"Relaxing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... totally distinct line. To pronounce upon Professor STANFORD'S music when "the play's the thing" is impossible. The entr'actes deserve such special attention as they are not likely to command when the audience is relaxing and refreshing itself. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, February 18, 1893 • Various
... the man paused, gazing straight out before him. She felt his hand relax in hers, and she pressed it sympathetically, encouragingly. But she felt the rigidity going out of his tensed body, and she knew that spirit and flesh were relaxing together. His resolution was ebbing. He would not speak—she knew it; and she knew, likewise, with the sureness of faith, that it was because ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... end of my third day, I begin to feel decidedly at home. The fact is, I am remarkably comfortable. The house is pervaded by an indefinable, irresistible love of luxury and privacy. Mr. Frederick Sloane is a horribly corrupt old mortal. Already in his relaxing presence I have become heartily reconciled to doing nothing. But with Theodore on one side—standing there like a tall interrogation-point—I honestly believe I can defy Mr. Sloane on the other. The former asked me this morning, with visible ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... should be given to produce relaxation of the bronchial tubes. Dose.—For adults should be from fifteen to sixty drops according to the strength of the patient. This will cause a little sickness of the stomach and vomiting, thus relaxing the muscles ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... wind? You're effeminate; you're a boulevardier. It would do you good to be pitched in a gale about the coast of Skye. A fellow of your temperament has no business in these relaxing latitudes. You want tonics." ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... thumbs down—signifying that the incurable ward was no more, as far as the future of Saint Margaret's was concerned. The trustees stirred in their chairs with a comfortable relaxing of joint and muscle, as if to say, "There, that is a piece of business well despatched; nothing like methods of conservation and efficiency, you know." Only the little gray wisp of a woman by the door sat rigid, her hands still ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... dry bed, and on throwing open the corral gates, it was often necessary to enter and arouse the herd. Thereafter, under normal conditions, it was a matter of pointing, keeping up the drag cattle, allowing the herd to spread and graze, and contracting and relaxing as occasion required. In handling, it was a decided advantage that the little nucleus had known herd restraint, in trailing overland from Texas, and were obedient, at a distance of fifty yards, to the slightest whistle ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... don't believe I would," answered the old woman, her voice relaxing under this acquiescence. "They'd only make a fuss. They've both got good homes and good men, and they're married to them right and lawful, and there's nothing to worry about. Besides, I'd just get interested in the children, and that'd make ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... differed from the ordinary restaurant crowd in that there was something a little out of the common in the faces of nearly every one of them. The loiterers through life seemed absent. These people were relaxing freely enough,—laughing, talking, and making love,—but behind it all there seemed a note of seriousness, an intentness in their faces which seemed to speak of a career, of things to be done in the future, or something accomplished in the past. The woman who sat at the opposite table to me—tall, ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... hand, he read, scarce moving except to snuff the wick or to lay on a fresh fagot. At the end of this time other laws than those which the writer was tracing began to assert their supremacy over David—the laws of strength and health, warmth and weariness. Sleep was descending on him, relaxing his limbs, spreading a quiet mist through his brain, caressing his eyelids. He closed the pages and turned to his dying fire. The book caused him to wrestle; ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... misty, relaxing evening, one of those enjoyable evenings which impart happiness to mind and body alike. All is joy, all is charm. The luscious and balmy air, loaded with the perfumes of herbs, with the perfumes of grass-wrack, with the odor of the wild ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... clung with the greater desperation to the hope offered by poetry. By the way of intuition poets promise to carry us beyond the boundary of the vicious circle. When the ceaseless round of the real world has come to nauseate us, they assure us that by simply relaxing our hold upon actuality we may escape from the squirrel-cage. By consenting to the prohibition, "Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss!" we may enter the realm of ideality, where our dizzy brains grow steady, and our pulses are calmed, as we gaze upon the quietude ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... great care, and the infant is spared all pain in cutting them. When the teething-time is near, and before the pains attending it have even commenced, the child's gums are rubbed night and morning with a bulb or root so softening and relaxing in its effects, that after a short time the teeth make their way through the gums with perfect ease. When the teeth are too numerous the redundant ones are extracted, without causing the patient the slightest pain. A hot solution of the same bulb is applied to the portion of the gum which encloses ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... and Carroll, watching his friend's efforts with appreciation, told his story in broken sentences. Afterward, they lighted their pipes, but by and by Carroll's fell from his relaxing grasp. ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... death yawns not for the Wehr-Wolf! Scarcely have its feet touched the verge of the water, when the monster wheels round and continues its whirlwind way without for an instant relaxing one tittle of its speed. Away—away, through the fruit-bearing groves, clearing for itself a path of ruin and havoc,—scattering the gems of the trees, and breaking down the richly-laden vines; away—away flies the monster, hideous howls bursting from its foaming ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... theory can present to its friends as well as to its enemies? In spite of the admirable simplicity and dignity in the achievement of such unique productions, we should like, nevertheless, in the interests of art, to expand that theory a little, and to show that it is possible to enlarge it without relaxing the tension. Goethe, whom I like to quote on such a ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... the room for a few moments, wringing his hands and alternately hardening and relaxing the muscles of his arms as if engaged in some physical culture exercise, but saying never a word. This blank Cimmeria of his past, into which he had stared vainly for five years, seemed about to deliver up its secret, or a part of it. Already, it was clear, ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... Miracle in his behalf. He pour'd the Wine of Wisdom in his Cup, He laid the Dew of Peace upon his lips; And when Old Love return'd to Memory, And broke in Passion from his Lips, The Sage Under whose waxing Will Existence rose Responsive, and, relaxing, waned again, Raising a Fantom Image of Absal Set it awhile before Salaman's Eyes, Till, having sow'd the Seed of Quiet there, It went again down to Annihilation. But ever, for the Sum of his Discourse, The Sage would tell of a Celestial Love; "Zuhrah," he said, ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... no doubt of the fact; for besides the relief experienced by the boy, from the relaxing of her grip on his waistband, the moment the wail was heard, the sound of the girl's footsteps, as she flew back to the entrance of the cave was ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... hesitates, his fingers alternately tightening on his gun, and then relaxing. His thoughts are flowing in a quick current— too quick for cool deliberation. He knows he can trust his own aim, as well as that of his comrade. But the distance is doubtful, and the shots might fall short. Then it would be certain death to them; for the ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... and that there was nothing more to be seen in the place, we avoided the bazaar, and went round by a side street, paid our khan bill,[14] and, mounting our horses, trotted rapidly out of the town, for fear of a stray shot; but the over-rider on getting clear of the suburbs instead of relaxing ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... efforts to accomplish this were continued for some time with alternate success;—first one and then the other, being under water. At length, catching hold of the long tuft of hair which had been suffered to grow on the head of the chief, Poe held him under water, until he supposed him dead; but relaxing his hold too soon, the gigantic savage was again on his feet and ready for another grapple. In this both were carried beyond their depth, and had to swim for safety. Both sought the shore, and each, with all his might, ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... malicious face on her that instinctively she moved back. For a moment he was silent, his meager leaden lips drawn tight over dark teeth in a dry grin, his fingers like curved wires; then, relaxing, he cursed the entire house of Ammidon. "The truth is," he ended, "that you were a little fool; you had everything, everything, in your hand and threw it away." His gaze strayed from her to the surface of the water, a short distance from the land. "Threw ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... themselves. While sleep has been considered by the best authorities, as predisposing the human frame to infection, by opening the pores, relaxing the integuments, and retarding the circulation of the blood; I cannot overlook the virtues of tobacco, narcotic—aromatic—disinfecting—as we must ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... resisting the woman's efforts and bending over the girl. "See, her hands are relaxing and her eyes opening—Mariette! it is I, Louis! do ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... continued Doctor Grim, not a whit relaxing the repulsiveness of his manner, and scowling askance at the stranger,— "what may have drawn on me the good fortune of being compelled to make my time idle, because yours ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... everywhere happens on a less glaring scale. Even the habit of excessive indulgence in music, for those who are neither performers themselves nor musically gifted enough to take it in a purely intellectual way, has probably a relaxing effect upon the character. One becomes filled with emotions which habitually pass without prompting to any deed, and so the inertly sentimental condition is kept up. The remedy would be, never to ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... understanding is unable to fathom. We have examples of men, whose strength of mind and body were well known, feeling faint at the scent of a rose; others have been thrown into a convulsive state by touching gray paper. This cannot be explained; it is one of the riddles of Nature. A similar relaxing sensation Otto experienced when he, for the first time, heard himself addressed as "thou" by Wilhelm. It seemed to him as though the spiritual band which encircled them loosened itself, and Wilhelm became a stranger. It was impossible for Otto to ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... have dropped the muzzle of the revolver at that, but he still kept it in a line with my nose and made no sign of relaxing his vigilance. But, as he was silent for the moment, I let out a ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... first (but without taking his cigar from his mouth) again and again, until the solid lump was a great glistening globe. The artist—for if ever there was an artist it is he—carried on this exhausting task with perfect nonchalance, talking and joking with the others the while, but never relaxing the concentration of his hands, until there came a moment when the globe was broken from the original rod and fixed in some magical way to another. Again it went into the furnace, now merely for heat and not for any accretion ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... place could have been chosen, so far as Andy was concerned. It was surrounded by shrubbery through which he could creep right up to the building, providing, of course, that the sentinels did not see him. But the sentinels were relaxing their watch. The hours of the troublesome spy were nearly ended, and there could be little danger of any ...
— Then Marched the Brave • Harriet T. Comstock
... Columbus, to take the government from his hands. This first tyrant of the Spanish nation in America began his administration by ordering Columbus to be put in chains on board of a ship, and sending him prisoner to Spain. By relaxing all discipline he introduced disorder and licentiousness thro the colony. He subjected the unhappy natives to a most miserable servitude, and apportioned them out in large numbers among his adherents. Under this severe treatment ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... walked John before the door. The extreme sharpness of the air acted on his nerves like an astringent, and braced them swiftly. Presently, he not relaxing in his disordered walk, the images began to come clearer and stay longer in his fancy; and next the power of thought came back to him, and the horror and danger of his situation rooted him to ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... red, and rose to his knees to clasp her about the waist. She felt like relaxing back against his blondness and feeling her fingers plow through the great double wave of his hair. ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... morning of the fifth day Billy struck the Gray Beaver, and little Isobel grew serious at the change in him. He no longer amused her, but urged the dogs along, never for an instant relaxing his vigilant quest for a sign of smoke, a trail, a blazed tree. At his heart there began to burn a suspense that was almost suffocating. In these last hours before he was to see Isobel there came the inevitable reaction ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... day's march of about six hours; being in a hilly or rather mountainous region, they flow rapidly and have plenty of water-power. In July any mere torrent ceases to flow, but these were brawling burns with water too cold (61 deg.) for us to bathe in whose pores were all open by the relaxing regions nearer the coast. The sound, so un-African, of gushing water dashing over rocks was quite familiar to ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... been holding the lamp for him, and when the doctor passed his hand over Hugo's forehead the eyes opened and the man blinked. Also there seemed to be a relaxing ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... smoke with the comfortable tolerance of the man to whom no inconsistencies need be explained. Connivance was implicit in the air. It was the kind of atmosphere in which the outrageous loses its edge. Glennard felt a gradual relaxing ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... the season of making sugar from the rock maple by the Indians and Canadians in this quarter. And it seems to be a business in which almost every one is more or less interested. Winter has shown some signs of relaxing its iron grasp, although the quantity of snow upon the ground is still very great, and the streams appear to be as fast locked in the embraces of frost as if it were the slumber of ages. Sleighs ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... not recognize me," said Barbesieur, relaxing his hold; while Strozzi, unmindful of his presence, caressed his flowers, ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... pushed towards her one of the welcoming great easy-chairs that stood holding out cool arms and a lap of roses. The tired visitor, with her dusty clothes and brusque manner, sat down without relaxing to the luxurious invitation. Her stiffly maintained attitude and direct look said as plain as print, Now what excuse have you to offer for asking me to come here? It may have been recollection of Mrs. Fox-Moore's ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... her former one. When her praise was anxiously sought, she observed that it was undesirable to be careless in one's housekeeping, but less disagreeable than to be fussy and house-proud. She added that Milly—whom she called Mildred—must be on her guard against relaxing into domestic dulness, when she could be so extremely clever and charming if she liked. Milly was bewildered and distressed. She felt sure that she had passed through a phase of which Aunt Beatrice ought to have disapproved. She had evidently been frivolous and neglectful of her ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... and acute portraits drawn from English country life give its abiding value to George Eliot's work. Take the character of Mr. Pilgrim the doctor who 'is never so comfortable as when relaxing his professional legs in one of those excellent farmhouses where the mice are sleek and the mistress sickly;' or of Mrs. Hackit, 'a thin woman with a chronic liver complaint which would have secured her Mr. Pilgrim's entire regard and unreserved good word, even if he had ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... the eau-de-Cologne," and, putting it to his nose, he moved his forehead in the direction of his son. Soames bent over and kissed that brow just where the hair began. A relaxing quiver passed over James' face, as though the wheels of anxiety within were ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... his whole tired body relaxing in this new restfulness, he opened his eyes and looked off to the south, idly scanning the horizon, his eyes level with the sandy plain. Then something made him sit quickly up and stare intently, his bared head craning forward. To the south, lying low, was a mass ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... his father. The veteran returned Mr. Manly's salute with rigid military courtesy, without relaxing a muscle ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... relaxing somewhat. "Certainly my nephew is making no secret of the fact that he went to the theater last night. If you'll ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... been intense. Now, with the relaxing of it, its memory vanished, and the halt swiftly took upon itself the appearance of a school holiday. Laughing and chaffing each other, groups of men loitered here and lounged there, smoking, writing letters, and taking stout, unlovely stitches in their time-worn khaki clothing. ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... back,—was lowering toward the horizon. The thermometer had risen since sunset, as it often does in March. There was a suggestion of spring in the air. It seemed that at last the long winter was drawing to a close; that the iron grip of frost was relaxing. ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... broad, still he met with no contradiction at first, on the contrary he was lauded, which moved him to establish a large trade and put out that of the company, which through bad success in its affairs at the Isles, was relaxing enough of itself in ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... a strange calm. The relaxing of sinews, the droop of limbs and features, the absolute absence of motion, of breathing, work up ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... controlled by the machine. The first, that of adult men, frees itself the most and the soonest: during the following half century, we see the preventive or repressive censorship of books, journals and theatres, every special instrument that gags free speech, relaxing its hold, breaking down bit by bit and at last tumbling to the ground. Even when again set up and persistently and brutally applied, old legal muzzles are never to become as serviceable as before. No government will undertake, like that of Napoleon, to stop at ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... nutrition, feed well the tired and exhausted organism, and, above all, provide some sort of rest and distraction for the mind. The mind needs feeding as well as the body. The rest cure is a kind of passive, relaxing, sedative treatment. The field is allowed to lie fallow, and often to grow up with weeds, trusting to time to rest and enrich it. The 'exercise and occupation cure,' on the other hand, is an active, stimulating, and tonic prescription. ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... what a lawyer tells me I MAY do, but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I OUGHT to do. Is a politic act the worse for being a generous one? Is no concession proper but that which is made from your want of right to keep what you grant? Or does it lessen the grace or dignity of relaxing in the exercise of an odious claim because you have your evidence-room full of titles, and your magazines stuffed with arms to enforce them? What signify all those titles, and all those arms? Of what avail are they, when the reason of the thing tells me that the assertion of my title is the loss ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke
... with short, increasing steps when Deerfoot, never relaxing his grasp on the writhing wrists, thrust one heel behind his enemy, who tripped and went over. To insure due emphasis in the fall, Deerfoot made a leap as he was going and landed with both knees on the breast of the Blackfoot, who dropped with ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... extensive, but declining, government intervention. The government retains considerable influence over key segments of each sector, with majority ownership of railway, electricity, aircraft, and telecommunication firms. It has been gradually relaxing its control over these sectors since the early 1990s. The government is slowly selling off holdings in France Telecom, in Air France, and in the insurance, banking, and defense industries. Meanwhile, large tracts of fertile land, the application of ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... both in verse and prose, and (as Tully calls it) in consuetudine studiorum. Would to God our persons could but as well and as surely be inseparable! I find my other ties dropping from me; some worn off, some torn off, some relaxing daily: my greatest, both by duty, gratitude, and humanity, time is shaking every moment, and it now hangs but by a thread! I am many years the older for living so much with one so old; much the more helpless for having been so long helped ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... to Martha, relaxing her hands. "How can they be so wicked? But I am glad it is I who must take the brunt of it all. If they would treat me so, who am innocent, what would they do to my ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... are," the sergeant said, with his face relaxing into a smile. "To think of my being taken in, by two lads like you. Well, you did it well—monstrously well, I will say—for ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... children. But he loved these squarely built hymns, which seemed to wear out the whole class, while he himself could give them without relaxing a muscle. And when it went as it was doing to-day, he could quite forget that there were such things as children, and give himself up to this endless procession, in which column after column filed past him, in the foot-fall of the rhythm. It was not hymns, either; it was ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... of his age. He was also highly distinguished for political wisdom and sagacity, and for his great administrative talents. He was idolised by his troops, whose affections he knew how to win without relaxing their discipline or diminishing his own authority. Pre-eminently cool and circumspect in his plans, but swift and energetic when the moment arrived for striking a decisive blow, neglecting no risk that caution could provide against, conciliating even the populations ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... Nan clasps a wooden pillar in her gray-gloved hands, and tilts excitedly on the toes of her tiny boots, never once relaxing her gaze on the dock a mile or ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... the work was behind, and he knew the reason. For some time the men had been relaxing their efforts. They had worked honestly enough, but a certain snap and vim had lacked. This was because Radway had been too easy ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... will. It's just the reaction. It's all over. You're relaxing. That's all, dear. You're safe. ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... watch, never relaxing his vigilance for a single second, for Andy knew that while one might be on guard for fifty-nine minutes, if he relaxed just for a breath, that was almost sure to be the time when something would happen. How often he had proved that when fishing, and taking his eye from his float just ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... atmosphere which makes the most industrious man contentedly idle. Here the nervous, irritable, fussy individual, who for years has never known what rest meant, and who has fidgeted when he could not work, finds himself relaxing, against his will, into a condition of what a celebrated statesman described as "innocuous desuetude." The balminess of the air, which is at once warm and invigorating and bracing, without being severe, brings about a natural feeling of rest. ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... continued Blanche, not relaxing a muscle, and without the least bit of a blush—"I've been thinking that I'll be your little wife; and then, of course, we ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... his past life, his home, his associates, even his thoughts. And often it as naturally happened that, while he spoke, the music of his voice lulled her into forgetfulness of all but the past, and she would find herself unconsciously relaxing from the somewhat frigid dignity which she felt called upon to assume, until her features must have glowed with some expression of her former familiar kindness. For she would be suddenly startled back into her forced propriety by a strange and troubled look of puzzled thought flitting ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... did mechanically as he was ordered, his hand never relaxing its grasp of the rein. Then a gleam of reawakened intelligence appeared in his eyes; he glanced up into the leering countenance of Murphy, and then back at those others. "Give me ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... but observe that our pace was progressively relaxing; and indeed I have often wondered since whether the hurry of the start were not intended for the gallery alone. Certain it is at least, that when we had reached the police office, and the mates had made their deposition, ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... potato contrived to suggest that he would have left it outside if he could—so benevolently, so appreciatively he made it twinkle as he gave evidence. Jimmy tried to take the blame; but the Magistrate, without relaxing his face, fined him two pounds and mulcted Farrell in five. He added some scathing remarks upon old men who led their juniors astray and called themselves Martin Luther when they were nothing of the sort. I wondered if he knew that he was admonishing a candidate ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... provisions. When he was apprized of the proceedings in Parliament in favor of peace, he proposed to General Greene a cessation of hostilities. Like a true soldier, Greene took no such responsibility, but referred the whole matter to Congress, while relaxing not one whit of his vigilance. Leslie then asked permission to purchase supplies for his army, that he might evacuate Charleston. The wary Greene refused to allow it, for in so doing he might be nourishing a viper that ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... minute Pascal struggled in vain to recover his breath. Then, the viselike pressure on his chest relaxing slowly, he murmured ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... ancient than the Fall,—the Law of the Sabbath;—which in the sacred record is brought into such august prominence. And never do we ponder over that record, without apprehension at what may be the possible results of relaxing the stringency of enactments which would seem to be, to our nature, as the very twin pillars of the Temple,—its establishment ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... perfectly delightful days on the coast near Spezia? There, near the blue sea, where the large stone pines are greener and give more shade than the palms further south, where there is something crisp and refreshing in the air in spite of its mildness, where there is nothing relaxing in the climate but everything ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... East Side Jewish family just over from Russia. He believed, too, in "the strenuous life," in boxing and in prize fighting when it was clean. He could meet a subordinate as man to man on the basis of such a personal matter as their respective judgment of two prize fighters, without relaxing in the slightest degree their official relations. He was a man of realities, who knew how to preserve the real distinctions of life without insisting on ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... rose from the table, and the heads (without relaxing their upward vigilance) seemed to merge, and flow together, like an attentive flood, toward the upper end of the horse-shoe, where all the threads of Margaret Ransom's consciousness were suddenly drawn into what seemed a small speck, no more—a ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... worse, in a miserable condition of sickness and headache. Alas for these mortal Venices, so exquisite and so bilious. Therefore I am constrained away from my joys by sympathy, and am forced to be glad that we are going away on Friday. For myself, it did not affect me at all. Take the mild, soft, relaxing climate—even the scirocco does not touch me. And the baby grows gloriously fatter in spite of everything. . . . As for Venice, you can't get even a "Times", much less an "Athenaeum". We comfort ourselves by taking a box at the opera (a ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... air heavy and relaxing, and the still more penetrating odor of the orange blossoms sweetens the atmosphere till it might almost be called the ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... side. She took the soiled gun-barrels, from his relaxing grip, and began to unfasten the ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... they are at work day after day, never resting, never ceasing, never relaxing their hold, always compelling the people more and more within the circle of their influence; how they incline the hearts of the children to better things and show them how to win these better things—one wonders ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... members of the government, then coming to consult what course should be taken, were themselves again divided in opinion: some thought it most advisable to comply a little in favor of the poor, by relaxing their overstrained rights, and mitigating the extreme rigor of the law, while others withstood this proposal; Marcius in particular, with more vehemence than the rest, alleging that the business of money on either side was not the main thing in question, urged that this disorderly ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... was afraid; and, still holding her weapon, she made a rush for the door; but Hugo caught her skilfully by the wrists, disarmed her, and threw the knife to the other end of the room. Then he made her sit down in an arm-chair near the fire, and without relaxing his hold upon her arm, addressed her ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... Lechesneau nodded their assent, without, however, relaxing their determination to see to the bottom of ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... a trifle, and moistened his lips with brandy as he gave him the pen. It scratched for a moment or two, and then fell from his relaxing fingers, while the man who took the paper wrote across the foot of it, and then would have handed it to Colonel Barrington, but that Dane quietly laid his ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... person authorized to permit this operation: but though he was at our hotel, and we were personally intimate with him, he declined to favour us with the permission, it being explained that the too-frequent dosing of the geyser had seemed to have a relaxing effect on ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... Jason's face above the surface while he swam. A receding blackness in the water could only have been the ship, giving off bubbles and groans as it died. The cold water didn't hurt now and Jason was just relaxing when he felt something ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... and imposing religion, for such it is, I must confess—an error into which it was natural that they should fall. What motives could a Protestant have for intruding upon their privacy? What interest could he take in inspecting the economy of their establishment? So far, however, from relaxing in their attention after this discovery, their politeness visibly increased, though, perhaps, a scrutinizing observer might have detected a shade of less ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... place, every hour making the operation more difficult. When the patient is very strong, he may be put into a warm bath until he feels faint, or have sixty drops of antimonial wine given him every ten minutes until he feels sickish. These two means are of great use in relaxing the muscles. If the bone has been brought back again to its proper place, keep it there by means of bandages; and if there is much pain about the joint, apply a cold lotion to it, and keep it perfectly at rest. The lotion should be, ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... not so hard, indeed, to bend them into a kind of compromise. The weakening, relaxing effects of so long a battle allow of their mingling in a certain way. In the last chapter we saw two shadows agreeing to form an alliance in deceit; the Devil appearing as the friend of Loyola, devotees and demoniacs marching ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... throats. With the other hand, he punched a button on the robot's keyboard and received a lighted cigarette; turning, he placed the cup on the command-desk in front of him and looked about. The tension was relaxing in Battle-Control, the purposeful pandemonium of the last three hours dying rapidly. Officers of both sexes, in red and blue and yellow and green coveralls, were rising from seats, leaving their stations, gathering ...
— A Slave is a Slave • Henry Beam Piper
... he was quiet the legserpent began to untwist and retwist, to uncoil and recoil himself, swinging and swaying, knotting and relaxing himself with strangest curves and convolutions, always, however, leaving at least one coil around his victim. At last he undid himself entirely, and crept from the bed. Then first the lord chamberlain discovered that his tormentor ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald
... she muttered a few disconnected words, and her eyes closed; Corentin felt the relaxing of all the muscles by which she had held him as in a vice the moment before, and he took her in his arms and laid her ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... is an art requiring not only strength but skill as well, and not only strength and skill but something else most difficult to secure. With the strength and the skill there must go a rhythmic and perfect coordination of all the muscles in the body, with exactly the proper contracting and relaxing of each at exactly the proper moment of time, and this perfect coordination is a result rarely achieved even by the greatest throwers, but when achieved, and with the man's full strength behind it, his ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... himself to advance a step, to move to right and to left, that he might learn something of that person who sat there in mysterious silence. And suddenly he found himself smiling and relaxing. ...
— Everychild - A Story Which The Old May Interpret to the Young and Which the Young May Interpret to the Old • Louis Dodge
... was the point on which Miss Brooke would be found wanting, notwithstanding her undeniable beauty. She did not look at things from the proper feminine angle. The society of such women was about as relaxing as going from your work to teach the second form, instead of reclining in a paradise with sweet laughs for bird-notes, and blue eyes ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... the head and the shoulder, slicing into the flesh as a knife slices into an apple. It was a well-nigh headless trunk that rolled from the saddle fountaining its blood. As the dead giant fell, Griffo let his sword drop clanging on the stones and caught hold of Vittoria, and, wrenching her from the relaxing fingers, clasped her senseless ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... slackening their efforts, and that some, deserted by those in the rear, were retiring from the battle and avoiding the weapons; that the enemy [on the other hand], though advancing from the lower ground, were not relaxing in front, and were [at the same time] pressing hard on both flanks; he also perceived that the affair was at a crisis, and that there was not any reserve which could be brought up; having therefore snatched ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... almost to the top, then seemed submerged beneath a wave of fears—mine and those of the girls—and fell! As I went, I curled like a squirrel around Julie, and when I struck, she was still in my grasp and on top of me. But she rolled out of my relaxing clutch after that, and when father and mother came running, she was lying on the stones. They thought she had fallen that way, and as the breath had been fairly knocked out of her little body, so that she was not crying, they were more frightened than ever, and ran with ...
— Painted Windows • Elia W. Peattie
... which is sometimes granted to those whose thoughts have always been unselfish, kindly, and generous. Delia played on, halting a little over difficult passages, and as she played, the Professor's face changed with the music, showing sometimes an agony of anxiety during an intricate bit, and relaxing into a calm smile when she ...
— Thistle and Rose - A Story for Girls • Amy Walton
... differences between Russia and England respecting Malta and our maritime code. The Czar insisted on our relinquishing Malta and relaxing the rigours of the right of search for deserters from our navy. To this the Pitt Ministry demurred, seeing that Malta was our only means of protecting the Mediterranean States, and our only security against French aggressions in the ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... a man can't do as he likes with his own hat," said the professor, with his face relaxing, as he crossed to one of the easy chairs, wheeled it forward, sat down, and then slipped off his hat, thrust his hand inside, whisked something out, and placed hat and stick under the table, before, with a good deal of flourish, he drew a very ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... Beyond them lay Death Valley, a dread waste where the dead silence is broken only by the wailing and shrieking of the wind as it sweeps down in sudden fury from the sentinel peaks that guard it. Across this Baldy led unswervingly, never hesitating, and hardly relaxing his steady pace, though the sudden gusts from the mountainside often curved the team into a half circle; and he was forced to keep his nose well into the air and brace himself firmly to keep from ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... seen a more harmonious family, nor a menage of nicer adjustment. Mrs. Oo-vai-oo-ak the Elder, full of the mellow juice of life, waggish and keen, "quick at the uptak'," as the Scotch say, presides over her household with dignity, never for a moment relaxing her hold on the situation. Chief Oo-vai-oo-ak wisely leaves the interior economy of the household in the hands of the women. He is the quiet, dignified gentleman with an easy manner that courtiers and plenipotentiaries extraordinary might envy. His six feet two inches of height, magnificent ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... the step was in the room, coming cautiously toward him. He kept his eyes shut, relaxing his body to feign sleep. There was another pause, then a wavering soft advance, the rustle of a dress behind his chair, the warmth of two hands pressed for a moment on his lids. The palms of the hands had the lingering scent of some stuff that he had bought on ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... the quaintly wrought mirror, fussing with studs and buttons, he thought with a shudder of the scene of the night before, the marquis and his murderous frenzy, the impassive Emperor, the frantic man hurled to the polished floor, stunned, white-cheeked, with hands slowly relaxing and fingers uncurling from ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... Twickenham asked, on the evident upward mounting of a sum in his brain. And then, with a relaxing look upon Cornelia: "Perhaps you might have fifteen, sixteen, perhaps for the first year; or, say—you see, the exact acreage is unknown to me. Say roughly, ten ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... glad to see me, I think," he said, holding out his hand, but with no relaxing of ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... darker in color than the others, slightly stumble; then the rider turned his head and said something to the warrior on his left, who made answer without taking his eyes from Fred; then the one on the right said something, his painted features relaxing into a frightful grin, the guttural words being plainly audible: all these points being noticed, as I have said, by the young hunter who had so much more important matters to ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... now for very certain that, however much she might in the future pretend to forget Harry Feversham, it would never be more than a pretence. The vision of the lighted cafe in the desert town would never be very far from her thoughts, but she had no intention of relaxing on that account from her determination to pretend to forget. The mere knowledge that she had at one time been unjustly harsh to Harry, made her yet more resolved that Durrance should not suffer for any fault ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... the third and fourth fingers of his left hand, closing them around it tightly, and as he does so, asking the owner of the arm to note that this is his left hand, then let the experimenter, without relaxing this hold, stretch the remaining fingers and thumb up the arm as far as he can, and while clasping it with his thumb and forefinger, remark that this second pressure comes from his other hand. The conviction is complete in the mind of the blindfolded friend that he feels the grasp ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... effortless that his performances are a delight to every lover of the art of song, his voice flowing out in a broad, smooth stream of music. Physically, the reason why an expanded chest retards the emptying of the lungs is apparent. The pressure of a relaxing chest would accelerate their return to a condition of repose and the breath would be expended too soon, with the result that some or much of it would be wasted. Moreover, an expanded chest is a splendid ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... the prone figure and lets his hands fall into the spaces between the short ribs. By letting the weight of the upper body fall upon his hands resting on the prone man, the air is forced out of the lungs; by relaxing the pressure, the chest cavity enlarges and air is drawn in to take the place of that forced out. By effecting this change of air—pressing and relaxing, twelve to fifteen times a minute (time it by watch at first, and then count) artificial breathing is performed. Sometimes it is necessary ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... slowly relaxing from intense nerve strain, she was holding herself in check about the children. She took a tighter grip, and vowed she would not give Mrs. Holt the satisfaction of seeing her disturbed and provoked, if she killed herself ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... heard a general shout, with frequent repetition 30 of the words "Peplom selan," and I felt great numbers of the people on my left side relaxing the cords to such a degree that I was able to turn upon my right. But before this they had daubed my face and both my hands with a sort of ointment very pleasant to the smell, which in a few minutes removed all the smart ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... decisions the common people never dream of anticipating or questioning. It is also a convivial center, a sort of clubroom. There, of an afternoon, may generally be seen Squires Woodbridge, Williams, Elisha Brown, Deacon Nash, Squire Edwards, and perhaps a few others, relaxing their gravity over generous bumpers of some choice old Jamaica, which Edwards had luckily laid in, just before the war ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... in the narrow ground floor passage—the mother arrived, bringing with her an unmistakable whiff of a public-house bar. This stiffened my relaxing prudence considerably. I had no kindly feeling left for taverns, especially where women were concerned. But, by an odd chance, it happened that Mrs. Pelly was not only in a talkative mood, but also in higher spirits than I ever saw her afterwards. ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... conducive to religious instruction, or improvement. Their families meanwhile are neglected, their servants robbed of Christian privileges, and their example quoted by others, who cannot see that they are themselves less religiously employed, while playing an innocent game at cards, or relaxing ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce |
