"Poise" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... grew a good five miles from the windfall. Suma had covered half the distance when a sharp odor in the air caused her to stop and, standing like an exquisitely chiselled statue, with tensed muscles and alert poise, to drink deeply the scent-laden air. The vision of a peccary dinner left her instantly and her pink tongue stole out gently until it touched her moist, black nose in anticipation of a far more satisfying ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... changes which had robbed it of its very name; but neither did the other horseman, well known to the people, keen and alive on his well-shaped, slate-coloured beast with a white eye, wear his heart on the sleeve of his English coat. His mind preserved its steady poise as if sheltered in the passionless stability of private and public decencies at home in Europe. He accepted with a like calm the shocking manner in which the Sulaco ladies smothered their faces with pearl powder till they looked like ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... uneasy and that it was only a question of time when she would make the expected advances. Since the announcement of Jane's engagement Bansemer had been punctiliously considerate; and yet, underneath his faultless exterior, Mrs. Cable felt that she could recognise the deadly poise of other intentions. She lived in fear that they would spring upon her as if from the dark and that she would be powerless to combat them. Something stronger than words or even intuition told her that James Bansemer was not to be ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... of the mountain have given him a new soul. Bid your braves draw this bow. Bid them poise this spear. Their eyes say they can do neither. Then is Karkapaha the strong man of his tribe?" As he said this he flourished the ponderous spear over his head as a man would poise a reed, and drew the bow as a child would bend ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous
... sooner than the surgeons thought wise, although his wound had healed with remarkable speed, he returned to Oyster Bay, and on October 30th he closed his campaign by addressing sixteen thousand persons in the Madison Square Garden. He spoke with unwonted calm and judicial poise; and so earnestly that the conviction which he felt carried conviction to many who heard him. "I am glad beyond measure," he said, "that I am one of the many who in this fight have stood ready to spend and be spent, pledged to fight, while life lasts, the great fight for righteousness and for ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... wife of Jacques de Wissant, Mayor of Falaise, stood in the morning sunlight, graceful with a proud, instinctive grace of poise and gesture, on a wind-blown path close to the ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... saints of God! Mora! She, herself. Never could he fail to recognize her carriage, the regal poise of her head. However veiled, however shrouded, he could not be mistaken. It was Mora; and that she should be walking in this central position meant that she might with comparative safety, step ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... wonderfully endowed, so exquisitely wrought, and performing the most delicate and sacred functions which God has ever entrusted to a created being, is disturbed by disease, when the nicely-adjusted balance of her complex nature deviates from its true and intended poise, the most efficient aid should be extended, in order that the normal equilibrium may be regained, her health restored, and her divine mission, on which human welfare so largely depends, be fulfilled. Its importance ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... wear a hat in summer," and Dolly tossed back her golden curls and looked at the man steadily. Her sleep had refreshed her somewhat, and she had recovered her poise. Her determination was still unshaken and she had every intention of going on ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... Page?" Florrie replied, regaining her poise and giving one of her hands to each of the callers, the abandon of her first appearance gone in a flash to be replaced by a vague hint of stiffness. "Mama will be so glad to see you. ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... others in magnificence, he sent also poets and musicians to present his verses, with tent and pavilions royally gilt and hung with tapestry. When his verses came to be recited, the excellence of the delivery at first attracted the attention of the people; but when they afterwards came to poise the meanness of the composition, they first entered into disdain, and continuing to nettle their judgments, presently proceeded to fury, and ran to pull down and tear to pieces all his pavilions: and, that his chariots neither performed anything to purpose in the race, and that the ship ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... along the deck with a monkey-like spring that was curiously characteristic of him. There was nothing of the sailor's steady poise about him. ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... water with a loud splash. This in itself was nothing remarkable, as such things are of frequent occurrence in the great order of things, and the tooth of time easily could have gnawed away the few crumbs of earth that held the stone in poise. ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... her own clean way. The thought warmed him. Here was a girl, he reflected, with a piece of steel in her backbone; a girl that would take the world's lashings like a white elm in a storm, to spring resiliently back to stately poise after the turmoil had passed. Trouble would not break her; sorrow would only make her fineness finer. There was a girl to stand ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... as I live, this Gentleman among ten thousand thousand! is there no knowing him? why should he want? fellows of no merit, slight and puft souls, that walk like shadows, by leaving no print of what they are, or poise, let ...
— Wit Without Money - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher • Francis Beaumont
... is frequently urged on grounds of health, since the wear and tear of too intense absorption in any pursuit is apt to wreck the nervous system. I urge it on the ground of mental sanity, since a man cannot maintain his mental poise if he follows the object of his devotion singly, without seeing it in relation to other objects. And I urge it also on the ground of spirituality, for a salient characteristic of spirituality is calmness, and without the mental repose which comes of detachment we ...
— The Essentials of Spirituality • Felix Adler
... ordinary man, who had a place in the Cabinet as a reward for political deeds done, and to be done. He represented a State machine, nothing more. Quality, temperament, fitness, poise had nothing to do with his selection. His wife was his equivalent, though, superficially, she appeared to better advantage, thanks to a Parisian modiste with exquisite taste, and her fond husband's bottomless ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... group. Jones, who seemed to have come to his grating when the suppressed laughter sounded in the dark corridor, heard every word of the official's speech. He was no longer the bearded desperado Jack had seen in the melee at Rosedale—there was a certain distinction in the poise of the head, an inborn gentility in the impassive contemplation with which he met the furtive scrutiny of the curious visitors. Jack he eyed with something of surprise, but when Dick pushed suddenly in front of the timorous group of young women, he started, ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... one must go yet farther, over a curving brow to a slight shelf on the extreme brink. This shelf, formed by the flaking off of a fold of granite, is about three inches wide, just wide enough for a safe rest for one's heels. To me it seemed nerve-trying to slip to this narrow foothold and poise on the edge of such precipice so close to the confusing whirl of the waters; and after casting longing glances over the shining brow of the fall and listening to its sublime psalm, I concluded not to attempt to go ...
— The Yosemite • John Muir
... poet's longing, for genuine satisfaction would kill the aspiration, and leave the poet heavy and phlegmatic. Inspiration, on the contrary, seems to give him a fictitious satisfaction; it is an arrest of his desire that affords him a delicate poise and repose, on tiptoe, so to speak. [Footnote: Compare Coleridge's statement that poetry is "a more than usual state of emotion with more than usual order." Biographia Literaria, Vol. II, Chap. I, p. 14, ed. ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... poise, if shaken at all, had returned, "certainly, you are right. It is not of my seeking, nor shall I be the one to keep it up. I am willing to let it pass. It is but ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... ebony faces with their cream white teeth showing in smiles and their wide rolling eyes make a striking contrast to the rugged face and poise of the President.] ...
— A Man of the People - A Drama of Abraham Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... venture more questions, but left the influence of the hour to work. It was a moment of delicate poise, and Rolf knew a touch would open the door or double bar it. He wondered how he might give that touch as he wished it. Skookum still slept. Both men watched the mouse, as, with quick movements it crept about. Presently it approached a long birch stick that stood up against the wall. High hanging ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... everywhere; on, on, the wind whistling in our teeth, her hair blowing, and her gilt-laced hat flying from the silken cord that held it to her shoulder. How grandly her black mare bore her—the slight, pale-faced figure sitting the saddle with such perfect grace and poise! ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... and looking on my left I observed a Tank ambling forward to take up its position for the coming show. It was emitting clouds of bluish-grey smoke from its exhaust which gave it a rather ghostly appearance in the mist.... Now and again as it came to a very deep shell-hole it stopped to poise itself on the rim and then gently tipped its nose downwards, disappearing, to rise like a huge toad on the other side, and ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... surface into wrinkles of phosphorescent fire. High over head is the wide, unbroken canopy of the Pacific sky, and the gush of a larger moon than ours fills all the sphere with splendor as the huge ship stirs lazily in its Narcissus poise over its own reflection. There is a reddish glow in the western horizon over Hong-Kong, a fainter glimmer west by south over Macao, and farther west and north the reflected glories of the sacred city of Canton. The three make a semicircular ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... grown shy, stood silent for a moment, for the time rather at a loss to carry on the play which had been easier in the open. I heard Jimmy draw a long breath. He was first to remove his hat. But his companion was quicker to regain his poise, although for a moment he forgot his pirate speech. "Gee!" ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... Edith had no more signs. Now that her mother was steadily getting back both bodily strength and mental self-poise, the veil behind which she was hiding herself, and which had been broken into rifts here and there during her sickness, grew thicker and thicker. Mrs. Dinneford had too much at stake not to play her cards with exceeding ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... of Boston, knew that she lived in the right portion of that justly celebrated city, and this knowledge was evident in the poise of her queenly head, and in every movement of her graceful form. Blundering foreigners—foreigners as far as Boston is concerned, although they may be citizens of the United States—considered Boston to be a large city, with commerce and railroads ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... He neither tore His wife's locks nor his own; but wisely weighing His own offence with hers in equal poise, And woman's weakness 'gainst the strength of man, Came to a calm and witty compromise. He coolly took his gay-faced widow home, Made her his second wife; and still the first Lost few or none of her prerogatives. The servants call'd her mistress still; she kept The keys, and ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... her to the gate and watched her go down the long flight of steps. Everything about her, from the poise of her head to the swing of her body, courted conflict and prophesied disaster. I felt as if I had snatched a bag of ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... and other accommodations for Catholic devotion. Behind a white curtain there were glimpses of a bed, which seemed arranged on a principle of conventual austerity in respect to limits and lack of softness; but still there was in the whole austerity of the premises a certain character of restraint, poise, principle, which Redclyffe liked. A table was covered with books, many of them folios in an antique binding of parchment, and others were small, thick-set volumes, into which antique lore was rammed and compressed. Through ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... foundations, too, and could not be corrupted by evil communications. I saw him more than once in straits harsh enough to try the patience of a saint, and noted with surprised admiration that his perfect poise was not ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... at the library he had quite recovered his poise, at least to the eyes of those in the library. Zita had joined Eva ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... sent down an order for the two big states to leave the matter of Uruguayan politics to his impartial adjustment. At both Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires a roar of laughter went up from the press at this notion of an obscure chieftain of a band of Indians in the tropical backwoods daring to poise the equilibrium of much more than half a continent on his insolent hand. But the merriment soon subsided, as Brazilians and Argentinos came to realize what their peril might be from a huge army of skilled and valiant ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... a moment of silence follows, but it is long enough to feel strongly the emotional state of mind of the President. It plainly irritates him to be so plainly spoken to. We are conscious that his distant poise on entering is dwindling to petty confusion. There is something inordinately cool about the fervor of the women. This too irritates him. His irritation only serves to awaken in every woman new strength. ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... public assembly and who had dared to challenge the authority of one who for nearly twenty years had been recognised as the autocrat of the village and of the whole countryside. But the Rector was an alert and gallant fighter. He quickly recovered his poise. ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... school of discipline and ordered skill. He has been made more human by schooling, by growing more self-possessed—less violent, less tumultuous; holding himself in hand, and moving always with a certain poise of spirit; not forever clapping his hand to the hilt of his sword, but preferring, rather, to play with a subtler skill upon the springs of action. This is our conception of the truly human man: a man in whom there is ...
— On Being Human • Woodrow Wilson
... had recovered her poise and posture, not to mention proclivities, and, taking to the better foot-hold on the clumps of grass along the bank, a little farther from the bridge, she managed to scamper after both her tormentors. Mary was also in the race, and on reaching the ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... he was handsome, for a Siamese; of medium stature, compact and symmetrical figure, and rather dark complexion. His conversation and deportment denoted the cultivation, delicacy, and graceful poise of an accomplished gentleman; and he delivered his English with a correctness and fluency very noticeably free from the peculiar spasmodic effort that marked his royal brother's exploits in the ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... delicate little hands that he has, and the proud, dainty poise of his head. He is evidently in disguise; and what is equally plain, he does not relish our attempts at penetrating his identity." Upon the crest of a round hill, the guide stayed his horse ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... Service Bureau and work in general, was all that was needed to convince the shrewd junior of Jean's true position in life. Then, too, Jean was extremely likable, although Althea stood a little in awe of her remarkable poise and a certain imperiousness that occasionally crept into the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... you are yourself acquainted with the young lady. Now, don't look incredulous [noticing my surprise]. Black hair—not brown, black; clear pink and white complexion; large, deep violet eyes with a remarkable poise to them."—Here I continued the description for him: "Slight of figure; a full, honest waist, without a suggestion of that execrable death-trap, Dame Fashion's hideous cuirass; a little above middle height; deliberate, ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... eyes and gave a touching sadness to her expressive face. She was dressed in simple black, with exquisite taste, and without an ornament. The thin lace vail which partially covered her face did not so much conceal as heighten her beauty. She would not have entered a drawing room with more self-poise, nor a church with more haughty humility. There was in her manner or face neither shame nor boldness, and when she took her seat in fall view of half the spectators, her eyes were downcast. A murmur of admiration ran through the room. The newspaper reporters ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 6. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... in her eyes and the half-contemptuous pride in the poise of the shapely head. Loyalty, it was evident, was not a figure of speech with her, but he felt that he had seen enough and turned ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... south wind blows, it is a study to see three or four of these air-kings at the head of the valley far up toward the mountain, balancing and oscillating upon the strong current; now quite stationary, except a slight tremulous motion like the poise of a rope-dancer, then rising and falling in long undulations, and seeming to resign themselves passively to the wind; or, again sailing high and level far above the mountain's peak, no bluster and haste, but as stated, occasionally a terrible earnestness and speed. Fire at one as he ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... am essentially weak, he thought, I need work to do, work to do. It worried him to think that he was, after all, a facile mediocrity, with neither the poise of Maury nor the enthusiasm of Dick. It seemed a tragedy to want nothing—and yet he wanted something, something. He knew in flashes what it was—some path of hope to lead him toward what he thought was an ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... martial splendour—only her own past, her haunting skull and cross-bones of the Bygone. Her violet-coloured dressing-gown was unbuttoned at the throat, exposing the graceful turn of the neck, and the proud poise of the perfectly modelled head, from which the shining hair fell like Danae's shower, framing the face and figure on a back ground as golden as that of some carefully preserved ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... whom I had said little of this brother, certainly nothing which would lead her to anticipate seeing either so handsome a man or one of such mental poise and imposing character, looked frightened and a trifle awe-struck. But she advanced quite bravely toward him, and at my introduction smiled with such an inviting grace that I secretly expected to see him more or less disarmed ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... Meanwhile, it was quite an experience, and she had every confidence in Thornton. She glanced at him now. It was too dark to get more than an indistinct outline of the clean-cut profile, but there was something inspiriting in the alert, self-possessed, competent poise of his body as he crouched well forward over the wheel, his eyes never lifting ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... callers had thrown them off their balance. But of course this was different. He was a little flustered himself—a circumstance that dawned upon him with surprise. When the Gales had been shown to rooms, Mrs. Belding gained the poise momentarily lost; but Nell came rushing back, wilder than a deer, in a state of ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... revealed, winds through the vale, Shimmering in the early morning sun. A few white clouds float in the blue expanse, Their forms revealed in the clear lake beneath, Which bears upon its breast a bark canoe, Cautiously guided by a sinewy arm. High in the heavens, three eagles proudly poise, Keeping their mountain eyrie still in view, Although their flight has borne them far away. Upon the cliff which beetles o'er the pool, Two Indians, peering from the brink, appear, Clad in the gaudy dress their nature craves— Robes of bright blue and scarlet, ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis
... realize. It had put a clear, steady look into her eyes in place of the glassy shine of fever. It was beginning to fill out that hollow in her neck, so that it no longer showed the angular ends of her collar bones. It had put a resilient quality into her walk, firmness into the poise of her head. It had made it physically possible, for instance, for Helen May to trudge out into the wild to hunt nine goats that had strayed ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... all music to a close, Pluck one sweet wire scarce-audible that trembles, As if a little child, called Purity, Sang heedlessly on of his dear Imogen? Surely if some young flowers of Spring were put Into the tender hollow of her heart, 'Twould faintly answer, trembling in their petals. Poise but a wild bird's feather, it will stir On lips that even in silence wear the badge Only of truth. Let but a cricket wake, And sing of home, and bid her lids unseal The unspeakable hospitality of her eyes. O childless soul—call once her husband's name! And even if indeed ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare
... with low-hanging heads, while at the rear, sitting his saddle sturdily rather than with grace, rode a young man bareheaded, but otherwise in the rough-and-ready dress of a plainsman. His eyes were on the sunset also, and something in the manner of his beard, as well as in the poise of his head, proclaimed him to be the master of the little train, a man of culture and ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... uniform of his class could not conceal the grace of form which health and activity had moulded, working through highly favoured generations. There was latent force implied in every line of it, and, in the steady poise of look and mien, that perfect nervous balance which ...
— Cecilia de Noel • Lanoe Falconer
... snow at a distance, his tail is quite as conspicuous as his body; and, so far from appearing a burden, seems to contribute to his lightness and buoyancy. It softens the outline of his movements, and repeats or continues to the eye the ease and poise of his carriage. But, pursued by the hound on a wet, thawy day, it often becomes so heavy and bedraggled as to prove a serious inconvenience, and compels him to take refuge in his den. He is very loath to do this; both his pride and the traditions ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... in this train, but must see the world, and its contemptible grandeurs, lessen before him at every thought? It is enough to make one remain stupefied in a poise of inaction, void of all desires, of all designs, of ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... It was just sunrise on the 10th when Allen addressed his men with "We must this morning either quit our pretensions to valor, or possess ourselves of this fortress; and inasmuch as it is a desperate attempt, I do not urge it, contrary to your will. You that will undertake voluntarily, poise your firelocks!" The response was unanimous. The wicket of the stronghold was found open; the sentry snapped his gun at Allen, missed him, and was overpowered with a rush, together with the other guards. On the parade within, a hollow square was formed, ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... Himalaya I have watched an eagle circling overhead. I have sat on the mountain-side and watched it sail majestically along in graceful curves and circles, and with perfect ease and poise. Far above the earth it would range, and seemingly without exertion glide easily over tracts that we poor men could only enter by prodigious effort. Captivated by its grace of motion, and jealous of its freedom, I ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... Says thus, and says extremely right; Strict justice is the sovereign guide, That o'er our actions should preside; This queen of virtue is confess'd To regulate and bind the rest. Thrice happy, if you can but find Her equal balance poise your mind: All diff'rent graces soon will enter, Like lines ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... the tone of her voice and the quick way in which she had warded off his tribute to her goodness; he recalled her anxiety over Lucy; he looked again into the deep, trusting eyes that gazed into his as she appealed to him for assistance; he caught once more the poise of the head as she listened to his account of little Tod Fogarty's illness and heard her quick offer to help, and felt for the second time her instant tenderness and sympathy, never withheld from the sick and suffering, and ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... having proved vain, Lollie, far from being embarrassed, bowed low again with the poise of one who has recited brilliantly, and took his seat amid the ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... not, brother, Inferr, as if I thought my sisters state Secure without all doubt, or controversie: Yet where an equall poise of hope and fear 410 Does arbitrate th'event, my nature is That I encline to hope, rather then fear, And gladly banish squint suspicion. My sister is not so defenceless left As you imagine, she has a hidden strength Which you ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... just such a look of innocent, pleased wonder, as might be in a child's eyes, who had been told to leave studying and go pick violets. But as the Colonel ended he spoke, and the few words he said, the few questions he asked, were full of poise, of crisp directness. As the General volunteered a word or two, he turned to him and answered with a very charming deference, a respect that was yet full of gracious ease, the unconscious air of a ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... however great the tension had been before, it was even greater when Miss Digby stepped upon the scene. But she was not a woman to be shaken from her poise even by a crisis of this importance. When the dilemma had been presented to her and the full situation grasped, she looked first at Mr. Cornell and then at Mr. ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... and while the other members of the family repaired to the shade of a tree outside the grounds to enjoy that refection, she wandered about the "floral hall," gazing at the splendors of bloom thronging there, all so different from the shy grace, the fragility of poise, the delicacy of texture of the flowers of her ken,—the rhododendron, the azalea, the Chilhowee lily,—yet vastly imposing in their massed exuberance and scarlet pride, for somehow ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... thus I could take a full look at her without intrusiveness. Apparently well over sixty years old, and her face lines telling of many troubles, yet she had not a gray hair in her head and her poise was of an independent landowner rather than an occupier of another's home. I also saw at a glance that whatever her present position might be, she had not been born in service, but was probably a native of local importance, ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... then for me. But ours—what manner of child is this? the hair Buds flowerwise round his darkening lips and chin, This hand's young hardening palm knows how to bear The sword-hilt's poise that late I laid therein - Ha? ...
— Locrine - A Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... glimpse at her face as he hurried upon the house on his way to the main halyards. Her face was pale, but there was the firm spirit of her Yankee ancestry of the sea in her poise and in her very silence in that crisis. She obeyed without complaint or question and the cabin was dark; even the glimmer of the light had held something of cheer. Now the ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... the secret of it is to be looked for in the amazing poise and self-possession of these women; a self-possession which is indicated in their moments of withdrawn and ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... aversion that he had fled from him at daylight, and how he had ever since been haunted by the fear of seeing the assassin again and being claimed by him as an acquaintance. When he had related this, with an emphasis and poise on the word, 'assassin,' peculiarly belonging to his own language, and which did not serve to render it less terrible to Clennam, he suddenly sprang to his feet, pounced upon the bill again, and with a vehemence that would have been absolute madness in any man of Northern origin, cried 'Behold ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... came the right arm; they saw the claw-hand with a spear, poise itself a moment. From the open mouth burst with astounding force and suddenness a snarling yowl, inarticulate, shrill, ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... me all this with simplicity. My voice had destroyed her poise—the suicide poise of her mind. Every act of ours, the most criminal, the most mad, presupposes a balance of thought, feeling and will, like a correct attitude for an effective stroke in a game. And I had destroyed it. She was no longer in proper form for the act. She was not very much ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... into the crowds streaming downtown to their work and, scarcely conscious of anything save the ache within, found himself again in his room. He disarranged his bed that his sleepless night might not excite comment. He was just a little ashamed that his loss of poise had been so complete ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... her poise, sank hissing to the ground. "My neuralgia's worse than ever this evening," she complained, affecting not ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... below, With its bulrush brook where the hazels grow; 'Twas there I found the calamus root, And watched the minnows poise and shoot, And heard the robin lave his wing:— But the stranger's bucket is ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... at Susan—a straight, slim figure with the carriage and the poise of head that indicate self-confidence and pride. As he gazed Madame Clelie watched him with fascinated eyes. It was both thrilling and terrifying to see such love as he was revealing—a love more dangerous than hate. Palmer noted that he was ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... sure how long he clung there, but his white face and the poise of his strung-up figure impressed themselves indelibly on her memory. Strain was expressed in every line of his body and in his clutching hands. Then the strength and decision that was in her asserted itself, and she overcame the numbing horror that had held ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... the unhappiness of those first years of my married life. I was awkward and ill at ease in a world that valued social poise above knowledge. From my childhood I had loved honest, sincere people. After my marriage I met distinguished men and women, even a few who might be called great; but they, too, had their affectations and ...
— The Log-Cabin Lady, An Anonymous Autobiography • Unknown
... like a bird rather than a cat. There was nothing in her of the feline grace of which we hear so much. Her movements were all direct and rapid; her feet seemed to skim, not to tread, the ground with an airy poise, which even when she stood still implied movement, always light, untiring, full of energy and impulse. Her eyes were gray—if it is possible to call by the name of the dullest of tints those two globes of light, now dark, now golden, now liquid with dew, and now with flame. Her hair was ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... feminine genius is Natalie de Santos. The steady self-poise of her nature prevents even a breath of scandal. Frank, daring, and open in her pleasures, she individualizes no swain, she encourages no one sighing lover. Her name needs no defence save the open record of her social life. A solid, undisturbed position grows around her. ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... quite as much as does my heart. I do not think a man meets such a woman or such a chance for happiness twice in a lifetime. I did not believe there was such a woman in the world. You may laugh and say that is the way all lovers talk. I answer emphatically, No. I have not yet lost my poise, and I never was a predestined lover. I might easily have gone through life and never given to these subjects an hour's thought. Even now I could quietly decide to go away and take up my old life as I left it. But why should ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... tempt cupidity, and not a magazine to furnish arms for defence. I knew, that, attacked on all sides by the infernal energies of talents set in action by vice and disorder, authority could not stand upon authority alone. It wanted some other support than the poise of its own gravity. Situations formerly supported persons. It now became necessary that personal qualities should support situations. Formerly, where authority was found, wisdom and virtue were presumed. But now the veil was torn, and, to keep off sacrilegious intrusion, it was necessary that in ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... imagine Arjuna on the floor of the chariot, despondent, despairing; then come to Sri Krishna, the Charioteer, the Friend and Teacher. Then, fixing your mind on the central figure, let your heart go out to Him with onepointed devotion. Resting on Him, poise yourself in silence and, as before, wait ...
— An Introduction to Yoga • Annie Besant
... wholly curious gaze of a girl. Hardly more than a child she seemed, not over fourteen at the outside, and with a figure that was all flatness and unlovely angles. Certainly an exceedingly ugly duckling, yet there was promise of future swanship in the clean curves of her neck and in the firm poise of the small head. Moreover, her coloring was good, a clear brown through which a scarlet flush, born of the excitement of the moment, glowed intermittently, like the flashing of distant signal-flags. And in her eyes there was a curious red glint where the light fell slantingly ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... With a wonderful power it portrays Christ as rising above the plane of merely human characters—as belonging to no age or race or stage of civilization—as transcendent not in some of the virtues, but in them all—as never subject to prejudice, or the impulse of passion, never losing that perfect poise which it has been impossible for the greatest of men to achieve—as possessed of a mysterious magnetism which carried conviction to His hearers even when claiming to be one with the Infinite—as inspiring ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... never saw another of the family till, when passing through the Notch of the White Mountains, at that moment striding before us in all the panoply of sunset, the driver shouted, "Look there!" and following with our eyes his upward-pointing finger, we saw, soaring slow in majestic poise above the highest summit, the bird of Jove. It was a glorious sight, yet I know not that I felt more on seeing the bird in all its natural freedom and royalty, than when, imprisoned and insulted, ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... this lady your mother?" On Rose's assenting, with the addition that she was travelling with her, he said: "Will you be so kind as to introduce me to her?" They were so close to Mrs. Tramore that she probably heard, but she floated away with a single stroke of her paddle and an inattentive poise of her head. It was a striking exhibition of the famous tact, for Rose delayed to answer, which was exactly what might have made her mother wish to turn; and indeed when at last the girl spoke she only said to her companion: "Why do you ask ...
— The Chaperon • Henry James
... I won't ever want what you can't give If only there were no chains, no walls Impossible to get him to look at things in a complicated way Insinuations about the private affairs of others Insolent poise of those who are above doubts and cares Lest they should lose belief in their own strength Man who gives advice is a fool Man who knows his own mind and is contented with that knowledge Mayn't they love each other, if they want? Never talked of women, and none talked of women ...
— Quotations from the Works of John Galsworthy • David Widger
... opportunity to expose the blank surface of those years to the fine etching of the present. Miriam at home, the Greys at Wychford, and in some ways most of all Richard Ford at Fairfield gave him in a few months the poise he would have received more gradually ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... moment you must admire Rooney with me as he receives, seats, manipulates, and chaffs his guests. He is twenty-nine. He has Wellington's nose, Dante's chin, the cheek-bones of an Iroquois, the smile of Talleyrand, Corbett's foot work, and the poise of an eleven-year-old East Side Central Park Queen of the May. He is assisted by a lieutenant known as Frank, a pudgy, easy chap, swell-dressed, who goes among the tables seeing that dull care does not intrude. Now, what is there ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... coming to the field, and his forearm was corrugated with muscle, while the flexors responded to movements like balls of iron starting under the brown skin. His shoulders were broad and set well back, his poise buoyant, and his air of absolute confidence gave a dubious tone to the words of the quidnuncs who were allowing Quigley three minutes to whip him out of all recognition. Done looked slight and small before his big opponent, but Pete's ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... supreme moral trial. For the week of deliberation before he emerged as the teacher of the Congregation was certainly not spent upon detailed difficulties either of future legislation or present consistency. It prolonged itself rather in poise and struggle against the more obvious and tremendous obstacles, reinforced no doubt by a thousand more remote behind them. But the ultimate question was whether the gigantic strain of all of these combined would be too much for an anchor dropped by one ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... a quick move, Mallow took the offensive, and tried to unsettle Dyck's poise and disorganize his battle-plan. For an instant the tempestuous action, the brilliant, swift play of the sword, the quivering flippancy of the steel, gave Dyck that which almost disconcerted him. Yet he had a grip of himself, and preserved his defence intact; though once his ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... her hand, the Bishop's benediction had been given, the bridesmaids were a-poise to resume their place in the procession, and the organ was showing preliminary symptoms of breaking out into the Mendelssohn March, without which no newly-wedded couple had ever emerged ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... the plain road to the top.) Self Mastery. (How to centralize attention.) Training the Will. (A mighty force at your disposal.) Mental Poise. (How to command conditions.) Business Success. (How to coordinate forces by concentration.) Attaining Wealth. (How to attract money bringing factors.) How Courage is Gained. (Use of concentration to drive out fear.) Memory by ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... Oliver somehow and suddenly felt all the admiration he had ever had for her calm power blow away from him like smoke. He could not help extremest appreciation of her utter poise—he never would be able to, he supposed—but from now on it would be the somewhat shivery appreciation that anyone with sensitive nerves might give to the smooth mechanical efficiency of ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... took the dancing little embryo warriors one in either hand, and lifted them to his majestic shoulders. There he placed them in perfect poise. His haughty spirit found ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... that the luminous eyes grew suddenly cold, while her head assumed its usual haughty poise; the brief spell was over, and ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... background. It needs history, philosophy, economic understanding and a wealth of racial experience to give to any people either the power to quickly discriminate between the truth and the half-truth, or to carry itself with poise through a transitional period. But one may not dispose of the distinct hold of Christian Science upon its followers by such generalizations. The real inwardness of no religion can ever be known from its theology. A sincere devotion may attend a most deficient theology ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... for a year the organization should be used nationally and locally to pursue and punish political corruption. "The women in our association," she said, "are trained to political action; we have had long experience in self-control; defeat has taught us its lessons of poise; devotion to a great principle has given us a faith almost religious in its optimism." The men were taking no concerted action to protect the republic against this menace, she thought, and the task seemed to be left ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... Alaskan tan and New York evening clothes and Piccadilly poise, was talking to the Eugene Gilsons while Claire finished dressing ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... which the soul needs on the nature of man. Wonderfully has Holman Hunt elaborated this truth in his picture "The Light of the World." The ideal humanity never had more beautiful expression than in that great sermon in color. The poise of the figure of Jesus indicates strength and self-control; the thorns on the brow tell their story of sorrow and pain; the hand at the door shows that one man at least is mindful of the welfare of His brother; the ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford
... surplus energy. Play was a waste of time. Now it is more clearly understood that play has a distinct value. It is physically beneficial, expanding the lungs, strengthening muscle and nerve, and giving poise and elasticity to the whole body. It is mentally educational in developing qualities of quickness, skill, and leadership. It is socially valuable, for it requires honesty, fair play, mutual consideration, and self-control. Co-operation ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... who ever bold have been, Are your long spears sharpened well? Fix anew the quartz-stone keen, Let each shaft upon them tell. Poise your meer-ros, long and sure, Let the kileys whiz and whirl Strangely through the air so pure; Heavy dow-uks at them hurl; Shout the yell they dread to hear. Let the young men leap on high, To avoid the quivering spear; Light of limb and quick of ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... of various form; Abysmal depths, and dire profundities; Chasms so deep and awful that the eye Of soaring eagle dare not gaze below, Lest, dizzied, he should lose his aerial poise, And headlong falling, reach the ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... itching that attends the puncture of these winged leeches, whose voracity is incredible. I have at times caught a villain in the act, and watched with patience until from one of the veins of the hand he had drunk blood enough to blow out his little carcase to the shape of a tennis-ball, when he would poise himself upon his long legs, and, spreading his wings, make an effort to rise, but in vain; bloated and unwieldy, his wings refused to sustain him; his usual activity was gone, and there he stood disgustingly helpless, incapacitated ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... degree was the perfect poise of the peerless personage behind the register jarred. But by only one. He was a hotel ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various |
