"Tension" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The memories of almost half a century encircle me as a rainbow. I can feed upon them through the remainder of a short, sad life, and after that can carry them up to Heaven with me and pour them into song forever. If the strings of the harp are being stretched to a greater tension, it is that the praise may hereafter rise to higher and sweeter notes before His throne—as ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... place, he said frankly, "to get away." Our relations with the Porte held out a prospect of hard work, and that, he explained, was what he needed. He could never be satisfied to sit down among the ruins. I saw that, like most of us in moments of extreme moral tension, he was playing a part, behaving as he thought it became a man to behave in the eye of disaster. The instinctive posture of grief is a shuffling compromise between defiance and prostration; and pride feels ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... there was no clearing. Several times a crash of underbrush either ahead or to one side brought us to anxious attention with fingers at the trigger guards. At last, after what seemed to be hours of nervous tension, we came to a crossing of trails, down which we could see in four directions thirty or forty feet. A large tree grew near the intersection of the trails, and here we waited within reach of its friendly protection. It was much more reassuring than to ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... The tension demanded relief. Aunt M'randa turned on Tom. "I lay I bus' yo' haid open ef yer don't quit yo' stan'in' wi' yer mouf gapin' at the ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin
... that they could engage in so terrific a fight upon the ice-coated ledge and hold their balance there. But I saw that they were in equipoise, for they were bending all the tension of each muscle to the fight, so that they remained almost motionless, and, thigh to thigh, arm to arm, breast to breast, each sought to break the other's strength. And I saw that, when one was broken, he would not yield slowly, ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... weights acting through the knife-edge suspension tend to pull down the lever against the resistance of the heavy helical spring. The governor is provided with an auxiliary spring on the outside of the governor dome for varying the speed while synchronizing. The tension of the auxiliary spring is regulated by a small motor wired to the switchboard. This spring should be used only to correct slight changes in speed. Any marked change should be corrected by the use of the large hexagonal nut in the upper plate of the governor frame. ...
— Steam Turbines - A Book of Instruction for the Adjustment and Operation of - the Principal Types of this Class of Prime Movers • Hubert E. Collins
... some of Lope de Vega's marvellous quality of adventurous progression. The Quinteros write domestic comedies full of whim and sparkle and tenderness. But expression always seems too easy; there is never the unbearable tension, the utter self-forgetfulness of the greatest drama. The Spanish theatre plays on the nerves and intellect rather than on the great harpstrings of emotion in which all of ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... time nor labor, but exert himself beyond his natural energies, seeking to enter into the character of each actor, studying them one after the other, limb for limb, hand for hand, finger for finger, noting each inflection of joint, or tension of sinew, searching for dramatic truth internally in himself, and in all external nature, shunning affectation and exaggeration, and striving after pathos, and purity of feeling, with patient endeavor and utter ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... that the description though painful ought not to be omitted. When a paroxysm seizes her, she screams out, "This is hell!" "There is a black woman!" "I can't get out!"—and other such exclamations. When thus screaming, her movements are those of alternate tension and tremor. For one instant she clenches her hands, holds her arms out before her in a stiff semi-flexed position; then suddenly bends her body forwards, sways rapidly to and fro, draws her fingers through her hair, clutches at her neck, and tries to tear off her clothes. The sterno-cleido-mastoid ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... as such ceremonies go on every day in the year. The priest said the words and paused while they were repeated; by one voice firmly and strongly, by the other low and unassured, yet clear. And then there was the flutter of tension relieved, the gathering round of the little crowd, the little procession to the vestry, where everything was signed, the kissings and good wishes. Dick had no mother, but his elder sister was there, who kissed him in her place, and his younger ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... gathered together at the end of the common table. Philip had already drunk much more than he was accustomed to, but the only result appeared to be some slight slackening of the tension in which he had been living. His eyes flashed, and his tongue became more nimble. He insisted upon ordering wine. He had had no opportunity yet of repaying many courtesies. They drank his health, forced him into the place of honour by the ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... with signs of tension in his face, and it was clear that he was racking his befogged brain. The few weeks of abstinence and healthful toil had made a change in him, but one cannot in that space of time get rid of the results of years of indulgence; and under ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... certain restraint. Waring, as has been said, detested foul language, and had a very quiet but effective way of suppressing it, often without so much as uttering a word. These were the rough days of the army, the very roughest it ever knew, the days that intervened between the incessant strain and tension of the four years' battling and the slow gradual resumption of good order and military discipline. The rude speech and manners of the camp still permeated every garrison. The bulk of the commissioned force was made up of hard fighters, ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King
... government still have influence. Regulation of agricultural labor would seem absurd, and the difference between a family, with or without hired help, working in comparative freedom on a farm, and scores of individuals working at the same tasks, day after day, under more or less tension was slow to take shape in the popular consciousness. It was obvious that the children were not actually physically abused; almost unanimously they preferred work to school, just as the city boy does today; and ...
— The New South - A Chronicle Of Social And Industrial Evolution • Holland Thompson
... children play in the aisle, and a glass brim full of water may be carried from one end to the other of the smoothly rolling coach without the spilling of a drop. All the while the nerves of those in charge of the train are kept at high tension, and, oblivious as the passengers may be as to the danger, actual and imaginary, the risks incurred are never for a moment lost sight of by the ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... greeted the sight! What a feeling of thankfulness filled each heart! Mr. Prentiss, strong man though he was, at the relaxing of the terrible tension, fainted like a woman. For a second Peter felt his brain in a whirl, then he leaped upon Twinkling Hoofs, whom he had been leading by the bridle, breathed a word in the ear of the clever mustang, and sped away like the wind, "to tell them at home." Who could describe the ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... woodpecker entirely insensible to the wooing of the spring, and, like the partridge, testifies his appreciation of melody after quite a primitive fashion. Passing through the woods on some clear, still morning in March, while the metallic ring and tension of winter are still in the earth and air, the silence is suddenly broken by long, resonant hammering upon a dry limb or stub. It is Downy beating a reveille to spring. In the utter stillness and amid ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... according to the weights of the hammers; and he ascertained by experiment that such was the case when different weights were hung by strings of the same size. The next discovery was that two strings of the same substance and tension, the one being double the length of the other, gave the diapason-interval, or an eighth; and the same was effected from two strings of similar length and size, the one having four times the tension of the other. Belonging to the same cycle of invention-anecdotes are ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... passes; but not for an instant does the listening tension of the lake relax. Then the loud bellow rings out again, startling us and the echoes, though we were listening for it. This time the tension increases an hundredfold; every nerve is strained; every muscle ready. Hardly have ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... have a confederate to whom he can reveal his wicked thoughts when he is tired of soliloquizing; the Hero must have friends who can tell each other all those things which a modest man cannot say for himself; there must be characters of lower birth, competent to relieve the tension by sitting down on their hats or pulling chairs from beneath their acquaintances. We could not do without them, but we do not give them our hearts. Even the Heroine leaves us calm. However beautiful she be, she is not more than the Hero deserves. It is the Hero whom we have come out to see, ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... killed him. I didn't, Cloudy; they say I only hit his knee; but wouldn't it have been awful all my life to have to think I had killed a man? I couldn't have stood it, Cloudy!" and with sudden breaking of the tension the high-strung child flung herself down in a little, brilliant heap at Julia Cloud's knees, buried her bright face in her aunt's lap, and ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... legions. Talk of a compromise was dying down. Pompey, who had been desperately ill in the spring, had regained his strength. He had been exasperated by the savage attacks of Curio. Sensational stories of the movements of Caesar's troops in the North were whispered in the forum, and increased the tension. In the autumn, for instance, Caesar had occasion to pay a visit to the towns in northern Italy to thank them for their support of Mark Antony, his candidate for the tribunate, and the wild rumor flew to Rome that he ...
— The Common People of Ancient Rome - Studies of Roman Life and Literature • Frank Frost Abbott
... for this sentiment under certain circumstances. For crying, like laughter, has the physiological effect of producing a relaxation of tense nerves. There is a fundamental basis for crying, but this applies only to exceptional instances in which there is too much nervous tension. When nerves are strained to the "breaking point," crying will bring about a state of relaxation, and one will feel better. If there are times of strain when laughter is utterly impossible, then crying might even be beneficial. The effect ...
— Vitality Supreme • Bernarr Macfadden
... announced, we have seen, even by his splendour of colouring and his rich and clear-cut plasticity, as something more than a feaster upon colour and form. In his riot of the senses there was more of the athlete than of the voluptuary. His joy was that of one to whom nervous and muscular tension was itself a stimulating delight. In such a temperament the feeling of energy was an elementary instinct, a passionate obsession, which projected itself through eye and ear and imagination into the outer world, filling it with the throbbing ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... ancient paladins. Lambernier squatting upon his legs, according to the rules of pugilism, and with his fists on a level with his shoulders, resembled, somewhat, a cat ready to bound upon its prey. The artist stood with his body thrown backward, his legs on a tension, his chin buried up to his moustache in the fur collar of his coat, with whip lowered, watching all his adversary's movements with a steady eye. When he saw the carpenter advancing toward him, he raised his arm and gave him on the left side a second lash from his whip, so vigorously applied ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Coca is not to be confused with cocoa, which comes from cacao seeds and is used in making chocolate, cocoa, and cocoa butter. Cocaine is a stimulant derived from the leaves of the coca bush. Depressants (sedatives) are drugs that reduce tension and anxiety and include chloral hydrate, barbiturates (Amytal, Nembutal, Seconal, phenobarbital), benzodiazepines (Librium, Valium), methaqualone (Quaalude), glutethimide (Doriden), and others (Equanil, Placidyl, Valmid). ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... beauty that had so moved me an hour ago. I was too busy now to notice anything outside the rapid activity going on inside my head. My mind was working with a swiftness and a coolness which I am somewhat ashamed to mention, and my emotions were calmed, relaxed, let down from the tension of the last few days and the last few moments. They had found their way out to an attempt at self-expression and were at rest. I realize that this is not at all estimable. The old man was just as unhappy as he had ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... was shaking, his entire body trembling with some sort of tension which even communicated itself through the interpreter, causing the stylus to quaver and jump forward, dragging a jagged line across the paper. Rynason stared up at the alien, feeling a chill down his back which seemed to penetrate through to his chest and lungs. This massive creature was shaking ...
— Warlord of Kor • Terry Gene Carr
... under his straight black brows imperiously. The youth felt the nervous tension in the elder man's voice and manner, was startled by a confidence never before bestowed upon him, close as that unequal bond between them had been growing during the six months of his Oxford life, and plucking up courage hurled at him a number ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... lovers know full well must inevitably follow, on the conflict of hope, awe, heroic resolution, defiance of the certain death before them—to have told all this in words would have necessitated a long speech, most unnatural and undramatic at such a moment of tension, and could scarcely have avoided degenerating into bombast. By a few simple transitions, a few devices of instrumentation, the orchestra relates all this and much more, while Isolde's flute-motive, so exquisitely graceful ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... the other's weight, and set off on a half-trot for the distant tamaracks. Every muscle in his powerful young body was strained to its utmost tension. Even more fully than his helpless burden did he realize the ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... all strenuous efforts, no one has hitherto succeeded in introducing into the hemp districts a satisfactory mechanical apparatus. If the entire length of fibre in a strip of bast could bear the strain of full tension, instead of having to wind it around a cylinder (which would take the place of the operator's hand and stick under the present system), then a machine could be contrived to accomplish the work. Machines with cylinders to reduce the tension have been constructed, the result ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... pale as though he was working under a high tension; certainly the times were strenuous. He held something in his hand that apparently he wished to give to Mr. Cook. Before he could speak, however, ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene
... soon enough; why should the world be plunged into them? Physically, mentally, and morally, the innocents are massacred. Night after night I saw the same children led out to the slaughter, and as I looked I saw their round, red cheeks grow thin and white, their delicate nerves lose tone and tension, their brains become feeble and flabby, their minds flutter out weakly in muslin and ribbons, their vanity kindled by injudicious admiration, the sweet child-unconsciousness withering away in the glare of indiscriminate gazing, the innocence ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... explanation and answer will clearly show that these causes are in no way sufficient to have resulted in the aforesaid tension. It is of opinion that the source of evil must be sought for elsewhere, and it trusts that Her Majesty's Government will not take it in bad part if it now proceeds to explain what the real root of the evil is from its point of view; and in the first place ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz
... but the audience was convulsed, not so much by what he said as by his manner, and by the sudden turning of the tables after the long tension had reached the snapping point. Still uncertain whether to regard his as friend or foe, Mrs. Briglow-Jorliss, after rapping vainly for order, was obliged to dismiss the meeting, and by some irony of fate the orchestra ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... Again the tension in the room was high. Others than Mannix, and probably Carlisle, had readily discerned in the gray-eyed stranger a certain menacing prowess which is much respected where weapons are the rule in unexpected emergencies. The crowd backed to ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... generally without leaves, as if it had been a custom that they must observe by a law of the Medes and Persians. This part detained us long; the men's limbs were affected with a sort of subcutaneous inflammation,—black rose or erysipelas,—and when I proposed mildly and medically to relieve the tension it was too horrible to be thought of, but they willingly carried the helpless. Then we mounted up at once into the high, cold region Urungu, south of Tanganyika, and into the middle of the rainy ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... Order of Christ Crucified had gone forward with almost miraculous success. The appeal issued by the Holy Father throughout Christendom had been as fire among stubble. It seemed as if the Christian world had reached exactly that point of tension at which a new organisation of this nature was needed, and the response had startled even the most sanguine. Practically the whole of Rome with its suburbs—three millions in all—had run to the enrolling stations in St. Peter's as starving men run to food, and ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... great rapidity and the kerf is narrow. When first used it could not be depended upon to cut straight, but by utilizing the same principle that is used in the circular-saw, of putting the cutting edge under great tension by making it slightly shorter than the middle of the saw, it now cuts with great accuracy. Band-saws are now made up to 12 inches wide, 50 feet long, and run at the rate of 10,000 feet a minute. They are even ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes
... stories in any other respect than that of the abstract plot. But in one quality of the plot the Lombard drama excels or exceeds the story of the last book of the Iliad. The contradiction is strained with a greater tension; the point of honour is more nearly absolute. This does not make it a better story, but it proves that the man who told the story could understand the requirements of a tragic plot, could imagine clearly a strong dramatic situation, could refrain from wasting or obliterating the ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... been hoisted bodily from the canoe, now came limping to the disconsolate group, and had stumbled with lighted pipe in teeth across the powder that had been spread out to dry, when a terrific yell of warning brought him to his senses, and relieved the tension. MacKenzie spread out a treat for the men and sent them to gather bark for a fresh canoe. Other adventures on Bad River need not be given. This one was typical. The record was but two miles a day; and now there was no turning back. The difficulties behind were as great as any ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... don't see why they shouldn't," began her comfortable voice. The tension over the room snapped at the sound of it like a cut string. "After all," she pursued, now joining the heart of the group, "a surplice is a thing you make in the house like any other dress, and you know how girls feel about the ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... lifted and sank in perfect harmony with the motions and the accompanying sound, with a grace which nature only reaches when the will is utterly surrendered to a power that has charmed the stiffness and tension out of the frame and made ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... eat—he will not leave the house—he used to have a rather ruddy complexion—he is now deadly pale and terribly emaciated. He sighs in the most heartrending manner, and seems to be in a state of extreme nervous tension. In short, he is very ill, and yet he seems to have no bodily disease. His eyes have a terribly startled expression in them—his hand trembles so that he can scarcely raise a cup of tea to his lips. In short, he looks like a man who ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... promises confirm her hopes: embraces and endearments, which increase the ardour of her desires, overmaster her soul. She floats in a dim, delusive anticipation of her happiness; and her feelings become excited to their utmost tension. She stretches out her arms finally to embrace the object of all her wishes and her lover forsakes her. Stunned and bewildered, she stands upon a precipice. All is darkness around her. No prospect, no hope, no consolation—forsaken by him ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... the curious spectacle presented by a school—ushers, monitors, and big and little boys—qualified by one circumstance, the introduction of the other sex. In each, we should observe a somewhat similar tension of manner, and somewhat similar points of honour. In each the larger animal keeps a contemptuous good humour; in each the smaller annoys him with wasp-like impudence, certain of practical immunity; in each we shall find a double life producing double characters, ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the evening that something happened lay through the sugar-camp. Among the dark trunks of the maples, solemn and lofty pillars, he debated the case. To stay, or to flee? The worn nerves could not keep their present tension ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... to allow him to reach it and climb up, for he never would have dared to come back. The cord was sufficient in length, and he contrived finally to make his way on to the top of the ridge before him. He then turned round and looked scaredly at Crean and myself. I think all of us felt the tension of the moment, but we wasted no time in commencing the passage. The method of procedure was this. The sledge rested on the narrow bridge which was indeed so shaped that the crest only admitted of the runners resting one on each side of it; the slope away was like an inverted "V" and while Lashly ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... Extreme nervous tension seems to be so peculiarly American, that a German physician coming to this country to practise became puzzled by the variety of nervous disorders he was called upon to help, and finally announced his discovery of a new disease ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... trigger, and, bidding the bo'sun watch carefully the flight of the arrow, pushed downwards. The next instant, with a mighty twang, and a quiver that made the great stock stir on its bed of rocks, the bow sprang to its lesser tension, hurling the arrow outwards and upwards in a vast arc. Now, it may be conceived with what mortal interest we watched its flight, and so in a minute discovered that we had aimed too much to the right, for the arrow struck the weed ahead of the hulk—but beyond it. At that, I was filled ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... also he makes the very same persons express themselves at times in the sublimest language, and at others in the lowest; and this inequality is in like manner founded in truth. Extraordinary situations, which intensely occupy the head and throw mighty passions into play, give elevation and tension to the soul: it collects together all its powers, and exhibits an unusual energy, both in its operations and in its communications by language. On the other hand, even the greatest men have their moments of remissness, when to a certain degree they forget the dignity of their character ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... the past two years was followed by comparative languor. The deadly crisis was past, the freedom of Europe was saved, Holland and England breathed again; but tension now gave place to exhaustion. The events in the remainder of the year 1588, with those of 1589—although important in themselves—were the immediate results of that history which has been so minutely detailed in these volumes, and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... This tension of nerve relaxed somewhat when her uncle lifted her forcibly into the waggon. With eyes wide open with horror and lips trembling, she asked, ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... holding his place for several hours, with his senses at a high tension, was not an inviting one, for he did not expect the savages to make their attempt before midnight; all such people aiming to surprise their enemies when wrapped ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... defeats in successive world wars and was occupied by the victorious Allied powers of the US, UK, France, and the Soviet Union in 1945. With the beginning of the Cold War and increasing tension between the US and Soviet Union, two German states were formed in 1949: the western Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the eastern German Democratic Republic (GDR). The newly democratic FRG embedded ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... The tension was quickly relieved however by the surprised flush which mantled on Mr. Locket's brow. He fell back a few steps with an injured dignity that might have been a protest against physical violence. "Really, my dear young sir, your attitude is tantamount to an accusation of ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... gathering, and Kennedy did not attempt to relieve the tension even by small talk as he wrapped the forearms of each of us with cloths steeped in a solution of salt. Upon these cloths he placed little plates of German silver to which were attached wires which led back of a screen. At last he was ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... quick. "You boys get up and stand aside," he ordered. "Get back a ways and give Mr. Holden plenty of room." We didn't like it, but we cleared out from around the table. A bunch from the bar and pool tables, sensing something was up, came drifting over to watch. I could feel tension building up. "Now," said Doc, pointing, "you just stand right over there, Mr. Holden, and ...
— Trees Are Where You Find Them • Arthur Dekker Savage
... the long drooping form of Mrs. Leslie regained something of its erectness, and her exhausted system a degree of tension—the shadow passed not from her heart or brow; nor did her cheeks grow warm again with the glow of health. The delight of her life had failed; and now, she lived only for the children whom ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... of those who can not realize that the tide of affairs is no more controlled by the "great men" than is the river led down to the sea by its surface flotsam, by which we measure the speed and direction of its current. Under that terrific tension, which to the shallow seemed a calm, something had to give way. If the dam had not yielded where Roebuck stood guard, it must have yielded somewhere else, or might have gone all ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... or three days, and then, when everything was completed to my satisfaction, and the ship was in sailing trim, I gave the Veielland her freedom. This I managed as follows: The moment the chain was at its tautest—at its greatest tension—I gave it a violent blow with a big axe, and it parted. I steered due west, taking my observations by the sun and my own shadow at morning, noon, and evening. For I had been taught to reckon the degree of latitude from the number of inches of my shadow. After a time I altered my course to ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... heartiness, "Well, h' are y' all?" he said, "Glad to see me, eh?" As we could hardly, in justice, be expected to have formed an opinion on him at that early stage, we could but look at each other in silence; which scarce served to relieve the tension of the situation. Indeed, the cloud never really lifted during his stay. In talking it over later, some one put forward the suggestion that he must at some time or other have committed a stupendous crime; but I could not bring myself to believe that the man, though evidently ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... the night express, which they stopped for the purpose. They were forced to divide us. I took the sleeping-car; Harold travelled with two constables in a ordinary carriage. Strange to say, notwithstanding all this, so great was our relief from the tension of our flight, that we ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... under this unusual strain. Our nerves can't stand the tension. We really must retire to rest. Maybe a good night's sleep will restore us ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... glad when the evening came, and was gone. Not until Jean and Iowaka had said good night with Croisset and his wife, and both Cummins and Melisse had gone to their rooms, did he find himself relieved of the tension under which he had struggled during all of that night's ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... slightest movement on the part of an enemy for a full half hour. This is the most trying sort of tactics. If you can see the enemy, or note that he is doing something, there is some relief to the tension, but where he can neither be seen, nor heard, it tries the nerves of ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay
... for the first time how the relative position of these two women had shifted. Laura Bowman wasn't red-headed for nothing; out from under the blight of Bowman and that hateful marriage, she had already thrown off some of her physical frailness; the nervous tension showed itself now in energy. She was moving swiftly about putting to rights after my meal while she listened. But Barbara sat looking straight ahead of her; I knew she was seeing streets full of carnival, every friend and acquaintance out at a ball—and Worth in a murderer's cell. It wouldn't ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... in the roving frame, by wheel gearing; each spinning bobbin is actually driven by the yarn being pulled round by the arm of the flyer and just sufficient resistance is offered by the pressure or tension of the "temper band" and weight. The temper band is simply a piece of leather or hemp twine to which is attached a weight, and the other end of the leather or twine is ...
— The Jute Industry: From Seed to Finished Cloth • T. Woodhouse and P. Kilgour
... one. My Aunt Phoebe brought it from the World's Fair in Chicago and thinks it's the chief ornament of our home. Won't mother be glad when she finds it broken and she can prove that none of us did it?" The tension relaxed and the ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... broke he was unable to rise with its dawn. The effect of all this tension on his already overtaxed nerves was to induce a fever in the unhealed arm, which, though not painful, was yet sufficient to hold him close prisoner for several days; a delay which chafed him, and which filled his family at home with an intolerable anxiety, not that they knew ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... engine and strode up the straggling path with the light tread of the heavy man whose muscles are under his control. He walked in at the open door without knocking, and Chester caught the sharp sound of a woman's voice at a tension, saying: "Oh, Doctor!" ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... relieve the tension of the moment. Miss Eleanor Smith, the head of the Hull-House Music School, who had put the words to music, performed the same office for the "Sweatshop" of the Yiddish poet, the translation of which presents so graphically the bewilderment and tedium of the New York shop that it might ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... for the conquered territory, and within a decade the campaign gained momentum until it enlisted the support of men of all political faiths and became the principal rallying issue of Alsatian sentiment and enthusiasm. Until within recent years the tension of the international situation was alone sufficient to restrain the Imperial Government from according the demand favorable consideration. With the passing of time the danger of international conflict in which Alsace-Lorraine should ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... symbol of the love of Jesus if her breasts had drooped down, and her buttocks swept low, and her abdomen protruded? The human heart is more subtly constructed. Those romantic Christian hagiologists saw to that. And—to come nearer to the point—could her fine tension of soul have been built up on a body as dissolute and weak as a candle in ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... and myself waiting together on the broad pavement at a corner public-house for the issue of Fyne's ridiculous mission. But the comic when it is human becomes quickly painful. Yes, she was infinitely anxious. And I was asking myself whether this poignant tension of her suspense depended—to put it plainly—on ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... the captain of his guard had gone out into the dark and disappeared down the rope, the Earl only waited till the tension slackened before stooping and cutting the cord at the point of juncture ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... strike for freedom, Pierre came to breakfast with his usual atmosphere of compressed wrath. He glanced at his breakfast which Madame had placed on the table at the first sound which heralded his approach. There was nothing there to break the tension and to set free the pent-up storm within. Much meditation, with fear and trembling, had taught Madame the proper amount of butter to apply to the hot toast, the proportion of sugar and cream to add to the coffee, and the exact shade of ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... under a parlor-lamp and read over the score of the "Meistersinger" just as easily as you or I would peruse one of the lighter novels of the day. This was one of his refuges. When his spirit was subjected to an extreme tension he relieved his soul by flying to the composers; to use his own very bad joke, when he was in need of composure he sought out the "composures." As time progressed, however, and the petty annoyances grew more numerous, the merely intellectual pleasure of the writings of Wagner and ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... perversity my attention was diverted from the shocking scene and concerned itself with trifles and details. Perhaps my mind, with an instinct of self-preservation, sought relief in matters which would relax its dangerous tension. Among other things, I observed that the door that I was holding open was of heavy iron plates, riveted. Equidistant from one another and from the top and bottom, three strong bolts protruded from the beveled edge. I turned the knob and they were retracted ...
— Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories • Ambrose Bierce
... wore on. The day grew warmer, the sky became overcast, and there was the dull muttering of distant thunder. There seemed a tension in the air—as if something was going to snap. Doubtless you have often felt it—a sensation as though pins and needles were pricking you all over. As though you wanted to scream—to cry out—against an uncertain sensation that ...
— The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale • Laura Lee Hope
... panic and set his will to carry on. He crept forward along the passage. Every step or two he stopped to listen, nerves keyed to an acute tension. ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... out, spontaneous, unaffected. It served to relieve the momentary tension which had ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... fashion. He also wore amazingly tight black trousers, strapped closely over his well-blacked boots. To tell the truth, these nether garments, though of great natural resistance, had lived so long at a high tension, so to say, that they were no longer equally tight at all points, and there were, undoubtedly, certain perceptible spots on them; but, on the whole, the general effect of the doctor's appearance was fashionable, in the fashion of several years earlier and judged by ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... lightening of the tension for Morris. For Pitman it quenched the last ray of hope and daylight. Uncle Joseph, whom he had left an hour ago in Norfolk Street, pasting newspaper cuttings?—it?—the dead body?—then who was he, Pitman? and was this ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... pervade the visible world. He was conscious of an impulse to sing, to laugh, to talk in broken sentences to himself; and any utterance, however slight and meaningless, seemed to relieve in a measure the nervous tension ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... the old order at least, always waiting upon great events, has found in the high-tide flotations of masterful heroes to fortune themes most flatteringly responsive to its own high tension. ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... after a prolonged sojourn at home, am tempted to fancy that the dreaming gift has left me never to return. But the results of a visit to Paris or to Switzerland always speedily reassure me; the necessary magnetic or psychic tension never fails to reassert itself; and before many weeks have elapsed my Diary is once more rich with the record of my nightly visions. Some of these phantasmagoria have furnished me with the framework, and even details, of stories which from time ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... each moment to hear the exulting yell or crack of a rifle that should announce his discovery, Donald was thus obliged to paddle doggedly forward within a hundred yards of the shore. His suspense was well-nigh unbearable. Every nerve was strung to its utmost tension. In each new indentation of the coast he expected to see the waiting fleet of canoes, and with each fearful backward glance he wondered at not finding them ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... of this extraordinary episode has never been made public. The practical result was that after a period of extreme tension between China and Japan which was expected to lead to war, that political genius, the late Prince Ito, managed to calm things down and arrange workable modus vivendi. Yuan Shih-kai, who had gone to Tientsin to report in person to Li Hung Chang, returned to Seoul triumphantly in ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... right of America to exclude other nations from taking the seals of the Aleutian Islands outside the three-mile limit. Canadian vessels had been seized and confiscated by America, and a state of high tension existed, which was relieved by a reference of the dispute to arbitration. This time the award was in favour of Canada. The exclusive right of pelagic sealing was denied to the United States, and damages amounting to $464,000 were ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... be rendered save by actors strung up to a pitch of almost frenzied tension. To do full justice to what in Webster's style would be spasmodic were it not so weighty, and at the same time to maintain the purity of outline and melodious rhythm of such characters as Isabella, demands ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... of the languor which is sometimes caused by extreme heat. Instead, there was a fierce electric tension through all her nerves. She was weary almost to death, the cool of this dark room was unutterably grateful to her, yet she could not remain quiet. She had left her parasol and hat on the hall-table. She stole out softly, with scarcely the faintest rustle of skirts, tied ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... graceful and how surely and how powerfully it circled about the ship like a great hovering bird, and how safe we felt; and as we cheered and cheered the swirling, glowing, beautiful thing, we knew how badly frightened we really had been. With danger gone, the tension lifted and we read the fear in our hearts. A torpedo boat destroyer came lumbering across the sky line. It also was to convoy us, but it had a most undramatic entrance; and besides we had sighted land. ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... Mr. Flexen had thought that Hutchings was worked up to a high degree of nervous tension, and he was. He cried out that he knew that every one believed that he had done it; but he hadn't. He'd never thought of it. He was damned if he didn't wish he had done it. He might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, anyhow. He broke off to curse Lord Loudwater ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... time at the window. The house was absolutely quiet, and he was sure that everybody was asleep. There could be no doubt about Warner, because he slumbered audibly. But Dick was still wide awake. There was some tension of mind or muscle that kept sleep far from him. So he remained at the window, casting up the events of the day and those ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... verse is rather a state of tension due to constant opposition between free and strict. There are not, as a matter of fact, two kinds of verse, the strict and the free; there is only a mastery which comes of being so well trained that form is an instinct and ...
— Ezra Pound: His Metric and Poetry • T.S. Eliot
... that of all Greek tribes they were the most facile and numerous delinquents under all varieties of foreign temptations to revolt from their hereditary allegiance—a fact which measures the degree of unnatural constraint and tension which the Spartan usages involved; but in this case we rather account for the public outrage to religion and universal usage, by a strong political jealousy lest the provisions of the treaty should transpire prematurely amongst states adjacent ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... orgies are frequent. On very hot days, when the atmospheric tension is high, they are almost the general rule. At such times the Mantis is all nerves. Under covers which contain large households the females devour one another more frequently than ever; under the covers which contain isolated couples the males are devoured ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... man (p. 27). Some of these are curious in the extreme. I heard of a Hindi who made a candle of frogs' fat and fibre warranted to retain the seed till it burned out; it failed notably because, relying upon it, he worked too vigorously. The essence of the "retaining art" is to avoid over-tension of the muscles and to pre-occupy the brain: hence in coition Hindus will drink sherbet, chew betel-nut and even smoke. Europeans ignoring the science and practice, are contemptuously compared with village-cocks by Hindu women who cannot be satisfied, such is their natural ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... manner to give the required elevation. A cricket ball or jam tin bomb was placed in the pouch and the rubbers were then strained by means of a crank handle winding up a wire attached to the pouch with a trip hook. When the required tension was obtained one man lit the fuse and retired to cover. The other, the expert, allowing the fuse to burn for a certain time—to suit the range, pulled the string which released the trip. If all went well ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... I'll have to win out against you!" Blake's teeth ground together on his unlighted cigar. He jerked it from his mouth and flung it savagely into the wastebasket. But the violent movement discharged the tension ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... the only one of the bunch worth rearing. Ah, my poor sister! your removal has doubtless spared you many sorrows, for what could you expect of the future of such a family as yours? Now, what is that? This moor is enough to keep anybody's nerves in a state of tension. What is that awful sound approaching ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... at this recital, gave the soldier time to recount the particulars. When he had finished, Lord Mar saw the necessity for instant flight, and ordered horses to be brought from the stables. Though he had fainted in the well, the present shock gave such tension to his nerves, that he found, in spite of his wound, he could ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... so great was the tension. It was a warm April day. Outside the window the yellow hen could be heard ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... one who could supply the right answers when the class was stumped. His teacher soon began to take a delight in belaboring the class for a minute before turning to Jimmy for the answer. Heaven forgive him, Jimmy enjoyed it. He began to hold back slyly, like a comedian building up the tension before a punch-line. ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... genuine, and, sooner or later, the world will respond to genuineness in action. The world knows the value of genuineness, and it yields to that force wherever it is felt. "The world is all gates," says Emerson, "all opportunities, strings of tension waiting ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan
... complex dispute over the Spratly Islands with Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam, and possibly Brunei; claimants in November 2002 signed the "Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea", a mechanism to ease tension but which fell short of a legally binding "code of conduct"; much of the rugged, militarized boundary with India is in dispute, but the two sides have participated in more than 13 rounds of joint working group sessions on this issue; ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... a most intense silence, with only the sound of the blood beating in my head. Yet, immediately afterward, I heard again the slurring of the bedclothes being dragged off the bed. In the midst of my nervous tension I remembered the camera, and reached 'round for it; but without looking away from the bed. And then, you know, all in a moment, the whole of the bed coverings were torn off with extraordinary violence, and I heard the flump they made as they were hurled ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... Sue; and the relieved tension of her poor, terrified little heart found vent in two big tears which rose to ...
— Sue, A Little Heroine • L. T. Meade
... industriously scraped from the bottom of an eighteen-foot well with much labor and an old tin pan. While he was leaning over the mouth of the well, pulling up a kettle of slush, his suspender buttons groaning and his tailor-made pantaloons strained to the utmost tension, I called the calf's attention to him. The bovine grasped the situation, lowered his head, kicked up his heels, emitted a triumphant bellow, shot forward like a baseball reaching for the stomach of an amateur shortstop, and struck the rear elevation of the head of our distinguished house with ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... grew as the call approached Omega. There was an electric tension in the air that told of the anxious hopes and fears that centered in the coming struggle. The stock was called at last, and I looked for a roar that would shake the building and a scene of riot on the floor that would surpass ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... broke altogether, or he was willing to relieve the tension of his own mind by allowing it to seem as ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... was the mainspring of life; they seemed to think exercise was the goal of existence. A man whom I saw there and who, I learnt, had been chosen to teach the young on account of his wisdom, told me that competition trained the man to sharpen his faculties; and that the tension which it provoked is in itself a useful training. I do not believe this. A cat or a boa constrictor will lie absolutely idle until it perceives an object worthy of its appetite; it will then catch it and swallow it, and once more relapse into repose without thinking of keeping ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... freely, for the tension of the occasion had been too tightly wound by the impulsive guardian of the family's honor. It was well that Katie was present to check his temper, through pride, or the poor women might have been scolded again for their dangerous delay, as coroners ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... passed the half-way point on their way back to the shore, Stephen and Hurka began to pull. They could get but little tension on the rope, for the boat was travelling almost as fast as they could pull it in; still, once or twice they were able to put their strength on it for a moment, and the raft moved a foot or two through the water. ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... suffered from heart disease for some years, and in a letter to his sister, he traces its origin to the cruelty of the lady about whom she knows —possibly Madame de Castries. His abuse of coffee, however, and the unnatural life which he had led with the object of straining the tension of every power to its uttermost, and thus of forcing the greatest possible quantity and quality of literary work out of himself, had done much to ruin his robust constitution. Nevertheless, if he had been able to take up his abode with his wife in the ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... her voice the tension snapped within him; he felt common and homely again; he felt comfortable and warm; and ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... there is no record, except that it was 'void of hope'; and one may guess the tension of the sulky atmosphere. The old captain, with his young son, stood his ground against the mutineers, like a bear baited by snapping curs. If they had hunted half as diligently as they snarled and complained, there would have ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut
... noises which are always in the ears of the deaf. Sometimes, in the distress of it, she turned to him for help, and when he was able to guess what she was striving for, a radiant relief and gratitude transfigured her face. But this could not last, and he learned to note how soon the stress and tension of her effort returned. His compassion for her at such times involved a temptation, or rather a question, which he had to silence by a direct effort of his will. Would it be worse, would it be greater anguish ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells
... as were her earliest productions. The leading characters are carried through a series of exciting adventures, all of which are narrated and drawn out with such ingenuity that the reader's attention is kept on a tension of interest from the opening page to the close of the volume. This is the great secret of Mrs. Stephens' success—her readers cannot get out of her influence. She does not fatigue them with the subtleties of metaphysics or philosophy. She gives you ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... The tension could not last. For a time he was able to laugh at himself, and he made pleasant pictures—Charley Carpenter telling him a story at Drubel's; Morton companionably smoking on the top deck; Lee Theresa flattering him during an evening walk. Most of all he pictured the brown-eyed sweetheart ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... the activity became more frenetic around him. Then the pace slowed, and he knew the appointed moment was approaching. Stillness returned to the desert, and tension was a tangible ...
— The Delegate from Venus • Henry Slesar
... Tomorrow's sheaves and shoutings support to-day's tearful sowing. Certainty of victory wins battles before they are fought. Armed with confidence patriots have beaten down stone castles with naked fists. Uncertainty makes the heart sick, takes nerve out of arm and tension out of thought. The mere rumor of war along the border-lines of nations destroys enterprise and industry. Men will not plow if warhorses are to trample down the ripe grain. Men will not build if the enemy are to warm hands over blazing rafters. Why should the husbandman plant vines if others ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... concrete arch. The particular feature of this type of arch is that in shallow streams for bridges of ordinary span the ends of the arch ring are tied together across stream by a slab of concrete reinforced to take tension. This slab is intended to serve the double purpose of a tie to keep the arch from spreading and thus reduce the weight of abutments and of a pavement preventing scour and its tendency to undermine the abutments. Incidentally this concrete slab, which is built first, serves as a footing for ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... when 'neath the stairs the pages their heads raise! The term of "pure brightness" is the meetest time this thing to make! The vagrant silk it snaps, and slack, without tension it strays! The East wind don't begrudge because its farewell it ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... something of the general tension would be relieved if they could all three be got to ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... Joe, "I can't!"—"Murder!—murder!" echoed Peter. French pulled them again, upon which they roared the more, still retaining their places. I have in my lifetime laughed till I nearly became spasmodic; but never were my risible muscles put to greater tension than upon this occasion. The wall, as I said before, had only that day received a coat of mortar, and of course was quite soft and yielding, when Joe and Peter thought proper to make it their pillow; it was, nevertheless, setting fast, from the heat and lights of ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... Doctor Grayson, if business and professional men, particularly those who work at high tension in the cities, would pause in their work at frequent intervals during the day and give a few seconds of their time to the energetic practice of the flexing or stretching exercises, there would soon come to be not only less, but, possibly ...
— Keeping Fit All the Way • Walter Camp |
