentarily expected to be under fire from rifle or machine-gun, the officer commanding the car and his N.C.O. stood in the well behind the turret, steadying themselves with leather loops riveted to its sides. On long runs the tool-boxes on either side of the well formed convenient seats. When the car became engaged the crew would get inside, pulling the steel doors shut. ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... crossing clear savannas, in which nothing stirred beside ourselves but the escort of our own shadows, or plunging through dense patches of forest of an obscurity so impenetrable that the very forms of our rescuers became lost to us, though we heard their low voices and felt their hands steadying us in our saddles. Then our horses paced softly on the dust of a road, while athwart an avenue of orange trees whose foliage seemed as black as coal, the blind walls of the hacienda shone dead white like a vision of mists. ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... thus that, about a quarter of an hour before nightfall, a, tall powerful man was seen riding along through one of the north-western counties of England, with a boy of about eight years of age mounted on a pillion behind him, and steadying himself on the horse by an affectionate embrace cast round the waist ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... Steadying himself with a deep breath, Alex proceeded to carry out his plan. Carefully reaching forth with his foot beneath the table, he pressed the two wires together, then loudly clicked his key. The instruments, thus "cut out," ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... have said, a horse of huge proportions, and needed "steadying" at the start, but the good deacon had no experience with the "ribbons," and was, therefore, utterly unskilled in the matter of driving. And so it came about that Old Jack was so confused at the start that he ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... consciousness seemed to be concentrated in his neck, where he felt a severe pain. His indifference as to his fate was genuine. The day was breaking when he awoke from a feverish doze; the door at which he had knocked in the dark stood wide open now, and a girl, steadying herself with her outspread arms, leaned over the threshold. Lying on his back, he stared up at her. Her face was pale and her eyes were very dark; her hair hung down black as ebony against her white cheeks; her lips were full and red. Beyond her he saw another head with long ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... Janet called from within, steadying heir voice with an effort, "I'm not at all sure. ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... or curiosity took to Sulaco in these years before the first advent of the railway can remember the steadying effect of the San Tome mine upon the life of that remote province. The outward appearances had not changed then as they have changed since, as I am told, with cable cars running along the streets of the ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... eyes away from the model and looked out. Something glaring and hot was suspended in the air five miles away. He moved his hand carefully, steadying it on one of the planet tracks. The glowing fire in the air outside moved another mile closer—then another. And now, around it, he could see a monstrous fingertip and something that might have been ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... Astronomical Society on the methods available through the next 25 years for the determination of the Sun's parallax.—Dr Livingstone's observations for African longitudes were computed at the Observatory.—The Admiralty enquire of me about the feasibility of adopting Piazzi Smyth's construction for steadying telescopes on board ship: I gave a Report, of mixed character, on the whole discouraging.—I had correspondence with G.P. Bond and others about photographing the Stars and Moon.—On Feb. 17th Piazzi Smyth's books, &c. relating to the Teneriffe Experiment were ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... months later every condition was favorable to a realization of the dream of empire giving to Japan an importance amounting almost to sovereignty over a vast section of the Far East. The new treaty with Great Britain, which Germans claimed to be anything but altruistic, is having a steadying influence on the ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... of her waist would have been above the roof. She had leaned her gun against the side of the chair, so that, if needed, it was within quick reach. Then she assumed a stooping posture, with her head gently touching the underside of the door, and, steadying herself by grasping the iron hook, ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... time the moon was shining brightly, and the engine-driver, steadying himself on the coal, could command a view of the line behind them ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... the cruel lash, and their maddened horse, bounding at each stroke, broke into a wild canter. The frail vehicle swayed from side to side at each spring of the elastic shafts. Steadying himself by one hand on the low rail, Dunn drew his revolver with the other. "Sing out to him to pull up, or we'll fire. My voice is clean gone," he added, in a ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... I was saying, Nat was driving the pile in this manner, as I might say.' Here Mr. Cannister held his walking-stick scrupulously vertical with his left hand, and struck a blow with great force on the knob of the stick with his right. 'John was steadying the pile so, as I might say.' Here he gave the stick a slight shake, and looked firmly in the various eyes around to see that before proceeding further his listeners well grasped the subject at that stage. 'Well, when Nat had struck some half-dozen blows more upon the pile, 'a stopped ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... sits down again, steadying himself against the pillar. JOHN appears at the doors of the palace, above the terrace, a ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... persisted in acting against the old pathfinder's judgment, something that Rod had never known him to be guilty of before. Foot by foot he broke the ice ahead of the canoe, until the frail craft had thrust its length into the rotten field. Then, steadying himself on the bow, he stepped out cautiously ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... on her face, she had kissed him good-night, closed the door, and staggering along the corridor steadying herself as she walked, her hand on the walls, had thrown herself upon her bed in an agony of tears, ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... comforting, like the coolness of a woman's hand placed on a feverish brow. Isabella believed in him; perhaps she read between the lines of this document, and saw, as we can see, how much anxiety and distress were written there; and her comments are steadying and encouraging. He has done well; what he asks is being attended to; their Highnesses are well informed in regard to this and that matter; suitable provision will be made for everything; but let him endeavour that the amount of this gold may be known as precisely as possible. ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... think should be sent." Entlore sent her a steadying thought. Then, as the girl settled back with a sandwich in one hand and a tall glass of ginger-ale in the other, he went on, to Garlock, "She is a very fine and very strong telepath—by ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... whatever happens,' I said within myself; and truly I kept this resolution so well, and was so fully occupied in steadying my nerves and stifling the rebellious flutter of my heart, that when I was admitted into the hall and ushered into the presence of Mrs. Bloomfield, I almost forgot to answer her polite salutation; and ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... doing, both during the war and in the more difficult period of deflation and readjustment which followed. It enables us to look to the future with confidence and to make plans far ahead, based on the belief that the Federal reserve system will exercise a steadying influence on credit conditions and thereby prevent tiny sudden or severe reactions from the period of prosperity which we are now enjoying. In order that these plans may go forward, action should be taken at the present session on the question ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Calvin Coolidge • Calvin Coolidge
... of an agony frightful and absurd, he decided to go and meet his doom. He was prepared for every surrender. He turned the corner, steadying himself with one hand on the wall; made a few paces, and nearly swooned. He had seen on the floor, protruding past the other corner, a pair of turned-up feet. A pair of white naked feet in red slippers. He felt deadly sick, and stood for a time in profound darkness. Then ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... take you in," I said, steadying my voice with difficulty, "and bathe your knees and let you rest a while before she dresses you again. Martha, please put away those stockings for me to mend when I return; I cannot ask Effie to darn such holes for two little moles; ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... Hampton, steadying herself on the high side and glancin' admirin' up at the white sails stretched tight ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... diagrammatically in Fig. 114. The striker becomes a cross head, and is connected by a forked rod passing on each side of the pump with the crank of a fly wheel overhanging the base. The valve is operated in the ordinary manner by an eccentric on the crankshaft. The steadying effect of the fly wheel and the positive action of the valve make it possible to use a larger pump plunger than is advisable with the striking gear. With a pump piston of considerably greater diameter than the piston rod, the pump may be made double-acting, a ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... drew in a steadying breath. For now, at last, the cards were on the table. She was committed to flat opposition or retreat—an impasse she had skilfully avoided hitherto. But for Roy's sake she stood ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... easier than Pass 1, and may sometimes be usefully substituted for it. Take the coin edgeways between the first and third fingers of the right hand, the sides of those fingers pressing against the edges of the coin, and the middle finger steadying it from behind. Carry the right hand toward the left, and at the same time move the thumb swiftly over the face of the coin till the top joint passes its outer edge, then bend the thumb, and the coin will be found to be securely nipped between that joint and the junction of the thumb ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... and stared after him as he climbed into the sailplane and signaled to the pilot of the lightplane which was to tow him into the air. Max Mainz ran to the tip of one wing, lifting it from the ground and steadying the glider until forward motion gave direction ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... friends understood how the trick was done. He had simply to balance himself on his head on the wire, a feat he had often performed before. The natural attraction of gravitation did the rest. He simply slid down on the wheels, his extended arms and legs steadying him. ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... regained his feet. Then he studied the cause of the disaster, and finally stepped out again, cautiously now, having learned his lesson. So he did not stumble. But he did feel the check around his ankles again. Steadying himself, he saw clearly the cause of his previous discomfiture, but he did not accept it as defeat. Casting his eyes toward the other horses, he awoke to the fact that they, as well as himself, were hobbled. Watching them, studying them, he finally saw one rear, strike out with his front legs, ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... his fellows. So at least I believed, with three of his brother officers who shared the secret. These were Major William Ross (my half-brother), Captain Malcolm Murray, and Mr. Ronald Braintree Urquhart, then our senior ensign. Of these, Mr. Urquhart fell two days later, at Waterloo, while steadying his men to face that heroic shock in which Pack's skeleton regiments were enveloped yet not overwhelmed by four brigades of the French infantry. From the others I received at the time a promise ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... shrine of the patron saint as he passed out. It was really marvelous to see some of these ruffians, so besotted with strong drink that they were scarcely able to see the way to the door, stagger up before the burnished shrine, and, steadying themselves the best they could, gravely and solemnly go ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... "Newbern," with nothing in her but ballast, rolled and lurched along, through the bright green waters of the outer bar. I stood leaning against the great mast, steadying myself as best I could, and the tears rolled down my face; for I saw the friendly green hills, and before me lay the glorious bay of San Francisco. I had left behind me the deserts, the black rocks, the burning ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... was. She followed him. At the next ditch he put out his hand and helped her across. They had no lamp. By the light of the snow she watched his blue-clad legs as they sank and rose; her own sinking and rising in the holes he left for her, the buffets of wind un-steadying her at every step. She followed him. And because she was as green as a green bough which bursts into leaf around a wound, the disturbing, the exciting menace of her discovery brightened her heart, set her mind whirling, and overgrew ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... risen, steadying herself with the bow paddle. With a sinuous movement she eluded his arms, and fled; then voices woke amid the pines, and the Man strode forward, to find his way blocked by two men holding the ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... Mary V help him at all, but walked slowly, steadying himself by the chairs, the wall, by anything solid within reach. He did not look much like the very self-assured, healthy specimen of young manhood whom Mary V could bully and tease and talk to without constraint. She felt as though she scarcely knew this thin, pale young man with ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... could scarcely proceed; he fell, and Gordon drew him sharply to his feet. Finally Gordon put an arm about his shoulder, steadying him, forcing him on. He must hurry, he realized, while the other held him back, delayed the assistance ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... raised himself; he had to see her better. She helped him when she understood his movement, and he sat up, steadying himself beside her there on the window-bench and with his right hand grasping her left. "He didn't come ...
— The Jolly Corner • Henry James
... it!" repeated X——, focussing down his telescope and steadying himself with his elbows. "I think you'll find the show from now on worth all the trouble ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... adjusted the sights themselves. The independent firing was utterly beyond control. Soon the ammunition began to be exhausted, and the soldiers turned round clamouring for more cartridges, which their officers doled out to them by twos and threes in the hopes of steadying them. It was useless. They fired them all off and clamoured for more. Meanwhile, although suffering fearfully from the close and accurate fire of the three artillery batteries and eight Maxim guns, and to a less extent from the random ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill |
