"Braces" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to spread sail after sail with a rapidity little short of that seen on board of a vessel of war. The rattling of the clew-garnet blocks, as twenty lusty fellows ran forward with the tack of the mainsail, and the hauling forward of braces, was the signal that the ship was clear of ground, and coming ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... ribs forming, as it were, a series of hollow masses, or voussoirs, similar to those of stone, a principle new in the construction of cast-iron bridges, and very successful. The whole of the segmental pieces and the braces are kept in their places by dovetailed sockets and long cast-iron wedges, so that bolts are unnecessary, although they were used during the construction of the bridge to keep the pieces in their places until the wedges had been driven. The spandrels are similarly connected, and upon them rests ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... Captain Hudson. "Haul aft the starboard sheets! Flatten in the starboard braces! Give her the ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... 'em," Lamuse asserts. "Without them, to make your braces stick to your breeches, ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... the only means of saving the people's lives, and at the same time see the ships so basely leave them. No words can picture their distress; driven from the greatest joy to the utmost despair, death now appeared more dreadful. They had only the foresail hanging in the brails; and the braces of both penters being rendered useless by the fall of the main-mast, and the yard flying backward and forward by the rolling of the ship, rendered them apprehensive that she would instantly overset. The ship ran from the boats, until they remained just in sight; ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... made little way sailing, chiefly because the tide was ebbing, and the wind was not favourable, the weather being squally, with high wind when the squalls broke over, but with little wind between whiles. Thorstein steered, and had the braces of the sail round his shoulders, because the boat was blocked up with goods, chiefly piled-up chests, and the cargo was heaped up very high; but land was near about, while on the boat there was but little way, because of the raging current against them. Then they sailed on to a hidden rock, ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous
... a man facially dissimilar. The change in bodily appearance, gait, and so forth, would be as simple to effect as it was necessary. Hitherto he had leaned forward a little, and walked rather loosely. A pair of the strongest shoulder-braces would draw back his shoulders, give him tightness and straightness, increase the apparent width of his frame, alter the swing of his arms, and entail—without effort on his part—a change in his attitude when standing, his gait in walking, his way of placing ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... head until, at a favorable moment, it leaves his hand, uncoiling as it flies through the air, and if the throw is successful, the noose falls over the animal's head. Suddenly the horse comes to a full stop and braces himself for the shock. When the animal caught reaches the end of the rope it is brought to an abrupt halt and tumbled in a heap on the ground. * * * The cowboy is out of the saddle and on his feet in a jiffy. He grasps the prostrate animal ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... accelerated way with the gale right aft—scudding, in fact. Unsteadied by wind on either side, she rolled deeply, and the sight of those four hundred or more faces, all turned up and aft, watching intently the officer of the deck for the next order, the braces stretched taut along in their hands for instant obedience, was singularly striking. Usually a midshipman had to be in the midst of such matters with no leisure for impressions—at least, of an "impressionist" character. Those were the prerogatives of the idlers—the surgeon, chaplain, and marine ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... may be inserted a piece of heavy wire or large wire nail to hold up the cross piece or jumping stick. Be sure to space the holes alike on both uprights, so the crosspiece will set level when the standard is in use. Four 5-inch braces are fastened in at the lower part of the upright. Study the diagram and you will succeed in making a pretty good pair ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... bo-tree in Buddh Gaya, India, under which Prince Siddhartha sat on the day he attained Buddha-hood, this branch having been sent from India; it has been sacredly treated, enriched with stone carvings and braces, and honored with magnificent ceremonies by repeated dynasties; it has also been spared during the successive invasions of the land. The Chinese traveller and author, Fahiam, visited it in the fifth century, and has left an authentic record of it as well as of some buildings in this ruined ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... before. The windows had the charm of irregularity; and everything about the dwelling proclaimed a former century, and a regime different from that under which we were then living. In fact, the figures 1698, let in as iron braces to the wall of the gable, announced that the house was quite as old as the ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... a coloured neckerchief tied over her shoulders, and the sleeves of her chemise turned up as far as her elbows, she was squatting amid the folds of her blue cotton skirt, which was secured to a pair of braces crossed behind her back. She crawled about on her knees as she pulled up the tares and threw them into a basket. The young man could only see her bare, sun-tanned arms stretching out right and left to seize some ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... great engine lying upon its side. I looked at the wheels, at the boilers so out of place, thrown carelessly together. I saw pieces of iron the uses of which I did not understand. I saw iron bands, bearings, braces, and shafting scattered about, and I found the great circular saw rusting, flat in the grass. I went on my way wondering why any person should abandon so many pieces of such excellent machinery, ...
— Russell H. Conwell • Agnes Rush Burr
... something obvious to be done. I do not know many better things in literature than the brief pictures, - brief and vivid like things seen by lightning, - with which he tries to stir up the world's heart upon the side of mercy. He braces us, on the one hand, with examples of heroic duty and helpfulness; on the other, he touches us with pitiful instances of people needing help. He knows how to make the heart beat at a brave story; to inflame us with just resentment over the hunted slave; to stop our mouths ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... habitual attire of the sex was equally bizarre and exaggerated. There were the vasquines or rollers which encircled the waist and extended the folds of the petticoats, thus giving additional smallness to the waist; the brassards-a-chevrons or metallic braces for expanding the sleeves; and the affiquet of pearls or diamonds coquettishly attached to the left breast, and entitled the assassin. Added to these absurdities there were, moreover, bows of ribbon, each of which ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... board, Mr. Aiken," he called. "Never mind the boat. Get your men on the braces, or we'll blow ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... shake from Harpour, who, with Jones, was standing by his head. He saw what was coming, for Harpour, who had a pair of braces tightly knotted in his hand, briefly opened the proceedings by saying, "Are you going to ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... Thomas stood still, in the attitude of listening. The lady, too, was silent and alarmed, but no intimation of danger was visible. Her own senses, though, seemed to gather acuteness,—a circumstance by no means rare in the vicinity of an unusually timid and listening companion, who braces our perceptions to the tension of his own. Soon, however, the short and feeble cry of the babe was heard, when the knight sprang forward, feigning great astonishment at the discovery. Evidently dropped ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... along these cogs, and pulls the train up the hill or retards its motion on the down trip. About the same speed—three miles an hour—is maintained both ways. Whether going up or down, the locomotive is always at the lower end of the train. It pushes in the one case, braces back in the other. The passenger rides backward going up, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... The 'small numerals' are represented in this ebook by numbers in {curly braces}. The footnotes appear at the end of the ebook and are indicated by numbers in [square brackets]. Page numbers from the original edition have been retained and appear in the text ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... framework is aluminum," said he, "or it wouldn't be worth a tinker's dam after all this time. But as it is, it's taken no harm that I can see. Wire braces all gone, rusted out and disappeared. Have to be rewired throughout, if I can find steel wire; if not, I'll use braided leather thongs. Petrol tank and feed pipe O. K. Girder boom needs a little attention. Steering and ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... night, it was with more of the air Madame Grandet had so graphically described than usual, for he bore two braces of birds, which he exultantly dropped, with a ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... Dick hitched up his yellow trousers as though he were preparing for a fight. He wore his yellow trousers without braces, and in all moments of energy ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... a rope hanging down, I'd be up there in no time," he mused. I wonder if I couldn't climb up and hang to the braces. I might reach it in that way. I'm going to ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... below, and lift his aspirations, in healthful confidence above. He who seeks to divorce toil from knowledge deprives knowledge of its most valuable property.—the strengthening of the mind by exercise. We learn what really braces and elevates us only in proportion to the effort it costs us. Nor is it in Books alone, nor in Books chiefly, that we are made conscious of our strength as Men; Life is the great Schoolmaster, Experience the mighty Volume. He who has made one stern sacrifice of self has acquired ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the whole house is your own, if it comes to that, and every mortal thing in it. Everything I've got's yours except my razors and my braces, and a few little things of that sort that I'm keeping ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... in the Index are sometimes different from those used in the main text, as with the names "Shakespeare" and "Wycliffe", or the use of ligatures in names such as "Bda" and "Cdmon". Paragraph references given in {braces} were added by the transcriber. Parts III and ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... preventer braces on it," he observed to the first mate; "it won't do to run the risk of carrying ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... young Master Goldsmith was in his teens, he left home for Edgeworthstown, riding a good horse, borrowed from a friend, and in high glee, if money braces the manly heart. With a golden guinea in his purse, he was as proud as wealth untold can make a buoyant spirit, in the days when life is very bright and happiness is everywhere. He loitered on the journey. The horse nigh slept, whilst the rider mooned on in meditative peace, and a lad's romantic ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... great stony square, partly bordered by houses, and only picturesque on Sundays when it became a branch of the all-ramifying Fair. Moses could have bought anything there from elastic braces to green parrots in gilt cages. That is to say if he had had money. At present he had nothing in ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... not intended to be used as a rowboat, and is unprovided with either seats or foot braces. Being thus compelled to sit on the platform, Cabot could get so little purchase that half his effort was wasted, and the progress made was barely noticeable. During his frequent pauses for rest he stood up to gaze longingly at the goal that still ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... fire from the starboard side of their whole line, within half gunshot distance, full into the bows of our van ships. It was received in silence: the men on board every ship were employed aloft in furling sails, and below in tending the braces and making ready for anchoring. A miserable sight for the French; who, with all their skill, and all their courage, and all their advantages of numbers and situation, were upon that element on which, when the hour of trial comes, a Frenchman has no hope. Admiral ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... the car's lights, lifted to the top, and let down through the upper opening. It was like entering a huge globular spider's web, globe within globe of interlaced girders and struts and braces, extending from the center to the outer shell. Even the spider was home—a three-hundred-foot ball of collapsium, looking ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... passed unobserved and which, nevertheless, is of the greatest importance; and that is that Jean Daval, at the moment when he was stabbed, had all his clothes on, including his walking boots, was dressed, in short, as a man is dressed in the middle of the day, with a waistcoat, collar, tie and braces. Now the crime was committed at four ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... altogether wanting in romantic feeling. There is a marked romantic accent in the Countess of Winchelsea's ode "To the Nightingale"; in her "Nocturnal Reverie"; in Parnell's "Night Piece on Death," and in the work of several Scotch poets, like Allan Ramsay and Hamilton of Bangour, whose ballad, "The Braces of Yarrow," is certainly a strange poem to come out of the heart of the eighteenth century. But these are eddies and back currents in the stream of literary tendency. We are always in danger of forgetting that the literature of an age does not express its entire, ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... she stopped. "You have got it just right; horses' feet, and harness jingling. But you go back of that to the feeling one has when one braces up and sets ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... use of our braces and sails," returned the Pilot, "and on no account close with the other frigate; we must play a double game, sir, and fight this new adversary with our heels as ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... to push them down," said Miss Brown with white lips, "we must all throw ourselves against these braces to keep them firm. I think we can keep him till ...
— Kristy's Rainy Day Picnic • Olive Thorne Miller
... knowing whether I should have been more sorry for Mr. Wopsle if he had been in despair, I was so sorry for him as it was, that I took the opportunity of his turning round to have his braces put on,—which jostled us out at the doorway,—to ask Herbert what he thought of having him home to supper? Herbert said he thought it would be kind to do so; therefore I invited him, and he went to Barnard's ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... little to the southward, or to windward of it, with its sail full, and the steering oar abandoned. The latter, fortunately, was loose, so that it produced no great influence on the crab like movements of the unwieldy craft. The sail being as sailors term it, flying, or having no braces, the air forced the yard forward, though both sheets were fast. The effect was threefold on a boat with a bottom that was perfectly flat, and which drew merely some three or four inches water. It pressed the head slowly round to leeward, it forced the whole fabric ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... carrying three-ounce melinite shells; a dozen rifles and fowling-pieces of different makes of which three, a single and a double-barrelled rifle and a double-barrelled shot-gun, belonged to her Ladyship, as well as a dainty brace of revolvers, one of half a dozen braces of various calibres which completed the minor armament ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... sat there tense, motionless. Then, suddenly, without warning, a new catastrophe assailed him. A giant wave, leaping high, came crashing down upon the wreckage of the plane. There followed a snapping and crashing of braces. When the wave had passed, the platform to which he clung floated upon the sea. His radiophone equipment was water-soaked, submerged. His storage batteries had toppled over ...
— Curlie Carson Listens In • Roy J. Snell
... slowly across the "Guerriere's" bows, from left to right; her sails shaking in the wind, because the yards could not be braced, the braces having been shot away. From this commanding position she gave two raking broadsides, to which her opponent could reply only feebly from a few forward guns; then, the vessels being close together, and the British forging slowly ahead, threatening to cross ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... braces, the shape of which can be seen in figure 4, are shown along either side of the keyboard in figure 5. These braces are 3/4" thick. The positions of the blocks, small pieces with the grain running perpendicular to the bottom, and the wrest plank, which is 1-1/4" thick, are also shown. The two ...
— Italian Harpsichord-Building in the 16th and 17th Centuries • John D. Shortridge
... Taffy called sharply. He pinned his faith to the barometer, and as he shut it in its case he glanced at the brigantine and saw that her crew were busy with the braces, flattening the forward canvas. "See there, boys. There'll be a gale ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... were splashing outside the shell. Thurston turned in a feverish search of the unexplored depths. There was a surprising simplicity, an absence of complicated mechanism. The generator, with its tremendous braces to carry its thrust to the framework itself, filled most of the space. Some of the ribs were thicker, he noticed. Solid metal, as if they might carry great weights. Resting upon them were ranged numbers of objects. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... step, till feeling the rope taut between himself and the guide, and hearing his cheery voice, he ventures forward, to find that the danger was not so great as he imagined. Thus made bolder by each difficulty surmounted, he begins to feel the exhilaration of a mountain climb, which braces the nerves more than anything besides. If we are really anxious to be in God's appointed way, and boldly take it when it is made clear, we may be sure that He will answer the prayer: "Hold up my goings in Thy paths, that my ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... boots. I took them off with all the coolness of an old hand, and then I placed him on my knee and removed his blouse. This was a delightful experience, but I think I remained wonderfully calm until I came somewhat too suddenly to his little braces, which agitated ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... with spruce roots, like the Injuns puts their canoes together," explained Andy. "We'll cut holes in each end of un in the right place to tie un fast to the braces of the boat. We'll have to make holes in the bottom of the boat each side of the braces for the roots to come through so we can make un fast. That'll hold un. Then when we've made un fast we'll caulk un up ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... to the door and called Harry, who came out from the rough shed which served as a stable, in his shirt, with a wisp of hay in his hand. He had stripped off coat, and waistcoat, and braces, and had been warming himself by giving the horses ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... helps me along an' stren'thens me up, like, to know that Him that the visitor in jail told me about didn't have no home a good deal of the time, an' not overmuch to eat, an' yet was cheerful like, an' always on His nerve. It braces a fellow up to think somebody's who's been as bad off as himself has pulled through, an' not stole nothin', nor fit with nobody, nor got drunk, but always was lookin' out for other folks. Say, Nan, 'pears to me it's gettin' ...
— All He Knew - A Story • John Habberton
... include suffixes '-o-rama', 'frenzy' (as in feeding frenzy), and 'city' (examples: "barf city!" "hack-o-rama!" "core dump frenzy!"). Finally, note that the American terms 'parens', 'brackets', and 'braces' for (), [], and {} are uncommon; Commonwealth hackish prefers 'brackets', 'square brackets', and 'curly brackets'. Also, the use of 'pling' for {bang} is common ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... was rather vexed With Green—who'd pinched his braces, That was 'continued in our next' In half a score of places. McCubbin threw his grub at Lea (You know how sticky stew is); They fought till neither man could see. You talk of fight—Gorstrike me, we Saw stacks of it ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... cannot be dispensed with in either: it ought to be cultivated everywhere, especially in populous towns and cities. Frequent washing not only improves the appearance, but promotes perspiration, by removing every impediment on the skin, while at the same time it braces the body, and enlivens the spirits. Washing the feet and legs in lukewarm water, after being exposed to cold and wet, would prevent the ill effects which proceed from these causes, and greatly contribute to health. Diseases of the skin, ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... rum, and beads constantly increasing, but they are more than offset by our importation from Kowfat of ivory, rubber, gold, and oil. In short, we have never seen the principles of Free Trade better illustrated. The Shriek, it is now reported, refuses to wear the braces presented to him by our envoy at the time of his coronation five years ago. He is said to have thrown them into the mud. But we have no reason to suppose that this is meant as a blow at our prestige. It may be that after five years of use the little pulleys of the braces no ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock
... them in their places, laying them regular, Setting the studs by their tenons in the mortises according as they were prepared, The blows of mallets and hammers, the attitudes of the men, their curv'd limbs, Bending, standing, astride the beams, driving in pins, holding on by posts and braces, The hook'd arm over the plate, the other arm wielding the axe, The floor-men forcing the planks close to be nail'd, Their postures bringing their weapons downward on the bearers, The echoes resounding through the vacant building: The huge storehouse carried up in the city well under way, ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... Improvement Magazine? Messrs. Smith & Smith would be extremely obliged if Mr. Lionel Moore would honor them with his opinion of the accompanying pair of their patent silver-mounted automatic self-adjusting braces. ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... from the precipices of the beacon rock) rushed into the fray, striking their shields, and uttering the inspiring slogan of "Wallace and freedom!" It was re-echoed by every Scot; those that were flying returned; they who sustained the conflict hailed the cry with braces sinews; and the terrible thunder of the word, pealing from rank to rank, struck a terror into De Valence's men, which made them pause. The extinction of the beacon ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... not tried to get alongside in the darkness and take the vessel by surprise, but he understood now that there was a strong probability that the Belle Marie might have caught a tartar and have suddenly run herself under the guns of a British frigate. As soon as the vessel had passed, the braces were manned and the yards swung round, and the brig continued her course. She was brought up almost to the wind's-eye and sailed as closely as possible, so that when morning broke she should have recovered the leeway she had made and should be to windward ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... looked more attractive than before, but that the decision had been taken out of my hands. I could not go about the shops of Verona buying prussic acid or revolvers or metres of stout rope. And my razors (without Stenson's care) were benignantly blunt, and I would not condescend to braces. I groaned and pished and pshawed, but as it was written that I was to live, I resigned myself to a barren and ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... There were three. The main one stood close at the brink of the ledge. A quadrangle of glassite walls, a hundred feet in length by half as wide, and a scant ten feet high to its flat-arched dome roof. Built for this purpose in Great-New York, Grantline had brought his aluminite girders and braces and ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... window in blank astonishment, watching the policemen hammering at door after door, and delivering their incomprehensible message. Then the door behind him opened, and the man who lodged across the landing came in, dressed only in shirt, trousers, and slippers, his braces loose about his waist, his hair disordered ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... that glass that I could see how the boy fastened up his trousers with one strap and a piece of string, for he had no braces, and there were no brace buttons. Those corduroy trousers had been made for somebody else, I should say for a man, and pieces of the legs had been cut off, and the upper part came well over his back and chest. He had no waistcoat, but he wore ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn
... same time that "he looked like his father, though his ears were like his uncle's." Then "Sir Roger" having remarked that he was "nearly stifled," Lady Tichborne directed Coyne to "take off her son's coat and undo his braces;" which duties the faithful domestic accomplished with some difficulty, while at the same time he "managed to pull him over as well as he could." Upon this Mr. Holmes, solemnly standing up, addressed ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... enough looking. We have learned ere this, however, to sit tight and watch for events. The careless Indians have straightened into keen-eyed, responsible voyageurs, each muscle taut, every sense alert. Our boat goes first, one half-breed with huge pole braces himself as bowsman, the most able man takes the stern sweep, the others stand at the oars. Fifteen minutes of good head-work brings us to the island and we step out with relief. The other boats follow and anchor, and we have opportunity at close ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... [] are from the original text. Braces {} ("curly brackets") are supplied by the transcriber. Characters that could not be displayed directly in ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... Coats were unknown during the summer months (this was the middle of August); waistcoats were despised; and the costume of the period consisted of a flannel shirt, and a pair of trousers sustained by a belt in lieu of braces. Attached to this belt was the omnipresent six-shooter in its holster. I was the only person who possessed, or at all events exhibited, a coat; and I felt that peculiar and unhappy sensation of being over-dressed, which I feared might be mistaken ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... general said, rising, and squaring his shoulders like a man who braces himself up for an effort. "Be it what it may we'll face it as British soldiers should. D'ye remember at Chillianwallah, when you had to run from your guns to our square, and the Sikh horse came thundering down on our bayonets? We didn't flinch then, and we won't flinch now. It seems to me that ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... smallclothes in their proper place, for braces were unknown. If I had the gout, there was no colchicum. If I was bilious, there was no calomel. If I was attacked by ague, there was no quinine. There were filthy coffee-houses instead of elegant clubs. Game could not be bought. Quarrels about Uncommuted ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... find it hard to go slowly. Your will urges you to go faster. This is especially true if you are impulsive, as the impulsive character finds it very difficult to do anything slowly and deliberately. It goes against the "grain." This exercise still is tiresome. But when you do it, it braces you up mentally. You are accomplishing something you do not like to do. It teaches you how to concentrate on disagreeable tasks. Writing these notes down you will find ...
— The Power of Concentration • Theron Q. Dumont
... our scientists had developed rocket-driven space-ships, with which they explored our neighboring satellites, and even Saturn itself. It is from power plants upon Saturn that we draw energy. Their construction was difficult in the extreme, since the pioneers had to work in braces because of the enormous force of gravity. Then, too, they had to be protected from the overwhelming pressure and poisonous qualities of the air, and insulated from a temperature far above the melting point of water. In such awful heat, of course, our customary building ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... the floor quivering, or with long quiet exhalations. Then there were certain postures to be learned, in one of which, entailing the bending of the body backwards, two of Georgie's trouser-buttons came off with a sharp snap and he felt the corresponding member of his braces, thus violently released, spring up to his shoulder. Various other embarrassing noises issued from Lucia and Daisy that sounded like the bursting of strings and tapes, but everybody pretended to hear nothing at all, or covered up the ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... and his teeth would chatter although he bit his lips and his fingers shook as he undressed, and his stud slipped and he could not undo his braces—and always his ears were open for the sound of the ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... "Damn the braces!" swore the old gentleman. "Where is he? Hi, Tylney!" as he caught sight of the Secretary. "Where are we to go? My ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... cheeriness of intellectual health. The most subtle of minds, his is the least sickly. The wind that blows in his pages is no hot and languorous breeze, laden with scents and sweets, but a fresh salt wind blowing in from the sea. His poetry is a tonic; it braces and invigorates. "Il fait vivre ses phrases:" his verse lives and throbs with life. He is incomparably plentiful of vital heat; "so thoroughly and delightfully alive." This is an effect of art, and a moral impression. It brings us into ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... morning) they were left unvisited, and in total darkness. Time, therefore, Williams had for committing suicide. The means in other respects were small. One iron bar there was, meant (if I remember) for the suspension of a lamp; upon this he had hanged himself by his braces. At what hour was uncertain: some people fancied at midnight. And in that case, precisely at the hour when, fourteen days before, he had been spreading horror and desolation through the quiet family of poor Marr, now was he forced into drinking of the ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... to be in order and the Chester boys scrambled into their chassis. The Golden Eagle had been stripped of all the appliances she usually carried as a passenger craft. Her searchlight and wireless were missing. Her transom seats were gone. Several braces had been taken out also, as the removal of her passenger accommodations had rendered the strain on her framework ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... looking at the empty grate, until she would pluck the stool from under him, and bid him go bring some money home. Then he would dismally ascend the steps; and I, holding my ragged shirt and trousers together with a hand (my only braces), would feint and dodge from mother's ...
— George Silverman's Explanation • Charles Dickens
... the criticism, Balzac swirls round his guns and directs his fire on Goethe's replies to Bellina. The latter's epistles were accompanied with presents of braces and slippers and flannel waistcoats, which were much more appreciated by the poet than her theories on music. Not so did he, Balzac, treat his Lina, his Louloup —such was the inference suggested. Every one of her, i.e. Eve's sayings was treasured up, after being duly pondered upon. ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... listlessness over the entire place. The people seemed to be falling asleep. Though we complain of cold in our northern hemisphere, it is a great incentive to work. Even our east wind is an invigorator; it braces us up, and strengthens ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... seem, her three topsails were mastheaded and the foretopsail laid to the mast. The fore-braces came in, hand over hand, the hawsers were tossed overboard and the tug fell astern. The Bertha Hamilton leaned gracefully to the freshening gale, and was shooting ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... to the comb of the roof stretched in endless succession great curved marble beams, like the fore-and-aft braces of a steamboat, and along each beam from end to end stood up a row of richly carved flowers and fruits—each separate and distinct in kind, and over 15,000 species represented. At a little distance these ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... singular school of experience. The various impacts upon man's psychological anatomy produce strange results. They seem like the blows of some Invisible Sculptor, producing out of commonplace material a hero and it may be a demi-god. The opening orchestra of shot and shell braces up the mind of the soldier and attunes it up to receive new sensitiveness. The bullets play strange dirges on the strings of life before they break them, and each dirge has its theme, some song of spiritual things. His ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips
... publics, and I put it to him, "She lies heavy on your own hands; what'll you take for her?" Mim was a most ferocious swearer. Suppressing that part of his reply which was much the longest part, his reply was, "A pair of braces." "Now I'll tell you," says I, "what I'm a going to do with you. I'm a going to fetch you half-a-dozen pair of the primest braces in the cart, and then to take her away with me." Says Mim (again ferocious), "I'll believe it when ...
— Doctor Marigold • Charles Dickens
... the text include adding the underscore character to indicate italics, and textual end-notes in square braces. ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and that I must be new payed. A third, seeing my hair clotted together with blood, as it were into distinct cords, took notice, that my bows were mended with the red ropes, instead of my side. A fourth asked me, if I could not keep my yards square without iron braces? And, in short, a thousand witticisms of the same nature were passed upon me before I could ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... reached Athelhall, as the house was called, they found the usually quiet nook a lively spectacle. Tables had been spread in the apartment which lent its name to the whole building—the hall proper—covered with a fine open-timbered roof, whose braces, purlins, and rafters made a brown thicket of oak overhead. Here tenantry of all ages sat with their wives and families, and the servants were assisted in their ministrations by the sons and daughters of the owner's friends and neighbours. Christine ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... broughams and shopping! I tell her I'm a beer-bum—yes, that's the word for it in Australia! Not a pretty word—not a pretty thing either! I gave the Mater and Pater a picture of myself once—broken shoes tied on with string, trousers tied on with a bit of rope because I'd sold my braces for threepence—slinking along in the gutter outside the Theatre Royal picking up cigarette ends that had been thrown away! Counter lunches! D'you know what counter ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... informed me that they would not Sell any horses to me, that their horses were at a long ways off and they would not trade them. my offer was a blue robe, Callico Shirt, a handkerchef, 5 parcels of paint a Knife, a wampom moon 4 braces of ribin, a pice of Brass and about 6 braces of yellow heeds; and to that amount for what I had I also offered my large blue blanket for one, my Coat Sword & Plume none of which Seem to entice those people to give horses if they had any. they Set in their huts ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... left of him two hours after he gets back into that city, he's makin' a pretty d—n big mistake. Oh, I say, Professor, we've got t' stop this. Th' Padre's off his head, that's all there is to it; an' we've got t' look after him till he braces up an' gets sensible again. I'll do anything reasonable that he wants, but I'll be d——d if I'm goin' t' stand by doin' nothin' while he ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... of dooty. Besides, we had sich a reel Commodore a board as made us all quite reddy to brave the foaming waves again. Why, he guv out the word of command, whether it was to "Port the Helem," or to "Titen the mane braces," as if he had bin a Hadmiral at the werry least, and his galliant crew obeyed him without not no grumbling or ewen thretening ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... thirty feet in diameter. The outer wall, one foot of solid lux metal, was separated from the inner, one-inch relux wall by a two inch gap which would be evacuated in space. The two walls were joined in many places by small lux metal cross-braces. The windows consisted of spaces in the relux wall, allowing the occupants to see through the transparent ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell
... candid," I expostulated. "Why didn't you say boldly that the Brooklyn Bridge is a wooden cantilever, with gutta-percha braces? He didn't know, or he wouldn't have asked you. He couldn't find out until he reached home, and you would never have seen him again; and if you had, and he had taunted you, you could have laughed vivaciously and said you were chaffing. That is my method, and it is the only way to preserve ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... directions. It gave to the aid the office of chief and rendered probable his election as the successor of his principal after the decease of the latter. In their figurative language these aids of the sachems were styled "Braces in the Long House," which symbolized ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... it's my braces I am after." With this, Coristine took off these articles, and, fastening a button hole over a rusty nail in the stern, tied the other end about a root of the birch. The dug-out was securely fastened, ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... in a village cricket match I was caught at point by a man in braces. It would have been madness to risk another such shock to my system. My nerves are so exquisitely balanced that a thing of that sort takes years ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... on March 8, 1838. This contract called for the payment by Vanderbilt of $10,500 in three installments for the building of an engine for the steamboat "Wave." Vanderbilt paid $7,900, but refused to pay the remainder, on the ground that braces to the connecting rods were not supplied. These braces, it was brought out in court, cost only $75 or $100. The Supreme Court handed down a judgment against Vanderbilt. An appeal was taken by Vanderbilt, and Judge Nelson, in the Supreme Court, in October, ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... Before setting the forms for a new section, it was necessary, therefore, to move the gantry ahead, before the cross-bracing between the tops of the forms, which also held the top platform, could be placed in position. Fig. 2, Plate XXIV, shows the end of the conveyor over the top of the cross-braces. In order to hold the bottom of these forms, small wooden blocks were embedded in the foundation concrete, against which they could be wedged, as shown by Fig. 13, A; these blocks were cut out after the ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 - The Bergen Hill Tunnels. Paper No. 1154 • F. Lavis
... English name for the craft—are lying becalmed, with hanging sails. The men on board the felucca watch them and the sea. There is a shadow on the white, hazy horizon, then a streak, then a broad dark blue band. The schooner braces her top-sail yard and gets her main sheet aft. The martinganes flatten in their jibs along their high steeving bowsprits and jib-booms. Shift your sheets, too, now, for the wind is coming. Past L'Infresco with its lovely harbour of refuge, ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... a whole barrel of braces and bitters," was the response, as the corpulent Teuton hastened off to ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... back his hat. "Never saw you looking so bad; you ought to be more careful, Van; there'll be a smash some time. Ah, you bet a man ought to look out for his health. I walk downtown every morning, and three times a week I take a cold shower as soon as I get up. Ah, I tell you, that braces a fellow up; you ought to try it; it's better than a dozen cocktails. You keep on getting thin like you have for the past few days and I'll have to be calling you Skinny Seldom-fed again, like we used to. Now, tell the truth, what time did you ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... letters are encoded in brackets, and the letters are based on Adobe's Symbol font. Footnotes [] have not been re-numbered, many are NOT moved to EOParagraph. Some that are moved across pages already are in 'a' and 'b' format e.g. [1a] Comments and guessed at characters in {braces} need stripped/fixed. "Protected'' indentations have a space before the [Tab]. EOL- have been converted ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... He was dirty, bald to about the middle of the cranium, while his long gray hair fell over the neck of his frock coat. His clothes, much too large for him, appeared to have been made for him at a time when he was very stout. One could guess that his pantaloons were not held up by braces, and that this man could not take ten paces without having to pull them up and readjust them. Did he wear a vest? The mere thought of his boots and the feet they enveloped filled me with horror. The frayed cuffs were as black at the ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... illustrated in Fig. 75. These doors are usually opened by a latch-string, which, when not hung outside, is reached by means of a small round hole through the wall at the side of the door. Through this hole the owner of the house, on leaving it, secures the door by props and braces on the inside of the room, the hole being sealed up and plastered in the same manner that ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... recreation of every legitimate kind is invaluable to the worker, especially so is the recreation of the drama, which brightens his faculties, enlarges his vision of the picturesque, and by taking him for a time out of this work-a-day world, braces his sensibilities for the labors of life. The art which does this may surely claim to exercise more than a fleeting influence upon the world's intelligence. But in its highest developments it does more; it acts as a constant medium for the diffusion of great ideas, and by throwing ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... But even had it been my mother or wife I could not have attended to such remonstrance then; and before he had done looking at me with those big eyes of his, my coat and waistcoat and cravat were on the ground, and I was at work at my braces; whereupon he turned from me slowly, and strolled away into the wood. On this occasion I had no base ...
— A Ride Across Palestine • Anthony Trollope
... round his neck. Having put on his bright boots, (without, I am really sorry to say, any stockings,) he carefully insinuated his legs into a pair of white trousers, for the first time since their last washing; and what with his short straps and high braces, they were so tight that you would have feared their bursting if he should have sat down hastily. I am almost afraid that I shall hardly be believed; but it is a fact, that the next thing he did was to attach a pair of spurs to his boots:—but, to be sure, it was not impossible ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... three in the gallery below. Doubtless the three in question.' The host, a slender, bright-eyed, dark young man of polite manners, whose garment was a black gown with strips of white crossed over it like braces, and who no more resembled the conventional breed of Saint Bernard monks than he resembled the conventional breed of Saint Bernard dogs, replied, doubtless those were ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... weather sultry, and a few drops of rain fell on the parched oasis—drops of ambrosia from the gods. To-day it is cloudy and cool, for the first time since my residence here; a cool elastic sensation braces up my ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... leech of the topsail shivers, The bowlines strain and the lee shrouds slacken, The braces are taut, the lithe boom quivers, And the waves with the coming ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... of things as the two strangers came first upon the wharf. Spike was on the taffrail, overhauling the main-sheet, and Mulford was near him, casting the foretopsail braces from the pins, preparatory to clapping ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... sense of speed except the driving freshness of the air in your face. I felt that I should not mind going on forever. Time was unlimited. There was only space and the humming of the motor and the faintly gleaming circle of light of the propeller and those two rigid wings with their tracery of braces. ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... unmanageable wreck. The Constitution ceased firing and shot a-head, her cabin having taken fire from the Guerriere's guns. The Guerriere would have renewed the action, but the wreck of the masts had no sooner been cleared than the spritsail yard went, and the Constitution having no new braces, wore round within pistol shot again to rake her opponent. The crippled ship lay in the trough of the sea, rolling her main deck guns under water. Thirty shots had taken effect in her hull, about five sheets of copper down; the mizen mast, after ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... the waist-coast on a knob, and there's WILLIAM O'BRIEN'S place secured for the night. Now, if you'd like a seat, you'll find one above the Gangway; or if you want to come and sit by me, here you are. I've got a necktie, a collar, and a pair of braces to spare; if you've any particular friends in your mind, why, we'll get seats for them.' No knowing what a fellow like TANNER would do in these circumstances. Even his trowsers not sacred. So made best of bad job, and here ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 11, 1893 • Various
... Hutchinson, and a model wife. Far away in India Sir James writes to her: 'I know the value of your letters. They rouse my mind on subjects which interest us in common—friends, children, literature, and life. Their moral tone cheers and braces me. I ought to be made permanently happy by contemplating a mind like yours; which seems more exclusively to derive its gratifications from its duties than almost any other.' It was in the Norwich Octagon that these Taylors worshipped. Their Unitarianism seemed to have affected them ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... explore In earth's dark caverns her metallic store, And, from laborious days extracting health, Rest satisfied, and ask no other wealth: Rough and unyielding, like their native soil, The hardy sons of Nature and of Toil; Resistless vigour, resolute and warm, Strings every nerve, and braces every arm. Foremost to vindicate the righteous cause, And from th' oppressor guard their injur'd laws, Thro' many a rolling century these have shone Th' unfailing champions of the Swedish throne, And now with all my forces singly cope, Sweden's last bulwark, and her choicest hope. No trivial ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... fortnight," he said, "I couldn't help totting up what a lot I spend on trifles." That's it. There you've got it in a nutshell. Washing, bootlaces, bus-tickets—trifles, in fact: that's where the coin goes. Only the other morning I bust my braces. I was late already, and pinning them together all but lost me the 9:16, only it was a bit behind time. It struck me then as I ran to the station that the average person would never count braces an ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... vain for the slim figure of the girl. Yesterday she had stood just outside the kitchen door. To-day her office was usurped by a hefty cook with the sleeves of his grey shirt rolled up and his collar open and vast and tight-hitched braces unromantically strapped all over him. Doggie felt a pang of disappointment and abused the tea. Mo Shendish stared, and asked what was wrong ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... to carry sail on a boat in this sound; the puffs come so violent that before anybody could take in her sail she would to a certainty be overset; even ships, in my opinion, would do well before they enter this sound to take in all their small sails and keep all hands at the braces fore and aft as well as hands by the top-sail halyards, and it is necessary to handle the yards quick otherwise a large vessel will be sure to rub sides with ye rocks if it has blown fresh outside all ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... corner, where the wooden Atlas braces up the balcony, the Chino store is sheltered from the sun by curtains of alternate blue and white. Here Chino Santiago, in his cool pajamas, audits the accounts with the assistance of the wooden counting frame, while Chino Jose, his partner, with his paintbrush ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... medicine loses its effect—than a state of tick. It is an alterative and a tonic; it keeps your moral man in a perpetual state of excitement: as a man who is riding at a fence, or has his opponent's single-stick before him, is forced to look his obstacle steadily in the face, and braces himself to repulse or overcome it; a little necessity brings out your pluck if you have any, and nerves you to grapple with fortune. You will discover what a number of things you can do without when you ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... had reached Beggar's Stile. But I was not tired for once, so keen, so life-giving was the air, sparkling with that fine elixir whereby morning braces us for the day's conflict. Below, through slowly-dissolving mists, the village showed as if it smiled, each little cottage hearth lifting its soft spiral of smoke to a zenith immeasurably ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer
... are indicated by numbers enclosed in curly braces, e.g. {99}. For its Index, a page number has been placed only at the start of that section. In the HTML version of this book, page numbers are placed in the ...
— The Religion of Ancient Egypt • W. M. Flinders Petrie
... Analog August 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note. Subscript characters are shown within {braces}. ...
— The Bramble Bush • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Tom clapped his eyes on. He was dressed all slovenly and untidy, in a great gown of a kind of bed-furniture pattern, with a cap of the same on his head; and a long old flapped waistcoat; with no braces, no strings, very few buttons - in short, with hardly any of those artificial contrivances that hold society together. Tom knew by these signs, and by his not being shaved, and by his not being ...
— The Lamplighter • Charles Dickens
... And well it might, for as the beautiful globe began to assume shape, certainly nothing so colossal of the kind had ever been seen before upon earth. And as one stepped inside the mighty ball and looked up through the vast network of aluminum rods and braces that ran in every conceivable direction, looking like silken threads in the great distances above, the feeling inspired was one of awe and ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... involved mathematical calculations. And, while owners of great manufacturing plants waited with unaccustomed patience for a moment's talk with Blake, the white sheets on the drafting boards showed growing pictures of braces and struts and curved plates, of castings for gun mounts, and ammunition hoists. And the manufacturers were told in no uncertain terms exactly what part of this experimental ship they would produce, and ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... considered best in the trade for attaching the heads of hatchets, or large hammers likely to be subjected to very violent strains. It will be seen that the axe-head and fastening are forged in one solid piece, the fastening consisting of two strong braces or straps of steel, which are pressed into the wood about one-eighth of an inch, and are secured by two rivets, passed through the wood and clenched on each side. The braces are put at the side, instead of in front of and behind the axe, because by this means, the strain ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... spear, Heels over head, to his proper sphere— Heels over head, and head over heels, Dizzily down the abyss he wheels— So fell Darius. Upon his crown, In the midst of the barnyard, he came down, In a wonderful whirl of tangled strings, Broken braces and broken springs, Broken tail and broken wings, Shooting-stars, and various things! Away with a bellow fled the calf, And what was that? Did the gosling laugh? 'Tis a merry roar From the old barn-door, And he hears the voice of Jotham crying, ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... them to alter sails, and it was, they say, 'Up jib,' and 'Down jib,' and 'Up foresail' and 'Down foresail' every minute. He carries on much in the same way at present, and seldom comes on deck without shaking his head as he looks aloft, and shouting out 'Another pull at the lee-braces, Mr Haultaut;—we always trimmed sails properly on board the old Orion, sir,' or some such complimentary remark to our much-enduring first. The boatswain has a dog—a favourite with the men—which goes by the no uncommon name of Shakings. The commander detests ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... door of the jakes. Better be careful not to get these trousers dirty for the funeral. He went in, bowing his head under the low lintel. Leaving the door ajar, amid the stench of mouldy limewash and stale cobwebs he undid his braces. Before sitting down he peered through a chink up at the nextdoor windows. The king was in ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce |
