"Brace" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and infallible authority {637} for all science. With him were associated the schoolmen who debated the question of realism versus nominalism. But as the mind of man grew and advanced, what had been once the brace became a galling bond. All parties united to make common cause against the Stagyrite. The Italian Platonists attacked him in the name of their, and his, master. Luther opined that no one had ever understood Aristotle's meaning, that the ethics of that "damned heathen" directly contradicted ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... his valet and a brace of tall footmen, and dispatched them to the aid of the wounded man in the wood. And then he sought his own chamber, and, after an hour or two of aimless tossing, dropped into ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... away by now, and the moon was up. To their right, on the crest of a rise some two hundred yards away, a low wood stood out black against the sky. As they passed it, a blackbird rose up screaming, and a brace of ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... you looking so sour about, you oakum trimmed lobster? She don't kiss you. You don't have to sit on her lap and listen to talk that would make the book of a musical comedy sound like the maxims of Epictetus. You ought to be thankful you're not a dog. Brace up, Benedick, and bid ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... were elsewhere. He unloosened the brace of his overalls, reached down into the pocket of his patched garments beneath and, drawing out a fine length of chewing tobacco, took a bite. Then, breaking off a smallish length, he dropped it into the crown of his seaman's hat. Finally, slowly and very deliberately, he ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... with some six hundred acres of land. The present occupants appeared to be an old man of some seventy years of age and his three sons. Keen sportsmen these, who dearly love to walk for hours in pursuit of game in the autumn, on the chance of bagging an occasional brace of partridges or a wild pheasant (for everything here is wild), or, in winter, when lake and fen are frostbound, by the river and its withybeds after snipe and wildfowl—for the Cotswold stream has never been known ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... deflected toward my hiding-place, and I expected to hear another brace of shots from above me. But there was no more shooting, and the canoe swung in close enough for me to observe the Indian was holding something between his teeth. I now recognized him as a friendly native, a Delaware; and anxious to protect him from ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... birthday: "Whatever else you do on the twenty-second of February, recollect, first of all, that on that day a really great man was born, and do not fail to warm your hearts with the memory of his service, and to brace your minds with the contemplation of his character. The rest of us must wait uncovered till he ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold
... he was able to brace himself, he was again at his post, helping to put the "Lady Nyassa" together and launch her. This was achieved by the end of June, greatly to the wonder of the natives, who could not understand how iron should swim. The "Nyassa" was an excellent ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... study, listening eagerly to the animated theological discussions of the day, visiting her grandmother at Nut Plains, and figuring as one of the brightest scholars in the Litchfield Academy, taught by Mr. John Brace and Miss Pierce. When she was eleven years old her brother Edward wrote of her: "Harriet reads everything she can lay hands on, and sews ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... line and help me to hold these sheep. Don't give anyone a chance to say a Pony Rider Boy is afraid of anything. How'd you like to be over there where those guns are going off? Now, brace up. Look cheerful and tend to those sheep the ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... exceed fifty or sixty persons,—fur-traders, friars, and two or three wretched families, who had no inducement, and little wish, to labor. The fort is facetiously represented as having two old women for garrison, and a brace of hens for sentinels. All was discord and disorder. Champlain was the nominal commander; but the actual authority was with the merchants, who held, excepting the friars, nearly everybody in their pay. Each was jealous ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... through which the head is thrust in rainy weather, and the garment hangs down all round. At night the poncho is useful as a covering. The hermit wore a loose open hunting coat, and underneath it a girdle, in which was a long sharp knife and a brace of pistols. His trousers were of blue-striped cotton. He usually carried a double-barrelled gun over his shoulder, and a powder-horn and bullet-bag were slung round his neck. Barney now procured from this hospitable man a supply of powder and shot for his large brass-mounted cavalry ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... Hamilton, Spirits in Bondage was C. S. Lewis' first book. Released in 1919 by Heinemann, it was reprinted in 1984 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich and included in Lewis' 1994 Collected Poems. It is the first of Lewis' major published works to enter the public domain in the United States. Readers should be aware that in other countries it may still ...
— Spirits in Bondage • (AKA Clive Hamilton) C. S. Lewis
... sufficient to unhorse him. The great object of every combatant was, accordingly, to protect himself from this danger. He must turn his horse suddenly, and avoid the lance of his antagonist; or he must strike it with his own, and thus parry the blow; or if he must encounter it, he was to brace himself firmly in his saddle, and resist its impulse with all the strength that he could command. It required, therefore, great strength and great dexterity to excel in a tournament. In fact, the rapidity of the evolutions which it required gave origin to the name, the word tournament ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... that the mode of fighting should be after the following fashion:—That both should be handed a brace of pistols; reserve their shots until the signal, and then fire when they pleased; advancing or retiring after each shot, as they thought proper. Major M'Namara would not assent to this mode of fighting, ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... right. Todd got down pretty low, and was even a hobo, I heard, before he took a brace, and came back to Bloomsbury to make a man of ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... board of bright mosaic wrought in many a quaint design, Gleam a brace of silver goblets wreathed with flowers and filled with wine. Round the board a group is seated; here and there are threads of white Which their dark locks lately welcomed; but they're only boys tonight. Some whose words have thrilled ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... it if you brace up and act like a man," I retorted. Then, sorry I had been so harsh, I added: "We must take good care of Mrs. Bashford, Antoine. It would be your old master's wish. It will do no harm to keep a guard at the house for the present in case your ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... man worked his body over the edge, secured a foothold in some tiny scarp that broke the smoothness of the face, and groped, with one hand and then the other, for some hold that would do to brace his weight. He found one, lowered himself gingerly, and tested another foothold in a ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... now. You'll stand by me, Berty, I know. Go to my mother's suite and tell Bosko I want him instantly. Bid him bring a brace of revolvers, and see that they are loaded. Come here yourself with some ropes, leather straps, anything that will serve to truss a man securely, as soon as you are sure that Michael, Julius, and the Greek ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... shocked, mother, because Ellen and I have a mutual friend in Mr. William Wallace Cameron! Well, if you want the exact truth, he hadn't an atom of use for me until he heard about Ellen." She put an arm around Grace's shoulders. "Brace up, dear," she said, smilingly. "Don't you cry. I'll be ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... you'd never run away from home. You wish you'd been a better son to your poor old mother; you wish you'd written to her and answered her last letter. You only want to live long enough to write home and ask for forgiveness and a blessing before you die. If you had a drop of spirits of some sort to brace you up you might get along the road better. (Put this delicately.) Get the whine out of your voice and breathe with a wheeze—like this; get up the nearest approach to a deathrattle that you can. Move as if you were badly hurt in your wind—like this. (If you don't do it better'n ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... occupied it for some seasons. Unlike the American human species, in whom local attachment is not largely developed, and who take a new house every moving day, the egret repairs and fixes over the old house year after year, putting in a new brace there, adding another stick here, to make it firm enough to bear the weight of the mother and the three young birds which always comprise ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... Beggars abound; but your evidently self-respecting husbandman talking willingly with you in the millet-field is not of that class; he is not expecting a coin at parting. In some parts of Europe, he would be disappointed not to get two. On the Route Thermale, a small brace under one of the carriages gave way; it was near a village; we were promptly surrounded by six or eight pleasant-faced villagers, who turned their hands at once to help: one held the horses, three joined to lift the ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... it. He had already been badly wounded in the head by a splinter. 'What will Nelson think of us?' he exclaimed, mournfully, as the frigate wore round. Just then his clerk was killed by his side, and directly afterwards another shot struck down some marines who were hauling in the main-brace. It seemed as if not a man on board could escape, 'Come, then, my boys,' exclaimed their brave Captain Riou, 'let us all die together!' They were the last words he ever spoke. The next moment a shot cut him in two. ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... good mahogany table in the middle of the cabin. Behind him were a bunk, two chairs and a rack of small arms, containing half a dozen guns, four brace of pistols, and several swords. He had been reading a book, evidently one of the score or more which stood in a case on the right. Jeremy gasped, for he had never seen so many books in all his life. As the Captain looked up, a stern frown came over his face, never a particularly ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... brace up, babe! Anybody 'u'd think we'd lost all the rest of our family, when we're only doin' the square thing by our daughter. That's all. Why, you'll be as happy as a canary in less'n two weeks. Young folks is about the same everywhere, an' you'll ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland
... honor appeared to be occupied by a two-wheeled cart of crude but massive design. Upon it rode a Kappan driver, two Kappans with spears and the look of official guards, and a Terran with a death-grip upon the side railing. A brace of truculent beasts of frighteningly saurian mien shuffled ponderously along in the loose harness. From time to time, one or the other would stumble over a turn in his rut and emit a menacing rumble as if he suspected his team mate ...
— A Transmutation of Muddles • Horace Brown Fyfe
... and left at woodcocks." For luxurious modes of making big bags with little trouble he never cared at all. But let him once more explain himself in his own words. "I delight in a mountain walk when I must work hard for my five brace of grouse. I see no amusement in dawdling over a lowland moor where the packs are as thick as chickens in a poultry-yard. I like better than most things a day with my own dogs in scattered covers, when I know not what may rise—a ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... stretched flat, afforded a slight protection. He made her lie down, and just beyond her refuge chose a point where the path, broadening a little and rising instead of sloping toward the outer edge, gave him a chance to brace himself between two rocks. Flattened there like a target in mid-air, he threw his hat down to Nan and, resting on one knee, waited for the shot that should tumble him down El Capitan or betray the man bent on killing him. Squalls of wind, sweeping into the Gap and sucked ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... a relief to get into the chock-full streets of the town, where thinking was impossible and good round cursing indispensable. Even with its aid in clearing a course for him, Sultan tumbled over a brace of Highlanders, two of a swarm of Maclachlans and Macdonalds who were disputing possession of a cutler's shop on the corner of Bag Street. After their native fashion, they immediately suspended ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... sauces for them that the guests examine the proffered dishes curiously and attentively, but rarely make up their minds to try them. Yermolai was under orders to provide his master's kitchen with two brace of grouse and partridges once a month. But he might live where and how he pleased. They had given him up as a man of no use for work of any kind—'bone lazy,' as the expression is among us in Orel. Powder and shot, of course, they did not provide him, following ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... Heave, ah heave her short again! Over, snatch her over, there, and hold her on the pawl. Loose all sail, and brace your yards aback and full— Ready jib to pay her ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... increasing, we were obliged to remain there for the rest of the day. All our baking-powder was gone, and we were reduced to "grease bread," i.e., flat cakes of flour and water fried in pork fat. They make a good substitute for bread, but are rather greasy. Joseph had shot a brace of ducks in the morning before coming away, and one of them we had for supper; which, with some potted beef and tea in a tin ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... the sacred flood; That closes calm and lulls the cradled god. Exulting at his words, the gallant crew Brace the broad canvass and their course pursue: For now the breathing airs, from ocean born, Breeze up the bay, and lead the lively morn That lights them to their port. Tis here they join Their bold precursors in the work divine; And here their followers, yet a numerous train, ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... tension as though each were striving to lift some heavy thing up out of the earth. It seemed, too, that Malan squeezed as he lifted, and that Jud's shoulder turned a little, as though he wished to brace it against the clubfoot's breast, or was troubled by ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... trawler with a high and raking bow, Black and workmanlike as any pirate craft, With a crew of steady seamen very handy in a row, And a brace of little barkers fore and aft; And he blessed the Lord his Maker when he faced the North Sea sprays And exceedingly extolled his lucky star That had given his youth renewal in the evening of his days (With the rank of Captain ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 4, 1917 • Various
... house was already in sight, but we could hear the tramp of the insurgents' feet coming nearer and nearer, though we could not tell whether we ourselves were yet seen. Mr Marchant and his family hurried on, probably sorry that they had not made more speed at first. We had our pistols ready, a brace each, in our belts, and our swords by our sides, should we come to a close encounter; but the blacks had, we concluded, firearms, and might shoot us down, should they see us, at a distance. I could not but admire the cool gallantry of Mr Talboys, with so ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... stood bare as a clerke, with his hat off to his Lord Ashlyand the rest, but I thank God I think myself never a whit the better man for all that. Thence with Creed to the 'Change and Coffee-house, and so home, where a brave dinner, by having a brace of pheasants and very merry about Povy's folly. So anon to the office, and there sitting very late, and then after a little time at Sir W. Batten's, where I am mighty great and could if I thought it fit continue so, I to the office again, and there very ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... asked Walter, noticing the serious look on his brother's face. "You ought to be very bright this beautiful morning. Julia and I have been planning a nice little scheme for this afternoon. I am hoping, with the gamekeeper's help, to bag two or three brace of partridges before dinner-time. I can drive Julia to the gamekeeper's hut, and she can take a sketch or two while I am shooting. The woods are looking beautiful now with their autumnal tints, and will give lovely little bits for a sketch. Won't ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... Atterbury. In a combat, which takes place in the Homeric style, the enemies of the Ancients, Bentley and Wotton, are slain by one lance upon the field. The mighty deed was achieved by Boyle. 'As when a slender cook has trussed a brace of woodcocks, he with iron skewer pierces the tender sides of both, their legs and wings close pinioned to their ribs, so was this pair of friends transfixed, till down they fell joined in their lives, joined in their ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... wish to insult me? After your father put you in my charge, too! If you two are going, I shall come also, if I have to do so mother-naked. But let me tell you once and for all in the most emphatic language I can command, that I consider you a brace of confounded lunatics, and that if the Pongo don't eat you, it will be more than you deserve. To think that at my age I should be dragged among a lot of cannibal savages without even a pistol, to fight some unknown brute with my bare hands! Well, we can only die once—that ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... my Lord, towards Barwicke post amaine: Edward and Richard like a brace of Grey-hounds, Hauing the fearfull flying Hare in sight, With fiery eyes, sparkling for very wrath, And bloody steele graspt in their yrefull hands Are at our backes, and ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... the following morning I experienced a feeling of such deep disgust with myself, and felt so degraded in my own eyes that a horrible temptation assailed me. Then I sat down and looked gloomily about the room, my eyes resting mechanically on a brace of pistols ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... one occasion, one was squatted on a fallen tree, another on the limb of a live one, and a third upon a boulder, each busy cutting down his tree. In every case, the tail was used for a combination stool and brace. While cutting, the beaver sat upright and clasped the willow with fore paws or put his hands against the tree, usually tilting his head to one side. The average diameter of the trees cut was about four inches, and a tree ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... could have done any more. I had put the whole thing in a nutshell for him. You would have thought he'd have seen the point, and that it would have made him brace up and get a hold on himself. But no. Off he went again in the same old way. I gave up arguing with him. I had a good deal of time on my hands, but not enough to amount to anything when it was a question of reforming dear old Bobbie by argument. If you see a man asking for trouble, ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... touch of liver, which resulted in his shooting over the birds, and under the birds, and on each side of the birds, but very rarely at the birds. Dallas being in especially good form, it was found, when the bag came to be counted, that, while he had shot seventy brace, the colonel had only managed to secure ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... smiling on the people, dapper, swarthy, booted, spurred, and for one moment the man she had reason to remember, exactly as she remembered him. The next his folded arms sprang out from the shoulders, and a brace of long-barrelled revolvers covered ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... forms of life, their food must come to them. If there is no current there is not enough food carried past for them to live on. If the current is too strong the sponge has to make an extra tough skeleton to brace itself against the rush of water and then it becomes too coarse for commercial use. Some of the polyps live on tiny animals with a lot of flint in their shells and the skeleton gets like glass. They call them glass sponges. ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... a famous football player in his day and wore an iron brace on his leg. The offices, like most of the offices on the street, were dark and narrow, and smelled of decaying vegetables and rancid butter. Noisy Greek and Italian hucksters wrangled on the sidewalk in front, and among these went Narrow-Face hurrying ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... cosily. Gun-racks lined the walls, and dressers laden with valuable china, and these were seasonably adorned with sprigs of holly, ivy, and fir. A kissing-bush, even, hung from the bacon-rack that crossed the ceiling, with many hams wrapped in bracken, a brace of pheasants, and a 'neck' of harvest corn elaborately plaited: and almost directly beneath it stood a circular table with a lamp and a set of dominoes, the half of them laid out in an unfinished game. The floor was of slate but strewn with ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... one man whom, living and dead, Caesar evidently dreaded. The Dictator even assailed his memory in a brace of pamphlets entitled Anti-Cato, of the quality of which we have one or two specimens, in Plutarch, from which we should infer that they were scurrilous and slanderous to the last degree; a proof ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... all right. We can't be young more than once, and if the lady takes you in tow in Benton you'll have the world by the tail as long as it holds. She moves with the top-notchers; she's a knowing little piece—no offense. Her and me are good enough friends. There's no brace game in that deal. I only aim to give you a steer. Savvy?" And he winked. "You're out ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... and dine, and we'll fire away personal histories, broadside for broadside! I've been looking in vain for a worthy hero to set vis-a-vis to my fair kinswoman. But stop! perhaps you have a Christmas turkey at home, with a wife opposite, and a brace of boys ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... been the case with them all," replied Harris, "and in the course of that journey, I must have fallen against every one of them at least three times. You see," explained Harris, "they knew when the corners were coming, and in which direction to brace themselves. I, as a stranger, was naturally at a disadvantage. The way I rolled and staggered about that platform, clutching wildly now at this man and now at that, must have been really comic. I don't say it was high-class ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... The old man did not introduce me; his wife did not know my name, and I sought to speak my name, but had lost it just at that moment and could merely splutter something. I was not much embarrassed, though; I recalled what I had heard the two men say, and behind me was the strong brace of a woman's ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... to brace up the gov'nor," said Bertie Godolphin. "Then the eldest daughter is engaged to be married; that's right; only three daughters and two h'orphan nieces ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... apertures through which we could see and fire. Mattresses had been dragged from beds up stairs, and thrust into places where they would yield most protection. The front door alone was left so as to be opened, but a heavy table was made ready to brace it if necessary. Satisfied nothing more could be done to increase our security I had the men take their weapons, and the sergeants assign them to places. I passed along from room to room, watchful that no point of defence had ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... other little surprises that pleased her greatly; every week or two a hamper came from Oatlands—new-laid eggs and cream, a chicken or two, and often a brace of partridges or a pheasant. Bessie, who was housekeeper, used to rejoice over the contents of these hampers; she knew the game would tempt her mother's sickly appetite. Many of Dr. Lambert's patients remembered that he had an invalid wife, and ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... dressed in a pair of tightly fitting dread-nought trowsers, and a shell jacket, that had once been scarlet, but now, from use and exposure, rather resembled the colour of brickdust; boots from which all polish had been taken by the grease employed to render them snow-proof; a brace of pistols thrust into the black waist belt that encircled his huge circumference, and from which depended a sword, whose steel scabbard shewed the rust of the rudest bivouac. Let him, moreover, figure to himself that ruddy carbuncled face, and nearly as ruddy brow, suffused with ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... than he had anticipated. The iron brace came down, and with it fell several dozens of brick, some hitting the detective on the legs and feet. He shrank back against the shelves, and so avoided getting the shower on his head. The lantern was smashed, leaving him ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... not this, to Bite you by the Ear, (i.e.) flatter you out of a Brace or two of Guinea's: No; as I am a true Dumpling Eater, my Views are purely Epicurean, and my utmost Hopes center'd in partaking of some elegant Quelque Chose tost up by your judicious Hand. I regard ...
— A Learned Dissertation on Dumpling (1726) • Anonymous
... my wraps from her boudoir, which Paul Barr with a brace of sighs assisted me to put on. I bade good evening to them all. Mr. Spence made me a low but formal bow. I could see his lip tremble. The instant after, as with Paul Barr at my side I began to descend the stairs, a hurried step behind told me that the master was coming also. I went down ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... twice on a crumbling pitch, and wiped his eye with a brace, But his guy-rope split with the strain of it, and he dropped back out of the race; And I drew a bead on The Meteor's lead, and challenging none too soon, Bent over and patted her garboard strake, and ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... braces, the buckles of which had left livid marks upon his neck. His Prayer-book had been found open at the Burial of the Dead, and it was understood that he had read that service over himself before taking leave of the world. He had also written his will with a point of the said brace-buckles upon the brick of his cell. He himself (Mr. Rolfe) had been called as a witness at the inquest, and had thereby obtained two hours' relaxation from labor; but upon the whole he would rather have been working with his gang—the affair had quite upset ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... difficulty in entering into the mood of Raleigh's mind. Roused to fresh energy by misfortune, his brain and will had of late once more become active, and he was planning adventures by land and sea. If James did oust him from his posts about the Court in favour of leal Scotchmen, Raleigh would brace himself by some fresh expedition against Cadiz, some new settlement of Virginia or Guiana. In the midst of such schemes, the blow of his unexpected arrest would come upon him out of the blue. He could bear poverty, neglect, ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... directly regulate the actual building of residences where the trade is carried on. They can require not only so many cubic feet of air per person in the sweat-shop, but so many cubic feet of air per person in every bedroom; as Ruskin said, not only, of grouse, so many brace to the acre, but of men and women—so many brace to the garret. A California law[1] once made it a criminal offence for any person to sleep with less than one thousand feet of air in his room for his own exclusive use! It is indeed a ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... everything connected with water must be like itself, forcible, but clear. That is why sea-slang is so poetical; there is a word for everything and every act, and a thing and an act for every word. Seamen must speak quick and bold, but also with utmost precision. They cannot reef and brace other than in a Homeric dialect,— therefore—(Steamboat bell rings.) But I must say a ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... knew how to knit them together into a rattling comedy. But he was poor, always in pursuit of that timid wild-fowl, the occasional guinea, and with no sort of disposition to settle down into a heavy citizen. In order to bring down a few brace of golden game, he shovels into Lintott's hands his stray verses of all kinds, a bundle of letters he wrote from Holland, a dignified essay or discourse upon Comedy, and, with questionable taste perhaps, a set of copies of the love-letters he had addressed to the lady who became his wife. ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... unusually beautiful day in early June that two briar-mangled and weather-beaten young men, bearing every evidence of Wall Street and excessive fright, might have been seen sitting up like a brace of startled rabbits in a patch of ferns which grew along the edges of a brook at the foot of a charmingly wooded slope among the Westchester hills. In every direction stretched hills, woods, and Italians. The calm remote sky was blue and unvexed by ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... a strange barbaric fitness of dithyrambic chords, and moves processional across the days like some encarnadined durbar, where a huge Ethiopian eunuch in red moon-shaped slippers and an orange turban walks with a glittering scimetar, leading a brace of sleepy leopards drugged and golden eyed; the caparisoned elephants swing down a latticed street; silk shawls hang from balconies, brushing the domed gilt of howdahs; and ruby-roped, the maharajahs sway behind ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... history of his antagonist's family; whereat the other, nothing loath, indulges him with a yarn about Assaracus. Tros being out of breath, the Argive can do nothing less than proffer a bouncer about Hercules; so that, for at least half an hour, they stand lying like a brace of Sinbads—whilst Ajax, on the right, is spearing his proportion of the Dardans, and Sarpedon doing equal execution among the unfortunate Achivi on the left. Nor, until either warrior has exhausted ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... small, temporary loan of money. The nine roubles had almost all gone on his expedition. And, as we all know, one can't take a step without money. But he had thought over in the cart where he could get a loan. He had a brace of fine dueling pistols in a case, which he had not pawned till then because he prized ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... to your noses; Short is life, but love is sweet, There's a city man named Moses Whom I've simply got to meet; On you go, you two young larkers;' Then he bids his Jew disgorge Or reserves his brace of barkers For the coach of D. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, May 20, 1914 • Various
... a dull pain in his head and heart. As the consciousness of all that had happened returned, he remembered that there was good reason for both. His faithful old domestic soon prepared a dainty meal, which aided in giving tone to his exhausted system. Then he sat down by his fire to brace himself for the tidings he expected to hear. Helen's chair was empty. It would always be hers, but hope was gone that she would smile from it upon him during the long winter evenings. Already the room was darkening toward the early December twilight, and he felt ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... load. The Chenoo bade him hold his head low, so that he could not be knocked off by the branches. "Brace your feet," he said, "so as to be steady." Then the old man flew like the wind,— ne[original illegible] sokano'v'jal samastukteskugul chel wegwasumug wegul; the bushes whistled as they flew past them. They got ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... one pound of rice to each man in a day, and frequently during this trying month they had not even that; and I eked out our meagre supply with a few ounces of preserved meats, occasionally "splicing the main brace" with weak ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... senses, I formed the horrible plan of turning foot-pad; for which purpose I returned to my lodging, and collected whatever of my apparel I could part with; which I immediately sold, and with the produce purchased a brace of pistols, powder and shot. I hope, however, you will believe me, when I most solemnly assure you, my sole intention was to frighten the passengers I should assault with these dangerous weapons; which I had not loaded but from a resolution,-a dreadful one, I own,-to save ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... evangelisation as a useful part of the national colonial policy. But Dober and Nitschmann were on a different footing. If they had been the paid agents of the State they would have been regarded with favour; but as they were only the heralds of a Church they were laughed at as a brace of fools. For a while they met with violent opposition. Von Plesz, the King's Chamberlain, asked them how ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... a faint gleam of recognition in his eyes, and it appeared as if he were trying to brace himself; then he extended one hand, and ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... adjuration came from the lips of a queer little man perched upon a wagonful of firewood, behind a brace of oxen that were hauling it easily along with a simulation of mighty effort which had evidently not imposed on their lord and master. As that gentleman happened at the moment to be staring me squarely in the face as I stood by the roadside it was ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... Last night, about nine o'clock the door opened and he rushed into the room. I got to my feet on impulse, and then tried to brace myself and control my disordered reason, for, of course, I believed myself delirious. He stopped by the door long enough to throw down his suitcase, and in that instant I struggled fiercely to disbelieve my eyes. I was ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... their golden chains of office; the great log, swung to shoulder-poles and borne by leathern-jerkined henchmen; surely drummers and fifers, for such a ceremonial would have been impossibly incomplete in Provence without a tambourin and galoubet; doubtless a brace of ceremonial trumpeters; and a seemly guard in front and rear of steel-capped and steel-jacketed halbardiers. All these marching gallantly through the narrow, yet stately, Aix streets; with comfortable burghers ...
— The Christmas Kalends of Provence - And Some Other Provencal Festivals • Thomas A. Janvier
... pass them boldly," he muttered to Margaret; "I'll not turn my back on a brace of Spaniards," but he also laid his hand upon the hilt of the sword he wore beneath his cloak, and bade her get ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... we moored and went ashore. Brace Girdle, an engineer, and I went to the hotel, and the first thing we heard was—that peace was declared! I went back on board ship, and I didn't sleep much—I never was so blue in my life. I knew if they didn't ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... a flourishing young gallant, newly come to his land, Who keeps a brace of painted madams at his command, And takes up a thousand pounds upon his father's land, And gets drunk in a tavern till he can neither go nor stand: Like a young ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... thirstily, and swallowed a mouthful or two of the bread; and when he was shaved and tubbed and clothed in the shabby white drill suit, had gone down to the dispensary and mixed himself a dose of chloric ether and strychnine, strong enough to brace his jarred ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... right through the head. I hate to mangle my game. I'd pretty fair sport; the birds are a little wild, though, and I had no dog. I lost a fine duck—a canvas-back, this afternoon, by its falling into deep water. I must send North for a brace of good dogs." ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... over to bring you a brace of pheasants," he explained. "As you were out, I deposited them in the ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... to me that we have got all the game we want," said Scott. "What could we do with a couple more deer and a brace of wild hogs?" ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... a technical term in music-printing for a sort of brace joining separate staves; and in architecture it denotes a form of decoration ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... way; three of the gang laid hold of the reata and ran, dragging Morgan against his best efforts to brace his feet and hold them, the others pushing him toward the moving train. The long freight was bound westward. Morgan and his tormenters were beyond the railroad station, not far from Judge Thayer's little white office building, which Morgan could see through ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... So Paul, vagabond and self-reliant from his babyhood, turned up at the Sunday-school treat, hatless and coatless, his dirty little toes visible through the holes in his boots, and his shapeless and tattered breeches secured to his person by a single brace. The better-dressed urchins moved away from him and made rude remarks, after the generous manner of their kind; but Paul did not care. Pariahdom was his accustomed portion. He was there for his own pleasure. They ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... is commonly used by carpenters for a brace or stay. Stower, in Bailey's Dictionary, is a stake; Halliwell spells it stoure, and says it is still in use. Forby connects the Norfolk word stour, stiff, inflexible, applied to standing corn, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 201, September 3, 1853 • Various
... trip will cost Uncle Sam more than a brace of tickets from New York to 'Frisco and back again, including Pullmans and ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... Suddenly she stopped. A brace of partridges had sprung up at some distance, and with a wild whirr of their wings were now directing their low and rapid flight toward the bottom ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... had to brace himself against the tortures of a physical fear from which he had believed himself immune. So he stood breathing unevenly and waiting, and while he waited the temper of his nerves was being drawn as it ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... ceremony; no time to announce the fact in set form to the officer of the watch. This was the second mate. He was, happily, a sensible man. He at once comprehended the emergency, and gave the necessary orders to brace up the yards, and bring the ship close upon a wind. We were not a moment too soon in anything that was done. The white glimmering appearance grew every instant more distinct, till it resolved itself into ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... on, and days grew gentle, and soft weather replaced the strong brace of the winter frost, my condition of health became more and more unsatisfactory. My mother grew seriously uneasy at length and consulted Dr. Sandford. And the next thing was Dr. ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... to Pasture, the Brace-Box and the Pinch Wheel lying in the Basement at Central Station, the Pugs going back to the Foundry and all the Street Lamps being taken in at Midnight, no wonder Steve was hard pushed ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... that in common decency he should offer to lend a hand and thus was moved to rise and approach the disabled car she had the jack under the front axle and was applying a brace wrench to the rim bolts. But the rim bolts that hold on a five-inch tire are not designed to unscrew too easily. Sophie had started one with an earnest tug and was twisting stoutly at the second when he reached her. He knew by the impersonal glance she gave him that he was to ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... before dinner had contained the juice of Oporto, stood empty on the sideboard. Jack wanted to draw another cork, which, however, I positively forbad, as I have through life made it a rule to avoid the slightest approach towards excess in tippling; so, after a modest brace of glasses of brandy-and-water, I shook hands with and left my friend about half-past nine, for I am an old-fashioned fellow, and love early hours, my usual time for turning ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... as white as a sheet. Here,—take a good swig of this. It's some rye that Steve White brought over. We all needed it. Help yourself. You've been overdoing a little today, Courtney. You're not fit for this sort of—That's right! That will brace you up. You needed it, my boy." Courtney drained half a tumbler of whiskey ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... the rain began again; that was luck. It is pouring now in torrents; we are in the height of the bad season. Lloyd leaves along with this letter on a change to San Francisco; he had much need of it, but I think this will brace him up. I am, as you see, a tower of strength. I can remember riding not so far and not near so fast when I first came to Samoa, and being shattered next day with fatigue; now I could not tell I have done anything; have re-handled my battle of Fangalii according to yesterday's information—four ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... able to style the late "markis." The pav of the Haymarket he considers classic ground, and the "Waterford Arms" a most select wine-bibbing establishment. If he does not break a dozen bells or wrench three or four brace of knockers in the season, this penny-cigar-smoking creature hardly thinks he attains to his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... indifferent, to accept the companionship of a stupid acquaintance when we might, at the expense of politeness, escape to a clever friend, to endure with smiling composure the near presence of people who are distasteful to us,—these things, and many like them, brace the sinews of our souls. They set a fine and delicate standard for common intercourse. They discipline us for the good ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... me with eyes that were growing glassy and vacant. Then he seemed to brace himself and to rally for ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... the grave. From this single and impressive instance the poet passes to the general and unfailing law—No material object of which we have cognizance really dies: all such objects are in a perpetual cycle of change. This conception has been finely developed in a brace of early poems of Lord Tennyson, All Things will Die, and Nothing ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... on the birds! I'm going to use pieces of this light brace-rod off the accumulator cells for arrows. They won't fly true, of course, but with their mass I can give them enough projectile force to kill any small animal they hit, no ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... thou hast found Thy life to reach and sound, Some thought among these rhymes, My school of rhymes and chimes, Then this, I pray thee, con: Somewhat to feed upon It has—a kind of lunch, Served with Olympian punch, To brace thee every night, And make thy mornings bright— Complines at even-song To make ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... job, this heah race of youahs, boyees," the sheriff remarked, after he had heard about the contest; "but you-all was saying somethin' 'bout a brace of bank robbers that bothered you. What happened to the same, if you are in a position to say? As an officer of the law I'm interested in all such ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... between us is that while I perfectly agree with you I sit back and talk about it; you go ahead and do something. It's rotten of me not to work harder down here. I know my father is sore on it, and every time he writes I mean to take a brace and do better—honest I do, no kidding. But you know how it goes. Somebody wants me on the ball nine, or on the hockey team, or in the next play, and I say yes to every one of them. The first I know I haven't a ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... into a consuming flame. It is not beneath the dignity of the skillful physician to study all the {214} little symptoms, and order all the little round of attentions that check the waste of strength and brace the staggering constitution. It is good work for a husband ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... and superscription, but a plain blunt heretic who knows his mind (or, rather, mood). But it is a reverent, indeed, I dare to say, a noble book. The sanely and securely orthodox may read it with profit if with shock. It should brace their faith, and will rob them of nothing but a too-ready doubt that so forthright a house-breaker may be a builder in his own way. There is indeed more faith in these honest denials than in half the assents of the conformists. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 6, 1917 • Various
... without you." Doctor Churchill was divesting himself of white cravat and collar. "I know you're worn out, dear, but I think the ride will brace you up. It's hot in the house to-night; it will be blissfully cool out on the river road. Besides, Forester would be disappointed. It isn't every night he comes for us with ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... have no appetite. I was learning what it was to get up shaky in the morning, with a stomach that quivered, with fingers touched with palsy, and to know the drinker's need for a stiff glass of whisky neat in order to brace up. (Oh! John Barleycorn is a wizard dopester. Brain and body, scorched and jangled and poisoned, return to be tuned up by the very poison that caused ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... evening after sundown, the wind sitting in the west, biggish swollen clouds to be seen as the night increased and the weatherwise poring up at them and some sheet lightnings at first and after, past ten of the clock, one great stroke with a long thunder and in a brace of shakes all scamper pellmell within door for the smoking shower, the men making shelter for their straws with a clout or kerchief, womenfolk skipping off with kirtles catched up soon as the pour came. In Ely place, Baggot street, Duke's lawn, thence ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... missie," said Mr Oswald, as these thoughts passed rapidly through her mind. "You'll be over in a brace of shakes.—Hoist them things ...
— Thistle and Rose - A Story for Girls • Amy Walton
... savoury was overdue, at 9.45 P.M. Four of us had trailed thus far through this critical meal: my father, a usually patient widower who was becoming more than restless; the Robinsons, never a jocund brace of guests, who were by now positively sullen, and myself who, being but a boy—of twenty odd years and having little enough to say to a woman of fifty-five and her still more antique husband, had long ago settled down to a determined silence. Meanwhile Thompson, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various
... sat down their sable loads, and directly the sounds of a brace of fiddles rang though the basement story, and the laundry floor vibrated to the elastic tread of dancers, whose natural love of music gave grace and spirit to every movement. The two fiddles poured out triumphant strains of music, and in every particular Clorinda's ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... his country's history? Everything is at stake at the front, yes, and even here at the North, for I can see that papa dreads unspeakably what each day may bring forth, yet neither this terrible emergency nor the hope of winning my love can brace his timid soul to manly action. There is more manhood in one drop of the blood shed by Captain Lane than in Merwyn's ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... together a batch of biscuits while you fry the steaks. Brace up, kid. Throw out yore chest. We better play we're drunk too," he said in a ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... body which God has given me; and I am, moreover, a man oppressed with a terribly heavy load of grief. For some short time I must hide myself with my mother; and then, when I shall have been able to brace my mind to work, I shall go forth and labour in whatever field may be ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... it?" she remarked. "Dona, you're ostriching! For goodness' sake brace up, child, and turn off the water-works! I thought you'd more pluck. If you're going to arrive at Brackenfield with a red nose and your eyes all bunged up, I'll disown you, or lose you on the way. Crystal clear, I will! I'll not let you start in a new school nicknamed ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... tinged the whole with actuality. He was specially partial to engravings of President Lincoln, the particular savior and patron of his race. This five hundred dollars he was adding to an unreckoned sum of about two thousand, merely as extra fortification against a growing sense of gloom. He wished to brace his flagging spirits with the gay wine of possession, and he was glad, when the money came, that it was in an elastic-bound roll, so bulky that it was pleasantly uncomfortable in his pocket as ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... the sportsman's nerves in vigour brace; May cruelty ne'er stain with foul disgrace The well-earned ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... you me deny: You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace; You cannot shut the windows of the sky, Through which Aurora shows her brightening face; You cannot bar my constant feet to trace The woods and lawns, by living streams at eve: Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace, And I their toys to the great children leave: Of fancy, reason, virtue, naught can ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... however, he would not fail to give him a severe reprimand. He went the next morning into his room for that purpose; but Matta had gone out early in the morning on a shooting party, in which he had been engaged by his supper companions in the preceding evening. At his return he took a brace of partridges and went to his mistress. Being asked whether he wished to see the Marquis, he said no; and the Swiss telling him his lady was not at home, he left his partridges, and desired him to present them to his ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... up right before your eyes and you never cheeped. Then you put one of my motors on the blink because you were too lazy to watch the oil-feed. Where do you think I get off? How long could I run this outfit if all my men were like you? Take a brace and come alive, Pete. That's the way to get more money out of me or any one else. The harder you hit the ball the more you'll get. I don't want to hog it all. The boys will tell you I ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... he would call out: "Hello, Bub, what's the matter? You look as if you'd been up against it!" And then the other would begin to pour out some tale of misery, and the man would say, "Come have a glass, and maybe that'll brace you up." And so they would drink together, and if the tramp was sufficiently wretched-looking, or good enough at the "gab," they might have two; and if they were to discover that they were from the same country, or had lived in the same city or worked at the same trade, they might sit down ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... dive into their hearts, With humble and familiar courtesy, What reverence he did throw away on slaves; Wooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles, And patient under-bearing of his fortune, As 'twere to banish their affections with him. Off goes his bonnet to an oyster-wench; A brace of draymen bid God speed him well, And had the tribute of his supple knee, With thanks my countrymen, my loving friends; As were our England in reversion his, And he our subjects' next degree ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... showed a strong strain of white blood. They wore the usual shirt, trousers, and fringed leather apron, with jim-crow hats. Their bare feet must have been literally as tough as horn; for when one of them roped a big bull he would brace himself, bending back until he was almost sitting down and digging his heels into the ground, and the galloping beast would be stopped short and whirled completely round when the rope tautened. The maddened bulls, and an occasional steer or cow, ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... was a bright October evening, with the clear sky, rich sunshine, and brisk breezy freshness, which indicate that loveliest of the American months,—dinner was over, and with a pitcher of the liquid ruby of Latour, a brace of half-pint beakers, and a score —my contribution—of those most exquisite of smokables, the true old Manila cheroots, we were consoling the inward man in a way that would have opened the eyes, with abhorrent admiration, of any advocate of that ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... slightest shift in the course or wind there ought to be a corresponding shift of trim so as to catch every breath the sail can hold. To effect this with the triangular sails a sheet must be slacked away or hauled more in; while, in the case of the square sails on the yards, a brace must be ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... spite of all this gaiety Bruce Clifford and the Boy Scout Engineers were dispirited. Indeed, for the past week they had been very unhappy over the turn of affairs. They tried their hardest to brace up and be good sports, but their disappointment was greater than they had expected. On tournament day they wandered about with a cheerless air, watching the various companies file into the side streets to await the formation of the parade ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump |
