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The hardships and anxiety he was going through told on the young boy's nerves, well-strung as they were; as also on those of many others aboard. Poor Mrs Morley struggled bravely; her daughters, feeling their situation not the less keenly, exerted themselves to the utmost to console her. The launch was still a considerable distance from the rocky island when daylight appeared.

"I never knew Clara to succumb before to any type of syncope or asphyxia. She is a woman of remarkable nerve and courage. And, by the way, how preposterous is the common use of the word 'nervous. The ablest lexicographers define it as 'strong, well-strung, full of nerve, whereas, in ordinary parlance, it has come to signify the very opposite of these.

A fellow such as I should be exercising his body and putting somewhat in his brain. Why should I overdrink and overfeed myself and give my strength to follies? 'Tis not my taste. On my life, I would rather get up at daybreak with a clean tongue and a clear head and go out to leap and ride and fence and toss the bar with well-strung muscles.

But before entering on this discussion I would beg my reader to call to mind that curious saying of Abbot Joachim's; and to consider that I wish to prove that, like his true monk, the true æsthete, who nowadays loves and praises creation much as the true monk did in former centuries, can really possess as sole personal possession only a musical instrument to wit, his own well-strung and resonant soul.

The elder seemed possessed of greater vivacity of expression; but although each well-strung muscle indicated physical prowess, there was an uncertain expression in his glance and in the play of his features, which suggested a yielding and somewhat vacillating character; while the younger, lacking the full physical development, and somewhat of the engaging expression of his brother, had that calm and steady bearing which indicated present and future government of the passions.

It is not, indeed, that I feel very deeply for the fine ingenuous lads who, as somebody says, are about to be degraded into tricky, selfish Members of Parliament. I have seen too much of them. They are very fine animals; but they are rather too exclusively animal. The soul is apt to be in too embryonic a state within these cases of well-strung bone and muscle.