"Necked" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... their horns in the Colosseum. Anyway, it was as plain as daylight that I had lost my time and money in bothering about Oppenstedt, and that I might as well give him up as the most incorrigible, stiff-necked, self-opinionated, blunder-headed ass and lunatic ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... the Pump Room has not given you a headache, or the waters a touch of vertigo; and you will continue to do it for a month or six weeks, when the lumbering vehicle with the leathern straps and crane-necked springs will carry you back again over the deplorable roads ("so sidelum and jumblum," one traveller calls them) to your town-house, or your country-box, or your city-shop or chambers, as the case may be. Here, in due course, you will begin to meditate upon your next excursion to THE ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... of the gods, the banquets of us mortals and the festivals of the fortunate; these are the themes that inspire thy most poetic songs. And should Carcinus come to beg thee for admission with his sons to thy chorus, refuse all traffic with them; remember they are but gelded birds, stork-necked dancers, mannikins about as tall as a pat of goat dung, in fact machine-made poets.(7) Contrary to all expectation, the father has at last managed to finish a piece, but he owns himself that a cat ...
— Peace • Aristophanes
... in the bed and stretched out his arms, one aloft, the other behind him, finding with the fingers of this hand the turncock of the gas burner which swung low from the ceiling at the end of a goose-necked iron pipe, finding with the fingers of that hand the wall switch which controlled the battery of electric lights round about, and with a long-drawn sigh of happy deliverance he turned off both gas and electricity simultaneously and sank ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... giraffe and its long neck as a concrete example. The great length of this part is obviously an adaptive character, enabling the animal to browse upon the softer leafy shoots of shrubs and trees. The vertebral column of the neck comprises just the same number of bones that are present in the short-necked relatives of this form, so that we are justified in accepting as a fact the evolution of the giraffe's long neck by the lengthening of each one of originally shorter vertebrae. The Lamarckian explanation of this fact would be that the earliest forms in the ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... in the control room of Triplanetary's first super-ship, there was written the first Inter-Systemic Treaty. Upon one side the three Nevians; amphibious, cone-headed, loop-necked, scale-bodies, four-legged things to us monstrosities: upon the other the three humans, air-breathing, rounded-headed, shortnecked, smooth-bodied, two-legged creatures equally monstrous to the fastidious Nevians. Yet each of these representatives, of two races so different, felt ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... goose! You flattered yourself you were going to get riches, but your daughters were too stiff-necked. How was I to blame? it was you ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... Tamerlane with that same sword? They turned about, and were near the tunnel gate going to report, when it was thrown open with great force, and the Emperor Constantine appeared on horseback, the horse bloody with spurring and necked with foam. Riding to the Count he ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... the rustle of the maple-leaves, I see their breathing branches rise and fall, And hear, from their high perch along the eaves, The bright-necked pigeons call. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... off. How many bones of fine intellects lay whitening at the foot of the theological cliff—It seemed to be a lonely coast, and wintry. Patches of snow lay upon the hills, the woods were bare and brown. A bottle-necked harbour opened out before him. He reduced the engines to Dead Slow and glided gaily through the strait. He had been anxious lest his navigation might not be equal to the occasion: he did not want to disgrace himself ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... low-necked gown of some bluish-green stuff, with a collar of coarse lace; also a string of iridescent shells. Under the flame of her hair her prettiness ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... the short lunch counter, in front of the pool table where two brick-necked farm youngsters were furiously slamming balls and attacking cigarettes. Loose-jointedly Milt climbed a loose-jointed high stool and to the proprietor, Bill McGolwey, his best friend, he yawned, "You might poison me with a hamburger and a slab ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... blue-necked mallard alighting in a pool Among marsh-marigolds and splashing wet Green leaves and yellow blooms, like jewels set In bright, black mud, with clear drops crystal-cool, Bringing keen savours of the sea and stir Of windy spaces where wild sunsets flame To that dark inland dyke, the thought of ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... of the raised hand it was seen, for the biggest pig, a rough, bristly-necked animal, suddenly raised its head and gazed sharply, with eyes that looked fiery in the brilliant sunshine, straight in ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... wore very wide and rather short skirts, the petticoat worn exposed up to where a full over-skirt or flounce gave emphasis to their hips. The elder ones wore long-sleeved jackets and high-crowned hats, while the young ones wore what looked like low-necked jerseys tied together in front and their braided hair hung ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... much! Governor Andros warned me that you would be stubborn and stiff-necked! But I'll have that charter! Here—I'll ...
— The Tree That Saved Connecticut • Henry Fisk Carlton
... seems small: to me, all I have seems great. Your desire is insatiable, mine is satisfied. See children thrusting their hands into a narrow-necked jar, and striving to pull out the nuts and figs it contains: if they fill the hand, they cannot pull it out again, and then they fall to tears.—"Let go a few of them, and then you can draw out the rest!"—You, ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... discovered the Mountain Flower; the story-book West was complete at last. But he had offended his discovery. What was the etiquette in such a case? Back East he would have felt called upon to apologize for being rude. Then, at the thought of apologizing to a daughter of that turkey-necked old whisky-guzzler he had ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... you're goin' on board, Mr. Grief, I'll save you the trouble. I know your kind, I foresaw your stiff-necked stubbornness. An' it's forestalled you are. 'Tis on the beach you'll find your crew. ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... scents and sounds, and within a cool doorway, before which the shadow of a barber's pole rested on the cobbles, reclined Captain John Barker—a little wry-necked gentleman, with a prodigious hump between his shoulders, and legs that dangled two inches off the floor. His wig was being curled by an apprentice at the back of the shop, and his natural scalp shone as bare as a billiard-ball; ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... me a very evil turn,' he said. 'Ye spoke stiff-necked folly to this lady. Ye shall learn, Protestants that ye are, that if I be the flail of the monks I may be a hail, a lightning, a bolt from heaven upon Lutherans that cross ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... exclaimed, springing to his feet. And why dost thou call me master? I'm not master, nor art thou servant. And then, his eyes opening fully to the external world, he recognised the nearly hunchback Philip of Capernaum—a high-necked, thick-set fellow, in whom a hooked nose and prominent eyes were the distinguishing features. A sail-maker, that spoke with a sharp voice, and Joseph remembered him as combining the oddest innocence of mind regarding spiritual things with a certain shrewdness in the conduct ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... departure arrived, who were not prepared to abandon their country rather than their religion. The extraordinary act of self-devotion by a whole people for conscience' sake may be thought, in the nineteenth century, to merit other epithets than those of "perfidy, incredulity, and stiff-necked obstinacy," with which the worthy Curate of Los Palacios, in the charitable feeling of that day, has seen ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... was concerned, she feared her own weakness—she, who had endured the brutality of the world, could not endure that the world's brutality should be visited upon him because of his love for her. Strong of will, self-reliant, a born fighter, and as stiff-necked as his father, his yearning to possess her, coupled with his instinct for fair play, might and probably would lead him to tell the world to go hang, that he would think for himself and take his happiness where he found it. By all means, this must be prevented. ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... sizes and colors, from garnet to amber, poured in a rainbow stream from the box to the wide-necked bottle. Here and there was the glint of cut steel and the gleam of crystal, and several times Mary noticed a little Roman pearl like those on the rosary, and thought with a thrill of the necklace she intended to begin making ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... hotel, and often form the only bill of fare. Sake, or rice-beer, is usually included in the Jap's own meal, but the average European traveller at first prefers limiting his beverage to tea. The sake is served up in big-necked bottles of cheap porcelain holding about a pint. The bottle is set for a few minutes in boiling water to warm the sake, the Japs preferring to drink it warm. Sake is more like spirits than beer, an honest alcoholic production ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... Merrington, stiff-necked in his officialism, had been unable to see this changed aspect of the case, and, strong in his presumption of the girl's guilt, had acted with impulsive indiscretion in going to see Nepcote before attempting to trace the ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... that, it is possible that Alwin would have obeyed; but to yield in the face of a threat, that was too low for his stiff-necked pride to stoop. The earl-born answered haughtily, "Have your ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... by this window was a square table, covered with an old large-flowered Haarlem tapestry; in the center of this table was a long-necked stone bottle, in which were irises and lilies of the valley; at each end of this ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... old duffer whose watch was ticking inside my waist that very minute! Yes, sir, the same red-faced, big-necked fellow we'd spied getting full at the little station in the country. Only, he was a bit mellower than when you grabbed his ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... Stiff-necked setting oneself against God's merciful fighting with evil lasts for a little while, but verse 10 tells how soon and easily it is annihilated. God's 'desire' brushes away all defences, and the obstinate sinners are like children, who are whipped when their father wills, let them struggle ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... her dress for dinner, you know," came in a sarcastic sneer from Split. "She wants to show our dear cousin how swell we are. We all wear low-necked rigs, and father has his ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... the dancers. Save for two or three remote whispering couples, who had stolen apart, he and his guide had the gallery to themselves. A warm breath of scent and vitality came up to him. Both men and women below were lightly clad, bare-armed, open-necked, as the universal warmth of the city permitted. The hair of the men was often a mass of effeminate curls, their chins were always shaven, and many of them had flushed or coloured cheeks. Many of the women were very pretty, and all were dressed with elaborate coquetry. As they swept by beneath, he ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... gala banquet in the dining room at the end of which the French flag and that of the Empire formed a flaunting, conspicuous drapery. All the German passengers were in dress suits, and their wives were wearing low-necked gowns. The uniforms of the attendants were as resplendent as on a day ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... balance wheel.... He was stubborn, too. What he wanted was to be fair, to give what was due—and to receive what was HIS due.... He could not be swayed by mawkish sentimental sympathy, nor could he be bullied. Perhaps he was stiff-necked, but he was a man who must judge of the right or wrong of a condition himself. Perhaps he was too much that way, but his ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... possessing, heirloom old. — Their ocean-keel boarding, they drove through the deep, and Daneland left. A sea-cloth was set, a sail with ropes, firm to the mast; the flood-timbers moaned; {27a} nor did wind over billows that wave-swimmer blow across from her course. The craft sped on, foam-necked it floated forth o'er the waves, keel firm-bound over briny currents, till they got them sight of the Geatish cliffs, home-known headlands. High the boat, stirred by winds, on the strand updrove. Helpful ...
— Beowulf • Anonymous
... been known before he met Jen as a rather industrious sower of that seed known as wild oats. He knew a thing or two, did the Very Young Husband, in spite of his youth! He always fussed when Jen wore even a V-necked summer gown ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... with the blood congested by the debauch that was evidently being slept off. This, too, accounted for the persistence with which the flies clustered around the mouth, lured by the alcohol-laden exhalations. He was a powerfully built man, thick-necked, broad-shouldered, with sinewy wrists and toil-distorted hands. Yet the distortion was not due to recent toil, nor were the callouses other than ancient that showed under the dirt of the one palm upturned. From time ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... priest, a forger or an embezzler. Nothing positive was known except that three years ago he had appeared and bought this farm. He was a grizzled man of fifty-five, with a long, tobacco-stained, gray mustache and an open-necked blue-flannel shirt. To Carl, beside the shack, Bone Stillman was all ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... twenty-five years younger, so that your father could give you the licking you deserve when he comes home. I shouldn't be surprised if he'd do it anyway. The Lord preserve me from these quiet, deep devils with temperamental hands and luminous eyes. Give me one of the bull-necked, red-faced, hoarse-voiced, fresh kind every time. You know what they're going to say, at least, and you're prepared for them. If I were to tell you how the hand you're holding is tingling to box your ears ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... gentleman of the provinces—and looked, I doubt not, like a clown—in a white, flowered silk vest, white breeches and stockings, and a coat of full green velvet. I carried a sword, my hair in a bag, my hat under my arm. Virginia, on the other hand, looked very handsome in her high-necked damask dress; her hair done upon the top of her head, with a little powder, and a patch at the corner of her mouth. We were given a page in attendance, who was the son of an apothecary in the town, and made our ten florins with ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... celebrated quietly at the Clapham parish church. A humiliating day for the stiff-necked old Squire of Stagholme; for he was introduced to many new relatives, who, if they could have bought up Stagholme and its master, were but poorly equipped with the letter "h." The bourgeois ostentation and would-be high-toned graciousness of the ladies, jarred on his nerves as harshly as ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... up my little bill like a mann you would deserve the show at the "Kindumm" and the blow out at that swell tuck shop as Mister Acting said he was going to treat you to for coming with him to london. I hopes you enjoyed em and As how that stiff necked old corker your beak—won't never find out. "As you gave him the Propper slip and no Errer ...
— Acton's Feud - A Public School Story • Frederick Swainson
... any protection whatever from the wind and rain; and damp weather having set in with the afternoon, the unfortunate occupants of these vehicles were, on the train drawing up at the London terminus, found to be in a pitiable condition from their long journey; blue-faced, stiff-necked, sneezing, rain-beaten, chilled to the marrow, many of the men being hatless; in fact, they resembled people who had been out all night in an open boat on a rough sea, rather than inland excursionists for ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... most refined and accomplished little people in the city of New York. Such fine dresses and such die-away manners overawed Prudy. She did wish her mamma had sent a thin summer dress in the trunk. It was dreadful to have to wear woollen, high-necked and long-sleeved. It cost her a great effort to cross the room. She felt as awkward as a limping grasshopper in a crowd of butterflies. But reaching her hostess at last, ...
— Prudy Keeping House • Sophie May
... what might be the consequences, took an AEtna or a Sinai from the load on her own shoulders, and clapped it on those of her children, who sat down under it plump, and sturdily refused to budge until they should be allowed to put it there themselves. Whereupon, this stiff-necked, wrong-headed old Britannia (for such was her Christian name) was exceeding wroth, made an outlandish noise among the nations, and even went so far (you will be shocked to hear) as to swear a little. Seeing there was no help for it but to remove this AEtna, she did so ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... get their money out of their purses directly; which, as they were not represented at the council, he had to do by means of his officers (the sheriffs) dealing with them one after another, which was a troublesome job; for the men were stiff-necked and quite disinclined to part with their money; and the robbery having to be done on the spot, so to say, encountered all sorts of opposition: and, in fact, it was the money needs both of baron, bishop, and king which had been the chief instrument in furthering the ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris
... eyes like black flowers which looked at me as with wondrous woe—all of this awoke in me a feeling like that of enchantment; I was suddenly as if transported into Scherezade's story, and I thought that broad-leaved palms, and long-necked camels, and gold-covered elephants, and other fabulous trees and animals must forthwith appear. The supercargo who was on the vessel, and who understood as little of the language as I myself, could not, in his truly English ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... long, in order to correspond with the length of the legs, and thus enable the dog to seize and lift the game, as he rapidly pursues his course, without throwing any undue or dangerous weight on the fore extremities. In the act of seizing the hare the short-necked dog may lose the centre of ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... justice. And while he was kind and loving to all about him, yet he was terribly severe with the incorrigibly mean and vicious. If he had a great fault, it was in this particular. No one could be more loving and tender with a penitent; but the stiff-necked and haughty, the oppressors of the poor, ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... of Israel's enemies, one of the great obstacles to her restoration has been removed; but the greatest obstacle is in Israel herself. She has been stiff-necked and rebellious: now that the prophet's words have proved true,[1] each individual for himself must give heed to his warning voice, not merely consulting him, but obeying him (xxxiii.). Then Jehovah will manifest His grace in many ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... impossible to determine. While the liquor dealers were sending to wavering members their kegs of beer and jugs of whiskey, the "Antis" supplemented their efforts with champagne suppers, flowers, music and low-necked dresses. And the suffrage advocates hoped to offset these political methods by trudging through mud and snow with their petitions and using their scanty funds to send out literature! A mistaken policy, perhaps, but the only one possible to the class of women ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... This morning the parson takes a drive. Now, small boys, get out of the way! Here comes the wonderful one-hoss-shay, Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay. "Huddup!" ...
— The One Hoss Shay - With its Companion Poems How the Old Horse Won the Bet & - The Broomstick Train • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... brings out fine, tall, strong-boned, clean-limbed horses, looking blood all over. The country breds, with slender limbs, small heads, and glossy coats, look dainty and delicate as antelopes. The lovely, compact Arabs, the pretty-looking ponies, and the thick-necked, coarse-looking Cabools, all have their respective trials, and then comes the great event—the race ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... is. Sometimes I'm the butt as well as the pet of the dressing room, and considering all the breaks I get I shouldn't mind. I smiled at Sid and went on tiptoes and necked out my head and kissed him on a powdery cheek just above an aromatic mustache. Then I wiped the smile off my face and said, "Okay, Siddy, play Macbeth as Little Lord Fauntleroy or Baby Snooks if you want to. I'll never squeak ...
— No Great Magic • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... at this instrument that Doreen sat, making a very pretty picture in her white silk, square-necked frock, with bands of beaver fur on the bodice and sleeves and an edging of the same fur round the bottom of ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... favourite; honest according to his lights—lights turned rather low and dim, as was often the case in those days. A narrow-minded man also, without sympathy or imagination, capable of cruelty; a tough, stiff-necked stock of a man, fit to deal with Bobadilla perhaps, but hardly fit to deal with the colony. Spain in those days was not a nursery of administration. Of all the people who were sent out successively to govern Espanola and supersede one another, the only one who ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... class of birds bred by the fancier are the ornamental land and water fowl. The chief objection to these birds as pets is the expense of buying them. The list of birds in this class is very large. In swans the leading varieties are mute, American whistling, black Australian, white Berwick and black-necked swans. The largest class are the pheasants. They are exceedingly beautiful, especially the golden, silver, Lady Amherst, Elliott, Reeves, green Japanese, Swinhoe, English ring neck, Melanotis, and Torquatis pheasants. The common wild geese are Egyptian, Canadian, white-fronted, ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... laughs at such things," he said; "but they laugh best who laugh last, and, for all we can say to the contrary, 'tis nought but his conceit and pride be standing between that stiff-necked youth and the ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... child, as a maiden, as a matron and as a woman drawing near to eld, she was always beautiful if, like that of the different seasons, her beauty varied. In shape she was straight and tall and rounded, light-footed as a buck, delicate in limb, wide-breasted and slender-necked. Her face was rich in hue as a kloof lily, and her eyes—ah! no antelope ever had eyes darker, tenderer, or more appealing than were the eyes of Suzanne. Moreover, she was sweet of nature, ready of wit and good-hearted—yes, even for the Kaffirs ...
— Swallow • H. Rider Haggard
... What a rigorous, saucy, stiff-necked rascal it is! I see my folly now.—I am undone by mine ain policy.—This Sidney is the last man that shou'd have been about my son:—The fellow, indeed, hath given him principles, that might have done vary weel ...
— The Man Of The World (1792) • Charles Macklin
... have no sentiment And are stiff-necked exceedingly, 710 All that's not worth an ancient saw. But me it grieves to see so spent A noble's life most witlessly, Since he's become a ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... made a discovery of more than ordinary moment. Flocks of rheas—ostrichlike birds—were common in the open country. They were so wary that the two had only infrequent glimpses of the long-legged, long-necked birds as they dashed away and faded into the horizon. To pursue them was out of the question and Suma knew it for they ran with the speed of the wind. But this afternoon they came upon one of the great creatures squatting on the ground, ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... lad, I am no friend to the Company, a set of stiff-necked, ignorant, grasping, paunchy peddlers who fatten at home on the toil of better men. No, I am an adventurer, I own it; I am an interloper; and we interlopers, despite the Company's monopoly, yet contrive to keep ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... his heart; for the remedy he proposes poses for Irish sufferings is to increase them, if possible, a thousandfold; and he would have troops employed to "tread down all before them, and lay on the ground all the stiff-necked people of the land." And this he would have done in winter, with a refinement of cruelty, that the bitter air may freeze up the half-naked peasant, that he may have no shelter from the bare trees, and that he may be deprived of all sustenance by the chasing ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... quite dark, for the season was too mild for a fire, and he had to grope for the matches before he could light his lamp. After he had done so and turned up the wicks, the first object he saw was the bulbous, long-necked jar which he had bought that afternoon, and which now stood on the stained boards near the mantelpiece. It had been delivered ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... House of Pryce can offer such bargains is a mystery to the old school of red-necked bookmakers, whose Oxford accent was not pronounced. They fail to see what courtesy, urbanity and meat-teas at three shillings per head can do in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 7th, 1920 • Various
... six-cord contains six strands, and so on. One of the greatest difficulties for the amateur is to produce a well-formed thread. He generally finds it thicker a few inches from the point than at any other part. These are known in the trade as bull-necked threads; and as the mechanic finds it difficult to use them when his employer starts a new apprentice and gives him this job for the men, I must impress on the worker here the necessity of making them as perfect as possible. It would be as well if a little ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 561, October 2, 1886 • Various
... the thing closely, we shall find that the term Philistine conveys a sense which [99] makes it more peculiarly appropriate to our middle class than to our aristocratic. For Philistine gives the notion of something particularly stiff-necked and perverse in the resistance to light and its children, and therein it specially suits our middle-class, who not only do not pursue sweetness and light, but who prefer to them that sort of machinery of business, chapels, tea meetings, and addresses ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... examining a picture. She saw before her within the carved gilt framework a beautiful maiden's form, in sky-blue satin robe that fell in wide, heavy folds around her full and blooming figure. The low-necked bodice left wholly uncovered her dazzling white shoulders, and beneath the transparent gauze of her sleeves shone the fair white arms as from out a silver cloud. Her head rested proudly and gracefully upon the slender alabaster neck, and was crowned by a ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... A heavy-necked man in a straw hat, who was chewing something, stopped the machine with a touch, and they all turned their eyes on Bert. And all their eyes ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... refractory, unruly; heady, headstrong; entete [Fr.]; contumacious; crossgrained^. arbitrary, dogmatic, positive, bigoted; prejudiced &c 481; creed- bound; prepossessed, infatuated; stiff-backed, stiff necked, stiff hearted; hard-mouthed, hidebound; unyielding; impervious, impracticable, inpersuasible^; unpersuadable; intractable, untractable^; incorrigible, deaf to advice, impervious to reason; crotchety &c 608. Adv. obstinately &c adj.. Phr. non possumus [Lat.]; no surrender; ils ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... don't doubt the dear old lady was a perfect jewel in her way, yet, looking at the portrait of her which hangs over our parlor mantelpiece, I see the face of a hard, determined-looking woman with cold gray eyes and rigidly set mouth, in a funny-looking black dress, neither high-necked nor low-necked, having a starchy white ruffle round the edge, in vivid white contrast to the yellow skin; with grizzly, iron-gray curls peeping out from under a cap that is fearfully and wonderfully made, with a huge ruffled ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... Market (33rd) Street. After his father's death, he moved to the old house on Bridge (M) Street in order to keep his mother company. He had a very large family, seven sons and six daughters. All of the daughters attended Miss English's Seminary, walking to and from school all winter wearing low-necked and short-sleeved dresses, covered only by a little cape. Not a case of poverty, I assure you, but of fashion! I was told this not long ago by a descendant, and of how they used to have to melt their gum shoes to get them on in cold weather. I think the names of a trio ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... and say, more'n half of 'em wore the same kind of a look. It was only the women that seemed right to home. There wasn't one in sight that didn't have her chin up and her shoulders back, and carrying all the dog the law allows. They treated them stiff-necked food-slingers like they was a lot of wooden Indians. You'd see 'em pilin' their wraps on one of them lordly gents just as if he was a chair. Then they'd plant themselves, spread out their dry-goods, peel off their ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... 'Stiff-necked Quakers—you shall answer for this,' shouted Ensign Hodgson as he entered 'cursing and swearing' (so says the old account) 'and threatening that if Friends would not depart and disperse he would kill them and slay and what not.' 'You look like hardened offenders, all of you, and ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... George to say a great deal more before he succeeded in bringing the stiff-necked Don to reason, and in the process of doing so he told His Excellency a few home truths that first sent that functionary into a towering passion and then turned him sick with fear; but at length Don Silvio was brought to see the futility of kicking against the pricks, ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... Holman, as he sat beside me at the midday halt. "I tried to show him how he could get a good snapshot, and now he's as poisonous as a red-necked cobra just because he was silly enough ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... dresses. I thought them the prettiest things I had ever seen and probably they were, for we had little. When mother undressed me that night, two little green and white scraps of cloth fell out of the front of my little low necked dress. Mother asked at once if Mrs. Wass gave them to me and I had to answer, "No." "Then," she said, "in the morning you will have to take them back and tell Mrs. Wass you took them." I just hated to and cried and cried. In the ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... regulated in every detail of their lives by the Church as well as the Sovereign Council. For trading brandy to the Indians, Bishop Laval thunders excommunication at delinquents; and Bishop St. Valliere, his successor, publicly rebukes the dames of New France for wearing low-necked dresses, and curling their hair, and donning gay ribbons in place of bonnets. "The vanity of dress among women becomes a greater scandal than before," he complains. "They affect immodest headdress, with heads uncovered or ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... Jessica," says Shylock to his daughter, "lock up my doors; and when you hear the drum, and the vile squeaking of the wry-necked fife, clamber not you up into ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... be impressed upon the mind of a lady is that very low-necked dresses are in exceeding bad taste, and are quite sure to leave upon the mind of a gentleman an equivocal idea, to say the least. A word to the wise on this subject is sufficient. If a young lady has no father, or brother, or husband to ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... by a device made of a narrow-necked bottle containing alcohol or mercury, into which an iron nail was inserted, he was able to retain the charge of electricity, after electrifying this apparatus with the frictional machine. He made also a similar device, more closely resembling the modern Leyden jar, from a thermometer ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... is really edifying to notice the ingenuity by which he draws into light from a dark corner a very unjust account of it, and neglects, though lying upon the highroad, a very pleasing one. Both are from English pens. Grafton, a chronicler, but little read, being a stiff-necked John Bull, thought fit to say that no wonder Joanna should be a virgin, since her "foule face" was a satisfactory solution of that particular merit. Holinshead, on the other hand, a chronicler somewhat later, every ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... mistress,(211) her mother. She has not seen her since the Princess went to Florence, which she it seems has left with great regret; with greater than her beauty, whose ruins she has not discovered: but with few teeth, few hairs, sore eyes, and wrinkles, goes bare-necked and crowned with jewels! Madame Mirepoix told me a reply of Lord Cornbury, that pleased me extremely. They have revived at Paris old Fontenelle's opera of Peleus and Thetis: he complained of being dragged upon the stage again for ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... the upper extremity, and graduated, through the sides of which pass platina wires (being fused into the glass), which are connected with two plates within. The tube is fitted by grinding into one mouth of a double-necked bottle. If the latter be one-half or two-thirds full of the dilute sulphuric acid (706.), it will, upon inclination of the whole, flow into the tube and fill it. When an electric current is passed through the instrument, the gases evolved against ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... will remember that in a former chapter we left the stolen clergyman (no thanks to his white face and whiter necked brethren of the profession), on the banks of the Mississippi, where, having purchased his time of his owner, he is not only a very profitable investment to that gentleman, but of great service on the neighbouring ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... bull-necked rascal, with a double chin, and a great round face, the colour of a bad suet-dumplin', and a black patch over ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... give up Harold's body to his mother, Gytha, but he afterwards allowed two monks from Waltham to search for the body of the king. They were unable to find it amongst the nameless dead, but his favourite, Edith the swan-necked, whose eye of affection was not to be deceived, discovered it. His weeping mother buried the disfigured corpse probably about 120 feet from the east end of the ...
— What to See in England • Gordon Home
... with the city lying in waves around it, those mad and dismal fanatics, the Sweet Singers, haggard from long exposure on the moors, sat day and night 'with tearful psalms.'... In the Grassmarket, stiff-necked covenanting heroes offered up the often unnecessary, but not less honorable, sacrifice of their lives, and bade eloquent farewell to sun, moon and stars and earthly friendships, or died silent to the roll of the drums. Down by yon outlet rode Grahame of Claverhouse ...
— The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls • Jacqueline M. Overton
... some strong-backed stallions to recover their almost lost sense of feeling; and to set themselves off the better, they shall paint and daub their faces, always stand a tricking up themselves at their looking-glass, go naked-necked, bare-breasted, be tickled at a smutty jest, dance among the young girls, write love-letters, and do all the other little knacks of decoying hot-blooded suitors; and in the meanwhile, however they are laughed at, they enjoy themselves ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... existence was in the imagination of a miserable ship-carver, who, in his endeavors to breathe life into his block, came near breathing life out of himself, by sitting up late at night at his task. In the other hung a crook-necked squash, festooned with wreaths of spider-webs. Above the mantel-piece was suspended a painting representing a feat performed by a certain dog, of destroying one hundred rats in eight minutes. The frame in which this gem of art was placed was once gilt, but, at the time to which we refer, ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... not till he came to the words your friend, that Jacob recollected to bow to Lord Mowbray, and even then it was a stiff-necked bow. Mowbray, contrary to his usual assurance, looked a little embarrassed, yet spoke to Jacob as ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... king is brave and wise, His love of peace our bondes prize; By friendly word and ready hand He holds good peace through every land. He is for all a lucky star; England he frightens from a war; The stiff-necked Danes he drives to peace; Troubles by his ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... pastoral about the tall one, though. She's alive all the way from her runover heels to the wiggly end of the limp feather that flops careless like over one ear. She's the long-waisted, giraffe-necked kind; but not such a bad looker if you can forget the depressin' costume. It had been a blue cheviot once, I guess; the sort that takes on seven shades of purple about the second season. And it fits her like a damp tablecloth hung on a chair. Her runnin' mate ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... primitive art I fear, a supposedly intricate garden-labyrinth, and in which I admired for the first time Mrs. Russell, afterwards long before the public as Mrs. Hoey, even if opining that she wanted, especially for the low-necked ordeal, less osseous a structure. There are pieces of that general association, I admit, the clue to which slips from me; the drama of modern life and of French origin—though what was then not of French origin?—in which Miss Julia Bennett, fresh from triumphs at the Haymarket, made her first ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... therefore, had ample time meanwhile to consider his host and to take in his peculiarities before Walker had come to the end of his paragraph. The great engineer was a big-built, bull-necked, bullet-headed sort of person, with the self-satisfied air of monetary success, but with that ominous hardness about the corners of the mouth which constantly betrays the lucky man of business. His abundant long hair was iron-gray and wiry—Erasmus Walker had seldom time to waste in getting it ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... the kind!" declared Huldah. "He said you was stiff-necked, and that he presumed you would act more like a stepfather than the real thing. Well, as I was saying, he asked their names, and he liked them fine. Said ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... stiff-necked, reviling town Beholds your fancies on her walls, And paints them out or tears them down, Or ...
— The Congo and Other Poems • Vachel Lindsay
... "I was only thinking that one of those low-necked English bodices would have made it perfect." Not only her mouth and eyes, but her whole body seemed to ripple with suppressed laughter as she ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... to end—end even with the yellow dross that gave it birth. Fallacious hopes of coming "posts," averted for a time my coming wretchedness—three weeks, and not a line! The landlord suffered from an intermitting affection, characteristic of the "stiff-necked generation;"—he bowed to others—galvanism could not have procured the tithe of a salaam for me. His till was afflicted with a sort of sinking-fundishness. I was the contractor of "the small bill," whose exact amount would enable him to meet a "heavy payment;" my very garments were ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 2, 1841 • Various
... Fray Antonio Agapida, "was the diabolical hatred and stiff-necked opposition of this infidel to our holy cause. But he was justly served by our most Catholic and high-minded sovereign for his pertinacious defence of the city, for Ferdinand ordered that he should be loaded with chains and thrown into a dungeon." He was ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... More brains you may have, and wealth you have, but not more common sense than any common man like me. If the spirit moved you to hold your peace, it moves me to make you speak. With all your meek face you've been a hard, stiff- necked man, a tyrant too, and as much an aristocrat to such as me as any lord in the land. But I've drunk the mug of silence to the bottom. I've—" He stopped short, seeing a strange look come over the other's face, then stepped forward quickly as the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the why and wherefore is too deep for me. I take it that it's due to running to neck too much in their construction. Now an ostrich is the same way, all neck with not a lick of sense. And the same applies to the human family. You take one of these long-necked cowmen and what does he know outside of cattle. Nine times out of ten, I can tell a sensible girl by merely looking at her neck. Now snicker, you dratted young fools, just as if I wasn't talking horse sense to you. Some of you boys haven't ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... eyes that his water-bowl is replenished. Through the open kitchen door the court is visible, all sunny and gay, and people with turkeys and their poults, peahens and their chicks, pearl-flecked Guinea-fowls, and a bright variety of pure white, and purple-necked, and blue and cinnamon plumed pigeons. Irresistible spectacle to Shirley! She runs to the pantry for a roll, and she stands on the door step scattering crumbs. Around her throng her eager, plump, happy feathered vassals John is about the stables, and John must be talked to, and her mare ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte |
