"Tension" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to the utmost tension, he waited THE COMING WAVE. In this attitude, with the helpless maiden clinging to him for life, with the wreck of his fine yacht near, he was a noble subject for ...
— The Coming Wave - The Hidden Treasure of High Rock • Oliver Optic
... write sooner or later he had dared believe at first; and then, as day after day passed, belief faded into hope; and now the colours of hope were fading into the gray tension ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... snow, or to rain, or to clear up, or become cloudy, or whatever else may happen to follow the sensation, merely because all poisoned and irritated nerves are more sensitive to changes in temperature, wind-direction, moisture, and electric tension, than sound and normal ones. The change in the weather does not cause the rheumatism. It is the rheumatism that enables us to predict the change in the weather, though we have no clear idea what ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... herself, wresting her eyes from the glittering daggers, she threw herself upon the divan, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, and watched, with the look of a tigress, Michel, who said to her now, in a voice which trembled with the tension of his feelings: "You must know well, Marsa, that death is not the thing that can frighten a man like me! What does frighten me is that, having lost you once, I may lose you forever; to know that another will be your ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... the interruptions and the nervous tension of the men it was after sunset before the roof of the fort was finished. It was agreed that the men with families should sleep in the fort that night with the single men occupying the cabins nearest the fort. I took up my quarters in the Davis cabin, after reminding my friends ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... as I should have termed it, now two leagues behind us, when I suddenly felt a strange throbbing in one ear, and a sensation as if air passed through it into my throat. It seemed as if a bubble of air, formed deep in my ear, swelled, and burst there. The indescribable tension of my brain seemed all at once to give way; there was an odd humming in my head, and a sort of vibration through every nerve of my body, such as I have experienced in a limb that has been, in popular phraseology, asleep. I uttered a cry ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... of mind was contrasted with the savant's coldness of soul, and he was adduced as an instance that the gifts of God are absolutely free. All this created a deep division of feeling in the college. The mystics worked themselves up to such a pitch of mental tension that several of them died, but this only increased the frenzy of the others. M. Gosselin had too much tact to offer them a direct opposition, but for all that, there were two distinct parties in the college, the mystics acting under the ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... general sense of tension and anxiety betrayed his presence somewhere in the great dreary house, and the master yet forbore to descend for the early meal, he would rejoice the heart of his little daughter by having her brought to his room to make ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... knees of the chief bent still lower, the head of the tomahawk was a little raised, the blade of the knife was seen glittering from its sheath, and the but of Mark's musket had receded to the utmost tension of his sinews, when a shriek and a yell, different from any before heard that day, sounded near. At the same moment, the blows of both the combatants were suspended, though by the agency of very different degrees of force. Mark felt the arms of one cast around his limbs, with a power sufficient ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... little old regular lobby fee and my expense money. And the power hasn't been developed by the infernal, dear, protected people, has it?" he sneered. "If the Consolidated folks had been let alone and given their franchise, we'd now be marketing over our high-tension wires two millions of horse-power in big centers two or three hundred miles from ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... Milton the politician merely as a sad and ignominious interlude in the life of Milton the poet, Mr. Pattison cannot be expected to entertain the idea that the poem is in any sense the work of the politician. Yet we cannot help thinking that the tension and elevation which Milton's nature had undergone in the mighty struggle, together with the heroic dedication of his faculties to the most serious objects, must have had not a little to do both with the final choice of his subject and with the tone of his poem. "The great Puritan ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... and the powerful engine came in. Braking his wheels hard, to hold the plane on the ground, he advanced the throttle as much as he dared, and sent a high-tension current surging through the wires the professor had connected with his ...
— Spawn of the Comet • Harold Thompson Rich
... confine the patient in bed, but permit him to go around and take all necessary exercise. We adjust an ingeniously devised and perfectly fitting appliance or apparatus, by which a gentle extension of the limb is maintained, thereby relieving the tension of the muscles, and preventing the friction and wearing of the inflamed surfaces of the joint, which, without the use of our new and improved appliance, are a source of constant irritation. The appliances required in the successful treatment ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... escape them. He was so frankly nervous and so devoutly wishful that the boys had never come near him and his, that Bob, to ease the little man's mind, promised that the boys would swim the river when dark came and relieve the tension so far as the stack-owner was concerned. He was eager enough to see that the boys were well hidden, and before he climbed down the ladder he piled bundle after bundle upon them, as if preferring that they should be smothered rather than discovered ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Flying Corps • James R. Driscoll
... of the birds took their departure from the coast,—the dull routine of the place went on as usual, rendered even duller by the absence of the "witch" element of discord,—a circumstance that had kept the superstitious villagers, more or less on a lively tension of religious and resentful excitement—and by-and-by, the rightful minister of Bosekop came back to his duties and released the Reverend Charles Dyceworthy, who straightway returned to his loving flock in Yorkshire. It was difficult to ascertain whether the aged Lovisa was satisfied ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... the first few weeks I went with a rush, the joy of the new life within buoyed me up. I felt as though I was walking on air. I did not feel any strain of the upward tread. But soon I began to feel the tension of the daily struggle, the weary march. There were obstacles in that way that impeded my progress. My circumstances were against me, and the influences surrounding me had a tendency ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter
... assorts and counts the various colors and shapes of tablets to be used is positively to invite loss of interest on the children's part, and to produce in the teacher a hurry and worry and nervous tension which will ...
— Froebel's Gifts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... standing right facing me, her eyes dilated with terror, her ashen lips trembling, but her body motionless. In her hands she held her crucifix, as if by that holy symbol she sought to oppose my entrance. At sight of me, her whole frame relaxed, and she sank back upon a chair. Some mighty tension had given way. Still her eyes looked fearfully into the gloom of the outer air, made more opaque by the glimmer of the lamp inside, which she had placed before the ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... and sat down. She was horribly overstrained and wanted to cry, but she began to laugh, and for some minutes could not stop. She must get relief from the tension and, after all, in a sense, the thing ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... family at this unaccountably unsocial behavior, their curiosity as to where he had been, their suspense as to what he did when alone so long in his bedroom, reached a tension ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... an extraordinary state of tension, had at length become relaxed in as extraordinary a degree—continued to struggle with a sort of imbecility, the growth of superstitious terror, when the shocking tidings were brought from Holland, which fulfilled ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... moved—relieved after a tension which he had not noticed until it was broken. It was time for him to go. The two old men were recalled to the fact of his presence. ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... Greatness to appoint A B Architect of the City of Rome. Let him read the books of the ancients; but he will find more in this City than in his books. Statues of men, showing the muscles swelling with effort, the nerves in tension, the whole man looking as if he had grown rather than been cast in metal. Statues of horses, full of fire, with the curved nostril, with rounded tightly-knit limbs, with ears laid back—you would think the creature longed for the race, though you know that the metal moves not. This art of statuary ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... strain of long days and nights of anguish had reached the limit of her endurance, and her nerves, too, long under tension, suddenly rebelled. She sank helplessly upon the floor, sobs racking her body from head to foot. She did not know how long she lay there, but when she raised her head it was already growing dark in the room, like the shadows that were stealing about her heart. ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... to lessen this tension. "The judge has promised to grant you a hearing soon. Mr. Rawlins thinks it only a case for Justice Court, anyway." She rose. "But let me see Mrs. Throop for a few minutes ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... crying present needs of the Indians are more day schools situated in the midst of their settlements, more effective instruction in the industries pursued on their own farms, and a more liberal tension of the field-matron service, which means the education of the Indian women in the arts of home making. Until the mothers are well started in the right direction we cannot reasonably expect much from the children who are soon to form an integral ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... along as before. I had rested the horses by a walk, and to a casual observer they would have seemed to be none the worse for their fling at running away. But on closer scrutiny they would again have revealed the unmistakable signs of nervous tension. Their ears moved jerkily on the slightest provocation. Still, the road was good and clear, and I ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... to look as if the Atlantis would win the battle. She was now fearfully close to the shore, but her bow had been turned into the very eye of the sea, and one could almost feel the tension of her steel muscles as she seemed to spring to the encounter. The billows that split themselves in quick succession on her sharp stem burst into shooting geysers three hundred ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... mind being surrounded by enemies. He knows with satisfaction that in the very heart of the empire certain annexed provinces constantly protest against the violence which has been done to them. The ego cannot work without opposition. The German needs enemies to keep himself in that state of tension and of struggle which is the condition of vigor. He willingly applies to himself what the Lord God said of man in general in ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... nerve strung to its highest tension they waited, crouching, Jerry tingling and quivering with the intensity of his excitement, Cameron quiet, cool, as if assured of ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... been herein noted that the Convention of 1829-30 settled nothing. A compromise had been effected which relieved somewhat the tension that existed over the matter of representation. The constitutional provision that gave to the Assembly the power, after 1841 and thereafter at intervals of not less than ten years, and under prescribed conditions, to make re-apportionments of representation had never been availed of. In view of ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... still mild as he uttered the exclamation, but before Goodwin could repeat himself he had moved. As if some spring in him had been released from tension, the mild and prim Mr. Fant whirled on his heel, and a fist took Goodwin on the edge of the jaw and sent him gasping and clucking on to his back; while, with the precision of a movement rehearsed and practiced, Mr. Fant's booted foot swung forward and kicked him ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... irony of the argument, and their laugh did much to do away with the constraint, the tension of their mood. More gayly she ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 dealt a blow to Israel's economy. Higher world oil prices added an estimated $300 million to the oil import bill that year and helped keep annual inflation at 18%. Regional tension and the continuing Palestinian uprising (intifadah) have contributed to a sharp drop in tourism - a key foreign exchange earner - to the lowest level since the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. The influx of Jewish immigrants ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... in as great tension at that moment as he, but more anxious not to show it. "Why do you call me that?" she replied, ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... symptoms carefully and make an autopsy—I am sure it is a new poison we have liberated!" If the vast majority of men shrink from and evade irksome labor with their muscles—even though life and comfort depend upon it—a still vaster majority shirk the disciplined toil and tension of the mind, which, if it have real purpose, makes little of the only rewards that spur men ...
— On the Vice of Novel Reading. - Being a brief in appeal, pointing out errors of the lower tribunal. • Young E. Allison
... for a long while; the numbness became painful; the tension a dull endurance. Fatigue came, too; she rested her head wearily on the back of the chair and closed her eyes. But the tall clocks ticking slowly became unendurable—and the odour ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... expansion. The compensator is very simple and not at all likely to get out of order. On new wire, when I fix my compensator, I usually have an adjusting screw on the lead to lever. This I remove when the wire has been stretched to its full tension. I have everything removed from lever, so there can be no meddling or altering. When once the wire is stretched so that no slack remains between lever and trigger, no ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various
... strung for shooting. It is needless to remark that the bowstring is about 2 or 3 centimeters shorter than the stock, which in the moment of stringing must be bent to enable the upper extremity of the string to reach the upper notch and thereby acquire a sufficient tension to ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... there was the silent tension of expectation in the air and then I realised with a shock that the train did not show any signs of slackening speed. It was, if anything, going faster. I snatched frantically at the cord and pulled ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 7, 1919. • Various
... grasped at a branch and been hoisted bodily from the canoe, now came limping to the disconsolate group, and had stumbled with lighted pipe in teeth across the powder that had been spread out to dry, when a terrific yell of warning brought him to his senses, and relieved the tension. MacKenzie spread out a treat for the men and sent them to gather bark for a fresh canoe. Other adventures on Bad River need not be given. This one was typical. The record was but two miles a day; and now there was no turning ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... as usual, in practicing the piano, walking in the inclosure of St. James's Park opposite our house, and reading in "Blunt's Scripture Characters" (a book in which I was then deeply interested) the chapters relating to St. Peter and Jacob. I do not know whether the nervous tension which I must have been enduring strengthened the impression made upon me by what I read, but I remember being quite absorbed by it, which I think was curious, because certainly such subjects of meditation were hardly allied to the painful undertaking so immediately pressing upon me. ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... heroic Belgium. What a Godspeed we gave to the few sons of Gaul who, in those early days, left us to fight the good fight! How sourly we looked upon Plooie continuing his peaceful rounds. Whence arose the rumor, I cannot say, but it was noised about just at that time of wrath and tension that Plooie was born in Liege. Liege, that city of fire and slaughter and heroism, upon which the eyes and hopes of the world were turned in wonder and admiration. Somebody had seen the entry on the marriage register! ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... leaning on a sarcophagus, in one of those fits of abstraction which had of late come upon her; but on hearing the sound, and seeing Silvio's violent onslaught, she seemed to fall into a positive fury of passion. Her eyes blazed, and her mouth took a hard, cruel tension which was new to me. Instinctively she stepped towards Silvio as if to interfere in the attack. But I too had stepped forward; and as she caught my eye a strange spasm came upon her, and she stopped. Its intensity made me hold my breath; and I put up my hand to clear my eyes. When I had done this, ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... of the jocosity that partially relieved the tension is the following portion of the Congressional Record ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... passive, and draw off all tension from your nerves. Just you relax your mind and your body will follow suit. A few deep slow breaths ...
— The Doctrine and Practice of Yoga • A. P. Mukerji
... well, stood the man to whom in ardent youth she had plighted her undisciplined heart. The thought maddened her. And as she struggled to choke back this overwhelming rush of feeling, her husband's unwelcome entrance broke the tension of a scene the strain of which was ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... the physical loneliness of the colonists. Each soul must fight its own unaided, unending battle. In that moral solitude, as in the physical solitude of the settlers upon the far northwestern prairies of a later epoch, many a mind snapped. Unnatural tension was succeeded by unnatural crimes. But for the stronger intellects New England Calvinism became a potent spiritual gymnastic, where, as in the Swedish system of bodily training, one lifts imaginary and ever-increasing weights with imaginary and ever-increasing effort, flexor and ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... high-tension atmosphere of the sensationalized Patriot the relaxing quality of humor. Under the ingenuous and acquisitive Sheffer, whose twins achieved immediate popularity, it developed along other lines. Sheffer—who knew what makes business men laugh—pinned his simple faith to three main subjects, convulsive ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... upon a people believing themselves born for freedom and independence. This hatred, then, is a feeling purely political, and there is political machinery by which it is kept in a state of perpetual tension. ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... rule. The first effect of cooling the surface of our planet must have been to solidify it, and thus to form a film or crust over it. That crust would shrink as the cooling process went on; in consequence of the shrinking, wrinkles and folds would arise upon it, and here and there, where the tension was too great, cracks and fissures would be produced. In proportion as the surface cooled, the masses within would be affected by the change of temperature outside of them, and would consolidate internally also, the crust ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... tension of his nerves was unendurable. Five minutes more of anguish, and he sprang up like ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... that he could not say anything more to comfort Big Bob, tried to relieve the tension by drawing the other's attention to ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... news Donna Angela unconsciously steeled herself against her natural impulse to break down. She has a strong will, and the result is what you see. The strain of resisting was so great that it deadened her to all sensation in a few hours. If she could fall ill, the tension would relax; in my opinion it will do so when her physical strength is worn out by starvation and lack of sleep, but a simple specific malady, like the whooping-cough or the measles, would be better for her. If ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... her fingers, but neither did she cease from weeping. Her grief seemed to be something more than that resulting from the tension of strong ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... that landing, just that one second the vibration told him the ship was alive and air-borne, and the next a dead quiet testified that they had landed. Shann, his sore body stiff with tension, waited for the next move on the part ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... talk flagged, and Buntingford began to fidget. Slowly Lady Georgina rose from her seat, and again extinguished the flame under the silver kettle. Would she go, or would she not go? Cynthia dropped some stitches in the tension of the moment. Then Buntingford got up to open the door for Georgina, who, without deigning to make any conventional excuse for ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... packed in a manner to give the required elevation. A cricket ball or jam tin bomb was placed in the pouch and the rubbers were then strained by means of a crank handle winding up a wire attached to the pouch with a trip hook. When the required tension was obtained one man lit the fuse and retired to cover. The other, the expert, allowing the fuse to burn for a certain time—to suit the range, pulled the string which released the trip. If all went well the bomb sailed over towards the Turk. Sometimes, however, the trip would fail, or ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... noticed a certain tension in his relations with Lord Alfred Douglas. One day he told me frankly that Lord Alfred Douglas had come into a fortune of L15,000 or L20,000, "and," he added, "of course he's always able to get money. He'll marry an American millionairess or ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... "The tension of the strange situation lasted for some minutes. I had no clear vision through my spy-hole, and knew not at the first watching whether the man I saw was asleep or awake. A finer inspection of ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... interest of each of her new novels are still as potent as were her earliest productions. The leading characters are carried through a series of exciting adventures, all of which are narrated and drawn out with such ingenuity that the reader's attention is kept on a tension of interest from the opening page to the close of the volume. This is the great secret of Mrs. Stephens' success—her readers cannot get out of her influence. She does not fatigue them with the subtleties of metaphysics or philosophy. She gives ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... the Staff, Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, a hard and ready man who for fifteen years had been scouring the Nile. All his war service had been in Egypt, where recently he had not only smashed the dervishes and secured the Soudan, but by his diplomatic tact in the Fashoda affair had relaxed the tension of a dangerous international situation. He belonged to the Royal Engineers, who are, like the Army Service Corps, a semi-combatant body engaged in technical duties that do not offer much opportunity ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... decade the foreign policy of Germany showed the same chief characteristic that was noticeable in that of the other countries—high tension. One is almost tempted to compare this period of Europe's history to the hours immediately preceding a violent electrical storm. The diplomatic atmosphere was surcharged with electricity, and long before the storm really broke the growl of distant thunder could ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... dog crouched for a spring, and Jet, every muscle strained to its utmost tension, stood ready ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis
... roof. Would her indignation hold out under the insinuating smile with which the artful rascal awaited her words? It gave every evidence of doing so, for her eye flashed threateningly and her whole body showed the tension of extreme feeling as she came hastily forward, and pausing just beyond the reach of ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... Ruth laughed and the tension was broken. But there was still a little feeling of restraint, and after a few minutes Parmalee ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... arms encircled her with a close and quivering tension. He kissed her, and in that kiss for the first time she felt the ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... crowd could scarcely be restrained within the limits of order. A change was noticeable also in the demeanor of proponent and his counsel. For the two days preceding they had appeared as though under some tension or suspense; now they seemed to exhibit almost an indifference to the proceedings, as though the outcome of the contest were already a settled fact, while a marked gravity ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... this extreme tension of forces was an absolute which could easily be ascertained, still we must admit that the human mind would hardly submit itself to this kind of logical chimera. There would be in many cases an unnecessary waste of power, which would be in opposition to other principles ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... propitious moment, rushed to the central house and seized the levers. He turned on the currents from the piles no longer neutralized by the electric tension of the surrounding atmosphere. In a moment the screws had regained their normal speed and checked the descent; and the "Albatross" remained at her slight elevation while her propellers drove her swiftly out of reach of ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne
... at Elsmere under his straight black brows imperiously. The youth felt the nervous tension in the elder man's voice and manner, was startled by a confidence never before bestowed upon him, close as that unequal bond between them had been growing during the six months of his Oxford life, and plucking up courage hurled at him a number of frank, young expostulations, ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and the hum of a high tension alternator filled the laboratory. The Russian quivered for a moment and then lay still. Major Martin nodded and Dr. Bird stepped to the side of ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... is the passage way outside, and, as Fanny came out with her ears ringing with the strange jargon that everywhere met her, she was at once relaxed from the tension of sights and sounds she had just been in by seeing two country people rush together just ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... now how her body is the object of desire, she learns to feel her power, and all this works backward on her sexual irritation, which soon overaccentuates everything which stands in relation to sex. Soon she lives in an atmosphere of high sexual tension in which the sound and healthy interests of a young life have to suffer by the hysterical emphasis on sexuality. The Freudian psychoanalysis, which threatens to become the fad of the American neurologists, probably goes too far when it seeks the cause for all neurasthenic ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... lousiness was part and parcel of my make-up. I was so accustomed to it, however, that it had long ceased to cause me more than a passing thought; there were too many other things to think about during that session. But once relieved from the tension of the daily struggle to save life, as well as take it, the desire to become normal, decent, cleanly human beings took possession of every man of us, and we wallowed in the bath until we could once more look other respectable citizens in ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant
... pedestal of simple design, which bears the terse legend, "Erected by the World's Columbian Exposition, A. D. 1893," stands the noble figure of the Noah of our nation. The open doublet discloses the massive proportions of a more than well-knit man. The left hand, pressed to the bosom, indicates the tension of his feelings, and the outstretched hand but further intensifies the dawning and gradually o'erwhelming sense of the future, the possibilities of his grand discovery. One of the noblest conceptions in bronze upon this continent is ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... Men less learned and with lesser power of reason and thoughtfulness than he, have moved audiences to frenzy and have carried them at will; but Jefferson, without this peculiar gift, certainly possessed a sufficiency of this power, which the broad culture of the scholar and the steadfast tension of the thinker can give to any man. His addresses and writings are pregnant with profound aphorisms, and through his great genius transient questions were often transformed into eternal truths. His arguments were ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... protective, maternal. She leaned back in her chair and folded her hands in her lap; yet there was still a certain tension in her expression, an intensity as of inward excitement ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... infinite leisure which is a fine art when it is not born of genuine abstraction, and none could decide whether he was aware of the unfriendly proximity of Big Medicine. Weary was just on the point of saying something to relieve the tension, when Miguel blew the ash gently from his ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... in this section could be placed in other sections. Many have been. They represent the vigor, vitality, energy, and daring characteristic of our frontiers. To quote Harvey Fergusson's phrase, the adventures of mettle have always had "a tension that would ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... confirmation of this fact, saying that the waters of the Mulde, swollen by the rain, had prevented his arriving until a few moments ago, Kohlhaas came to his senses. A sudden, terrible downpour of rain, sweeping across the pavement of the courtyard and extinguishing the torches, relaxed the tension of the unhappy man's grief; doffing his hat curtly to the abbess, he wheeled his horse, dug in his spurs, calling "Follow me, my brothers; the Squire is in Wittenberg," and left ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... mind had been thrown back upon itself. He had not been permitted to confer with his friends, except under such restrictions as made converse intolerable. He had been kept in such a state of nervous tension that he had had no appetite, and had eaten scarcely any food. His sleep had been broken by mental discomfort, and he had sometimes lain the whole night through without a minute's unconsciousness. What wonder that his flesh had sunk away from his bones, and ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... a quickening pulse, studying his assailant. The glade, the air, the sunshine, seemed suddenly drawn to a tension, likely to, break into violent commotion. His abrupt danger brought Peter to a feeling of lightness and power. A quiver went along his spine. His nostrils widened unconsciously as he calculated a leap and a blow at ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... discover it is first requisite that an "undoing process" shall precede the "upbuilding process." Stiffness of joint, or tension of muscles, whether recognized or not, must first be done away with before "the body can be molded to the expression of high thought." For this purpose the "decomposing," "relaxing" or "devitalizing" motions are given. The old gymnast doubled ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... a bird amidst the struggling icebergs, which her prow sent to the right-about; the brig's hull shivered under the action of the screw, and the manometer indicated a prodigious tension of steam, for it whistled with ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... short stop was made, and a successful experiment tried to remedy the unpleasant jerks. A plan was soon hit upon and put into execution. The three links in the couplings of the cars were stretched to their utmost tension, a rail from a fence in the neighbourhood was placed between each pair of cars and made fast by means of the packing yarn from the cylinders. This arrangement improved the order of things, and it was found to answer the purpose ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... his age and his authority, the tension caused by the struggle that was imminent between the Priest and the Prophet, overawed the assembly. There was a deep silence, like the calm before ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... certain tension in the pause which followed. Would she tell us or not? I almost felt Atherley's rebound of satisfaction as well as my own at the sound of her voice. It was uncertain and faint at first, but by degrees grew firm again, as timidity was ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer
... a little jerk, a noise like champagne being uncorked in another room, and a faint whistling sound. For just one instant I had a sense of enormous tension, a transient conviction that my feet were pressing downward with a force of countless tons. It lasted for ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... hour elapsed I felt weak and ill. The moment I relaxed the tension and will-power which I had maintained so long, strong reaction set in. Apparently I had about reached the limits of endurance. I felt as if I were growing old and feeble by minutes as one might by years. ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... application demanded, produce effects on the growing brain, which, in a vast number of cases, can be only disastrous. Even in girls of from fourteen to eighteen, such as crowd the normal school in Philadelphia, this sort of tension and this variety of study occasion an amount of ill-health which is sadly familiar ...
— Sex in Education - or, A Fair Chance for Girls • Edward H. Clarke
... tension of body and mind, Knight found time for a moment of thankfulness. Elfride ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... Boys watched the departing redmen until their forms had been hidden from sight by one of the numerous projecting cliffs. Then the tension was somewhat relieved and Fred turned to Zeke and said, "What do you think those ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay
... the old State Churches and push forward to a more enduring faith; and the priest as well as the despot has for a moment resumed his sway—though not his uncontested sway—over our weariness and our fears. The moral sentiment, after high tension, has undergone a corresponding relaxation. All liberal measures are for the time at a discount. The Bill for the Abolition of Church-Rates, once carried in the House of Commons by large majorities, is now lost. The nominal leaders of the Liberal party themselves have let their principles fall into ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... repeated without variation during the whole lifetime of the individual, there is probably little if any consciousness. It is an essential prerequisite of consciousness that there should be a period of delay or tension between the receipt of an impression and the determination of the consequent movement. Diminish this period of delay and you diminish the vividness of consciousness. A familiar example will make this clear. When you are learning to play a new piece of music ...
— The Destiny of Man - Viewed in the Light of His Origin • John Fiske
... faintly at moments in the still air, borne upward as from infinite depths; but her voice would never sound again for him: he knew it now—never again for him. And yet he paced the floor, listening. The pain in his heart grew duller at intervals, benumbed by the tension; but it always returned, ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... again. I don't say that you would, but it is possible, indeed it seems to me to be probable. It may be that the sudden shock when you jumped into the water, acting upon your nerves when in a state of extreme tension, may have set them right, and that bullet graze along the top of the skull may have aided the effect of the shock. Men frequently lose their nerve after a heavy fall from a horse, or a sudden attack by a tiger, or any other unexpected shock. It may ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... unnoticed, but the tension he felt did not slacken, because there was another they could not avoid. Nobody, however, called to them, and he felt easier as they drew away from the row of shadowy tents. Then, moving very cautiously, they reached the thick willow bluff, where ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... as the three in that picture before the door stood keyed to such tension as the human intelligence seldom is called upon to withstand. Macdonald stood with one foot on the low threshold, the door swinging half open at his back. He was bareheaded, his rough, fair hair in wisps on temples and forehead. ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... lighting up her face, and she slid out her beautiful hand to him. The general took it and pressed it mechanically, his lips twitching slightly. He pressed it far harder than he meant, for his feelings were at tension. She winced slightly, and involuntarily thrust out her other hand, as if to relieve his pressure. As she did so the blanket fell away from her head and shoulders. Lambert, with excellent intuition, caught it, and threw it across his arm. Then, quickly, and without embarrassment, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... stand without a word to Tom, Roger, or Astro. The three cadets looked at each other, feeling the tension in the air suddenly relax. Strong was busy talking to someone on the portable intercom and had missed the ...
— Treachery in Outer Space • Carey Rockwell and Louis Glanzman
... hibernating through the long winters just as bears and other wild animals do. Some scientist studied these peasants and found that during these periods of the "long sleep" respiration and digestion practically ceased, and that the heart was at so low tension as to defy detection by ordinary ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... in the old fashion. He also wore amazingly tight black trousers, strapped closely over his well-blacked boots. To tell the truth, these nether garments, though of great natural resistance, had lived so long at a high tension, so to say, that they were no longer equally tight at all points, and there were, undoubtedly, certain perceptible spots on them; but, on the whole, the general effect of the doctor's appearance was fashionable, in the fashion of several years earlier and judged by the ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... still drawing with the chalk on the table. Her eyes were shining with a soft light. Under the influence of her mood he felt in all his being a continually growing tension of happiness. ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... to Jennka and kissed her on the forehead. And never afterwards could Volodya Chaplinsky, who had been watching this scene with a painful tension, forget those warm and beautiful rays, which at this moment kindled in the green, long, Egyptian ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... and Kennedy did not attempt to relieve the tension even by small talk as he wrapped the forearms of each of us with cloths steeped in a solution of salt. Upon these cloths he placed little plates of German silver to which were attached wires which led back of a screen. At last he was ready ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... strained to its utmost tension, listening for the least movement on the part of the maddened woman which might indicate she was about to stab ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... together at the end of the common table. Philip had already drunk much more than he was accustomed to, but the only result appeared to be some slight slackening of the tension in which he had been living. His eyes flashed, and his tongue became more nimble. He insisted upon ordering wine. He had had no opportunity yet of repaying many courtesies. They drank his health, forced him into the place of honour by the side of Honeybrook, veteran of the club, and ate their meal ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... closely hedged on either side by tall trees, whose spreading branches seemed to her like protecting arms. There she could walk slower, and breathe more free, and for the first time for many days her mind relaxed its tension. ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... The tension became greater and greater. There is no reason to doubt that both Howe {75} and Johnston tried to play the game. But their temperaments and their associates were different, and they grew more and more mistrustful ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... another silence, in which Hicks continued to thumb the knife in a manner that kept Wallie at a tension, then he said with a suavity which somehow was more ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... and on again. And now, somehow, he thought he caught in one of the letters a new ring, a pensive gravity, a deeper tension, which were like ciphers or signals to tell him of some change in her. For a moment he was shaken. Manhood, human sympathy, surged up in him. The flush of a new sensation ran through his veins like fire. The first instinct of fatherhood came to him, a thrilling, uplifting feeling. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the weaving is begun, and ten inches at the end of the rug to make a fringe for both first and second rugs. Sometimes the warp is set in groups of three, with a corresponding interval between, and this—if the tension is firm and the rags soft—gives a sort of honeycomb ...
— How to make rugs • Candace Wheeler
... the background of the ceaseless anxiety that consumed her night and day had worn Chris's nerves to a very thin edge, and now that relief had come at last in the form of the letter she held in her hand she was almost too spent to feel it. The tension had endured for so long that it seemed impossible that it could have relaxed all in a moment. She had received a roll of banknotes from her brother two days before, but that had in a fashion but added to her fever of unrest. Now that she knew ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... John's face indicates an amazing determination and alertness. It is told of certain remarkable men—De Lesseps amongst the number—that they had the faculty of sleeping for several days and nights and then remaining wide awake and at full tension for an equally long period of time. We may confidently predict that John has this faculty. He is not likely to slumber again till his work is done, and done thoroughly. Michael's expression, I regret to note, is not quite so pleasing as John's. It gives "furiously ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... about underground, in the pipes. There they branch out in every direction. They sometimes meet, and fraternize there. Jean-Jacques lends his pick to Diogenes, who lends him his lantern. Sometimes they enter into combat there. Calvin seizes Socinius by the hair. But nothing arrests nor interrupts the tension of all these energies toward the goal, and the vast, simultaneous activity, which goes and comes, mounts, descends, and mounts again in these obscurities, and which immense unknown swarming slowly transforms the top and the bottom and the inside and the outside. Society ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... that since the Anglo-Saxon peoples have had representative institutions they have sought some system under which the people as a whole could exercise a veto on the legislative vagaries of their "deputies" or "select men." The people, in moments of tension, have yearned for the right to veto the work of their representatives when such work is obviously based upon the decision of a minority. The only substantial result of that yearning in Great Britain up till now has been ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... exclaimed Mr. Force, with sudden irascibility. His nerves WERE at a high tension, there was no denying that. "Nothing whatever to do with the bank, sir. What the dev—what could have put such a thought into your ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... he had not dared to dream. His theory, which he had proved in his whole life, was that nothing is beyond the grasp of a man who is master of himself and his emotions. But even his iron nerves felt the tension of excitement, as luncheon drew to an end, and he knew in half an hour, when most of the company were safely disposed of, he should again find his way ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... feeling, and her altered behaviour, especially towards himself, which led him to the belief that he unconsciously had wounded her, or in some other way that he was the cause of her displeasure; and never had he felt more than now what a high value he set upon her, nor how much he loved her. This tension of mind, and his anxiety to approach Louise, and bring back a friendly understanding between them, occasioned various little scenes, which ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... would it look like? Even a scream somewhere would have relieved her, and snapped the tension of the listening stillness that lay on her like a shocking nightmare. This lobby with its well-known doors—the banister on which her fingers rested—the well of the staircase up which she stared with dilated eyes—all ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... The rigid tension of her arms and hands as they lay on the coverlet told of her effort for composure, and he noticed for the first time that beautiful as the latter still were in shape and colour, one of the nails was broken, ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... said Ann, but the tension of her voice broke on a sob. "If you don't mind—I'll stay here." She looked up at her in a way which remotely suggested the look of that little dog the day before, "Katie, I don't mean you. When I say things like that—I don't mean you. I mean—I suppose ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell |
