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Strain   /streɪn/   Listen
Strain

verb
(past & past part. strained; pres. part. straining)
1.
To exert much effort or energy.  Synonyms: reach, strive.
2.
Test the limits of.  Synonyms: stress, try.
3.
Use to the utmost; exert vigorously or to full capacity.  Synonym: extend.  "Don't strain your mind too much"
4.
Separate by passing through a sieve or other straining device to separate out coarser elements.  Synonyms: sieve, sift.
5.
Cause to be tense and uneasy or nervous or anxious.  Synonyms: tense, tense up.
6.
Become stretched or tense or taut.  Synonym: tense.  "The rope strained when the weight was attached"
7.
Remove by passing through a filter.  Synonyms: filter, filter out, filtrate, separate out.
8.
Rub through a strainer or process in an electric blender.  Synonym: puree.
9.
Alter the shape of (something) by stress.  Synonyms: deform, distort.



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"Strain" Quotes from Famous Books



... so sad to see Fleda working on, that it was more disheartening and harder to bear than the fatigue. Hugh was a most faithful and invaluable coadjutor, and his lack of strength was like her own made up by energy of will; but neither of them could bear the strain long; and when the final clearing away of the dinner-dishes gave her a breathing-time she resolved to dress herself and put her thimble in her pocket and go over to Miss Finn's quilting. Miss Lucy might not be like Miss Anastasia; and if she were, anything that ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... you will excuse us, For we and our attending Muses May live to change our strain; And turn, with merry hearts, our tune, Upon some happy tenth of June, To "the king ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... his mother, but when he did, it was delightful to hear him, because the mention of her awoke an unusual strain of gentleness and tenderness in him. There was such a ring of respectful affection, so much reverence for her memory, in his words, that we all looked on her ...
— Reminiscences of Tolstoy - By His Son • Ilya Tolstoy

... the former in the same strain—"it is possible Miss Haviland may be willing to qualify her last remark a little, when she is reminded of the existence of a certain marriage contract, to which she ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... ourselves, or is it towards mankind generally? Do we not cease to belong to our own circumscribed circle, and become part of the great family of all? As we ascend we feel an increased pressure on our virtue. The higher we rise, the greater is the strain. The increase of right is an increase of duty. We come to many cross-ways, phantom roads perchance, and we imagine that we see the finger of conscience pointing each one of them out to us. Which shall we take? Change our direction, remain where ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... and use Thy work, Amend what flaws may lurk, What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim: My times be in Thy hand! Perfect the cup as planned! Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... Knights of the Round Table are Celtic heroes. Possibly the Celtic strain persisting in many of the Scotch people inspires lines like ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... deep ruts in the mud if it had not been for the strength and the industry of the animal he had befriended. As for Patrasche, it seemed heaven to him. After the frightful burdens that his old master had compelled him to strain under, at the call of the whip at every step, it seemed nothing to him but amusement to step out with this little light, green cart, with its bright brass cans, by the side of the gentle old man who always paid him with a tender caress ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various

... slept in our "house." It never recurred to us, for one thing; and besides, it was built to hold the ground, and that was enough. We did not wish to strain it. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... force I was drawn through the water; then when I found the strain slacken, I drew in the line. This manoeuvre was repeated several times, till I succeeded in obtaining a view of what I had caught; or, more properly speaking, of what had caught me. It was merely a glimpse; for the fish, which was a very large one, getting a sight of me ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat

... placing him in the music class. Again, short frequent lessons are more beneficial to the young beginner than longer lessons at greater intervals, for, as a new 'sense' is being opened to the pupil, a long lesson produces an unhealthy strain. ...
— Music As A Language - Lectures to Music Students • Ethel Home

... her. We instantly began hauling in our lines; but before long she was off again, swimming away some depth below the surface, at a great rate, while we and the other boat were towed after her. Again the strain slackened, and she rose once more; but this time her foes were close to her. Another harpoon was struck, but it was needless. Without mercy lances were thrust into her on every side, till the shouts which reached our ears, as we ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston

... awfully unhappy. I think it would have been better if I had brought Pike with me, only those rotten laws about getting the little chap back to England would have been hard. How is Moonlighter? And have they really looked after that strain, do you gather? Make Tremlett come down and report progress to you daily—I told him to. My rooms look out on a beastly lake, and there are mountains, I suppose, but I can't see them. There is hardly any one in the hotel, because the Easter visitors have all gone back and the summer ones haven't ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn

... these wild thoughts, born of their nearness and the long hours of strain. To-morrow he would tell her of them, but ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn

... did he mean by "not laying more stress upon spectre testimony than it will bear," and the general strain of the paragraph? A solution of this last question may be reached as we continue the scrutiny of ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham

... been foreseen and studied out long ago with the most minute Germanic method. What had they to fear? . . . The enemy most to be reckoned with was France, incapable of resisting the enervating moral influences, the sufferings, the strain and the privations of war;—a nation physically debilitated and so poisoned by revolutionary spirit that it had laid aside the use of arms through an ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... with a little smile of sympathy, for although the Somasco affairs looked a little more promising now, Alton had been doing the work of several men, and the strain had told on him. She also remembered ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss

... equilibrium. That little reflex twitch at the corner of his lips—I have seen it often in the old times. I should like to have had him stripped to the waist so that I could have seen his heart—the infallible test. At moments of mighty moral strain men can keep steady eyes and nostrils and mouth and speech; but they cannot control that tell-tale diaphragm of flesh over the heart. I have known it to cause the death of many a Kaffir spy.... But, at any rate, there was the twitch of the ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... a pan of clabbered milk. Set over a slow fire. When the whey comes to the top, strain off and shape in balls. Let stand in warm place until it is ripe—that is, until it ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various

... committee and left her alone with Victor. She then quietly busied herself with her sewing or mended stockings and seemed absorbed and absent-minded. Victor felt depressed and suspected that his presence disturbed and perhaps irritated her, but they would have to get used to it. When he could stand the strain no longer, he would drag forth his wheel, light the big lantern and ride out into the night. But his imagination would conjure up before his inner vision a glowing picture of what she was doing and how she spent the evening until night came. Sometimes ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... warnings, and in a few days the strain on my mind wore off. I sent a message through Jago to Owen to tell him what had happened, so that he should have less anxiety for his own comfort, while he knew that I was shortly to be ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler

... and is restricted to its relations with art. Art is not progress, though progress implies art. It differs from progress chiefly in disclaiming the practical element. You cannot apply a poem, a picture, or a strain of music, to material necessities; they are not food, clothing, or shelter. Only after these physical wants are assuaged, does art supervene. Its sphere is exclusively mental and moral. But this definition is not adequate; ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne

... they do not hinder him from rising to a worthy conception of human nature. 'The stars,' he makes his Marco Lambert say ('Purgatorio,' xvi, 73), 'the stars give the first impulse to your actions, but a light is given you to know good and evil, and free will, which, if it endure the strain in its first battlings with the heavens, at length gains the whole victory, if it ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt

... Britain. On the other hand, there is a great party in Germany, and a very far-seeing one, which is continually reminding the Government that, without Great Britain as a market, Germany would never recover from the financial strain ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... are important and correlated with me. What the scheme as a whole is I do not know; with my limited mind I cannot know. There I become a Mystic. I use the word scheme because it is the best word available, but I strain it in using it. I do not wish to imply a schemer, but only order and co-ordination as distinguished from haphazard. "All this is important, all this is profoundly significant." I say it of the universe as a ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells

... unexciting indeed. But when the lad turned to the corral, he felt that there was compensation there. Several hundred horses were in the enclosure, of many colors and breeds, but the greater part of them Indian ponies, or containing a strain of the mustang, and smaller and shaggier than the horses he had been accustomed to ride in his ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Foresters • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... life. While I was busy about my book, Hope made known to me Palmer's work on the Church, which had just appeared. I read it with care and great interest. It took hold upon me; and gave me at once the clear, definite, and strong conception of the church which, through all the storm and strain of a most critical period, has proved for me entirely adequate to every emergency, and saved me from all vacillation. I did not, however, love the extreme rigour of the book in its treatment of non-episcopal communions. It was not very long after this, I think in 1842, that I ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... my child will say, "You'll soon forget that you could play Beethoven; let us hear a strain From ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford

... Le Cateau, however, the Germans slackened their pursuit for a very brief interval; partly because the terrific strain of marching and fighting was telling upon them no less than upon the Allies, partly because the engineers had blown up the bridges over every river, canal, and stream, behind the retreating armies, and partly because, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... mantelpiece, "is exciting, but it can't go on. We have got for our sins to be in this place for a whole term, and if we are going to do the Hunted Fawn business all the time, life in the true sense of the word will become an impossibility. My nerves are so delicately attuned that the strain would simply reduce them to hash. We are not prepared to carry on a long campaign—the thing must ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse

... an hour, six pounds of coarsely powdered Chinese rhubarb in six gallons of water, acidulated with two and a half fluid ounces of sulphuric acid; strain the decoction, and submit the residue to a second ebullition in a like quantity of acidulated water; strain as before, and submit it again to a third ebullition. Unite the three decoctions, and add, by small portions, recently powdered pure lime, constantly ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various

... genius; and that in the rich, careless Southern nature there lurks a vein of undeveloped song that shall yet exonerate America from the charge of poverty of genius, brought by the haughty Briton! Yes, we will sing yet a mightier strain than has ever been poured since the time of Shakespeare! and in that good time coming weave a grander heroic poem than any since the days of Homer! Then men's souls shall have been tried in the furnace of affliction, and Greek meets not Greek, but Yankee. For ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... close behind the major, evidently delighted at the good temper of those about him. "Exactly!" bowed the major, "intrigue was what I meant to say!" Affected either by the strangeness of the scene, or his anxiety for the welfare of his much valued animals, he continued in this incoherent strain for some minutes, but said not a word of his early whiggery, or the affair of the Yacht Club. Many of the persons outside now began to marvel at the strangeness of his speech, and to think him not so much of a politician after all. In truth, although he said much about our liberties, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... engineering had progressed for an hour under the watchers' eyes, Jabe began to grow very tired. The strain of physical immobility told upon him, and he lost interest. He began to feel that he knew all about dam-building; and as there was nothing more to learn he wanted to go back to camp. He glanced anxiously at the young face beside him—but there ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... with heavy strain and pressure ye were lifted to your height, Then his passive weight was lowered to the vaults of sorrowing Night: They who lifted struggled sorely, ere your robes on high might wave; They who lowered with a spasm laid such greatness ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various

... their great doings as their smaller ones; they want to know what these people were like, what they worked at, and learnt, how they travelled, what they bought and sold: and there is undoubtedly a primitive strain in all children that comes out in their love of building shelters, playing at savages, and making things out of natural material. One of the most intense moments in Peter Pan to many children is the building ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith

... my appointment as musical conductor, for which the contract had been signed for Easter. Though I did not lose my self-confidence, I suffered keenly from the indignity and the depressing effect of this prolonged strain. ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... would fight and he would sing; he would laugh with his foe and then courteously kill him; he would know how to enter the presence, how to make a great Queen smile and sigh; and then again, amid the thunder and reek of the fight, on decks slippery with blood, he would strain, half naked, with the mariners, he would lead the boarders, he would deal death with a flashing sword and a face that seen through the smoke wreaths was so calm and high!—And the Queen might knight him—one day the Queen might knight him. And the people ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston

... said the mischievous Marcus to his young companions. "I will make Uncle Tony believe that I am old mistress, and he'll give us an extra touch in his prayer." Mark immediately commenced talking in a strain of voice resembling, as well as he could, Mrs. Miller, and at once Tony was heard to say in a loud voice, "O Lord, thou knowest that the white people are not fit to die; but, as for old Tony, whenever the angel of the Lord comes, he's ready." At that moment, Mark tapped lightly ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown

... come in and filling the seats about him, and many curious and astonished glances fell upon the boy, but he did not notice them. Presently a soft, low strain of music stole out upon the stillness. Surely a master hand touched the keys that day, for the street boy sat like a statue listening eagerly to the sweet sounds, and suddenly he found his cheeks wet. He dashed his hand impatiently ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston

... already, could not, try all they would, keep it slack. Every step it became tauter and tauter, until at last you might have played a tune upon it. They made one gallant effort to relieve the strain, but, alas! it was no good. There was a crack of the whip ahead, the horses, full of their coming supper, gave a bound forward, and that moment on the lonely road, five miles from home, sprawled Heathcote, with Dick ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed

... Fort Andrews, and much dreaded laceration. Their noise soon brought out a ferocious, lank-visaged-looking man, about forty years of age, who immediately called off the dogs; but before I had time to make the inquiry that brought me there, he began in about the following strain, ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell

... on the whole, been successfully maintained, but their commerce suffered. On May first, 1810, Congress enacted that trade with Great Britain should be forbidden if France revoked her decrees, and vice versa. Madison and the Republicans believed that this would relieve the strain under which farmers as well as merchants were now suffering. This enabled Napoleon, in those days of slow communication, to make a pretense of relaxing the Berlin and Milan decrees, while continuing to seize American ships as before. England was not for a moment deceived, and enforced ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... a long time, in the hardening strain of early manhood, I was afraid to go to Palestine, lest the journey should prove a disenchantment, and some of my religious beliefs be rudely shaken, perhaps destroyed. But that fear was removed by a little voyage ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke

... course was a strain such as he'd never known in school years. Ross Metaxa was evidently of the opinion that a man could assimilate concentrated information at a rate several times faster than any professional educator ever dreamed possible. No threats were made, but Ronny realized that ...
— Ultima Thule • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... I with money buy thee back once more, The treasury of Plutus I would drain. But ah! not he the god I must implore; To have thee back, I need Apollo's vein. . . 'Twixt thee and me how hard a barrier-line, To ask for verse! Ah! this is all my strain! Adieu, adieu, poor box of mine; Adieu; we ne'er shall ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... Triumphant plenty's rosy graces Sparkle in their jolly faces: And mirth and cheerfulness are seen In each countenance serene. Fill high the sparkling glass, And drink the accustom'd toast; Drink deep, ye mighty host, And let the bottle pass. Begin, begin, the jovial strain, Fill, fill, the mystic bowl, And drink, and drink, and drink again, For ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 333 - Vol. 12, Issue 333, September 27, 1828 • Various

... so strange about 'W. Thompson' that you'd strain your neck getting another look at it on a sign. Half the men you meet are named William, to say nothing of the Walters and the Warrens, and the ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith

... warm them in their blood, Against them threw the cursed poisoned darts Of jealousy, and grief at others' good, For love she wist was weak without those arts, And slow; for jealousy is Cupid's food; For the swift steed runs not so fast alone, As when some strain, some strive ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso

... uneven streets or soft ground, where the footing is not secure, and slipping are common causes. Young horses that do not know how to pull, or horses that are tired out by hard work, are predisposed to muscular strain, and are apt to suffer injury if forced to do heavy work. Sore shoulders, or an ignorant driver, may cause the animal to pull awkwardly and throw more strain on certain groups of muscles than they can stand. Rheumatism frequently causes shoulder lameness. The muscle ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.

... handwork on the hilt, then snapped a fingernail against the blade. As he listened to the musical ping, the technician looked at the weapon with more interest. Gently, he flexed it, watching for signs of strain. Lanko grinned ...
— The Players • Everett B. Cole

... Telegraph, in which I found an essay, enforcing the duty of clergymen to take up collections in aid of the funds of the Colonization Society on the then approaching fourth of July. After an appropriate introductory paragraph, the writer proceeds in the following remarkable strain: ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison

... light-hearted and the loose-tongued had already their foot on the threshold; they liked to sit awhile in his unobtrusive company, practising for solitude, sobering their minds in the man's rich silence after the expense and strain of gaiety. To this rule Dr. Jekyll was no exception; and as he now sat on the opposite side of the fire—a large, well-made, smooth-faced man of fifty, with something of a slyish cast perhaps, but every mark of capacity and kindness—you could see ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... said Miss Bowyer, seeing that Tommy would not look. "If I could get him to strain the eyes upward for five minutes, while I gazed at him and concentrated my mind on the act of gazing, I should be able to produce what is known in psychopathic science as the conscious impressible state—something resembling hypnotism, but stopping short of the unconscious ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston

... in England, but also in Scotland and Ireland, and everywhere he met with enormous success. The first series was hardly over, when he was at work on a new story, and this was scarcely completed when he was planning more readings. The strain of several seasons of such work told on his health. A serious illness followed, and afterward he was troubled with an increasing lameness—the first ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives

... exaggerates to himself the difficulty of making it out, of approaching it, of getting his shot; until at last, if he happens to have hunted some time in vain, the beast becomes almost mythical and unbelievable. Once he has seen the animal, whether he gets a shot or not, all this vanishes. The strain on faith relaxes. He knows what to look for, and what to expect; and even if he sees no other specimen for a month, he nevertheless goes about the business ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White

... pint of boiling water—let it boil two or three minutes, then cut up about a quarter of a pound of butter into small pieces, and put it with the flour and water—set it where it will melt gradually. If carefully mixed, it will be free from lumps—if not, strain it before it is put on the table. If the butter is to be eaten on fish, cut up several soft boiled eggs into it. A little curry powder sprinkled into it, will convert it ...
— The American Housewife • Anonymous

... these was the man who retailed the elixir of youth, the veritable eau de jouvence, to credulous drinkers at sixpence a bottle. This magician, whose dark mysterious face and glittering eyes indicated a strain of Romany blood, and whose accent proved that he had at any rate lived much in Yorkshire, had a small booth opposite the watch-house under the Town Hall. On a banner suspended in front of it was ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... resides George Boyer Vashon, Esq., A.M., a graduate of Oberlin Collegiate Institute, Attorney at Law, Member of the Syracuse Bar. Mr. Vashon, is a ripe scholar, an accomplished Essayist, and a chaste classic Poet; his style running very much in the strain of Byron's best efforts. He probably takes Byron as his model, and Childe Harold, as a sample, as in his youthful days, he was a fond admirer of GEORGE GORDON NOEL BYRON, always calling his whole name, when he named him. His Preceptor in Law, was the Honorable Walter, Judge Forward, ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany

... am afraid," he said gently. "The last few weeks must have been a terrible strain ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... forms of substance, ponderable matter and ether, are not dead and only moved by extrinsic force; but they are endowed with sensation and will (though, naturally, of the lowest grade); they experience an inclination for condensation, a dislike of strain; they strive after the one, and ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn

... companions in one of the new atomic models. They flew over the Channel Isles and Touraine, he mentions, and circled about Mont Blanc—'These new helicopters, we found,' he notes, 'had abolished all the danger and strain of sudden drops to which the old-time aeroplanes were liable'—and then he went on by way of Pisa, Paestum, Ghirgenti, and Athens, to visit the pyramids by moonlight, flying thither from Cairo, and to follow the Nile up to Khartum. Even by later standards, it must have been a ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells

... through ocean wild, Her prophet eye pursues her child; Scans mournfully her poet's strain, Fears for her merchant, loss alike ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... she was a little older, Mrs. Haydon could get her a good husband. And then Lena was so still and docile, she would never want to do things her own way. And then, too, Mrs. Haydon, with all her hardness had wisdom, and she could feel the rarer strain there was in Lena. ...
— Three Lives - Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena • Gertrude Stein

... three distinct barks. Was it a dog? No. The long and piteous howl that followed told that the animal was no dog, but a wolf—the barking-wolf (Canis latrans). The moment it had ceased, another took up the strain, and then another and another, until the woods rang on all sides with their hideous howls. This did not come from any particular side, but seemed everywhere; and as the boys looked into the dark aisles between the tree-trunks, they could perceive glancing ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid

... altogether, up and down that twenty-five-mile coast of rugged Clemente. And we had trolled round these fish in every conceivable way. I cannot begin to describe my sensations when we circled round a swordfish, and they grew more intense and acute as the strain and suspense dragged. Captain Dan, of course, was mostly dominated by my feeling. All the same, I think the strain affected him on ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey

... club. The garment by which the stranger was detained, fortunately for him, was not made of such firm and solid materials as the doublet of Baillie Jarvie when he accompanied the Southrons in their invasion of the Highland fastnesses of Rob Roy. The texture, unable to bear the heavy strain, gave way; the man slid from the chain-wale into the boat, which was quickly shoved off, and the two terrified landsmen pulled away from the inhospitable ship with almost superhuman vigor, leaving the coat-tail ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... manner much more to my taste than that of many a prima donna whom I have heard, although my taste may be uncultivated. Focus your glass on that indigo-bird in yonder tree-top. Don't you see him?—the one that is favoring us with such a lively strain, beginning with a repetition of short, sprightly notes. The glass may enable you to ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe

... the calm state, and repeat suitable suggestions. The patient should go to a quiet room, and, reclining on a comfortable couch before a cheery fire, close the eyes, relax the muscles, breathe deeply, and avoid all sense of strain. ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs

... all They sat and listened to the illustrious bard Who sang of the calamitous return Of the Greek host from Troy, at the command Of Pallas. From her chamber o'er the hall The daughter of Icarius, the sage queen Penelope, had heard the heavenly strain, And knew its theme. Down by the lofty stairs She came, but not alone; there followed her Two maidens. When the glorious lady reached The threshold of the strong-built hall, where sat The suitors, holding up a delicate veil Before her face, and with ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews

... repeated trials, sterile with one particular and far from impotent bull, but not with another bull. But it is too long a story—it is to attempt to make two strains, both fertile, and yet sterile when one of one strain is crossed with one of the other strain. But the difficulty...would be beyond calculation. As far as I see, Tegetmeier's plan would simply test whether two existing breeds are now in any slight degree sterile; which has already been largely tested: ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin

... that you have such an inheritance, if you spend it foolishly and are unable to appreciate its worth. Sad if the genius of a true humanity, beholding you with tearful eyes from the mount of vision, shall fold his wings in sorrowing pity, and repeat the strain, 'O land of Washington, how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not; behold your house is left unto you desolate.' This is all I have to say; I have done." ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown

... named him, as M. Racine says. Well, am I to rush into his arms, and strain him to my heart, crying, 'My father, my ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... been scornful of the frailty of temper they had seen common in men's dealings up here in the North, began to realize that all other trials of brotherhood pale before the strain of life on the Arctic trail. Beyond any question, after a while something goes wrong with the nerves. The huge drafts on muscular endurance have, no doubt, something to do with it. They worked hard for fourteen, sometimes seventeen, hours ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)

... power suitably to provide for the safety of the employes and travelers, Congress was not limited to the enactment of laws relating to mechanical appliances, but it was also competent to consider, and to endeavor to reduce, the dangers incident to the strain of excessive hours of duty on the part of engineers, conductors, train dispatchers, telegraphers, and other persons embraced within the class ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... Government every form of shoddy supplies. These were the same interests so vociferously proclaiming their intense patriotism. The Civil War put their pretensions of patriotism to the test. If ever a war took place in which Government and people had to strain every nerve and resource to carry on a great conflict it was the Civil War. The result of that war was only to exchange chattel slavery for the more extensive system of economic slavery. But the people of that time did not see this clearly. The Northern soldiers thought they were fighting ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers

... my name refrain; * The root of the youth is what good he gain:[FN566] A wight without father full oft shall win * And melting shall purify drossy strain.' ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... farmer's life, owing to the variations of the season," I said, "has always been the alternation of slack work and periods of special exigency, such as planting and harvesting, when the sudden need of a multiplied labor force has necessitated the severest strain of effort for a time. This alternation of too little with too much work, I should suppose, would still continue to distinguish agriculture from ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy

... Duke of Friedwald approached. The excitement of the contest over, his pallid features marked the effects of his recent injuries, the physical strain under which he had labored. Her cold eyes ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham

... palisade on! There, Harold and Leofwine and Gyrth Stand like a triple Thor, true brethren in arms as in birth: And above the fierce standards strain at their poles as they flare on the gale; One, the old Dragon of Wessex, and one, a Warrior in mail. 'God Almighty!' they cry! 'Haro!' the Northmen reply:— As when eagles are gather'd and loud o'er the prey, Shout! for 'tis England ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave

... as a cooling globe can hardly doubt that its crust, when thinner, may have heaved under strain of the moon's tidal pull—whether or not that body was nearer—into great billows, daily rising and falling, like waves of the present seas ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... so it must be midnight or later. There was no light anywhere, on land or sea, or in Judith's troubled soul. To her remorseful mind all her terrible labor and strain of body had been in vain; she had gone to ...
— Judith Lynn - A Story of the Sea • Annie Hamilton Donnell

... character—seeing the same faces, hearing the same things, performing the same routine in the same kind of way every day, year in and year out, makes him a sort of automaton. Kipling has told us something of the effect of this thing in "Soldiers Three." There came a time when I broke under the strain of this man's continued insults. For nearly a year I got comfort from the advice of the brethren. We had a weekly meeting where our difficulties were considered and prayed over, but the consolation of my brethren finally refused to suffice, ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine

... to, as an enemy to the public weal, and are themselves most loath thus to add to the sum of human suffering. Merely by way of saving the situation, Wayne, the city editor, arose and said a few words complimentary to the new owner. He was followed by the head copy-reader in the same strain. Two of the older sub-editors perpetrated some meaningless but well-meant remarks, and the current of events bade fair to end in complete stagnation, when from out of the ruck, midway of the table, there rose the fringed and candid head of one William ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... of life can find a single searcher for the truth it tells, or bear on the breath of the breeze "one soft AEolian strain," may I not hope that it may help to swell the harp-notes ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms

... human happiness and misery; now if I can take but the smallest bit from one heap and add it to the other I carry a point—if, as I go home, a child has dropped a half-penny, and by giving it another I can wipe away its tears, I feel I have done something." There was even in him a strain, if not of humour, of a shrewdness which was akin to it, and expressed itself in many pithy sayings. "If two angels came down from heaven to execute a divine command, and one was appointed to conduct an empire and ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith

... to Meeteetse, did not seem to comfort the Indian woman, who continued to squirm on the rickety seat and to strain her eyes into ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart

... The long strain of waiting for the fight begot anxiety, that grew to be apprehension, which, with the sapping of his strength, was breaking down his courage, as it always must when courage is founded on muscular force. His daily care now was ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Thompson Seton

... seeing where it is dulled and dampished(204) in the body, it is capable of so much grief or joy, pleasure or pain, we may conclude, that being loosed from these stupifying earthly chains, that it is capable of infinite more vexation, or contentation, in a higher and purer strain. ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... Ericsson was in America at the critical moment when all the experiences of his previous life were to be brought into full play; when he was to take part in an enterprise involving the existence of a nation, the hopes of humanity. He was ready to meet the strain of a demand to which no other living man was adequate. He was then fifty-eight years of age, with the constitution and the vital forces of a man of forty, and such experience in actual accomplishment as few acquire in the longest ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various

... amazed, not in the least dismayed. Indeed the episode took from the moment some of its emotional strain. That he should try to do this utterly unwarrantable thing took a portion of the weight of guilty feeling from her heart. It had been pressing heavily there. "You shan't!" she cried. "Careful, ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey

... second to none as an interpreter of modern Judaism, has lately been writing in a similar strain. The Jew is a Jew in respect of his religion; but, for the ordinary functions of patriotism, fighting included, he is a citizen of the country in which he dwells. A Jewish friend of mine said the other day to a Pacificist who tried to appeal to him on racial grounds: "I would shoot ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell

... that grey rock struck down another. Here they had a bloody fight with the sbirri. Such tales, as it has been already remarked, are heard everywhere. I forget the particulars; but they are all variations of one wild strain, of which the ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester

... long breath and returned to his task. His shoulders and arms were upon the door. He began to strain. He grew red in the face; the veins across his forehead stood out, blue, like tightly-drawn string. His complexion became purple. Through his open mouth his breath came in short pants. With every muscle of his body and neck he strained and ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... the ducks sat round-eyed in a circle about the mysterious singer. It was dim in that straw hut, for Iktomi had not forgot to cover up the small entrance way. All of a sudden his song burst into full voice. As the startled ducks sat uneasily on the ground, Iktomi changed his tune into a minor strain. These were the ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa

... chain that bound them; so he waited and prayed. And the bird hopped upon the floor; and then presently the priest saw the cat draw near again, and in a stealthy way; and now the priest himself was feeling weary of the strain, for he seemed to be wrestling in spirit with something that was strong and strongly armed. But he signed the cross again and said faintly "In Nomine"; ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson

... to mind; but their nerves were on the strain, and they breathed more freely as soon as the birds were gone. It seemed to signify that no human beings were in the higher part of the cavern, and the solemn silence of the place encouraged them at last to ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn

... Yankee stan'ard o' dollars an' cents: They seem to forgit, thet, sence last year revolved, We've succeeded in gittin' seceshed an' dissolved, An' thet no one can't hope to git thru dissolootion 'Thout sonic kin' o' strain on the best Constitootion. Who asks for a prospec' more flettrin' an' bright, When from here clean to Texas it's all one free fight? Hain't we rescued from Seward the gret leadin' featurs Thet makes it wuth while to be reasonin' ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various

... pretty pageant I have mentioned could only have been quoted to my advantage, as a rare masking frolic, prettily devised, and not less deftly executed; and yet the malice of the courtiers, who maligned and envied me, made them strain their wit, and exhaust their ingenuity, in putting false and ridiculous constructions upon it. In short, my ears were so much offended with allusions to pies, puff-paste, ovens, and the like, that I was ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... operation, which may save him time at the outset. The insect intended for a long journey must obviously be handled with certain precautions. There must be no forceps employed, no pincers, which might maim a wing, strain it and weaken the power of flight. While the Bee is in her cell, absorbed in her work, I place a small glass test-tube over it. The Mason, when she flies away, rushes into the tube, which enables me, without touching her, to transfer her ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre

... food, expressed relief when she knew him to be safely in bed and asleep. He himself observed himself with discontent, unable to fathom his extraordinary lapse from self-control on the night of his final address. He charged it to the strain of unavoidable office work on top of the business of the campaign, abused his nerves, talked of a few days' rest when they had settled Winter. He could think of nothing but the points he had forgotten when he had his great chance. "The flag should have come in at the end," ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan

... would begretch two pore, hard-workin' girls a lay-off of a week,' says Enright, 'ain't clean strain, an' I don't want to know sech a hoss-thief nohow'; an' ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis

... be pointed out that this discussion has brought out strong commendation for each of the sixteen indictments. It has also brought out vigorous defense of each of them. This fact alone would seem to justify its title. A paper in a similar strain, made up of indictments against common practices in structural steel design, published in Engineering News some years ago, did not bring out a single response. While practice in structural steel may often be faulty, methods of analysis are well understood, and are accepted ...
— Some Mooted Questions in Reinforced Concrete Design • Edward Godfrey

... dear sir. Your vocal chords are in such shape that the least additional strain may permanently injure them. As it ...
— The Moving Picture Girls - First Appearances in Photo Dramas • Laura Lee Hope

... example, a woman's medical college located in the city: the four years' course places the greatest strain on both mind and body; practically no time is left for recreation, and very much too little time is spent in sleep; the amount of exercise taken is the minimum. Yet in spite of all these disadvantages under which the young women labor, a great ...
— The Four Epochs of Woman's Life • Anna M. Galbraith

... for his purpose; the singer's face, personality, manners, some unfortunate strain in the blood, might debar the voice, block its acceptance, ruin everything. He almost dreaded to walk on, to explore what was ahead. But his road led that way, and three steps brought him around the ...
— A Cathedral Singer • James Lane Allen

... replaced by having noncommissioned officers and officers well paid. Good pay establishes position in a democracy, and to-day none turn to the army, because it is too poorly paid. Let us have well paid mercenaries. By giving good pay, good material can be secured, thanks to the old warrior strain in the race. This is the price that ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq

... House of Commons. It was the duty, the very onerous duty, of Mr. Edward Mannix to explain to the representatives of the people who did not agree with him in politics that the army, under Lord Torrington's administration, was adequately armed and intelligently drilled. The strain overwhelmed him, and his doctor ordered him to take mud baths at Schlangenbad. Mrs. Mannix behaved as a good wife should under such circumstances. She lifted every care, not directly connected with the army, from her husband's mind. The ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham

... lines, it must be concluded that there is no atmosphere in the moon, a conclusion previously arrived at from the circumstance that during an occultation no refraction is perceived on the moon's limb when a star disappears behind the disk." [437] Mr. Nasmyth follows in the same strain. Holding that the moon lacks air, moisture, and temperature, he says, "Taking all these adverse conditions into consideration, we are in every respect justified in concluding that there is no possibility of animal or vegetable life existing on the moon, and that our satellite must therefore be ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley

... jubilance and tranquillity reigned for some months, till the corruptions of competitive human nature brought back the old state of things—for employers have quite a diplomatic reverence for treaties and the brotherly love of employees breaks down under the strain of supporting families. Rather to his own surprise Moses Ansell found himself in work at least three days a week, the other three being spent in hanging round the workshop waiting for it. It is an uncertain trade, is the manufacture of slops, which was all Moses was fitted ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... us an account of this young man in the following strain:—"He is in very deed a marabout! His wife never unveiled her face to any man; and his own mother kisses his hand. He is master of wealth, and never leaves this valley. He has a house and flocks of sheep, and a hundred camels, ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson

... brighten our days, and fill our eyes with light. He drops this added sweetness into His children's cup, and makes it to run over. The success we were not counting on, the blessing we were not trying after, the strain of music, in the midst of drudgery, the beautiful morning picture or sunset glory thrown in as we pass to or from our daily business, the unsought word of encouragement or expression of sympathy, the sentence that meant for us more than the writer or speaker thought,—these ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston

... all around is wilderness! But from thy throne on high, Thou, God, hast heard the cry Of nations in distress! Britain goes forth, beneath thy might, To quell the proud blasphemers in the fight; And Egypt, far along her winding main, Echoes the shout of joy, and genuine Freedom's strain! ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles

... his laments, reddening with the strain of the painful crowing which ended every strophe. His narrow chest heaved with the effort; two rosettes of sickly purple colored his cheeks; his slender neck dilated, the veins standing out in blue relief. In accordance with custom, he concealed part of his face under ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... with individuals is desirable. In building trades, contractors in England prefer a regular salary; but they employ model workmen, the so-called "bell horses," to whom they pay a large salary, and who keep the others on the strain by their example, and who on that account are very much hated by ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... rocky ledge, against which they leaned, gazing with fearsome eyes at the rising waters, on which the lantern-light shone fitfully, and almost holding their breaths at times, so great was the strain, the boy ranchers waited—for what they scarcely knew. And yet they ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Camp - or The Water Fight at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker

... which he heaps upon the devoted heads of the Germans is not his last word on the subject. Nor did he ever lose sight of his lofty ideal of liberty for his degraded fatherland or cease to hope for its realization. In this strain he concludes the "Hymne an die Freiheit" (1790) with a splendid ...
— Types of Weltschmerz in German Poetry • Wilhelm Alfred Braun

... silver, which broke upon the level sand of the beach with a low, sullen roar, prophetic of storms to come. To-night a south wind was heavily blowing over Gulf and prairie, laden with salt odors of weed and grass, now and then crossed by a strain of such perfume as only tropic breezes know,—a breath of heavy, passionate sweetness from orange-groves and rose gardens, mixed with the miasmatic sighs of rank forests, and mile on mile of tangled cane-brake, where jewel-tinted snakes glitter and emit their own sickly-sweet ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various

... Philosophy breathed her first musical whisperings is laid by, and the sacred lyre of Theology is silent or little heeded. But the mighty organ of Modern Science with its hundred stops, each answering to some voice of Nature, takes up the pausing strain, and as we listen we recognize through all its mingling harmonies the simple, sublime, eternal melody that came from the lips of Timaeus the Locrian! The same doctrine reappears in various forms: in the popular ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... theory of the present order of competition, and of attractive and associated labor, he would sympathize with Ricardo, perhaps, that labor is the measure of value, but "embrace, as do generous minds, the proposition of labor shared by all." He would go deeper than political economics, strain out the self-factor from both theories, and make the measure of each pretty much the same, so that the natural (the majority) would win, but not to the disadvantage of the minority (the artificial) because this has disappeared—it is of the majority. John Stuart Mill's political economy is losing ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives



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