|
|
|
More "Stiffness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in all Turkish towns is a favourite place of public resort, but I cannot say that it is kept in very nice order, as a rule. For the sake of a water-colour sketch I made in one, I was very glad that the upright headstones were tumbling about in all directions, it took away the look of stiffness and monotony; but I am bound to say that the graves looked neglected as well as picturesque. The cemetery at Pera had too much refuse, and too many cocks, hens, and dogs in it. It looked very pretty, however, from my windows, sloping down towards the Golden Horn, beyond which I could ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... there met Creed, and thence with him to Westminster Hall, where we talked long together of news, and there met with Cooling, my Lord Chamberlain's Secretary, and from him learn the truth of all I heard last night; and understand further, that this stiffness of the Lords is in no manner of kindness to my Lord Chancellor, for he neither hath, nor do, nor for the future likely can oblige any of them, but rather the contrary; but that they do fear what the consequence may be to themselves, should they yield in his case, as many ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... right of her. Dear Magdalen, I am so glad," said Mrs. Best, crossing over to kiss her; for the first stiffness had worn off, and they were together again, as had been the solicitor's daughter and the chemist's daughter, who went to the same school till Magdalen had been sent away to ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... upon a relaxed full arm is the occasional dropping of the wrist below the level of the keyboard. A few great players practice this at a public recital, and lo! and behold! a veritable cult of 'wrist-droppers' arises and we see students raising and lowering the wrist with exaggerated mechanical stiffness and entirely ignoring the important end in which this wrist dropping ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... looks rather above the heads of his fellow-passengers, but with a quick, easy turn of his own, which is lightly set on his shoulders; his mouth is a little open, his eye is bright, rather restless, but penetrative, his port has something of defiance, his form is erect, but without stiffness. Such was the appearance of the baron's companion. And as Randal turned round at Levy's voice, the baron said to his companion, "A young man in the first circles—you should book him for your fair lady's parties. How d' ye do, Mr. Leslie? ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... laughter and talk as they looked around at the forest and wondered when they would be sent in pursuit of the fleeing enemy. Six of the regiments were composed of men born in Germany, or the sons of Germans, drawn from the great cities of the North, little used to the forests and thickets and having the stiffness of Germans on parade. They were at the first point of exposure, and they were certainly no match for the formidable foe who was creeping ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the scythe, and the hay-fork grew familiar to our grasp. The oxen responded to our voices. We could do almost as fair a day's work as Silas Foster himself, sleep dreamlessly after it, and awake at daybreak with only a little stiffness of the joints, which was usually ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... style as peculiar to himself as his handwriting; and indeed I seem to see in the handwriting of Edmond de Goncourt just the characteristics of his style. Every letter is formed carefully, separately, with a certain elegant stiffness; it is beautiful, formal, too regular in the 'continual slight novelty' of its form to be quite clear at a glance: very ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... in it as in the later (and, I think, less consummate) companion and sequel Thyrsis. With hardly an exception, the poet throughout escapes in his phraseology the two main dangers which so constantly beset him—too great stiffness and too great simplicity. His "Graian" personification is not overdone; his landscape is exquisite; the stately stanza not merely sweeps, but sways and swings, with as much grace as state. And therefore the Arnoldian "note"—the special form of the maladie du siecle ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... Luff was taken very lame, being seized with severe pain and stiffness in the right leg; he was quite unable to walk, so we burned the other two round tents to ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... sort," said Cousin Kate. "The one you wore yesterday is rather old for a girl of your age. I will retrim it some day, and it will do for picnics and sails, but you need more hats than one in this climate, which is fatal to ribbons and feathers, and takes the stiffness ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... only one I have a right to recommend, and that is the 'Gosshawk.' I am a director. But," said he, with sudden stiffness, "I could furnish you with ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... a long time before she answered. Rigid, uncompromising, she faced me; and I read storm signals in the deep flush of her cheeks, the gray flash of her eyes, the stiffness of her ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... now came on. Jacob and Edward went out hunting usually about twice a week; for the old forester complained of stiffness and rheumatism, and not feeling so active as he used to be. Humphrey now accompanied Edward perhaps one day in the week, but not more, and they seldom returned without having procured venison, for Edward knew his business well, and no longer needed the advice of Jacob. As the winter advanced ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... contain a very pleasing account of many parts of their journey.' 'The style of Madame de Sevigne,' wrote Mackintosh (Life, ii. 221), 'is evidently copied, not only by her worshipper Walpole, but even by Gray; notwithstanding the extraordinary merits of his matter, he has the double stiffness of an imitator and ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... lost, and she was aware of a most unpleasant feeling of helplessness and inefficiency. Then she seemed to receive inspiration and optimism from somewhere. She knew not exactly from where, but perhaps it was from the shy stiffness of the demeanour of her old acquaintance, Inspector Keeble. Moreover, the Irishman's twinkling eyes ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... for which were furnished by these men, it may be sufficient to state that the "NOTES AND QUERIES" is conceived in the exact spirit of those works. The chief difference, besides the usual subject-matter, consists in the greater formality and "stiffness" of those than of this; arising, however, of necessity out of the specific and rigid character of mathematical research in itself, and the more limited range of subjects that were ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 57, November 30, 1850 • Various
... awoke long before dawn again. She felt lame and stiff, like an old person afflicted with rheumatism. The unusualness of the previous day's activities caused this stiffness of the joints and ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr
... This consists of two canoes or long thin boats, placed parallel and joined together by wooden strips, which also answer for a deck. This craft can be rowed or driven by a sail, placed well forward. Its great advantage is its stiffness, for it cannot be upset in ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... forward (the which had served its purpose admirably well) whiles I, perceiving the waves subsiding and the wind blowing steady and fair, laid our course due south-westerly again, and lashing the helm, went forward to shake out the reefs, finding it no easy task what with the stiffness of my cramped limbs and the pitching of the boat; howbeit, 'twas done at last but, coming back, I tripped across ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... very late brood, for they were naked, blind and helpless. One of them had at its nose a drop of blood and it lay as still as the mother. At first the hunters thought the old one was playing 'Possum, but the stiffness ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... of Sir Miles's antiquated stiffness than his own rakish ease, offered his arm, with a profound reverence, to his cousin, and they took their way to the house. Not till they had passed up the stairs, and were even in the gallery, did further words pass ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... discussion, Amy and Betty soon took their leave, after being assured that Grace was all right, except for a stiffness and a few cuts caused by the fall. A carriage took the two girls to their homes. Mollie had gone ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Rainbow Lake • Laura Lee Hope
... his hat. His manner now was no longer inquisitorial. With the closing of his notebook a new geniality had taken the place of his official stiffness. ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the awful day when his ears are washed and touseled about; when his eyes are punched out by the towelled but unsparing hand of a Christian mother; when his shoes are put back on him for a day, and when, with a neck encircled by a collar starched to maddening stiffness, and with a pocket handkerchief the consistency of pasteboard, he is sent to the place of punishment. I have read many beautiful poems about the sweet quiet of the Sabbath, but few of the poets ...
— Observations of a Retired Veteran • Henry C. Tinsley
... shot into her delighted cunt at that same moment, making her squirm with the excess of her emotion, but it never relaxed in stiffness and kept on poking away, and making her more and more excited till we both came again in a perfect flood of love juice, which was so profuse that my balls and thighs, as well as her notch and legs, were all drowned in the ...
— Forbidden Fruit • Anonymous
... taste characteristic of the master and mistress of the house. A few old pictures against the light background of the draperies. A monumental chimney-piece, decorated with a fine marble group, "The Seasons" by Sebastien Ruys, about which long green stalks, with lacelike edges, or of the stiffness of carved bronze, bent toward the mirror as toward a stream of limpid water. On the low chairs groups of women crowded together, blending the vaporous hues of their dresses, forming an immense nosegay of ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... this digression—is the famous Madonna of Cimabue. This picture is astonishing. Although considered by many critics to manifest lingering traces of the Byzantine bandages, it seems to us, on the contrary, to be wonderfully free from stiffness and conventionality. The genius of Cimabue extricates itself at a bound from the trammels of preceding systems, and flies ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... a long time in healing; indeed, it never got quite well. The wound healed and the soreness wore off, but it left a stiffness that gave him a slight limp, and the sole-balls grew together quite unlike those of the other foot. It particularly annoyed him when he had to climb a tree or run fast from his enemies; and of them he found no end, though never once did a friend cross his path. When he lost ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... his wont. Ida, writing from her home in Northampton, invited him to come down for a week at some vague future date; one of the children was unwell, and until it recovered it was impossible to fix a day. Still, they would be delighted to see him again. Her letters always had a note of stiffness in them, which was purely unintentional, or rather, purely natural, reflecting the one salient ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... Never is a long word, Lennan. I am going to have some tea;" and gingerly he walked away, quizzing, as it were, with a smile, his own stiffness. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... age of maturity well prepared for its responsibilities. They have more adipose tissue than the men, yet are never fat. The head is carried erect, but with a certain stiffness — often due, in part, no doubt, to shyness, and in part to the fact that they carry all their burdens on their heads. I believe the neck more often appears short than does the neck of the man. The shoulders are broad, and ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... movements of the vocal organs are quick, flexible and without muscular tension or stiffness, and if the mouth opens neither too much nor too little for each vowel-sound, words may be sung and understood while beauty of ...
— The Child-Voice in Singing • Francis E. Howard
... (opposite the Resurrection, and not worth looking at, except for the sake of making more sure our conclusions from the first fresco). The Madonna is fixed in Byzantine stiffness, without ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin
... the north of the buildings; then having lifted it out of the water, he stood to his full height and stretched himself, for he had been travelling in the canoe eleven days and was conscious of body stiffness owing to the cramped position he had so ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... the kitchen knife to the policeman. All round the table they laughed with pleasure and approval. Poisson bowed his head with military stiffness, and moved the goose before him. When he thrust the knife into the goose, which cracked, Lorilleux was seized ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... a narrow selfishness; sentiments of fear degrading to the Deity; a bigotry that contracts the view, that freezes the heart, that shuts up the avenues to benevolent and generous feeling. This buckram stiffness does not suit me. Out upon such monastic parade! I will have none ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... a sharp tussle with the Bank of England, and displayed a toughness, stiffness, and sustained anger that greatly astonished Threadneedle Street. In the spring he had introduced a change in the mode of issuing deficiency bills, limiting the quarterly amount to such a sum as would cover the maximum of dividends payable, as known by long ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... all so new and wonderful! A sense of enjoyment actually stole over her. But for the feeling of stiffness in her face she felt comfortably warm. Without ever meeting a soul, through a country that seemed utterly deserted of man, they went on for several miles. Once Stefan stopped the toboggan in order to show her tracks of a bear. It was wonderful ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... of the vegetable kingdom, is obtained from the fibres of the common flax. Its fibres, unlike those of other fabrics, are distinguished by their roundness and their freedom from stiffness. These properties give to it that peculiar softness which makes it so agreeable to the feel, and comforting and soothing to the skin. But, on the other hand, it has certain characters which are a drawback. As was stated before, it differs from cotton in that ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... often called "Little England beyond Wales." Thus it was that the English language seemed always more natural to Meurig Wynne than the Welsh. His sermons were always thought out in that language, and then translated into the vernacular, and this, perhaps, accounted in some degree for their stiffness and want of living interest. His descent from the Flemings had the disadvantage of drawing a line of distinction between him and his parishioners, and thus added to his unpopularity. In spite of this, Cardo was an ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... monstrous inaptitude for turning round. The crocodile, I presume, owes that inaptitude to the absurd length of his back; but in our grandpapa it arose rather from the absurd breadth of his back, combined, possibly, with some growing stiffness in his legs. Now, upon this crocodile infirmity of his I planted a human advantage for tendering my homage to Miss Fanny. In defiance of all his honourable vigilance, no sooner had he presented to us his mighty Jovian back (what a field for displaying to mankind his ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... in till half-past eight, sir," Reuben said. "I walked about for a bit, after I came out from school, to try and get the stiffness out of my leg, so as to be able to come to work ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... nearest to the Lord, are the most simple. Whenever we grow stilted we are only fit for a picture gallery, and we are only good on a pedestal; but, if we are going to live among men and love and save them, we must be approachable and human. All stiffness is but another form of self-consciousness. Ask Christ for a human heart, for a smile that will be as natural as your little child's in your presence. Oh, how much Christ did by little touches! He never would have got at the woman of Samaria if He had come ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... Pierre, she that nursed me when the Honourable and meself were taken out o' Sandy Drift, more dead than livin'; she that brought me back to life as good as ever, barrin' this scar on me forehead and a stiffness at me elbow, and the Honourable as right as the sun, more luck to him! which he doesn't need at all, with the wind of fortune in his back and shiftin' neither to right nor left. —That woman! faith, y'd better not cut the words so ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... age which (as we are constantly reminded) was singularly inappreciative and uncritical in such matters, and which certainly has not left any evidence of a genius for realism, for its highest conception of romance-writing does not rise above the stiffness of the Clementines or the extravagance of the Protevangelium—if he could have done this, he would at least have advanced his argument a step [15:2]. Why again, when he is emphasizing the differences between the ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... mechanical effects upon the soil from growing crimson clover on it are very marked, especially when it inclines to stiffness, owing to the strong development ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw
... to Miss Vogel, but he made an effort to include Bannon in the conversation by an awkward movement of his head. This stiffness in Peterson's manner when Bannon was within hearing had been growing more noticeable during ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... to this in one of his epistles, reminding the queen of her promise to interpret them faithfully to her husband. The unconstrained and familiar tone of his correspondence affords a pleasing example of the personal intimacy to which the sovereigns, so contrary to the usual stiffness of Spanish etiquette, admitted men of learning and probity at their court, without distinction of rank. ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... they far excel us. The conversation in these is easy, natural, and often even fascinating. The terms of polite familiarity with which you yourself are regarded, and with which you are encouraged to treat all around you; the absence of every thing like stiffness, or formality; the little interludes of music, in which, either in singing, or in performing on some instrument, most of those you meet are able to take a part; the round games which are often introduced, and where ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... Lucian sat down and gave his attention to Alice, who had still enough of her old nervousness to make her straighten her shoulders and look stately. But he did not object to this; a little stiffness ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... fighters. He was in himself both weapon and wielder of weapon. He was a concentrated force. His white body was knotted with nerves and muscles. The chances were good if—Gordon pictured it to himself—and again the horror and doubt were over him. He himself had acquired a certain stiffness and lassitude from years, and long drives in one position. He would stand no chance unarmed against a bullet. But the dog—that was another matter. The dog would make a spring like the spring of death itself, and that white leap of attack ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
... faded, velvety coloring associated with age. It was recently painted by Mathilde Festa-Piacentini, in the ancient manner to harmonize with the court. It represents "The Return from the Crusade" of one noble Pandolfo, and bears date and description in Latin. Quaint old-time stiffness and weather-worn coloring combine with modern correctness and fluency. The young artist is the wife of the architect of the pavilion and has won a silver medal in the Italian section of Fine Arts. Below this lunette stands a bronze ...
— The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition • Stella G. S. Perry
... said. "As the executive of the P. K. & R, system it wouldn't be exactly official and proper in me to approve your judgment in that matter of the Italians; but as a man—plain man, now, you understand,—I know grit when I see it and—" he dropped his bluff stiffness got out of his chair and came along and squeezed Parker's muscular arm, "you've got a brand of it that I admire. Yes, I do. No mistake! But that is just between you and me. That is simply my own personal opinion. ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... the child has made!" she observed. "Malcolm, I am not particularly anxious for her to be introduced to your Bohemian friends. Oh, I don't mean to say anything against the Kestons," warned by a certain stiffness of manner on Malcolm's part—"I have never even seen them; but Anna and Mrs. Keston move in ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... not such an invalid as these people are trying to make out. I don't need to lie down." He laughed slightly as Jim drew him forward. "It's just a little stiffness. See here—" he broke away from his helpers and walked somewhat uncertainly to the settee, sitting on the edge. "What's the ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... by side, upon the Justice's Bench, the Federalist very easy, the Republican, lacking the perfection of the other's manner, with a stiffness and constraint of which he was aware and which he hated in himself. He knew himself well enough to know that presently, in the excitement of the race, the ugly mantle would slip from the braced athlete, but at the moment he ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... intended to be worn; until this cast-off poetic apparel, stretched on the freer moral limbs of natural folk, faded and stained by weather and earth into new and richer tints, had lost all its original fashionable stiffness, and crudeness of colour, and niminy-piminy fit, and had acquired instead I know not what grace of ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... now plain, in order to have a pretence against me, taxed my behaviour to him with stiffness and distance. You, at one time, thought me guilty of some degree of prudery. Difficult situations should be allowed for: which often make seeming occasions for censure unavoidable. I deserved not blame from him who made mine difficult. And you, my dear, had I any other man to deal with, or had ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... have many hours to rally me in," said I; "and I think besides you do yourself injustice. I think it was Catriona turned your heart in my direction. She is too simple to perceive as you do the stiffness of her friend." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... refinement to the chest. To-day, they spread out their fichus more proudly, but there is no longer that sweet flower of old-fashioned pudicity in their costume that made them resemble Holbein's virgins. They are more coquettish, more graceful. The correct style in the old days was a sort of unbending stiffness which made their infrequent smiles more ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... features were small and feminine, though not regular. She had the fairest skin imaginable. Her figure was perfect for her height, and there was a simplicity, a retired modesty about her, which was very characteristic, and formed a happy contrast to the cold artificial formality and studied stiffness which is called fashion. She interested me exceedingly. I became daily more attached to her, and it ended in my making her a proposal, that was rejected. Her refusal was couched in terms which could not offend me. I ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... stars and giddy whirlings, accompanied by sharp pains in the back, flights through space, and terrific thunderous sounds in my very ears. I was conscious of turning a double or triple somersault, of alighting face-down on the long grass, of a heavy weight leaning upon my neck and spine, of pain, stiffness, semi-consciousness, of a continuous noise as though a motor-car lay and throbbed and whirred on the top of me. What ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... has acquired a touch of rheumatism from wasting time at the close of his match instead of getting his shower while still warm. That slight stiffness the next day may mean defeat. A serious chill may mean severe illness. Do ...
— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D
... free to move her "love way" as she will, she can slide the pathway itself a full six or more inches, up and down, stroking all the area against the penis as she moves; that, again, by its very position, being held firmly in contact by its stiffness and stoutness; the glans penis throbbing lustily against the clitoris when the two meet at the extreme of the wife's up-stroke; she, pausing an instant, just then, to more perfectly enjoy the sensation; the penis slipping past the now wide ...
— Sane Sex Life and Sane Sex Living • H.W. Long
... The stiffness of Brougham's figure had vanished; his features seemed concentrated almost to a point; he glanced toward every part of the House in succession; and, sounding the death-knell of the Secretary's forbearance ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... equally pure, serene, tender, and at the same time passionate, yet with love, not material but actual, which, according to Plato, gives a visible form to virtue, and then admits of no other rival. Yet this sublime noble woman had no cold stiffness in her nature; she forgives Steno, but not from the cold ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... was able to collect a great amount of information, as well as attending to the regulation of matters at head- quarters. He kept up more formality and state than Bishop Heber had done; and, of course, as the one had been censured for his simplicity, so the other was found fault with for pomp and stiffness. But these were minor points, chiefly belonging to the character of the two men, whose whole natures were in curious accordance with their prize performances at Oxford,—the one with all the warmth, fire, and animation of the poet of Palestine, sensitive to ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... present moment to reduce the number of words in which this more vigorous scheme of expressing degrees is allowed, we must recognize an evidence that the energy which the language had in its youth is in some measure abating, and the stiffness of age overtaking it. Still it is with us here only as it is with all languages, in which at a certain time of their life auxiliary words, leaving the main word unaltered, are preferred to inflections of this last. Such preference makes itself ever more strongly ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... tendency to the hard presentment of mere form trying vainly to compete with the reality of nature itself, all noble sculpture constantly struggles; each great system of sculpture resisting it in its own way, etherealising, spiritualising, relieving its stiffness, its heaviness, and death. The use of colour in sculpture is but an unskilful contrivance to effect, by borrowing from another art, what the nobler sculpture effects ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... details according to the college that patronized the pastime. At Brazenface, "the Grind" was usually over a known line of country, marked out with flags by the gentleman (familiarly known as Anniseed) who attended to this business, and full of leaps of various kinds, and various degrees of stiffness. By sweepstakes and subscriptions, a sum of from ten to fifteen pounds was raised for the purchase of a silver cup, wherewith to grace the winner's wines and breakfast parties; but, as the winner had occasionally been known to pay as much as fifteen pounds ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... sharp-set in her wits, read him more truly. She knew—having already met a score of such—how addicted young Englishmen are to mauvaise honte, and how they will hide acute sensibilities under blunt and stolid exteriors; and there was a certain softness in Mr. Drummond's eye that belied his stiffness. Most likely he was very sorry for them, and did not know how to show it; and in this ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... burnished arms, glittering in fancy figures on the walls, and ranged in endless piles from the ceiling to the floor of that long gallery; then the apartment with the line of ancient kings, clad in complete armour, mounted on their steeds fully caparisoned—the death-like stiffness of the figures—the stillness—the silence of the place—altogether awe the imagination, and carry the memory back to the days of chivalry. When among these forms of kings and heroes who had ceased to be, I beheld the Black Prince, lance couched, vizor down, with the ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... believed, that the elephant could not bend his legs. Shakespeare—who, of course, is merely using a common belief of his time as a chance illustration of human character—makes Ulysses say (referring to his own stiffness of carriage) ("Troilus and Cressida," Act II) "The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy; his legs are legs for necessity, not for flexure." An old writer says: "The elephant hath no joints, and, being unable to lye down, it lieth against a tree, which, the hunters observing, ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... harmonizing with the rest. So far as their power over certain tones of religious mind is owing to a palpable degree of non-naturalism in them, I do not praise it—the exaggerated thinness of body and stiffness of attitude are faults; but they are noble faults, and give the statues a strange look of forming part of the very building itself, and sustaining it—not like the Greek caryatid, without effort—nor like the Renaissance caryatid, by painful or ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... answer, that sent a flash through the listener. "For whaat?" "I was going out, sir." "I want you this evening." There was a moment's hesitation. The officer had a curious stiffness of countenance. ...
— The Prussian Officer • D. H. Lawrence
... garments as he removed them. Almost stripped, Seaton stretched vigorously, the muscles writhing and rippling in great ridges under the satin skin of his broad back and mighty arms and shoulders as he filled his capacious lungs and twisted about, working off the stiffness caused by ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... flour as you would have dumplings in quantity, put it to a spoonful of sugar, a little salt, a little nutmeg, a spoonful of light yeast, and half a pound of currans well washed and cleaned, so knead them the stiffness you do a common dumpling, you must have white wine, sugar and butter for sauce; you may boil them either in a cloth or without; ...
— English Housewifery Exemplified - In above Four Hundred and Fifty Receipts Giving Directions - for most Parts of Cookery • Elizabeth Moxon
... proceeded drearily enough, the diplomatist's stiffness never relaxed for a moment, and my own awkwardness damped all my attempts at conversation. Not so, however, Monsoon, he ate heartily, approved of everything, and pronounced my wine to be exquisite. He gave ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... Betty would have allowed herself to be dressed like other people; if, like the women of Paris, she had been accustomed to wear each fashion in its turn, she would have been presentable and acceptable, but she preserved the stiffness of a stick. Now a woman devoid of all the graces, in Paris simply does not exist. The fine but hard eyes, the severe features, the Calabrian fixity of complexion which made Lisbeth like a figure by Giotto, and of which a true Parisian would have taken advantage, above ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... washed at home they usually come out quite limber and flimsy. To give them the stiffness add a pinch of sugar ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... The pain in his face had subsided to a faintly aching stiffness and he felt fine. He knew from the surroundings that he must be in a hospital, probably at Cambridge. He groped for the call bell and found it wound around the bedpost. He pushed it. In a few moments a ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin
... stiffness of men between whom much is unsaid. As the oystershells departed, however, we had found common memories. He recalled delightfully those little northern towns in the debatable region which from a critic's point of view ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... Bertha went to her sister-in-law. Her nephew was already sitting at the piano, improvising in a very wild manner. He pretended not to have noticed her enter, and proceeded to practise his finger exercises, which he played in an attitude of stiffness, assumed for the occasion. ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler
... transformed her. Ashe sat down beside her, and they were soon deep in all sorts of gossip—relations, acquaintance, politics, and what not. All Mary's stiffness disappeared. She became the elegant, agreeable woman, of whom dinner-parties were glad. Ashe plunged into the pleasant malice of her talk, which ranged through the good and evil fortunes—mostly the latter—of half his acquaintance; ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to him of herself. The way in which she turned the conversation brought home to his own expansive confiding nature a certain austerity and stiffness of fibre in her which for the moment chilled him. But as he got her into talk about the neighbourhood, the people and their ways, the impression vanished again, so far at least as there was anything repellent about it. Austerity, ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Hillocks?' he cries; 'it's no an accident, is 't?' and when he got aff his horse he cud hardly stand wi' stiffness ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... Two un um! W'en dat chile rize up, ef rize up he do, he'll des nat'ally be a shadder. Yer I is, gwine on eighty year, en I aint tuck none er dat ar docter truck yit, ceppin' it's dish yer flas' er poke-root w'at ole Miss Favers fix up fer de stiffness in my j'ints. Dey'll come en dey'll go, en dey'll po' in der jollup yer, en slap on der fly-plarster dar, en sprinkle der calomy yander, twel bimeby dat chile won't look like hisse'f. Dat 's w'at! En mo'n dat, hit 's mighty kuse unter me dat ole folks kin go 'long en stan' up ter de rack ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... as follows: The reinforcing rings were erected to a height of 7 ft. The bars were bent by being pulled through a tire binder and around a curved templet by a steam engine. The bending gave some trouble, due, it was thought, to the stiffness of the high carbon steel. Vertical channels 4 ins. deep were set with webs in radial planes or across wall at four points in the circumference. The flanges of these channels were punched exactly to the vertical spacing of the reinforcing rings. Through the punched ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... baldric—the red one. I report at the Palais Royal at eight, and I've an empty stomach to attend to. Be lively, lad. Duty, duty, always duty," snatching the towels. "I have been in the saddle since morning; I am still dead with stiffness; yet duty calls. Bah! I had rather be fighting the Spaniard with Turenne than idle away at the Louvre. Never any fighting save in pothouses; nothing but ride, ride, ride, here, there, everywhere, ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... bless His people with Peace," concluded the old man in unfaltering accents. He rose from the table and strode to the door, stern and erect "Thou wilt remain here, Hannah, and thou, Simcha," he said. In the passage his shoulders relaxed their stiffness, so that the long snow-white beard drooped upon his breast. The three women looked at ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... If she needs help, I'm not the one to help her. But you could do it." And Vanno plunged deeper into explanations, warming with his story and forgetting his first shy stiffness. ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... of it all was that he insisted, as a matter of personal education, on coming to my room after breakfast to watch the expert manoeuvres of Britton in kneading the stiffness out of my muscles. He was looking for new ideas, he explained. I first consulted Britton and then resignedly ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... it, and was far too friendly with Vava to resent her familiarity. But this morning the one thought that possessed her was that she must get that letter whatever happened. She could never face Mr. Jones after he had been asked by her younger sister to put up with her stiffness because she was poor and could not help it. So when his step was heard she just waited until he was in his office and had time to take off his hat and coat, and then she knocked at ...
— A City Schoolgirl - And Her Friends • May Baldwin
... had from time to time up to 1877 seem to have found him in excellent physical condition except the wound in his right elbow, which caused stiffness, and an injury to his left forearm not ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... were crowded so closely that it was with great difficulty they could lift their hands to their mouths. As for foreigners, if they happened to sit between Russians, they were little likely to have any appetite to eat. All this Peter encouraged, on the plea that ceremony would produce uneasiness and stiffness. ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... held his place on his stool in silence for a long time. The stiffness of his neck seemed to embrace all his members, even his tongue. Miss Bunker came in from her lunch, bringing the afternoon mail. Mac Tavish maintained his silence while Morrison picked out what were patently his personal letters before surrendering ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... whereas Jerry never ceases to look benignant and jolly. He is a fine young fellow is Jerry, six feet high, straight as a lance, ruddy, clear-skinned, and with the bluest, brightest eye you can see. When he walks he is upright and stately as the best of Guardsmen, without any military stiffness; when he spars he is active as a leopard, and his mode of landing with his left is at once terrible and artistic. Sometimes he drinks a little too much, and then his sweet smile becomes fatuous, but he never is unpleasant. The girls from the factory ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... other, had been instrumental in drawing the Huguenots to Paris—and to their doom. It was no marvel that the events of the day, the surprise and horror, still rode his mind; nor wonderful that even he, who passed for a model of stiffness and reticence, betrayed for once the indignation which filled his breast. Until the officer had withdrawn and closed the door he did, indeed, keep silence; standing beside the table and eyeing his visitor with a lofty porte and a stern glance. But the moment he was assured ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... scarce, which they have obligingly done. Yesterday every tooth on the right side of my head was absolutely waltzing. I would have drawn by the half dozen, but country dentists are not to be lippened to.[238] To-day all is quiet, but a little swelling and stiffness in the jaw. Went to Chiefswood at one, and marked with regret forty trees indispensably necessary for paling—much like drawing a tooth; they are wanted and will never be better, but I am avaricious of grown trees, having ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... in time to witness the burst of flames. He turned to the nearest regiment—the 8th Louisiana, Acadians from the Attakapas. There was in him no longer any slow stiffness of action; his body moved as though every joint were oiled. He looked a different creature. He pointed to the railroad bridge just above the wagon bridge. "Cross at once on the ties." The colonel looked, nodded, waved his sword and explained to his Acadians. "Mes enfans! Nous allons traverser ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... allowed to remain on the high-pressure end; but the largest piston, Z, is placed upon the low-pressure end of the rotor immediately behind the last ring of blades, and working inside of the supplementary cylinder W. Being backed up by the body of the spindle, there is ample stiffness to prevent warping. This balance piston, which may also be plainly seen in Fig. 25, receives its steam pressure from the same point as the piston M, but the steam pressure, equalized with that on the third stage of the blading, X, is through ...
— Steam Turbines - A Book of Instruction for the Adjustment and Operation of - the Principal Types of this Class of Prime Movers • Hubert E. Collins
... to see that you are not looking very well," he said at last, with supreme stiffness, and with that peculiarly unconciliating air which an Englishman is apt to put on, when he is languishing to hold ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... ever have imagined that a garment could be so difficult to unfasten as this one she was now incased in? For of course the stiffness and shakiness of Polly's fingers came from the zero temperature in her dressing room and not in the least from the momentary fright she had received from her supposed recognition of a face in the audience. ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook
... her, herself wept over their separation, and hiding also, left the entire window of the cab to the big Algerian hound with his finely modelled head scenting the wind, and his two paws resting in the sash with an heraldic stiffness of pose. Finally, after a thousand interminable windings, the cab suddenly came to a halt, jolted on again with difficulty amid cries and abuse, then, tossed about, the luggage on top threatening its equilibrium, it ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... ran away and left me to my mysterious fate," said the Count, with a slight degree of stiffness. "I conclude that you did not receive my letter requesting you to meet me at Amsterdam, and stating the reasons for my not rejoining you sooner; however, I am very glad ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston
... moonlight, the tall Bostonian acquired a picturesqueness lacking in daylight. "I've got to take Hard out one of these days and teach him how to ride," remarked Scott, meditatively. "Jolt some of that Boston stiffness out of him." ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall
... [Madame Dubois informed me] made his pupils begin with the B major scale, very slowly, without stiffness. Suppleness was his great object. He repeated, without ceasing, during the lesson: "Easily, easily" [facilement, facilement]. Stiffness ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... commission to show herself inclined to accept his attentions. If she had been under contrary orders, there would have been some excitement in going as far as she durst, but the only effect on her was embarrassment, and she treated Antony with the same shy stiffness she had shown to Humfrey, during the earlier part of his residence at home. Besides, she clung more and more to her adopted father, who, now that they were away from home and he was about to part with her, treated her with a tender, chivalrous deference, most winning in ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... or "Still to be neat, still to be dressed"? Beautiful in form, deft and graceful in expression, with not a word too much or one that bears not its part in the total effect, there is yet about the lyrics of Jonson a certain stiffness and formality, a suspicion that they were not quite spontaneous and unbidden, but that they were carved, so to speak, with disproportionate labour by a potent man of letters whose habitual thought is on greater things. It is for these reasons that Jonson is even better in the epigram ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... are always good-natured, very much to the point, and seasoned with attic salt of a piquant but not too pungent quality. He is merciful to the absurdities of his fellow-citizens; it is no business of his to impress them with any affectation of soldierly gravity or stiffness; and if at first sight his stern, clean-shaven face—the regulation countenance of soldiers of those days—keeps a timid stranger somewhat at a distance, he has only to open his mouth, and his beautifully pure Magyar accent and intonation ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... awoke, in the dead of the might, and found myself seized with shivering fits, my teeth chattering, a sickness at my stomach, my head intolerably heavy, and my temples bruised with the blows I had received, and having a sensation as if they were ready to burst. To all this was added the stiffness that pervaded the muscles of my arms, and body, from the bruises, falls, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... a rustic, a certain pretension to knowing something about the world. In the man who was talking to you I recognized a Parisian, because he had an English air; and while he affected stiffness, he showed perfect ease ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... things—I made her talk about the ridiculous book, and the utterly unimportant furniture—I made her express her opinion about styles, and got out of her that a simple Queen Anne was what she herself preferred.—I knew that she was giving way and talking with less stiffness because she was weak with sorrow, and probably had not had much sleep—I knew that it was not because she had forgotten about the Suzette cheque or really was more friendly. I knew that I was taking an unfair advantage ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... angelic! never was there less of an angel than she! While she talked, I was quick to observe the changes on Ferrari's countenance. He became more silent and sullen as her brightness and cordiality increased. I would not appear aware of the growing stiffness in his demeanor; I continued to draw him into the conversation, forcing him to give opinions on various subjects connected with the art of which he was professedly a follower. He was very reluctant to speak at all; and when compelled to do so, his remarks were curt and almost ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... himself—the degree of stiffness beyond his ordinary inflexibility of attitude could only have been ascertained by a vernier, but that degree imparted an appreciable dignity to ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... understanding of the food question to consider right here what causes old age, or, rather, the physical signs of bodily infirmity that almost invariably accompany it. We are all familiar with the wrinkled body surface, the shrunken limbs and the stiffness of joints that particularly affect the aged, and are so accustomed to regard these outward manifestations of infirmity as inevitable, that few stop to inquire whether it is natural that this should be so. Undoubtedly, these are natural ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... already in bud with soft moleskin buttons, and a tortoiseshell butterfly, evoked by the sun from its hibernation, settled on one of the twigs, opening and shutting its diapered wings, and spreading them to the warmth to thaw out the stiffness and inaction of winter. Blackbirds fluted in the busy thickets, a lark shot up near them soaring and singing till it became invisible in the luminous air, a suspended carol in the blue, and bold male ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... to accompany her to the house; she complained of cramp in her limbs and stiffness of the joints. She leaned draggingly upon his arm as ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... building his house he thought only of comfort and convenience, and nothing of show, he carelessly invited my attention to the drawing-room, the library, the music-room, and the little sitting-room, all of which were furnished with as much stiffness and hardness and inharmonious coloring as ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... added, Roman buildings also, in proportion to their age, i.e., to the amount of the Roman elements in them—"stand for the most part, by their own weight and mass, one stone passively incumbent on another: but in the Gothic vaults and traceries there is a stiffness analogous to that of the bones of a limb, or fibres of a tree; an elastic tension and communication of force from part to part; and also a studious expression of this throughout every part of the building." In a word, Gothic vaulting and tracery have been studiously made like to boughs of trees. ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... said the personage addressed, with a stiffness contrasting very forcibly with the suavity of his speech to Aunt Martha. Emily, who, as may be supposed, knew Frank Wallace better than any other person in the house, at that moment caught a glimpse of his face under the chandelier, and saw that trouble was brewing. The sulk ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... the U. States, of all the continent, is safe investment; and money gravitates therefore to New York. The Southern naphtha, too, comes in as an ingredient, and lubricates manners and tastes to that degree, that Boston is hated for stiffness, and excellence in luxury is rapidly attained. Of course, dining, dancing, equipaging, etc. are the exclusive beatitudes,—and Thackeray will not cure us of this distemper. Have you a physician that can? Are you a physician, and will you come? If ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... peculiar to himself as his handwriting; and indeed I seem to see in the handwriting of Edmond de Goncourt just the characteristics of his style. Every letter is formed carefully, separately, with a certain elegant stiffness; it is beautiful, formal, too regular in the 'continual slight novelty' of its form to be quite clear at a glance: very ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... spent most of the time talking to you—and as you've just recorded your sensations, I'd rather be excused," he said with a touch of stiffness. "Your innings, I suppose, old man?" And, with a friendly nod, ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... November, in the same year, a bull-terrier had a similar complaint. He had been tried in the pit a fortnight before, and severely injured, and the pain and stiffness of his joints were increasing. The head was now permanently drawn on one side. The dog was unable to stand even for a moment, and the eyes were in a state of spasmodic motion. He was a most savage brute; but I attempted to manage him, and, by the assistance of the owner, contrived lo ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... Marten, I believe," said Mr. Albert Spener with a little exaggeration of his natural stiffness. Perhaps he did not suspect that all the morning he had been manifesting considerable loftiness toward Loretz, and that he spoke in a way that made Leonhard feel that his departure from Spenersberg would probably take place within ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... accept his attentions. If she had been under contrary orders, there would have been some excitement in going as far as she durst, but the only effect on her was embarrassment, and she treated Antony with the same shy stiffness she had shown to Humfrey, during the earlier part of his residence at home. Besides, she clung more and more to her adopted father, who, now that they were away from home and he was about to part ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... were incorruptible. It was not possible to starch the sea; and precisely as the stiffness fastened upon men, it vanished from ships. What had once been a mere raft, with rows of formal benches, pushed along by laborious flap of oars, and with infinite fluttering of flags and swelling of poops above, gradually began to lean ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... Indaba-zimbi was going to fall to dust before my eyes. As I watched I observed that the discoloration was beginning to fade. First it vanished from the extremities, then from the larger limbs, and lastly from the trunk. Then in turn came the third stage of relaxation, the second stage of stiffness or rigor, and the first stage of after-death collapse. When all these had rapidly succeeded each ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard
... contemporaries. The poems of West, indeed, had the merit of chaste and manly diction; but they were cold, and, if I may so express it, only dead-coloured; while in the best of Warton's there is a stiffness, which too often gives them the appearance of imitations from the Greek. Whatever relation, therefore, of cause or impulse Percy's collection of Ballads may bear to the most popular poems of the present ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... steps when climbing. Do not run down hill. It causes stiffness, for which a hot bath and another walk the next ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... rather marshy bank to the north of the buildings; then having lifted it out of the water, he stood to his full height and stretched himself, for he had been travelling in the canoe eleven days and was conscious of body stiffness owing to the cramped position ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... the Resurrection, and not worth looking at, except for the sake of making more sure our conclusions from the first fresco). The Madonna is fixed in Byzantine stiffness, without ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin
... accepted it with a little laugh. There was no shadow of embarrassment about her manner, notwithstanding the cold stiffness of Wingrave's deportment. He sat where the sunlight fell across his chair, and the lines in his pale face seemed deeper than usual, the grey hairs more plentiful, the weariness in his eyes more apparent. Yet she was not in the least afraid ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Two dangers, they tell us, have to be avoided. In compiling a Liturgy from Ancient Sources, one danger will be that of "too much stiffness in refusing" new matter—i.e. letting a love of permanence spoil progress: another, and opposite danger, will be "too much easiness in admitting" any variation—i.e. letting a love of progress spoil permanence. They will try to avoid both dangers. "It hath been the wisdom ...
— The Church: Her Books and Her Sacraments • E. E. Holmes
... in advance on a pack-saddle on one of them. I was still suffering considerably from an accident I had sustained to my foot among the hairy folk of the Hokkaido, and I thought that the long walk would probably be beneficial to me, and would take away some of the stiffness which still remained in my ankle. At a short distance from the port I came to a steep incline of a few hundred yards, and crossing the hill-range which formed the background to Chemulpo as one looks at it from the sea, I soon descended on the other side, from which ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... unfaithfulness to Maggie, on Anthony's score. Poor Maggie stood apart as if betrayed. Maggie and Anthony were enemies by instinct. Ursula had to go back to her friend brimming with affection and a poignancy of pity. Which Maggie received with a little stiffness. Then poetry and books and learning took the place of Anthony, with his goats' movements and ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... on. I grew deadly sleepy, but of course I did not care to let myself go to sleep; but worse than that was the stiffness, and the cramp that tortured the imprisoned leg. You know how you want to jump when you've got cramp? Well, I wanted to jump at intervals of about a minute all through that night, and instead, I was more securely hobbled than any old ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... with many of the semi-professional gamblers, who operated through commission houses, were selling out their long stock and going short over the opening of the Wall Street hoodoo-day, Friday, the thirteenth of the month. But it was also evident, with the heavy selling at the close and the stiffness of the price, which had never wavered as block after block was thrown on the market, that some powerful interest as well had taken cognisance of the fact that the morrow was hoodoo-day. At the close, ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... silence and stiffness among the lady-grasses as each feared to lose her chance to be given a title, and waited for the others. At last two slender grass-maidens advanced with glowing faces but reluctant step. They were not as beautiful as some of their sisters. Their ribbons were few and some of them were frayed. ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... acquaintance that Rosy was greatly impressed by the superiority of his bearing, that he could make her blush with embarrassment when he conveyed to her that she had made a mistake, that he could chill her miserably when he chose to assume a lofty stiffness. A man's domestic armoury was filled with weapons if he could make a woman feel gauche, inexperienced, in the wrong. When he was safely married, he could pave the way to what he felt was the ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... half-clay soil with some loam is best suited to this crop. The soil should have a clay subsoil to retain water and to give stiffness enough to allow the use of harvesting-machinery. Some good rice soils are so stiff that they must be flooded to soften them enough to admit of plowing. Plow deeply to give the roots ample feeding-space. Good tillage, which is too often neglected, ...
— Agriculture for Beginners - Revised Edition • Charles William Burkett
... upon this metal floor. There are small lateral columns of water outside which receive the force, and which transmit and multiply it in the manner which is familiar to you. The machine goes readily enough, but there is some stiffness in the working of it, and it has lost a little of its force. Perhaps you will have the goodness to look it over and to show us how we can ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... over his poor face," pursued the widow. "And I woke up screeching with cramp in my legs and pains in my lungs, and beatings in my heart, and stiffness in my—" ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... frank and cordial reception was an agreeable surprise. He arrived quite late in the evening, and she had a delightful little lunch brought to him in her private parlor. By the time it was eaten her graceful tact had banished all stiffness and sense of strangeness, and he found himself warming into friendliness toward one whom he had especially dreaded as a "remarkably pious lady"—for thus his mother had ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... and shrubbery this is a very effective subject; it is amongst herbaceous plants what the Lombardy poplar is amongst forest trees—tall, elegant, and distinct. Its use, however, is somewhat limited, owing to the stiffness of the stems and the shortness of the flower stalks; but when grown in pots—as it often is—for indoor decoration, it proves useful for standing amongst orange and camellia trees. It has very strong tap roots, and enjoys a ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... response, and took a grating step forward. The old man turned suddenly and saw her. She stood back again; there was a shrinking stiffness about her attitude, but she looked him full in ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Miss Crane, in a low, eager voice, losing all her stiffness and turning to glance at the interesting widowed ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... the little four-year-old Lolotte in her high chair. But to Anne, after the tedious formality of the second table at the palace, stiff without refinement, this free family life was perfectly delightful and refreshing, though as yet she was too much cramped, as it were, by long stiffness, silence, and treatment as an inferior to join, except by the intelligent dancing of her brown eyes, and replies ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... The millionaire's clothes were now dry, and he dressed with the others. Save for a slight stiffness and a few bruises, ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... cortege came up to Marmaduke, Nicholas halted, and fronting his attendants, said, with the same cold and formal stiffness that had characterized him from the beginning, "I thank you, lads, for your kindness. It is your own triumph. All I cared for was to show that you London boys are able to keep up your credit in these days, when there's little ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... week at some vague future date; one of the children was unwell, and until it recovered it was impossible to fix a day. Still, they would be delighted to see him again. Her letters always had a note of stiffness in them, which was purely unintentional, or rather, purely natural, reflecting the one salient point ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... find it all very pleasant," the other said. "Hunter is a splendid fellow, and is adored by his men. His staff are all comparatively young men, with none of the stiffness of the British staff officer about them. We are all young—there is scarcely a man with the rank of captain in the British Army out here. We are all majors or colonels in the Egyptian Army, but most of us are subalterns in our own regiments. ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... it may be questioned whether the figures are not too crowded, whether the groups are sufficiently varied and connected by rhythmic lines. Yet the concords of yellow and orange with blue in the "Sposalizio," and the blendings of dull violet and red in the "Disputa," make up for much of stiffness. Here, as in the Chapel of St. Catherine at Milan, we feel that Luini was the greatest colourist among frescanti. In the "Sposalizio" the female heads are singularly noble and idyllically graceful. Some of the young men too have Luini's special grace and abundance of golden hair. In the "Disputa" ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... the men about him. The new trousers were full length, which the jeans had not been, and the creases down the legs were in the latest style. The salesman had so stated, and Zeke observed with huge satisfaction that the stiffness of the creases seemed to mark the quality of the various suits visible in the streets. And his own creases were of the most rigid! Zeke for the first time in his life, felt that warm thrill which characterizes any ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... recover so soon as Urquhart's sanguineness had predicted. Perhaps he began taking precautions against stiffness too soon; anyhow he did not that term make a decent three-quarter, or any sort of a three-quarter at all. It always took Peter a long time to get well of things; he was easy to break and hard to mend—made in Germany, as he was frequently told. So cheaply ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... that you have got your yacht here, and are so very kind as to ask us to become your guests for a time," said the Professor, with a suspicion of stiffness. "It is more than generous of you, Prince, ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... Cicero's correspondence is almost incredible. Even those epistles which remain number more than eight hundred. In them we find the eloquence of the heart, not of the rhetorical school. They are models of pure Latinity, elegant without stiffness, the natural outpourings of a mind which could not give birth to an ungraceful idea. In his letters to Atticus he lays bare the secret of his heart; he trusts his life in his hands; he is not only his friend but his ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... themselves,—leaving the yardstick out of the question,—even if they are covered by carpets six inches thick, it will not pay to lay poor ones. They should be double for solidity and warmth, well nailed for stiffness, seasoned for economy, and of good lumber for conscience' sake. Seasoned for economy, I say, since nothing is more destructive to carpets, especially to oil-cloth, than cracks in the floor underneath them. Yes,—one thing; the warped edges of the boards, that sometimes raise themselves,—that ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... at all parties, there was a little stiffness, but this was soon broken by Tom asking in ...
— The Rover Boys on the Farm - or Last Days at Putnam Hall • Arthur M. Winfield (AKA Edward Stratemeyer)
... his summons I found him pacing excitedly up and down the central room, while the old soldier who guarded the premises stood with military stiffness in a corner. ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of the lady upstairs. The mother's a pore sick thing." Mrs. Jones bends the stiffness of sixty-eight years over the stranger's child. "And grandmaw keeps Letty clean, don't she, Letty? She don't never whip her, neither; jest a little cross ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... but when she wanted to tie it behind she found a difficulty from a stiffness of one shoulder, and said, "It is the rheumatics, miss; one catches it being out ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... a small hickory sapling it will be the most serviceable, because its natural strength and stiffness will permit us to use a ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay
... have succumbed to him. If it had not been that with him there was no question of succumbing. She would have had to take him between her hands and caress and cajole him like a cherub, into a fall. And though she would have like to do so, yet that inflexible stiffness of her backbone prevented her. She could not do as she liked. There was an inflexible fate within her, which ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... neat, still to be dressed"? Beautiful in form, deft and graceful in expression, with not a word too much or one that bears not its part in the total effect, there is yet about the lyrics of Jonson a certain stiffness and formality, a suspicion that they were not quite spontaneous and unbidden, but that they were carved, so to speak, with disproportionate labour by a potent man of letters whose habitual thought is on greater things. ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... death-bed moments of the girl he has ruined, the scene has a great moving power. Allowing for differences of taste and time, the vogue of the Novel in Richardson's day can easily be understood, and through all the stiffness, the stilted effect of manner and speech, and the stifling conventions of the entourage, a sweet and charming young woman in very piteous distress emerges to live in affectionate memory. After all, no poor ideal of womanhood is pictured in Clarissa. She is one of the heroines ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... had returned to place Skippy rallied, took the introductions with preternatural stiffness, and gravitated to Snorky. The white shirt front in the most unaccountable manner had swollen to alarming dimensions, the coat tails must be dragging on the floor. His collar cut under his imprisoned neck and his large white hands, longing for sheltering pockets, seemed to float before ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... suspect that we might be conversing with an angel. Bread may not always nourish us; but it always does us good, it even takes stiffness out of our joints, and makes us supple and buoyant, when we knew not what ailed us, to recognize any generosity in man or Nature, to share any ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... superseded by the very narrow one which is always in good taste, regardless of style. Napkins come by the piece and must be divided and hemmed on two sides, rubbing well between the hands first to remove the stiffness. ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... remain in this best period of Assyrian art are heaviness and stiffness of outline in the human forms; a want of expression in the faces, and of variety and animation in the attitudes; and an almost complete disregard of perspective. If the worst of these faults are anywhere overcome, it would seem to be in the land lion-hunt, from which the noble head represented ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... been hurled against the sharp edge of one of the stone seats as he had been borne to the floor. But it was not painful, and was nearly closed. And we could feel the return of strength even through the stiffness caused by the inactivity ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... after all, on this great day beheld in the new member the visible triumph of her dearest principles, received these excuses at first with stiffness, ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... small-brimmed black hat, with an ostrich feather placed in the side and hanging over the top, a long rapier on his hip, and a dagger in his girdle. This buckram attire, it will be easily conceived, contributed no little to the natural stiffness of his ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... was taken off, and in a moment I put my head down to my very knees. What a comfort it was! Then I tossed it up and down several times to get the aching stiffness out ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell
... for an hour," he answered as he lifted himself up in the water and hung with both hands to the sides of the boat. "But it was well that I was wounded on the shoulder and not on the leg. The stiffness made me slow, like a bear that has been hurt in a trap. But I bound mud on the wound with my leggings and I have followed close behind thee along the shore ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... frostbites occurred about this time, 30th, principally in the men's feet, even when they had been walking quickly on shore for exercise. On examining their boots, Mr. Edwards remarked, that the stiffness of the thick leather of which they were made was such as to cramp the feet, and prevent the circulation from going on freely; and that this alone was sufficient to account for their feet having been frostbitten. Being very desirous of avoiding these accidents, which, ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... putting these formulas into Alexandrines gives them a stiffness and formality appropriate to ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud
... away, leaving her there hurt and bewildered at his apparent fickleness, at the stiffness with which he had beaten back the ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... of window dressing is in its infancy, O' Man—in its blooming Infancy. All balance and stiffness like a blessed Egyptian picture. No Joy in it, no blooming Joy! Conventional. A shop window ought to get hold of people, 'grip 'em as they go along. It stands ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... I had tried to free this from the original coarseness with which Devrient had heard it rendered in Berlin—presumably with traditional fidelity. My most innocent device, and one which I frequently adopted, for disguising the irritating stiffness or the orchestral movement in the original, was a careful modification of the Basso-continuo, which was taken uninterruptedly in common time. This I felt obliged to remedy, partly by legato playing, and partly ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... giver, and therefore no burden of obligation upon himself in receiving. If Mr. Allan had been strict to a point of harshness with him, at times, Mr. Allan was a born disciplinarian—it seemed natural for him to be stern and unsympathetic and those who knew him best took his stiffness and hardness with many grains of allowance, remembering his upright life and his open-handed charities. He had administered punishment upon the little lad when he was naughty in the years before he went away to school, and the little lad had taken his medicine philosophically ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... good of you to come—though I thought you would," Miss Gibson said impulsively, as we shook hands. "You have been so sympathetic and human—both you and Dr. Thorndyke—so free from professional stiffness. My aunt went off to see Mr. Lawley ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... in himself both weapon and wielder of weapon. He was a concentrated force. His white body was knotted with nerves and muscles. The chances were good if—Gordon pictured it to himself—and again the horror and doubt were over him. He himself had acquired a certain stiffness and lassitude from years, and long drives in one position. He would stand no chance unarmed against a bullet. But the dog—that was another matter. The dog would make a spring like the spring of death itself, and that white leap of attack might easily cause the aim to go wrong. ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
... enticed him out of the thicket to enjoy his first sun bath. The warmth seemed to relieve the stiffness in his joints, and after each nursing during the day he attempted several awkward capers in his fright at a shadow or the rustle of a leaf. Near the middle of the afternoon, his mother being feverish, it was necessary that she should go to the river and slake her thirst. ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... he was expected to eat large quantities of boiled fish, plum-cake and sweets; and Mrs. Kettering, perceiving that he didn't do justice to the fare, enumerated to him other things that were in the larder, with the suggestion that he might perhaps prefer a choice of them. Some of the stiffness that had characterised the former meal had vanished—Morgan could see now that had been due to shyness at his presence—and, though Mark still showed little willingness to converse, the girls were evidently beginning to ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... chair. He took a few turns up and down the room to work off the stiffness, and grumbled on: "Done? To me? Nothing, of course. But she's hysterical out ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... ever inspired a woman. Each member of the company follows in his or her pas seul, and then they all dance together to the plain confusion of the amateur trio, whose eyes roll like so many Zuyder Zees, as they sit lonely and motionless in the midst. All stiffness and formality are overcome. The evening party in fact disappears entirely, and we are suffered to see the artists in their moments of social relaxation sitting as it were around the theatrical fireside. They appear to forget us altogether; ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... in silence for some minutes, looking now at the fire too, now at the figure opposite, noticing, however, that the helplessness seemed gone. His hands dangled no longer; he sat upright, his hands clasped, yet with a curious look of stiffness and unnaturalness. ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... indignantly. Marigold stiffened himself—the degree of stiffness beyond his ordinary inflexibility of attitude could only have been ascertained by a vernier, but that degree imparted an appreciable dignity ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... relief, Lady Kitson went upstairs to join her husband, and with her departure some, at least, of the stiffness was removed. ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... unable to keep a touch of stiffness out of his tone, "it is not exactly unknown in the Space Patrol for a man to die in the line ...
— —And Devious the Line of Duty • Tom Godwin
... of all, both ponies and mules stepped briskly and well, the pasture upon which they had been busy having had a wonderfully good effect. The hardy beasts seemed now to need no water, and made light of their loads, while as the stiffness suffered by the riders passed off with movement in the warm bracing air, the difficulties and perils of the past seemed to ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... spoiled," said Anne, to break the stiffness, as she spread the table with a thin old cloth, "but she is such a dear ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey
... was a little, thickset man, with a civil but blunt electioneering manner. He started when he heard Lord Vargrave's name, and bowed with great stiffness. Vargrave saw at a glance that there was some cause of grudge in the mind of the worthy man; nor did Mr. Winsley long hesitate before he cleansed his bosom ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... his efforts to divert the hostler's blasphemy. There was also a mellow inebriate there who recommended kerosene for Clemens's lameness, and offered as testimony the fact that he himself had frequently used it for stiffness in his joints after lying out all night in cold weather, drunk: altogether ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... K. & R, system it wouldn't be exactly official and proper in me to approve your judgment in that matter of the Italians; but as a man—plain man, now, you understand,—I know grit when I see it and—" he dropped his bluff stiffness got out of his chair and came along and squeezed Parker's muscular arm, "you've got a brand of it that I admire. Yes, I do. No mistake! But that is just between you and me. That is simply my own personal opinion. I don't believe the directors relish the idea of gladiators in the engineering corps. ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... they said, to see what transformations were wrought in those who went to the Continent for their long vacations. From France they returned with marked French manners and tones and clothes, while from Germany they brought the distinctive marks of German stiffness in manner and general bearing. It was noted as still more curious that the same student would illustrate both variations, provided he spent one summer in Germany and another ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... after Dorothy. Bondsman trailed lazily behind. Because Shoop had not picked up his hat the big dog knew that his master's errand, whatever it was, would be brief. Yet Bondsman followed, stopping to yawn and stretch the stiffness of age from his shaggy legs. There was really no sense in trotting across the street with his master just to trot back again in a few minutes. But Bondsman's unwavering loyalty to his master's every mood and every movement had become such a matter of course that the fine example ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... the door, and then being told that 'Miss E. is come.' Oh, dear! in this monotonous life of mine, that was a pleasant event. I wish it would recur again; but it will take two or three interviews before the stiffness—the estrangement of this long separation—will ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... nothingness. Middle-aged ladies, whose hair needs no powder, and whose teeth never ache, began to falter in the dancing steps practised in the private recesses of their own palatial homes, and wondered if their joints were to be twisted and racked into new-born graces, only to settle down into rusty stiffness again without having fascinated the Russian soul out of that ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... resistance shall endear the office. For so have I known the boisterous north wind pass through the yielding air, which opened its bosom, and appeased its violence by entertaining it with easy compliance in all the region of its reception; but when the same breath of heaven hath been checked with the stiffness of a tower, or the united strength of a wood, it grew mighty and dwelt there, and made the highest branches stoop and make a smooth path for it on the top of all ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... seemed always more natural to Meurig Wynne than the Welsh. His sermons were always thought out in that language, and then translated into the vernacular, and this, perhaps, accounted in some degree for their stiffness and want of living interest. His descent from the Flemings had the disadvantage of drawing a line of distinction between him and his parishioners, and thus added to his unpopularity. In spite of this, Cardo was an immense ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... too," said Old Hundred. "Remember that? The boy or girl who was It shut his eyes and counted ten. Then he opened his eyes suddenly, and if he saw any part of you moving you became It. On 'ten' you tried to freeze into stiffness. We must have ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... Aunt, "that may be easily remedied. I'll just dip them into a little weak liquid coffee and that will give them a creamy tint, and take out the stiffness." ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... in a quite warm room with shaded lights and a mixture of old Italian stiffness and deep soft modern comfort. The Marchesa went away to take off her wraps, and the Marchese chatted with Aaron. The little officer was amiable and kind, and it was evident ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... "Its stiffness, if that's what you mean," Carroll answered with a smile. "These big conifers look as if they'd been carved, like the wooden trees in the Swiss or German toys. They're impressive in a way, but ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... the ocean, seemed actually to pin us down to the rigging. It was hard work making head against them. One after another we got out upon the yards. And here we had work to do; for our new sails had hardly been bent long enough to get the stiffness out of them, and the new earings and reef-points, stiffened with the sleet, knotted like pieces of iron wire. Having only our round jackets and straw hats on, we were soon wet through, and it was every moment growing colder. Our hands were soon numbed, which, added to the ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... Now they all look grave. Their eyes are steadfastly fixed on the master's face. They marvel at the wonderful change that has come over him. It takes him long to come back to the sense world. His limbs now begin to lose their stiffness. His face beams with smiles, the organs of sense begin to come back each to its own work. Tears of joy stand at the corners of his eyes. He chants ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... characteristic than in most diseases of the limb. At the very beginning of the inflammation, and sometimes for several months afterward, the lameness is intermittent and disappears with exercise. After a time it is permanent. It is characterized by a stiffness of the hock. The extension of the hock is incomplete, the step is short and quick, the animal "goes on its toe" and the wall or shoe at the toe shows considerable wear. Because of the stiffness in the hock the animal raises the quarter when the ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.
... arms, wrist and shoulders, the tone will be hard and the whole performance constrained and unmusical. There is no need of having tired muscles or those that feel strained or painful. If this condition arises it is proof that there is stiffness, that relaxation has not taken place. I can sit at the piano and play forte for three hours at a time and not feel the least fatigue in hands and arms. Furthermore, the playing of one who is relaxed, who knows how ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... the two women had exchanged. Besides, in ageing, whether from repentance for her errors or from hypocrisy, Lady Douglas had become a prude and a puritan; so that at this time she united with the natural acrimony of her character all the stiffness of the new religion she ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... source; one consequence of all which was, that when at last, after many years, he did begin to develop some individuality, he could not, and never did shake himself free of those weary models; his thoughts, appearing in clothes which were not made for them, wore always a certain stiffness and unreality which did not by nature belong to them, blunting the impressions which his earnestness and sincerity did ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... of unnatural solemnity. But the strain upon their feelings was quite apparent, and it became a question how long it could be maintained. As the trips through the passage-way became more frequent the dancing grew in vigour and hilarity, until by the time supper was announced the stiffness had sufficiently vanished to give no further anxiety to ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor
... gentlemen meet and have a friendly talk with a view to exchanging favours if they will agree to please. I know not which is the more convenient, nor even which is the more truly courteous. The English stiffness unfortunately tends to be continued after the particular transaction is at an end, and thus favours class separations. But on the other hand, these equalitarian plainnesses leave an open field for the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the soap being forced upwards by the screw, and descending between the cylinder and the sides of the pan, while the reverse action can also be brought into play. The completion of crutching is indicated by the smoothness and stiffness of the soap when moved with a trowel, and a portion taken out at this point and cooled should present a rounded appearance. When well mixed the resultant product is emptied directly into wheel-frames placed underneath the outlet of the pan. It is important that the blades or worm of the agitating ...
— The Handbook of Soap Manufacture • W. H. Simmons
... at the sleeve of my uniformed coat and could not even see the hole where the bullet had entered. Neither was there any sudden flow of blood. At the time there was no stiffness or discomfort in the arm and I continued to use it ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... dreamily out of his window, saw approaching a rusty-black umbrella held at precisely the wrong angle in respect of the storm, but held with the unvarying stiffness with which a soldier might hold a bayonet, and knew it for his uncle Jonathan's umbrella. Soon he beheld also his uncle's serious, rain-drenched face and his long ambling body and legs. Jonathan was coming home from the post-office, whither he repaired ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... world is at your feet. I dread two things for you,—that you should marry unworthily, and that you should injure your prospects in public life by an uncompromising stiffness. On the former subject I can say nothing to you. As to the latter, let me implore you to come down here before you decide upon anything. Of course you can at once accept Mr. Gresham's offer; and that is what you should do unless the office proposed ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... the Mehudins' there was a touch of tutorial stiffness in his gentle demeanour. He was pleased with the old house in the Rue Pirouette. On the ground floor he passed through the faint odours pervading the premises of the purveyor of cooked vegetables. Big pans of boiled spinach and sorrel stood ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... are used, such as starch, flour, mineral matters, to give the goods stiffness and feel on one hand, and on the other to conceal defects in the cloth, and to give a solid appearance to goods of open texture. The mineral substances used serve chiefly for filling and weighting, and necessitate the employment of a certain quantity of starch, etc. In order that the latter may not ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... in full to Sir Derby Oaks, who now re-entered in his shell-jacket; but the lady did not understand the words of which he made use, nor did the compliment at all pacify Sir Derby, who, probably, did not understand it either, and at any rate received it with great sulkiness and stiffness, scowling uneasily at Miss Fotheringay, with an expression which seemed to ask what the deuce ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... first splendour of their coming faded—faded imperceptibly day after day; Denton's eloquence became fitful, and lacked fresh topics of inspiration; the fatigue of their long march from London told in a certain stiffness of the limbs, and each suffered from a slight unaccountable cold. Moreover, Denton became aware of unoccupied time. In one place among the carelessly heaped lumber of the old times he found a rust-eaten spade, and with this he made a fitful attack ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... while to look over the volumes of the "Anthology" to see what our fathers and grandfathers were thinking about, and how they expressed themselves. The stiffness of Puritanism was pretty well relaxed when a Magazine conducted by clergymen could say that "The child,"—meaning the new periodical,—"shall not be destitute of the manners of a gentleman, nor a stranger to genteel amusements. He shall attend Theatres, Museums, Balls, and whatever polite diversions ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... and only at night allowed himself conversation—of which he was fond—and songs. He did not sing like a trained singer who knows he is listened to, but like the birds, evidently giving vent to the sounds in the same way that one stretches oneself or walks about to get rid of stiffness, and the sounds were always high-pitched, mournful, delicate, and almost feminine, and his face at such ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org
|
|
|
