"Tensely" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tensely absorbed in this scheme that nobody heard Boule de Suif coming in. But the Count whispered a gentle: "Hush!" which caused all eyes to look up. There she stood. There was a sudden silence and a certain embarrassment ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... to conquer one continent could not cease functioning when that one continent was subdued. Rather, high geared and speeded up as it was, it was in fine form to extend its conquests, like the well groomed army that has come scatheless through a great campaign, and that longs, throughout its tensely unified structure to be off on ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing
... Milo had scented something wrong, and was cautioning the boys in a whisper. They came by twos across the room, curving their line a little to pass near to Sue, and looking toward her with troubled eyes. This indeed was a different Sue, in that strange dress, standing so tensely, with ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... derelict ship of manliness being irresistibly driven by a hurricane of Fear; that a complete wreck was imminent unless she were the master-pilot. Her cheeks were aflame with indignation, her body bending tensely forward might have been a spring of steel set to release some instrument of torture—and then she let the bolt descend ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... Chiswick had gone to bed, but Bicky was there, hunched up in an arm-chair, brooding pretty tensely, with a cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth and a more or less glassy stare in his eyes. He had the aspect of one who had been soaked with what the newspaper chappies call ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... shelf, legs powerless, body in cold sweat. As I waited, slowly my mind freed itself from a tight iron band and a sickening relief filled my soul. Tensely I waited ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... as he stood in his black clothes, with blue eyes very bright and puzzled for her, his face tensely alive, his hair dishevelled. She came close up to him, to his intent, black-clothed body, and laid her hand on his arm. He remained unmoved. Her eyes, with a blackness of memory struggling with passion, primitive and electric away at the ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... a confusion as the bandits rushed aboard. The patrol was dropping in a swift spiral. I watched tensely, holding Jetta, with the turmoil of the embarking bandits around me. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... but holding it on its side, slightly tipped, draws it along with the mouth half under the surface, sucking in the water as it moves. We see what hard, firm muscles she has to hold the arm out so tensely. Her arm acts like a compass describing the arc of a circle through the water with the jar. As we look, we can almost see her completing the circle, and drawing up the full jar ...
— Jean Francois Millet • Estelle M. Hurll
... God again and to Elsie again, and he knew he was crying because he could taste the tears, and he knew he was going to die because there wasn't anything else that could happen, and he knew suddenly that he was mortally afraid. He could not lay rigidly, tensely—there were no muscles to tighten. But the tension had to go somewhere. He felt a numbness creeping up the back of his neck, felt his eyes bulging as if they would burst, heard a roaring in his ears. He opened his mouth, ...
— A Choice of Miracles • James A. Cox
... watched him tensely till he passed quite out of sight, then, relaxing, she laid a shaking ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... wavered, but it did not fail me utterly. I have more than once observed that, in my second character, my faculties seemed sharpened to a point and my spirits more tensely elastic; thus it came about that, where Jekyll perhaps might have succumbed, Hyde rose to the importance of the moment. My drugs were in one of the presses of my ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... waited tensely. From time to time the latter glanced at his watch. "Better hope that call does the trick, Swift," he muttered. "It's the only hope you got of leavin' ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... Fran had thought him singularly handsome and attractive, she now found him inspiring. His blue eyes burned with exaltation while his magic voice seemed to thrill with more than human ecstasy. The strong, slim, white hand tensely grasping the baton, was the hand of a powerful chieftain wielded in behalf of the ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... sought for and found another shelf beneath, and descended as by a ladder to the thickly carpeted floor. Grasping the end of the bar, he pulled that weapon down; then he twisted the button which converted his timepiece into an electric lantern, and, holding the bar in one tensely quivering hand, looked rapidly ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... Bud, tensely, "as you know, we are on the eve of a great conflict. Tomorrow the pick of our athletic young manhood does battle with the brawny horde of Yale. Defeat looms ominous above—upon the horizon, but the unconquerable spirit of ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... the noise; she seemed suddenly to have found the climax of her life, and the climax was pain. There was pain and a feeling of terrible change all over her, smothering her, and a super-pain in her shoulder. After a second or two as long as death, she realised dimly that she was all tensely strung to an attitude, like a marionette. Her hands were up trying to shield her head, her chin was pressed down to her drawn-up knees. Her blue serge shoulder was extraordinarily wet and immovable. She looked along the cloud. Her enemy was not there. There was a round ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... his plan," he whispered tensely. "Oh! you shall hear me! He watch you grow from a little lovely child, as he watch his death-spiders and his grey scorpions grow! He tend you and care for you and make you perfect, and he plan for you ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... frightened—yet warmed by a surge of pride. She thought of her father....If he could see and know! If knowledge could only pass to him that his daughter had been thought worthy by such a man to play her part for the Cause!...She waited tensely, hand ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... which our ancestors built ages ago on a protected plateau," Naida answered tensely. "It is a good distance still, but we will cover ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... he began with an effort painful to see; his hands seemed to be pulling tensely upon his folded arms, the blunt fingers of the broad red hands showed white upon the coat-sleeves, his face was still of the muddy pink which with him stood ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... hands tensely together and murmured to herself, "For love is born with the soul,—and is the last thing ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... movements were rapid now; he took the chief's swarthy hand in his, and his fingers were cool and soft to the burning skin he touched. Then raising his right he laid it upon the biceps, to find all tensely ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... tensely. They dismounted, pulled the reins over the horses' heads and started up the wall, John leading, carefully. One bitter lesson the desert was teaching him: haste in the hot country spells ruin! So, though Rhoda's voice still rang in his ears, though the sight of the slender boyish figure ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... anguish, Through lips and eyes came gushing from my breast. . . . . . . Confusion and dismay, together mingled, Forced such a feeble "Yes!" out of my mouth, To understand it one had need of sight. Even as a cross-bow breaks, when 't is discharged, Too tensely drawn the bow-string and the bow, And with less force the arrow hits the mark; So I gave way beneath this heavy burden, Gushing forth into bitter tears and sighs, And the voice, fainting, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... a bit tensely, when his father's hesitation left the sentence unfinished, "you might just as well tell me. I know already it isn't good, or you'd have told me right away. And if it's bad—I might just as well ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... of blood, lay watching the wolf as it crouched tensely. Again the great gray shadow lunged and a bright streak sprung up on the dog's side. "Gee Gosh!" whined Sundown; "he can't stand much more of that!" Undoubtedly Chance knew it, for he straight-way gathered himself ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... Gillian," he said tensely. "Is it for want of something better that you give so much affection to that cringing beast"—he pointed to the poodle who was crawling abjectly on his stomach toward her from the bureau where he had taken refuge—"is it a child that your arms are wanting—not a dog?" His face was drawn, and he stared ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... Opposite sits as fair a type of a ripe British beauty of the middle class as I have anywhere seen—with a complexion of snow, a mouth like a red bud and eyes as beautiful and expressive as those of a splendid large wax doll, her hair drawn tensely back and rolled into billowy puffs, with a rose atop. It is sad, in looking on a picture like this—superb in its suggestions of pure rich blood and abounding health—to reflect that such a rose will develop into a red peony in ten years. I do not say the peony will ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... have spared the child that knowledge? Oh, Jeanette!' I cried, and flung myself against the door; then, turning, met my father's sneering look with one of bitter defiance. 'I will see Jeanette first,' I said, tensely. 'And then, my father, we will have a short reckoning,' and going out, I slammed the door upon his sneering face and flung myself down the stairs in search of ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... thundered on their mission of death; the glittering sheen reflected from a thousand sabres, had all passed by and left us in the desolated town. We lived, as it were, with bated breath and eager ears, our nerves tensely strung with anxiety and suspense waiting to catch the first sound of that coming strife, where we knew so many of our bravest and best must fall. At last came the news of that terrible fight at Buzzard's Roost or Rocky Face Ridge, and the evening after, in came Dr. S. —— straight from the ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... Tom tensely, "Jeff Marshall will be getting out of the brig when we do. He'll be working with Professor Sykes, along with us. Why can't we build one on the sly in ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... But Ina said tensely: "Is it nonsense? Haven't I been trying and trying to find out where the black satchel ...
— Miss Lulu Bett • Zona Gale
... "Don't!" begged Hal, tensely. "For you know, old fellow, it can't come true. Why, we haven't even a residence anywhere, from which a Congressman could appoint one ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies - The Prize Detail at Annapolis • Victor G. Durham
... and beyond him Angel. On my left The Seraph and Mrs. Handsomebody, her hands clasped tensely in her lap. But who was that in the golden light beyond Angel? Who indeed but our old friend Captain Pegg who had come, it appeared, with Giftie's mistress. Lucky Angel to be next him, laughing and whispering with him! ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... quietly by the big fireplace. With eyes half-closed, she listened to the opening sentences. But as he proceeded, her listlessness vanished. And when he laid down the manuscript she was leaning forward, her slim hands clasped tensely on her knees, her ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... tensely, "please listen to me. You know that the castle will be full of people in a day or two for Percy's coming-of-age, and this next few days may be your last chance of having a real, long, private talk with Maud. I shall be seriously annoyed if you neglect this opportunity. There is no excuse for ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... told it. They listened tensely. The mother was the first to break the silence after he had finished. She began to sob. Steve put an arm ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... coming, and in their puny efforts to escape, looked like ants before an elephant. The five streams, flowing through the delta of the Cotabato River, seemed to draw the vicious waterspout toward them, and on it went, directly in the wake of the doomed Dyaks. Tensely the Sabah's passengers followed the course of the spout. The whirling Nemesis descended upon the pirates; their cries of anguish came faintly through the roar and hiss of water; crude Dyak prayers, shrieked by terrified worshipers, smote upon their ears, and finally, like a whirlwind, ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... her grandfather's arm, cast an upward glance at his face. It was tensely drawn; the eyelids were half closed and through their slits the ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... he said tensely, "better than anybody in the world or out of it." His eyes were glowing with some emotion I could not understand. I felt my vague uneasiness of his first entrance deepen into real foreboding of something unknown and ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... chance—" he said, tensely. "We can't make the first down, the way Ballard is fighting, unless we take desperate odds. Now, Hicks, it's up to you. On you ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... the trail to turn aside and run around it. He looped the reins over his arm and placed his hands in his coat pockets. As he leaned against the tree-trunk nibbling nonchalantly at a sprig of grass, a tenderfoot would never have dreamed that his fingers were tensely held against the triggers of the revolvers hidden in ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... you?" he demanded tensely, the muscles of his firm jaws tightening as his teeth clenched. "Tell me who spread them, and I'll run him to earth, if he leads me through ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... hemmed in by the Apaches. He might get two or three, but in the end he would be beaten down. He was determined, at any rate, to go out fighting. If he could only bring justice to Garvey before he died, he would be content. Tensely he waited ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... wash had roared yards deep the moment before. Without pause, as the returning sea rushed up, he was around the sharp corner and clawing upward hand and foot to escape being caught. Billy was now left alone. He could not even see Hall, much less be further advised by him, and so tensely did Saxon watch, that the pain in her finger-tips, crushed to the rock by which she held, warned her to relax. Billy waited his chance, twice made tentative preparations to leap and sank back, then leaped across and down to the momentarily exposed foothold, doubled the corner, ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... the table, and leaned against the mantelpiece, looking down at the fire. She watched him tensely. At length, "Oh Jacynth," he ...
— A Christmas Garland • Max Beerbohm
... took long excursions back into the past to remember how I felt at her age. Mail-time was the difficult time for all three of us. Before the postman came Peggy would brighten up; not that she was drooping at any time, only I knew how tensely she waited, because Ada and I waited with her. When the man came, and again no letters, Peggy held up her head bravely as could be, but I could see, all the same, how the light had gone out. The worst of it was, everybody knew about it. It would have been twice as easy for the child if she ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... game," he whispered tensely. "The game wasn't really played at Chancellor's Hill at all. It was played in the algebra class. It was lost when I lied, and it was won a minute later when you told the truth. And I guess I'm pretty glad you told ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... a sickening sensation; I couldn't look longer. Lee Fu waited tensely, peering ahead and to windward with lightning glances. A wave caught us, flung us forward. Suddenly I heard him cry out at my side in exultation as he bore down on the tiller. The cry was echoed from forward by a loud scream that shot like an arrow through the thunder. Wilbur had sunk beside ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... would travel. If I yielded too much of this, they might attain the sloop before I could sound an alarm; while if I moved too quickly the noise would bring them back to the rescue. The moments were agony, as I bent tensely forward, poised for a leap. God! I could ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... Lucines' pale face looked ethereal in this framework of white which covered her shoulders and the shawl crossed over her bosom: only her eyes, dark, appealing, filled with a glow of immeasurable despair, appeared tensely human and alive. ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... herself than to the children, the Thin Woman beguiled the way. The moon had brightened as she spoke, and on either side of the path, wherever there was a tree or a rise in the ground, a black shadow was crouching tensely watchful, seeming as if it might spring into terrible life at a bound. Of these shadows the children became so fearful that the Thin Woman forsook the path and adventured on the open hillside, so that in ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... for you to talk, isn't it?" cried Mrs. Bishop, turning on him. "I like the way you all sit around like lumps and do nothing, and then tell me how I ought to have done it. John, have the carriage around at once." She turned tensely to Orde. "I hope you'll excuse me," she said very briefly; "I have something very ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White |
