"Muscle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and other cob-webs stopped Red Saunders, late of the Chanta Seechee ranch; two hundred and fifty pounds of the very finest bone and muscle. And the cob-webs held him, foaming and boiling with rage and disgust, calling himself all the yaller pups he could think of, but staying strictly within the safe limits of the barn. It was a revelation to the big man, and not a pleasant one. How was he to ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips
... say you saw it all. Well, it must have shown you that I was in earnest. The old man took it well, did he not? He is a brave man, and I respect him. I fancy that he will not move a muscle at the last. That comes of English blood, you see. It is the best in the world, and I am proud to have it ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... laboratories certain organic substances—always by the use of other organic products—which life builds up within each organism, and from the few simple elements available in air, earth, and water, innumerable structures—bone, horn, hair, skin, blood, muscle, etc. etc.; and these are not amorphous—mere lumps of dead matter—but organised to serve certain definite purposes in each living organism. I have dwelt on this in my chapter on "The Mystery of the Cell." Now I have been unable to find any ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... Not a muscle twitched in McGuffey's Hibernian countenance. He scratched his head for a moment, as a sort of first aid to memory, then turned and handed ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... head and looked at Laverick incredulously. He was more than half inclined to believe that this was a practical joke. Were they not standing on the pavement in Chancery Lane, and was not he an able-bodied policeman of great bulk and immense muscle! Yet his companion did not look by any means a man of the nervous order. Laverick was broad-shouldered, his skin was tanned a wholesome color, his bearing was the bearing of a man prepared to defend himself at any time. The constable smiled in ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... hitherto acted as spokesman, and who seemed to be in some way or other the chief of the party, was a man apparently near sixty years of age, upwards of six feet high, thin in person, but with such bone and muscle as indicated great strength in the possessor. His features were keen and sharp; his eye like a falcon's; his bearing and manners bespoke an exalted opinion of himself, and (at least as far as we were concerned) a tolerable degree of contempt for others. His dress consisted of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... sweeter. And that put a pinch more hope into him again. It was up and down with him and his mind in a torment, but at last he tried not to think at all, and just let his instinct to fight for life hold him and concentrated all his mind and muscle upon it. Yet one thought persisted in his worst moments: and that was, that if he didn't come through, his nephew wouldn't be hanged, but enjoy the two farms for his natural life; and the picture of that vexed Amos so terrible that without doubt 'twas as useful to help him as a ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... could only happen after the death of the inhabitant of the shell which affords the support. Thus, in Figure 9, it will be seen that two Serpulae have grown on the interior, one of them exactly on the place where the adductor muscle of the Gryphaea (a kind ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... introduced by a later hand. It is really impossible to describe many of them in terms of adequate praise. The downy plum is almost bursting with ripeness: the butterfly's wings seem to be in tremulous motion, while they dazzle you by their varied lustre: the hairy insect puts every muscle and fibre into action, as he insinuates himself within the curling of the crisped leaves; while these leaves are sometimes glittering with dew, or coated with the finest down. The flowers and the vegetables are equally admirable, and ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... is not true that control of the thoughts is impossible. Thoughts are the result of the action of the brain; and the action of the brain may be controlled as well as the movements of a voluntary muscle. It may be more difficult, especially when the resolution is weakened, as it is by this vice; but so long as there are left any remnants of will and reason, control is possible. To strengthen the will must be one of the objects of mental treatment, and exercise ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... most other new countries, one of the greatest problems that confronted the settlers was that of labor. It took human muscle to clear away the forest and tend the crops, and the quantity of human muscle available was small. One solution of the problem was the importation of black slaves, and of this solution as it concerned Washington something will be ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... but she had not moved a muscle; her eyes were still turned toward the ceiling, and her cigarette was still wedged tightly between ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... of the most disgusting sights in the world, is that of a young man with healthy blood, broad shoulders, and a hundred and fifty pounds, more or less, of good bone and muscle, standing with his hands in his pockets, longing for help. I admit that there are positions in which the most independent spirit may accept of assistance,—may, in fact, as a choice of evils, desire it; but for a man who ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... were visible, but they were so far away that it was vain to hope to attract their attention. Three large boats could be seen away to the northwest, skirting along shore and making their way toward San Francisco as rapidly as muscle and oars could carry them. What recked they whether the passengers were buried with the steamer, sunk in the ocean, or left to perish ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... foolish circumstances. Under other conditions you would find much to admire in him. Even now, if you have any taste for live statuary, you shall admire this upright six feet two inches of finely-modelled bone and muscle. If manly good-nature can make a handsome sun-browned face pleasant to you, then shall Barndale's countenance find favour in your eyes. Of his manly ways, his good and honest heart, this story will tell you something, though perchance not much. If you do not like ...
— An Old Meerschaum - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... A few deaths might result (and did), and many injuries, but the treatment they received would make such an impression on Mrs. Pankhurst's followers that they would at last realize the futility of measuring their puny force against the muscle of man. Force, as the Premier had just said, must be the ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... an attentive listener, but not a muscle in his face moved; whereas the little tapop was manifestly in great trouble. He coughed, hemmed and hawed, twisted his body, moved uneasily in his seat, and at last continued in a ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... helpless wife might have starved. Then, just after their third child was born, fever came, swept away the sickly mother and the two eldest children, and attacked Sarti himself, who rose from his sick-bed with enfeebled brain and muscle, and a tiny baby on his hands, scarcely four months old. He lodged over a fruit-shop kept by a stout virago, loud of tongue and irate in temper, but who had had children born to her, and so had taken ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... time forwards we found the succulent molluscs in almost every bay. Those to the south, where the shallows overlie sand and mud, are not so good. At this season the Ustrida is flat, fleshy, and full sized; the shell has a purple border, and the hinge muscle of the savage, far stronger than that of the civilized animal, together with its exceeding irregularity of shape, giving no purchase to the knife, makes oyster-opening a sore trouble. We tried fire, but the thick-skinned things resisted it for a long time; and, ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... the line of limbers accurately covering the guns, and, still farther back, Mr. Pierce could be heard shouting his orders for the alignment of the caissons. In the twinkling of an eye the rush and thunder were stilled, the battery without the twitch of a muscle stood ready for review, and old Brax, sitting in saddle at the reviewing point, watching the stirring sight with gloomy and cynical eye, was chafed still more to hear in a silvery voice from the group of ladies the unwelcome words, "Oh, wasn't that pretty!" ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King
... before the preparation of these compendia. It was not the reformed and purified jurisprudence of Justinian, but the undigested system which prevailed in the Western Empire, and which the Eastern Corpus Juris never succeeded in displacing, that I conceive to have clothed with flesh and muscle the scanty skeleton of barbarous usage. The change must be supposed to have taken place before the Germanic tribes had distinctly appropriated, as conquerors, any portion of the Roman dominions, and ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... a shadow of fear or doubt. How well did he bear out my expectations! His faith is only in me, society cannot hurt him with its lies. Not a muscle of the Arab's face stirred, not a drop of the blue blood flushed his ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... reached some definite conclusion; with one accord they turned and moved slowly toward the bacteriologist, something distinctly menacing in their attitudes. The men from the meteor were tall, but they were thin; Parkinson, too, was large, and his six-foot length was covered with layers of solid muscle. As the three advanced toward him, he doubled his fists, and crouched in readiness ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... 'as a friendly devil in a cabbage-scented hell, would you mind cutting up this piece of steak for me? I don't say that it's got more muscle than I have, but—' And then he shows me the insides of his hands. They was blistered and cut and corned and swelled up till they looked like a couple of flank steaks criss-crossed with a knife—the kind the butchers hide and take home, knowing what ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... women, wounded and dying cows, sheep, and swine, entangled in an enormous mass, made it impossible to pass that way. Napoleon turned his horse, and took the road to St. Peter's gate. Slowly, and with perfect composure, he rode through Cloister and Burg Streets. Not a muscle of his fane betrayed any uneasiness or embarrassment; it was grave ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... after the speech is over, the most penetrating questions that I have ever had addressed to me came from some of the men who were the least well-dressed in the audience, came from the plain fellows, came from the fellows whose muscle was daily up against the whole struggle of life. They asked questions which went to the heart of the business and put me to my mettle to answer them. I felt as if those questions came as a voice out of life itself, not a voice out of any school less severe than ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson
... troops at Vera Cruz, with some 2500 men, started for Puebla, where it was understood that Col. Childs required reinforcement. Lane left Jalapa on the 1st of October, and hurried forward with Lally's command. At Perote, Lane learned that Santa Anna would throw himself upon his muscle, and give the advancing columns jessy at the pass of Pinal, and there was every prospect of a very tight time. Col. Wynkoop was in command at Perote; the men were anxious to be "in" at the fight in prospective, and Wynkoop obtained permission to join the General with four companies ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... for as he came across the dewy grass on feet of brawn, shaming puny rustics by his huge physique. The photographer mentally limned him: a bushy, low-browed head and dark, reddish, full-lipped face, bearded; muscle massed upon his arms and tatter-clothed legs; a deep, prominent chest; hands large, black, powerful; the whole man advancing with a lightness which in some barbaric conqueror would have been called ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... for which both the Northern and Southern infantry is renowned; and two or three raw-boned giants, topping six feet by some inches; but not one powerful or athletic frame: in many trials of strength, in wrist and arm, I did not come across one formidable muscle. ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... civil in public, yet they cut at each other with epigrams that were as sharp as razors, as I have seen a couple of wrestlers in Devonshire, lashing at each other's shins and never showing their agony upon a muscle of their faces. Neither Tapeworm nor Macabau ever sent home a dispatch to his government without a most savage series of attacks upon his rival. For instance, on our side we would write, "The interests of Great Britain ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was a case of the fallibility of appearances. Fyles was remarkable both for great intelligence and extreme shrewdness. Not only that, he was a man of cat-like activity. His bulk was the result of a superabundance of muscle, and not of superfluous tissue. His bucolic spread of features was useful to him in that it detracted from the cold, keen, compelling eyes which looked out from beneath his shaggy eyebrows; and, too, the full cheeks and fat neck, helping to hide the determined jaws, which had a knack of closing ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... all went well, for the way was down hill, and the wheel squeaked briskly round and round; Bab smiled gratefully upon her bearer, and Ben "went in on his muscle with a will," as he expressed it. But presently the road grew sandy, began to ascend, and the load seemed to grow ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... simulated but merely suggested. A new name is given, a new language taught, a new dress worn, new dances are danced. Almost always it is accompanied by moral teaching. Thus in the Kakian ceremony already described the boys have to sit in a row cross-legged, without moving a muscle, with their hands stretched out. The chief takes a trumpet, and placing the mouth of it on the hand of each lad, he speaks through it in strange tones, imitating the voice of spirits. He warns the boys on pain ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... to Gleeson. But they had not hurried over their meal, having little care or consideration for him; and he, recovering consciousness while yet they were engaged, felt no qualms about making his retreat as quickly and as quietly as possible. Aching in every bone, and with every muscle bruised, he crept away through the shelter of the scrub, not daring to look for the swag he had thrown down, or the hat which had been knocked from his head. There was only one instinct or desire in his being—the instinct ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... then, as it is to-day, the favourite sport of Cornish youths; so I gladly took off my coat, and we began our fun. I soon saw, however, that Wilfred did not regard it as fun. He strained every muscle of his body in order to throw me, until I had to put forth my whole strength. Although I was stronger and heavier than he I had not much advantage. He was so supple and knew so many clever tricks that he was constantly in fair ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... When the noise was loudest, walrus hides booming and priests a- singing, I says, 'Are you ready?' Gawd! Not a start, not a shot of the eyes my way, not the twitch of a muscle. 'I knew,' she answers, slow and steady as a calm spring tide. 'Where?' 'The high bank at the edge of the ice,' I whispers back. 'Jump out when I ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... Not a muscle moved, not a nerve quivered, but I fancied that a faint purple flush played for an instant under the white mask. If I were correct, it was but momentary. She lifted her left hand slowly, pressed it on her heart, and then let it fall. The motion was so ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... actions in response to certain sensations. These responses, from the very beginning of animal life, have been toward avoiding pain, and toward receiving pleasure. It is as though the stimulus presses the trigger—instinct—and the muscle responds instantly with reflex action. This mechanism is the means of protection and advancement, and takes largely the place of intelligence in all animal life. It is what makes the baby suck and cry, clutch and pull, ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter
... not move a muscle for a few seconds, then, with a sudden turn of the head, he made a grab for ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... Buddy tried first one camp, then another, but without success. Meanwhile, the downpour continued and the creeks rose steadily, obliging him to make numerous detours and to follow the ridge roads wherever possible. He was aching in every bone and muscle from the pounding he had received, his arms were numb, his back was broken. He drowned his motor finally in fording a roily ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... to explain why Bud Oakley and I gladly stretched ourselves on the bank of the nearby charco after the dipping, glad for the welcome inanition and pure contact with the earth after our muscle-racking labours. The flock was a small one, and we finished at three in the afternoon; so Bud brought from the morral on his saddle horn, coffee and a coffeepot and a big hunk of bread and some side bacon. Mr. Mills, the ranch owner and my old friend, rode away to the ranch ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... others, and came with glowing cheeks and distended arms, throwing down great white chips with their green mossy bark, scattering tufts on the floor. "Good," said he softly to himself, as he leaned on the top of his gold-headed cane; "there's energy, ambition, muscle;" and he nodded his head once or ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... other hand on the curved roof of the other car. By this time both shacks are coming up the steps. I know it, though I am too busy to see them. All this is happening in the space of only several seconds. I make a spring with my legs and "muscle" myself up with my arms. As I draw up my legs, both shacks reach for me and clutch empty air. I know this, for I look down and see them. Also I ...
— The Road • Jack London
... was sketching away and was quite absorbed in it, but Doctor, who was little more than a puppy, thought it very dull. He lay with his head between his paws, and, without moving a muscle, rolled his eyes round and round, now gazing up at Tattine, and then at his mother, trying to be happy though quiet. Finally he stretched himself, got on his feet, cocked up his ears, and came and stood in front of Betsy, and although not a sound was heard, he said, so that Betsy ...
— Tattine • Ruth Ogden
... bed, and both were soon asleep. Hiram woke up first; and found the sun shining in his eyes, and was about to shift his position, intent on a longer nap, when he checked himself not moving a muscle. ...
— Dave Dashaway and his Hydroplane • Roy Rockwood
... cheerful, he not being so already, is like bidding him treble his fortune, or add a cubit to his stature. The quality of a cheerful, buoyant temperament partly belongs to the original cast of the constitution—like the bone, the muscle, the power of memory, the aptitude for science or for music; and is partly the outcome of the whole manner of life. In order to sustain the quality, the physical (as the support of the mental) forces of the ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... while above her the fight raged direfully and all unheard. At one time she truly saw naked Kafirs go up the hill,—the light of the fire glinted on the points of their assegais and threw a dull gleam on the muscle-rippled skin of them. Next, stones falling made her start, and ere this alarm was passed she heard the unmistakable clatter of shod feet among the boulders, and—plain and loud—an oath as some man stumbled. He was already ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... conventional, but they show that another power has taken the field, and is willing to risk the fortunes of war. Norse poetry loses its vigor when the secure establishment of Christianity abolishes piracy and puts fighting upon an allowance. Its muscle was its chief characteristic. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... had expected, the telegram was soon followed by its sender, and the card of Mr. Cyril Overton, of Trinity College, Cambridge, announced the arrival of an enormous young man, sixteen stone of solid bone and muscle, who spanned the doorway with his broad shoulders and looked from one of us to the other with a comely face which was haggard ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... sitting alone in her wooden rocking-chair on the front porch. Little Hilda had been sent to bed and had cried herself to sleep. The old woman's knitting was in her lap, but her hands lay motionless on top of it. For more than an hour she had not moved a muscle. She simply sat, as only the Ericsons and the mountains can sit. The house was dark, and there was no sound but the croaking of the frogs down in the pond of ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... the senses in forgetfulness of the world and its cares? On a sudden he starts from his couch with an appearance of frenzy!—his nostrils dilated, his eyes gleaming with immoderate excitation—an incipient curse quivering on his lips, and every vein swelling—every muscle tense with fearful and passionate energy of purpose. Is he possessed with a devil, or does he meditate suicide, that his manner is so wild and hurried? With impetuous velocity he rushes to the window, and beneath ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 346, December 13, 1828 • Various
... large beaver hat, which I wore at the time, and this protected me; but these resources gave me little consolation; my children were complaining of hunger, and I felt only how much we were in want of. I had seen a shell-fish on the shore, resembling the oyster, or muscle. I collected some, and, opening them with my knife, we made a repast on them, which sufficed for the first day. Night came—my children offered up their evening prayer, and I earnestly besought the succour of the Almighty. I then lay down beside my babes on our raft, ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... rumor by some means spread throughout the town that Father Beret and Lieutenant Beverley were drowned in the Wabash. But when a crowd gathered to verify the terrible news it turned out to be untrue. Gaspard Roussillon had once more distinguished himself by an exhibition of heroic nerve and muscle. ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... Paris suddenly began to dance jerky and grotesque jigs on the pavements of their cities. In the same moment the Chief Justice of the Court of the Nations, at a cocktail party in Washington, writhed in the exquisite pain of total muscle cramp, his august features twisted into ...
— The Mightiest Man • Patrick Fahy
... where a rhythm comes to peripheral expression, there are two opposing sets of muscles involved. If a rhythmic movement be attempted with but a single set of muscles at work, it is very unsatisfactory and soon ends in the tonic contraction of the muscle set. One may assume that in all cases of rhythm perception there is a cycle of movement sensations involved, and that the simplest possible case of a peripheral rhythmic movement is the type of any rhythm. In tapping a rhythm with the finger, the ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... should have been no rain at Accra, where their crops were failing for the want of it, although it rained every day at Cape Coast. There were several heaps of shells on the beach at Accra, principally consisting of the common cowrie, and the large muscle. They had been collected for the purpose of undergoing the process of calcination. In the absence of limestone, they are used as a substitute, and are considered to produce a ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... memories, strange creatures, strange scenery, as if from another planet. There was a distinct impression, too, of a momentous conversation, of a name—he could not tell what name—that was subsequently to recur, of some queer long-forgotten sensation of vein and muscle, of a feeling of vast hopeless effort, the effort of a man near drowning in darkness. Then came a panorama of dazzling unstable ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... me that an old soldier like herself did not make a fuss about a scratch or two. The first shot had merely grazed her off-shoulder, leaving a skin-mark, as if she had brushed a wall. The second was more serious. It had passed through the muscle of her neck, but already it had ceased to bleed. I reflected that if she weakened I could mount Montluc's grey, and meanwhile I led him along beside us, for he was a fine horse, worth fifteen hundred francs ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... alternatives of oppression are terrible. But this state of things cannot always last, nor ignorance alone shield us from destruction." His interest in the question was clearly growing. But it was still in the gristle of sentiment waiting to be transmuted into the bone and muscle of a definite and determined purpose, when first he met Lundy. This meeting of the two men, was to Garrison what the fourth call of God was to Samuel, the Hebrew lad, who afterward became a prophet. As the three previous calls of God and the conversations with Eli had prepared the Jewish boy ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... yourself alone, and don't grumble at your shape," I said sturdily, and to tell the truth rather surprising myself, for I had no idea that I was such a philosopher. "Your legs are right enough. They only want flesh and muscle, and it's the same with your arms. Wait a bit and it will all come, just as beards do when people grow ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... arranged. Laura, with the expenditure of considerable ingenuity and muscle, got Billy safely to the foot of the cliff, and then worked her own way down by the rope without cutting her hands. She made a sling of her dress skirt in which to lower Billy, and had she not been a very strong and determined girl she ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... knew that a week of it would be all that she could stand. She could see beyond the craving ache to stop—the well-nigh irresistible cry of her body for rest. She could feel the call of spirit dominating mere bodily weariness. And it drove her on—though every muscle cried a halt. ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... very skilfully fitted and made soft by having been dubbed by the women—that is, scraped to the requisite thinness, and made supple by rubbing with the brains of the animal that wore it. They are sewed together with sinews of the buffalo, generally of the long and powerful muscle that holds up the ponderous head of the shaggy beast, a narrow strip running towards the bump. In summer the lower edges of the skin are rolled up, and the wind blowing through, it is a cool, shady retreat. In winter everything is closed, and I know of no more comfortable ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... wouldn't be hired to clutter up my insides with the messes I see goin' up to the tables of some I work for. Cocktails, an' entrys, an' foody-de-gra-gra, an' suchlike. No! I believe in reel, straight nourishment. The things that builds up your bones, an' gives you red blood, an' good muscle, so's you can hold down your job, an' hold up your head. I believe in payin' for that kind o' food, if I do ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann
... or less a sporting man, and it is the peculiarity of sporting men to betray astonishment at no eventuality, however startling; therefore Mr. Crop, doing violence to his feelings, moved not a muscle of his countenance. ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... limpet and coarse cockles will remove obstructions, and leaves of the small sorrel; but not without Coan white wine. The increasing moons swell the lubricating shell-fish. But every sea is not productive of the exquisite sorts. The Lucrine muscle is better than the Baian murex: [The best] oysters come from the Circaean promontory; cray-fish from Misenum: the soft Tarentum plumes herself on her broad escalops. Let no one presumptuously arrogate to himself the science of banqueting, unless the nice doctrine of tastes ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... hopelessly ill; but she again protested. "It's all right to be able to throw a rope and ride a mean horse, but you have got something else—something I can never get. Learning is a thousand times finer than muscle." ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... hunting-party, which took place about the same time in the forest of Saint-Germain, to which the Emperor invited the ambassador of the Sublime Porte, then just arrived at Paris. His Turkish Excellency followed the chase with ardor, but without moving a muscle of his austere countenance. The animal having been brought to bay, his Majesty had a gun handed to the Turkish ambassador, that he might have, the honor of firing the first shot; but he refused, not conceiving, ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... the external appearances of age are kept away for a long time. It gives more brilliancy to the eye, more freshness to the skin, more support to the muscles; and as it is certain in physiology that wrinkles, those formidable enemies of beauty, are caused by the depression of muscle, it is equally true that, other things being equal, those who understand eating are comparatively four years younger than those ignorant of that science. Painters and sculptors are deeply impenetrated with this truth; for in representing ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... bird was shot at the Depot, when just stooping at a duck on some water in the glen. The strength of limb, and muscle of this fine species of falcon were extremely remarkable, and seemed to indicate that he despised weaker or smaller prey than that at which he was flying when shot. He had been seen several times before he was killed. His flight was rapid and ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... atmosphere at that time due to the unrestrained pollination of plants of every description, it was not surprising that they found as many as ten per cent of the white race afflicted with a slight pollen sensitivity which showed up seasonally by causing spasms of the smooth muscle of the respiratory system, a ...
— The Sword and the Atopen • Taylor H. Greenfield
... smiled and stepped into the stage wings that they realized that it was over. Then with one accord the entire audience broke into a storm of applause—all but Archie, who sat with locked fingers and tense face; for the life of him he could not move a single muscle—he was simply paralyzed with pleasure; at last ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... are far stronger forces that determine a man's life than his own wishes and will. We are like swimmers in the surf of the Indian Ocean, powerless against the battering of the wave which pitches us, for all our science, and for all our muscle, where it will. Call it environment, call it fate, call it circumstances, call it providence, call it God—there is something outside of us bigger than we are, and the man who begins life, thinking 'Thus I will, thus I command, let my determination stand instead ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... agreed Bob, and Herb and Jimmy went outside and up the path a short distance, where they crouched, listening, with every muscle tense to warn their comrades if ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman
... guise, as light, electricity, or what not, is equally beyond creation or annihilation, however elusively it may glide from phase to phase and vanish from view. In the mastery of Flame for the superseding of muscle, of breeze and waterfall, the chief credit rests with James Watt, the inventor of the steam engine. Beside him stands George Stephenson, who devised the locomotive which by abridging space has lengthened life and added to its highest pleasures. ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... slumber, would in reality be watching the stealthy movements of Tim, the cat, who would come scouting through the grass towards the tin of food. Just out of reach, Tim would lie down and feign sleep as deep as Caesar's, though every muscle in his body was tense with readiness for the sudden spring. So they would remain, perhaps many minutes. Tim's patience never gave out. Sometimes Caesar's would, and he would open his eyes and flap round on his perch, shouting much bad bird language at the ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... an important artery or vein, which may be caused by a very slightly displaced bone, an indurated muscle, or other organ, may produce an excess of blood in one part of the body, thereby causing a deficiency in some other part. A dislocated member will generally show alteration in the form of the joint and ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... administration of Ireland is simply this: that its spring and source of action, and what is called its motor muscle, is English and not Irish. Without providing a domestic Legislature for Ireland, without having an Irish Parliament, I want to know how you will bring about this wonderful, superhuman, and, I believe, in this condition, impossible result, that your ...
— Home Rule - Second Edition • Harold Spender
... like arms of iron, absolutely devoid of sensation, while my hands, rigidly grasping the book like the hands of a frozen corpse, held it upright and motionless before me. I tried to start up and shake off this strange deadness from my body, but was powerless to move a muscle. What was the meaning of this condition? for I had absolutely no pain, no discomfort even; for the sensation of intense cold had almost ceased, and my mind was active and clear, and I could hear and see, and yet was as powerless ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... renewal of hostilities with a neuralgic throb. I banged forward with bigger and bigger feet. A bird, scared, swooped almost into my face. Occasionally some night-noise pricked a futile, minute hole in the enormous curtain of soggy darkness. Uphill now. Every muscle thoroughly aching, head spinning, I half-straightened my no longer obedient body; and jumped: face to face with a little wooden man hanging all by itself in a grove ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... hold of, and receive, and make his own, the knowledge you offer him. You must awaken and strengthen the power of memory within him, that he may retain what he receives, and thus grow in knowledge, as the body by a like process grows in strength and muscle. In other words, learning, so far as the mind of the learner is concerned, is a growth; and teaching, so far as the teacher is concerned, is doing whatever is necessary to ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... the girl spoke again for some minutes. There was a breath of danger in the very air, and every few moments the earth would shake violently. Jim's ears were standing erect upon his head and every muscle of his big body was tense as he trotted toward home. He was not going very fast, but on his flanks specks of foam began to appear and at times he would tremble like ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... at her friend, longing for a word or look of affection, but not a muscle of the small face moved; it might have ...
— Susan - A Story for Children • Amy Walton
... gentle voice, contrasted with his startling caustic utterance, reminded people of Prosper Merimee: terse epigram, felicitous apropos, whimsical presentment of the topic under discussion, emitted in a low tone, and without the slightest change of muscle: ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... I survived. I was, on more than one occasion, believed to be dead by my friends, and they wrapped me in the winding sheet. Even then I was conscious of what they were doing, and yet I was unable to move a muscle, or speak, or groan. A horrible fear came over me that they would bury me alive. I seemed to die at the thought, but, had mountains been heaped upon me, it would have been as easy for me to show that I was not dead. But I would gradually regain the power of articulation, and then again ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... high of color and mighty of muscle and with equal vehemence says a thing is "strawdn'ry" whether it 's a dewdrop ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... than ever; bronzed by Nigerian sun, all the superfluous flesh marched off him; every muscle in his frame taut and vigorous. And at the same time a new self-confidence—apparently quite unconscious, and the inevitable result of a strong and testing experience—was enabling him to bring his powers to bear and into play, as he had ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... if all your men had their heads tied to a backboard! It might not be much harm on parade, except to worry and fatigue them; but how would it be in a bayonet charge against the enemy, when they want the free use of every muscle, and all their strength thrown forward? I would not give much for their chance of victory. And it is just the same with horses: you fret and worry their tempers, and decrease their power; you will not let them throw their weight ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell
... confusion fell upon him. Not a muscle of Ralston's swarthy clear-cut face or the full-bearded lips moved, but there was a dancing little demon of not more than half-malicious ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... four miles an hour—for it was anything but an Arabian courser which Lynde had hired of honest Deacon Twombly. She was not a handsome animal either—yellow in tint and of the texture of an ancestral hair-trunk, with a plebeian head, and mysterious developments of muscle on the hind legs. She was not a horse for fancy riding; but she had her good points—she had a great many points of one kind and another—among which was her perfect adaptability to rough country roads and the sort of work now ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... rise and cry aloud, but not a muscle of my body would obey my wishes, not a breath came to my lips; and the old woman, bending over me between the curtains, fixed her stony stare upon me with a strange unearthly smile. I wanted to call for help, I wanted to drive her from me, but her petrifying stare seemed to fascinate ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... different cells. A merchant, watchful about the fineness of the wool which he is purchasing, counts with his lens the number of threads to the inch; a physician, when he wishes, can, with the aid of the microscope, examine the cells in a muscle, or in a piece of fat, or in a nerve fiber. Not only is the human body composed of cells, but so also are the bodies of all animals from the tiny gnat which annoys us, and the fly which buzzes around us, to the mammoth creatures of the tropics. These ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... Jolly Roger stood with his gun in his hand, not a muscle of his body moving, and with something like stupor in his staring eyes. Peter struggled out from under Cassidy, and looked inquisitively from his master to the man who lay sprawled out like a great spider upon the sand. ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... Matak—paddled, he trolled a flashing bait to lure the gamefish which swarmed in the depths. Rarely did such an evening pass without a long fight with a leaping pampano or a sea bass: with thirty or forty pounds of desperate muscle at the other end of a hundred-yard line, the song of reel was sweet. One night he brought in an eighty-pound barracuda but usually the larger fish cost ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... the coming ordeal. Teeth were tightly clenched, and every muscle summoned to do its full duty. Nor could the emergency be long delayed, because that drifting wreckage of a cabin was approaching them swiftly, borne on the wild current of the flood, and in another ten seconds would have reached the middle of the ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... yawning is infectious, because the steams of the blood being ejected out of the mouth, doth infect the ambient air, which being received by the nostrils into another man's mouth, doth irritate the fibres of the hypogastric muscle to open the mouth to discharge by expiration the unfortunate gust of air infected with the steams of blood, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 46, Saturday, September 14, 1850 • Various
... nothing so delightsome to a heart that truly loves as to know and do the will of its beloved? And that, dear brethren, is the spirit that all we Christian people need—a deeper, more vivid, more continual, soul-subduing, muscle-straining consciousness that Jesus Christ 'loved me and gave Himself for me.' Then His whisper will be like thunder, and the motto of our lives will be ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... I each purchased a strong, active horse from Mr Praeger, for which we gave him long prices as some return for his hospitality; and we then presented him with our own steeds, which were likely to pick up muscle and flesh ...
— Adventures in the Far West • W.H.G. Kingston
... Every muscle, every bone in their three bodies snapped to rigid attention simultaneously. Eyes straight, chins in, the cadets waited for whatever calamity had befallen them. From behind came quick, heavy footsteps. They drew closer until they passed alongside and then abruptly stopped. There, in front of them, ...
— Danger in Deep Space • Carey Rockwell
... "Steady lads, give way!" cried the coxswain, on whose steering everything depended at the first plunge. The short oars cracked as the men strained every muscle, and shot the boat, not over, but right through the falling deluge. Of course it was filled, but the discharging tubes freed it in a few seconds, and the cheers of the spectators had scarce burst forth ...
— Saved by the Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... not a muscle twitching in his face as he talked to Nellie Logan, not a break in his voice, not a ruffle of a hair, to tell her that John Barclay had broken with the friend of his boyhood and the partner of his youth, and that he had closed ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... this story was quite admirable. I never heard any anecdote (and I believe this one to be true) related with such genuine drollery, which was enhanced by his not changing a muscle himself, while every one of his hearers was ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... be in the wilderness, good to be savage, good to be unclothed beneath God's high heaven and know that by my muscle and my cunning I was king. No ordinary king who went about with a jeweled crown upon his head could ever feel this exuberance of being, and in pure delight I ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... But Russia was not weak. She had a tremendous store of vigor for good or for evil. Life had always been a terrible conflict, with nature and with man, and when there had been no other barbarians to fight, they had fought each other. Every muscle and every sinew had always been in the highest state of activity, and was toughened and strong, with an inextinguishable vitality. Such nations do not waste time in sentimental regrets. Their wounds, like those of animals, heal quickly, ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... by nutritious matter, becomes distinctly acid, and contains a digestive ferment allied to the pepsin of the human stomach. So excited, it is found capable of dissolving boiled white of egg, muscle, fibrin, cartilage, gelatine, curd of milk, and many other substances. Further, various substances that animal gastric juice is unable to digest are not acted upon by the secretion of the sun-dew. These include all horny matter, starch, ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... had been in the saddle since early noon with only two short intervals of rest when she had stopped to drink and to bathe her fare in the deliciously cold waters of mountain streams—and now the trail had melted into the hills, and the broad shadows of mountains were lengthening. Every muscle of her body ached at the unaccustomed strain, and she was very hungry. She envied her horse his enjoyment of the bunch grass which he munched with much tongueing of the bit and impatient shaking of the head. ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... short time after he was drowned. It was called Knorstone where he was put in the earth, and his ghost walked about there a great deal. There was a man named Thorkell Skull who lived at Thickshaw on his father's inheritance. He was a man of very dauntless heart and mighty of muscle. One evening a cow was missing at Thickshaw, and Thorkell and his house-carle went to look for it. It was after sunset, but was bright moonlight. Thorkell said they must separate in their search, and ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... down for Dutch—as them vas the only foreigners I vas acquainted vith at the time. I artervards discovered she was French. She was werry thin, and as pale as a soft-shelled clam; there was a dark blue color under her eyes, like these here muscle shells. At first, she used to buy ninepence worth of oysters. Arter a while it came down to fourpence; and one day she only vanted two cents vorth. I asked her who they ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage |
