"Unstrung" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... holy will be done. The Lord and the blessed Virgin be with us, said Panurge. Holos, alas, I drown; be be be bous, be bous, bous; in manus. Good heavens, send me some dolphin to carry me safe on shore, like a pretty little Arion. I shall make shift to sound the harp, if it be not unstrung. Let nineteen legions of black devils seize me, said Friar John. (The Lord be with us! whispered Panurge, between his chattering teeth.) If I come down to thee, I'll show thee to some purpose that the badge of thy humanity dangles at a calf's breech, thou ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... decimate; extenuate; reduce in strength, reduce the strength of; mettre de l'eau dans son vin[Fr]. Adj. weak, feeble, debile|; impotent &c. 158; relaxed, unnerved, &c. v.; sapless, strengthless[obs3], powerless; weakly, unstrung, flaccid, adynamic[obs3], asthenic[obs3]; nervous. soft, effeminate, feminate[obs3], womanly. frail, fragile, shattery[obs3]; flimsy, unsubstantial, insubstantial, gimcrack, gingerbread; rickety, creaky, creaking, cranky; craichy[obs3]; drooping, tottering ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... awhile unstrung Till health again invigorate thy frame; With brain renewed, with vigorous heart and lung Take up thy work once more, and greater fame— A richer man by far than e'er before, For thou hast ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant
... judged themselves unworthy to share the glory that awaits their brave brethren," cried the indignant Eleazar, as, leaning on his unstrung bow, he watched a long line of fugitives wending their way ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... prize of an English man-of-war by storm; all the profit, however, being his. This he proved with a courteous clasp of the girl and a show of the salute on her cheek, which he presumed to take at the night's farewell. 'She's my tonic,' he proclaimed heartily. She seemed to Livia somewhat unstrung and toneless. The separation from her brother in the morning might account for it. And a man of the admiral's age could be excused if he exalted the girl. Senility, like infancy, is fond of plain outlines for the laying on of its paints. The girl ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... their very souls were depicted. Here, an eagle was soaring into the sky bearing the shepherd of Mount Ida to heaven; there, the comely Hylas was struggling to escape from the embrace of the lascivious Naiad. Here, too, was Apollo, cursing his murderous hand and adorning his unstrung lyre with the flower just created. Standing among these lovers, which were only painted, "It seems that even the gods are wracked by love," I cried aloud, as if I were in a wilderness. "Jupiter could find none to his taste, even in his own heaven, ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... was building again. There was wine. Over the balcony rail, they watched the Pasig running wickedly below; and across, stretching away to where the stars lay low in the rim of the horizon, the wet teeming rice-lands brooded in the night-mist.... The piano, which had seemed unstrung from the voyage, as he passed through the house, sounded but faintly now through several shut doors. ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... owl outside made Joyce start nervously. She was unstrung and superstitious—the fun of the game died in her, and she felt weak and nauseated. She spoke as if she wanted to finish the matter and have ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... "if you come to analyse this, it resolves itself into nothing. You were confessedly agitated, and almost hysterical that night; your body was unstrung; you were wet through, and it was doubtless the sudden passage from the darkness outside to the dim and uncertain glimmer of your own room, which acted so powerfully on your excited imagination, as to project your inward ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... a horrible sense of guilt." She shuddered again. Then suddenly, with the nervous quickness of a woman unstrung, thrust a small black golliwog into his ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... necessary for me to take a short rest. Recent excitement in Manti has left me very nervous and unstrung. I shall be away from Manti for about two weeks, I think. During my absence any pending litigation must be ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... surely not going to ride Chula again to-day! You can't! You're all unstrung! She may run again; you really ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... whispered "those folks at the Tuileries" often launched as a rite the sacred eagles to study the omens and presages. He was firmly convinced of this. After the termination of the trying visit Baudelaire, with acrid irony, asks himself why he, with his nerves usually unstrung, did not go quite mad, and he concludes, "Seriously I addressed to Heaven the grateful ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... the subordinate, and knocked at the door of Phoebe's lodgings. She came down herself and let him in. She led the way upstairs, motioned him to a seat, sat down by him, and began to cry again. She was thoroughly unstrung. ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... Hebrews' banish'd harps, unstrung, At Babylon upon the willows hung; Yours sounds aloud, and tells us you excel No less in courage, than in singing well; While, unconcern'd, you let your country know They have impoverish'd themselves, not you; 10 Who, with the Muses' help, can mock those ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... but not heartily. He felt that this marble ship was a conception of high humor and was not without its pathetic element. The whimsicality of the idea amused him, but the sad earnestness of the nervous, unstrung visionary at his ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... sir," says poor Vickers, "I won't refer to the subject. She's been very unwell ever since. Nervous and unstrung. Go in and ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... such frequent use of an infusion of the herb, upsets our nerves, impairs healthful digestion, and brings on sleeplessness. I have several patients—old ladies, and those in middle life—whose nerves are so unstrung that I am obliged to dose them with opium occasionally, to ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... almost wildly she thought, the possibility of a bird's flying against such a gale; and after everyone else had settled down again for the night she could hear Ellen pacing the floor of the living-room. Poor Ellen, thought the girl, she was all unstrung over Shane's accident and frightened at the thought ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... "I must go, for that word 'plan' worrys me; it worrys me far more than the creek: and I see my partner is all unstrung, and I must be there to try to string ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... option and waited. He waited in the overpowering heat, amid the low humming of bees. The minutes passed; there was neither sound among the vines nor footstep beside him; and so, with head bent and eyes streaming and head aching and nerves unstrung and conscience clamoring reproachfully, he turned ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... that period, been patronized by a few stout-hearted individuals, who had subscribed a small capital, in shares, I think, of six pounds Pennsylvania currency; but this last disaster so staggered their faith and unstrung their nerves, that they never again had the hardihood to make other contributions. Indeed, they already rendered themselves the subjects of ridicule and derision for their temerity and presumption in giving ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... the life of one who surviveth his calamities. He that is afflicted with sorrow should be consoled by the recitation of the history of persons of former times (like those of Nala and Rama). He whose heart hath been unstrung by sorrow should be consoled with hopes of future prosperity. He again who is learned and wise should be consoled by pleasing offices presently rendered unto him. He who, having concluded a treaty with an enemy, reposeth at ease as if he hath nothing more to ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... light. The lyre was his, and his the breathing might Of the immortal marble, his the play Of diamond-pointed thought and golden tongue. Go seek the sunshine race. Ye find to-day A broken column and a lute unstrung. ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... The menstrual function is frequently deranged, the bowels costive, the urethra, by being pressed, becomes irritable and burns and smarts whenever the urine is evacuated. The sleep is disturbed and unrefreshing, and the whole nervous system is unstrung. ...
— An Epitome of Homeopathic Healing Art - Containing the New Discoveries and Improvements to the Present Time • B. L. Hill
... his nerves had been quite unstrung, the knife fell, the ice and warm water were applied, and Diamond could not choke back the cry of horror that forced itself from ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... men, so she longed to leave them behind her and die in bitterness less bitter for its solitude. But Maya fled not from herself: the winds wailed like the crying of despair in her harp-voiced pines; the shining oak-leaves rustled hisses upon her unstrung ear; the timid forest-creatures, who own no rule but patient love and caresses, hid from her defiant step and dazzling eye; and when she knew herself in no wise healed by the ministries of Nature, in the very apathy of desperation ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... was only a brief line, bidding him come to her, but it bore her name. With instant, bodiless clarity which had marked all her mental processes so far, its purport was hers. She had not written—the hand that had traced her signature had been unstrung for once. She understood, though such knowledge seemed of ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... is broken, The bow is unstrung; The bell peals afar Where the war-whoop once rung: The council-fires burn But in thoughts of the Past, And their ashes are strewn To ...
— Indian Legends and Other Poems • Mary Gardiner Horsford
... to draw away, and they stood facing each other, he eager, mystified, thrilling with passion almost beyond mastery, she trembling and unstrung, her cheeks crimson, her eyes filled ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... in such a morbid, unstrung state that the least thing startled her. But imagine if you can her wonder and terror as she saw Dennis Fleet—the dead and buried, as she fully believed—enter, carrying a picture as of old, and looking as of old, save ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... condition to meet the other girls to-night, dear. They cannot understand your feelings, and, without meaning to be unkind or curious, would ask questions which it would embarrass you to answer. You are nervous and unstrung, so lie down on my couch and I will see that your dinner is brought up. I shall say to the other girls that you are not feeling well, and that it would be better not to disturb you." Then, going into her bedroom, Miss Preston quickly made her own toilet. She had just finished ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... impressed with the reality of being in life and death simultaneously. That these trials surpassed any that had hitherto ruffled the noiseless tenor of our way was a truism. But coming at a moment when our nerves were sufficiently unstrung by the dearth of tonics, they were doubly enervating. Stomachal grievances were forgotten, and few ventured to desert the imaginary security of their homes to face the risks the redress of grievances would entail. Thus did the hours creep on until darkness with its interregnum of peace ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... thousand pounds a year,—for a period of three weeks, or till another heroine, who had herself been murdered, obliterated the former horrors from her plastic mind,—Miss Macnulty could discuss the catastrophe with the keenest interest. And Lizzie, finding herself to be, as she told herself, unstrung, fell also into novel-reading. She had intended during this vacant time to master the "Faery Queen;" but the "Faery Queen" fared even worse than "Queen Mab;"—and the studies of Portray Castle were confined to novels. For poor Macnulty, if she could only be left alone, this was well enough. ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... horror of watching a man dying in agony for a whole night had unstrung his steady nerves. On reaching the parsonage, he went to his room, and, wearied ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary
... her husband's voice asking where Drake was, and what in the world was the matter with him. Captain Le Mesurier replied, and the reply rang boisterously. 'He's behind. He's a bit unstrung, I fancy, and reason enough too, after all his work, eh? You see, Drake's not in the habit of taking holidays,' and the Captain grew ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... was something more; he was what not one of the great Latin poets was, a Christian; that is, in his latter days, when he began to feel the vanity of all human pursuits, when his nerves began to be unstrung, his hair to fall off, and his teeth to drop out, and he then composed sacred pieces entitling him to rank with—we were going to say Caedmon—had we done so we should have done wrong; no uninspired poet ever handled sacred subjects like the grand Saxon Skald—but which entitle him to be called ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... wild: she says she has learned some intelligence that has unsettled and unstrung her mind; she has requested me to inquire if any one I am acquainted with has heard of, or met abroad, some person of the name of Butler. You start!—have you known one of ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... had died away Anne knelt there, sobbing, utterly unstrung, all her pride laid low, herself no more than a broken, agonised woman. But gradually, from sheer exhaustion, her sobs became less anguished, till at length they ceased. A strange peace, wholly unaccountable, fell gently upon her torn spirit. But even then it was long before ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... now indulge it, even when it had ceased to be a mock, the prospect of that day, or evening at furthest, lying at anchor, with plenty of water for his people, and a brother captain to counsel and befriend, seemed in no perceptible degree to encourage him. His mind appeared unstrung, if not still more seriously affected. Shut up in these oaken walls, chained to one dull round of command, whose unconditionality cloyed him, like some hypochondriac abbot he moved slowly about, at times suddenly pausing, ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... was plainly but commodiously furnished, indicated feminine tastes and occupations, breathing that perfume of elegance which the presence of woman ever communicates. Vases of flowers decked the sideboards; a few books, the works of the best Spanish poets, lay upon the table; and a guitar, unstrung, it is true, was suspended against the wall. Two persons occupied the apartment. One of them, who was seated on a low stool at its inner extremity, near to the folding doors that separated it from an antichamber, was a robust, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... some way I felt that things were not the same as they used to be. Jack was the same kindly brother I had always known, and yet there seemed in his manner a tinge of something different. I did not know what. I only knew that I felt very nervous and unstrung. ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... most vulgar motor horn, to be precise,—was bolting right across the clearing. After the manner of hares where objects directly in front of them are concerned, the fugitive entirely failed to perceive Excalibur and, indeed, ran right underneath him on its way to cover. Excalibur was so unstrung by this adventure that he ran back to where he had left ...
— Scally - The Story of a Perfect Gentleman • Ian Hay
... No, she could not honestly pretend that she did; yet it had its sufficiently sinister side, its occasional admixture of sheer horror. But this was only when the mysteries which encompassed her happened to prey upon nerves unstrung by some outwardly exciting cause; it was then she would have given back all that he had ever given her to pierce the veil of her husband's past. Here, however, the impulse was more subtle; it was not the ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... inexorable jaw: The luscious fat distilled upon his chin, Exuded from his nostrils and his eyes, 30 While still like hungry death he fed his maw; Till every minor crocodile being dead And buried too, himself gorged to the full, He slept with breath oppressed and unstrung claw. Oh marvel passing strange which next I saw: In sleep he dwindled to the common size, And all the empire faded from his coat. Then from far off a winged vessel came, Swift as a swallow, subtle as a flame: ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... peasant's house in the village of Gross-Graupen, which is half- way between Pillnitz and the border of what is known as 'Saxon Switzerland.' Frequent excursions to the Porsberg, to the adjacent Liebethaler, and to the far distant bastion helped to strengthen my unstrung nerves. While I was first planning the music to Lohengrin, I was disturbed incessantly by the echoes of some of the airs in Rossini's William Tell, which was the last opera I had had to conduct. At last I happened to hit on an effective means of stopping this annoying ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... were still more or less unstrung from her mental struggles of the night, and the memory of her dream came to her like a dim foreboding of misfortune. As though in sympathy with its mother's feelings, the baby did not seem as well as usual. The new nurse was by no means an ideal ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... obstacle that may happen to be thrown in his path through life, no matter how high or how steep the mountain may be, but which often forsakes him the moment the summit is gained, the point of difficulty passed, and leaves him prostrated, with energies gone, nerves unstrung, and a feeling of incapacity pervading the entire frame that renders the most trifling ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... streets of Paris with his head high and his eye beaming with confidence, now, unstrung by perplexity, shrank from meeting Claparon; he began to realize that a banker's heart is mere viscera. Claparon had seemed to him so brutal in his coarse jollity, and he had felt the man's vulgarity so keenly, that he shuddered at the ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... a great deal, so I see. But you will be all right after a good night's sleep. Your nerves are somewhat unstrung now." ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... house. Care and kindness were lavished on the delicate woman, who would scarce have needed either in her present delight; every luxury that could add to her slowly increasing strength, every attention that could quiet her fluttering and unstrung nerves, was showered on her, and for a time her brightest hopes seemed all to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... unstrung, he gazed at that mighty, loathsome mass, listening to its snapping jaws as it took on the tons of nourishment needed for its machinelike functioning. ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... the receiver. Shirley was all unstrung, trying to overcome the emotion which her discovery had caused her, and in a strangely altered voice, the result of the nervous strain ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... palpitating, unstrung, piteously distressed. "That's what makes it—so dreadful," she whispered. "I wish I were dead! Oh, I do wish I ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... a silence. The discussion had been long and ardent. Outside, the heat brooded almost sternly over the land, for the sky was covered with a film of gray, unbroken by any crevice through which the blue could be seen. It was a day on which nerves get unstrung, on which the calmest, most equable people are apt to lose their ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... ails me to-night," said he, "my nerves are unstrung. I will leave you, for I need rest myself. I shall start to-morrow morning before you are up, and I shall ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... unstrung, his teeth chattering. He saw,—not the lamp, flickering in the draught from the broken window,—not Manetho, lying motionless with the smile frozen on his lips,—not Salome, prostrate across the body of him ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... a furlong or more from the spot before he quite realized the danger he had escaped. His bow was unstrung in his hand, his arrows were all in the quiver; thus, had the bolt struck him, even if the wound had not been mortal (as it most likely would have been) he could have made no resistance. How foolish to disregard the warnings of ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... there seemed little likelihood of Saunders returning before twelve. He did not dare to leave the shelf unwatched, even to run downstairs to ring the bell. Morton the butler often used to come round about eleven to see that the windows were fastened, but he might not come. Eustace was thoroughly unstrung. At last he heard ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... which escapes asylum care and custody except in its exacerbations; it is the insanity of organism which gives so much of the erratic and unstable to society, in its manifestations of mind and morals; it is the form of unstable mental organism which, like an unstrung instrument jangling out of tune and harsh, when touched in a manner to elicit in men of stable organisms only concord of sweet, harmonious sounds; it is the form of mental organism out of which, by slight exciting causes largely imaginary, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... Monk was softly closing the garden gate behind him—for when in sorrow we don't do things with a rush and a bang—when a whirring sound overhead caused him to start. Strong, hardened man though he was, his nerves were unstrung to-night in company with his heartstrings. It was the church clock preparing to strike twelve. The little doctor, Speck, who had left the house but a minute before, was standing at the churchyard fence close ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... throes; short prayer, and when I finished her spirit had fled; mother frantic; hard, very hard to know how best to comfort. A woman is a wonderful network of cross-wires, and when these wires get unstrung or entangled, the result is most distressing. In presence of such, one feels hopelessly lost, and all one can do is to—walk away. And yet, for downright, dogged perseverance—for silent, struggling endurance—for quiet, patient suffering—commend ...
— Woman's Endurance • A.D.L.
... that of the brute subjects of his else solitary kingdom. It was a sort of tame familiarity, a perfect indifference to the approach of strangers, such as I never noticed in other children. I accounted for it partly by their nerveless, unstrung state of body, incapable of the quick thrills of delight and fear which play upon the lively harp-strings of a healthy child's nature, and partly by their woful lack of acquaintance with a private home, and their being therefore destitute ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Instinctively, she gathered her negligee gown closer to her frail, trembling figure, and, hurrying to the mirror, put those little finishing touches to her hair which no woman, jealous of her personal appearance, would think of neglecting, even though the house was on fire. She was so unstrung and agitated that she could hardly stand; she had to hold the table with one hand to maintain her balance. She could not articulate; her voice stuck in ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... insensible for a while, and was henceforth looked upon as a mortal who had lost his wits. Yet at odd moments his cloudiness was illumined by a gleam of intelligence such as had not been detected in him previous to his mischance. As Polonius said of Hamlet—another unstrung mortal—Tilton's replies had "a happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of." One morning, he appeared at the flour-mill with a sack of corn to be ground for the almshouse, and was asked what he knew. "Some ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Pere Bracasse being a municipal functionary could not transmit his functions except through the Administration. Monsieur Pujol must desist from drumming and crying. Aristide bowed to authority and unstrung his drum. ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... not take the Englishman's view, they were all anxious to go. They were quite unstrung by what had occurred, this combat between the living and the dead. They looked with horrified awe at the spot where it had taken place. There stood the living combatant, still full of the fire of battle. Him whom ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... confident as his actions seemed to imply. In fact, before he reached his destination, he heartily wished himself back again, and by the time he arrived at the point where the enemy was expected his nerves were completely unstrung. It was not the fright of cowardice that unmanned him, but rather the terror of responsibility. Again and again he had braved death in battle but now, for the first time, the safety of an entire regiment depended solely upon him as he approached the summit of the hill from which he ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... gasp. Yet Mrs. Edwards shook in dread every time she entered the room. The look seemed conscious still, intensified malignity and despair creeping in. She was afraid and guilty and unstrung. Perhaps, with some sudden revival of his forces, he would kill her. He was lying there, too still for defeat. His life had been an expression of hates; the last one might ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... pool. And then once more I am asking the doctor if he is hurt; and he is answering me, cheerily, "Not much, captain, not much," and we four are following after him as white as women, I do believe, our nerves unstrung, our hearts quaking as we crossed the ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... the presumptuous human ignorance by the wholesome discipline of fear. We had heard ominous stories about past voyages. The cook (technically a seaman, but in reality no sailor)—the cook, when unstrung by some misfortune, such as the rolling over of a saucepan, would mutter gloomily while he wiped the floor:—"There! Look at what she has done! Some voy'ge she will drown all hands! You'll see if she won't." To which ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... too weak to question and the girl too unstrung to stand further interrogation. In response to Manton's call several people came up and willingly helped the two toward the comfort ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... confess that in another hour this unnatural excitement abated, my nerves became unstrung, and from the depths of the abysses of this earth I ascended ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... to the methodist; her sensibility and acute fears rendered her accessible to every impulse; her love for her child made her eager to cling to the merest straw held out to save him. Her mind, once unstrung, and now tuned by roughest inharmonious hands, made her credulous: beautiful as fabled goddess, with voice of unrivalled sweetness, burning with new lighted enthusiasm, she became a stedfast proselyte, and powerful auxiliary to the leader of the elect. I had remarked ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... company, in search of a rumoured leak. Eliza immediately spotted Priapus, and indignantly ejected him by force of arms. In the scuffle a dish pan and several chairs were overturned. Mary, whose nerves were rather unstrung by the sustained comedy she was witnessing, uttered an obbligato of piercing yelps which soon brought Kathleen to the scene. Eliza received a severe rating, and so admired the angry sparkle in Kathleen's eyes ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley
... truth. The iron nature, so long overwrought, now utterly unstrung, had yielded for the first time to the stress of nature and of events. The relief from what he had taken to be death had come swiftly, and the reaction brought a lethal calm of its own. If he had indeed recognized the face of the woman who had touched him with her hand, it was as though he had ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... which was but a small craft that had been unstrung the day before, in order that the ship's carpenter might examine some fancied defect in the rudder. Fortunately a pair of oars had been left in her, and these Pharaoh now took in hand, bidding me steer for the volcanic flame, which played ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher
... this unhappy green! These which I bear your brother Eryx bore, Still mark'd with batter'd brains and mingled gore. With these he long sustain'd th' Herculean arm; And these I wielded while my blood was warm, This languish'd frame while better spirits fed, Ere age unstrung my nerves, or time o'ersnow'd my head. But if the challenger these arms refuse, And cannot wield their weight, or dare not use; If great Aeneas and Acestes join In his request, these gauntlets I resign; Let us with equal arms perform the fight, ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... she went on, "I don't believe it. Good heavens, what is that?" she added, as a footstep crunched in the hall-way. "You've got me all unstrung, ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... it would be wiser, Alice, for you to leave Sally and me alone for a little time; she is tired and unstrung. If you and the other girls have been unfair, you will have an opportunity to apologize later. Then Sally herself will feel more inclined ...
— The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor • Margaret Vandercook
... Nor shall the wise and virtuous scan severe These fair illusions, ev'n to nature dear. Though now no more proud Chivalry recalls Her tourneys bright, and pealing festivals; 30 Though now on high her idle spear is hung, Though Time her mouldering harp has half unstrung; Her milder influence shall she still impart, To decorate, but not disguise, the heart; To nurse the tender sympathies that play In the short sunshine of life's early way; For female worth and meekness ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... her voice reverently, and I was fain to hush the laugh upon my lips. Whatever the thing might prove to be to me, it was daily comfort to the nervous, unstrung, lonely woman, whom to suspect of trickery I began to think was worse ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... of the road. Mikolai's eyes suddenly felt wet. The deuce, what was that? He rubbed them angrily, but they were wet the next moment again. Here, here they had driven last summer—only a few months ago—with hay and flowers on the wagon, and had been so gay. And now? His lips trembled, he felt unstrung. At last he had really seen that things must ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... such a very serious nature that it seemed impossible for me to fling it off. That worthy man Maestro Francesco da Norcia redoubled his efforts, and brought me every day fresh remedies, trying to restore strength to my miserable unstrung frame. Yet all these endeavours were apparently insufficient to overcome the obstinacy of my malady, so that the physicians were in despair and at their wits' ends what to do. I was tormented by ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... put outside the room, and went to her own apartments astonished and frightened. The young wife had hardly left the room when Madame Desvarennes suffered the reaction of the emotion she had just felt. Her nerves were unstrung, and falling on a chair she remained immovable and humbled. Was it possible that her daughter, her adored child, would abandon her to obey the grudges of her husband? No, Micheline, when back in her room, would remember that she was carrying away all the joy of the house, and that it was cruel ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... liked familiarities; but the slap, coming on him when his nerves were unstrung, startled him. He turned sharply; but the stern and indignant face wreathed into amiable smiles, when he saw that the lively gentleman behind him was only Wesley Tiffles. Everybody liked Wesley Tiffles; ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... spent for the effort of speech. His hard-drawn breath laboured in great sobs; his limbs were powerless and unstrung in utter relax after hard service. Failure in his endeavour induced a stupor of misery and despair. In addition was the wretched humiliation of open violence and strife with his brother, and the distress of hearing misjudging contempt expressed without reserve; ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... effect of terror and consternation could not have been produced in the old gentleman's face than did those five simple words. He fell back in his chair gasping for breath, his complexion became ashen in its pallor, and for a moment his whole nervous system seemed unstrung. I sprang to his assistance, thinking he was going to have a fit, but he waived me off, and when he had recovered himself sufficiently to speak, said hoarsely—"What do you know of Dr. Nikola? Tell me, for God's sake!—what do you know of him? ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... that he could have given any real reason for his emotion. But he was somewhat unstrung by the event. And a number of tumultuous feelings were stirring deeply in him. He turned hot and cold at the thought of his own possible cowardice. And then he felt a reaction of shame in the thought that after this, Van Shaw and ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... his wife's high spirit and physical weakness. She, on her side—nervous, fitful, and hard to please—thought herself a slave, the servant of a harsh and brutal master. She screamed at him when her nerves were too unstrung; and then, with a natural reaction, she called herself "a devil who could never be good enough for him." But most of her letters were harsh and filled with bitterness, and, no doubt, his conduct to her was at times no better ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... only six men, all told now, including Folsom (of course not counting Hal, who was defenseless), altogether too small a number to successfully protect so large a knot of buildings against an insidious and powerful foe, and even of these six there were two who seemed so unstrung by tidings of the massacre as to ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... would now itself disown: It felt, yet could escape, the magic tone 320 Whose prelude held all envy, hate and wrong, But what was howling in one breast alone, Silent with expectation of the song, Whose master's hand is cold, whose silver lyre unstrung. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... emerges from one's self except for the purpose of going off to dream. Idle production. Tumultuous and stagnant gulf. And, in proportion as labor diminishes, needs increase. This is a law. Man, in a state of revery, is generally prodigal and slack; the unstrung mind cannot hold life ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... a yell arose! And the scared sleepers, rushing forth in fear, Met death without the portals from dim foes, Or e'er the warrior could grasp his spear, Or fit the arrow to his unstrung bow, Or ward the fatal stroke ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... few moments longer, trying to compose his nerves, which had been sadly unstrung, both by the wine he had drank in much larger quantities than usual, and the incidents that had just occurred, and then sought his own room, where he rang for a brandy-and-soda, and after taking it, went below to attend ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... suddenly, and stared at the uncertain trees behind me. One black shadow seemed to leap into another. I listened, rigid, and heard nothing but the creep of the blood in my ears. I thought that my nerves were unstrung, and that my imagination was tricking me, and turned resolutely towards the ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... idea of the sentimental view of the matter which the youngster took; and he thought that Holman's objections against the bargain were caused by the thought that no services could be rendered that would be half as valuable as the trinket. The unsentimental savage could not imagine that the unstrung lover wanted the ring as a keepsake of the girl who had won his heart on ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... insisted. "In ten minutes she can talk to you. Not now. But have no fear, sir. She is perfectly safe and—barring her wound, which will probably heal almost without a scar—is as well as ever. A little nervous and unstrung, of course, but ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... minutes were precious, for they afforded time for Captain Montague and his officers to cut their way to the spot where he fought, just as a murderous club was about to descend on his head from behind. Montague's sword unstrung the arm that upheld it, and the next instant the pastor was surrounded ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... knee. Now, Mary, I want you to tell me at once whose you mean to be—mine or Dan's? Dan's, she replied, with an important toss of her head, which went through my very soul, like the shock from a galvanic battery. I rested for a minute or so on an old oak table that stood by. Mary's answer had unstrung every nerve in me, and left me so weak that I could scarcely keep from falling. Now I was not at that time, and don't think I ever shall be one of those fools who would cut off his nose to spite his face, much less kill myself because a girl refused to love me. Life ...
— Narrative of the Life of J.D. Green, a Runaway Slave, from Kentucky • Jacob D. Green
... possible that my nerves were somewhat unstrung during the days that followed. I wakened one night to a terrific thump which shook my bed, and which seemed to be the result of some one having struck the foot-board with a plank. Immediately following ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... quite unstrung, and for two or three days the very mention of school brought on a fit of hysterical crying, and she begged that she might be allowed to go to some boarding-school at a distance, anywhere—away from Busyborough. Mrs. Woburn was ...
— Ruth Arnold - or, the Country Cousin • Lucy Byerley
... and with nerves unstrung, I opened my door with my latch-key and returned to my room, where the reading-lamp had burned low, for it had been alight all through the night. I mixed myself a stiff brandy and soda, tossed it off, and then turned to look at myself ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... am sure that it cannot have any long continuance in yours. Our liberty might now and then jar and strike a discord with that of Ireland. The thing is possible: but still the instruments might play in concert. But if ours be unstrung, yours will be hung up on a peg, and both will be mute forever. Your new military force may give you confidence, and it serves well for a turn; but you and I know that it has not root. It is not perennial, and would prove but a poor ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... between us! Cease your mirth! Damned be a friendship that so shames my worth! Never may I set eyes on one so low! I fling you off, an unstrung, broken bow. 41 ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... to his heart went round, and he was forced to drain them in honor of the Master. An inward shivering disjointed his members, unstrung his nerves, heart and frame fainted into weakness, a dew cold as death covered his temples, and his head fell wearily upon his breast—the walls, the floors, the ceilings, the men, the burning urns, danced, reeled, and tottered in wild confusion before him. The murmuring voices, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... know how it is, Sadie, but I feel a bit unstrung, and that beast caterwauling over yonder was just more than I could put up with. There's one consolation, we are scheduled to be on our way home to-morrow, after we've seen this one rock or temple, or whatever it is. I'm full up of rocks and temples, Mr. Stephens. I shouldn't mope if I ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... pleased her, though she could not help smiling at the source from whence it came, for Mac sent her a Cupid not the chubby child with a face of naughty merriment, but a slender, winged youth leaning on his unstrung bow, with a broken arrow at his feet. A poem, "To Psyche," came with it, and Rose was much surprised at the beauty of the lines, for, instead of being witty, complimentary, or gay, there was something nobler than mere sentiment in them, and the sweet old fable lived again in language which fitly ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... went on gently. "Of course, you are irritable and all unstrung, and I ought to be very much more patient instead of flying at you. It would be wicked for us two to quarrel, but I really do want you to be ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... rejoined he, 'converse with thee may not content me nor gazing upon thee assuage the fire of my heart, nor will the love of thee, that hath mastered my soul, leave me, but with the passing away of my life.' So saying, he wept and the tears ran down upon his cheeks, like unstrung pearls. When Shemsennehar saw him weep, she wept for his weeping; and Aboulhusn exclaimed, 'By Allah, I wonder at your plight and am confounded at your behaviour; of a truth, your affair is amazing and your case ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... be true of her to say that at this moment she was mad, but the mixed excitement and terror of her position as she was waiting her doom, joined to her fears, her doubts, and, worse than all, her certainties as to her condition in the sight of God, had almost unstrung her mind. She had almost come to believe that the world was at its end, and that the punishment of which she had heard so much was already upon her. "If this is to be a doom for ever," she said to herself, "the ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope
... the front. The meeting broke up reluctantly and the men drifted out and away, expecting soon to be called to go. But something happened that they did not go that night. Meantime, a company had just returned from the front, weary, hungry, worn and bleeding, with their nerves unstrung, and their spirits desperate from the tumult and horror of the hours they had just passed in battle. They needed cheering and soothing back to normal. The girls were preparing to do this with a bright, cheery entertainment, when a deputation of boys from the night ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... felt to be wrong; and if the Church were right, and there was a resurrection, her soul was lost. She took up the book and read till her fears became so intense that she could read no more, and she walked up and down the room, her nerves partially unstrung. In the evening she talked a great deal and rapidly, apparently not quite aware of what she was saying, or else her face wore a brooding look; sometimes it awakened a little, and then her eyes were ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... many exclamations of astonishment among them, when Ned and Tom issued from their hut in the morning to join the hunting party, carrying their new weapons. The bows were, of course, unstrung; and Ned handed his to the chief, who viewed it with great curiosity. It was passed from hand to hand, and then returned to the chief. One or two of the Indians said something, and the chief tried its strength. He shook his head. Ned signed to him ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... even convinced myself that it was all a fantasy. I was so certain of it that I stole out into the hall, and peered down the back stairs. I was frightened, so frightened I shook from head to foot, but it was because my nerves were all unstrung. I was sure by this time there had been no one there, and forced myself to investigate. I saw nothing, heard nothing, and step by step advanced clear to the back window, and looked out. Then, without the slightest warning, ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... proposal with a sudden realization of what a desperately brutal thing this unstrung creature was about to do, with a terrible arraignment of self-reproach because she had made no effort to dissuade him or place an obstacle in the way of accomplishing his design. It was not strange, thought she, with a revulsion of self-loathing, ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... he said, "thy nerves are unstrung, and no wonder. It is a terrible risk to run. Even if thou saidest nothing, and Helladia under the torture accused thee of having been privy to her design, it might have a bad effect on the Emperor's mind. ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... the only ones who were thoroughly at ease. Barclay and Natalie, unstrung by the events of the day, ate little and talked listlessly. Dorothy, victim to an inward excitement which was half happiness and half disappointment, chattered feverishly. Rathbawne was wrapped in his own thoughts, and his wife, innocently unobservant of emotional manifestations ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... Thee mine eyes did show Why I am silent, and my lute unstrung; Else it were better we should part, and go, Thou to some lips of sweeter melody, And I to nurse the barren memory Of unkissed kisses, and songs ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... meaning than for the ordinary run of their readers. Their God is not a Being, their religion is not a worship, their duty is not a law, their immortality is not the hope of a world to come. Amidst these equivocations and contradictions thought is blunted, and the sinews of the intellect are unstrung. The public, bewitched by talent and captivated by success, is deluged with writings which have the same effect as the talk of a frivolous man, or the showy tattle of a woman of the world. They give an agreeable exercise to ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... to let the jibes, criticisms, and heated words of his opponents trickle off from him as easily as water does from a duck's back, which is the proper legal mental attitude in regard to such things. He told us that sharp, harsh, or bitter words entered his soul like barbed iron and he was upset and unstrung for hours afterward. A man with such an emotional nature as his and such an intellect is especially qualified for literature, and we are glad to say that he is now making a very flattering ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... from behind thy clouds. Stars of the night, arise! Lead me, some light, to the place where my love rests from the chase alone! His bow near him unstrung, his dogs panting around him! But here I must sit alone by the rock of the mossy stream. The stream and the wind roar aloud. I hear not the voice of my love! Why delays my Salgar; why the chief of the hill his promise? ...
— The Sorrows of Young Werther • J.W. von Goethe
... very pulse of living could be felt. Ab carried his new weapon proudly, hungering for the love and admiration of this girl of his, and eager to show her its powers and to exhibit his own skill. At his back hung his quiver of mammoth bone. His bow, unstrung, was in his hand. In front of the cave was a bare area of many yards in extent, then came a few scattering trees and, at a distance of perhaps two hundred yards, the forest began. Across the open ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... as the desk; consequently, when it has been unlocked, and the iron bolt sketched above withdrawn, it can be turned round by taking hold of the central iron, and pushed to the right or to the left, past the terminal rings. The chains can then be readily unstrung, or another strung ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... The unstrung heart to others leaves The music of a feebler woe, Her numbers are the sighs she heaves, Her off'ring tears that ever flow. Where could I gather fancies now? They 're with'ring on thy lowly ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... sight already, and Ezra, with his hands folded behind him, paced twice or thrice along the room. Pausing before one of the green baize bags, he lifted it from its nail, and having untied the string that fastened it, he drew forth with great tenderness an unstrung violin, and, carrying it to the light, sat down and turned it over and over in his hands. Then he took the neck with his left hand, and, placing the instrument upright upon his knee, ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... behind you?" Tarrano's voice simulated sudden alarm; he scuffled his feet on the floor. The men jumped with fright; nerves unstrung, ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... brinded lioness led forth her young, That she might teach them how they should forego Their inborn thirst of death; the pard unstrung His sinews at her feet, and sought to know 100 With looks whose motions spoke without a tongue How he might be as gentle as the doe. The magic circle of her voice and eyes ...
— The Witch of Atlas • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... her back between them, and left her to be tended by the women. She was not unconscious, but the shock had utterly unstrung her. She lay with closed eyes, listening vaguely to the buzz of excited comment about her, and wondering, wondering with an aching heart, why he ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... loving themes, unsung, Compassionate the maiden's tender woes, Revive the faint who are with fears unstrung, And solace them who writhe in suffering's throes. Awake! awake! there's need enough of thee, Nor let again such sloth enchain thy tongue, And may thy constant effort henceforth be, To plant the right, and ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... small printing-shop in a basement on East Broadway, so I called at his place one afternoon on the pretext of ordering some cards. When I saw the poet—an aged little man with a tragic, tired look on a cadaverous face—I was so unstrung that when a young man in the shop asked me something about the cards, he had to repeat the question ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... changed her dress, and put on her walking things, more than half inclined all the time to press her mother to go with them. She was a little unstrung and tremulous, pursued by a feeling that she was somehow letting herself go, behaving disloyally and indecorously towards whom?—towards Aldous? But how, or why? She did not know. But there was a curious sense of lost bloom, lost dignity, combined with an odd wish that Mr. Wharton were ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... bit unstrung, but you've gotten away without the loss of a life. Bring your nerve back from this moment! Don't let it spoil your life or your career. Pull yourself together and smile. Smile! Don't let any one see that you've a single doubt of yourself! Smile, and go up for your examination to-morrow. ...
— Dave Darrin After The Mine Layers • H. Irving Hancock
... however, his nerves evidently greatly unstrung by his unfortunate experience on the roundabout, was dreadfully upset, and alarmed, and, hiding his eyes, he crouched at the bottom of the car till it reached the other end, when he at once got out, and no amount of persuasion ...
— Dick, Marjorie and Fidge - A Search for the Wonderful Dodo • G. E. Farrow
... you see, I am sick with an infernal cold," he said. "Got it tramping in the rain without my overcoat, and that fight I told you of has unstrung me. It was a regular battle. But you go yourself, and perhaps Eloise will come to see me. I shall show her the Colonel's confession, and she can do as she pleases ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... bunch enough drink to keep 'em asleep until two-thirty to-morrow," Mr. Rooney remarked to Fido as he spat out into the Atlantic Ocean. "I'm going to put the gaff to 'em to-morrow night, and I want to start with 'em unstrung and string 'em to suit myself. That little author is some girl, but I wonder why Vandeford wanted to shunt that white devil onto a nice boob like Farraday, and him his friend, too," he further remarked as he watched the star and the angel being trundled by ...
— Blue-grass and Broadway • Maria Thompson Daviess
... about archery meetings and parties, in which at last they all grew so eager, that they stood still round the return target, and Marian could not shoot back again without perilling them; so she unstrung her bow, and stood apart with a stern face, which made her look a great deal more like Diana, than she by any ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... as is the dark portion of the new moon—and, the power shut off, they felt themselves falling toward it with sickening speed. Perkins screamed with mad fear and flung himself grovelling upon the floor. Margaret, her nerves still unstrung, clutched at her heart with both hands. Dorothy, though her eyes looked like great black holes in her white face, looked ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... deepest thanks." He unstrung his bow and leaned upon the stave; a fine figure in forest green and velvet bonnet, a black mask over eyes and nose, a generous mouth and strong chin below it. "Will your worship favor me with ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... thy glowing song, And dwell with rapture on each vivid line, Shall round thy lyre, neglected and unstrung, Of sweetest flow'rs a ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... upon him. At first he could not be persuaded to be quiet; the muscular energies were still unaffected, and, with continual hemorrhage from the lungs, he could not understand that work or exercise could hurt him. But as the disease gained ground, its characteristic languor unstrung his force; the hard and sinewy limbs became attenuated and relaxed; his breath labored; a hectic fever burnt in his veins like light flame every afternoon, and subsided into chilly languor toward morning; profuse night-sweats increased the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... gory weapon on the greensward, and returned it to the sheath. He then sprang to the side of his wife, and, with the help of the foreman and two brakemen, raised her. She said her nerves were all unstrung, and she 'never could walk home in the world;' so she was placed on the box of the hose carriage and carried ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... which he resisted as much as one can resist anything in that unstrung condition which belongs to suspense, there came continually an anxiety which he made no effort to banish—dwelling on it rather with a mournfulness, which often seems to us the best atonement we can make to one whose need we have been unable to meet. The anxiety was for Gwendolen. In the wonderful ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... like Vivie. She liked men, if truth were told, a tiny wee bit more than women. But she wished in the moods that followed her brother's death in 1894 to be a mother by adoption, a refuge for the fallen, the bewildered, the unstrung. She helped young men back into the path of respectability and wage-earning as well as young women. She was even, when opportunity offered, ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... live to enjoy the fruits or all his study, labour, toil, and anxiety; for, while this enterprise was still in progress, and before the machine trade had revived, he was taken ill, and confined to bed. He became sleepless; his nerves were unstrung; and no wonder. Brain disease carried him off on the 17th of January, 1833; and this good, ingenious, and admirable inventor was removed from all further care ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... on the earth. The stillness was positively oppressive. Rose felt as if every time she inhaled the air, she disturbed the death-like quiet of the scene. A huge shadow passed along the ledge of the opposite cottage; her nerves were so unstrung that she started back as it advanced. It was only their own gentle cat, whose quick eye recognised its mistress, and without waiting for invitation, crawled quickly from its eminence, and came rubbing itself against the glass, and then moved stealthily away, intent upon the destruction ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... was her appearance that Jack had to grasp the desk to steady himself. Really, he thought, my nerves must be frightfully unstrung. I think I must take a holiday. Aloud, he said: "Why, Miss Easton, this is a most unexpected pleasure. Won't you be seated? Can I be of any ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... now convinced of the truth of what Pindar sung in these words, ossa de me pephileke Zeus atuzontai boan Pieridon aionta; for he had no sooner begun to repeat the mellifluent strains of that divine poet, than the wretch his antagonist was confounded, and his nerves unstrung. ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... the tree tops heaved and thrashed about in the wind that rushed down the mountain side. On the heels of the wind came a drenching rain, and Marion took what refuge was offered close to the trunk of a huge pine, which shook and shivered as if it too had nerves that were unstrung ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... heard where you were, and he hired with my company to come out here as a foreman. He came to drop on you. The day after he came he had a bad accident. I went to see him. He told me all; his nerves were unstrung, you observe. He meant to ruin you, as you ruined the girl. He had proofs enough. The girl herself is in Winnipeg. Well, I know life, and I know man and man's follies and temptations. I thought it a pity that a career and a life like yours should ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... and privation, and bodily discomfort, and sickness, which is the shadow of death, have worked right on to the accomplishment of their great purposes; toiling much, enduring much, fulfilling much;—and then, with shattered nerves, and sinews all unstrung, have laid themselves down in the grave, and slept the sleep of death,—and the world talks of them, while ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... answered, "until I quiet my nerves a little. I am all unstrung." He felt her body tremble as it pressed ...
— The Outlaw of Torn • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the Crows make the best bows, although the Apaches come close in the rank. When the Sioux bow is unstrung, it is a straight piece of wood, while the Apaches and the Southern Indians make a perfect Cupid's bow. The Crows often use elk horns as material, and carve them beautifully. The Sioux, to make ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... would have deemed it his duty to scoff at such superstition; but to-night, his nerves unstrung, by the happenings of the last few days, his bodily vigour at a low ebb, his mind a chaos of miserable, hopeless memories and fears, Chloe's words woke a quite unexpected response ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... Dolls,' remarked Eugene to Lightwood, 'are considerably unstrung. And I deem it on the whole expedient to fumigate ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... when the pale shadow spoke; For there was striving in its piteous tongue, To speak as when on earth it was awake, And Isabella on its music hung: Languor there was in it, and tremulous shake, As in a palsied Druid's harp unstrung; And through it moaned a ghostly under-song, Like hoarse night ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... cried, throwing her arms about Eleanor's neck and embracing her warmly. "I can't say the right thing now I am so unstrung, but I love you even more than ever because you've let me share ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... him to reply. His shoulders quivered, but he remained silent. She went on soothingly: "You are all unstrung. The shock was too sudden. It must have been a terrible one! Won't you tell me about it? Perhaps that will make ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... was my thirst, my dream, my aliment, my sole fount and sustenance of life. And have I not sown the whirlwind and reaped the wind? The glory of my youth is gone, my veins are chilled, my frame is bowed, my heart is gnawed with cares, my nerves are unstrung as a loosened bow: and what, after all, is my gain? Oh, God! what is ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... The Baby's nerves were unstrung with the din of the guns, and it was an hour before he could be calmed down. The wildcat was skinned, and it was days before the orang could be reconciled to the sight of the pelt or the ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... all cluttered up with bad habits, not havin' no family of her own to raise," Pearl said. "She wouldn't jump up and screech every time the door slams if she'd been as used to noises as Ma is, and this talk about her nerves bein' all unstrung is just plain silly—and as for her not sleepin' at nights, she sleeps as sound as any of us. She says she hears every strike of the clock all night long, and she thinks she does; but she doesn't, I know. Anyway, I'm afraid Ma will get to be like her if ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... it had pretty well ceased raining, that was one comfort, and, as Roger, shouldering his spade, and with the day's provision in a handkerchief, trudged out upon his daily duty, those good old thoughts of thankfulness came upon his mind, and he forgot awhile the dream that had unstrung him. Turning for a moment to look upon his hovel, and bless its inmates with a prayer, he half resolved to run back, and hear a few more words, if only not to vex his darling child: but there was now no time to spare; and then, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper |
