"Stroke" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Oh! for one glance, if only the last, of Will's kind face. The minutes dragged themselves along; the crowd increased; but as the right hour had not yet come, the doors remained fast shut. At last, at the stroke of ten, they were opened, and Bet was pressing in with the rest, when she felt a hand laid heavily on her arm. She turned, to see the coarse black-eyed girl who had bought her ...
— A Girl of the People • L. T. Meade
... his spear, but it could not pierce the shield which the God had made for Achilles. Hector had no other spear, and Achilles had one, so Hector cried, "Let me not die without honour!" and drew his sword, and rushed at Achilles, who sprang to meet him, but before Hector could come within a sword-stroke Achilles had sent his spear clean through the neck of Hector. He fell in the dust and Achilles said, "Dogs and birds shall tear your flesh unburied." With his dying breath Hector prayed him to take gold ...
— Tales of Troy: Ulysses the Sacker of Cities • Andrew Lang
... entertain the king and queen with an English tune upon this instrument. But this appeared extremely difficult; for the spinet was nearly sixty feet long, each key being almost a foot wide, so that with my arms extended I could not reach to above five keys, and to press them down required a good smart stroke with my fist, which would be too great a labor, and to no purpose. The method I contrived was this: I prepared two round sticks, about the bigness of common cudgels; they were thicker at one end than the other, and I covered the thicker ends with a piece ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... rushing forward, hand to hand engaged the king. Edward knew his adversary, not so much by his snow white plume as by the prowess of his arm. Twice did the heavy claymore of Wallace strike fire from the steely helmet of the monarch; but at the third stroke the glittering diadem fell in shivers to the ground; and the royal blood of Edward followed the blow. He reeled; and another stroke would have settled the freedom of Scotland forever, had not the strong arm of Frere de ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... surrounding farmers and small gentry. In a "Trilby" way he describes how he "rode, and wrestled, and boxed with them! and fell in love with their sisters, and sketched them, and sang Tyrolese melodies to them, ... blessing the lucky stroke of fortune which had made him mining engineer to a gold mine without any gold, and managed by gentlemen who obstinately persisted in ignoring the latter important fact, in spite of his honest endeavours ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... one day, after Frank had been practising successfully the "seven-stroke roll," greatly to the satisfaction of his instructor,—"now, my boy, I think you can be ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... in the habit of catching house thieves," he said, drawling a little, "and I doubt if many of them are quite such accomplished liars as you appear to be; but my stroke will improve, I've no doubt, as we go on. Would you mind getting up and 'coming along with me' as they call it, ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... ivory. Odd-shaped, half-finished tools of hammered copper were strewn about the floor, and the walls were thickly coated with verdigris. Instead of the sharp ring of steel on stone, a dull thud followed the stroke of his pick, and its scars glowed with a red lustre in the flare ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... be more popular than the old one. Do you know why? Because you have taken it under your hand and made it yours. Because you have breathed the breath of life into these amiable brethren of wood and field. Because, by a stroke here and a touch there, you have conveyed into their quaint antics the illumination of your own inimitable humor, which is as true to our sun and soil as it is to the spirit and essence ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... their eyes. According to the announcement of the prophets generally, and of Jeremiah especially, who, at his very vocation, had it assigned to him as his main task to announce the calamity from the North, it was by the Chaldeans that the deadly stroke should be inflicted upon the people implicated in the conflicts of these hostile powers; but it was the Egyptians who inflicted upon them the first severe wound. Josiah fell in the battle with Pharaoh Necho. The people, conscious of guilt, were, by his death, filled with a fearful expectation ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... coffee-room and ordered some tea. He was pleasant enough and talkative, told the waiter that his name was William Kershaw, that very soon all London would be talking about him, as he was about, through an unexpected stroke of good fortune, to become a very rich man, and so on, and so ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... opening stroke when Marjorie, the center forward, sent the ball at one bound across the field to her left forward, who dodged the opposing half-back, the game seemed almost a walk-over for Miss Allen's girls. Only once did Miss Martin's side make a goal, and then Lily Andrews took all ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... of the boatman's daughter paddling near the shore in an Indian canoe. It was of birchbark and Polly shot it along under the stroke of her paddle as though it had the weight of a feather. And, indeed, it was not so heavy by a good deal as the cedar boats of ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... care ground an Object Glass, of any length or breadth requisite, and that with very little or no trouble in fitting the Engine, and without much skill in the Grinder. It seems to be the most exact, for to the very last stroke the Glass does regulate and rectifie the Tool to its exact Figure; and the longer or more the Tool and Glass are wrought together, the more exact will both of them be of the desir'd Figure. Further, ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... we in the West had got the better of them, and were slowly increasing our lead, before Italy, by joining us, increased the Allies' advantage at a stroke by over three-quarters of a million fully mobilised men, and much more than as ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... friend John came and nailed covers on the chests. After the first was nailed down, I jumped upon it, and sat watching John while he hammered the others; switching my tail, and winking my eyes at every stroke of his hammer, rather surprised at all that went on, but yet ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland
... the Fairy of Fortune," the beautiful lady said, "and that is my castle. You may reach it to-day, if you will; there is time, if you waste none. If you reach it before the last stroke of midnight, I will receive you there, and will be your friend. But if you come one second after midnight, it will ...
— Stories to Tell Children - Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling • Sara Cone Bryant
... the Vault of her Ancestors, his very Words keep solemn Pace with the Herse which incloses her once animated, now lifeless, Form. Step by Step we still attend her; turn with the Horses as they take the Bye-road to Harlow-place; start with the wretched, guilty Family, at the first Stroke of the mournful tolling Bell; are fixed in Amazement with the lumbering heavy Noise of the Herse up the paved inner Court-yard: But when the Servant comes in to acquaint the Family with its Arrival, and we read this Line, He spoke not, he could not speak; he looked, he bowed, ...
— Remarks on Clarissa (1749) • Sarah Fielding
... would lie in Donal's plaid under some great rock, and hear the wind roaring around them, but not able to get at them! And the sheep would come and huddle close up to them, and keep them warm with their woolly sides! and he would stroke their heads and love them! Davie was no longer a mere child—far from it; but what is loveliest in the child's heart was only the stronger in him; and the prospect of going with Donal was a thing to be dreamed of day and night till it came! Nor were ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... he sprang up and crossed to the door, where his visitor was chuntering, as the lad called it, and making a succession of peculiar snorts as he waved his trunk up and down. "What's the matter? Want some breakfast?" And after a moment's hesitation he stretched out his hand and began to stroke the great, prehensile organ that was now passed over his shoulders and down his sides. "You won't hurt me, will you, old chap? That'll do. Steady, and I will get ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... said Beatrice. Her tone was as gentle and as solemn as the stroke of a bell, and as impersonal. It neither commended nor reproved. I saw that instantly she had determined to conceal her own wishes, to obliterate herself entirely, to let me know that, so far as she could affect my choice, I was a free agent. ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... in return. "But what I am come to say, sir," he went on, "is this. In the year '45, my brother raised a part of the 'Gregara' and marched six companies to strike a stroke for the good side; and the surgeon that marched with our clan and cured my brother's leg when it was broken in the brush at Preston Pans, was a gentleman of the same name precisely as yourself. He was brother to Balfour of Baith; and if you are in any reasonable degree of ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... niece Anne leaves us this morning, summoned back from one scene of distress to another. Her uncle, David Macculloch, is extremely ill—a paralytic stroke, I fancy. She is a charming girl, lady-like in thought and action, and very pleasant in society. We are to dine to-day with our neighbours at Gattonside. Meantime I will avail myself of my disposition to labour, and work ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... taught to pierce the secret caves Of humid earth, and lift her ponderous waves; Bade with quick stroke the sliding piston bear The viewless columns of incumbent air;— Press'd by the incumbent air the floods below, 370 Through opening valves in foaming torrents flow, Foot after foot with lessen'd impulse move, And rising seek the vacancy above.— So when ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... being wounded once by a ball which struck one of her ribs, and another time by a sabre stroke on the side. At Valenciennes, however, Captain Bowen was killed; and, finding among his effects several letters relating to herself, which proved that she had been cruelly defrauded of money left to her, she resolved to leave the regiment, and to return, if possible, to England. Accordingly ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... riot; therefore, in proportion as the time advanced, the agitation grew greater. Nine o'clock, half-past nine, a quarter to ten struck, without anything happening to confirm or destroy their hopes. At last the first stroke of ten was heard; all eyes turned towards the chimney: ten o'clock struck slowly, each stroke vibrating in the heart of the multitude. At last the tenth stroke trembled, then vanished shuddering into space, and, a great cry breaking simultaneously frog a hundred thousand breasts ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... may be termed, of the visitor was unexpected by the Shawanoe. It was a masterful stroke, and produced an immediate effect, though so slight in its nature that a man less observant than Finley would have failed ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... his thoughts aloud). I've been beaten for a' that. A strange thing, noo. Beforehand I would ha'e said naething could be easier. And yet—and yet—there it is!... It would have been a grand stroke for me.... Cluny—Keppoch—Lochiel, and maybe ... maybe—Hell! when I think of it! Just a whispered word—a mere pointed finger would ha'e telled a'. But no! their visions, their dreams beat me. "You'll be adding ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... At the stroke of five in the morning, columns of soldiery filed out of all the Paris barracks and occupied the commanding positions where barricades had been thrown up in former times. At the same time a score of detectives ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... The whole of the enormous difference would, therefore, be thrown upon the Indian taxpayers, who now have to find for primary education less than L650,000 per annum. Even Mr. Gokhale does not, of course, propose that this educational and financial revolution should be effected by a stroke of the pen, and one of his Hindu colleagues held that, it would be contrary to all Hindu traditions for parents to avail themselves of free education if they could afford to pay a reasonable ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... paint a picture here—to do the whole thing in the woods from day to day, instead of taking notes for the studio—and was at work upon a very foolish experiment: I had thought to render the light—broken by the branches and foliage—with broken brush-work, a short stroke of the kind that stung an elder painter to swear that its practitioners painted in shaking fear of the concierge appearing for the studio rent. The attempt was alluring, but when I rose from my camp-stool and stepped back into the path to get more distance ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... did the harvest to their sickle yield, 25 Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe[3] has broke; How jocund did they drive their team afield! How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke! ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... long my grief has kept me drunk: Sure there 's a lethargy in mighty woe; Tears stand congealed, and cannot flow. ........ Tears for a stroke foreseen, afford relief; But unprovided for a sudden blow, Like Niobe, we marble grow, And ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... the king, Canning appointed the Duke of Clarence as first Lord of the Admiralty, but Greville says it was a most judicious stroke of policy, and nothing served so much to disconcert his opponents. Lord Melville had held the office from March 25, 1812, to April 13, 1827. The Duke resigned in the following year.—See Croker's Correspondence, vol. ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... battle in which confusion reigned and friends and foes were shadows in the mist, he meets his king. The false knight strikes Arthur hard upon the helmet, and gives the wound that finally proves fatal; while the king, with the last stroke of Excalibur, slays ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... undertaking brought out some adverse criticism till it was known that she intended to have more than one architectural opinion. An excellent stroke of hers to disarm criticism. You saw the second letter in the ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... of the affair. The Marechale de Mirepoix, who had the best head in Madame's council, was the only one who encouraged her. "I do not tell you," said she, "that he loves you better than her; and if she could be transported hither by the stroke of a fairy's wand; if she could entertain him this evening at supper; if she were familiar with all his tastes, there would, perhaps, be sufficient reason for you to tremble for your power. But Princes are, above all, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 2 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... the light of a single candle,—for lamps were then not very common and gas was entirely unknown. Outside, there was not a sound, for the whole town was buried in profound sleep, and our own household was in the same state of repose. It was just on the stroke of twelve. Our house was a very ancient one, though I never heard that there was anything peculiarly remarkable in its history. Sitting thus, and thus engaged in serious, solitary contemplation, the sudden fall of something heavy in the garret overhead gave me a ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... term ittakkiri—meaning "all gone," or "entirely vanished," in the sense of "all told,"— is contemptuously applied to verses in which the verse-maker has uttered his whole thought;—praise being reserved for compositions that leave in the mind the thrilling of a something unsaid. Like the single stroke of a temple-bell, the perfect short poem should set murmuring and undulating, in the mind of the hearer, many a ghostly aftertone of ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... employed and to let the improvement show itself wholly as a means of increasing the output. He may secure a machine which will do what twenty men formerly did. If it were possible to cut the uppers of a dozen shoes by the quick stroke of a single die, the machine that carried this armature would do the work of perhaps twelve knives handled by that number of skillful workmen. If the original number of men were retained in the cutting department, ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... powerfully, straight for the man he had sworn to kill, but in changing once from the overhand to side stroke he saw Jeb, white as a sheet, swimming directly behind. Without ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... great personage. The Friend of the People. An Incorruptible, if ever there was one. Just look at the simplicity, almost the poverty, in which he lived! Only the aristos hated him, and the fat bourgeois who battened on the people. Citizen Marat had sent hundreds of them to the guillotine with a stroke of his pen or a denunciation ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... the old fellow was going to ask questions," remarked Jim Dent, when they were once more in the sampan, and the big Shan was pulling strongly across the stream. "It was a lucky stroke to stop his mouth ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... piebald pony, and, at the moment of starting, appeared on the course. No one had power to restrain him, and all entreaties were in vain. He peremptorily insisted on the dogs being started, and he would ride after them. His favourite bitch displayed her superiority at every stroke; she won the stakes: but at the moment of highest exultation he fell from his pony, and, pitching on his head, almost immediately expired. With all his eccentricities, he was a ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... regional medical centers can provide the most advanced diagnosis and treatment for heart disease and cancer and stroke and ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Lyndon B. Johnson • Lyndon B. Johnson
... is, Guv'nor," he said, frankly, "the Marshal's been shaping a bit better these last few days, and it's my belief he can give you a stroke a hole ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... without speech. No one spoke now. Not a wine-glass tinkled. The room sensed a crisis. By telephone, special messenger, and the instrument at the table the belated story of New Babylon's vote pieced itself together under Bowers's pencil. The candidate hovered above him, intent on every stroke. ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... other day, when little red headed Willie Mulligan, his office boy, came sniffing into his presence to ask for the afternoon off that he might attend his grandfather's funeral, Wiggins deemed it a masterly stroke to answer: ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... interchangeable. A permanent indicator is provided which shows the exact point of cut-off. The steam-port is exceptionally large, being one-fourth of the piston area. Reciprocating motion is entirely done away with. The steam is worked at the greatest leverage of the crank through the entire stroke. Among the other chief advantages claimed for this engine are direct connection to the machinery without belts, etc., impossibility of getting out of line, uniform crank leverage, capacity for working equally well slow or fast, etc. It has but one valve, which is operated by gear from the shaft, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various
... when the time comes for returning to Uppingham, the bathing-machines would be simply formed in line, and driven across the country to Rutlandshire, and all further trouble in the way of furniture-vans and families-removing be cut away at one stroke." ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... air, and the spray of creosote, injected by the pump, F, is ignited; the expansion of the gases produced by the combustion acts upon the bottom of the piston, B, forcing it to the top of the cylinder, and thus, by intermediate mechanism, causing the crank shaft to revolve. By the same stroke a charge of air is forced by the compressor, C, into the receiver through the pipe, R. The cylinder is, of course, single acting, and on the down stroke of the piston, B—which falls by its own weight and the momentum of the fly wheel—the exhaust ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 633, February 18, 1888 • Various
... to lend a helping hand to the financial rehabilitation of such countries because this financial rehabilitation and the protection of their customhouses from being the prey of would be dictators would remove at one stroke the menace of foreign creditors and the menace of ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Thrown into a gracefully symmetrical coil, the body inflated, the neck arched in an oblique bow in support of the heart-shaped head, the slowly waving tongue with spread and tremulous tips, and above all, the incessant, monotonous whir of the rattle. One stroke—a flash—of that flat head would inject a ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas
... Max could not grasp his meaning, but, when he did, he placed his hands against the oar, and thrust at each stroke with all ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... many southern women, was totally deficient in energy. She had not strength to superintend her household affairs; but her nerves were so strong, that she could sit in her easy chair and see a woman whipped, till the blood trickled from every stroke of the lash. She was a member of the church; but partaking of the Lord's supper did not seem to put her in a Christian frame of mind. If dinner was not served at the exact time on that particular Sunday, she would station herself in the kitchen, and wait till it was dished, and then spit in ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... braver than the rest, occasionally flew towards him; but he, with perfect coolness, brushed them away, allowing the smoke to circle round above his head, thus keeping them at a distance from his face. At length he got close to the cone, and, with one stroke of his knife, cut it from the bough, when, fastening the end of the rope round it, he lowered it down to us. Proceeding along the bough, he cut the other cone away in the same manner, when the bees, angry at being deprived of their habitation, ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... moments what they had acquired in years; but the remark is applicable rather to the accelerated speed with which the last stages of a nation's ruin are accomplished, than to the slow and imperceptible progress which usually marks its commencement. Unless when cut off by the sudden stroke of war, it requires five centuries at least to consummate the fall of a great people. One must pass, therefore, over those hideous abuses which are the immediate harbingers of national disaster, and which exclusively ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... it. Some time afterward, however, in crossing another lonely place he had a similar experience, and as he came to the conclusion that nobody could have been near him, he made up his mind that it was some malevolent stroke of the devil and he consulted a priest who agreed with him in his belief, and gave him an amulet to wear. A series of similar attacks occurred and puzzled as to whether there was some diabolical agency at work, or whether he was the victim ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... arranged with a contractor to build the line at the maximum cost allowed in the concession, L9,600 per mile. Two days later this contractor sub-let the contract for L7,002 per mile. As the distance is 200 miles, the Republic was robbed by a stroke of the pen of L519,600—one of the biggest 'steals' even in the Transvaal. During the two years for which Dr. Leyds was responsible as the representative of the Republic for the management of this affair, none of these ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... said: "Let him die in peace, boys; I admire a brave heart, if it is under a black skin." The crowd dispersed. The minister got down upon his knees and raised the lad's head into his arms. He opened his eyes and fixed them upon the face of the man of God, who had begun to stroke his forehead with his hand. "God be merciful to thee, my son," said the minister tenderly. "Dat's all right, parson," returned the lad faintly, with a smile upon his ebony face. "I tol' um I'd die foe I'd giv' ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... father. Only think of it,—that a puling, puking idiot like that, from a mere freak, should be able to do a man such a mischief! He can rob me of my income, which he himself has brought me up to expect. That he can do by a stroke of his pen. He can threaten to have sons like Priam. All that is within his own bosom. But to justify himself to the world at large, he picks up a scandalous story from a man like Augustus Scarborough, and immediately not a man in the county will speak ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... that he would not contribute. He had in his pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. As the orator proceeded, he began to soften and concluded to give the copper. Another stroke of eloquence made him ashamed of that and determined him to give the silver; and the peroration was so admirable that he emptied his pocket wholly into the collector's dish, gold and all. But he was never too much carried away to omit analyzing and observing; and on one occasion, when Whitefield ...
— Benjamin Franklin • Paul Elmer More
... dear Ellen," he protested, soothingly, "I can assure you that what I am telling you is the truth! I have become unexpectedly rich. A fortunate stroke of business—the Menatogen Company, you know—has completely altered our lives. You are ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was accompanied by a still greater embarrassment of matters, and followed by more extraordinary consequences. The Americans, by a happy stroke of generalship, in this instance, not only deranged and defeated all the plans of the British, in the intended moment of execution, but drew from their posts the enemy they were not able to drive, ...
— A Letter Addressed to the Abbe Raynal, on the Affairs of North America, in Which the Mistakes in the Abbe's Account of the Revolution of America Are Corrected and Cleared Up • Thomas Paine
... torch in hand, to visit the scene of carnage, but with different ends in view; some to secure the clothing and the weapons of the slain; others, inspired by revenge or fanaticism, to deal a finishing stroke on those of the wounded, against whom they bore a grudge; but many also, prompted by the nobler motive of comforting and bringing help where it was yet possible. Salat of Luzern thus gloried in his fanaticism: "Some, ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... we interfered with him, and spoiled his bold stroke," guessed Dick Prescott. "Next, through hitting so mysteriously at us all, he probably hopes to scare Mrs. Dexter out of her life. If Dexter gets her thoroughly nervous and cowed probably she'll buy him off with a lot of her inherited money. That fellow ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... minutes before midnight he was standing before her. The last dance of the evening had just begun. Gwen had decreed that everyone should stop upon the stroke of twelve, while every mask was removed, after which the dance was to be continued to ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... at the humor of the error as at the fact that it was so evidently intentional on the part of the elderly virgin, who cunningly glanced at him and at the doctor to discover if the rare stroke of wit were ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... selected to be "Pussy" and takes his place in the centre of the group. He takes a position on all fours before each member of the group, in turn saying "Meow". Thereupon the one before whom he is kneeling must stroke the back of his head and say, "Poor pussy". Pussy meows three times and in return for each meow has the back of his head stroked and is addressed, "Poor pussy". Should the one patting pussy laugh during the performance, he must ...
— School, Church, and Home Games • George O. Draper
... being the ideal of democracy was predominant, and by the measures of 1789, re-enforced by the constitution of 1791, the entire administration of local affairs was transferred at a stroke from the agents of the crown to the elected representatives of the new governmental units. In the department was established an (p. 343) administrative group consisting of thirty-six persons, elected for a term of two years, and divided into ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... thought went through her: 'What a pity! If I read it, and there was nothing!' All her restless, jealous misgivings of months past would then be set at rest! She stood, uncertain, with the letter in her hand. Ah—but if there WERE something! She would lose at one stroke her faith in him, and her faith in herself—not only his love but her own self-respect. She dropped the letter on the table. Could she not take it up to him herself? By the three o'clock slow train, she could get to him soon after five. She looked at her watch. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... was giving way I said in my heart: 'Good-by, Samkin! I shall never see you more.' This Baron has gall in his soul, even as I have myself, and do you think that I would give up my prisoners alive, if I were constrained so to do? No, no; had we won our way this day it would have been the death-stroke ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... time was now moving fast to the stroke of four. The nymphs of the pave, who made this place their habitation, were all returned from the toils of the night. About a dozen or two of both sexes were gathered together around the fire, chatting of the various occurrences of the preceding day, ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... blind, poor things!) up the prickly stem of the rose-bush, guided, no doubt, by the faint perfume exhaled from the nectar above them. Smelling their road cautiously to the ends of the branches, they soon reach their own particular aphides, whose bodies they proceed gently to stroke with their outstretched feelers, and then stand by quietly for a moment in happy anticipation of the coming dinner. Presently, the obedient aphis, conscious of its lawful master's friendly presence, begins slowly to emit from two long horn-like tubes near the centre of its ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... the fob did yield, Their cunning oft the pocket string hath broke, How in dark alleys bludgeons did they wield! How bowed the victim 'neath their sturdy stroke! ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... is gravely set forth as history by a number of writers on these western border wars, whose books are filled from cover to cover with just such matter. Almost all their statements are partly, and very many are wholly, without foundation.]Having thus made a very pretty stroke, Sevier returned to the French Broad, where Campbell joined him on the 22d, with four hundred troops. Among them were a large number of Shelby's men, under the command of Major Joseph Martin. The next ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... smale, hir streyghte bak and softe, Hir sydes longe, fleshly, smothe, and whyte He gan to stroke, and good thrift bad ful ofte Hir snowish throte, hir brestes rounde and lyte; 1250 Thus in this hevene he gan him to delyte, And ther-with-al a thousand tyme hir kiste; That, what to done, for ...
— Troilus and Criseyde • Geoffrey Chaucer
... sufficient to rouse the sleeper, easily incorporate themselves into his dreams. The ticking of a watch, the stroke of a clock, the hum of an insect, the song of a bird, the patter of rain, are common stimuli to the dream-phantasy. M. Alf. Maury tells us, in his interesting account of the series of experiments to which he submitted himself in order to ascertain ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... Asiatics and others are carried; no one can escape it nowadays. But we advance at very low water, inert and without strength; if we advance it is with the current, and not by our own energy, while other people stronger than we swim and swim, advancing at every stroke. How have we contributed to this progress? Where are our manifestations of modern life? The railways, few and bad, are the work of foreigners, and are their property; the grass grows between the rails, which shows that we still follow the holy calm of carts and wagons. The most important ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... Deacon, who, to the astonishment of everybody, incontinently sailed up into a tree! When he was succored and cut down from the demoniac kite, he was found to have sustained a dislocation of the shoulder, and the constable was severely shaken. By that one infelicitous stroke the two outcasts made an enemy of the Law and the Gospel as represented in Trinidad County. It is to be feared also that the ordinary emotional instinct of a frontier community, to which they were now simply abandoned, was as little to be trusted. In this dilemma ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... did not speak for a moment, only stood and stroked the boy's curly hair with a light, soft touch, almost as his mother used to stroke it. Then he said, in his deep, grave voice, that was sweeter than music, ...
— Nautilus • Laura E. Richards
... 'Going—going—gone!' The stroke of the hammer put Lord Humphrey Heathfield in possession of the Florentine helmet. The bidding then began for smaller articles, which passed in turn from hand to hand down the long table. Elena handled them carefully, examined them, and placed ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... looked around him wildly, like a wounded hawk. Seeing that his strength was going from him, Robin leaped forward, and, quick as a flash, struck a back-handed blow beneath the sword arm. Down fell the sword from Guy of Gisbourne's grasp, and back he staggered at the stroke, and, ere he could regain himself, Robin's sword passed through and through his body. Round he spun upon his heel, and, flinging his hands aloft with a shrill, wild cry, fell prone upon his face upon the ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... "if you want the count's influence, I advise you to apply to the Marquis d'Aiglemont. If you get that former adorer of Madame de Serizy on your side, you will win husband and wife at one stroke." ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... the most part, and only swimming a stroke or two occasionally to guide themselves, they reached the extremity of the wharf, where they found a flight of steps at which they landed. Here, in obedience to an order from George, the remainder of the party crouched well ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... had been compelled to pick his quantum of oakum. The man's fingers were, of course, as delicate as a lady's, and in the course of our talk he held them out to me, showing the tips all raw and bleeding and thick with tar. He sobbed bitterly as he told me that he would be unable to do a hand-stroke at his trade for at least a fortnight. He carried with him letters of recommendation which ought to have guaranteed him from any such usage as that to which he had been condemned. He had tried to show them ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... their helmets barred with gold, that they crushed and damaged them. But Lancelot presses him hard and gives him a mighty blow upon his right arm which, though encased in mail, was unprotected by the shield, severing it with one clean stroke. And when he felt the loss of his right arm, he said that it should be dearly sold. If it is at all possible, he will not fail to exact the price; he is in such pain and wrath and rage that he is well-nigh beside himself, and he has a poor opinion of himself, if he cannot score on his rival ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... on their own account or for the sake of others—either for the purpose of individual correction or of general warning. It would be a far less display of goodness to suffer men to persevere in sin without any control, than to arrest them by some powerful stroke. In the former case, they not only plunge into ruin themselves, but draw others, by their fatal and malignant attraction, into perdition: in the latter, a salutary precaution is given to such as lie within the reach of their mischievous influence. Whatever has a tendency to ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... the stroke. Keesh looked at him, and thoughts of Mr. Brown's higher morality floated through his mind, and strong upon him was a vision of the leaping flames of Mr. Brown's particular brand of hell-fire. The knife fell to the ground, and the boy sighed and went out beyond the firelight with ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... that," returned Hockins, lifting his hand to stroke his beard, as was his wont when thoughtful. He lifted it, however, with some difficulty, owing to ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... a stroke," she said abruptly, "Georgie's father, and wants to see me. I'll have to nurse him, prob'ly, and I s'pose his sending means he's friendly again. It may just be I won't need to come back, and I'm glad, ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... a quick ejaculation, for, as he bent over his patient, the man behind struck him a heavy blow with a short thick life-preserver, and, quick almost as lightning, delivered another crashing stroke on ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn
... agility of the crotalus when he cares to be quick. The cage was just twelve inches high in the clear; but before the falling mouse was halfway to the bottom, there was an indescribable gray blur, and I knew that the larger snake had hit him. I have improved numerous chances to study the stroke of rattlesnake, which is the swiftest motion made by any living creature; but that particular case, better than any other, gave me a conception of its actual rapidity. From years of experience with the pneumatic shutter in photographing objects in rapid motion, I should say ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... he wished me to go with him to see his old building that he had ordered fitted up for a school for three hundred freed children in that part of his district. But he found that nothing had been done. "Upon my word," he exclaimed, "not a stroke, not a stone, not a window. O, I can't stand this red tape; I just want to leave every other duty and pitch into this house. I know I am too impulsive, but that is the way of an Irishman. I have often thought Peter was an Irishman, he was ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... of that patient industry and persevering care, which could chronicle the passing event, give place and date to the brilliant sortie, the gallant struggle, the individual deed of audacity, which, by a stroke, and at a moment, secures an undying remembrance in the bosoms of a people. The fame of Marion rests very much upon tradition. There is little in the books to justify the strong and exciting relish ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... man that moves," said The Spider in Mexican. And as he spoke his own hand flashed to his armpit, and out again like the stroke of a snake. Behind his gun gleamed a pair of black, beady eyes, as cold as the eyes of a rattler. The deputy read his own doom and the death of at least two of his men should he move a muscle. He had Young Pete covered and could have shot him down; Pete was unarmed. ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... master-stroke presently," cried some, "because he knoweth that his time is short. All our godly pastors are to be dragged to prison. We shall see them at a Smithfield fire in ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... at least two hundred dollars' worth in that bag," he reflected. "It isn't a great haul, but it will do. It will last me some time, and perhaps start me in something in Frisco. Bill Crane, you've done a good stroke of business to-day. You are entitled to a good night's rest, and you shall ...
— The Young Miner - or Tom Nelson in California • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... proportional to the pressure of the steam. Hence the co-ordinates of a point of the curve traced on the diagram represent the volume and the pressure of the steam in the cylinder. The indicator-diagram not only supplies a record of the pressure of the steam at each stage of the stroke of the engine, but indicates the work done by the steam in each stroke by the area enclosed by the curve traced on the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... world of people who act very singularly. Madmen are never ordinary; therefore the writer has not, while setting forth the most extraordinary fancies, once transgressed the limits of the probable. This was a bold stroke of genius in the very inception, and it is developed with a subtle tact which can hardly fail to claim the cordial admiration of the most carping critic. It is true that in using the strange aberrations of a lunatic as material for romance, Aldrich has provoked comparison with some of the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... spokesman and leader of the strikers, and he was the real cause of the stoppage of the works. Harvey looked upon him as insolent and brutal, and he was sure that no circumstances could arise that would permit him to do a stroke of work in ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... "Is it a stroke?" she exclaimed. But Willie, with one frightened look at the window and the long table, slipped from his chair to kneel, thinking the reading was over. The sound of his little copper-toed boots upon the floor aroused Mr. Denner; he frowned portentously. "So Jephtha passed over unto ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... bestowed on his chosen, yet not so as that he quite excludeth them from 'striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily' (Col 1:29). Nay contrariwise, if those who in truth are elect, shall yet be remiss, and do wickedly, they shall feel the stroke of God's rod, it may be till their bones do break. But because the work doth not lie at their door to manage as chief, but as Christ's, therefore though he may perform his work with much bitterness and grief to them; yet he being engaged ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... to the study, and found her father seated in his arm-chair. There was a pained expression in his eyes, and he was speechless. He had been seized with a paralytic stroke. The servant was immediately despatched to bring the doctor, who was found not far off, and quickly came. He pronounced the captain to be in considerable danger. Clara, ever dutiful and affectionate, was constant ...
— Clara Maynard - The True and the False - A Tale of the Times • W.H.G. Kingston
... lads ceased paddling, holding the canoe steady, with an occasional stroke, and began to search the western cliffs in methodical fashion, letting the eye travel from the farthest point in the north gradually toward the south, and neglecting no place ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... on board; from the time that the cutter had been hove-to, every stroke of their oars having been accompanied with a nautical anathema from the crews upon the head of their commander. The steersman and first officer, who had charge of the boats, came over the gangway and went up to Vanslyperken. ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... axe, a crashing sound, and another dead Masai. That is, if the man was engaged with Sir Henry. If it was Umslopogaas that he fought with the result indeed would be the same, but it would be differently attained. It was but rarely that the Zulu used the crashing double-handed stroke; on the contrary, he did little more than tap continually at his adversary's head, pecking at it with the pole-axe end of the axe as a woodpecker {Endnote 7} pecks at rotten wood. Presently a peck would go home, and his enemy ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... men, one of whom pulled the stroke-oar and the one next him, now sang out that they would ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... a little philosophic shrug. "Que voulez-vous? They are princes. They think they are treating me very well. Silberstadt is a perfectly despotic little state, and the Reigning Prince may annul the marriage by a stroke of his pen. But he has promised me, nevertheless, not to do so without ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... to seize him; she was, however, too much hurt to move. Gradually he got close to her head, when, stooping down, he first patted it gently, still uttering the same soothing words. At first, while he continued to stroke it, she looked up suspiciously at him, as if to ask what he wanted; but soon understanding that his motives were friendly, she ceased her cries. At length she put out her lacerated limb, and seemed to ask him to do what he could to relieve her pain. He fortunately had ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... right—it was a master-stroke! Keep them in ignorance of each other, and all will yet go well. I sail to-morrow, and have only time to inclose this with a pencilled line. Try and head them at New York. My first idea was the best—my reason ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... were such, that, for the greater part of the time, he was a dead weight upon her hands; although not habitually intemperate, he was indolent and good-for-nothing to a degree, lying in the sun half his time, when the weather was warm, and never doing a stroke of work until driven to it by ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... but he betrayed his pride. The immediate result was his failure to obey the Master and to watch and pray as he had been bidden; and consequently he was surprised and stunned by the arrest of Jesus, and like the other disciples, after a rash stroke in his defense, he forsook Jesus and fled. He followed Jesus to the palace of the high priest but hoped to conceal his discipleship and to be regarded as one ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... morning. The sea was quite high enough to have thrown out the most expert swimmer, and might not your brother have received some blow in the shock, which disabled him? We are glad to hear poor Dorothy is a little better. None of you are able to bear such a stroke. To people oppressed with feeling, the loss of a good-humoured happy man that has been friendly with them, if he were no brother, is bad enough. But you must cultivate his spirits, as a legacy: and believe that such as he ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... Room, the Bete Du Bon Dieu, Mother Angenoux, the Devil, Sainte-Genevieve, Daddy Jacques,—here is a well entangled crime which the stroke of a pickaxe in the wall may disentangle for us to-morrow. Let us at least hope that, for the sake of our human reason, as the examining magistrate says. Meanwhile, it is expected that Mademoiselle Stangerson—who has not ceased to be delirious ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... then eleven, and then twelve, and at the last stroke of midnight every one came out on the terrace, and the King sent for the ...
— The Happy Prince and Other Tales • Oscar Wilde
... Hamerton in Autun, but knowing that he was President Honoraire du Cercle National, a Liberal institution patronized by the Sous-Prefet and Republican Deputies, M. Tremplier thought it would be a master-stroke to defame his character by accusing him of being the author of some anonymous articles against the clergy which had appeared in "La Republique du Morvan." Though greatly irritated by this unfair attack, my husband contrived to keep his temper, ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... is portrayed in the Arena beneath the label 'Caritas,' and a reproduction of whose portrait hung upon the wall of my schoolroom at Combray, incarnates that virtue, for it seems impossible, that any thought of charity can ever have found expression in her vulgar and energetic face. By a fine stroke of the painter's invention she is tumbling all the treasures of the earth at her feet, but exactly as if she were treading grapes in a wine-press to extract their juice, or, still more, as if she had climbed on a heap of sacks to raise herself higher; and she is holding out her flaming heart ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... Mechanical operators have passed over them with as little remorse as locusts blight fields of grain. Their rude hands in numberless instances have skinned the pictures, obliterating those peerless tints, lights, and shadows, and those delicate but emphatic touches that bespeak the master-stroke, leaving instead cold, blank, hard surfaces and outlines, opaque shadows and crude coloring, out of tone, and in consequence with deteriorated sentiment as well as execution. The profound knowledge and vigorous or fairy-like handling which made their primary reputation are now forever ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... must," the young man reeled on. "It is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It has come upon me like a stroke of lightning—it may not seem reasonable—it may not seem sane. I can't help that. It is ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie |
