"Bracing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was inspirited by perceiving any door of escape. Any vivid sensation was welcome in the irksome vacancy that pursued her in the absence of immediate excitement. Devoid of the interest of opposition, and of the bracing changes to the Holt, her intercourse with the Charterises had become a weariness and vexation of spirit. Idle foreign life deteriorated them, and her principle and delicacy suffered frequent offences; but like all living ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... neither more nor less than to stand on his head on the mattress. He could rest his hands beside his head, at the outset, bracing his feet against the wall. So far ...
— Dick Prescott's First Year at West Point • H. Irving Hancock
... of a broken piece of lagging caught in his clothes, and he could go neither forward nor back. There, for a second, he broke down. Bracing up again, he managed somehow to get the old knife out of his pocket and cut ...
— The Mascot of Sweet Briar Gulch • Henry Wallace Phillips
... on his way to the store, which he had lately avoided; he felt that he stood in need of bracing. Still, so far as saying that he had made no request of Colonel Whaling, he had told the truth. He had simply represented the detachment of recruits as being utterly demoralized by the news of the massacre, and ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... make monsieur's acquaintance. Her husband had told her that monsieur was staying farther up the coast and intended to come to town.. Monsieur was in business; she feared times were not what they were for business in Argyll, but the air was bracing—and much to the same effect, which sent the pseudo wine merchant gladly into the hands ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... come to stay. She would not have refurnished her cabin otherwise. Dannie took hold of the manger with both hands, because his sinking knees needed bracing. ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter
... the Australian colonies is Queensland (population 472,179), for it is a tropical country with a climate so salubrious that white people can live in it and be comfortable and healthy. The heat, instead of being enervating, is stimulating and bracing. A great portion of its soil is of unsurpassed fertility. The only drawback is the unequal distribution throughout the year of the rainfall. But wherever irrigation wells are sunk the climate becomes highly suitable for SHEEP-RAISING, and also for ...
— Up To Date Business - Home Study Circle Library Series (Volume II.) • Various
... health while attending the high school in Boston, despite the fact that he was one of the best athletes in the institution; but he readily persuaded his wealthy father that a few months' experience in the bracing northwest would do him more good than anything and ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis
... he had ceased to work under the influence of Northern habits. Northern men have sometimes been unjust to the South, when comparing the results of labor in the different sections. God never intended that a man should toil under a tropical sun with the same energy and constancy as in our bracing latitude. There has been less complaint this year than last of "a pain in the small of the back," or of "a fever in the head,"—in other words, less shamming. The work has been greatly deranged by the draft, some features of which have not been very skilfully arranged, and by the fitfulness ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... that it was all right. He then commenced to ascend the cliffs and on reaching their top the force of the gale almost blew him off his feet. He struck a signal light. This is a light made of chemicals which burns with intense brilliancy. Bracing himself against a rock he held it above his head. The flare lit up the surrounding cliffs. While it was still burning he turned to windward and looked down on the huge breakers that made the cliff on which he stood tremble as they dashed in against it. While gazing down on the mad water, he realized ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... celestial banquets. Autumn is the season in which to indulge in a promenade through Quincy Market, after the leaf has been nipped by the frost and crimson-tinted, when the morning air is cool and bracing. Then the stalls and precincts of the chief Boston market are a goodly spectacle. Athenaeus himself, the classic historian of classic gluttons and classic bills of fare, could not but feel a glow at the sight of the good things here displayed, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... passage, many of them unknown in these islands, and even in the north of France itself, which haunt every copse of willow and aspen along the brook-sides; the gaudy and curious insects which thrive beneath that clear, fierce, and yet bracing sunlight; all these have made the district of Montpellier a home prepared by Nature for those who ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... me, Mabel; whatcher want," answered the Colonel, bracing himself against the courthouse. He always called Acres "Mabel," ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... first exploratory ramble in Eigg an hour before noon. The day was bracing and breezy, and a clear sun looked cheerily down on island, and strait, and blue open sea. We rowed southwards in our little boat, through the channel of Eilean Chaisteil, along the trap-rocks of the island, and landed under the two pitchstone veins of Eigg, so generally known among mineralogists, ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... thirteen I had tried to do justice to the inhabitants of the famous city of Peebles in the style of "The Book of Snobs." So I might go on for ever, through all my abortive novels, and down to my later plays, of which I think more tenderly, for they were not only conceived at first under the bracing influence of old Dumas, but have met with resurrections: one, strangely bettered by another hand, came on the stage itself and was played by bodily actors; the other, originally known as Semiramis: a Tragedy, I have observed on bookstalls ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... do, that the Gospel simply comes to make men live better, to work out a moral reformation,—why, there is no need for a Gospel at all. If the change were a simple change of habit and action on the part of men, we could do without a Christ. If the change simply involved a bracing ourselves up to behave better for the future, we could manage somehow or other about as well as or better than we have managed in the past. But if redemption be the giving of life from God; and if redemption be the change of position in reference to God's love and God's law as ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... charges me one-and-twopence a pound for best joints, and though this is a little dearer than London, the meat is probably more wholesome from being in such good air as we enjoy. In wintertime the journey to town, half-an-hour by train, has a most bracing effect on those capable of bearing severe cold. For the rest, the incapables are a real blessing to those who sell mustard-plasters and extra-sized pocket-handkerchiefs. Our society is so select and refined that I verily ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... surely we are growing very tired of dramatists who look upon life with a wry face instead of with a brave and bracing countenance. In due time, when (with the help of Mr. Barrie and other healthy-hearted playmates) we have become again like little children, we shall realise that plays like As You Like It are better than all the Magdas and the Hedda Gablers of the contemporary ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... shone out brightly; and the men, turning out after a long sleep, felt quite different creatures to the tired band who had wearily crawled into the village. The bright sky, the fresh morning air, the pleasant odor of the great pine forest around them, and the bracing atmosphere—at the height of fifteen hundred feet above the sea—at once refreshed and ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... visited her in the breezy place in which she had chosen to make her home, and if his memory served him rightly, and he had no doubt on that point, Windy Gap, as the village was called, would be bracing enough to please the doctor, and quiet enough to satisfy him. To the best of his belief there was scarcely another house within three or four miles, and even if she had possessed near neighbours Mrs. Murray ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... out here, in an open boat, out of sight of land?" asked Captain Cumberland, while the watch on deck were bracing ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... deerskin, his hands were gloved in the same material, and the fur cap was drawn tightly about his head and ears. The slender-barreled rifle lay across his shoulder, and the blanket and deer meat made a light package on his back. Only his face was uncovered, and that was rosy with the sharp but bracing cold. But the resolute blue eyes seemed to have grown more resolute in the last six months, and the firm jaw ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Another method of bracing limbs together consists in running a single bolt through them and fastening each end of the bolt with a washer and nut. This method is preferable to the first because it allows for the growth of ...
— Studies of Trees • Jacob Joshua Levison
... would dispel the vague fears that had hung over her incessantly ever since her father's murder. She had only met him twice, she told herself when this thought occurred to her, but there was something bracing and dependable about him that was just ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... build a moral play upon an "immoral" basis is to court damnation. To construct a noble piece of work on the basis of "improper" relations between your chief characters is to show the cloven hoof. Once the initial scheme granted, the rest may be as bracing as an Alpine breeze; but the critics will scent brimstone. But to build an immoral play upon a "moral" basis—that way gladness lies. Critics, who would rage at the delineation of a character remotely resembling a human being's, will pat you on the back with a good-humoured ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... understanding why he felt it best to be alone for a few minutes, she did not venture to disturb him. It was a panorama of wonderful beauty. They seemed to stand up among the clouds, the air was so pure and cool and bracing. Far beneath, the houses of the town looked like a tiny ant-nest, enveloped in a filmy haze. The great plain stretched around for miles and miles, dotted here and there by many a pretty homestead, and intersected by the winding river, glinting and glistening in the sun as it hurried on ...
— Thankful Rest • Annie S. Swan
... life, and for those soaring dreams of fancy in which he so ardently delights. Not only is the Swiss determined by the peculiarities of his geographical position to lead a pastoral life, but the climate, and mountain scenery, and bracing atmosphere inspire him with the love of liberty. The reserved and meditative Hindoo, accustomed to the profuse luxuriance of nature, borrows the fantastic ideas of his mythology from plants, and flowers, and trees. The vastness and infinite diversity of nature, the colossal magnitude ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... 6th we have the most beautiful weather—with the country in the most brilliant beauty—but not the bracing weather which did one so much good; yesterday and to-day it is quite warm and relaxing. Albert has continued to have wonderful sport; not only has he killed seven more stags since I wrote, but the finest, largest stags ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... bracing herself against the wind where it swept through open spaces, shivering with the cold of it, fearful of the great roaring overhead where the pinetops swayed drunkenly with clashing branches: Dead limbs broke and came crashing down, bringing showers of snow and bark and broken twigs and stripped ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... bounties. The birds that usher in the day, the flowers which beautify the lawn, the green hills and vales, with ever-changing hues like the clouds and the skies, yet fruitful in wheat and grass; the domestic animals, so mute and patient, the bracing air of approaching winter, the genial breezes of the spring,—of all these does the poet sing with charming simplicity and grace, yea, in melodious numbers; for nothing is more marvellous than the music and rhythm of his lines, although they are not enriched with ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... shone more brightly and the air was never more clear and bracing than when Sinclair helped his wife off the train at Pawnee Junction. The station-master's face fell as he saw the lady, but he saluted the engineer with as easy an air as he could assume, and watched for an opportunity to speak to him alone. Sinclair read the despatches with an unmoved ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... o'clock and away for other tasks of similar sort. One who watches Brother Pope, must do it on the run. One of the fairest spots on the Cumberland Plateau is Grand View. Here the American Missionary Association holds a strategic position. The wild, magnificent scenery and the cool, bracing air, tingling with ozone, make it an ideal spot for a great religious and educational centre. Already eyes are turning upward from the surrounding valleys to this mountain school. The first words I heard on landing at Spring City, ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. 43, No. 7, July, 1889 • Various
... are right," broke in Mrs. Bullen. Two men, first Mrs. Bullen's father and then her husband, had seen to it that neither the biting wind of adversity nor the bracing air of experience should ever touch her. "Details! Sometimes I feel as if I were smothered by them. Servants, and the house, and now ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... from the thought of adventurous novelty, and ended by proposing a return to the same western seaside-town, to the familiar lodgings. The climate suited neither him nor his daughter, who both needed physical as well as moral bracing; but they only thought of this on finding themselves at home again, with another long year of monotony before them. And it was so good to feel welcome, respected; to receive the smiling reverences of tradesfolk; to talk ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... me that the fire was nearing the tail-plane at the one end and my box of ammunition at the other, and was too serious for treatment by the extinguisher unless I could get it at once. Desperately I tried to force myself through the bracing-struts and cross-wires behind my seat. To my surprise, head and shoulders and one arm got to the other side—a curious circumstance, as afterwards I tried repeatedly to repeat this contortionist trick on the ground, but failed ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... a clear, lovely, October morning. The air was sharp and bracing, and the leaves which had taken their autumnal tints were falling from the trees. The road which wound by Westbourne Green, gave him a full view of the hill of Hampstead with its church, its crest of houses, and its villas ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... were linked irrevocably by love. I stooped suddenly, under the sway of an impulse, I could not resist, and kissed her upturned face, turning almost dizzy in the act. Then I broke from her clasp, and bracing myself for the task to which we stood committed ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... landlocked harbor, stands the town of Gaspe, distinguished as the place where Jacques Cartier landed in 1534. It is now a great fishing-station, employing thousands of men along the coast in the cod-fishery. Here are fine scenery, clear bracing air, good sea-bathing, excellent salmon- and trout-fishing and a comfortable hotel. What more can a well-regulated mind desire? Into Gaspe Bay flow the Dartmouth, the York and the St. John—good ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... ascertained. These form his starting points; and then, taking each in its turn, he sets himself to discover the principles, or laws, which regulate its working in a healthy state;—what it is that promotes the circulation or stagnation of the blood, the bracing or relaxing of the nerves, the several processes in digestion, and the various functions of the skin and viscera. These are all first ascertained by observation and experience, and then, if necessary, established ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... which we visited England, France, Switzerland, and finally Italy. While we were at Rome I fell ill with the fever of the country, and my physicians gave orders that as soon as I was well enough to travel I should leave Italy for a more bracing climate. We had not visited Naples, and I was anxious that my mother should not return home without seeing the wonders of that city; so as soon as I became convalescent I prevailed upon her to leave me in the care of some friends and to join a ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... to feel the bracing effect upon our economic system of a restored agriculture. The hundreds of millions of additional income that farmers are receiving are finding their way into the channels of trade. The farmers' share of the national ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt • Franklin D. Roosevelt
... different spans, of which the second is the one here described. The so-called theoretical weight is that which the structure would have if no part required stiffening, leaving out also all connections and all wind bracing. The moving load is taken at one ton per foot lineal, and the strain on the iron at an average of four tons per square inch. The proportion of the girder is taken ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 484, April 11, 1885 • Various
... at Cambridge. What delight it was in those cold mornings to take a bracing walk into the country, and looking back over miles of level land, to behold the chapel of King's College, and the tower of St. Mary's church, which had been the land beacons of aspiring students for so many generations! I verily believe that the chapel ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... steadily now, no longer engulfed in the ground swell of land waves. They breathed an air like wine, strong, pure, bracing. Presently their way led them into a hill pocket, which ran into a gorge of pinons ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... individual, but an institution—a toast that was drunk some time after that of Church and King. But it is far better to consider the difference rather as a special merit, in that he stood for all those clean and bracing shocks of incident which are untouched by passion or weakness, for a certain breezy bachelorhood, which is almost essential to the literature of adventure. With all his faults, and all his triumphs, he stands for the great mass of natural manliness which must be absorbed into ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... little. There was a bracing note in that vehemence. "Well, don't ask me to do any crossing of a bridge before I come to it. I think our friend down stairs is thinking of hospitals and nurses and all kinds of quirks that would ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... my eyes away from her and bracing myself for the effort, "our ways must lie apart, Isobel. You are the daughter of one of Europe's great families, you have a future which is almost a destiny. You must ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... too much for Leonard to set him up as a mark for Tom's satire, which was as different from Aubrey's as quinine from orange-peel, though properly used, it was a bracing tonic, such as she often found wholesome. A cynical younger brother is a most valuable possession to a woman who has taken a certain ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... edge of the beaver-meadow, they heard the far-away bang of a gun, and Redruff, acting on some impulse from within, leaped on the log, strutted up and down a couple of times, then, yielding to the elation of the bright, clear, bracing air, he whirred his wings in loud defiance. Then, giving fuller vent to this expression of vigor, just as a colt frisks to show how well he feels, he whirred yet more loudly, until, unwittingly, he found himself drumming, and tickled with the discovery of his new power, ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... the magnetic charm that had, against his own wish and will, enslaved his thoughts and senses, would restore him to that state of self-poise and philosophic tranquillity in which he had for so many years found an almost, if not quite, perfect happiness. Bracing himself fully up to the determination that he would, at all hazards, make an effort to recover his lost peace, he made rapid preparations for his departure from St. Rest, and going the round of his parish, he let all whom it might concern know, that for the first time in a long ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... and bracing to watch one's friend burst into bloom!... I needed the stimulus, too. You are ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... away with" most of the Bordeaux. Twice after dinner Archer had ushered his guests within doors, once to try what was left of the claret, and later, after the snake episode, when some nerves might be in need of bracing, to sample some phenomenal Monongahela. Then when Harris was through, after saying good-night, he was presently followed by Willett, flushed in face and abrupt in manner. Miss Archer had been spirited off by her mother, and presumably gone to bed. She'd ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... is Christian in these extracts, startlingly Christian. Any reader who bears in mind Whitman's own advice and "dismisses whatever insults his own soul" will find plenty that is bracing, brightening, and chastening to reward him for a little patience at first. It seems hardly possible that any being should get evil from so healthy a book as the "Leaves of Grass," which is simply comical whenever it falls short of nobility; but if there be any such, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of Mr. Heathcliff's dwelling. 'Wuthering' being a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy weather. Pure, bracing ventilation they must have up there at all times, indeed: one may guess the power of the north wind blowing over the edge, by the excessive slant of a few stunted firs at the end of the house; and by a range of gaunt thorns all stretching their limbs one way, as if craving alms ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... finest days, as that which has conquered and prevailed, commends itself to us by its very antiquity and apparent solidity and necessity. Our weakness needs it, and our strength uses it. We cannot draw on our boots without bracing ourselves against it. If there were but one erect and solid standing tree in the woods, all creatures would go to rub against it and make sure of their footing. During the many hours which we spend in this waking sleep, ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... the staircase recklessly, to assail me. I took a step backward, bracing myself to ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... walking up the Avenue on a bracing October day, he felt as if he owned all in sight—a condition of mind which those who know from experience the powerful electro-magnetic current generated by the rushing life of the New York metropolis can well understand. He struck out into the stream with the rest, and with overweening ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... 504. After bracing the yard over the port through which it is intended to take the guns, secure the lizard round the yard five or six feet outside of the ship, and hook the top burtons ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... of his deformity, and in thus speaking he appeared to her to rend asunder the last of those veils with which she had earnestly striven to conceal the disgrace of it from him. She remained very still, bracing herself to bear—the while slowly stroking his hand. Suddenly the strong, young fingers closed hard on ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... kalo jib, or black language, had been survived, we settled down into conversation. It was a fine autumnal day, Indian-summery,—the many in one of all that is fine in weather all the world over, put into a single glorious sense,—a sense of bracing air and sunshine not over-bold or bright, and purple, tawny hues in western skies, and dim, sweet feelings of the olden time. And as we sat lounging in lowly seats, and talked about the people and their ways, it seemed to me as if I were again in Devonshire ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... free-trader stood on the low poop of his little vessel, within fifty feet of him who had issued the order. There was a smile of indifference on his firm mouth, while he silently waved a hand to his own crew. The signal was obeyed by bracing round their yards, and suffering all the canvas to fill. The brigantine shot quickly ahead, and the useless irons fell heavily ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... reached the corral fence near the Double A ranchhouse, and his rider dismounted and ran forward, the horse heaved a sigh of relief and stood, bracing his legs to keep from falling, his breath coming in ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... drive, but away into the tree-grown sheltered wing of the garden. By interlacing paths, from the tremulous gray willows under the somber, clashing eucalyptus spears, under dark wings of cypress they were moving. She was bracing in every nerve against the unnerving ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... I did well, though the place has its drawbacks. It is a long way from London and the opera. Still, I could not bear to live quite in town; the air there stifles me. After the clear bracing air of Canada, I find London very oppressive. But, M. Lacroix, you must be tired after your long walk up the hill. Do take that comfortable arm-chair and let me give you ...
— Marie Gourdon - A Romance of the Lower St. Lawrence • Maud Ogilvy
... to pull himself up, bracing his feet against the rough projections of the rock wall to help him. But he could not manage the climb. At last he gave it up ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... in the sense of a meaningless or wanton prohibition, such as that which to-day prevents women in some countries from smoking, or yesterday prevented any one in Scotland from taking a walk on Sunday. The error is no less natural than it is unjust. The Polynesians have not been trained in the bracing, practical thought of ancient Rome; with them the idea of law has not been disengaged from that of morals or propriety; so that tapu has to cover the whole field, and implies indifferently that an act is criminal, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... territory as the finest portion of North America, not only from its soil, but its climate. The air is pure, and the winters, although severe, are dry and bracing; very different from, and more healthy than, those of the Eastern States. At Prairie du Chien every one dwelt upon the beauty of the winter, indeed they appeared to prefer it to the other seasons. The country is, as I have described it in my route from Green ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... a letter and a parcel of yours, Paul: you had better look at them—we hope to start north in a day or two—you must get to a more bracing place." ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... righteous abhorrence of sin. All the more for the sweet humanities and Christian liberalism which, in drawing men nearer to each other, are increasing the sum of social influences for good or evil, we need the bracing atmosphere, healthful, if austere, of the old moralities. Individual and social duties are quite as imperative now as when they were minutely specified in statute-books and enforced by penalties no longer admissible. It is well that stocks, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Uncle Horatio," answered Corny, bracing himself up, as though he realized that he was not presenting a demeanor such as he thought the occasion required ...
— Within The Enemy's Lines - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... we could find no place to fasten the lasso for the next descent; so I determined to try the climb with only as little aid as possible. Tying it round my breast again, I gave the other end into Cotter's hands, and he, bracing his back against the cliff, found for himself as firm a foothold as he could, and promised to give me all the help in his power. I made up my mind to bear no weight unless it was absolutely necessary; and for the first ten feet I found cracks and protuberances ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers • Various
... way to force a door—that is, an ordinary door—and at the same time make very little noise. It is done—if the door opens inward—by seizing the knob firmly with both hands, having turned it, and then by bracing the body with one knee pressed firmly against the door directly under the knob. In this position, if it is assumed by a strong man, every effort may be centred upon one sudden impulse forward, which, while there is no visible or perceptible impact, will place all of ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter
... monument to Prince Albert, with its sculptured panels bearing the arms of Llewellyn the Great, the red dragon of Cadwalader, the symbolical leek and the motto, Anorchfygol Ddraig Cymru ("The dragon of Wales is invincible"). The air is very cool and bracing on this hill. But the greatest crowd is on the sands and on the rocks of the cliff immediately backing the beach. It is difficult for one who is familiar only with the beach at Long Branch or Cape ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... accepted law, being ignoble; and thereby spoiled the fair pattern, showed as a blot.—Not that she meant to trouble any more about Theresa just now. She was out simply to enjoy, to see and feel, rather than reason, analyse or think. So she settled herself on the sloping high-cushioned seat, bracing her feet against the driving iron, while Mary, reaching up, tucked the dust-rug neatly about her skirts. Patch—whose looks and figure unmistakably declared his calling—short-legged and stocky, inclining to corpulence yet nimble on his feet, clean shaven, Napoleonic ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... went to Norway. I was well enough off. I rather enjoyed myself. Perhaps I required a little bracing up for the task that lies before me." He laughed ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... attractive charms. The evenings were clear and beautiful; a class of the grandest constellations took their course in the sky, and rained their holy lights, while the winds were asleep in their caves, and keen frosts came down each night to increase the morrow's run; the days were warm and agreeable with bracing air and kindly sunshine; and the forests were roused from their stillness by the sound of the axe, the shrill reports of the frost escaping from the trees, and the notes of a few birds that carolled of the ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... Mr. Fay; not at all. You will be like a giant refreshed. There is nothing like a little friendly conversation for bracing up the mind. I hope it will not be long before you come and try it again." Then the carriage was driven off, and Lord Hampstead went in to warm himself before the fire which Marion Fay ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... his fingers closed about hers. She tried to pull him up slowly, but he felt that it was hopeless, and would only result in drawing her off the rock; so he settled back as before. He noticed that she had given him her left hand, and saw that there was another reason besides the necessity of bracing herself with her right. Her wrist was ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... one reaches the province of the greatest natural wealth, the greatest diversity in climate and the most feverish activity in Canada. East of the mountains is a climate high, cold and bracing as Russia or Switzerland. Between the ranges of the mountains are valleys mild as France. On the coast toward the south is a climate like Italy; toward the north, like Scotland. Of Canada's entire timber area—twice as great as Europe's standing timber—three-quarters ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... said he. He sat up, and, bracing himself against the roll of the vessel, he opened the bag and carefully examined its contents. In an inner pocket he found an old letter of Doctor Glyphic's to Thor; another from Thor to his son, dated three years back; and ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... too, you saw a woman of sound-common sense. This was evidenced both in her writings, and her daily life. For example, she writes thus one day: "I felt as if I rather wanted a little intellectual bracing, as if something of contact with intellect were necessary to prevent my getting into a weak and wishy-washy kind of thought and language. I like intellects to rub against and have no present access to books which would do it, so I bethought myself of seeing what Shakespeare would ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... Thou that giv'st the flabby Strength, and stingo'st up the weak:- Restful as a grand old Abbey— Bracing as ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum)
... espionage satellites like swatting flies!" Fay proclaimed as the portent faded. "Bracing! Gussy, where's your tickler? I've got a new spool for it ...
— The Creature from Cleveland Depths • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... there at a desk sat the waiting stenographer; over his head hung the bulb of an electric light, its green circular shade throwing the white rays directly down on his open notebook. The girl was once more in the working world, and its bracing air acted as a tonic to her overwrought nerves. All longings and regrets had been put off with the Paris-made gown which the maid at that moment was carefully packing away. The order of nature seemed reversed; the butterfly had abandoned its gorgeous wings of gauze, and was habited in the ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... was—and especially so, and more than all else—on account of the joyousness of his soul. There was a contagious and a godlike hilarity in his broad, open brow, his frank, laughing eyes, and his mobile lips. He seemed to carry about with him a bracing moral atmosphere. The sight of him had the same effect on the dull man of ordinary life that the Himalayan air has on an Indian invalid; and yet Jack was head-over-heels in debt. Not a tradesman would trust him. ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... day in November, when the sun seemed making a last effort to prevail against coming winter. The wind was fresh and bracing, and nature appeared bright and cheerful, ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... report. There is nothing to keep you, and I shall personally be very thankful and relieved if you will manage this and take Mary to some fresh scenes, a place or country that she has not visited before. There is nothing like an entirely novel environment for distracting the mind, bracing the nerves, and ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... I love a clear bracing air!" said Mrs. Rothesay, with the restlessness peculiar to all invalids—and she had been a greater ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... army took the field instead. Lieut. D'Hubert, liberated without remark, took up his regimental duties; and Lieut. Feraud, his arm just out of the sling, rode unquestioned with his squadron to complete his convalescence in the smoke of battlefields and the fresh air of night bivouacs. This bracing treatment suited him so well, that at the first rumour of an armistice being signed he could turn without misgivings to the thoughts of his ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... the Indus, stretch the long ridges of rough but picturesque highlands, which embrace the central ranges of the Suliman system (the prehistoric home of the Pathan highlander), where vegetation is often alpine, and the climate clear and bracing and subject to no great extremes of temperature. The average breadth of this northern Pathan district is 150 m., but it narrows to less than 100 m. on the line of the Gomal, and expands to more than 200 m. on the line of the railway. Here all the main drainage either runs northwards ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... a road, now—a road that ran south across the spaces, unwinding itself like a tape flung from a reel. Suddenly Cheyenne pulled to a stop. Bartley raced up, bracing himself as the big cow-horse set up ...
— Partners of Chance • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... and got out into the deeper water, the sea smoothed down a great deal; but sea-sickness began to claim its victims, at first a few, then more and more, till the greater part were quite badly affected. I had a touch of it myself, but managed to keep my feet by bracing out pretty wide, and hugging everything I could get hold of that seemed to offer a steady support, and I did not lie down until after I had thrown my ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... ethereal, unsuspected fingers. Elsewhere, Hawthorne has given another glimpse into his interior life at this time: "This scene came into my fancy as I walked along a hilly road, on a starlight October evening; in the pure and bracing air I became all soul, and felt as if I could climb the sky, and run a race along the Milky Way. Here is another tale in which I wrapped myself during a dark and dreary night-ride in the month of March, till the rattling of the wheels and the voices of my companions ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... campaign was such that the general officers expressed the opinion that the army must immediately be removed from Cuba or suffer severe and unnecessary losses from malarial fever. When the men were removed, however, they were taken to Montauk Point on Long Island, where the climate was too cool and bracing. Unsanitary conditions in the training camps within the borders of the United States were the cause of fatalities estimated at several times the number killed in battle. A controversy over the quality ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... leading Michmash, took Naomi, wrapped in her little scarlet cloak, out riding, and as they moved along in the crisp, bracing air they talked—long, long talks of what they were passing, of Ezra's day at school, or of the thoughts and fancies that filled ...
— Christmas Light • Ethel Calvert Phillips
... thou wouldst rejoice To inhale this bracing air; Thou wouldst break thy sweetest sleep To behold a ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
... somehow or other, I wasn't at all prepared for); when, from seeing the city lying, one light, upon the distant water, like a ship, I came plashing through the silent and deserted streets; I felt as if the houses were reality—the water, fever-madness. But when, in the bright, cold, bracing day, I stood upon the piazza, this morning, by Heaven the glory of the place was insupportable! And diving down from that into its wickedness and gloom—its awful prisons, deep below the water; its judgment chambers, ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... Many countrymen thought the balloon running away with us and tried to stop and save us—always by grasping the drag rope, bracing themselves, and trying literally to hold us; when the slack of the rope straightened, they performed somersaults such as our pilot vowed no acrobat could equal. And yet the balance of the balloon is so fine that even a child ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... Mary and Emma had gone out as usual to milk the cows. It was a beautiful clear day, but there was a bracing air which cheered the spirits, and the sunshine was pleasantly warm in situations sheltered from the winds; one of the few fine days just before the rushing in of winter. They had milked their cows, and had just turned them out again, when they both sat down with their pails before ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... brilliant day, with a glorious blue sky overhead and a bracing breeze out of the east. Just beyond Long Island a low stratum of miasmic gray was the only shred of the usual fog to be seen on the whole horizon. In the little roadstead the vessels, black-hulled or white, ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... been. On the other hand, there is a large philosophy in Theseus' discourse of "the lunatic, the lover, and the poet," a manly judgment in his reasons for preferring the "tedious brief scene of young Pyramus and his love Thisbe," and a bracing freshness in the short dialogue of the chase, all in the best style of the author's second period. Perhaps, however, what seem the defects of the former, the fanciful quirks and far-fetched conceits, ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... badly indeed for us, Christy," said the captain, bracing himself up as if for a renewed effort. "The Belle is almost up with the boat, and she will take Major Pierson and his party on board; and she is nearer ...
— Taken by the Enemy • Oliver Optic
... promotion of health is now regarded, in every enlightened community, as one of the objects of government. The enjoyment of life depends in great measure upon the state of our health. When the air feels bracing, and food and drink taste sweet to us, much else in life tastes sweet which would otherwise taste sour and disagreeable. Good drainage and vaccination are not the only means available for the promotion of the public health. People should be encouraged and educated into the habit of taking plenty ...
— The Road and the Roadside • Burton Willis Potter
... fruit, fruit whose best sauce is the open air, whose finest flavors only he whose taste is sharpened by brisk work or walking knows; winter fruit, when the fire of life burns brightest; fruit always a little hyperborean, leaning towards the cold; bracing, sub-acid, active fruit. I think you must come from the north, you are so frank and honest, so sturdy and appetizing. You are stocky and homely like the northern races. Your quality is Saxon. Surely the fiery and impetuous south is not akin to you. ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... of Lakes Bennett and Lindemann, through wild but picturesque moorland, carpeted with wild flowers,[87] and strewn with grey rocks and boulders. A species of pink heather grows freely here, the scent of which and the presence of bubbling fern-fringed brooks, and crisp bracing air, recalled many a pleasant morning after grouse in Bonnie Scotland. A raw-boned Aberdonian on the train remarks on the resemblance of the landscape to that of his own country and is flatly contradicted by an American sitting beside him, who, however, owns that he has ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... song in the footstep that crunched the frosty ground, that broke the crusted snow; it was in the delicate wind that stirred the flag by the barracks away to the left; hope smiled in the wide prospect over which the thrilling, bracing air trembled. Sally had ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... the note of remorse conquered in her voice. I saw how desperation at what she had done when she thought her love was cured was now bracing the ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... Schubert, Chopin, and especially for Bach, finds frequent expression. Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavichord" he declares is his "grammar, and the best of all grammars. The fugues I have analyzed successively to the minutest details; the advantage resulting from this is great, and has a morally bracing effect on the whole system, for Bach was a man through and through; in him there is nothing done by halves, nothing morbid, but all is written for time eternal." Six years later: "Bach is my daily bread; from him I derive gratification and get new ideas—'compared with him we are all children,' ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... The woman took the smallest of the children in her arms, and kissed and soothed it; and Henderson, after he had thrown a blanket at the bottom of the door to keep out the drifting rain, sat with his back to it, bracing it against the wind, lest the frail staple should give way. He managed some way to reach out and lay hold of the other little ones, and got them in his arms,—a boy, so tiny he seemed hardly human, and a girl somewhat sturdier. They cuddled in his arms, and ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... to distinguish between the healing and noxious properties of certain plants: that is deemed a sufficient educational provision for a man's life. The Greek boys are just as carefully kept to the practice of exercises for hardening and bracing the body; for these exercises are the founders and preservers of health, the physician is only its repairer and restorer. If, however, by constant practice a Greek youth were to attain to the strength of a bull, the truth of the Deity, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... five they rested and bathed in a tributary of the Avon. Bertric's spirits were very high: he laughed and talked like one whose naturally ardent temperament was stimulated by the bracing atmosphere and the exercise. His active and handsome frame, bright with all the attractions of youth, was equal to any amount of woodland toil; and Alfgar, who was, as we have said, deeply attached to his companion, felt proud of his younger brother, as he delighted to ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... fellows," he said, turning back to them. "I reckon we had better do as the Professor suggests, and get under way at once. I will confess that this bracing air is having some effect ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin
... desired Cecil to see, but it was too late now to send for him, for spring was near. With the spring, came back the cough, and again the medical order was change of climate. This time, a sojourn of some months in Norway was prescribed for Mrs. Vyvyan, bracing air, and much out-door life in the pine woods. After many weeks of slow journeying, the ladies with two of their servants reached Norway, and took up their abode in an old chateau, in the midst of a pine forest ...
— Peak's Island - A Romance of Buccaneer Days • Ford Paul
... husband!" For hours afterward, if I could have stopped the mail, I would have done it. I hated the conductor, the kindest of men. I hated the Spanish ponies that drew us, the cheeriest animals that ever jingled a string of bells. I hated the bright day that would make things pleasant, and the bracing air that forced me to feel the luxury of breathing whether I liked it or not. Never was a journey more miserable than my safe and easy journey to the frontier. But one little comfort helped me to bear my heart-ache resignedly—a stolen morsel of Eustace's hair. We had started ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... robins chirp and peck the moss, as they hop from bough to bough; when the light of heaven is so over all, that even the dun-colored earth, the decayed leaves and rotten branches, which the autumn blast has laid low, look beautiful, and seem to whisper resurgam; when a cold, bracing wind sends the warm blood bounding through our hearts—tinting our cheeks, and warming our extremities, until we bless it, as we do the strong hand which leads us in childhood; and we listen, with docile tenderness, to its teachings, for it tells with pathos, of suffering in the hovels of the ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... Bracing strongly back, with the reins wound around his tough hands, and with a look in his face that should have given courage even to the Hart boys, Dab strained at his task as bravely as he had stood at the tiller of the "Swallow" ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... with the hotly golden rice flats of the Val Maggia to the north. And because it was a remote and insignificant place, far away out of the crowding tragedies of that year of disaster, away from burning cities and starving multitudes, bracing and tranquillising and hidden, it was here that there gathered the conference of rulers that was to arrest, if possible, before it was too late, the debacle of civilisation. Here, brought together by the indefatigable ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... when we ought to be at work is weakening and demoralizing. Rest and play after work is bracing and invigorating. The sooner we face and conquer a difficulty, the less of a difficulty it is. The longer we put it off the greater it seems, and the less becomes our strength with which ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... the high wind. Martin Hallowell was coming ashore in the boat that was to carry Alan away. Beyond them, the lights of the Huntress showed where she was getting up sail. Martin made the landing with some difficulty, climbed the ladder to the wharf, and stood bracing himself ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... cold, bracing air fanned his burning face. He stood on the bank of the Plover Creek and looked with unseeing eyes around him, and found himself thinking of the most trifling things—he couldn't think about what he wanted to; his brain refused to act. Suddenly there came over him a great ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... lower and lower, eyes shielded behind arms folded over his brows, straining for a glimpse of Ruth; Drake crouched beside him, bracing him, supporting ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... 1873.—A fine bracing S.E. breeze kept me on the donkey across a broad sponge and over flats of white sandy soil and much cultivation for an hour and a half, when we stopped at a large village on the right bank of,[32] and men went over to the chief Muanzambamba to ask canoes ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... indulged in hard study rather than in hard riding, had overworked, had brought back his Cuban fever, and was in poor shape to face the tropics. So, for two months before the transport was to sail, they ordered him to Cape Cod to fill his lungs with the bracing air of a ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... on to the sides of the material, it should now be braced with twine by means of a packing needle, passing the string over the stretchers between each stitch taken in the webbing, and, finally, drawing up the bracing until the material is strained evenly and tightly in the frame. If the fabric is one which stretches easily, the bracings should not be drawn ...
— Handbook of Embroidery • L. Higgin
... whose office was a sinecure, since the war had run the law out of the Cove, came with a punctilious step, though with a sense of futility and abated dignity, and at every successive note of the distant trumpet these wights experienced a tense bracing of the nerves to await helplessly the inevitable and, alas! ...
— The Raid Of The Guerilla - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... cellar—here it was—the boarded partition. Marishka took the candle from his hand again while he examined the fastenings—nails somewhat rusted, which would not resist leverage. He found a piece of plank which he inserted in the edge of the door and managed to pry it open a little, and then bracing a foot against the stone wall, made an opening wide ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... when Bettina, already a little intoxicated with the bracing air and liberty, gave forth triumphantly these three exclamations, "No one! no one! no one!" a rider appeared, walking his horse in the direction of the carriage. It was Paul de Lavardens. He had been watching for more than an hour for the pleasure ...
— L'Abbe Constantin, Complete • Ludovic Halevy
... the ripples of laughter are frozen by their presence. They go through life as if each day were a new big funeral, and they were always chief mourners. There are other men who seem like the ocean; they are constantly bracing, stimulating, giving new draughts of tonic life and ...
— The Majesty of Calmness • William George Jordan
... slung and a javelin cast, though both fall short. But will the next? They will soon be at nearer range, and the gig's people, absolutely without means of protection, sit in fear and trembling. Still the rowers, bracing hearts and arms, pull manfully on. But Captain Gancy is appalled as another stone plashes in the water close to the boat's side, while a third, striking the mast, drops ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... males, it is obvious that the female body differs widely from the male both in the diseases it is subject to and in its capacity or non-capacity of recovery. The bracing effect of toil, exercise, and open air gives firmness and tone to the male; the female is soft and unstrung from its sheltered existence, and pale with anaemia, deficient caloric and excess of moisture. It is consequently, as compared with the male, open to ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... yield. Bracing herself with her feet on the ground, she offered an energetic resistance. Basilio beat the gate with his fists, with his Mood-stained head, he wept, but in vain. Painfully he arose and examined the wall, ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... it was a chill and sunless winter. No bracing frosts, and persistent northwesterly winds. Day after day the rain, which was snow on the heights, poured down. Derwentwater and Bassenthwaite rose till they mingled in one vast lake. The streams thundered from the fells; every ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... crop of a similar nature which you have in Western Ontario, for as I am informed by my honourable friend on my right, Mr. Mackenzie, the peaches are often given to the pigs. (Great laughter.) The pleasant and bracing seasons of Canada can be enjoyed in a country without its equal, for nowhere has the settler a more varied range of choice in the scenery, the locality, the soil which will finally determine him where to found a home. His fortune may be compared to that of a man entering one ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell |
