"Unstrung" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the sheet in a heroic effort to obey, but she was too late. She sneezed, and to poor Ruth's unstrung nerves, the sound was only to be compared in volume to a peal of thunder. The mysterious rustling ceased, and just outside the door a ...
— Peggy Raymond's Vacation - or Friendly Terrace Transplanted • Harriet L. (Harriet Lummis) Smith
... of an owl outside made Joyce start nervously. She was unstrung and superstitious—the fun of the game died in her, and she felt weak and nauseated. She spoke as if she wanted to finish the matter and have ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... Eben—" She was still looking at him with that directness which hinted at some thought foreign to her words—something as yet unmentioned which had left her unstrung. "It's not really a congenial role to you—this one of reshaping your life. At heart you hate it.... This house proves that. So ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... "Nerves a little unstrung," said John, in his calm way. "Don't worry. Get up, you rabbit-chaser, and come on to the house before the biscuits get cold." It was about twilight, and the mountains came up nobly to ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... Tsze-chung, agreement has made, Our forces to join with Ch'in and with Sung. When shall we back from this service be led? Our hearts are all sad, our courage unstrung. ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... extensively and for a long time in the Dutch colonies. Here for a while absolutely no coin was in circulation, and wampum being the feasible substitute was universally adopted. So great was the popular demand, that even the unstrung wampum, prohibited in the eastern colonies, passed at but a trifling discount.[50] For many years the easy-going government at New Amsterdam does not seem to have regulated the currency by law, as did its more ...
— Wampum - A Paper Presented to the Numismatic and Antiquarian Society - of Philadelphia • Ashbel Woodward
... I whispered to Denviers, as my nerves seemed to be almost unstrung at the unknowableness of ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... but not heartily. He felt that this marble ship was a conception of high humor and was not without its pathetic element. The whimsicality of the idea amused him, but the sad earnestness of the nervous, unstrung visionary at his side moved ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... were alone, and she was building again. There was wine. Over the balcony rail, they watched the Pasig running wickedly below; and across, stretching away to where the stars lay low in the rim of the horizon, the wet teeming rice-lands brooded in the night-mist.... The piano, which had seemed unstrung from the voyage, as he passed through the house, sounded but faintly now through several shut doors. ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... am not ill; only my nerves have had a great, a terrible shock; they seem all unstrung, and my temples are ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... evidently point, by their attitudes, towards her; particularly St. John, who, with a tender yet impassioned gesture, bends his countenance towards her, languid with the depth of his emotion. At her feet lie various instruments of music, broken and unstrung. Of the colouring I do not speak; it eclipses nature, yet it has all ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... for the effort of speech. His hard-drawn breath laboured in great sobs; his limbs were powerless and unstrung in utter relax after hard service. Failure in his endeavour induced a stupor of misery and despair. In addition was the wretched humiliation of open violence and strife with his brother, and the distress of hearing misjudging ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... condemned himself, the monotonous solitude of his existence, all tended to exalt the vivacity of the nervous system, which, in the Italian constitution, is at all times disproportionately developed; and when those weird harp-strings of the nerves are once thoroughly unstrung, the fury and tempest of the discord sometimes utterly bewilders the most ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... watching a beloved wife and mother dying by inches of a painful, lingering, loathsome disease. Not a sound of music had been heard in the house for many days. The violin, guitar, and dulcimer had lain utterly neglected and unstrung. Now a change has occurred that must have delighted the angels of God. Through the unselfishness, skill, and noble-heartedness of one man, has come so unexpectedly, as if dropped from the very skies, in the heart of one of the most inhospitable portions of the earth, sweet hope ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... Tarrano's voice simulated sudden alarm; he scuffled his feet on the floor. The men jumped with fright; nerves unstrung, they cowered. ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... was like Keyork Arabian's. Unstrung, almost forgetting all, she wondered vaguely at the sound, for it was a real sound and a real voice to her. Was her soul his, indeed, and was he drawing it on slowly, surely to the end? Had he been behind her last night? Had he left an hour's liberty only ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... me nothing." He checked the impending confession hastily. He guessed that it had some hearing upon her marriage with Trenby. If so, it would be better left unsaid. Just now she was tired and unstrung; later, she might regret her impulsive confidence. He wanted to save ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... were depicted. Here, an eagle was soaring into the sky bearing the shepherd of Mount Ida to heaven; there, the comely Hylas was struggling to escape from the embrace of the lascivious Naiad. Here, too, was Apollo, cursing his murderous hand and adorning his unstrung lyre with the flower just created. Standing among these lovers, which were only painted, "It seems that even the gods are wracked by love," I cried aloud, as if I were in a wilderness. "Jupiter could find none to his taste, ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... out with your nerves all unstrung, and your head full of this theory of yours. Some gaunt, half-famished tramp steals after you, and seeing you run, is emboldened to pursue you. Your fears and ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... smarting sensation. The menstrual function is frequently deranged, the bowels costive, the urethra, by being pressed, becomes irritable and burns and smarts whenever the urine is evacuated. The sleep is disturbed and unrefreshing, and the whole nervous system is unstrung. ...
— An Epitome of Homeopathic Healing Art - Containing the New Discoveries and Improvements to the Present Time • B. L. Hill
... the sward, mechanically unstrung his bow, sighing oft, and oft frowning; and—without vouchsafing other word to his lords than "No further sport to-day!" rose slowly, and went alone through the thickest parts of the forest. But his ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... were precious, for they afforded time for Captain Montague and his officers to cut their way to the spot where he fought, just as a murderous club was about to descend on his head from behind. Montague's sword unstrung the arm that upheld it, and the next instant the ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... He was thoroughly unstrung. The cold, desperate mood had passed. In its place came the old feeling of desolation. He was a child, aching for sympathy. He wanted to tell his troubles. Punctuating his narrative with many ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... very pulse of living could be felt. Ab carried his new weapon proudly, hungering for the love and admiration of this girl of his, and eager to show her its powers and to exhibit his own skill. At his back hung his quiver of mammoth bone. His bow, unstrung, was in his hand. In front of the cave was a bare area of many yards in extent, then came a few scattering trees and, at a distance of perhaps two hundred yards, the forest began. Across the open space of ground, with its great mass of branches crushed together not far from the cave's mouth, had ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... belongings back to Nancy, to his little room in the Rue Stanislaus, where, at any rate, he could read, meditate, or make plans for the future without being every moment tormented by miserable, petty annoyances. His temper was becoming soured, his nerves were unstrung, and his mind was so disturbed that he fancied he had none but enemies around him. A cloudy melancholy seemed to invade his brain; he was seized with a sudden fear that he was about to have an attack of persecution-phobia, and began to feel his pulse and interrogate his sensations ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... from the other, eh, Philip, eh? Give me your arm that I may lean upon it, for I grow tired. It is the heat, not that I am ill or weaker; the heat, the heat, and I grow tired. And yet I must walk: I cannot rest; no, not for a moment; this—this horror has unstrung me." ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... very naturally unstrung and nervous in this hardness of circumstance and her terror of destitution. As she told her story, she sobbed and wrung her hands. In the next six months she had better occupation, however, in spasmodically busy shops, where the hours were shorter ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... her sister discussing, almost wildly she thought, the possibility of a bird's flying against such a gale; and after everyone else had settled down again for the night she could hear Ellen pacing the floor of the living-room. Poor Ellen, thought the girl, she was all unstrung over Shane's accident and frightened at the ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... ruin Wilkes may perish too. With all the symptoms of assured decay, With age and sickness pinch'd and worn away, 420 Pale quivering lips, lank cheeks, and faltering tongue, The spirits out of tune, the nerves unstrung, Thy body shrivell'd up, thy dim eyes sunk Within their sockets deep, thy weak hams shrunk, The body's weight unable to sustain, The stream of life scarce trembling through the vein, More than half kill'd by honest truths which fell, Through thy own fault, from men who wish'd thee ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... de Lorraine, suffered such great grief that he never was happy afterwards; and when his intimate friends and favourites tried to console him he was wont to lead them to his bedroom and there show them a picture, painted by himself (for he was an excellent painter), depicting a Turkish bow unstrung, beneath, which was written, Arco per lentare piaga non sana (The bow although unstrung heals ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... when it had ceased to be a mock, the prospect of that day, or evening at furthest, lying at anchor, with plenty of water for his people, and a brother captain to counsel and befriend, seemed in no perceptible degree to encourage him. His mind appeared unstrung, if not still more seriously affected. Shut up in these oaken walls, chained to one dull round of command, whose unconditionality cloyed him, like some hypochondriac abbot he moved slowly about, at times suddenly pausing, ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... more proud chivalry recalls The tourneys bright and pealing festivals; Though now on high her idle spear is hung, Though time her mouldering harp has half unstrung," etc.[13] ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... a horrible sense of guilt." She shuddered again. Then suddenly, with the nervous quickness of a woman unstrung, thrust a small black golliwog into his ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... at them,' Peter's voice rang out; and in another moment the clash of arms was resounding through the ship. Had the pirates kept together it is certain that they would have won; but the onset came when they were all unstrung, and they ran hither and thither, striking wildly, each thinking himself the last survivor of the crew. Man to man they were the stronger; but they fought on the defensive only, which enabled the boys to hunt in pairs and choose their quarry. Some of the miscreants leapt into ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... in my breathing—with nerves unstrung, as a doctor would have put it—I disturbed the order of the household towards twelve o'clock by interfering with old Toller in the act of locking up ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins
... went upstairs, changed her dress, and put on her walking things, more than half inclined all the time to press her mother to go with them. She was a little unstrung and tremulous, pursued by a feeling that she was somehow letting herself go, behaving disloyally and indecorously towards whom?—towards Aldous? But how, or why? She did not know. But there was a curious ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... yet are heard, faint echoes die Among the Hebrides: the ghost that sung In Ossian's ear, yet wails in feeble cry On Morvern: but the harmonies that rung Around the grove and cromlech, never more Shall visit earth: for ages have unstrung The Druid's harp, and shrouded all his lore, Where under the world's ruin sleep in gloom The secrets of the flood,—the letter'd store, Which Seth's memorial pillars from the doom Preserved not, when ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 341, Saturday, November 15, 1828. • Various
... me, this time without any underlying professional motive. He was to give me the key before we reached Paris. At any rate I shall always believe that part of his conversation was in an indirect way a confidence. He was still unstrung by the unexpected incident which had caused both his hasty departure and the sudden metamorphosis in what he himself, if he had been writing, would have called his "intimate heaven." The story he told me was "per sfogarsi," as Bayle loved to say; his idea was that ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... was, when the pale shadow spake; For there was striving, in its piteous tongue, To speak as when on earth it was awake, And Isabella on its music hung: Languor there was in it, and tremulous shake, As in a palsied Druid's harp unstrung; And through it moan'd a ghostly under-song, Like hoarse night-gusts sepulchral ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... The unstrung heart to others leaves The music of a feebler woe, Her numbers are the sighs she heaves, Her off'ring tears that ever flow. Where could I gather fancies now? They 're with'ring on thy lowly tomb,— My summer was thy cheek and brow, And ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... reported in the "Times"—a journal the fidelity of whose reports was never questioned. You will be amazed to hear that I not only did not do that of which I am accused; but that I did the very reverse. Fearing that, nervous and unstrung as I was, I might do any injustice in the course of a lengthened speech, by even an ambiguous expression, I find these words reported in the "Times,"—"Mr. Phillips said the prosecutors were bound to prove the guilt ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... says poor Vickers, "I won't refer to the subject. She's been very unwell ever since. Nervous and unstrung. Go in ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... was not mistaken in believing that my nerves were all unstrung. Trifles that would not have cost me a second thought at other times weigh heavily on ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... morbid, unstrung state that the least thing startled her. But imagine if you can her wonder and terror as she saw Dennis Fleet—the dead and buried, as she fully believed—enter, carrying a picture as of old, and looking ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... Utterly unstrung, he gazed at that mighty, loathsome mass, listening to its snapping jaws as it took on the tons of nourishment needed for its ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... the instant," I said, "because I'm hardly myself. I'm tired and excited, unstrung, as I always am on first ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... even his discovery by cabbalistic calculations that the Pope's name and office were predicted in the Old Testament availed to draw the Jews, and it was only in the streets that he came upon the scowling faces of his brethren. For months he preached in patient sweetness, then one day, desperate and unstrung, he sought an interview with the Pope, to petition that the Jews might be commanded to come to his sermons; he found the Pontiff in bed, unwell, but chatting blithely with the Bishop of Salamanca and the Procurator of the Exchequer, apparently of a droll mishap that ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... utterly undone. And then, in the terrible loneliness of her room, with the darkness on the world and round her bed and at her heart, she wept—terrible, tearless sobbing that left her in the morning weak, unstrung, utterly unequal ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... this, the attack had left him with nerves all unstrung; even his little afternoon walk on Kearney and Market streets exhausted him; any trifling and sudden noise, the closing of a door, the striking of a clock, would cause him to start from his place with a gasp and a quick catch at the heart. Toward evening this little ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... he was discouraged and unstrung. He knew that his arrest, which was imminent, was, in part, due to the assertions of the medium and the Ouija Board. These secrets had leaked out somehow, and though the detective, Weston, would have scorned to ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... Olive. You be all unstrung by your walk hither through the wood, Ann. I'll fold the cape up nicely for you, and you can take it when you go home. And mind you wear it next Sabbath day, sweet. Now I must to my wheel again, or I shall not finish my ...
— Giles Corey, Yeoman - A Play • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... play-bill, with their associated recordations, can "drown an eye unused to flow." There too hangs (not far removed from them in death) the graceful plainness of the first Mrs. Pope, with a voice unstrung by age, but which, in her better days, must have competed with the silver tones of Barry himself, so enchanting in decay do I remember it—of all her lady parts exceeding herself in the Lady Quakeress (there earth touched heaven!) of O'Keefe, when she played it to ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... weary after the unusual excitement of the evening; her nerves were also considerably unstrung, and she resolved not to wait for Mrs. Montague's return, but retire ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... felt wet. The deuce, what was that? He rubbed them angrily, but they were wet the next moment again. Here, here they had driven last summer—only a few months ago—with hay and flowers on the wagon, and had been so gay. And now? His lips trembled, he felt unstrung. At last he had really seen that things ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... Sooth, not far away Need foes be sought; around the walls they throng. March we to meet them! Dotard, why delay? Still dwells thy War-God in a windy tongue, And flying feet, and knees all feeble and unstrung? ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... Fouchette seemed yet to linger in the misty morning air, thrilling the distant ear, vibrating upon the unstrung nerves of the outcasts beneath the far-away bridges, borne upon the surface of the waters, when it was answered out of the darkness by a sharp, shrill ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... up his tools and now opening them out afresh, talking meantime in fitful outbursts, sometimes wholly irrelevantly and occasionally with a startling pertinency,—all this, though no more than an excess of his customary habit, seemed to denote a mind unstrung. The landlord had called that morning for his rent, which was long in arrears. He must have it. Sim laughed when he told Ralph this, but it was a shocking laugh; there was no heart in it. Ralph would rather have heard him whimper and shuffle as ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... this, I believe would be insufficient. For scarcely has one left them for any short space of time, when they return to their natural way of life—just like the bow which, when strung, is bent; but, when unstrung, at once straightens and regains its ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIII, 1629-30 • Various
... I was hurrying back toward the apartment-house. My nerves had suddenly become unstrung. I felt sure now that some imminent danger was threatening Jacqueline. I could not bear the suspense of waiting till morning. I wanted to save her from something that I felt intimately, but did not understand, and at which my reason ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... their hats Durant was left for a moment alone with Mrs. Fazakerly. She sank into a seat beside him, unstrung, exhausted; she seemed to be verging on that state of nervous collapse which disposes to ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... with nerves unstrung, I opened my door with my latch-key and returned to my room, where the reading-lamp had burned low, for it had been alight all through the night. I mixed myself a stiff brandy and soda, tossed it off, and then turned to look at myself in ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... sentiment of that beautiful story; with more detail and consistency, if with less variety, than the history of Gudrun and her lovers in the Laxdaela; and more a work of art than that, or than the unstrung gems of Eyrbyggja, and the great compilation of Snorri Sturluson, the History of the Kings ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... labor for rest. A young hunter anxiously seeking the great Apostle was surprised to find him in what seemed a frivolous employment. He doubted for a moment whether this could be he. John asked, "What is that thing which thou carriest in thy hand?" "A bow," replied the hunter. "Why then is it unstrung?" said John. "Because," was the answer, "were I to keep it always strung it would lose its spring and become useless." "Even so," replied the Apostle, "be not offended at my brief relaxation, which prevents my ...
— A Life of St. John for the Young • George Ludington Weed
... eyes did show Why I am silent, and my lute unstrung; Else it were better we should part, and go, Thou to some lips of sweeter melody, And I to nurse the barren memory Of unkissed ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... abruptly seemed to turn white, and instantly her face became ashy pale. One last convulsive effort,—the jaw dropped, the features relaxed, the limbs were unstrung, and Laleli Khanum fell forward to her full length upon her face on the peach-colored satin of ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... which stood an enormous bean-tree, and there, a long way up, was the "bees' nest." With a piece of cane from a creeping palm and a stone tomahawk he slowly ascended the tree, for he was weak and his nerves unstrung. But he joyed when he reached the "bees' nest," for it was large and full of honey and brood comb—a feast in prospect for the whole camp. Then, as he set to work to chop out the comb, he heard, to his astonishment, voices below, and peering down, saw not only a wife who ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... meant he had taken even that on trial—without knowing what it so dazzlingly masked; for a social relation it had become with a vengeance when it drove him about the place as now at his hours of freedom (and he actually and recklessly took, all demoralised and unstrung and unfit either for work or for anything else, other liberties that would get him into trouble) under this queer torment of irreconcilable things, a bewildered consciousness of tenderness and patience and cruelty, of great evident mystifying facts that were as little to be questioned ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... of the Union, we should not forget that reaction against the softening and humanizing effect of modern civilization, led by such men as Carlyle, and joined in by a multitude whose intellectual and moral fibre is too much unstrung to be excited by anything less pungent than paradox. Protestants against the religion which sacrifices to the polished idol of Decorum and translates Jehovah by Comme-il-faut, they find even the divine ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... unstrung by all these alarms and watchings that I began to wish that the pirates would come once for all that we might have done with them. For I had confidence in our side and the certainty of its winning which was scarcely logical, maybe, but which, after all, I think is a great deal ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Mr. Haweis's noble self-sacrifice in giving up his idolised violin that he might concentrate all his energies on religious teaching; when I asked to see his famous "Straduarius," worth three hundred guineas, and found it unstrung, I expressed my disappointment at not having had the chance of hearing its dulcet tones drawn out by himself, but it lies dumb, though he is eloquent. Of course I have visited the great Tennyson at Farringford, ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... than any rose half-spread, Yet ever twisted with some nervous dread. He would have made her with one marble foot, Frail as a snow-white feather, forward put, Bearing sweet medicine for all distress, Smooth languor and unstrung forgetfulness; The other held a little back for dread; One slender moonpale hand held forth to shed Soft slumber dripping from its pearly tip Into wide eyes; the other on her lip. So in the watches ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... unstrung by excitement, by the strain of her trying labor, by the loneliness of her life, uncertain, misunderstood, perhaps, as it was. I wondered if she could be more unhappy than I myself, if life could offer her less than it did to me. But I dared ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... it is, Sadie, but I feel a bit unstrung, and that beast caterwauling over yonder was just more than I could put up with. There's one consolation, we are scheduled to be on our way home to-morrow, after we've seen this one rock or temple, or whatever it is. I'm full up of rocks and temples, Mr. Stephens. I shouldn't mope ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... you come to analyse this, it resolves itself into nothing. You were confessedly agitated, and almost hysterical that night; your body was unstrung; you were wet through, and it was doubtless the sudden passage from the darkness outside to the dim and uncertain glimmer of your own room, which acted so powerfully on your excited imagination, as to project your inward thoughts into ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... wild: she says she has learned some intelligence that has unsettled and unstrung her mind; she has requested me to inquire if any one I am acquainted with has heard of, or met abroad, some person of the name of Butler. You start!—have you ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... long halls and up tall stairs by a large boy, who spoke to him disdainfully as "greenie," and cautioned him as to the laying down softly and taking up gently of those poor dusty shoes, so that his spirit was quite broken and his nerves were all unstrung when he was pushed into a room full of bright sunshine and of children who laughed at his frightened little face. The sunshine smote his timid eyes, the laughter smote his timid heart, and he turned to flee. But the door was shut, the large boy gone, and despair ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... he panted. "I'd forgotten. I'm unstrung, Mr. Annixter, and I'm running for my life. They're not ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... other struggle to escape. It would not be true of her to say that at this moment she was mad, but the mixed excitement and terror of her position as she was waiting her doom, joined to her fears, her doubts, and, worse than all, her certainties as to her condition in the sight of God, had almost unstrung her mind. She had almost come to believe that the world was at its end, and that the punishment of which she had heard so much was already upon her. "If this is to be a doom for ever," she said to herself, "the God I have striven to ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope
... I could not see it, for there was a trailing scarf of mist between the school-house and the road. Presently I heard the swish of the wheels in water, and so learned that they were crossing the ford to come to me. I had been unstrung by the events of the evening, and fear at once pressed thick upon me that this might be a sequel to them, as indeed ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... exclaimed. "What in all the world is wrong with you? You are ill." Trembling, pale, obviously unstrung, Tony stood before him, his shifty eyes darting now at one face, then at the other, his hands restless, his whole appearance suggesting an imminent nervous collapse. "Why, Tony, boy, what is wrong with you?" repeated Maitland. The kindly tone proved too much for Tony's self-control. He gulped, ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... erroneous, and this condition had lasted over a prolonged period of time. Then one of these persons had the experience of waking in the night, simply engulfed in an overwhelming wave of tender and compassionate feeling toward the other: seeing, as if with spiritual vision, a nature unstrung, hardly responsible, and one that invited only the most infinite tenderness and care. This wave of new and perfectly clear perception was like a magnetic trance. It was an hour of absolute spiritual clairvoyance, ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... is the harp, unstrung the warlike lyre, The minstrel's palsied hand reclines in death; No more he strikes the quivering chords with fire, Or sings the glories of the ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... possible that my nerves were somewhat unstrung during the days that followed. I wakened one night to a terrific thump which shook my bed, and which seemed to be the result of some one having struck the foot-board with a plank. Immediately following this came a sharp knocking on the antique bed-warmer which hangs ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... reared back, as the dead body fell splashing into the pool, and Alric quietly unstrung his bow again and remounted to be ready. Then Gilbert would have ridden on, ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... dark? No, she could not honestly pretend that she did; yet it had its sufficiently sinister side, its occasional admixture of sheer horror. But this was only when the mysteries which encompassed her happened to prey upon nerves unstrung by some outwardly exciting cause; it was then she would have given back all that he had ever given her to pierce the veil of her husband's past. Here, however, the impulse was more subtle; it was not the mere consuming curiosity which one in Rachel's position was ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... me," he said. "I'm rather—rather unstrung to-night, and this thing gave me a jar. To be candid, my imagination took head in the fog, and I got to fancy I was ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... tossing in my mind; but silence is sometimes better than open speech. Facing adventure, I remembered that I had never known the want of food for any length of time during my conscious life. And I had a suspicion the soft life at De Chaumont's had unstrung me for what was before me. But it lasted scarce a year, and I was built ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... inside, and, facing the opening and the stars, she lay down to rest, if not to sleep. The darkness did not keep her from seeing the prostrate figure of Kells. He lay there as silent as if he were already dead. She was exhausted, weary for sleep, and unstrung. In the night her courage fled and she was frightened at shadows. The murmuring of insects seemed augmented into a roar; the mourn of wolf and scream of cougar made her start; the rising wind moaned like a lost spirit. Dark fancies beset her. Troop on ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... skin hunting-shirt his body, and a hairy boar-skin was thrown across his broad shoulders. Altogether, he seemed to his visitor the very personification of ferocity. A huge bow, ready strung, leaned against his hut. As Bladud advanced with his own bow unstrung, the man apparently scorned to take it up, but he grasped and leaned upon a staff ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... Groups of shivering, unstrung people stood about, utterly incapable of thinking what to do next. But Peter was not ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... having ordered a carriage to follow him to the Grand Central Station. It was ten minutes yet before the express was due. Nervously he puffed at his unlighted cigar, wishing he had a match; in fact, his nerves were never more unstrung. It was a happy surprise, and no doubt his youthful vanity was elated, that his father should have named his new palace car "Alfonso." At least it convinced him that his ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... winter. So much tea, such frequent use of an infusion of the herb, upsets our nerves, impairs healthful digestion, and brings on sleeplessness. I have several patients—old ladies, and those in middle life—whose nerves are so unstrung that I am obliged to dose them with opium occasionally, to enable them ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... had made him feel as he had felt in the days—fourteen years ago now—when the very streets of the city in which she lived were hallowed ground. He had supposed that emotion dead. Probably it was dead. It must be dead. It was merely that, owing to the constraint of the voyage, his nerves were unstrung, inducing the frame of mind in which people see ghosts. Yes, that was it; he had been seeing ghosts. It was not a living thing, this renewed yearning for a sight of her. It was only the reflex of something ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... like Lombroso and Krafft-Ebbing, to suggest that some anarchist crimes can only be looked upon as a means to indirect suicide. They are outbursts that lead to a spectacular martyr-like ending to brains that "too much thought expands," to hearts overladen, and to nerves all unstrung. Life is a burden to them, though they lack the courage to commit suicide directly. Such is the view of these students of criminal pathology, and they cite a long list of political criminals who can only be explained as those who have sought indirectly self-destruction. It ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... understand vicious words, words tending to instil into the mind unauthorised impulses, that shew in the man who speaks "a will most rank, foul disproportion, thoughts unnatural," and are calculated to render him by whom they are listened to, light and frivolous of temper, and unstrung for the graver duties ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... day as, with nerves unstrung and an exhausted brain, I entered my office, I was greeted ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... "I must go, for that word 'plan' worrys me; it worrys me far more than the creek: and I see my partner is all unstrung, and I must be there to try to string ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... up the receiver. Shirley was all unstrung, trying to overcome the emotion which her discovery had caused her, and in a strangely altered voice, the result of the nervous strain ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... not a Being, their religion is not a worship, their duty is not a law, their immortality is not the hope of a world to come. Amidst these equivocations and contradictions thought is blunted, and the sinews of the intellect are unstrung. The public, bewitched by talent and captivated by success, is deluged with writings which have the same effect as the talk of a frivolous man, or the showy tattle of a woman of the world. They give an agreeable exercise to the mind, ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... distilled upon his chin, Exuded from his nostrils and his eyes, While still like hungry death he fed his maw; Till every minor crocodile being dead And buried too, himself gorged to the full, He slept with breath oppressed and unstrung claw. O marvel passing strange which next I saw: In sleep he dwindled to the common size, And all the empire faded from his coat. Then from far off a winged vessel came, Swift as a swallow, subtle as a flame: ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... nervous, melancholy, and unstrung, and he began to talk about himself and his married life for the first time, pouring out his sufferings and thoughtless of what Francesca might think and feel. He, too, was natural. Unlike his wife, he detested emotion. To be angry was almost an illness to his ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... my soul lay out of sight, Untuned, unstrung; My feeble spirit, unable to look right, Like a nipt ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... music, and here, with untutored musicians and rude instruments, it was imperfection itself; but it is doubtful if any music ever soothed unstrung nerves as did this bit of jazz that rent the midnight silence at the ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... nerves unstrung, the courtier picked his way to a table by the wall, and seated himself upon the coarse deal bench before it, praying that he might be left ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... stroke, when an arrow from the bow of the brave boy pierced his breast, and he fell insensible at his sister's side. A moment after Garanga was in the arms of her husband, and Louis, with his bow unstrung, bounded from the shore, and was received in his father's canoe; and the wild shores rung with the acclamations of the soldiers, while his father's tears were poured like ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... be ill if you're going to get all worked up like this," scolded Mrs. Guerin, for Betty was crying as she hung up the receiver. "I never saw you so unstrung, my dear. You won't be fit to go to your uncle when he does send for you. I wonder if the doctor hadn't ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... thought of the leagues of snow He trod on the trail of the buffalo; And little he recked of the hurricanes That swept the snow from the frozen plains And piled the banks of the Bloody River.[40] His bow unstrung and forgotten hung With his beaver hood and his otter quiver; He sat spell-bound by the artless grace Of her star-lit eyes and her moon-lit face. Ah little he cared for the storms that blew, For Wiwaste had found her a way to woo. When he spoke with Wakawa her ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... "Mr. Lund is unstrung," said the captain. "He is under the delusion that we deliberately deserted him and, later, found the gold he speaks of. The first charge is nonsense. We did all that was possible in the frightful weather. ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... it is sad that aught so mild Should bind the soul with bands of fear; That strains to soothe a little child The man should dread to hear! But sin hath broke the world's sweet peace, unstrung The harmonious chords to which ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... "Albert, you are all unstrung again, my dear," remonstrated Mrs. Tescheron, who was in no position at that time to be described. "Take some of those tablets ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... with the sheriff they called upon the cashier, who was in bed with his head bandaged and his nerves very much unstrung. He was much calmer, however, than when he had hysterically accused Luck of betraying him into putting the money out to be stolen. He admitted now that he was not at all sure of the voice which talked with him over the phone; indeed, now when he heard luck speak, ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... unbaffled prowess had gone away from Kamyaka, the sons of Pandu, O son, were filled with sorrow and grief. And the Pandavas with cheerless hearts very much resembled pearls unstrung from a wreath, or birds shorn of their wings. And without that hero of white steeds that forest looked like the Chaitraratha woods when deprived of the presence of Kuvera. And, O Janamejaya, those tigers among men—the sons of Pandu—deprived of the company ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... savages advanced I retreated, resolving to make a stand at my tent door. At the same time I tried to show by signs that I could, if I liked, kill two or three of them, but that I was ready for peace if they were. At last I lowered my rifle from my shoulder, and they unstrung their bows and advanced with outstretched hands towards me. Knowing their treacherous character, however, of course I could not depend on them. I bethought me that the best way to win their friendship was to offer them food, as is practised in civilised communities with some success; so I showed ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... easy prey to the methodist; her sensibility and acute fears rendered her accessible to every impulse; her love for her child made her eager to cling to the merest straw held out to save him. Her mind, once unstrung, and now tuned by roughest inharmonious hands, made her credulous: beautiful as fabled goddess, with voice of unrivalled sweetness, burning with new lighted enthusiasm, she became a stedfast proselyte, and powerful auxiliary to the leader of ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... portion of the new moon—and, the power shut off, they felt themselves falling toward it with sickening speed. Perkins screamed with mad fear and flung himself grovelling upon the floor. Margaret, her nerves still unstrung, clutched at her heart with both hands. Dorothy, though her eyes looked like great black holes in her white face, looked DuQuesne in the ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... to maintain her prestige to the end, and when she had got her encore for the cider song, and had been recalled before the curtain at the end of the third act, with unstrung nerves she wandered to her dressing-room, thinking of what Dick would say when they got home. But the pleasures of the evening were not over yet: there was the supper, and as she came down from her dressing-room she whispered to Montgomery in the wings that they hoped to ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... as did Alexander Selkirk that of the brute subjects of his else solitary kingdom. It was a sort of tame familiarity, a perfect indifference to the approach of strangers, such as I never noticed in other children. I accounted for it partly by their nerveless, unstrung state of body, incapable of the quick thrills of delight and fear which play upon the lively harp-strings of a healthy child's nature, and partly by their woful lack of acquaintance with a private home, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Your nerves are unstrung. Perhaps the conclusion of my story 'll steady them. Well, the venture that was planned was no less than to take the goods in under Black Rock, and have them hauled up the face of the cliff. In the end 'twas safely done—to all ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... she had struck him. "You can't mean that! You're sick and unstrung and don't know what you're saying. I'll go ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... unexpected was her appearance that Jack had to grasp the desk to steady himself. Really, he thought, my nerves must be frightfully unstrung. I think I must take a holiday. Aloud, he said: "Why, Miss Easton, this is a most unexpected pleasure. Won't you be seated? Can I be ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... boxing art, that they retreated, pell-mell, before the battering phalanx of their sturdy opponents—the most ludicrous figure of all being Mr. O'Leary himself, who, standing upon the table, laid about him with a brass lustre that he had unstrung, and did considerable mischief with this novel instrument of warfare, crying out the entire time, "murder every mother's son of them," "give them another taste of Waterloo." Just as he had uttered the last patriotic ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... all cluttered up with bad habits, not havin' no family of her own to raise," Pearl said. "She wouldn't jump up and screech every time the door slams if she'd been as used to noises as Ma is, and this talk about her nerves bein' all unstrung is just plain silly—and as for her not sleepin' at nights, she sleeps as sound as any of us. She says she hears every strike of the clock all night long, and she thinks she does; but she doesn't, I know. Anyway, I'm afraid ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... poor Mrs. O'Hara. Some considerable way back I met her toiling along with an infant in her arms, while a little child held on to her skirt, utterly tired out with the long walk. I helped her to finish the distance to the doctor's tent; she was so unstrung by her terrible night's experience and so exhausted by her trying march carrying the baby that she was scarcely able to speak. Dr. Rose at once did all he could both for her and for the children, the mother being given a sleeping draught and made comfortable in ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... Don't be alarmed, my good man. Your young lady is none the worse for her involuntary run (just here a distinct snort came from the ground behind Mr. Cushman) though I dare say a little unstrung and exhausted. But we stopped her mount ("yes you did!" came sotto voce from Athol) and now we will lead your mistress back to the house where Mrs. Kilton will be delighted to minister to her comfort. Are you too nervous to ride to the rear entrance, Miss Ashby?" for during the few words spoken ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... "What a memory!" For she could play the banjo, and it appeared that she must have said so to Francis in those first days. "He must have dashed home and made out lists every night!" she concluded as she dragged it out. It was unstrung, but new strings lay near it, coiled in their papers. And under the papers, so like them that he had forgotten to destroy it, lay ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... and haggard, though he brightened a little on seeing me. He was curiously irritable and fussy with the porters concerning his luggage, and argued with them about some petty trifles as obstinately and pertinaciously as a deaf old woman. His nerves were evidently jarred and unstrung, and it was a relief when he at last got into his coupe. He carried a yellow paper-covered volume in his hand. I asked him if it ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... the two men returned with water and salts. After a while Ethel opened her eyes and looked up at Peg. Peg, fearful lest she should begin to accuse herself again, helped her up the stairs to her own room and there she sat beside the unstrung, hysterical girl until she slept, her hand locked in ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... more of the affair until called by Hogan, when he had run to Mr. Gleason's quarters, and after a moment had taken Ray home and insisted on his going to bed. The lieutenant was just recovering from a severe illness, was weak and unstrung, and the affair threatened to bring on a relapse. There had been an open breach between the two officers for over two years, and of late, he knew not how, it had widened. The deceased frequently maligned Lieutenant Ray, ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... peace and bows unstrung, Glowing with paint came old and young, In wampum and furs and feathers arrayed, To the dance and ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... reverently, and I was fain to hush the laugh upon my lips. Whatever the thing might prove to be to me, it was daily comfort to the nervous, unstrung, lonely woman, whom to suspect of trickery I began to think was ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... under his head: when they approached him he seemed to live. He had not fallen to right or left when he rendered up his spirit to God. Death required no change of limb or position; there was merely the gentle settling forwards of the frame unstrung by pain, for the Traveller's perfect rest had come. Will not time show that the men were scarcely wrong when they thought "he yet speaketh"—aye, perhaps far more clearly to us than he could have done by word or ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... the works Of Liberty and Wisdom down the gulf Of all-devouring night. As long immured In noontide darkness, by the glimmering lamp, Each Muse and each fair Science pined away The sordid hours: while foul, barbarian hands Their mysteries profaned, unstrung the lyre, And chain'd the soaring pinion down to earth. At last the Muses rose, [Endnote L] and spurn'd their bonds, And, wildly warbling, scatter'd as they flew, 20 Their blooming wreaths from fair ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... Monk was softly closing the garden gate behind him—for when in sorrow we don't do things with a rush and a bang—when a whirring sound overhead caused him to start. Strong, hardened man though he was, his nerves were unstrung to-night in company with his heartstrings. It was the church clock preparing to strike twelve. The little doctor, Speck, who had left the house but a minute before, was standing at the churchyard fence close by, his arms leaning ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... too, inspire With luscious numbers my melodious lyre. Draw I could once, although not stocks or stones, Amphion-like, men made of flesh and bones, Whither I would; but ah! I know not how, I feel in me this transmutation now. Grief, my dear friend, has first my harp unstrung, Wither'd my hand, and ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... wiser than man [puts ring on], therefore she is called faithless. Oh, let me sit, I'm so unstrung! [Pehr leads her to ...
— Lucky Pehr • August Strindberg
... whom I was so curious to know; but I saw him with the Quartan hanging on me, and my mind as unstrung as my body. With men of his kind one ought not to be sick; one ought even to be specially well, and in better health than common, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Bow'd his bright locks, and, fated from his birth To change eternal, mingled with the earth;— With darker horror shook the conscious wood, 580 Groan'd the sad gales, and rivers blush'd with blood; On cypress-boughs the Loves their quivers hung, Their arrows scatter'd, and their bows unstrung; And BEAUTY'S GODDESS, bending o'er his bier, Breathed the soft sigh, and pour'd the tender tear.— 585 Admiring PROSERPINE through dusky glades Led the fair phantom to Elysian shades, Clad with new form, with finer sense combined, ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... impelled to unburden her soul of some of its bitterness. If her life had gone on as usual, undisturbed by anything from without, the confessions which now fell from her lips so easily would never have found words. But she had been unsettled by what had happened in the early evening, and unstrung by her great anxiety for the Count's safety. Her own words sounded in her ear before she knew that she was ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... me," she interrupted. "I scarcely know how I could feel differently if I were parting with my twin brother. You have been such a true, generous friend! Oh, I am all unstrung. Papa has been sent for from Washington, and we don't know when he'll return or what service may be required of him. I only know that he is like you, and will take any risk that duty seems to demand. I have so learned to lean upon you and ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... and tried to go to sleep, but her nerves were all unstrung, brain and ears were all on the alert, and there seemed to be curious, unaccountable sounds on all sides of her. She had not been alone more than a minute or two before there were strange scraping noises in the kitchen not far from her. "Mice!" thought ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... September; she lived to see her son, the present Sir Wentworth Dilke, but she never rallied. Death came to her with difficulty, early in the night of September 20th. Sir Charles, overstrained already by long watching, was completely unstrung by the unlooked-for end of the final and terrible vigil. Having summoned his grandmother, Mrs. Chatfield, and asked her to take charge of his house and son—a charge which she fulfilled till her death—he fled from the scene of his suffering, and hid himself in Paris, seeing ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... rudely disturbed by an enforced realization of his own back-sliding. He had been quite furious upon discovering that the "little episode" of the moonlit cottage had filched from him all his new won strength and nervous stamina, leaving him sleepless and unstrung, ready to jump at the rattling of a stone. More and more, there grew in him a fierce disdain of weakness and a cold determination to beat Nature at her own game. Let him once again be "fit" and wily indeed would be the trick which would steal his ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... texts ordain, To Lanka went the mourning train. Vibhishan, when his task was done, Stood by the side of Raghu's son. And Rama, freed from every foe, Unstrung at last his deadly bow, And laid the glittering shafts aside, And mail ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... despair suddenly became vigorous. My nerves were no longer unstrung. My powers, that had long been deadened, were revived. My bosom swelled with a sudden energy, and the conviction darted through my mind, that to end my torments was, at ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... she ran, nor nymph more dear To her the mountain Maenalus e'er trode. But brief the reign of favor! Sol had now Beyond mid-heaven attain'd; Calistho sought A grove where felling axe had never rung: Here was her quiver from her shoulder thrown; Her slender bow unstrung; and on the ground With soft grass clad she rested: 'neath her neck Was plac'd the painted quiver. Jove, the maid Weary'd beheld, and from her wonted troop Far distant. "Surely now, my wife," he cries, "This theft can ne'er discover. Should she know, "What is her rage with such a prize compar'd?" ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... all unstrung. Why couldn't you have let him come in and talk awhile? It would have been the best way to get me quieted down. But no; you must always have your own way Don't twitch me, my dear; I'd rather undress myself. You pretend to be very careful ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... I felt that things were not the same as they used to be. Jack was the same kindly brother I had always known, and yet there seemed in his manner a tinge of something different. I did not know what. I only knew that I felt very nervous and unstrung. ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... the wooer's suit; and she privately spoke to her daughter in order to search her mind. The daughter warmly praised her suitor for his valour; whereon the mother upbraided her sharply, that her chastity should be unstrung, and she be captivated by charming looks; and because, forgetting to judge his virtue, she cast the gaze of a wanton mind upon the flattering lures of beauty. Thus Alfhild was led to despise the young Dane; whereupon she exchanged woman's for man's ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... learned the lies and treacheries of men, so she longed to leave them behind her and die in bitterness less bitter for its solitude. But Maya fled not from herself: the winds wailed like the crying of despair in her harp-voiced pines; the shining oak-leaves rustled hisses upon her unstrung ear; the timid forest-creatures, who own no rule but patient love and caresses, hid from her defiant step and dazzling eye; and when she knew herself in no wise healed by the ministries of Nature, in the very apathy of desperation she flung herself by the clear fountain ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... woman's nerves can bear with impunity so terrible a strain. presently Margaret turned faint, and sank on Gerard's shoulder, smiling feebly, but quite, quite unstrung. Then Gerard was anxious, and would seek assistance. But she held him with a gentle grasp, and implored him not to leave her ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... wiped his gory weapon on the greensward, and returned it to the sheath. He then sprang to the side of his wife, and, with the help of the foreman and two brakemen, raised her. She said her nerves were all unstrung, and she 'never could walk home in the world;' so she was placed on the box of the hose carriage and carried to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... bodily discomfort, and sickness, which is the shadow of death, have worked right on to the accomplishment of their great purposes; toiling much, enduring much, fulfilling much; and then, with shattered nerves, and sinews all unstrung, have laid themselves down in the grave, and slept the sleep of death, and the world talks of them while they sleep! And as in the sun's eclipse we can behold the great stars shining in the heavens, so in this life-eclipse have these men beheld the lights of the great ...
— Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1883 • William C. Kingsley
... of me? must I be left, As age and time had worn me out of use? These sinews are not yet so much unstrung, To fail me when my master should be served; And when they are, then will I steal to death, Silent and unobserved, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden |
