"Supple" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the fairies and nymphs, noted for the shortness of her filmy skirts, the supple beauty of her shapely limbs, her incomparable dancing, and her dark, bright beauty, flashed La ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... who was none other than Black Bruin, was holding up a section between his paws, while with his supple red tongue he licked out the contents. Although the bees were swarming about him in a black cloud and doing their best to punish the thief, he paid little attention to them but licked away for ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... bring relief to those who toss in waves. They care for mothers left to starve, alone. In pestilence, they labor long to soothe The fevered brow and ease the gnawing pain With medicine and shelter, food and clothes. In war the wound is dressed and duly nursed With gentle supple hands—with nourishment For mind and body. Cross of red, all hail! They serve for us most willingly and well. Then chide themselves when they have come too late! Like mothers when their sons have fallen short; In early dawn and through the night they toil. O God do bless this noble work ...
— Clear Crystals • Clara M. Beede
... beginning of the sixteenth centuries. Their ideal was totally different from that of the old masters. The figure treated for itself with but few accessories became the sole aim of the painter. He endeavored to show the charm of a woman's face, the dainty and elegant gestures, the supple and voluptuous gait, and he grasped the characteristics and peculiarities of a man's figure by means of an intensified drawing. At times, the influence of analysis was so objective that it resulted in a painting closely approaching European standards. The taste expressed ...
— Chinese Painters - A Critical Study • Raphael Petrucci
... land. Generous and kind-hearted to a degree, his impatience often hurried him into actions which grieved his parents. He was generally in hot water at school. He fought, and he generally won, but his cause was not always right. He was supple, and he excelled in ...
— The Hunted Outlaw - Donald Morrison, The Canadian Rob Roy • Anonymous
... the year 1300 the pay of a common scribe was about one half-penny a day, see Stevenson's Supple. to Bentham's Hist. of the Church ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... Pyrenean lands, all bushes and vast woods, the melancholy of the rainy nights of declining seasons fell slowly, enveloping like a shroud, while Ramuntcho walked on the moss-covered path, without noise, shod with rope soles, supple and silent ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... man ostentatiously broke the seal from a new pack of cards, dexterously spreading them across the table. His hands, Gordon saw, were extraordinarily supple, and emanated a sickly odor of glycerine. His companion's were huge and misshapen, but they, ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... her on her pretty supple shoulder. "Hold your tongue, you wretched creature. I'll give you worse than that! If that scoundrel dares to show himself here ever again, if I see you— listen!—with that blackguard ever again, don't ask for mercy! ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... dough, pudding; alumina, argil; cushion, pillow, feather bed, down, padding, wadding; foam. mollification; softening &c v.. V. render soft &c adj.; soften, mollify, mellow, relax, temper; mash, knead, squash. bend, yield, relent, relax, give. plasticize'. Adj. soft, tender, supple; pliant, pliable; flexible, flexile; lithe, lithesome; lissom, limber, plastic; ductile; tractile^, tractable; malleable, extensile, sequacious^, inelastic; aluminous^; remollient^. yielding &c v.; flabby, limp, flimsy. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Tausig's in technic and tone. Paderewski, who has broadened and developed amazingly during ten years, has many of Henselt's traits—and I am sure he never heard the elder pianist. But he belongs to that group: tonal euphony, supple technic, a caressing manner, and a perfect control of self. Remember, I am speaking of the Henselt who played for a few friends, not the frightened, semi-limp pianist who emerged at long intervals before the public. Paderewski is thrice as poetic as Henselt—who ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... some time before Sylvia became aware of it—something about a brisk walk in the morning somewhere; and she nodded impatiently, watching Marion's supple waist-line as she bent far over the illuminated table for a ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... trick and quip I learnt when I was with old Nat Fire-eater. And I'm stiffer in the joints and weightier in the heft than I was in those days when I slept in the fields, and fasted more than ever Holy Church meant. But, heigh ho! I ought to be supple enough after the practice of these three days. Moreover, if it could loose a fool's tongue to have a king and queen for interpreters, I had them—for there were our Harry and Moll catching at every ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... coils of that loose-bound hair; the poise of head and neck; the eloquent sway of the form; the folds of garments that no longer hide, but are illumined by, the plenitude of an inner life and grace; the elastic feet; the ethereal energy and discipline of arms and shoulders; the supple wrists; the very fingers quivering on the strings; the rapt face, ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... in the ecstasy of his religion, amazed at the enlightenment thrown upon his own enigmatical life, uplifted at the task before him. Yea! he trembled in the ecstasy of his religion, forgetting that love and passion and life ran just as riotously in his supple ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... Hermia thought, and took her place upon the mat, where, under Luigi's direction, she went through the exercises which were to keep her young limbs supple for the approaching performances. It was the familiar thing—the slow bending of the back until the palms of the hands touched the ground, in which position the child walked backward and forward, the contortions of the slender body, ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... wanted us to hire out to help them round up several hundred wild horses. We had never before rode on a horse ranch and we wished to be full fledged so we consented. We had a lively time. The Kid was lighter and more supple than I; and got out of it some easier than I. I had picked out a rangey lank bronco; he would quit the earth and climb the sky like a flying machine; and drop down and strike the rocks with his legs stiff as a post. ...
— Black Beaver - The Trapper • James Campbell Lewis
... is here the Committee— Sweet-breathed and smooth of skin And supple of spine and knee, With shining unpouched eyes And the blood, high-powered, Leaping in flexible arteries— The insolent, young, enthusiastic, undiscriminating Committee, Who would placard tombstones And scatter leaflets even ...
— The Ghetto and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... the scented flower, The young tree's supple bough, And leave my human feelings In their own ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
... detach myself from her, she had twisted herself about, in a peculiarly supple and child-like manner that she had, and had made ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... large bedroom through the doorway. She had taken off her hat and gloves and smoothed the hair that lay on her neck in a heavy plait. At the collar of the plain black dress that fell to her feet over the curving lines of her supple figure she had placed a red rose, half blown. She was tall and straight and graceful, more than beautiful in her strong fresh womanhood, as much at home in such a house as this as in the wretched room where he had watched her sewing ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... indicated. She stood where she was and watched him. For two or three minutes he looked at the picture in silence, and she thought his expression had become slightly hostile. His audacious and rather thick lips were set together firmly, almost too firmly. His splendid figure supple, athletic and harmonious, looked almost rigid. She wondered what he was feeling, whether he disliked the portrait of the judge of the Criminal Court at which he ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... hardly believe the evidence of our senses, yet there stood the cunning scamp before us, with his long limbs and lank body, as supple as ever, and grinning with delight at ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... principle are plenty to trim, compromise, and compound as oligarchs or demagogues bid; but as the merit of some substances is the lack of ductility, so how oft we must lean on unmalleable men, whose back-bone is not supple as a universal joint, who will not "crook the pregnant hinges of the knee where thrift may follow fawning," and who, in a noble discontent with all yet undertaken or done, summon to worthier performance towards never-attained perfection ...
— Senatorial Character - A Sermon in West Church, Boston, Sunday, 15th of March, - After the Decease of Charles Sumner. • C. A. Bartol
... my youth,' said the sage, as he shook his grey locks, 'I kept all my limbs very supple By the use of this ointment—one shilling the box— Allow me ...
— Alice's Adventures in Wonderland • Lewis Carroll
... He held a supple riding-switch in his hands, at which his fingers strained and twisted continually, as though somewhere in the inner man there burned a fierce impatience. But his dark face was as immovable as though it had ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... sixteen. I say faithless-looking, not because he was really of a very perfidious disposition, but because the epithet strikes me as proper to describe the fair, Celtic (not Saxon) character of his good looks; his waved light auburn hair, his supple symmetry, his smile frequent, and destitute neither of fascination nor of subtlety (in no bad sense). A spoiled, whimsical boy he was in ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... in an agony. Her foolish words set wasps about his head. "For the love of Allah, let Iskender anger no man, but be supple, politic, and so respected. Now that he is cast off by your Brutestants, there is nothing for it but he must become a dragoman. The Englishman of whom I spoke is but a step. He has need of all men's favour, and must court it diligently. ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... me of a Turk lying amid houris. The gnawing, creeping sensualities of his phrase—his one phrase—how descriptive it is of the form and whiteness of a shoulder, the supple fulness of the arm's muscle, the brightness of eyes increased by kohl! Scent is burning on silver dishes, and through the fumes appear the subdued colours of embroidered stuffs and the inscrutable traceries ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... rapidly but with such a frankness in his urgency, such amiable kindliness, that Mrs. Pasmer could not feel that it was pushing. She looked at her daughter, but she stood as passive in the transaction as the elder Mavering. She was taller than her mother, and as she waited, her supple figure described that fine lateral curve which one sees in some Louis Quinze portraits; this effect was enhanced by the fashion of her dress of pale sage green, with a wide stripe or sash of white dropping ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... old king saw this—saw that the prince, The apple of his eye, dearer than life, Stately in form, supple and strong in limb, Quick to learn every art of peace and war, Displaying and excelling every grace And attribute of his most royal line, Whom all would follow whereso'er he led, So fit to rule the world if he ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... about his history and personality. And he liked them all. He liked even Rose, so pale, strange, and contentious. In regard to Milly, whom he had begun by despising, he silently admitted that a girl so vivacious, supple, sparkling, and pretty, had the right to be as pertly foolish as she chose. He took a direct fancy to Ethel. And he decided once for ever that Leonora was ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... her. How can a Thing who wears her supple'ment under her left arm have any notion of the fitness of things—much less their folly? If she discards The Dancing Master after having once seen him dance, I may ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... like fence-posts, so that they stand deep and rigid, a reproach and an accusation; but it requires a particular skill to judge by the pull whether or not they will hold through the night and at the same time yield with gentle and supple swing to the least movement of the sleeper. A Carib knows, instantly, worthy and unworthy ground. I have seen an Indian sink his hamaca posts into sand with one swift, concentrated motion, mathematical in its precision and surety, so that he might enter at once into a peaceful night of tranquil ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... I think you are mistaken. They can't be stiff. At the worst they merely want the air of New York, which, being impregnated with the flavour of last year's oysters, has a surprising effect in rendering the human frame supple and flexible in all ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... "How's Mary, Miss Hilton? She'll have been sadly hindered with all this rain. They put off two cricket-matches this week. They're not playing football yet, or else the weather wouldn't matter so much. They say the wet weather keeps their joints supple. It's the dry weather and frost that's so hard to play in. Ted's always one for a lot of sport, specially football. Such a mess as he comes home sometimes. 'You must clean your own clothes,' I always says to him. We have a ...
— Women of the Country • Gertrude Bone
... Bessie was small, her form inclining to fulness, her face childlike in dimpled smiles and innocent blushes,—betraying no lack of intellect, but most expressive of a quiet, almost indolent amiability. Zelma was large, but lithe, supple, and vigorous, with a pard-like freedom and elasticity of movement,—dark, with a subdued and changing color,—the fluttering signal of sudden emotion, not the stationary sign of robust health. She ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... struggling with Agave and her demented crew. They were tearing him to pieces, their fingers were at his throat. Then he was in the East, a defenceless traveller in the tropical desert, surrounded by Thugs. He pointed to one particular spot where he saw his insidious foe—he described the dusky supple figure, the sinuous limbs, gliding serpent-like towards him, the oiled body, the dagger in the uplifted hand. An illustration in Sir Charles Bell's classic treatise had flashed into his brain. So, from memory to memory, with a frightful fertility of fancy, ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... elegance, which indeed is a fine quality when natural but not when affected. Sound bodies, with a healthy condition of blood, and strong by exercise, receive their beauty from the very things from which they receive their strength. They are fresh-colored, active, and supple, neither too much nor too little in flesh. Paint and polish them with feminine cosmetics, and admiration ceases; the very pains taken to make them appear more beautiful add to the dislike we conceive for them. Yet a magnificent, and suitable, dress adds authority to man; but an ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... the heavy back of a chair in supple hands descended out of space behind him with a thud; and a great tall fellow, staggering backward with the unexpected pain of that stroke, for the moment obstructed his comrades. For Henry had followed where he could ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... another cast, with a slight twist of her supple waist. The fly flew out, falling two or three yards beyond the rock and she pulled back, gently, her lure rippling the dark surface. Then came a faint splash, a vision of a silvery gleam upon the water, which smoothed down ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... strength. His eyes, set in a large and ingenuous face, seemed to me very intelligent; they were of a dreamy sea-blue. Long hair, which would have been called red even in England, fell in long meshes upon his broad shoulders. The movements of this native were lithe and supple; but he made little use of his arms in speaking, like a man who knew nothing or cared nothing about the language of gestures. His whole appearance bespoke perfect calmness and self-possession, not ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... before that baneful, blazing glance, while his head, mentally brave, reared itself, as if to redeem the cowardice of the frame to which it belonged. So the attitude of the serpent: the body pliant, yielding, supple; but the crest thrown aloft, erect, and threatening. As for Zonla, she was frozen in the attitude of motion;—a dancing nymph in colored marble; agility stunned; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... camp-followers. At a place in Hertfordshire I saw a performance advertised with several children as fairies, so I went to see it. I was soon satisfied that Alwyn was not there; but it struck me that I had known the face of the prime hero, a fine handsome supple fellow, who was called in the programme Herr Adalbert Steinfuggen, or some such name. Well, it seemed that he knew me, for as I struggled out after a considerable interval, I heard myself accosted, "Mr. Dutton! Sir, surely I have the honour of speaking to Mr. Dutton of Micklethwayte?" ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of youth and life. He runs up the steps, two at a time. The lady on the porch lifts her eyes just one moment, but womanlike she sees much in a glance. She sees that his eyes are of a wonderful dark blue; that his hair is thick and wavy; and that he is tall, straight and strong. How lithe and supple he seems, too, as he runs up the steps and disappears into the house. Has he seen the lady Madonna? She does not know. There is indeed something strange about this dark haired man; something out of the ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... had supervened between them became so marked as to strike Hite's attention, the mountaineer sought to nullify it by an allusion to the horse. "That feller puts down his feet like a kitten," he said admiringly. "I never seen nuthin' ez wears shoes so supple. Shows speed, I s'pose? Built ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... apathetic indifference, nobody could have guessed of the double load she carried under the visible burden of the tray piled up high with cakes manufactured by the thrifty hands of Bulangi's wives. In that supple figure straight as an arrow, so graceful and free in its walk, behind those soft eyes that spoke of nothing but of unconscious resignation, there slept all feelings and all passions, all hopes and all fears, the curse of life and the consolation of ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... in screaming wild alarms O'er a dead carcase muttering her charms, 410 (And with her frequent and tremendous yell Forcing great Hecate from out of hell) Shoots in the corpse a new fictitious soul; With instant glare the supple eyeballs roll, Again it moves and speaks, and life informs the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... property of movement of fluids in the supple parts of the living body which contain them is to open (frayer) there routes, places of deposit and tissues; to create there canals, and consequently different organs; to cause these canals and these organs to vary there by reason of the diversity both of the movements as well as the ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... native weapons from various countries—assegais, spears, boomerangs, throwing sticks, sjamboks and South Sea Island clubs and shields. A special nail held Jim's own stockwhip, to which Norah always attended after he had gone away, lest the supple thong should become harsh through disuse. Then there were weapons of peace—hockey sticks, rackets, cricket-bats—the latter an assortment of all Jim had used, from the tiny one he had begun with at the age of eight to the ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... of a piece with her own nature—vivid, wholesome, impassioned. Her supple fingers drew the heart out of each wire. Yet she did not find it necessary to sway her body to and fro; but sat square and upright, her head a little lifted, as though evolving the music ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... was very unhappy, and everything was explained later. To-day, recalling the past, I should not say she was such a beauty as she seemed to me then. Perhaps she was really not pretty at all. Tall, slim, but strong and supple, she struck one by the irregularities of the lines of her face. Her eyes were set somewhat like a Kalmuck's, slanting; she was pale and thin in the face with high cheek-bones, but there was something in the face that conquered and fascinated! There was something ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... alexandrine is to be found—to be found by searching—in Crashaw; and he took precisely the same care as Cowley that the long wand of that line should not give way in the middle—should be strong and supple and should last. Here are four of ...
— Flower of the Mind • Alice Meynell
... eyes were blue, as keen as her father's, and now they flashed like his. She had a hand twisted in the horse's long mane, and as, lithe and supple, she slipped a knee across his broad back she shook a little gantleted ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... tall, supple, erect; with a positive splendor of health and color. Her dress was that of the Fife fisher-girl; a blue flannel jacket, a very short white and yellow petticoat, and a white cap drawn over her hair, and tied down with a lilac kerchief knotted under the chin. ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... men may know it How many worthy men have we known to survive their reputation Humble out of pride I am very glad to find the way beaten before me by others I find myself here fettered by the laws of ceremony I have no mind to die, but I have no objection to be dead I have not a wit supple enough to evade a sudden question I have nothing of my own that satisfies my judgment I would be rich of myself, and not by borrowing Ill luck is good for something Imitating other men's natures, thou layest aside thy own Immoderate either seeking or evading glory or reputation Impunity ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Essays of Montaigne • David Widger
... was a large-boned, muscular man, nearly six feet high. The sleeve rolled up above the elbow showed an arm that was likely to win the prize for feats of strength; yet the long, supple hand, with its broad finger tips, looked ready for works of skill. In his tall stalwartness Adam Bede was a Saxon, and justified his name. The face was large and roughly hewn, and when in repose had no other beauty than such as ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... sought the quay to engage a boat. They walked shoulder to shoulder, flat-backed, with supple swinging limbs, tanned faces and clear animated eyes. Perhaps Harrigan was ten or fifteen pounds heavier, but the difference would have been ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... him in with a single comprehensive glance that was polite without being cordial. Her neck, he noticed, was extraordinarily supple in spite of its proportions, for it turned so easily to follow him, and the head it carried bowed ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... Colibri said hurriedly, and suddenly to Kuzma Vassilyevitch's complete surprise, flung her smooth, supple arms round his neck and a rapid kiss burned his cheek ... as though a red-hot ember ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... coming out of the hotel, was warned by a sky shaded from blue to the murkiest gray, into having the top of his car put up. The rain chased him for thirty miles and whelmed him in a wild swirl at the thirty-first. Driving through this with some caution, he saw ahead of him a woman's figure, as supple as a willow withe, as gallant as a ship, beating through the fury of the elements. Hal slowed down, debating whether to offer conveyance, when he caught a glint of ruddy waves beneath the drenched hat, and the next instant he was out and looking into the flushed ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... must be very warm and comfortable," said he; "the leather is so soft and supple." They fitted his feet as though they had been made for him. "'Tis a curious world we live in," continued he, soliloquizing. "There is the lieutenant, now, who might go quietly to bed if he chose, where no doubt he could stretch himself at his ease; but does ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... strong; few men in the force, certainly none in the officers' mess, could put him on his back; and he was lithe, supple as a leopard; and in combat cool, his mind working like the mind of a chess player: but he realised that the arms about him were the arms of a gorilla, the chest against which he was being crushed was the chest of a trained wrestler; a smaller man would have heard his bones ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... "Supple and strong is she as the serpent, quick and graceful as the panther. Food has she for nourishment, for the warming of the blood; exercises for the body, to keep her healthful and fair. Her triumph is in the flesh,—she finds it perfect. The flesh she ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... long, when he already took part in his landlords business. But daily, at the hour appointed by her, he visited beautiful Kamala, wearing pretty clothes, fine shoes, and soon he brought her gifts as well. Much he learned from her red, smart mouth. Much he learned from her tender, supple hand. Him, who was, regarding love, still a boy and had a tendency to plunge blindly and insatiably into lust like into a bottomless pit, him she taught, thoroughly starting with the basics, about that ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... grandchildren, while they read his history, may look on his image, and compare the melancholy features with the woful tale.—It was a stern necessity—it was an awful deed! The calm pride of that eye might have ruled worlds of crouching Frenchmen, or supple Italians, or formal Spaniards; but its glances only roused the native courage of the stern Englishman.—Lay not on poor sinful man, whose breath is in, his nostrils, the blame that he falls, when Heaven never gave him strength of nerves to stand! The weak rider is thrown by his unruly ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... her graceful throat, which was remarkably elegant. The Grecian bodice, crossing from left to right with five folds, opened slightly, showing delicious curves; the gray merino dress with green furbelows defined the pretty waist, which had never looked so slender nor so supple. She wore earrings of gold fret-work, and her hair, gathered up a la chinoise, let the eye take in the soft freshness of a skin traced with blue veins, where the light shone chastely on the pure white tones. Cesarine was so coquettishly lovely that Madame Matifat could not help admitting ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... the still park permeate; The los and pis their sweet perfume enhance; And supple charms the third spring flowers ornate; Softly is wafted one streak of fragrance! A light mist doth becloud the tortuous way! With moist the clothes bedews, that verdure cold! The pond who ever sinuous could hold? Dreams long and ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... the supple, slender figure, so airily poised. As she bent forward, he noticed in her hair several flowers shaped like primroses, but light crimson in hue. "What misgivings was it possible ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... she kicked from her feet the clumsy deer skin boots and, from beneath her parka extracted grass slippers light as silk. Then, standing on tip toe with arms outspread, like a bird about to fly, she bent her supple body forward, backward and to one side. Waving her arms up and down she chanted in a ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... the land of the Pine and the Palm. The tree of the Sierras, native, vigorous, gigantic, and the tree of the Desert, exotic, supple, poetic, both flourish within the nine degrees of latitude. These two, the widely separated lovers of Heine's song, symbolize the capacities of the State, and although the sugar-pine is indigenous, and ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... clear and near, Are in thy living grace. Supple and tender, as a deer Art thou, of ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... Uncle Salters at last. Penn doubled up, gasping among the fish, Manuel bowed back and forth to supple himself, and Long Jack leaned over the bulwarks. The cook appeared, noiseless as a black shadow, collected a mass of backbones and heads, ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... folded across his breast, threw back his head defiantly, as though such inspection were little to his taste. He was a lad in figure and in voice. His face was innocent of even the down of dawning manhood. His limbs were clean cut and supple, but they looked too young for stern endurance. His dress was similar to his companion's save that it was green in color, and he wore a cap of green drawn down to ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... with all the strength of her lithe and supple body. Above his cheek-bone a red streak leaped out where the sharp ...
— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine
... would keep them waiting. The youth had an oval, almost childish face; his skin was dark, clear, and softly coloured as any girl's; his hair fell in black, loose curls over his forehead. He was tall, slender without being thin, very supple; but his languid attitudes fell short of grace, and were only tolerable because they were comic. When he reached out his hand for the handle of the frying-pan he held the attention of the whole company by virtue ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... kirtled to his knee, With shawl-girt head and ornamented gun, And gold-embroidered garments, fair to see; The crimson-scarfed men of Macedon; The Delhi with his cap of terror on, And crooked glaive—the lively, supple Greek And swarthy Nubia's mutilated son; The bearded Turk that rarely deigns to speak, Master of all around, too potent ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... heard the verdict of the surgeons. She knew little about disease and it seemed wildly impossible to her that this limb of hers which had been so strong and supple a month ago would become an agent of death if not amputated. She was in an agony of mind. Never to swim again! Never to run and jump and slide and skate and dance! Always to go about on crutches! Before the ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... Caesar, "that is how it struck me too. Tall, supple, dolichocephalic... It seems to me one can try to put something through in ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... refreshed himself with his dinner, and further strengthened himself by an extra libation or so, made his appearance (accompanied by his amiable partner) with a countenance of portentous import, and a fearful instrument of flagellation, strong, supple, wax-ended, and new,—in short, purchased that ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... slimness, suggested not youthful purity but a sensuous grace. In her soft, flesh-tinted gown of chiffon, which left her arms and neck quite bare, a dress which merely suggested a veiled covering for her tiny body, she was temptingly feminine. To most men she would have been irresistible, for she was as supple and straight ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... of them, dear," said Lily, in her cooing voice, and she gathered up some of the parcels under her long, supple arm. ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Supple, graceful and splendid it walked round in solemn majesty, its flat head kept low to the ground, its sinuous body curving and winding as it walked, like that of ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... de sale gwine ter be. 'Fore dey git ter de sale place dey roach dem niggers up good jes lak dey roach er mule, en when dey put 'em on de block fer de white mens ter bid de price on 'em den dey hab 'em ter cut de shines en de pidgeon wing fer ter show off how supple dey is, so dey bring ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... my own part, I like the rapier. It's a gentleman's weapon. You heard of my bout with the Chevalier d'Eon? I had him at my sword-point for forty minutes at Angelo's. He was one of the best blades in Europe, but I was a little too supple in the wrist for him. 'I thank God there was a button on your Highness's foil,' said he, when we had finished our breather. By the way, you're a bit of a duellist yourself, Tregellis. How often ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the characters of the men with whom he had to deal, and then assumed them. He practised this art mainly upon personages of exalted station, for his scheme was to govern the world by acquiring dominion over its anointed rulers. A smooth and supple slave in appearance, but, in reality, while his power lasted, the despot of his masters, he exercised boundless control by enacting their parts with such fidelity that they were themselves deceived. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... do it;" and Fern leaned forward and kissed her softly. The moon was shining brightly now, and in the clear white light Fern noticed for the first time how thin and pale Crystal looked; how her cheek, and even her slight supple figure, had lost their roundness. There were deep hollows in the temples, dark lines under the dark eyes, in spite of her beauty she was fearfully wan. The grief that preyed upon her would soon ravage her good looks. For the first time Fern felt ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... up the river," said Irene, drawing off her sweater. "What's the eats? Gee, I'm hungry. Getting pretty supple, Daddykins, aren't you?" ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... old man charge them, for he had been in many a fight, and King Agamemnon was glad. "I wish," he said to him, "that your limbs were as supple and your strength as sure as your judgment is; but age, the common enemy of mankind, has laid his hand upon you; would that it had fallen upon some other, and that ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... vessels, etc." The Rev. John Heckewelder, in speaking of the skill of the Delawares of Ohio, in dressing and curing buffalo hides, in the latter part of the eighteenth century, says that they cured them so that they became quite soft and supple, and so that they would last for many years without ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... of it mattered. He was supple and swift and flushed; his eyes (which he believed to be cynical) were candidly eager. But he was not over-gentle. He waved his hand at poor dumpy Verona and drawled: "Yes, I guess we're pretty ridiculous and disgusticulus, and I rather guess our new ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... religious people so harsh, so querulous, so unsociable? 'Tis because they have imposed a task upon themselves which is not natural to them. They suffer, and when people suffer, they make others suffer too. That is not my game, nor that of my protectors either; I have to be gay, supple, amusing, comical. Virtue makes itself respected, and respect is inconvenient; virtue insists on being admired, and admiration is not amusing. I have to do with people who are bored, and I must make them laugh. Now it is absurdity and madness ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... cases passed, its economic maximum speed. Air transport, careless whether the route be over land or sea, unhampered by foreign frontiers, gives the Empire precisely those essential powers of direct, supple, and speedy intercommunication which ship and rail have already shown ...
— Aviation in Peace and War • Sir Frederick Hugh Sykes
... like to hear," said Molly. "I know this supple wretch will be full of Adrian's folly in marrying me—first, because, from the Rupertian point of view, it is a disastrous thing that his elder should marry at all; and secondly, because Molly, mistress at Pulwick Priory, means a very queer ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... as the heads and representatives of those supreme crises which have determined the fate of two great nations. For extent and energy of natural talents, Cromwell is perhaps the most remarkable of the three. His mind was wonderfully prompt, firm, just, supple, and inventive, and he possessed a vigor of character which no obstacle could daunt, no conflict weary; he pursued his designs with an ardor as exhaustless as his patience, whether through the slowest and most tortuous ways, or the most abrupt and daring. He excelled equally in winning men, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... broke off to throw a glance at a woman who had just entered the restaurant—a divesting glance that caused Romarin to redden to his crown and drop his eyes. "I was going to say that you may think as little of my history as I do of yours. Supple woman that; when the rather scraggy blonde does take it into her head to be a devil she's the ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... fought like an enraged tiger, turning about his enemy, changing each moment his ground and his guard. Jussac was one of the good blades of the day, and had had much practice; but he had, nevertheless, all the difficulty in the world to defend himself against a supple and active antagonist, who was constantly deviating from the received rules of fencing, attacking him on all sides at once, and parrying, at the same time, like a man who had the greatest regard for his epidermis. At last Jussac ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... over her supple, slender form. He saw with relief that she was stoutly clad in middy and skirt of wool, wool stockings, and solid little boots. The heavy coat she had brought was not particularly noteworthy in these woods, but it ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... many other consequences. It led to an increased freedom of movement of the thigh on the hip joint, to muscular arrangements for balancing the body on the leg, to making the backbone a supple yet stable curved pillar, to a strongly developed collar-bone which is only found well-formed when the fore-limb is used for more than support, and to a power of "opposing" the thumb and the big toe ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... let his eyes wander over the full curves of her strong and supple body and rest upon the face, brown and wholesome, lit with her deep blue eyes and crowned with the red-gold masses of ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... beauties of the hand are many. Touch has its ecstasies. The hands of people of strong individuality and sensitiveness are wonderfully mobile. In a glance of their finger-tips they express many shades of thought. Now and again I touch a fine, graceful, supple-wristed hand which spells with the same beauty and distinction that you must see in the handwriting of some highly cultivated people. I wish you could see how prettily little children spell in my hand. They are wild flowers of humanity, ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... off, and the moon made wonderful lights in the coils of her black hair. She was wearing an indoor gown of some thin material that clung, boldly revealing the gracious lines of her supple figure, and in the magic of the moon she seemed some young goddess of the woods—tall and fair and ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... Prince Richard were as supple as willows, as straight as pines, as graceful as silver birches. Their blond hair hung thick and straight against their necks and was cut square above their level brows. Their manners were so good that their father didn't quite know ...
— The Faery Tales of Weir • Anna McClure Sholl
... He was a little above medium height, with dark crisp hair and a sallow complexion. His figure and features gave the impression of metallic virility: they were at once hard, supple, clean-cut, and finely moulded. His mouth was a little full, and his jaw perhaps a trifle heavy, but the deep thoughtful eyes gave a balance to his face which saved it from appearing ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... presence naturally, with no obtrusive kindness; she was at a necessitous task—putting a broad gray patch, the best available from the resources at home, on Jimmy Kirtland's brown jacket, doing it deftly with her supple hands. ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... Batten's, where Major Holmes was lately come from the Streights, but do tell me strange stories of the faults of Cooper his master, put in by me, which I do not believe, but am sorry to hear and must take some course to have him removed, though I believe that the Captain is proud, and the fellow is not supple enough to him. So to my office again to set down my Journall, and so home and to bed. This evening my boy Waynman's brother was with me, and I did tell him again that I must part with the boy, for I will not keep him. He desires my keeping him a ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... with which Webster defended himself was a manly one, and it is noticeable how years of fencing had improved the temper of his weapons. He was keener in his thrusts, more dexterous and supple, and comported himself in these disputes as a man entirely confident of his position. It is not vanity which upholds a man working silently year after year at a task ridiculed by his neighbors and denounced by his enemies. Webster had ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... singing through the hall, the Colonel tried to frown over his glasses, but he was only partially successful. She was too satisfying a sight with her shining hair and eyes, and lithe, supple figure, every motion of which bespoke that quick, unconscious freedom of body peculiar to children and those favored of the ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... not know how it happened, but in her wretchedness the girl swayed toward me ever so slightly. My arms went round her protectingly. For an instant her body came to me in sweet surrender, the soft curves of her supple figure relaxed in weariness. Then she pushed ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... indeed, but his interest was in the grand alliance; he "borrowed England on his way to Versailles," and governed it in the interest of the Dutch Coalition. Queen Anne and the first Georges reigned but did not govern; and in the early eighteenth century power fell to men of supple intelligence and complacent conviction—to Marlborough and little Sidney Godolphin, to Harley and St. John and Sunderland, and at last to Robert Walpole, the very personification of the shrewd curiosity, the easy-going morals, the material ambitions ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... Early in the day she had resorted to the wood, but soon tiring of playing the part of modest nymph with her friends, she wandered off to more solitary places. Her head, generally so erect, was bowed under the weight of depression or preoccupation; her flexible, supple figure moved from side to side like the body of a bedouin; those dark African eyes, the most precious ornament of the noble city of Lancia, were fixed upon the ground, and the very deep line on her forehead testified to the fixed, gloomy drift of ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... almost lyric fervor in that picture of the little "Goose Girl" bathing, which is one of the most purely and exquisitely beautiful things in art. In this smooth, young body quivering with anticipation of the coolness of the water; in these rounded, slender limbs with their long, firm, supple lines; in the unconscious, half-awkward grace of attitude and in the glory of sunlight splashing through the shadow of the willows, there is a whole song of joy and youth and the goodness of the world. The picture exists in a drawing or pastel, which has been photographed by Braun, ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox
... cuts twigs of birch, Of birch so supple and keen, And daintily ties them up into rods The finest that ...
— King Winter • Anonymous
... the performers entered. For a long time they watched the performance with delight, clapping and calling bravo like boys. Presently the famous dompteuse entered,—Mademoiselle Victorine,—passing just below Gaston. He looked down, interested, at the supple, lithe creature making for the cages of lions in the amphitheatre. The figure struck him as familiar. Presently the girl turned, throwing a glance round the theatre. He caught the dash of the dark, piercing eyes, the luminous look, the face unpainted—in ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... all the heights it unfolds in a splendid future. Child she is, but she is transformed into a woman by the prospect not of her own pleasure, but of participation in splendid achievement with this man so keen, so supple, yet so firm in high purpose. And as the prospect opens to her desire and his there looms the obstacle. They cannot marry, for Rezanov is a heretic. And now the passion flames. This child woman will go with him. Ah, but the church, the king of Spain, will they permit? And ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... their constancy to this metre was not the result of any technical deficiency. Even if Milton had not written the choruses of Samson Agonistes and Shakespeare his songs, nobody would be so absurd as to suggest that they adopted this five-foot line and spent their mighty artistry in sending supple and flowing variety through its external uniformity, because they could not manage any other. They used it because they found that its rhythm perfectly expressed their poetic emotion, and because the formal relation of one line to another satisfied the ...
— The Lyric - An Essay • John Drinkwater
... under the figure of the etcher's art or of the process of the mint that we can fully represent Bergson's resources of style. These suggest staccato effects, hard outlines, and that does not at all represent the prose of this writer. It is a fine, delicately interwoven, tissue-like fabric, pliant and supple. If one were in the secret of M. Bergson's private thoughts, it might be discovered that he does not admire his style so much as others do, for his whole manner of thought must, one suspects, have led him often to attempt to express the inexpressible. The ocean of life, that fluide ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... that God and man In art and nature make or plan, And lady-loves for spidery lace And broideries and supple grace ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... expected to encounter her in life again—somewhere; though what he had been preparing to see, Heaven alone knew; but certainly not the supple, laughing girl he had known—that smooth, slender, dark-eyed, dainty visitor who had played at marriage with him through a troubled and unreal dream; and was gone when he awoke—so swift the brief two years had passed, as swift in sorrow ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... to engage, Geoffrey's physical advantages showed themselves in their best and bravest aspect. His head sat proud and easy on his firm, white throat, bared to the air. The rising of his mighty chest, as he drew in deep draughts of the fragrant summer breeze; the play of his lithe and supple loins; the easy, elastic stride of his straight and shapely legs, presented a triumph of physical manhood in its highest type. Mrs. Glenarm's eyes devoured him in silent admiration. He looked like a young god of mythology—like a statue animated with color and life. "Oh, Geoffrey!" ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins |
