"Nerve" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tone almost self-reproachful, as though he were entirely responsible for the boy's condition. "We're a nice aggregation of mollycoddles—five of us sitting half frozen up here with a stove on the floor below, and just because we heard a noise which we couldn't explain and hadn't the nerve to investigate." He rose. "I'm going down, rustle some wood and build a fire in that stove—you two kids have got to dry those clothes of yours and get warmed up or we'll have a couple of hospital cases on ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... for it, covered her face with her hands, asking help in this sudden need for strength, courage, and wisdom; for there was no one else to call upon, and young as she was, she knew what was to be done if she only had the nerve to do it. Any other patient would have been calmly interesting, but dear, good Robin, his father's pride, his mother's comfort, everyone's favourite and friend, that he should be in danger was very terrible; and a few hot tears dropped on the well-scoured ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... rose on the tide. Corliss was at the wheel, tugging and turning,—to what purpose was not very evident. But they were doing their level best to save the vessel: that was plain. Capt. Mazard stood with clinched hands watching them, every muscle and nerve tense as wire. ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... "Farais" (plur. of farisah): the phrase has often occurred and isour "trembled in every nerve." As often happens in Arabic, it is "horsey;" alluding to the shoulder-muscles (not shoulder-blades, Preston p. 89) between neck and flank which readily quiver in blood-horses when ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... other wall, the murmur of every stream, aye! the hoots and hisses of every street in the nation, ring it in your ears, and deafen you with their din. The people have a voice of their own, and it must, it will be, sooner or later heard: and I, as in duty bound, will always exert every nerve and every power of which I am master, to hasten the completion of so desirable an event." ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... motor—simplest thing in the world. All you have to remember is not to sneeze while you are up in the air. Sneezing is sometimes fatal. It destroys your equilibrium as nothing else does and you are liable to make a disastrous nose dive. Running an airplane is much easier than an automobile. Nerve? Not a bit of it. I tell you, Cousin Ann, when I get my flying machine I'll come get you and ride you to my place and then you will be spared the bumps of that devilish lane. Just as soon as I get it I'll drop you a line. ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... evening, but she dismissed this suspicion scornfully, as slander against the ornament of the Surgical Ward of St. Isidore's. He was tired: the languid summer air thus early in the year would shake any man's nerve. But the head nurse understood well that such a wavering of will or muscle must not occur again, or the hairbreadth chance the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... come! All his doubts of the night wrestled in his mind for a minute; but forcing them down, he strung himself up for the encounter, his whole frame trembling with excitement, and his blood tingling through his veins as though it would burst them. The next minute was as severe a trial of nerve as he had ever been put to, and the sound of a stealthy tread on the grass just below came to him as a relief. It stopped, and he heard the man stoop, then came a stir in the water, and the flapping as of a ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... Peg and his two cowboy guides had had plenty of time to climb that far up the side of Thunder Mountain. If they had taken daylight for the task of course they avoided the danger of getting lost, such as had overtaken the saddle boys. And if the nerve of Spanish Joe and Nick Jennings continued to hold out, when strange things began to happen, the boastful tenderfoot from the East stood a ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... The electrical nerve was again touched—"Oh!—oh!—oh! Caramighty! here comes anoder on dem," roared Pegtop, sticking the slice of melon, which was intended for Mademoiselle Eugenie, into his own mouth, to quell the paroxysm, if possible, (while he ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... from the papers flared up at once, and she ran down the steps with a roar and a bellow that are fearful to imagine, nerve-racking ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... got his nerve back, fathered the book, made corrections; and this edition, too, sold with a rush. Byron returned to Newstead, invited a score of his Cambridge cronies, who came down, entering the mansion between the bear and the wolf, and were received with ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... high positions of bowman and steersman, and when we tell the reader that on these two men frequently hangs the safety of a boat, with all its crew and lading, it will be easily understood how needful it is that they should be men of iron nerve ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... No rest, no respite, till the shades descend; Till darkness, or till death, shall cover all: Let the war bleed, and let the mighty fall; Till bathed in sweat be every manly breast, With the huge shield each brawny arm depress'd, Each aching nerve refuse the lance to throw, And each spent courser at the chariot blow. Who dares, inglorious, in his ships to stay, Who dares to tremble on this signal day; That wretch, too mean to fall by martial power, The birds shall mangle, and ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... nerve to stand fire," faltered Christian. "But as to marrying, I own I've asked here and there, though without much fruit from it. Yes, there's some house or other that might have had a man for a master—such ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... "Why can't I be cool and cutting—pay her back when she is rude, and contradict her when she's absurd? She is absurd often. But I think of the right things to say just five minutes too late. I have no nerve—that's the point!—only l'esprit d'escalier to perfection. And she has been trained to this sort of campaigning from her babyhood. No good growling! I shall never ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... how keen must be his appreciation of the popular taste. The complexities and annoyances of his business are excessive, and he cannot afford to make many mistakes; if he does he will lose his business, and when a man fails in business (honestly), he loses his nerve, and his career is ended. It is simply amazing, when you consider it, the amount of talent shown in what are called the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... part of the business was that in these outbreaks of barbarity she did not seem to be impelled by blind rage. Most people who heave a postman about a peaceful county would do so in a fit of passion, through loss of nerve-control. Not so Liosha. She did these things with the bland and deadly air ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... and yet it can be entirely prevented. A tooth does not ache until it has a hole in it. The tender nerve within gives us warning that it is being hurt. The dentist can stop the ache and mend the tooth so that it will not ache again. Look at your teeth every month and feel about them with a wooden tooth-pick to know when the decay begins. If the little holes are mended as ...
— Health Lessons - Book 1 • Alvin Davison
... to make over two thousand in order to secure the one hundred needed for the present series? The slightest imperfection is enough to render an otherwise perfect record useless. Even the artists themselves would sometimes become discouraged at the enormous difficulties. It is nerve-racking work, for one must be on tension ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... here," he exclaimed, coming sharply to the upright position and running his fingers through his hair in a business-like fashion; "every nerve in my body is just yearning for the cool breath of the woods, and I feel as though I could run and tumble over the mountains all day and feel the better for it. But I must keep it up till the ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... layer. 2. Superficial layer of small cells. 3. Layer of small pyramidal cells. 4. Deep layer of small nerve cells. 5. Layer of polymorphous ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... the villain. "Hear him talk, boys! He acts jest as though he ain't no prisoner. He's got nerve enough fur ten, ...
— Young Wild West at "Forbidden Pass" - and, How Arietta Paid the Toll • An Old Scout
... the rest are Swedes and they haven't got the nerve to fight. They couldn't lick a spoon if they tried. These other men are different, though. There are two of them, the old one and a young fellow. I'm a little afraid to mix it up with them, and if their claim wasn't the best in the district, I'd ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... floor the element of execution feels it may more or less confidently DANCE; in which case puzzling questions, sharp obstacles, dangers of detail, may come up for it by the dozen without breaking its heart or shaking its nerve. It is the difficulty produced by the loose foundation or the vague scheme that breaks the heart—when a luckless fatuity has over-persuaded an author of the "saving" virtue of treatment. Being "treated" is never, in a workable idea, a mere ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... reviewing his performance in that garage. Had he really intended to steal the car, he would not have had the nerve to take the chances he had taken. He shivered when he recalled how he had slid under the car when the owner came in. What if the man had seen him or heard him? He would be in jail now, instead of splashing along the ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... so much stronger a position than they do, in that I am not encumbered with wife and children; so I am resolved to strain every nerve on their behalf." About six o'clock the last bell rang, and, cutting short our conversation, I hurriedly wished him good-bye and good luck, and from the deck of our little steamer we watched the big ship ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... for three things to be, yet bound together by one unity of consciousness. Now we have distincter proof than even this that these things are three. The anatomist can tell you that the localities of these powers are different. He can point out the seat of the nerve of sensation; he can localize the feeling of affection; he can point to a nerve and say, "There resides the locality ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... and wide as a fearless Apache fighter, with a Gaines's Mill-Gettysburg record behind him. Case had never before been heard of afield, but his one exploit in the card room stamped him unerringly, said these frontier experts, as "a man of nerve." Clancy held out his big red hand. "Are ye with me?" said he. "Yours truly," said Case. "Then come on, Pitkeeper," said Clancy, "and we'll leave Book and ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... and flank, plunging deep their bloody muzzles to reach the heart and taste blood at the very fountain;—is it strange that resistance is desperate and unscrupulous? At length the sufferer drags his mutilated carcass aside, every nerve and muscle wrung with pain, and his whole body an instrument of agony. He curses the whole inhuman crew with envenomed imprecations; and thenceforth, a brooding misanthrope, he pays back to society, by studied villanies, the legal wrongs which the relentless justice of a few, ...
— Twelve Causes of Dishonesty • Henry Ward Beecher
... my whole finger and part of my hand shocked me with the most excruciating agony that the hide of man ever felt. Flashes and waves of pain darted up my arm to the elbow and the muscles in my forearm jumped. The sensitive nerve in my elbow sang and sent darting waves of zigzag needles up to my shoulder. My hand was a source of searing heat and freezing cold and the pain of being crushed and twisted and wrenched out of joint all at ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... seventh-son work to locate him. The 'phone book shows he lives on Madison Avenue. Seemed simple enough. But this was no time to risk bein' barred out by a cold-eyed butler. You can't breeze into them old brownstone fronts on your nerve. What I needed was credentials. The last place I'd be likely to get 'em would be Mott, Drew & Mott's, so I goes there first. No, I didn't hypnotize anybody. I simply wrote out an application for ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... collected, and written in the same unconcerned tone,—as though he were a critical spectator of an interesting scene—that characterises all his communications, more especially his despatches. They at any rate give no evidence of shaken nerve or unduly excited brain, nor can I see that any action of his with reference to the occupation of Majuba is out of keeping with the details of his generalship upon other occasions. He was always confident to rashness, and possessed by the idea that every man in the ranks was full of as ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... anguish flows the burning tide— Dark storms of feeling sweep across her breast— In loneliness there needs no mask of pride— To nerve the soul, and veil the heart's unrest, Amid the crowd her glances brightly beam, Her smiles with undimmed lustre sweetly shine: The haunting visions of life's fevered dream The cold and careless seek not ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... Court, he chose to represent that affair as a cowardly, and almost piratical attack on an unprepared Power. Pitt had expected some such misrepresentations. He knew that the Opposition would strain every nerve to overthrow him; and in the Christmas Vacation he made timely overtures through Hawkesbury for the support of Addington. The two old friends met on 23rd December 1804, at Hawkesbury's residence, Coombe Wood, near Richmond Park. The host contrived to be absent when Pitt entered the room, and ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... here a practical, not a theoretical, problem. It is not to be solved by thinking it good, for to think it good is to deaden the very nerve of action; but by destroying it and ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... not frightened by the cannonade. Beurnonville rode up to one of his regiments and told them to lie down, to make way for shot. They refused to obey whilst he exposed himself on horseback. After time had been allowed for artillery to produce its effect on republican nerve, the Prussian infantry made ready to attack. Gouvion St. Cyr, the only general of his time whom Napoleon acknowledged as his equal, believed that the French would not have stood at close quarters. But the word ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... For without special study it is impossible to form any adequate idea of the intricacy of structure which is presented by the human form. Yet it is found that this enormously intricate organization is repeated in all its details in the bodies of the higher apes. There is no bone, muscle, nerve, or vessel of any importance in the one which is not answered to by the other. Hence there are hundreds of thousands of instances of the most detailed correspondence, without there being any instances to the contrary, if ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... with your nerve-system, is there?" inquired Average Jones with mock anxiety. "Now that I'm here, where is L. Livius. And ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... I, "I do. Such opposition would nerve me up to a battle royal. I wouldn't give it up until I'd returned from Barnegat, if I were you," I added, anxious to have him renew his efforts; for an idea had just flashed across my mind, which, although it involved a ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs
... tendency may be a universal nervous system, artists are inclined to ganglionate. The nerve-knots vary in size and importance, and one chief ganglion may serve as a feeding brain, but it cannot monopolize the activity. In America, particularly, these ganglia, or colonies, are an interesting and vital phase of our ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... and, nerve-shattered by her terrible experience with the snake, had made no fight for life when the unwanted boy was born. For the sake of a girl she would have striven to live—but a boy, a boy can fend for himself (and takes after ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... affair.—With it the helpless may expect no higher dignity than that of paupers. The individual must lay society under obligation to him, or society will honor him only as a stranger and sojourner. How shall this be done? In this manner; use every means, strain every nerve to master some important mechanical art. At present, the facilities for doing so are few—institutions of learning are more readily opened to you than the work-shop; but the Lord helps them who will help themselves, and we have no doubt that ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... a gently-written, fascinating tale. Make his acquaintance some dreary, rain-soaked evening and find the vagabond nerve-thrilling in ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... possession of her, while the pain in her injured foot throbbed madly, the cut in her head seemed to burn, and her temples beat with an agonizing headache that contracted the muscles of her eyes. Every nerve in her body, every thought of her brain was a separate torture, and at the same time she felt herself without a stay, without protection, and wholly abandoned to some cruel influence, which tossed and tore her soul as the storm tosses the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... before the hostile canoes could cut them off from it. If they headed them there they would be obliged to run down to the other end of the lake before effecting a landing, while he could not calculate on being able to beat all the canoes, most of which carried four paddlers, who would strain every nerve to retrieve their failure of ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... Her passions are the passions of a queen. When she to murder whets the timorous Thane,[66] I feel ambition rush through every vein; Persuasion hangs upon her daring tongue, My heart grows flint, and every nerve's new strung. In comedy—Nay, there, cries Critic, hold; Pritchard's for comedy too fat and old: 820 Who can, with patience, bear the gray coquette, Or force a laugh with over-grown Julett?[67] Her speech, look, action, humour, all are just, But then, her age and ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... thou too fastidious. It is weak To make thyself a shame of being injured; And is it injury indeed? Nay, is it Anything but a mere opinion hurt? Not thou, but customary thought is here Molested and annoyed; the only nerve Can carry anguish from this to thy soul, Is that credulity which ties the mind Firmly to notional creature as to real. Advise thee, then; dark in thyself keep hid This grief; and thou ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie
... was the secret pleasure in the thought that if they escaped unhurt from the trap in which they found themselves, it would be due to him. To herself she argued that if the chauffeur were driving, her feeling would be the same, that it was the nerve, the skill, and the coolness, not the man, that moved her admiration. But in her heart she knew it would not be ...
— The Scarlet Car • Richard Harding Davis
... contrivance, but very few miles had been covered before I discovered its unlimited powers of inflicting pain. For this machine does not glide like a well-behaved sleigh, but advances by leaps and bounds that strain every nerve and muscle in the body. In anything like deep, soft snow it generally comes to a standstill, and the combined efforts of men and horses are required to set it going again. However, for the first three or four days, good progress was made at the rate of about 200 versts[6] in the twenty-four ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... shall I say to him?" She did not know what she should say to him, nor why she had entered upon this singular adventure. But the consciousness of self, the fine, disturbing sense of being alive in every vein and nerve, was a rich reward for her audacity. She wished that that tense moment of expectation might endure ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... the edge of saying the same thing, now stood quite still. Every nerve was quivering to be off to the fire, which, from all appearances, must be a splendid one. The bells were clanging fast and furiously, hoarse cries were heard, as if raised from hundreds of throats, and now, to add to the general melee, an engine dashed around the corner. They could hear ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... Your very silence, my countrymen, may be construed a submission, and those who would perswade you to be quiet, intend to give it that turn. Will it be likely then that your enemies, who have exerted every nerve to establish a revenue, rais'd by virtue of a suppos'd inherent right in the British parliament without your consent, will recede from the favorite plan, when they imagine it to be compleated by your submission? ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... low moan, repeated at regular intervals. The doctor showed Arlie how to administer the anaesthetic after he had washed the wound. While he was searching for the bullet with his probe she flinched as if he had touched a bare nerve, but she stuck to her work regardless of her feelings, until the lead was found and extracted and ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... is a very difficult case. The emaciation, the weakness, the nerve depression—even if there were no organic disease—are alone enough to threaten life. The morphia is, of course, a contributing cause. The question before us is: Have we here a case of irreparable disease caused by the blow, ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... turns two cocks at the back of the alcove, and holding a basin alternately under the cold and hot streams, floods us at first with a fiery dash, that sends a delicious warm shiver through every nerve; then, with milder applications, lessening the temperature of the water by semi-tones, until, from the highest key of heat which we can bear, we glide rapturously down the gamut until we reach the lowest bass of coolness. The skin has by this time attained an exquisite sensibility, ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... executed, not for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith, to soothe men, demands nerve. You must not hurry, you must not look nervous, though you know that you are a mark for every rifle within extreme range, and above all if you are smitten you must make as little noise as possible and roll inwards through the files. It is at this hour, when the breeze ...
— This is "Part II" of Soldiers Three, we don't have "Part I" • Rudyard Kipling
... must have been at the hours when we were left discreetly to our own fortitude, through our aunt's availing herself of the relative proximity to go and shop at Stewart's and then come back for us; the ladies' great shop, vast, marmorean, plate-glassy and notoriously fatal to the female nerve (we ourselves had wearily trailed through it, hanging on the skirts, very literally, of indecision) which bravely waylaid custom on the Broadway corner of Chambers Street. Wasn't part of the charm of life—since I assume that there was such a charm—in its being then ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... production. When William Mason was in Leipsic in 1850 he sent home a score and parts to the orchestra in Boston. They held two rehearsals of this symphony and then laid it upon the shelf in the belief that the composer must have been crazy, and it was only five or six years later that they mustered up nerve to produce the work and were astonished to find that it pleased ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews
... the Grave." Reason herself grows pale and trembles, lest she lose her throne; for the thousands of obedient servants, which have never before disputed her authority, are all up in arms against her. Every nerve begins to quiver and vibrate; the whole body is in commotion; and no wonder the trembling Soul sits down amid the ruins of her former self and makes the whole place doleful ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson
... beating, and either remains absolutely quiet, or there is a fine quivering of some of its fibers, as seen on opening the chest in experiments upon animals. 3. A fatal issue may result from the passage of the current through the head, so affecting the nerve centers that govern ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various
... to frequent potations, were quickly maddened by the spirit, which mounted to their brains and rushed through their veins like wildfire, causing every nerve in their strong frames to tingle. Their characteristic gravity and decorum vanished. They laughed, they danced, they sang, they yelled like a troop of incarnate fiends! Then they rushed in a body towards their prisoners, and began a species of war-dance round them, flourishing ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... robes of penitence, telling his beads as he went, that the populace might be edified by his piety, and solemnly offering up prayers in the churches that the blessing of an heir might be vouchsafed to him,—Henry of Valois seemed straining every nerve in order to bring himself and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Prosecution fought such odds. Heney lost his temper frequently in court. He was on the verge of a nerve prostration. Anti-prosecution papers hinted that his faculties were failing. Langdon more or less withdrew from the fight. He was tired of it; had declined to be a candidate for the district attorneyship in the Fall. Heney was the Prosecution's only hope. He consented to run; which added to his ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... he should not be deceived; upon which we drank to his health and to the success of the Republic. He then presented me with a sword, and told me to wear that as my companion through the doubtful struggle in which the republic was engaged. I told him I never would disgrace it, so long as I had a nerve in my arm. I remained on board the ship in the capacity of 5th Lieutenant, for about four months, during which time we had a number of skirmishes with the enemy. Having succeeded in gaining the confidence of Admiral Brown, he put me in command of a privateer schooner, mounting two long 24 pounders ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... one, or, at the most, two legs at a time; they never left the ground, or in leaving, they wished to know the reason why. It was this paralysis'"—Mr. Stone did not pause, but, finding himself close beside his desk, took up his pen—"'it was this paralysis of the leaping nerve which undermined their progress. Instead of millions of leaping lambs, ignorant of why they leaped, they were a flock of sheep lifting up one leg and asking whether it was or was not worth their ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... substance; a human figure created by the hand of Omnipotence to imitate the faculties and actions of a man, and to impose a perpetual illusion on the senses of his friends and enemies. Articulate sounds vibrated on the ears of the disciples; but the image which was impressed on their optic nerve eluded the more stubborn evidence of the touch; and they enjoyed the spiritual, not the corporeal, presence of the Son of God. The rage of the Jews was idly wasted against an impassive phantom; and the mystic scenes of the passion and death, the resurrection ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... to see this? He testified no pleasure by the relaxation of a nerve; but outward tokens of any kind of feeling were unusual with him. If any sunbeam stole into the room to light the children at their play, it never reached his face. He looked on so fixedly and coldly, that the warm light vanished even from the laughing ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... spring of 1906 a large number of interscholastic competitions were held. These were found valuable, not only in broadening the boys' ideas in respect to shooting, but in helping their nerve in competitions. ...
— A report on the feasibility and advisability of some policy to inaugurate a system of rifle practice throughout the public schools of the country • George W. Wingate
... arm firmly, as if to instill into him some of his own hope and confidence, "Fernando, although you're only a boy, I've no fear of your courage; but this Lieutenant Matson is a famous duelist, and he will try to shake your nerve. Now remember that ye take everything that happens quite with an air of indifference; don't let him think he has iny advantage over ye, and you'll see how the tables will be turned in ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... could be ignored, oscillating, according to age, temperament or experience, between resignation and impotent fury, between old-fashioned trade-unionism and the latest fashion in extremism: France, emerging nerve-racked from a fifty years' obsession and a five years' nightmare, half-dead with sorrow and suspense, yet too proud in victory to own her weakness, looking round, half-defiant, half-wistful, among her allies for one who can understand her unspoken ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... public service, so that there may be unity of action. It would be well to have the whole programme laid down in writing. I have served with Admiral Porter, and know that you can rely on his judgment and his nerve to undertake what he proposes. I would, therefore, defer to him as much as is consistent with your own responsibilities. The first object to be attained is to get a firm position on the spit of land on which Fort Fisher ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... quite privately, while every possible exertion was made by Mr. Hobhouse and his friends, aided by the powerful influence, and still more powerful purse, of Sir Francis. The Westminster Committee now found it necessary to exert their utmost, and to strain every nerve. Canvassing committees were formed in every parish, and meetings were called, at which Mr. Hobhouse attended in person, to solicit the favour of the electors. The reports of these meetings I watched ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... mischief. Her least touch was enough to set every nerve in his body a-tingle. "Peggy!" he said hoarsely, as the keys jangled to the floor. Then Mr. Woods drew a little nearer to her and said "Peggy, Peggy!" in a voice that trembled curiously, and appeared to have no intention of ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... said Evelyn, with shining eyes, "to think that all the time we were worrying about you and feeling sure you were lost, you were having the time of your life! Oh, if I'd only had the nerve ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... children with Ellen, and as for taking them with him he did not know how to do it, nor what to do with them when he had got them to America. If he had not lost energy he would probably in the end have taken the children and gone off, but his nerve was shaken, so day after day went by ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... fault in a writer—fatal, indeed, to his permanence. He turns a book or a person inside out, dissects it in a deft and masterly way; but one feels at the end as one might feel about an anatomist who has dissected every fibre of an animal's body, classified every organ, traced every muscle and nerve, and bids you at the end take it on his authority that there is no such thing as the vital principle or the informing soul, because he has shown you everything that there is to see. Yet the finest essence of all, the living and breathing spirit, has ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... may not know, my specific assignment is to locate the nerve center of rebellious activity," said Maya. "It seems that the rebels have an intelligence network about as effective as the government's, and it was felt that a woman tourist from Earth might be successful where any unusual probing by local agents ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay
... the telephone receiver. "Miss Galt, please," he said. Then, aside, "Of course it's nerve to ask a girl who's earning three thousand a year to leave her desk and come up and pose for—Hello! ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... Statesman, gazed in dark reflection upon the prisoner, meditating her sentence; the prisoner, young enough to tremble in the suspense, old enough to enjoy the nerve-tension and the moment of drama, gazed back at him. Her hair lay in damp rings, and hung in rats'-tails about her forehead. Her small face, with the silver-clear skin, stippled here and there with tiny freckles, was faintly flushed, and moist ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... for the fallen house of Bourbon? There is no nerve in France that will respond to such an appeal. That house has no place in the affections of the people. It was forced upon them, at the point of the bayonet, in 1814. It has been tried a second time: found to be incurably despotic, and every indication attests that the ...
— Celebration in Baltimore of the Triumph of Liberty in France • William Wirt
... When all had been packed into the house who could possibly find a place for the sole of the foot, Mrs. Bloomer arose, amid cheers. We watched her closely, and saw that she was perfectly self-possessed—not a nerve seemed to be moved by excitement, and the voice did not tremble. She arose in the dignity of a true woman, as if the importance of her mission so absorbed her thoughts that timidity or bashfulness were too mean to entangle the mental powers. She delivered her lecture in a pleasing, able, and I may ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... time the afternoon was drawing to a close. Everybody realized that a monumental task had been performed. Sleepless nights and nerve-wracking days had been endured. Many pocketbooks were running low. Everybody felt it was time to ...
— The Story of The American Legion • George Seay Wheat
... all the household was panic-stricken and in hopeless disorder, the women-servants scattered and shuddering in far corners of the house; such men as could get out of the way having found work to do afield or in the kennels, for none had nerve to stay where they could hear ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... defended himself later and more effectually by saying that it was not of Nick's having got elected he complained: it was of his visible hesitancy to throw up his seat. Nick begged that he wouldn't mention this, and his gallantry failed to render him incapable of saying: "The fact is I haven't the nerve for it." They talked then for a while of what he could do, not of what he couldn't; of the mysteries and miracles of reproduction and representation; of the strong, sane joys of the artistic life. Nick made afresh, with ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... for another campaign. They could yet regain all that they had lost. There was some truth in Girty's words. Blue Lick and St. Clair's terrible defeat were yet to come, but Clark's blow had destroyed the very nerve-center of the Indian confederacy. The Kentuckians had shown that not only could they fight successfully on the defensive, but they could also cross the Ohio and shatter the Indian power on its own chosen ground. Neither the valor of the warriors, nor the great aid that they ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... will is like ordering your grave clothes. Takes nerve. Mrs. Mosely didn't have any. She was merely a little old gray barnacle sticking to her husband's ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... the room once more in his stealthy fashion, and took from the mantelpiece a small bottle of nerve-tabloids which he had forgotten, and slipped them into his pocket, and then went out into the dark again. Once he paused at the entrance of the corridor and listened attentively, and then crept down the garden path and found the horses tethered to ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... across Blackadon Down at this hour of night! My word, sirs, and saving your reverence, but you had a nerve, if ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... mortal—out in the city—is that if you don't do exactly as everyone else does there's something the matter with you, morally or mentally. In the Village they leave you in peace, and take it for granted that you're decent until you've blatantly proven yourself the opposite. I'd have lost my nerve or my wits or my balance or something if I hadn't had the Village to come ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... Numa by a shrill scream of warning from the Ape. Turning his eyes quickly in the direction of his companion, the boy saw that, standing in the path directly before him, which sent tremors of excitement racing along every nerve of his body. With body half-merging from a clump of bushes in which she must have lain hidden stood a sleek and beautiful lioness. Her yellow-green eyes were round and staring, boring straight into the eyes of the boy. Not ten paces separated ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the dreadful exclamation "La-bas!" the planton almost fell down. The sight which greeted his eyes caused him to excrete a single mouthful of vivid profanity, made him grip his gun like a hero, set every nerve in his noble and faithful body tingling. Apparently however he had forgotten completely his gun, which lay faithfully and expectingly in his ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... cannot see more—the mist boils from the ruin of shattered waters and conceals the bottom of the fall. The roar vibrates like thunder in the rocky mountain, and forces the grandeur of the scene through every nerve. ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... see an energetic heroic age, in the hardy North which steels every nerve. The precise duration of the action cannot be ascertained,—years perhaps, according to the story; but we know that to the imagination the most crowded time appears always the shortest. Here we can hardly conceive ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... obliged to hurry off, but at Garden Green, Burton was compelled to run the gauntlet of their cheers and mockery as he passed down the platform. Good sports and excellent fellows he had thought them yesterday. To-day he had no words for them. He simply knew that they grated upon every nerve in his body and that he loathed them. For the first time he began to be frightened. What was this thing that had happened to him? How was it possible for him to ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... in twenty places, That by a tissue* hung his back behind; *riband His shield to-dashed was with swords and maces, In which men might many an arrow find, That thirled* had both horn, and nerve, and rind; *pierced And ay the people cried, "Here comes our joy, And, next his brother, ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... utmost of his power, and, it will be seen, was as good as his word. For some time I had no opportunity of accosting M. d'Orleans, and was obliged to keep my project in abeyance, but I did not lose sight of it; and when I saw my way clear, I took the matter in hand, determined to strain every nerve in order ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... appearances, and still more irritated by the wine he had drank. A vague feeling of horror moreover began to steal over him. He looked out upon the moonlight and drew his head in with a shudder, for he fancied—it was but fancy, that he saw a body lying upon the ground. He tried to nerve himself to the task of destroying the documents, but could not bring himself to touch the casket. At length he opened the casket; a deep groan seemed to issue from it. The long low musical laugh he had heard before ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite
... forgiven. The longest, most divisive war in our history was winding toward an unhappy conclusion. Many feared that the end of that foreign war of men and machines meant the beginning of a domestic war of recrimination and reprisal. Friends and adversaries abroad were asking whether America had lost its nerve. Finally, our economy was ravaged by inflation—inflation that was plunging us into the worst recession in four decades. At the same time, Americans became increasingly alienated from big institutions. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... had only been climbing among the rocks a very few moments when every nerve was thrilling with warmth and all the arteries of the body were filled with a rushing tide of jubilant life. "This is noble!" I said to myself, as if I had never had a thought of retreat. A glow of heat came through my woollen gloves from the black ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... strike the head for cerebrations), rockers, rackers, shakers, biters, etc. Movements often pass to fixed attitudes and postures of limbs or body, disturbing the normal balance between flexors and extensors, the significance of which as nerve signs or exponents of habitual brain states and tensions Warner ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... Nathan felt there was to be no more trifling, and as I tore his side with my heel he broke at last into his great, fearful stride, and before we reached the lane Harry Dunn's black mare was straining every nerve lengths and lengths behind, and in three minutes more I stood humbly by Lillie's side, winner of the Earl's race. I scarcely heard the shouts of the crowd, or even the questions addressed to myself. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... if Thou disallow, No second fountain can I find but Thee; No second hope or help is left to me, No second anything, but only Thou. O Love accept, according my request; O Love exhaust, fulfilling my desire: Uphold me with the strength that cannot tire, Nerve me to labor till Thou bid me rest, Kindle my fire from Thine unkindled fire, And charm the willing heart from ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... One lad, his nerve gone, pushed his way frantically down the trench. He had "funked it." He was hysterical with fright and crying ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall
... without good blood to draw upon, and good material to make bone and nerve of, so we'll begin to stoke up, gradually, and meanwhile, I'll camp right here and see what's doing. And if you can bring yourself to sort of—well, sing at your work, you know, it's going to make the job ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed |
