"Bracing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is this little city. Situated high above sea level, with a climate so bracing and life-giving that the phthisis bacillus can hardly live in it, it seemed to our soldiers, after their long march across the veldt, a veritable City of Refuge. Alas! how soon it was to be turned into a ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers
... thirst seemed to grow upon him every minute. Then he grew desperate, and bracing himself, tried with all of his strength to burst the hollow tree asunder. But ...
— Four Boy Hunters • Captain Ralph Bonehill
... crest of the eastern side of the Rio Chico Canon, in an ideal place with bracing air. A fine, sloping meadow afforded quite an arcadian view with the animals peacefully grazing and resting; but looking westward, the eye revelled in the grand panorama of the sierra. The two sides of ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... respecting the emigration of colored people from America to the West India islands. I told him my impression was, that Canada would be a much better place to develop the energies of the race. First, on account of its cold and bracing climate; second, because, having never been a slave state, the white population there are more thrifty and industrious, and of course the influence of such a community was better adapted to form thrift arid industry ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... to Norway. I was well enough off. I rather enjoyed myself. Perhaps I required a little bracing up for the task that lies before me." He laughed as ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... Republican; he had a great capacity for "handling the coloured vote" and his name was Pixley. Hurlbut mistrusted him; the young man had that instinct, which good leaders need, for feeling the weak places in his following; and he had the leader's way, too, of ever bracing up the weakness and fortifying it; so he stopped, four or five times a day, at Pixley's desk, urging the necessity of standing fast for the "Breaker," and expressing convictions as to the political future of a Democrat who should fail to vote for it; to which Pixley ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... greens and rose-shades, all melting into fleeces of white cloud, pure as azury snow, allured the eye as with a remote glimpse of heaven's foundations. The air blowing on the brow was fresh, and sweet, and bracing. ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... Like a bird freed from its cage, she flew about here, there, everywhere, in-doors and out, among the chickens and the pigs, the turkeys and the lambs, enjoying to the full the thousand new things that her eyes rested upon all around her, and her young spirits in wild commotion under the bracing influences of the country air. "Mother! mother!" she exclaimed, as she came dashing into the parlor, her beautiful curls floating wildly over her shoulders, and her bright eyes wide open with wonder; "Mother I mother! come out here, quick! and see this funny tree, all covered over ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... Bay, at the head of which fine sheet of water, in a landlocked harbor, stands the town of Gaspe, distinguished as the place where Jacques Cartier landed in 1534. It is now a great fishing-station, employing thousands of men along the coast in the cod-fishery. Here are fine scenery, clear bracing air, good sea-bathing, excellent salmon- and trout-fishing and a comfortable hotel. What more can a well-regulated mind desire? Into Gaspe Bay flow the Dartmouth, the York and the St. John—good salmon-rivers, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... North-West morning, cold, bracing and clear. The dry air stimulated one, and the winter sun shone cheerfully down upon the great white land of ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... distance from each other. We stopped for two hours at the inn at Mont-Cenis, which is about one hundred yards from the Hospice. It was a remarkable fine day, and I enjoyed my walk very much. The mountain air was keen and bracing and particularly delightful after being shut up for some many days in the close valley. We had some excellent trout for dinner. At Mont-Cenis, near the Hospice, is a large lake which is frozen during eight months of the year. Here reigns ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... nests, of superior quality, and five mace of sugar candy and prepare congee with them in a silver kettle. When once you get into the way of taking this decoction, you'll find it far more efficacious than medicines; for it possesses the highest virtue for invigorating the vagina and bracing up the physique." ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... meerschaum-pipe I ever saw. Lucky? Yes, he was—and especially so, and more than all else—on account of the joyousness of his soul. There was a contagious and a godlike hilarity in his broad, open brow, his frank, laughing eyes, and his mobile lips. He seemed to carry about with him a bracing moral atmosphere. The sight of him had the same effect on the dull man of ordinary life that the Himalayan air has on an Indian invalid; and yet Jack was head-over-heels in debt. Not a tradesman would trust him. Shoals of little bills were sent him every day. Duns without number plagued ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... the same low, dripping roof. With scarcely a dry thread about us; our hair matted and dripping; beads of perspiration streaming down our faces, we reach the top at last; and thank Heaven, that after two hours' absence deep down among those terrible "diggins," we are permitted once more to feel the bracing air, and to look upon the glorious ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... as it should be. Comparatively few people in the State, outside of Berkshire, are even aware that such a town exists. But it would be a delightful place in which to spend a quiet summer. It is cool and healthy, the air is clear and bracing, and the scenery simply superb. The view from Mount Everett fully equals, if it does not surpass, that from Greylock. In whatever direction the spectator looks a most glorious display greets his eyes. Peak rises above peak on all sides, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... your natural desire to have your TSAR FERDINAND home again, and we share your sanguine belief that the tonic air of Sofia (never more bracing than at the present moment) ought speedily to cure him of his malignant catarrh. His Austrian physicians however advise him to remain away, and he himself holds the view, coloured a little by superstition, that his return should be at least ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 15, 1916 • Various
... Naivasha. Here we started in earnest on our big game expedition, which I am glad to say proved to be a most delightful and interesting one in every way. The country was lovely, and the climate cool and bracing. We all got a fair amount of sport, our bag including rhino, hippo, waterbuck, reedbuck, hartebeeste, wildebeeste, ostrich, impala, oryx, roan antelope, etc.; but for the present I must confine myself to a short account ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... fetch the reader up with a slight jolt, and keep him from gliding by without noticing the lake. One must notice it; for a lovely lake is not as common a thing along the railways of Australia as are the dry places. Ninety-two in the shade again, but balmy and comfortable, fresh and bracing. A perfect climate. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Lieutenant D'Hubert, liberated without remark, returned to his regimental duties, and Lieutenant Feraud, his arm still in a sling, rode unquestioned with his squadron to complete his convalescence in the smoke of battlefields and the fresh air of night bivouacs. This bracing treatment suited his case so well that at the first rumour of an armistice being signed he could turn without misgivings to the ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... (you will go with me in my heart) and try whether this fine bracing air will not give the vigour to the poor babe, it had, before I so inconsiderately gave way to the grief that deranged my bowels, and gave a turn ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... early ride would have been vastly exhilarating to Hugh, who enjoyed the bracing air, but there was too much now upon his mind to admit of his enjoying anything. Thoughts of Adah, and the increased expense her presence would necessarily bring, flitted across his mind, while Barney's bill, put ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... Saturday to Monday, and get away from Trieste and worries. They always kept some literary work on hand there; and sometimes, if they were in the mood for it, they would stay at Opcina for six weeks on end. The climate was very bracing. ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... stopped abruptly. Past the bungalow lay the open wold with miles of heather, gorse, and bracken, and a road edged with low, grassy fern-covered banks instead of walls. The air blew freshly up here, and was far more bracing and healthy than down in the hollow of Grovebury. The residents of the new suburb affected seaside fashions, and went their moorland walks ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... streamlet, As o'er the bridge we lean; We watch its hurried ripples We mark its golden green. Oh, the men of the north are stalwart, And the norland lasses fair; And cheerily breathes around us The bracing norland air. We smoke our black old meerschaums, We smoke from morn till night, While cheerily ring our ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... people, by the way, tracing the rushing Sacramento to its fountains around icy Shasta. The first rains had fallen on the lowlands, and the first snows on the mountains, and everything was fresh and bracing, while an abundance of balmy sunshine filled all the noonday hours. It was the calm afterglow that usually succeeds the first storm of the winter. I met many of the birds that had reared their young and ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... was as we have said impaired somewhat by her assiduous devotion to her duties in connection with the Association, but she made no complaint, and her family did not take the alarm. The spring of 1866 found her so feeble, that it was thought the pure and bracing air of the Green Mountains might prove beneficial in restoring her strength, but her days were numbered. On the 30th of August she died at ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... passion, it was breathing and life to her. She would never, could never, be satisfied with skimming the surface of life as the gulls out there skimmed the water. . . . Ah, how beautiful the morning was, and how the bracing air soothed her feverishness! All this sky, and light, and uplifting sea were hers, they fed her with their strength—they were ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... son destined for a learned profession—usually the ministry—should be sent to college, and for that purpose heroic economies were practiced in the family. The opportunities which wealth can confer are really trivial in comparison with the advantage of being born and reared in such bracing conditions as those which surrounded Grover Cleveland. As a boy he was a clerk in a country store, but his education was not neglected and at the age of fifteen he was studying, with a view to entering college. His father's death ended that prospect and forced him to go to ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford
... up in the carriage, bracing his courage for the emergency. He could take a cushion, jump out and attack the man with that. It was not a deadly weapon, and would require considerable force back of it to do damage. The whip might be better. He reached for the whip and turned the handle uppermost. ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... the child thrived. Perhaps the invigorating climate of the mountain camp was compensation for maternal deficiencies. Nature took the foundling to her broader breast. In that rare atmosphere of the Sierra foot-hills—that air pungent with balsamic odor, that ethereal cordial at once bracing and exhilarating—he may have found food and nourishment, or a subtle chemistry that transmuted asses' milk to lime and phosphorus. Stumpy inclined to the belief that it was the latter and good nursing, "Me and that ass," he would say, "has been father and mother to him! Don't you," he would add, ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... yet returned. On his way home he had wandered aside, and visited the fashionable wells of Buxton, intending a three days' sojourn, to complete his bracing up for the winter. But the Pool of Siloam did not work pleasantly in the case of the robust general, who was attacked after his second dip with a smart fit of the gout in his left great-toe, where it went ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... done— for this doctor differs with the others—and I rather think he is right. But I hope to get back here and enjoy this air. No wonder this stock was for prohibition, the air itself is an intoxicant, especially when the snow is on the ground and it comes to you gently; it is as bracing as a cocktail, not a sensuous wine like the Santa Barbara air—tell Vogelsang this—but I presume more like the High Sierras, where the ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... put on his long coat and high hat and started for the money markets of the East, seeking whom he might devour. At the close of the eighties the Colonel and all his tribe found that the stock of Eastern capitalists who were ready to pay good prices for the fine shimmering blue sky and bracing ozone of the West was running low. It was said in town that the Colonel had come to the end of his string, for not only were the doors of capital closed to him in the East, but newcomers had stopped looking for farms at home. There ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... of the boldest of Telford's designs. He proposed by his one arch to provide a clear headway of 65 feet above high water. The arch was to consist of seven cast iron ribs, in segments as large as possible, and they were to be connected by diagonal cross-bracing, disposed in such a manner that any part of the ribs and braces could be taken out and replaced without injury to the stability of the bridge or interruption to the traffic over it. The roadway was to be 90 feet wide at the abutments ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... came up the staircase recklessly, to assail me. I took a step backward, bracing myself to receive this new antagonist. And then I looked further down and saw Miko! Unquestionably he, for there was no mistaking his giant figure. He was down on the camp ledge, running toward the foot of ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... great, black leaves floating there, which seemed to invite the lad to strip off the light flannels in which he had slept, to lower himself gently over the side, and lie in and on and amongst them, with the cool water bracing and invigorating him ready for the heat and toil of the ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... brace used as a hand rail was added on top of the frame, bracing frame and acting as a guide ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 832, December 12, 1891 • Various
... a time busy in keeping his team upon the trail, but soon they settled down into a steady, shuffling trot, to which they held for mile after mile over the hard prairie road. The day was bright and clear, the air sweet and bracing. An hour's drive from the town, and the traveller seemed in a virgin world. A curious coyote sat on a hill, regarding intently the spectacle of a man travelling with wheels beneath him, instead of the legs of a horse. A band of antelope lined up on the crest of a ridge and stood ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... at the end of March, the pay-box with the wind howling round it did indeed look a bracing place to spend the day in, nor was it by any means an object which any would be likely to watch for five minutes at a stretch in a strong north-easter. But that was exactly what a palish girl with freckles on her nose had been ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... were attached to the body proper by rigid flanges, reinforced by wires running from tip to tip of the planes, passing directly over the body, and not elevated on bracing chandelles. These wires were taut and made a part of the planes, much like reinforcing ribs. Beneath the planes three heavy wires ran from their forward tips to ...
— On the Edge of the Arctic - An Aeroplane in Snowland • Harry Lincoln Sayler
... trophy which should bring many to our door; but it is only a small sample of a vast crop of a similar nature which you have in Western Ontario, for as I am informed by my honourable friend on my right, Mr. Mackenzie, the peaches are often given to the pigs. (Great laughter.) The pleasant and bracing seasons of Canada can be enjoyed in a country without its equal, for nowhere has the settler a more varied range of choice in the scenery, the locality, the soil which will finally determine him where to found a home. His fortune may be compared to that ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... confinement approached, Mr. Holladay brought his wife to Paris to secure the services of an experienced physician, perhaps; or perhaps a nurse, or linen, or all of them. That done, they proceeded to Etretat, which they may have visited before, and knew for a quiet place, with a bracing atmosphere and good climate—just such a place as they would naturally desire. Here, the daughter was born, and here, I am convinced, we shall find the key to the mystery, though I'm very far from guessing what that key is. But ...
— The Holladay Case - A Tale • Burton E. Stevenson
... a rare time at Cambridge. What delight it was in those cold mornings to take a bracing walk into the country, and looking back over miles of level land, to behold the chapel of King's College, and the tower of St. Mary's church, which had been the land beacons of aspiring students for so many generations! I verily believe that the chapel of King's College is the finest piece ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... a distance, in time if not space, as Bath), you will hear it said that everybody is well in London, but in London you will find that the hygienic critics or authorities distinguish. All England, indeed, is divided into parts that are relaxing, and parts that are bracing, and it is not so strange then that London should be likewise subdivided. Mayfair, you will hear, is very bracing, but Belgravia, and more particularly Pimlico, on which it borders, is terribly relaxing. Beyond Pimlico, Chelsea again is bracing, ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... the webbing having been previously stitched on to the sides of the material, it should now be braced with twine by means of a packing needle, passing the string over the stretchers between each stitch taken in the webbing, and, finally, drawing up the bracing until the material is strained evenly and tightly in the frame. If the fabric is one which stretches easily, the bracings should ...
— Handbook of Embroidery • L. Higgin
... find a gayer quartette than started at an easy canter up the valley that fresh bracing morning? From the very first our faces were turned to the south-west, and before us rose the magnificent chain of the Southern Alps, with their bold snowy peaks standing out in a glorious dazzle against the cobalt sky. A stranger, ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... promised home and fortune. But the lad from babyhood would think of nothing but the army and with much misgiving, in Sandy's fifteenth year, his father shipped him to Kentucky, where they were less at home than in Kansas, and gave him a year's hard schooling in hopes of bracing up his mathematics. ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... that love of a free, untrammelled life, and for those soaring dreams of fancy in which he so ardently delights. Not only is the Swiss determined by the peculiarities of his geographical position to lead a pastoral life, but the climate, and mountain scenery, and bracing atmosphere inspire him with the love of liberty. The reserved and meditative Hindoo, accustomed to the profuse luxuriance of nature, borrows the fantastic ideas of his mythology from plants, and flowers, and trees. The vastness and infinite diversity of ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... officers for winning that great battle. Wellington, however, had his eye on the football and cricket grounds when he spoke these words, and no doubt intended to convey the idea that these games went a long way in bracing up the nerve which served so well on the battle-field. Close adhesion to the practice of any game really and sincerely creates fresh possibilities of that perfection and discipline. And why should this not be so in football, particularly as it is a game regulated by sharply-defined maxims? Everyone ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone
... more. Now here we are in a kind of wilderness of hills and firwoods and boulders and snow and wooden houses. So far as we have gone the climate is grey and harsh, but hungry and somnolent; and although not charming like that of Davos, essentially bracing and briskening. The country is a kind of insane mixture of Scotland and a touch of Switzerland and a dash of America, and a thought of the British Channel in the skies. We have ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... slush was heaped up on either side—she couldn't get around and she couldn't go through. My natural gallantry got the better of my resentment, and I went out to help her over, notwithstanding what she had said when I was under the counter. Planting one foot firmly in the center of the puddle and bracing the other against the curb-stone, I ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... being supported by nutritious aliment, its nerves are enfeebled, its spirits diminished, and all its functions enveloped with the gloom of melancholy. Even in the afternoon, when nature is exhausted by care and fatigue, we fly for refreshment to tea, which, instead of bracing, still further relaxes the unnerved system. Such are the evil effects of the imprudent manner in which this pernicious drug is so constantly and universally used. But how must these evils appear in their extent, when the following view is taken of India teas, with regard to ...
— A Treatise on Foreign Teas - Abstracted From An Ingenious Work, Lately Published, - Entitled An Essay On the Nerves • Hugh Smith
... Annie has had a touch of Algoa Bay fever, a mild kind of ague, but no sign of chest disease, or even delicacy. My 'hurrying her off', which some people thought so cruel, has saved her. Whoever comes SOON ENOUGH recovers, but for people far gone it is too bracing. ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... had speculated too heavily to accept defeat now! Bracing himself for the effort, Goujaud besought the lady's help with such a flood of blandishment during the drive that more than once she seemed at the point of yielding. Only one difficult detail had he withheld— that he wished to pose her on the knee of Mephistopheles—and ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... all bespoke a future of much promise. At last, however, completely prostrated by repeated attacks of illness, the only hope of restoration seemed to lie in a voyage to England and a brief stay in its more bracing climate; and this necessity, painful though it seemed at the time, proved to be only another opportunity for the manifestation of the faithfulness and loving care of Him "who worketh all things after the counsel ...
— A Retrospect • James Hudson Taylor
... which will plays a greater part than sensation and thought has more power than instinct—in short the whole romantic cycle of German and northern poetry, awoke little by little in my memory and laid claim upon my sympathy. It is a poetry of bracing quality, and acts upon one like a moral tonic. Strange charm of imagination! A twig of pine wood and a few spider-webs are enough to make countries, epochs, and nations live ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of staterooms, of all the large public rooms, and especially the dining-room, are perfect. A week on the Atlantic, with the joyous bracing sea-air of the summer months, and surrounded as you are by a cosmopolitan group of people, passes as delightfully as a brief stay ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... shoulders was gently forcing her to walk beside him not toward the drive, but away into the tree-grown sheltered wing of the garden. By interlacing paths, from the tremulous gray willows under the somber, clashing eucalyptus spears, under dark wings of cypress they were moving. She was bracing in every nerve against the unnerving ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... to feel the bracing effect upon our economic system of a restored agriculture. The hundreds of millions of additional income that farmers are receiving are finding their way into the channels of trade. The farmers' share of the national income ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... on the fourth act—that in which Fogg was going to do something. He had in the meantime been bracing up. When he made his entry and spoke, his manner of speech was somewhat thick, but his acting was more energetic. Fogg never could take anything stimulating without its going to his head, and as his brain ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... know thou wouldst rejoice To inhale this bracing air; Thou wouldst break thy sweetest sleep To behold a ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
... much that is Christian in these extracts, startlingly Christian. Any reader who bears in mind Whitman's own advice and "dismisses whatever insults his own soul" will find plenty that is bracing, brightening, and chastening to reward him for a little patience at first. It seems hardly possible that any being should get evil from so healthy a book as the LEAVES OF GRASS, which is simply ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... creature seemed to be holding its breath in anxious suspense, but Ulrich once more laughed joyously, then bracing his bare knee against a bundle ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the new goal posts and ball, which Mr Freshfield, a junior master, was heard to explain was a present from the head-master to the school, had also a mollifying effect. And the bracing freshness of the air and the self-respect engendered by the sensation of their flannels (for most of the players had contrived to provide themselves with armour of this healthy material) completed their reconciliation to ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... where the force of the hurricane was not so fiercely felt, and where the angry argument of the sea was deadened by distance. There was a lovely perfume everywhere,—the dash of rain on the herbs and field flowers had brought out their scent, and the freshness of the stormy atmosphere was bracing and exhilarating. He put Charlie down on the grass, and was amused to see how obediently the tiny creature trotted after him, close at his heels, in the manner of a well-trained, well-taught lady's favourite. ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... prevalent in 1866, and during the days of rest interpolated between days of toil, I made myself more thoroughly conversant with Mr. Mozley's volume. I found it clear and strong—an intellectual tonic, as bracing and pleasant to my mind as the keen air of the mountains was to my body. From time to time I jotted down thoughts regarding it, intending afterwards to work them up into a coherent whole. Other duties, however, interfered with the ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... our friend Arthur continued to dance or rather stroll along the edge of his flowery precipice, and found the view pleasant and the air bracing. ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... "Cascade," by inserting in the rectum a small piece of ice, about the size of the tip of the little finger (previously immersed in water to render it smooth), which will be found a most admirable rectal tonic, driving the blood away from the congested parts, and producing a bracing effect on the structures. In bad cases, it may be used with good effect several times during the day, and will be found equally beneficial in cases of prolapse of the rectum. The ice is to ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... off if you don't get off of your own accord," roared the Polar Bear, bracing up, and removing the icicle from his nose he shook it angrily ...
— Andiron Tales • John Kendrick Bangs
... is slung and a javelin cast, though both fall short. But will the next? They will soon be at nearer range, and the gig's people, absolutely without means of protection, sit in fear and trembling. Still the rowers, bracing hearts and arms, pull manfully on. But Captain Gancy is appalled as another stone plashes in the water close to the boat's side, while a third, striking the ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... by cutting in the sheer or curvature of the hull and sandpapering it all over. A cross-beam or support, C, Fig. 70, is cut and fitted as illustrated. This particular piece supports the fore-deck, and also carries the main-deck, as well as bracing the boat together. This piece should be 3/16 inch thick ...
— Boys' Book of Model Boats • Raymond Francis Yates
... few insignificant passages when that sly old mariner Marlowe, of whom Conrad seems perhaps unduly fond, lights his pipe and passes the beer and utters breezy and bracing sentiments, I can enjoy with unmitigated delight all the convolutions and overlappings of his inverted method of narration—of those rambling "advances," as Mr. Follet calls them, to already consummated "conclusions." In the few occasional passages where Marlowe assumes a moralising tone ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... a fine, frosty, bracing, winter morning; the roads were good; and the horse was fresh; and he enjoyed his ride exceedingly, rejoicing in his youth, ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... Perhaps the invigorating climate of the mountain camp was compensation for material deficiencies. Nature took the foundling to her broader breast. In that rare atmosphere of the Sierra foothills,—that air pungent with balsamic odor, that ethereal cordial at once bracing and exhilarating,—he may have found food and nourishment, or a subtle chemistry that transmuted ass's milk to lime and phosphorus. Stumpy inclined to the belief that it was the latter and good nursing. "Me and that ass," he would say, "has been father and ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... have me bury him at present." Sewell sat down, and, bracing his elbow on his desk, rested his ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... the bars in the window; now that he thought of it, the grate in the south window had appeared to be a little shaky. Inspired by a wild, alluring hope, he sprang over to the window and gripped the thin iron bars; with all his might and main he jerked, bracing his feet against the wall. No use! It would come just so far and no farther. He tried the other window, with even less encouraging results. In eight or ten minutes now, the crowd would be,—he leaped to the barred door. It, too, resisted ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... tone and key of the land had seemed to change. They were full in the mountains now, snow gleaming on the heights, forests blue-black on the slopes; and Ben's response was a growing excitement that at first he could not analyze. The air was sweeter, more bracing, and sometimes he discerned a fleeting, delicate odor that drew him up short in his talk and held him entranced. There was a sparkle and stir in the air, unknown in the cities he had left; and to breathe it deeply thrilled ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... Bracing strongly back, with the reins wound around his tough hands, and with a look in his face that should have given courage even to the Hart boys, Dab strained at his task as bravely as he had stood at the tiller of ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... white glare of ice. The only guide across that heaving traverse, the unerring instinct of that tall figure at the bow, now plunging forward, now bracing back, now shouting out a "Steady!" that the wind carried to our ears, thrusting his pole to right, to left in lightning strokes, till the canoe suddenly darted up the roaring current of ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... has been lately blowing will do no harm to his ultimate reputation, even though it too blow somewhat fiercely. Art, character, literature, religion, science (I have named them in alphabetical order), thrive best in a breezy, bracing air; I heartily hope I may never be what is commonly called successful in my own lifetime—and if I go on as I am doing now, I have a fair chance ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... halted; and turned to face the pursuer—all of them at the same instant drawing their knives; and bracing their bodies for the expected struggle. The bear, still growling and screaming, came on— making way over the stones much faster than they had done. He would have been certain of overtaking them, had they continued their race: for he was scarce six paces behind ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... condition of inert self-complacency. Her sons love her, but they chasten her. They are never tired of urging her on, sometimes (it must be owned) with most unfilial objurgations; and she, a quite unwearied Titan, is bracing up her sinews for the great task of the coming century. I have given myself a rendezvous in Chicago for 1925, when air-ships will no doubt make the transit easy for my septuagenarian frame. Nowhere in the world, I am sure, does the "to be continued in our next" interest take hold on one ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... time after the two young men had departed from Winthrop, and had made their way up the road that led along the steep hillside, the exhilaration of the bracing air and the superb view had made Will keenly alive to the beauties of the surrounding region. A soft halo covered the summits of the lofty hills, and the quiet of the valley was almost as impressive as the framework of the mountains. Mott too had been exceedingly ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... to Aberdeen more than any thing we had seen yet, the country is so wild and singular. In the afternoon we came in sight of the German Ocean. The free, bracing air from the sea, and the thought that it actually was the German Ocean, and that over the other side was Norway, within a day's sail of us, gave it a strange, ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... doors. Why is this? Why is life out of doors proverbially synonymous with robust health? Why is it that a superior vitality, and a singular exemption from disease, notoriously distinguish dwellers in the open air, by land or sea? Without disparaging the virtues of exercise or of bracing temperature, indispensable as these are for the recuperation of enfeebled constitutions, we must admit that among the native and settled inhabitants of the open air high health is the rule in warm climates as well as in cold, and with ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various
... addressed to his mother and other friends. I have several other letters concerned with Borrow's Bible Society work in Russia, but they are not inspiring. Borrow's correspondence with Hasfeld, of which Knapp gives us glimpses, is more bracing, and the two or three letters from that admirable Dane that are in my collection I am glad to ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... in short order and sipping hot bracing coffee, the three cadets took turns in telling Jeff of their conversations with Strong, their escape, and their near encounter with Vidac on the ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... amid-ships, the man went forward, and, pulling the proper line, brought the masts to their upright position. He then inserted the iron keys which kept them in their place, and hoisted the sails. By this time the boat had drifted to the lower extremity of the island; so, bracing her sharp up, he stood away across the river. Tacking before he reached the swift channel, which flowed close in shore, he laid the boat's course up the stream. The wind was blowing fresh, and, notwithstanding the contending force of the current, the boat careened to her ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... soothing at first in her step-mother's kindness, and she really loved her father; but their petting admiration soon grew oppressive, after the more bracing air of Compton; and their idolatry of her little brother fretted and tried her all the more, because they thought he must be a comfort to her, and any slight from her might be misconstrued. Mr. Venn's obsequiousness, instead of rightful homage, seemed deprivation ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... four or five in the afternoon the mercury began to go down, and then it became necessary to change to thick garments. I went to St. George's in the morning clothed in the thinnest of linen, and reached home at five in the afternoon with two overcoats on. The nights are said to be always cool and bracing. We had mosquito-nets, and the Reverend said the mosquitoes persecuted him a good deal. I often heard him slapping and banging at these imaginary creatures with as much zeal as if they had been real. There are no mosquitoes ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... open, he found himself feeling very weak, a thin, pale shadow of his former self. Curiously enough he had little inclination for anything. He simply stood gazing upon the scene before him, drinking in deep draughts of the pure, bracing, spring air. Though his thoughts should have been with those matters which concerned the welfare of the homestead, they were thousands of miles away, somewhere in a London of his own imagination, among people ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... frolic amid the waves, resuming her wonted garments in the same way, after her bath. Margaret, till now, had never seen the ocean. It inspired no fear—only delight and pleasure—and she hurried into the water like a sea nymph, enjoying its bracing freshness. For many successive mornings she went down, in company with several other girls of various ages, to bathe and sport with glee in the bright waters of a little bay, sheltered on either side by high rocks from ...
— Janet McLaren - The Faithful Nurse • W.H.G. Kingston
... "The bracing breezes," said Dr. Stoughton, "came sweeping down from the hills of Methodism on Baptist meadows as well as upon Independent fields." We may give some few instances that will show what blessings have come to Nonconformist Churches by the ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... chief experience in the weight of human-kind had been in wrestling matches at the armory, and only the largest and most muscular men in the regiment cared to try a bout with him. Of course Peter knew as a fact that women were lighter than men, but after bracing himself, much as he would have done to try the cross-buttock with two hundred pounds of bone and brawn, he marvelled much at the ease with which he transferred the rider. "She can't weigh over eighty pounds," he thought. Which was foolish, ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... returned from a walk to the top of a hill, on the opposite side of the flat on which the town is situated from that which we mounted yesterday. The day is charming, clear, with a fanning, bracing air. We had a finer view almost than yesterday. The same character of scenery all round the island. Spacious flats on the sea-board under irrigation; about one-half of the fields covered (now) with water, and the other half in crop, chiefly beans, wheat, and ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... daybreak the next morning to see the Falls by sunrise, and was amply repaid for leaving my warm bed, and encountering the bright bracing morning air, by two hours' enjoyment of solemn converse alone with God and Niagara. The sun had not yet lifted his majestic head above the pine forest, or chased with his beams the dark shadows of night that rested ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... not far to stoop as he took the lanyard of the lock in his hand and looked carefully along the gun. The Ruby had herself hauled up a little. For an instant there was a cessation of firing. Billy at that moment pulled the trigger. The Frenchmen were in the very act of bracing up the mizen-topsail-yard when the mizen-mast was seen to bend over to starboard, and, with a crash, to come toppling down overboard, shot away a few ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... on and on, he hardly knew why; but he liked the great, wide, strange place, and the cool, fresh, bracing air. But he went more and more slowly as he got higher up the hill; for now the ground grew very bad indeed. Instead of soft turf and springy heather, he met great patches of flat limestone rock, just like ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... sturdy blows of axes and the resounding crash of some hoary pine or spruce. Although the work was heavy, Stephen's heart was light. Not only did he feel the zest of one who had grappled with life in the noble effort to do the best be could, but he had Nellie's approbation. He drank in the bracing air of the open as never before, and revelled in the rich perfume of the various trees as he moved along their great cathedral-like aisles, carpeted with the ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... we went down to the little town in Italy where my story first finds us. My wife had suffered much in mind and body on her son's account, and for this reason I was anxious that she should take outdoor exercise, and enjoy as much as possible the bracing air of the country. I had brought with me both my little machines. One was still in my knapsack, and the other I had fastened to the inside of an enormous family trunk. As one is obliged to pay for nearly every pound ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... for several days we travelled on, resting during the night at rude tambos, the inhabitants of which, directly Don Jose spoke to them, willingly undertook to give us accommodation. The weather was fine, the air pure, bracing, and exhilarating; and in spite of the fatigue we underwent, none of us suffered. Ellen and Maria bore the journey wonderfully. Although we were making our way towards the east, frequently we found ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... under the Cathedral floor, what sands—"fallen from the ruined sides of Kings"—that this passion of deaths and dates was upon him. I can see myself as a child of seven or eight, standing outside the drawing-room door at Fox How, bracing myself in a mixture of delight and fear, as to what "Doctor Stanley" might ask me when the door was opened; then the opening, and the sudden sharp turn of the slight figure, writing letters at the middle table, at the sight of "little Mary"—and the ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and applause. They keep late hours. They are thrown constantly with conscienceless males. They breathe an atmosphere of excitement. If they display unusual capabilities, they are intoxicated nightly with the deep, rich, moving roar of high acclaim. Their nerves need bracing and they take to late suppers and champagne with absinthe in the mornings. From the woman who drinks to the woman who falls is not a far cry. I once asked Lizzie Annandale, the contralto, to tell me why ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... muscle tone thus caused raises the blood pressure somewhat, and the great depression before breakfast is not experienced. These patients rely oil their morning coffee for bracing. If they have much indigestion at night which keeps them awake so that they do not get good comfortable rest, their largest meals should be the morning and noon meals, and the evening ...
— DISTURBANCES OF THE HEART • OLIVER T. OSBORNE, A.M., M.D.
... said, as in the days of Augustus, that they were cut off from all the world. England was an integral part of the empire, where, if the proconsul or legionary commander had not the hot sun and blue sky of Italy, there were partial compensations in the bracing air which renewed his wasted strength, the new and peculiar luxuries in the shape of shellfish and wildfowl that enriched his table, and the facilities which his insular authority afforded him for strengthening his political ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... lost his arms in defence of Maciek, almost paid for that service with his life; for two strong Muscovites fell on him from behind, and twisted four hands at once into his hair; bracing their feet, they pulled as on springy cables, hitched to the mast of a barge. In vain Sprinkler struck out blindly behind him; he tottered—but suddenly he saw that Gerwazy was fighting close by; he shouted, "Jesus Maria! ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... the sewing in her work-basket, and packed it away against the side, bracing it with several pairs of newly darned socks and stockings neatly folded one into the other. She took her time for this, and when she rose at last to go out, with her basket in her hand, the door opened in her face, and Marcia entered. Mrs. Gaylord shrank back, and then slipped round ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... his shoulders, unconsciously bracing himself to face what was now soon to happen. Well, it was the beginning of the end. Oh Dear knew. Soon more would know, all would know. And in a way he was glad of it, glad that the torment of suspense would ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... time Teddy had turned and was bracing his back against the Fat Woman, his heels digging into the shifting cinders in a desperate attempt to prevent the woman's ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... now "free of bottom," as it is called, with her anchor catted and fished, and her position maintained in the basin where she lay, by the counter-bracing of her yards, and the counteracting force of the wind on her sails. It only remained to "fill away," by bracing her head-yards sharp up, when the vast mass overcame its inertia, and began to move through the water. As this was done, the jib and spanker were set. The two most beautiful ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... of steam high in air. To the incomer by the north or west entrance who has yet to see a geyser, the first view of the Lower Geyser Basin brings a shock of astonishment no matter what his expectation. Let us hope it is a cool, bracing, breezy morning when the broad yellow plain emits hundreds of columns of heavy steam to unite in a wind-tossed cloud overlying and setting off the uncanny spectacle. Several geysers spout vehemently and one or more roaring vents bellow like angry ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... what were they worth? This was not only to be a day of triumph for him. It was to be a day of hardest trial and most bitter sacrifice as well; a trial which, as he knew even now, would strain his moral fibre very nearly to the breaking point. It was a struggle for which he had been bracing himself ever since that last conversation which he had had with Enid. From that day to this he had never clasped her hand or looked ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... surface, gilding the summits of the waves, although there was majesty and beauty in the appearance, there was nought to excite terror. The atmosphere, purified by the warfare of the elements, was fresh and bracing. The short verdure which covered the promontory and hills adjacent was of a more brilliant green, and seemed as if to bask in the sun after the cleansing it had received from the heavy rain; while the sheep (for the coast was one extended sheep-walk) ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... the broad avenue that leads out of the city toward Old Cairo, there was plenty of room. The walls of stately date-palms that fenced the gardens and bordered the way, threw their shadows down and made the air cool and bracing. We rose to the spirit of the time and the race became a wild rout, a stampede, a terrific panic. I wish to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... what I never truly enjoyed until I saw Fair Canada. The change it has wrought, I am convinced, is truly wonderful." This happy result had been due, in part at least, to surroundings that told favorably upon his sensitive nervous system, and not to the bracing climate alone. He had been actively occupied afloat, and had fallen desperately in love with a fair Canadian, around whom his ardent imagination threw that glamour of exaggerated charm in which he saw all who were dear to him, except his wife. Her he seems from the first to have looked upon with ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... regions, at different seasons of the year, and even different hours of the day. The odorous, fresh sea-breezes are distinct from the fitful breezes along river banks, which are humid and freighted with inland smells. The bracing, light, dry air of the mountains can never be mistaken for the pungent salt air of the ocean. The air of winter is dense, hard, compressed. In the spring it has new vitality. It is light, mobile, and laden with a thousand palpitating odours from earth, grass, and ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller |
