"Bent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to obey the order, for every one knew there was no time to be lost. The masts bent like willow wands, and I expected every moment to see them go over the side. While attending to shortening sail, the eyes of the officers were withdrawn from the chase; for some of the ropes getting foul ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... Chenonceaux, Chambord, Nantes, Am- boise, and Angers, the tombs of the Angevine kings at Fontevrault, and the stone cottage of Louis XI at Clry. Visiting the grave of Chteaubriand at St. Malo, we met a little old gentleman, bent with age, but very brisk and chatty. He was standing with a party of friends on one side of the tomb, while we stood on the other. Presently, one of the gentlemen in his company came over and asked our names, saying that his aged companion was a great admirer of Chteaubriand, and was anxious to ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... recovered than the attack became personal again; and so it has continued ever since: he seems bent upon "playing her off" in all manners; he braves her, then compliments her, assents to her opinion, and the next moment contradicts her; pretends uncommon friendship for her, and then laughs in her face. But his worst manoeuvre is a perpetual application to me, by looks and sly glances, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... raising his eyes to meet the bulging, colorless eyes of Penton. Henty blushed, but his gaze was unwavering. The dogs barked uproariously, scampering to and fro like rats. Mrs. Penton, from the manager's office, tried to quiet them, but they seemed bent on carrying out the bluff they had started, imitating in that respect their ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... make any reply. She bent her head down over her work, so low that her flushed cheeks could scarcely be seen, and went on stitching with energy and passion such as needles and thread are seldom the instruments of; and yet how much passion is continually ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... Three Legs of Man emblem (Trinacria), in the center; the three legs are joined at the thigh and bent at the knee; in order to have the toes pointing clockwise on both sides of the flag, a ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... established—and even by themselves uncontradicted—fact, we can have no hesitation in stating (what we trust no American will conceive to be stated in illiberality of spirit, since such feeling we utterly disclaim) that the government of the United States, bent on the final acquisition of all the more proximate possessions of the Indians, had for many consecutive years, waged a war of extermination against these unfortunate people, and more especially those residing on the Wabash, to which the eye of interest or preference, or both, ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... condition of Rome and of the Curia in the last decades of the pontificate. Whether it were that father and son had drawn up a formal list of proscribed persons, or that the murders were resolved upon one by one, in either case the Borgias were bent on the secret destruction of all who stood in their way or whose inheritance they coveted. Of this, money and movable goods formed the smallest part; it was a much greater source of profit for the Pope that the incomes of ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... he came forward and bent down to the ground before the dwarfs, who came crowding round, and laughed heartily at his comical appearance with ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... took the cane. The lines of his face were oddly softened. He stood for a moment looking at the boy, then very sharply he moved, bent, and snapped the ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... As we bent to the slaughter, far above us rose that shrill, weird cry which I had heard once before, and which had called the herd to the attack upon their victims. Again and again it rose, but we were too much engaged with the fierce and powerful creatures about us to attempt to search out even ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... their services to that which was required for the good of the community; the maintenance of aqueducts and roads in the towns and the guarding of the herds. Aside from these slight duties, the individual was free to follow the bent of his desires. Those who refused to contribute such services were driven from the community and became nomads, but such instances were rare; all preferring to enjoy the benefits which civilization, combined with the greatest amount of liberty, ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... curtly. Then he took the seat which his evicted nephew had vacated, and bent over Carmen. With a final hopeless survey of the situation, Reginald turned and descended to the cloak room, muttering dire but futile ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... themselves up to prayer. The flood, bearing with it rolling rocks, came nearer and nearer, until it reached a few old walnut trees on a line with the torrent. A rock of some thirty feet square tumbled against one of the trees, which staggered and bent, but held fast and stopped the rock. The debris at once rolled upon it into a bank, the course of the torrent was turned, and the dwelling ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... not to please him,—nay, to cause him exceeding displeasure,—and yet, the very next moment, he smiled. While the latter expression was yet on his lips, he caught a glimpse of Hepzibah, who had involuntarily bent forward to the window; and then the smile changed from acrid and disagreeable to the sunniest complacency and benevolence. He bowed, with a happy mixture of dignity and courteous kindliness, and ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... 'Evil, be thou my good.' Like the good man, though for a very different reason, the bad one has ceased to make war with the devil. Finding a conspiracy against goodness going on, the bad man joins it, and thus, like the good man, is at peace with himself. The bad man is bent upon his own way, to get what he wants, no matter at what cost. Human lives! What do they matter? A woman's honour! What does that matter? Truth and fidelity! What are they? To know what you want, and ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... that when there was any real riding, I've had the Injuns do it. And do you think I've been driving that stagecoach hell-bent from here to beyond because I'd no other way to kill time? Wasn't another darned man in the outfit I'd trust, that's why. If I take the Indians back, I've got to have some real boys." Luck's voice was plaintive, ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... bent of Sukey's mind long before he made the announcement that he intended to enter the ministry. Back to the Maryland Academy at Baltimore went Sukey. He entered the theological department, and four years later began a long and successful ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... carry the hod, they work like beasts and with beasts, until they lose almost the semblance of human beings—until they look inferior to the animals they drive. On the labor of these deformed mothers, of these bent and wrinkled girls, of little boys with the faces of old age, the heartless nobility live in splendor and extravagant idleness. I am not now speaking of the French people, as France is the ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... his farewells, and bent his gallant, irresistible look of mirthful chivalry and delicate middle-aged admiration on Leah's upturned face, and her eyes looked up more piercing and blacker than ever; and in each of them a little high light shone like a point of interrogation—the ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... admired the young king, so handsome and so agreeable, sought for that other king of France, much otherwise king than the former, and so old, so pale, so bent, that people called him ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the rest of the unfortunates broke their chain with convulsive impatience, and made the floor tremble under the nervous stamping of their feet. The clerk calmly turned over with his methodically bent finger, a large bundle of letters, and would occasionally pause when the postal hieroglyphics effaced an address under a total eclipse of crests, seals and numbers recklessly heaped on; for the clerk who posts ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... isn't it worth it all?" asked the doctor as he bent over toward us and looked down with something wonderful and kind in his eyes that seemed to rest on us like a benediction. "You have been just as plucky as a girl can be and in only a little over two months you have grown as lightfooted and hearty as a boy. I think nothing could be lovelier than ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... leapt forward like swift dogs released from leash. The oars were made to resist extreme strain, but they bent under the terrific strokes of the life-savers. Over six thousand miles of sea the Pacific rolled in with slow surges, and out in the darkness, somewhere, was a drowning man, probably beyond help, but with just the faintest shred of possibility for life ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... strained all my thoughts and faculties for six or seven months; Wordsworth consumed far more time, and far more thought, and far more genius. We consider the publication of them an evil on any terms; but our thoughts were bent on a plan for the accomplishment of which, a certain sum of money was necessary, (the whole) at that particular time, and in order to this we resolved, although reluctantly, to part with our Tragedies: that is, if we could obtain thirty guineas for each, and at less than thirty ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... woman moaning here, the speaker bent over her, took a bandage from her head, and threw open a back door to let in the daylight upon it, from the smallest and most miserable backyard I ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... purpose of imposing his will upon nature, and freeing himself and his from an outrageous necessity—to see him taken up with some false notion, and doing just the opposite of what he wants to do; and then, because the whole bent of his mind is spoilt, bungling miserably ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... silver knob of her hair to escape behind, gave her a late nineteenth century dignity. Before leaving the house she took two volumes from her shelves—read first in one, then in the other—sat pensive for a while, with head bent and eyes shaded—after which she replaced her books, turned the key in her door, and set forth ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... two men with a bag full of money kept recurring and recurring in his mind, and smothering the natural pride he felt in his abounding cabbages. True, it was no business of his, but still he could not feel entirely at ease. As he bent over his hoe he heard hoofs clatter in the street, and, looking up, saw the erect form of Sergeant Grey on his well-groomed Government horse. At a signal from the banker the policeman ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... lastly, who have neither time nor taste for the technicalities, and nice distinctions, of formal Natural History; who enjoy Nature, but as artists or as sportsmen, and not as men of science. Let them follow their bent freely: but let them not suppose that in following it they can do nothing towards enlarging our knowledge of Nature, especially when on foreign stations. So far from it, drawings ought always to be valuable, whether of ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... "make things"; and his best development requires that we train this inclination. There is a prevalent notion that women especially are no longer required to be producers and that all our energies should be bent toward the sole task of making them intelligent consumers. There is, however, a joy in producing without which no life is really complete. And no scheme of education can be a true success which ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson
... at his desk absorbed in the preparation of a brief. So bent was he on his work that he did not hear the door as it was pushed gently open, nor see the curly head that was thrust into his office. A little sob attracted his notice, and, turning he saw a face that was streaked with tears and told plainly that feelings ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... first intended to restrict the invitation to the Conference to narrower limits, had extended it to the whole Confederacy. In the most anxious letters Haller entreated the Reformer not to remain away. He Bent the theses drawn up by him and his colleague, Francis Kolb, to Zwingli for revision, with the request to have them printed in Zurich. The town-clerk of Bern did the same thing, in the name of the Council. Zwingli promised, sent books and advice, and spread the Bernese letters of invitation also ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... returning the bent candy is not audacious, surely the polite sale is willful, surely there is more hope. All the same the cause has the plain picnic, it shows such weather, it does not shun clinging. So the candy is best hired and the long ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein
... I would be taken; But, as a Roman ought,—dead, my Ventidius: For I'll convey my soul from Caesar's reach, And lay down life myself. 'Tis time the world Should have a lord, and know whom to obey. We two have kept its homage in suspence, And bent the globe, on whose each side we trod, Till it was dented inwards. Let him walk Alone upon't: I'm weary of my part. My torch is out; and the world stands before me, Like a black desert at the approach of night: I'll lay me down, and stray no ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... I feel," he exclaimed, speaking with extreme kindness and pressing me to him for comfort. "She's gone; she's lost to us for ever: so what does it matter now?" He bent over me, and when his face had touched mine I scarcely knew if it were wet with my ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... seven, the hands throughout the fleet having been turned up to witness punishment, the eyes of all bent upon a powerfully armed boat as it quitted the flag-ship; every one knowing that there went the provost-marshal conducting his prisoner to the Marlborough for execution. The crisis was come; now was to be seen whether ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... I bent over him to catch the words. Kingsley, as if he feared the utterance of anything more, pushed me away, and addressing Edgerton sternly, asked ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... once or twice and stood with bent head listening. The unrest outside seemed to increase; a loud creaking sounded from ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... now returned, and led Anton into her husband's room. Helpless and confused, the baron rose from his chair. Anton felt the deepest compassion for him. He looked at his sunken face, bent figure, and the black bandage over his eyes. He warmly declared his ardent wish to be of use to him, and begged his indulgence if he had in any way erred in judgment hitherto. Then he proceeded to tell him ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... any he had ever before worn; there was nothing clerical about it; nor was that black horse from the Poindexter stables. Then, too, how noiselessly he rode!—as noiselessly as a ghost. That, however, must have been because his horse's hoofs fell on the soft turf. He rode slowly, and his head was bent as if in thought; but almost before Edith could draw her breath, much less to speak, he had passed beneath the boughs of the tree, and was riding on toward the village. Now he had vanished in the vague light and shadow, ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... old man, something under middle height, but looking as if he had once been taller; for his shoulders were much bent, and his head was sunk on his chest. His whole form looked wasted and shrunken, and John Hammond thought he had never seen so old a man—or at any rate any man who was so deeply marked with all the signs of extreme age; and yet in the backwoods of America he ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... pass from the Bolhovsky district into the Zhizdrinsky district, must have been impressed by the striking difference between the race of people in the province of Orel and the population of the province of Kaluga. The peasant of Orel is not tall, is bent in figure, sullen and suspicious in his looks; he lives in wretched little hovels of aspen-wood, labours as a serf in the fields, and engages in no kind of trading, is miserably fed, and wears slippers of bast: the rent-paying peasant of Kaluga lives in roomy cottages of pine-wood; ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... cried Hal, and bent his bow, "Just watch this famous shot; See that old willow by the brook— I'll hit the middle knot." Swift flew the arrow through the air, Madge watched it eager-eyed; But, oh! for Harry's gallant vaunt, The wayward ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... every effort and device to appease the Queen's anger and suspiciousness, and to bring Essex to a wiser and humbler mind. The picture is indeed a vivid one, and full of dramatic force, of an unrelenting and merciless mistress bent on breaking and bowing down to the dust the haughty spirit of a once-loved but rebellious favourite, whom, though he has deeply offended, she yet wishes to bring once more under her yoke; and of the calm, keen-witted looker-on, watching ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... tried indirectly to murder. Orlando, finding it impossible to live in his brother's house, fled to the forest of Arden, where he joined the society of the banished duke. One morning he saw a man sleeping, and a serpent and lioness bent on making him their prey. He slew both the serpent and lioness, and then found that the sleeper was his brother Oliver. Oliver's disposition from this moment underwent a complete change, and he loved his brother as much ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... me embrace you, Enyusha,' moaned Arina Vlasyevna. Bazarov bent down to her. 'Why, what a handsome fellow you ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... and said: "Nut-tree bough, nut-tree bough, tell me the way to go!" The bough could not speak for the same reason that the oak could not; but it bent down towards the streamlet. Bevis dropped on one knee and lifted up a little water in the hollow of his hand, and drank it, and asked which ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... altered, changed names, turned sense into nonsense, or less often nonsense into sense, moved by their sweet will alone. It can be seen going on now in Germany among students and foresters, and in all places where they sing. In a society where men are free to follow their own natural bent, their minds uncorrupted by books, the public taste is generally not only healthy, but often very dainty and critical. They will find at least what they like themselves, and have no need to consult any one else. Thus the Volkslied was the creation as ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... and his young comrades lay down to sleep this march, the greatest of Stonewall Jackson's famous turning movements, had begun already. Jackson was on his horse, Little Sorrel, his old slouch hat drawn down over his eyes, his head bent forward a little, and the great brain thinking, always thinking. His face ...
— The Sword of Antietam • Joseph A. Altsheler
... to a bluff old fellow, in a striped waistcoat, who was standing by the bar. He bent over Oliver, and repeated the inquiry; but finding him really incapable of understanding the question; and knowing that his not replying would only infuriate the magistrate the more, and add to the severity of his sentence; he hazarded ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... adroitly avoided. They altered my affections one by one with a mind to bend them imperceptibly into their opposites, which are lusts of evil; and as they did not touch my thought at all they would have bent and inverted my affections without my knowledge, had not ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... not immediately dominate her. She had her confused out-reachings toward other centres of sensation, her vague intuition of a heliocentric system; but the attraction of habit, the steady pressure of example, gradually fixed her roving allegiance and she bent her neck to the yoke. Vanity had a share in her subjugation; for it had early been discovered that she was the only person in the family who could read her grandfather's works. The fact that she had perused them with delight at an age when (even ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... by the office last week, a little bent and seedy, but all in a glow and trembling with excitement in the old way. Told me he was President of the Klondike Exploring, Gold Prospecting and Immigration Company, with a capital of ten millions. ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... men had finished their breakfast, the hands were again turned up, the lower deck cleared and washed, new sails bent and the guns properly secured; screens were put up round the half-deck where the wounded were in their beds. The dead were brought up and sewed up in their hammocks, laid out on gratings, and covered with the ensign and union jack, preparatory to their being committed ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... inn, I do not see them, and though its walls are dismantled, its custom gone, and its renown a thing of the past, I can still sit on its grass-grown doorstep and roam through its fast-decaying corridors without discovering any blacker shadow following in my wake than that of my own figure, bent now with age, and only held upright by the firmness of the little cane with which I strive to give aid to my ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... in his hand as he bent down, and sprang lightly into her saddle, but at the same moment the horse moving on, the general's head came in contact with the body of her habit, when his wig catching in one of the buttons, off it came, leaving him bald-headed. He bore the misfortune, ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... fly darted here and there like a little blue spear. The shy trout fled dismayed before the two noisy intruders; the waxen blossoms of the arrowhead, the broad shining leaves and golden-hearted blossoms of the water lily and the stately blue spikes of the pickerel weed bent before their ruthless tramping. A kingfisher, startled from his day's work by the uproarious pair, shot down the stream, his derisive laugh echoing far through the leafy avenue. The two almost forgot ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... manufactured commodities began to run short in the United Kingdom, tracasseries would from time to time arise in connection with certain rules which had been laid down in the interests of us all. The delegations manifested a highly inconvenient bent for purchasing in the open market, which did not by any means suit our book, as such procedure tended to run up prices and to disturb equilibrium. The trade, moreover, was ready enough to meet them, and occasionally to let them have goods more quickly and even cheaper ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... however, did not extend far enough back to enable him to get altogether out of the reach of the infuriated bull, which set on him with its fore-feet, and pounded him so severely that several of his ribs were broken; indeed, for several years afterwards he was nearly bent double by the severe beating he ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... authorities on this subject that the first time fresh water was thus obtained at sea was by an old captain of a brig which ran short of water, and he cut up some pewter dishes into strips, which he bent and soldered into a pipe. He, with the carpenter's aid, fitted a wooden lid in one of the cooking boilers, and fixed one end of his pipe in it. He next sawed a water cask in half, bored a hole in the bottom of one half, and took ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 492, June 6, 1885 • Various
... pebble between his index finger and bent thumb, as a boy plays at marbles, he projected it against one of the little sand-heaps. It scattered, and he jumped ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... which I could now plainly see, may have had an influence in producing this effect. It was so rounded with health, and yet so haggard with trouble. Not knowing whether Miss Althorpe was behind me or not, but too intent upon the sleeping girl to care, I bent over the half-averted features ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... father a second azure square, "there is a photograph taken here ten minutes after the first, at 3.20 yesterday afternoon. That shows the safe open and the young man standing before it with the private letter-book in his hand. As his head is bent over the pages of the book, the view of the face is not so good. But there can be no doubt that it is the same man. You see that, don't ...
— Tales of Fantasy and Fact • Brander Matthews
... was the lame chicken she had nursed in a little basket by the kitchen fire, then a pair of guinea pigs that belonged to Dot, and some carrier pigeons that they specially fancied; after that, she was bent on the removal of a young family of hedgehogs, and some kittens that had been discovered in the hay-loft, belonging to the ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... a cheer, bent low in the saddle, and grasped our sabres firmly. Suares knew his work, and led us across a wide stretch of smooth, firm ground, the very spot for ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... a topographical bent knows perfectly well that Muggleton is a corporate town, with a mayor, burgess and freemen, and anybody who has consulted the addresses of the mayor to the freemen, or the freemen to the mayor, or both to the corporation, or all three to Parliament, will ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... blanched faces which had haunted me so long, at the turn of the road, where, for the first time, the black cross-beam with its empty halters first became visible to them. Both turned and regarded it with a long, steady look; that done, they again bent their heads attentively to the words of the clergyman. I suppose in that long, eager, fascinated gaze they practically died—that for them death had no additional bitterness. When the mound was reached on which the scaffold ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... fire-engine, and saw that travel by rail was stopped by a fire. The hose crossed the track, and the incoming horse-cars were in a long line beyond it. He looked at the cars which he had over-taken. Midway in the line stood the one he had been accustomed to take. He caught sight of a familiar head bent over a book. He stepped into the car and stood before Miss Vila. He bent forward, and she looked ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... delighteth in iniquity. It is a sin that flattereth, that dissembleth, that offereth to hold God, as it were, fair in hand, about that which is neither purposed nor intended. It is also a sin that puts a man upon studying and contriving to beguile and deceive his neighbor as to the bent and intent of the heart, and also as to the cause and end of actions. It is a sin that persuadeth a man to make a show of civility, morality, or religion, as a cloak, a pretence, a guise to deceive withal. It will make a man preach for a place and praise, rather than to glorify ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... glad that the first chicken I ever held in my arms was put into them gently by that woods man, and that it was the Golden Bird himself. "Put him in and shut the door, and he'll calm the ladies as you bring them to him," he commanded as he bent down and lifted two of the Bird brides and began to tie their feet together with a piece of cord he had taken from a deep pocket in the ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... whose eyes I caught inquiringly addressed to mine. They said so plainly, "Do you wish to see the house?" that I answered aloud, "Yes, if you please." And within a minute the old door opened, and I bent my head, and went down two steps ...
— The Seven Poor Travellers • Charles Dickens
... a quantity of fine strips and bent into oval shape two tough sticks of vine maple. Across these he strung a web of rawhide, thus furnishing himself with a pair of snowshoes which were a necessity now that the snow lay everywhere knee-deep ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... you were looking anywhere but in front of you, it is quite another thing to fall into it because you were intent upon a star. It was certainly a star at which Don Quixote was gazing. How profound is the comic element in the over-romantic, Utopian bent of mind! And yet, if you reintroduce the idea of absentmindedness, which acts as a go-between, you will see this profound comic element uniting with the most superficial type. Yes, indeed, these whimsical wild enthusiasts, these madmen who are yet so strangely reasonable, ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... great umbrage to the official party by allying himself with the Opposition. His birth and social standing, it was said, unfitted him for such companionship. The Captain himself was apparently conscious of no incongruity, and bent all his energies to the advancement of the Reform cause. Upon his first arrival in the country he could not be said to have had any political convictions at all. He had been bred a Tory, and his military career had been ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... up her skirts, and bent to the work. At every dip, like great billows heaving along the sky-line, the glacier-fretted mountains rose and fell. Sometimes she rested her back and watched the teeming beach towards which they were heading, and again, the land-locked arm of the sea in which a score or ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... suddenly back, and with tenfold intensity, as is always the case, and, though I dreaded its unhealthiness, I could no longer thwart him. Indeed, the Art-sense took such complete possession of him that I feared to interpose obstacles. He did not go about his work like a boy, but bent himself to it with the calm, resolute purpose of a man of forty. I could see the increasing mastery of the idea, in his changed eye, in his compressed lip, in his statelier, calmer pose; and, however incredulous we may be respecting results, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... bent like an arch over Chamis and, seizing the case by the handle, began to transfer it to his side. His heart and pulse beat heavily, his eyes grew dim, his breathing became rapid, but he shut his teeth and tried to control his emotions. Nevertheless ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... "They are bent on examining my papers; they must think I have been tampering in some political or religious intrigue; but my mind is quite at ease on that score. I am well lodged at present, and no doubt shall be set free after my papers ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... ground, and from the nature of the numbers, whether even or odd, when one lets fall a handful of nuts. In a dispute the Yoruban priest holds in his hand a number of grass stalks, one of which is bent, and the person who draws the bent stalk is adjudged to be in fault.[1629] The Hebrews had the official use of objects called "urim and thummim" (terms whose meaning is unknown to us), which were probably small cubes, to each of which was somehow attached an answer ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... of the bow which faces the string when drawn into action, that is, the concave arc, is called the belly of the bow. The opposite surface is the back. A bow should never be bent backwards, away from the ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... wound at a distance, when others get in between them; so that unless he secures himself by flight, they seldom fail at last to kill or to take him prisoner. When they have obtained a victory, they kill as few as possible, and are much more bent on taking many prisoners than on killing those that fly before them; nor do they ever let their men so loose in the pursuit of their enemies, as not to retain an entire body still in order; so that if they have been forced to engage the last of their battalions before they could gain the ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... young men of title and wealth to go abroad, and the souvenirs which they brought back with them, such as pictures and vases, helped to form a taste for the antique, in England. Then, too, books on Greek art were being written by English travellers. Josiah Wedgwood had a natural bent for the pure line and classic subjects, but he was, also, possessed with the keen businessman's intuition as to what his particular market demanded. So he sat about copying the line and decorations of the antique Greek vases. He reproduced lines and designs in decoration, but invented the ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... bards neglect to hymn Thy praises, Begum; though, on dross intent, The hireling sculptor pauseth not to limn Thy spacious visage, kindly hands are bent E'en now to stuff thy frail integument. Then sleep in peace, Beloved; blest Sultan Of ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum)
... counsel! Let me be To sate the Cyprian that is murdering me! To-day shall be her day; and, all strife past Her bitter Love shall quell me at the last. Yet, dying, shall I die another's bane! He shall not stand so proud where I have lain Bent in the dust! Oh, he shall stoop to share The life I live in, and learn mercy there! [She goes off wildly ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... weekly sixpenny paper devoted to young men, their doings, their amusements, their literature, and their art. Under their dual editorship this journal had prospered; it now circulated five thousand a week, and published twelve pages of advertisements. Frank, whose bent was hospitality, was therefore able to entertain his friends as it pleased him, and his rooms were daily and nightly filled with revelling lords, comic vocalists, and chorus girls. Mike often craved for other ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... she gaped at him for a meaning; his face taught the force of his words only too well. She sobbed, threw up her high head, bent it, like Jesus, ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... as "highly successful"; and she found behind his too incessant flattery a genuine affection for his mates. It was in the matter of the war that he most favored and thrilled them. Dropping his voice while they bent nearer (there was no one within two miles to overhear), he disclosed the fact that in both Boston and Washington he'd been getting a lot of inside stuff on the war—right straight from headquarters—he was in touch with some men—couldn't name them but they ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... would." He bent forward in eager anticipation. Verse should pave the way with music for the avowal which he had so far failed to force across the barrier between heart ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... he had been told by the Mutual Life and Equitable that the Limitation Bill was favored by me and would be put through if such a thing were possible. Mr. McCall did not know me, and on leaving for California told Mr. Perkins that from all he could learn he was sure I was bent on putting this bill through, and that nothing he could say to me would change my view; in fact, because he had fought so hard to retain the old Insurance Superintendent, he felt that I would be particularly opposed to anything he might ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... "When therefore the men of one party attack those of the other, though their spleen at first may only seem bent against a Bishop, a Knight, or an inferior officer; yet, if successful in their attacks on that servant of the king, they never stop there: they come afterwards to think themselves strong enough even to attack the Queen," &c. ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... The white-robed rowers bent to their oars, and the swift boat shot forward up the Nile through a double line of ships of war, all of them crowded with soldiers. Abi looked at these ships which Pharaoh had gathered there to meet ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... against the King) he was a hale and stalwart cavalier of fifty-two. He was released—after twelve years—when his hair and beard were grizzled, his face worn and wrinkled, his body somewhat bent, and his features grave and sorrowful. With what tearful joy he clasped to his breast his ever faithful wife and his two sons! At sixty-four his brave spirit was still unshaken; his ardent and restless ambition was as keen ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... removed to the ice, but soon after the immense ice-field on which the tent was pitched went in pieces, while the leak in the vessel closed, and the crew in consequence went on board again. On the 15th/3rd September, the vessel was again pressed so, that the deck at times was bent to the form of a vault. On the 19th/7th September, von Krusenstern called the crew together that they might choose from their number three persons to advise with the commander on the best means of making their escape, and two days after the vessel was abandoned, after a meal at which the crew were ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... day in summer. A chilly wind swept about the house and bent the branches of the trees, and reminded every one who encountered it that autumn, with its gales, would ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... at the snow upon, the ridge descending toward Zermatt, and all peril was over. We frequently looked, but in vain, for traces of our unfortunate companions; we bent over the ridge and cried to them, but no sound returned. Convinced at last that they were within neither sight nor hearing, we ceased from our useless efforts, and, too cast down for speech, silently gathered up our things, preparatory to ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... to our shoe-strings!" Swinging himself out upon the steps Bob bent and kissed his mother. "Mother, this is my roommate, Van Blake," ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... what is of more importance, I fear I may hereafter demonstrate the unfitness I have to-day only stated. However, it comes to me, I think, as a matter of plain duty; it may be all the better for not being according to my own bent and leaning; I must forthwith go to work, as a reluctant schoolboy ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... she freed him and bent over him. Her supple young arms went under his shoulders. She raised him, half dragging, half lifting, until she had him stretched upon the floor in front of the stove. She ran for a basin of water, cut ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... A.M.—I have been an hour on deck watching the great bright stars eclipse themselves, and the sun break through the clouds right astern of us. It is a lovely day, and we are a little bent over by a breeze from the shore of Ceylon, along which we are now running. Noon.—Just anchored at Galle, after a run of about 270 miles in twenty-four hours.... We are surrounded by curious boats about two feet wide, prevented from capsizing ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... loved to draw their political inspiration from Milton and Burke and John Stuart Mill. Others, again, were the humble disciples of Kant and Schlegel, of Herbert Spencer and Darwin. But whatever their special talent bent might be, the vast majority professed allegiance to Western ideals, and if they had not altogether-and often far too hastily-abjured, or learned secretly to despise, the beliefs and customs of their forefathers, they were at any rate anxious to modify and bring them into harmony with those ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... When he bent over the Indian lad, he uttered an exclamation of joy; from the matted hair and abundance of blood he had believed him shot through the head. A closer examination showed, however, that the bullet had only ploughed a neat little furrow down to the skull. Charley washed the ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... at the time that he would make a good parson, and now that he has long got over his fit, he finds himself wholly unfit for it—he is still the officer in heart, and is always struggling with his natural bent, which is very contrary to ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... the soul of an artist still aflame within him, willingly produced the steaks, and all ate, finding that they were what he had claimed them to be. But he waited eagerly for the verdict, his head bent forward and ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Lear's? Or Shylock's? Or Benedick's? Or Macbeth's? Or that of Cassius? Or that of Falconbridge? But we might go on forever. Take a single example, Shylock. Is he so eager for money as to be indifferent to revenge? Or so eager for revenge as to be indifferent to money? Or so bent on both together as to be indifferent to the honor of his nation and the law of Moses? All his propensities are mingled with each other, so that, in trying to apportion to each its proper part, we find the same difficulty which constantly meets ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... power. Many were the hardships from the climate, and the danger from savages, with which the poor colonists had to struggle; yet their landlords, instead of rendering their circumstances as easy and comfortable as possible, seemed rather bent on crossing their humours and doubling their distress. The people could now no longer regard them as indulgent fathers, concerned for the welfare of their colony, but as tyrannical legislators, that imposed ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... "ducking-point." Imagine a low, marshy peninsula, verging landward into stunted woods, full of irregular water-courses and stagnant pools—tapering off seaward into a mere spit of sand, on which reeds and bent-grass scarcely deign to grow, towards the extreme point, just where the neck is narrowest, are the "blinds"—ten or twelve in number—a long gunshot apart, in which the "fowlers" lurk, waiting for their prey. On either side stretch the broad estuary of the Gunpowder River, ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence |
