"Stiffness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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
... 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 ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... 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
... 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 and prudence, with both his clinched hands upon the table, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... 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
... stiffness of demeanour, which we had noticed, but ascribed to pride, worked an unspeakable change in the mage. As we looked at him he ...
— HE • Andrew Lang
... 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
... 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 ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... 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
... dae here, Hillocks?" he cries; 'it's no an accident, is't?' and when he got aff his horse he cud hardly stand wi' stiffness ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren |
