"Straining" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the "keep" of Beauseincourt, never, I knew, to see its time-stained walls again, save through the mirage of memory. There is an awe almost as solemn to me in a consciousness like this as that which attends the death-bed parting, and my straining eye takes in its last look of a familiar scene as it might do the ever-to-be-averted ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... his ax he would hurry back to call his companions and harness the dogs and hurry back to the village before the early darkness should fall upon them. As the komatik went careering over the snow, the dogs yelping and straining at the harness, the men running alongside shouting Hi-hi and cracking their whips, they could still see, over their shoulders, the wolves following lightly close behind; but when they rushed breathless ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... morning room and we sat down and pretended to talk. Very poor pretence, I give you my word. Both of us manifestly straining to do the brisk and hearty, and the two of us producing about as much semblance of chatty interchange as a couple of victims waiting their turn in a dentist's parlour. The door was open and I could hear some one moving about laying the lunch. That was all I could hear (bar Sabre's ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... by to a long stretch of rippling shallows, and they were compelled to carry the canoe with its load through the woods and around them, the task, owing to the density of the forest and thicket and the weight of their burden, straining their muscles and drawing perspiration from their faces. But they took consolation from the fact that game was amazingly plentiful. Deer sprang up everywhere, and twice they caught glimpses of bears shambling away. Squirrels chattered over their heads and the little people of the forest ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... struck the opposite bank, seemed to hang there a brief second, straining, balancing, and then with its ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... his arm going down; and they must go SLOW. She was sure he was cold, too, and if he would wait at the back door she would give him a drink of whiskey. Thus Lanty, with her brain afire, her eyes and ears straining into the darkness, and the vague outline of the barn beyond. Another moment was protracted over the drink of whiskey, and then Lanty, with a faint archness, made him promise not to tell her mother of her escapade, and she promised on her part not to say anything ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... back the old man was cooking steak over the kitchen fire, and Beale was at the sink straining summer cabbage in a colander, as though he had lived there all his life and never anywhere else. He was in his shirt-sleeves too, and his coat and hat hung behind ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... hoofs, the rumbling of the wheels the cracking of the eternal whip, as I fidgeted from one familiar lap to the other in search of sleep; and waking out of a doze I could see the glare of the red lamps on the five straining white and gray backs that dragged us so gallantly through ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... met at the glacier at the foot of the Mangshan Mountain, about three miles east-south-east of our camp. It was very hard to walk over the large, slippery stones, where one's feet constantly slipped and were jammed between rocks, straining and hurting the ankles. Since I did not trust my demoralized followers, who seemed on the verge of mutiny, I did not care to leave behind in camp the heavy load of silver rupees (R. 800) sewn in my coat. I always carried that sum on my person, as well as my rifle, two compasses (a prismatic ...
— An Explorer's Adventures in Tibet • A. Henry Savage Landor
... mean those who learn to draw pictures in the back room of a studio, but conscientious men, if you cannot find sensible men. And let the pulpit itself be situated where the people can hear the speaker easily, without straining their eyes and ears. Then only will the speaker's voice ring and kindle and inspire those who come together to hear God Almighty's message; then only will he be truly eloquent and successful, since then only does his own electricity permeate the whole mass; then only can he be ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... to die with thirst, flew with joy to a Pitcher, which he beheld at some distance. When he came he found water in it, indeed, but so near the bottom that, with all his stooping and straining, he was not able to reach it. Then he endeavoured to overturn the Pitcher, that so at least he might be able to get a little of it. But his strength was not sufficient for this. At last, seeing some pebbles lie near the place, he cast them one by one into the Pitcher; and thus, ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... now," added Jack, straining his eyes for a glimpse of the spot where the fisherman's ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... better wind and faster legs than I; peering out into the darkness, to catch a sight of a vague figure standing somewhere in the shadow, and looking, with the sun streaming into my eyes and blinding me, adown long white roads filled with a multitude of people, straining my sight to catch a sight of the coming traveller, who ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... holding-blocks was lost in the noise of the band. The great whistle on the fabricating-plant split the air. The moving-picture camera-men cranked their machines. The last inches of the timbers that held the ship ashore were gnawed through. The sawyers said they could feel the ship straining. She wanted to get to her sea. They ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... the end of the square and looked down the road towards the canal. Dust rose in clouds, and straining horses still came on. Out of the welter I saw young Bushman's horse on the pathway coming towards me. "C Battery's all right," he shouted to me, and a minute later I heard ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... babel of conflict; horses and mules neighing and screaming and straining at their ropes, dogs barking, men yelling, the clash of swords, the rattle and crash of musketry, the screams of the wounded and the groans of the dying. Was ever such a pandemonium? The Guides in small knots, though hard stricken, fought with determined ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... and a faith that were practical. A wonderful genius, discovering by flashes, and as if by instinct, the most profound truths of human nature, and giving them expression in an incomparable style, forcing, straining the language to make it render his idea, darting at one bound to the sublimest height by use of the simplest terms, which he, so to speak, bore away with him, wresting them from their natural and proper signification. "There, in spite of that ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... a ruinous extent before we could pour off the developer and flood the print, or that it would go on even after the water was poured on it. Moreover, in case of under-exposure, two minutes would not be so very tiresome, but four minutes would, besides which we would risk straining the print by such prolonged development. While I am not prepared to assert it as a rule, yet it has been my experience that the time of development varies almost inversely with the length of exposure; so that if the test-strip concludes development ...
— Bromide Printing and Enlarging • John A. Tennant
... of impatience. He could not sit still a moment. He found no quiet, not even in Grandfather's chair; but hurried to and fro, and up and down the staircase of the Province House. Now he mounted to the cupola and looked seaward, straining his eyes to discover if there were a sail upon the horizon. Now he hastened down the stairs, and stood beneath the portal, on the red free-stone steps, to receive some mud-bespattered courier, from whom he hoped ...
— Grandfather's Chair • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... now, no aim; only terror added wings to my feet. The end of that street gained I darted blindly down another, and yet another; with straining chest, and legs that began to fail, and always in my ears the yells that rose round me as fresh pursuers joined in the chase. Still I kept ahead, I was even gaining; with night thickening, I might hope to escape, if I could baffle those who from time to time—but in a half-hearted ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... lying under the crepe-myrtle bush through the hot, droning afternoon, watching the pale magenta flowers flutter down into the dry grass, and felt, again, wrapped in his warm blankets among all these sleepers, the straining of limbs burning with desire to rush untrammelled through some new keen air. Suddenly darkness ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... of the dissolved juices of the meat and gelatine of the bones, cleared from the fat and fibrous portions by straining. The grease, which rises to the top of the fluid, may be ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... therefore, were of opinion that if the several penal statutes already in force did not contain clear enactments against this offence, it was not proper for them to seek some meaning in the law, which would be construed by others into a straining of the provisions of the law, and make it doubtful whether they had not forced the meaning of an enactment, in order to procure a condemnation of the societies in question. Even if they could have discovered ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... a slave driver, either of human or animal slaves, although he can be hardened to it with shocking ease if there seems no other way of getting what he wants. So he usually welcomes that Great Liberator, the Machine. He prefers to drive the tireless engine than to whip the straining horses. He had rather see the farmer riding at ease in a mowing machine than bending his back ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... in silence. It was horribly nerve straining. Miko could be creeping up on us. Would he dare chance my sudden fire? Creeping—or would he ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... beheld soldiers, and crowds of men, and fields, and certain bodily forms, which seem hateful to me even now: groves and forests, and divers other things which I now forget. In all this I took no small delight, and with straining eyes I would gaze upon these marvels; wherefore my Aunt Margaret asked me more than once whether I saw anything. I, though I was then only a child, deliberated over this question of hers before I replied, saying to myself: 'If I tell her the ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... later there was a cracking and straining of boards, and the fence near Mr. Nestor bulged out as though something big, powerful and mighty were pressing it from ...
— Tom Swift and his War Tank - or, Doing his Bit for Uncle Sam • Victor Appleton
... boot as it left the floor, he lowered his own head, averted it ever so little, stooped—and his hand closed like locked iron about the calf of Trevors's leg. A stifled cry from the bulkier man, a little grunt of effort from Lee, Lee straining, heaving mightily, and Trevors went back, toppled, fought for his slipping balance, and fell. As he went down Lee was upon him, Lee's arm about his neck, Lee's weight flung upon him, Lee holding his body between a powerful pair of knees which rode him ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... pain from the tortured arm, torn at times almost from its socket, the gradual snapping of straining ligaments, the constant rupture of capillaries and veins sustained his consciousness for a while. Then the torturing pain abated, the rough dragging shattered the bruised body less. It was as if the Lady and the storm together ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... all the heavy lifting, the men had merely to stand by and look on. In the mere processes of capturing the buoy and making fast the chains and hooks, and fending off, etcetera, there was an amount of physical effort— straining and energising—on the part of the men, that could scarcely be believed unless seen. Do not fancy, good reader, that we are attempting to make much of a trifle in this description. Our object is rather to show that what might very naturally be supposed to be trifling and easy work, ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... they would blow alway. And dark and fearful whispered words from man to man went past, As of some dread and fatal deed which they must do at last. And night and morn and noon they prayed, oh blessed voice of prayer! That God would bring their trembling souls out of this great despair. And every straining eye was bent out o'er the ocean-wave, But they saw no sail, there came no ship the storm-tost barque to save. The fatal die was cast at length; and tears filled every eye As forth a gentle stripling slept and gave himself to ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... would, there were frantic rushes of thousands of eager pioneers across the line of newly opened Indian reservations. Even in 1889, when Oklahoma was opened to settlement, twenty thousand settlers crowded at the boundaries, like straining athletes, waiting the bugle note that should start the race across the line. To-day great crowds gather at the land lotteries of the government as the remaining fragments of the public domain are ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... last point is one of great importance, where there is any tendency to a rupture at this part of the body—a tendency which very often exists in feeble children. And without some support of this kind, crying, coughing, sneezing, and straining in any way, might greatly aggravate the evil, if ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott
... teller that would please, should not stretch his tale too long, and truly this tale is so various and so high that it needs no straining. Then let me shortly tell how Rohalt himself, after long wandering by sea and land, came into Cornwall, and found Tristan, and showing the King the carbuncle that ...
— The Romance Of Tristan And Iseult • M. Joseph Bedier
... the sea, her hair in short, thick plaits of gold, dark and wet and bare; with the eyes of a sword and the colour of an apple-blossom; the brine upon her and the brown of wind and sun; in her breeches, boots, and jersey, her big dog straining on his lead, she looked ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... the salt sea. From the moment that the Sea Queen leaves lower New York bay till the breeze leaves her becalmed off the coast of Florida, one can almost hear the whistle of the wind through her rigging, the creak of her straining cordage as she heels to the leeward. The adventures of Ben Clark, the hero of the story and Jake the cook, cannot fail to charm the reader. As a writer for young people Mr. ...
— Adrift in New York - Tom and Florence Braving the World • Horatio Alger
... are ambitious overmuch in life, Straining at ends of hard accomplishment, And goaded onward by poor discontent, We build our little Babels up through strife, And bitterness of soul, and motions rife With passions that oft slay the innocent, Like Priests of Lust ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... carefully done the soup will be quite brilliant the second time of straining, and will not require to ...
— The Skilful Cook - A Practical Manual of Modern Experience • Mary Harrison
... Mason, and Mrs Lincoln answered, "Why didn't you know that Mr. Selden's orphan nephew, George Moreland, had come over from England to live with him? He is heir to a large fortune, and it is said that both Mr. Selden and Aunt Martha are straining every nerve to eventually bring about a ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... vacantly, apparently straining his memory in order to recognise the new-comer. It was plain that as a personal matter he had no immediate use for Alf Rylett; but he presently ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... effect is delightfully humorous. Berne, with its quaint arcaded streets, its Alpine views, and its suburban resorts, makes a capital background, and gives the group free play to meet with all sorts of picturesque opportunities. The story is told without any straining after climaxes, but with many felicitous touches that enhance the effect of every picture and incident. In scene, characters, and plot, "At the Red Glove" offers a brilliant opportunity to the dramatist, and one is tempted to think that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... the man stood with a puzzled air; then he turned back, and went into the hovel again. Maggie with painful effort, had raised herself to an upright position and was sitting on the bed, straining her eyes upon the door out of which all had just departed, A vague terror had come into her ...
— After a Shadow, and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... a silver vision floats Obedient to the sweep of odorous winds Upon resplendent clouds, so rapidly Along the dark and ruffled waters fled The straining boat.—A whirlwind swept it on, 320 With fierce gusts and precipitating force, Through the white ridges of the chafed sea. The waves arose. Higher and higher still Their fierce necks writhed beneath the tempest's scourge Like serpents struggling in a vulture's grasp. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... the moonlit road he sped, the dispatch-rider who had come from the blue hills of Alsace across the war-scorched area into the din and fire and stenching suffocation and red-running streams of Picardy "for service as required." Two miles behind the straining line he rode and parallel with it, straight northward, keeping his keen, steady eyes fixed upon the road for shell holes. Over to the east he could hear the thundering boom of artillery and once the air just above him seemed to buzz as if some mammoth wasp had passed. But he rode steadily, easily, ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... Kutusow's refusal to put an end to the terrible struggle, by an action which must have ended in the destruction or capture of Napoleon and his army. He felt, however, that he could not at present remove him from his command. Kutusow was a member of the old nobility, who were straining every nerve for the national cause, were stripping their estates of their serfs, and emptying their coffers into the military chests, and who would ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... only a moment. Mingled with them was one of still more special import: to whom had belonged the abandoned waggon? With fearful apprehension, I covered the ground with my glass— straining my sight as I gazed through it. I swept the whole surface of the surrounding plain. I looked under the waggon—on both sides of it, and beyond. I sought amidst the masses of dusky forms I examined the groups and stragglers—even the corpses that strewed ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... melancholy intelligence for the females; but they listened to it with calmness, and endeavoured to be, as well as to seem, resigned. Beulah received her father's kiss and blessing with streaming eyes, straining little Evert to her heart as he left her. Maud was the last embraced, He even led her, by gentle violence, to the court, keeping her in discourse by the way, exhorting her to support her mother's spirits by her own ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... dry. Kaiber, a native companion of the party, suddenly starts up from a bed of reeds, where he has been burying his head in a hole of soft mud, with which he had completely swelled himself out, and of which he had helped himself to pretty well half the supply. It is so thick that it needs straining through a handkerchief, yet so welcome, after three days and two nights of burning thirst, under a fierce sun, that each man throws himself down beside the hole, exclaiming "Thank God!" and then greedily swallows a few mouthfulls of the liquid ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... the fate of myself and my betrothed. The seated warriors appeared to be all unarmed; and the renegade—whose hand I most regarded—was now farther off, having gone round to the opposite side of the fire. The situation was favourable, and for a moment I stood straining ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... two young aviators in a wild race across the ice-floes, with Jarvis straining after them, the Major turned a smiling face toward ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... due to the supineness of the home authorities. The Nineteen were in no way surprised to hear of great preparations being made by the King of Spain to retake the town, and they on their part were determined to maintain their conquest by meeting force with force. Straining all their resources, three squadrons were equipped; the first two, numbering thirty-two ships and nine yachts, were destined for Brazil; the third, a small flying squadron of seven vessels, was despatched early to ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... those which were nearest, Toussaint leaned on his folded arms against the bank of broken ground before him, straining his ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... general, however, they are called into requisition principally in dressings, soups, stews and sauces in which their particles are not considered objectionable. If clear sauces or soups are desired, the dried herbs may still be used to impart the flavor, their particles being removed by straining. ...
— Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation Harvesting Curing and Uses • M. G. Kains
... Keith was straining every muscle now, but it was like running in a nightmare. His arms moved up and down at a furious speed, but it seemed to him that the hand-car was glued to one spot. It seemed, too, that it had been hours since they first discovered that the engine was after them, and ...
— Two Little Knights of Kentucky • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the priest. "But at this moment you are thinking, 'Here is this Spanish canon inventing anecdotes and straining history to prove to me that I ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... alike were forgotten; self seemed lost in the magic of the scene; and it was with straining eyes and beating hearts that we rattled down the declivity to Biskra, the largest, richest and most important of this group of oases. But here again our troubles commenced. This journey seemed fated to be, like the journey ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... water. This boy's name was Hjuki. He asked his sister Bil to go with him. They had to carry with them the big bucket fastened to a long pole, for there was no well-sweep. They thrust the pole, with the bucket at the end of it, into the water, and, as they were both busy straining every muscle to raise the bucket, Mani stood beside them and ...
— Classic Myths • Retold by Mary Catherine Judd
... confusion of branches in a leafless forest. In the distance the mass of rigging resolved itself into a solid gray blur against the sky. The great hulks, green and black and slate gray, laid themselves along the docks, straining leisurely at their mammoth chains, their flanks opened, their cargoes, as it were their entrails, spewed out in a wild disarray of crate and bale and box. Sailors and stevedores swarmed them like vermin. Trucks rolled along the wharves like peals of ordnance, the horse-hoofs beating ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... spirits are roaming at once," cried Teddy, straining his eyes to see through the darkness as the humming of ...
— Billie Bradley and Her Inheritance - The Queer Homestead at Cherry Corners • Janet D. Wheeler
... appointed rendezvous, and advanced with the easy conviction that the mere impulse of so mighty a force would sweep Caesar off the earth. They were late in arriving. The thirty days had passed, and there were no signs of the coming deliverers. Eager eyes were straining from the heights of the plateau; but nothing was seen save the tents of the legions or the busy units of men at work on the walls and trenches. Anxious debates were held among the beleaguered chiefs. The faint-hearted wished to surrender ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... they do to mortal ears. But there were other sounds which enchained my attention more than these voices of nature. As the skilled leader of an orchestra hears every single sound from each member of the mob of stringed and wind instruments, and above all the screech of the straining soprano, so my sharpened perceptions made what would have been for common mortals a confused murmur audible to me as compounded of innumerable easily distinguished sounds. Above them all arose one continued, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... they had many more of them. It was so dark that we had to get our fighting-lanterns hung up along the decks. Just fancy us then stripped to the waist, with handkerchiefs bound round our heads, and straining every nerve as we ran in and out, and cleaned and loaded our heavy guns, and blazed away as fast as we could. We were covered, too, with smoke and powder, and before long most of us were sprinkled pretty thickly with our own or ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... the preliminary engine test. The latter, in leathern kit, warm flying boots and goggled, climbs into his seat, and now, even more than before, has the Aeroplane an almost living appearance, as if straining to be off and away. First he moves the Controls to see that everything is clear, for sometimes when the Aeroplane is on the ground the control lever or "joy-stick" is lashed fast to prevent the wind from blowing the controlling surfaces ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber
... no heed, but swung himself to and fro, straining out his neck to peep round the mate and get a look at ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... hears her uncomplaining, Tears him free by force; To his heart but once her straining, Flings him on his horse; Sends to all his vassals merry In old Switzerland; To the holy grave ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald
... force, the defenders of the castle were not more than twenty, yet so admirable were its defences that they might hold in check an attacking party of more than a hundred. The warder and his men were grouped together at the main gate, straining their eyes against the horizon, where the smoke of some cottages indicated the presence of the foe, when the palmer advanced and asked permission to assist them. This was readily granted, and the recruits were soon supplied with defensive armor and the ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... Metropole. There always is a Hotel Metropole and a newspaper, no matter where you go. When you travel beyond them you have penetrated the Ultima Thule of modern times. The Hotel Metropole was near the station. It was picturesque without straining for it. Mainly it was a large, sandy lot with a rope around it; but part of it was tents of various colors, sizes, and shapes, arranged around the parent shelter of them all—a circus "top," weathered and stained ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... river and take a look, perhaps to see as to her chances of getting out that night. The twilight darkened into night, and night wore on into the small hours, and now we gazed into the gloom anxiously, for at this time, if any, she would seek to run out. With straining eyes and the most intense quiet, we listen for the sound of paddle wheels. A stranger passing along our decks, seeing in the darkness the shadowy forms of men crouched in listening attitudes, would have fancied himself among a body of Indians watching stealthily some ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... concentrated in this thing of power. There are acres and acres, scores of acres around, but they are surface only. This is the central spot: they are nothing, mere matter. This is force—Thor in another form. If you are near you cannot take your eyes off the sentient iron, the wrestler straining. But now the plough has come over, and the signal given reverses its way. The lazy monotonous clanking as the drum unwinds on this side, the rustling of the rope as it is dragged forth over the clods, the quiet rotation of the fly-wheel—these sounds let the excited thought down as the rotating ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... with a roof at least ten feet above those of the neighboring houses. For a moment they hesitated. Then Cyprien climbed up a chimney pipe, with the agility of a cat. Aimee, who must have consented to wait for him, stood on the tiles. We saw her plainly, black and enlarged against the pale sky, straining her children to her bosom. And it was then that ...
— The Flood • Emile Zola
... flames poured out like a crowd in a panic, from doors and windows and from a thousand cracks and crevices in the roof. Trust Cossar to build a fire! A great column of smoke, shot with blood-red tongues and darting flashes, rushed up into the sky. It was like some huge giant suddenly standing up, straining upward and abruptly spreading his great arms out across the sky. It cast the night back upon them, utterly hiding and obliterating the incandescence of the sun that rose behind it. All Hickleybrow was soon aware of that stupendous pillar of smoke, ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... every minute was making it farther and farther off. It's a bitter thing that sailing away from all one loves; and poor Ellen felt it so. She stood leaning both her arms upon the rail, the tears running down her cheeks, and blinding her so that she could not see the place toward which her straining eyes were bent. Somebody ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... is that our people, while straining every nerve in peace to ensure to their navy the best chances of victory in war, must carefully avoid the conception of a dominion of the sea, although, in fact, such a dominion actually existed during a great part of the nineteenth century. The new conditions ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson
... under the darkness of cliffs, of the whisperings and shoutings of Things you are too busy to identify out in the gray of North Country awe—all these menace you with indeterminate dread. Knee-deep, waist-deep, swift water, slack water, downstream, upstream, with red eyes straining into the dimness, with every muscle taut and every nerve quivering, you follow the ripping of your line. You have consecrated yourself to the uttermost. The minutes stalk by you gigantic. You are a stable pin-point in whirling phantasms. And you are very little, very small, very inadequate ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... been confronted as we were with the responsibility of determining the issues of peace and war can realize the strength and energy and persistency with which we labored for peace. We persevered by every expedient that diplomacy could suggest, straining almost to the breaking point our most cherished friendships and obligations, even to the last making effort upon effort, and hoping against hope. Then, and only then, when we were at last compelled ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... and above all the happy consciousness of his own health, strength and freedom from care. His lungs, straining his tight-fitting fur coat, inhaled the frosty air; the trees, grazed by the shaft, sent showers of white flakes into his face; his body was warm, his face ruddy; his soul was without a care or blemish, or fear or desire. How happy ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... everywhere. The men and women on the roofs of the houses were absolutely still. The cavalry, their line now drawn completely about the mission, were motionless. Ned, straining his eyes toward the Alamo, could see nothing there. Suddenly he put up his hand and wiped his forehead. His fingers came away wet. His blood prickled in his veins like salt. He became impatient, angry. If the mine was ready, why did they not set the match? ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... honourable Gerald Ward A. D. C. From the window of the D. B. C. Buck Mulligan gaily, and Haines gravely, gazed down on the viceregal equipage over the shoulders of eager guests, whose mass of forms darkened the chessboard whereon John Howard Parnell looked intently. In Fownes's street Dilly Dedalus, straining her sight upward from Chardenal's first French primer, saw sunshades spanned and wheelspokes spinning in the glare. John Henry Menton, filling the doorway of Commercial Buildings, stared from winebig oyster eyes, holding a ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... involuntary cry, or what would have been a cry, had she not been so effectually gagged. The knowledge that she lay helpless, unable to protect herself from attack, frightened her. She turned her head, straining her eyes into the semi-darkness. Something, some figure, was moving toward her from the bedroom, gliding along with swaying, noiseless steps. What it was, she could not determine; from its appearance against the ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... looke you so vpon me? I am but sorry, not affear'd: delaid, But nothing altred: What I was, I am: More straining on, for plucking backe; not ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... conjunctiva (or membrane lining the inner surface of the lids and covering the front surface of the eyeball) may be caused by blows or other injury to the eye, by violent coughing, by straining, etc. Dark-red spots may appear in the white of the eyeball, slightly raised above the surface, which are little blood clots under the conjunctival membrane. No special trouble results and there is nothing to be done except to ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
... pain; it will be dry, hard, and expelled in small quantities. In other cases, perhaps, purging will be present from the beginning; the animal will be tormented with tenesmus, or frequent desire to void its excrement, and that act attended by straining and pain, by soreness about the anus, and protrusion of the rectum, and sometimes by severe colicky spasms. In many cases, however, and in those of a chronic form, few of these distressing symptoms are observed, even at the commencement of the disease; but the animal voids ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... the heath, straining her eyes in the direction of Mrs. Yeobright's house and premises. No light, sound, or movement was perceptible there. The evening was chilly; the spot was dark and lonely. She inferred that the guest had not yet come; and after lingering ten or fifteen ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... wrong he was forced to do—till they flung him out into Palace Yard. An eye-witness thus reported the scene in the Press: "The strong, broad, heavy, powerful frame of Mr. Bradlaugh was hard to move, with its every nerve and muscle strained to resist the coercion. Bending and straining against the overpowering numbers, he held every inch with surprising tenacity, and only surrendered it after almost superhuman exertions to retain it. The sight—little of it as was seen from the outside—soon became sickening. The overborne ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... from her chair and ran toward the door, then back again to her seat, with her hands pressed tightly on her heart; then back to the door, as if her straining eye could pierce the darkness. It did, God pity her! What did she see? Her little Willy, quite dead, lying on a litter, carried by Mr. ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... I thought to get a little sleep; came to look into my cot; it was full of water; for every seam, by the straining of the ship, had began to leak. Stretched myself, therefore, upon deck between two chests, and left orders to be called, should the least thing happen. At twelve a midshipman came to me: "Mr. Archer, we are just going to wear ship, Sir!" "O, very well, I'll be up directly, what sort ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... had not been for days, nor indeed since the last conversation I have recorded. But her face, though it was now sensible, was pinched and white, and so drawn with mortal fear that I believed her dying, and sprang to her, unable to construe otherwise the pitiful look in her straining eyes. ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... oviduct was probably the cause of the hens dying on the nest and is due to the same condition in the hens; that is, the straining to expel the egg necessary in the engorged condition of the ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... he leant on his staff, straining every nerve to bend his body so as to fall on his knees and pay his respects to them, and express his sense of obligation for the trouble they had taken, when madame Hsing and the other ladies hastily called Pao-yue to ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... of the tide, which for miles flows up the river, our vessel grounded three times, but after puffing and straining for a considerable time, she got off without damage and pursued her onward course. Most of my fellow-voyagers were disposed to be distant and taciturn, and so I enjoyed the grandeurs of the scene in solitary musings, ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... they should make a "train;" that is, bind all the sleds together, and so go down: it would be more delightful than ever by moonlight. No sooner said than done. Only Pussy's sled was not tied to her brother's, for he feared lest the straining and shocks that often took place in this kind of coasting might prove dangerous to her. She followed, therefore, as usual; but Otto could not stop his sled if she was delayed, for he had to go on with the "train." Off ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... But though Raleigh executed this patent in the spring of 1589, it was not until more than a year afterward that the expedition was ready to sail. White went with them, and we may imagine with what straining eyes he scanned the spot where he had last beheld his daughter and grandchild, as the ship glided ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... on his account; yet could she not speak. In such condition she abode a long while and indeed yearning for him was killing her; so she stood and watched for him one day at the door of her chamber and straining him to her bosom, bussed him on the breast and kissed him on either cheek. At this moment, behold, out came the major-domo of the king's household and seeing her embracing the youth, started in amazement. Then he asked to whom that chamber belonged ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... too, that she was gaining, though he would not turn his head to look. When her nose was at his horse's rump, he had it in his heart to turn and shoot her as she ran. She crept up and up, and both Smith and Ralston knew that the straining, pounding gray had done its best. The work was too rough for its feet. There was too much thoroughbred in it for lava-rock and sage-brush hummocks. Blind rage consumed Smith as he felt the increasing effort of each stride and knew that it was going "dead" under him. He used his ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... one on his way home. Once a loaded wood-sled came up behind him with a faint creak and jingle of harness, then the straining flanks of the horse, the cubic pile of wood shaded out of shape by the snow, the humped back of the driver on the top, passed out of sight, as behind a slanting white curtain. The village houses ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the same in the Psalms, Ezekiel, and throughout the Scriptures, but which I feel most in Paul and Luther, —there is one fearful blank, the wisdom or necessity of which I do not doubt, yet cannot help groping and straining after like one that stares in the dark; and this is Death. The law makes us afraid of death. What is death?—an unhappy life? Who does not feel the insufficiency of this answer? What analogy does immortal suffering bear to the only death ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... that comes from one, that would be easily received it if did drop from another; and I doubt not, if this book had some other hand at it, there is scarce any expression that may be now carpt at by some, but would have been swallowed without straining. We are now fallen into such an age (the good Lord help us) that truth, upon its own account, can challenge but little acceptance, except the author be liked, or his lines painted with his own wit. But certainly truth is of so excellent a nature, of such singular advantage, and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... at full, after being hidden from view for nearly a week, rose above the tops of the trees, thinning the darkness that lay heavy on the river, the full light not yet having reached the Little Big Branch at that point. Hippy shaded his straining eyes and gazed upstream. All seemed peaceful in that direction, but he suddenly realized that the sound he had heard was increasing in volume. He could now hear a succession of hollow reports, the meaning of which he could not fathom. He asked his ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... common opinions: the others are only entertained by individuals; and indeed there were many amongst the ancients who held singular opinions on this subject, of whom the latest was Aristoxenus, a man who was both a musician and a philosopher; he maintained a certain straining of the body, like what is called harmony in music, to be the soul; and believed that, from the figure and nature of the whole body, various motions are excited, as sounds are from an instrument. He adhered steadily to his system, and yet he said something, the nature of which, ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... that the shock of foreknowledge, of omnipotent vision, had left David scathless. Though the other details of the tragedy shared his memory, and elbowed the terrifying sense of revelation, he would find himself now and again peering at the future, straining to foresee, as a sailor bores at a fog-bank. Then he would catch himself, and start back shuddering to the instant matters about him. Eventualities he could meet, but in their season and hand to hand; afar off they mastered him. ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... towards a huge rock, whereon he had slept, and straining his tough sinews, tore up the mighty fragment from the ground. The earth felt the shock, and its dark entrails trembled; but Kifri, undismayed, threw the wild ruin to the clouds. The labouring mountain returned quickly on the rebellious head ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... still further by the darkness, the silence, and his waking images, froze his heart within him. He almost felt his hair stand on end, when by straining his eyes to their utmost he perceived through the shadow two faint yellow lights. At first he attributed these lights to the reflections of his own pupils, but soon the vivid brilliance of the night aided him ...
— A Passion in the Desert • Honore de Balzac
... in with delighted eyes. He ran down to the ford, dodging between pack-mules and jolting two-wheeled carts, and slipping eel-like past other pedestrians, forgetting Valerius, who hurried after. He strode from stone to stone, splashed by straining horses that tugged beside him, and sprang to shore upon the island. So he won to his ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... emotions were frozen in her stare of suspense at the breach. Her heart seemed straining with the effort of the living, who heard nothing, thought nothing, in the crux of their effort. War's own mesmerism had made her forget Feller and everything except the gamble, the turn of the card, while the gray figures kept stumbling ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... no water,' cried mademoiselle, straining her eyes. 'The Arab rides fast, like the wind. He is in a hurry. One would think he was being ...
— The Figure In The Mirage - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... provisions, crowded almost to suffocation in their ill-stored prison, delayed by calms, pursuing a circuitous route; and now, driven in fury before the raging tempest, in their scarcely seaworthy vessel. The awful voice of the storm howls through the rigging. The laboring masts seem straining from their base; the dismal sound of the pumps is heard; the ship leaps, as it were, madly from billow to billow; the ocean breaks, and settles with ingulfing floods over the floating deck, and beats with deadening weight, against the staggered vessel. I see them, escaped from these perils, pursuing ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... moment the horses received the signal to start, the danger of the enterprise was apparent. Both animals immediately reared, straining in opposite directions at the reins, and it was certainly more than a minute before Mansana could steer them ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... as they charged, and within another minute were coolly kneeling and firing at the swarming, yelling, veering warriors, already checked in their wild clash to the rescue, and within the little semicircle two furiously straining forms, locked in each other's arms, were rolling over and over on the trampled snow,—Red Dog, panting, raging, biting, cursing, but firmly, desperately held in the clasp of an athletic soldier, for without a word Percy Davies had leaped from the porch and borne the ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... which she expected her brother to return. Hitherto, however, he could not be discovered in the distance, although scarcely five minutes elapsed during the intervals of her appearance at the stile to watch him. Some horsemen she did notice; but after straining her eyes eagerly and anxiously, she was enabled only to report, with a dejected air, that they were their own friends coming from a distant part of the parish, to be present at the dinner. At length, ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... glue and bracing, and fitting iron rings about it. The vibration of the motor and the straining have pulled the nail heads through the holes ...
— Dave Dashaway and his Hydroplane • Roy Rockwood
... his eyes with his palm and straining his sight in the direction indicated really saw in the ruddy luster of the sun, which now stood low, a streak of smoke rising far in the jungle, amid the top of two still more distant hills which ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... ruin; for not even in New York can a man live beyond his actual means. They have not the moral courage to live within their legitimate incomes. To do so would be to lose their positions in society, and they go on straining every nerve to meet the demands upon them, and then the crash comes, and ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... invoke Roman-Dutch law and ignore the laws of the country, in which case it would be in his power to pass sentence of death. In their opinion, they added, and in the opinion of Mr. Rose Innes and others, this would be a monstrous straining of the law, yet they felt bound ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... straining ears fell the sound of a door slammed shut. There was no mistake, no illusion about it. Some one had entered the shop. Then came the sound of a second door. This time it was being opened. And it was the ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... in answer to his prayer did Zeus, of the far borne voice, send forth two eagles in flight, from on high, from the mountain-crest. Awhile they flew as fleet as the blasts of the wind, side by side, with straining of their pinions. But when they had now reached the mid assembly, the place of many voices, there they wheeled about and flapped their strong wings, and looked down upon the heads of all, and destruction was in their gaze. Then tore they with their talons each the other's ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... ship's boats could be spared, so I [MacGillivray] hired one pulled by four negro slaves who, although strong, active fellows, had great objections to straining their backs at the oar, when the dredge was down. No sieve having been supplied, we were obliged to sift the contents of the dredge through our hands—a tedious and superficial mode of examination. Two days after, Mr. Huxley and I set to work in Botafogo ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... St. Timothy's! One—two—three!" The fellows in the barge sent up a vigorous, snappy cheer, and then overflowed at back and sides. In the confusion and the crowd, Irving was still straining his short-sighted eyes in a vain ...
— The Jester of St. Timothy's • Arthur Stanwood Pier
... with terror. Rising on his horse's back, he leaned forward until it looked as though there was danger of going over his head altogether. Then, whooping and shrieking to his terrified horse, that was already straining every nerve, he pounded his heels in its sides, vainly urging it ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis
... mass which rapidly grew more distinct loomed up in front, and the horn rang out joyously through the tumult of the hounds and falcons. A torch glimmered at a gate, a light streamed through an opening door, and we stepped upon a wooden bridge which trembled under our feet and rose creaking and straining behind us as we passed over the moat and into a small stone court, walled on every side. From an open doorway a man came and, bending in salutation, presented a cup to the girl beside me. She took the cup and touched it with ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... McKay, though an indifferent swordsman, was a formidable wrestler and fist fighter, and the German's advantage in weight was more than offset by the American's quickness and wiry strength. Science was thrown to the winds. A heaving, choking, wrenching man-fight it was, stumbling over bodies, each straining every muscle, trying every hold to twist and break the other and batter ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... in violence until it succeeded in so straining the Mudlark that she took in water like a teetotaler; then it appeared to get relief directly. This may be said in justice to a storm at sea: when it has broken off your masts, pulled out your rudder, carried away your boats and made a nice hole in some inaccessible part of your hull ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... the finest perceptions and emotions. The Greek has the same perceptive, emotional temperament as the Celt; but he adds to this temperament the sense of MEASURE; hence his admirable success in the plastic arts, in which the Celtic genius, with its chafing against the despotism of fact, its perpetual straining after mere emotion, has accomplished nothing. In the comparatively petty art of ornamentation, in rings, brooches, crosiers, relic-cases, and so on, he has done just enough to show his delicacy of ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold
... consciousness. I presume through the force of habit, in which case it would appear that intellectual power is not brought into play. Several persons have made suggestions and objections as yours about the hands being held up in astonishment; if there was any straining of the muscles, as with protruded arms under fright, I would agree; as it is I must keep to my old opinion, and I dare say you will say that I am an obstinate old blockhead. (477/3. The raising of the hands in surprise is explained ("Expression of Emotions," ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... there was no written evidence, the plaintiff, when asked what he had to show for it, always answered "good suit," and tendered his witnesses, who were sometimes examined by the court. /3/ I think it is not straining the evidence to infer that the "good suit" of the later reports was the descendant of the Saxon transaction witnesses, as it has been shown that Glanvill's ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... eyes were eagerly searching the waters of the creek, and she was straining her ears to catch the sound of the oars. Then we were rewarded. For at that moment we heard the long sweep of the oars in the water, and out from the mouth of the creek came the boat, the brawny negroes bending to ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... violent blasts ripped over us like projectiles, and the "song of the dead men" was twanged upon the straining ropes. The Waif stopped for an instant, as if debating whether she would run or cower before the onslaught, then she dipped her nose into the mad lather that rose around her and plunged forward. That jump seemed to be a challenge to the storm. It burst upon us in all its fury, and the ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... Mr. Merriman forcefully, "I have for the last month been straining my resources to hold the market. But it is too heavy, sir, ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... ever increasing force; the lightly ballasted ships made bad weather, rolling deep in the seas, straining heavily, and leaking badly through the opening seams and the hastily stopped shot holes. Water was extremely scarce, and at a signal from the admiral all the horses and mules were thrown overboard in order to husband the supply. Several of the masts, badly injured by the English shot, went by ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty |
