United States or Puerto Rico ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It is true, our condition as slaves was not by any means the worst; but the mere idea that we were held as chattels, and deprived of all legal rights the thought that we had to give up our hard earnings to a tyrant, to enable him to live in idleness and luxury the thought that we could not call the bones and sinews that God gave us our own: but above all, the fact that another man had the power to tear from our cradle the new-born babe and sell it in the shambles like a brute, and then scourge us if we dared to lift a finger to save it from such a fate, haunted us for years.
Is it not a saying in every one's mouth, Possession is half of the law: that is, regardless of how the thing came into possession? But often possession is the whole of the law. What are the sinews and souls of Russian serfs and Republican slaves but Fast-Fish, whereof possession is the whole of the law? What to the rapacious landlord is the widow's last mite but a Fast-Fish?
Even the French, with their fleets of periogues, ascended the Missouri to points where his stiffened sinews did not permit him to follow. These volatile and babbling hunters, with their little, and to him despicable shot guns, could bring down a turkey, where the rifle bullet, now directed by his dimmed eye, could not reach.
I could not cook them, because I had nothing to boil the water in, and they were rather bitter to eat raw; but they were better than nothing with the flesh, and I knew that I must eat green food if I wanted to keep healthy. Among the drift-wood I had luckily found a couple of broken oars. To these I had fastened with seal sinews two sharp and strong bones, and they made very fair spears.
He had come across the personality of Madame Danterre, and he thereupon left her in possession of the field. But at the same time, before leaving Florence, he gave largely of the sinews of war to that able spy, the Italian detective, Pietrino.
What had become of that iron spirit; of the decision which was a match in swiftness for the eye; of the nature in which thought and action flashed forth together like one flame; of the sinews hardened by three spells of labor on the hulks, and by three escapes, the muscles which had acquired the metallic temper of a savage's limbs?
As he appeared through the morning mist, Brown, accustomed to judge of men by their thewes and sinews, could not help admiring his height, the breadth of his shoulders, and the steady firmness of his step. Dinmont internally paid the same compliment to Brown, whose athletic form he now perused somewhat more at leisure than he had done formerly.
The awe with which the immensity of the place had stunned him began to lessen a little and allowed him to look around. Wherever he turned a sea of faces met him faces strangely set and strained. Even under the joviality of those closest to him he saw the tightened sinews of their jaws.
For the two-mile, the half, and the mile, each a single athlete was training, his heart set on the record. It seemed impossible that I should win all three races. Yet I did. I was all nerves and sinews for the two-mile. The night before I had lain awake. I could not sleep so I read a poor translation of the odes of Pindar.
The muscles and the sinews squeaked faintly as they stretched. Underneath the calf was a big hole and the bone had been completely shattered. The man was strangely quiet. His bare chest did not move. I looked at his face and suddenly I saw his lower jaw drop. He was dead. "Another slab for the mortuary!" The remaining tables were empty and no more wounded were brought in for a while.
Word Of The Day