"Posture" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... stood with his arms crossed behind him, and his chin resting upon his chest, but his eyes at the same time so raised as to look his Highness full in the face. Vivian was so struck by his posture and the expression of his countenance, that he nearly omitted to bow when he was presented. As his name was mentioned, the Minister gave him a sharp, sidelong glance, and moving his head slightly, invited his guests to enter the ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... of course, visits our theatres, and a tolerably broad caricature he gives of them. "To sit in a huge room hotter than a glass-house, in a posture emulating the most sanctified Faquir, with a throbbing head-ache, a breaking back, and twisted legs, with a heavy tube held over one eye, and the other covered with the unemployed hand, is, in Vraibleusia, called a public amusement." In one morning's lionizing, too, he acquires "a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 322, July 12, 1828 • Various
... and stooping over the nearest figure. All about them were the battered trenches of that thin force of noble Frenchmen who had fought hand to hand with the Brandenburgers. There were the bodies of the slain—of friend and foe—lying in every sort of posture, some half in and half out of the trenches; some, alas! unrecognizable, for such is the effect of high explosives; and others, yet again, almost buried already by upheavals of earth as shells burst close beside them. There were not a few ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... when the wild boy was lying asleep under his tree, Janoo saw two wolves come up stealthily, and smell at him. They touched him, and he awoke; and rising from his reclining posture, he put his hands upon the heads of his visitors, and they licked his face. They capered round him, and he threw straw and leaves at them. The khidmutgar gave up his protege for lost; but presently he became convinced that they were only at play, and he ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 446 - Volume 18, New Series, July 17, 1852 • Various
... 5000 years without discovering the universe. Egypt adopted the idea from more scientific Babylon. Amongst the fragments of its civilisation we find representations of the firmament as a goddess, arching over the earth on her hands and feet, condemned to that eternal posture by some victorious god. The idea spread amongst the smaller nations which were lit by the civilisation of Babylon and Egypt. Some blended it with coarse old legends; some, like the Persians and Hebrews, refined it. The Persians made fire a purer and lighter spirit, so that ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... light comedian, genteel comedian, low comedian; walking gentleman, amoroso[obs3], heavy father, ingenue[French], jeune veuve[French]. mummer, guiser[obs3], guisard[obs3], gysart |, masque. mountebank, Jack Pudding; tumbler, posture master, acrobat; contortionist; ballet dancer, ballet girl; chorus singer; coryphee danseuse[Fr]. property man, costumier, machinist; prompter, call boy; manager; director, stage manager, acting manager. producer, entrepreneur, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... Adirondack for boys who qualify in the following tests: "Obedience is required to the few camp rules; promptness is required at the regular bugle calls—reveille, assembly for exercise, mess call, and tattoo and taps—and erect posture is required at meals. In addition to this there is a 'general personal' standard (embracing neatness at meals and courtesy, etc.). Boys coming up to the standard are initiated into the order and receive the emblem—the bronze eagle button. Boys who reach an especially high standard receive ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... stairs, halfway down, a man was crouching in a posture of frozen consternation: a small electric pocket-lamp burning brilliantly in one hand, the other, lifted, grasping a weapon of some curious sort, in the eyes of P. Sybarite more than anything else like, a small black cannon: a hatless man in evening clothes, ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... itself and worthy of patient study. The object of the artist then became to unite devotional feeling and respect for the sacred legend with the utmost beauty and the utmost fidelity of delineation. He studied from the nude; he drew the body in every posture; he composed drapery, invented attitudes, and adapted the action of his figures and the expression of his faces to the subject he had chosen. In a word, he humanized the altar-pieces and the cloister frescoes upon which he worked. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... obvious scorn, although her costume was as ladylike as their own. For my part, I could not take my eyes off these two creatures; they captivated me like incomprehensible things that one never had seen before. Their fragile bodies, outlandishly graceful in posture, are lost in stiff materials and redundant sashes, of which the ends droop like tired wings. They make me think, I know not why, of great rare insects; the extraordinary patterns on their garments have something of the dark motley of night-moths. Above all, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Michael Angelo's Medici figures, and indeed, his other famous works, are not so unequivocably good; the effigies superimposing the sarcophagi are, for brief instance, "pillowy," though they may be more anatomic. The suavity of nature's hypo-refined grace is not traceable in their easy posture. The fact is, that they pose for something; generally their own animal idiosyncrasy, if not respectable vanity. Stevens's figures, on the contrary, always for their own decency, which throws into the core, the heart of the monument such an expression of beauty, giving rise to the ...
— Original Letters and Biographic Epitomes • J. Atwood.Slater
... the stump is given by Mr. Jeriah Bonham, whose account of the famous "house-divided-against-itself" speech has already found a place in this narrative. "When Mr. Lincoln took the stand," says Mr. Bonham, "he did not, on rising, show his full height, but stood in a stooping posture, his long-tailed coat hanging loosely around his body, and descending over an ill-fitting pair of pantaloons that covered his not very symmetrical legs. He began his speech in a rather diffident manner, seeming for awhile at a loss ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... wrapp'd, dependent to his heels, And, spear in hand, set forth. The Hero call'd Those two, and led them whither Nestor bade. They, at the guard arrived, not sleeping found 215 The captains of the guard, but sitting all In vigilant posture with their arms prepared. As dogs that, careful, watch the fold by night, Hearing some wild beast in the woods,[5] which hounds And hunters with tumultuous clamor drive 220 Down from the mountain-top, ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY:—The posture of my mind the last fortnight relative to the duty of the present hour—which, indeed, I was proud to be assigned to, as I ought to have been, but which has been a black care to me ever since I undertook it—has a not inapt ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... shirted Indians rose to his feet. With rifle sloped over forearm, he padded into the dark. Fenner's relaxed posture tensed into alert readiness. His head turned, his attitude now one of listening concentration. Drew strained to see or hear what lay beyond. But the noise from the plaza and torchlight made a ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... and down she went on her back, with her gown distinctly elevated, and a prodigal display of limbs. At the same time the cup fell from her grasp, and the contents rolled out on the dirty floor, like melted lard. The girl arose to a sitting posture, surveyed the wreck, then laid down on one side, and exploded with laughter—and kicked. About this time her mother appeared on the scene. "Why, Sal Leadbetter!" she exclaimed, "you dirty slut! Git a spoon and scrape that butter right up!" ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... the light was dying out of them, and they were filming now. And then suddenly the man forced himself forward into a sitting posture, and his voice rang wildly ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... the log, and was now in a comfortable position. I moved up to him, when I found it was safe to approach him, and assisted him into an easier posture. Gradually I restored him to his former self, and finally assured him that he was still in the land of the living, where he might remain if he would ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... her tears? Well—let her weep—her tears are for another; O did they fall for me, to dry their streams I'd drain the choicest blood that feeds this heart, Nor think the drops I shed were half so precious. [he stands in a musing posture. ...
— Percy - A Tragedy • Hannah More
... and at his sister's call he hurried to her. Ray had taken Cecilia's head in her lap, while Cora was trying to lift the unconscious girl from her bent-up posture in the ...
— The Motor Girls on a Tour • Margaret Penrose
... The tallow candles, which had been lighted when he came, needed snuffing by this time. The light was so dim that she could not see his face—blanched with bewilderment and pain and anger. What she did see as she looked across the room at him was his large black figure in an absent-minded awkward posture and his big head held very straight and high as though it were momentarily getting higher. He had remained simply silent. His silence irritated her; and she knew she was treating him badly and that irritated her ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... to the way in which it has to be carried on.—There being no special restrictive rule, the Purvapakshin holds that the Devotee may carry it on either sitting or lying down or standing or walking.—This view the Sutra sets aside. Meditation is to be carried on by the Devotee in a sitting posture, since in that posture only the needful concentration of mind can be reached. Standing and walking demand effort, and lying down is conducive to sleep. The proper posture is sitting on some support, so that no effort may be required for holding ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... Duke stands before us the King of smiles. His is the wooer's posture. He speaks, but not with his usual voice of command. Oberon, as it were, calls Titania to the woodland when stars are torch and ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... had been. He tore Steinberg from his grip of the betrayer with a force he had no time to measure, and hurled him across the room. He staggered at the door, and his head coming noisily in contact with it, he slipped down into a sitting posture with an expression suddenly changed from ferocity to a ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... be done now?" said Richards, who had placed himself in a sort of theatrical posture—his bootless foot on the gig-step, the other sticking fast in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... on just then and presented himself for the last time at the store of Flitter Bill. Bill was sitting on the stoop in his favorite posture. And in a moment there stood before him plain Mayhall Wells—holding out the order Bill had ...
— Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... walk with God, believe in God, and commit ourselves, our soul, our body, to God, to be kept. Yea, let us be content to be at the disposal of God, and rejoice to see him act according to all his wondrous works. For this is a posture highly becoming them that say of God he is their Father, and that have committed the keeping of their souls to him as unto a Creator. A comely thing it is for the soul that feareth God, to love and reverence him in all his appearances. We should be ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... only have got in exchange for it an ounce or so more of their so much less obvious and Jess published personal history. Yes, it described him to say that, in addition to all the rest of him, and of his personal history, and of his family, and of theirs, in addition to their social posture, as that of a serried phalanx, and to their notoriously enormous wealth and crushing respectability, she might have been ever so much less lovely for him if she had been only—well, a little prepared to answer questions. ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... girl stepped surely from foothold to foothold until she reached his side. She stood for a moment with one hand on the dripping walls of rock, looking down while her hair fell about her face. Then, dropping to her knees, she shifted the doubled body into a leaning posture, straightened the limbs, and began exploring with efficient fingers ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... was in the garden, when suddenly lifting my eyes to yon hillock I perceived the form of a man seated amongst the brushwood; and though I could not see his features, there was something in the very outline of his figure and his peculiar posture, that irresistibly reminded me of Riccabocca. I hastened out of the garden and ascended the hill, but he was gone. My suspicions were so strong that I caused inquiry to be made at the different shops scattered about, and learned that a family consisting of a gentleman, his wife, ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... he lifted himself to a sitting posture, his eyes wandering uneasily over the speaker's body, resting on his head—on his shoulders, arms, and hands—as if trying to fix his mind on ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... hopelessness play around his pages, and vanishing between the lines are the less guilty Elves of the Concord Elms, which Thoreau and Old Man Alcott may have felt, but knew not as intimately as Hawthorne. There is often a pervading melancholy about Hawthorne, as Faguet says of de Musset "without posture, without noise but penetrating." There is at times the mysticism and serenity of the ocean, which Jules Michelet sees in "its horizon rather than in its waters." There is a sensitiveness to supernatural sound waves. Hawthorne feels the mysteries and tries ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... equipment in a manner more suitable to the exigencies of the service, than was done for the preceding army. The remainder of the summer and the ensuing autumn were consumed in these preparations, as well as in placing their fortified towns in a proper posture of defence, and in the reduction of such places as held out against them. The king of Portugal, all this while, lay with his diminished forces in Toro, making a sally on one occasion only, for the relief of his friends, which was ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... of mind and body. He could walk only by instinct, advancing his foot mechanically, to save himself from falling, when he was pushed gently forwards. When standing, he could not seat himself—and when sitting, he could not get up without help. In whatever posture he was placed, there he remained. Altogether insensible to question and remark, he looked wildly round upon us, and smiled, and winked with both eyes. These were his sole remaining capabilities—to wink, and to look agreeable. He had been recommended as an object worthy of charity ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... in his sleep he had a kind of under consciousness of what was going on. He was stupidly conscious that they were trying to raise him up to an uncomfortable sitting posture—a bolt-upright position. This he was sleepily unwilling to submit to. There wasn't any particular strength in his hands, and his drowsy faculties didn't extend farther down than his head. He felt himself lying on something, and ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... imaginable, but effectual. Tedcastle starts to his feet and gives the fire a vigorous poke. He also trips very successfully over the footstool, that goes far to make poor Darley's slumbers blest, and brings that gentleman into a sitting posture. ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... matter of fact, but a few minutes had passed. During the wait, Sprouse had noiselessly removed his coat, a proceeding that puzzled Barnes. Something light fell to the ground. It was Sprouse who stooped and searched for it in the grass. When he resumed an upright posture, he put his lips close to ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... awkward than to attempt to dress a young baby in a sitting posture. It should lie upon the nurse's lap until quite old enough to sit alone, the clothing being drawn over the child's feet, not slipped ...
— The Care and Feeding of Children - A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Children's Nurses • L. Emmett Holt
... wounds are seldom above skin deep; for an inward bruise lamb-stones and sweetbreads are his only spermaceti, which he eats at night next his heart fasting. Strange schoolmasters they are that every day set a man as far backward as he went forward, and throwing him into a strange posture, teach him to thresh satisfaction out of injury. One sign of a good nature is that he is still open-breasted to his friends; for his foil and his doublet wear not out above two buttons, and resolute he is, for ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... this court, were also several youths, who had recently had the tufts of their hair tied together, who all dropped their hands against their sides, and stood in a respectful posture. Madame Wang then led Tai-yue by the hand through a corridor, running east and west, into what was dowager lady Chia's back-court. Forthwith they entered the door of the back suite of rooms, where stood, already in attendance, a large number of servants, who, when they saw madame Wang arrive, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... tried friend, suddenly appeared before him. Bowing low, he waited, as was his duty, till his master spoke, but Haroun-al-Raschid merely turned his head and looked at him, and sank back into his former weary posture. ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... touched the great carpet spread before him, and we halted, he raised himself to a sitting posture, fixing his dark, gleaming eyes upon us. At sight of Omar a sudden frown of displeasure crossed his features, but an instant later a grim smile of triumph ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... three large ship biscuits of the coarsest kind. The broth, however, exhaled a distinctly appetising odour, which had the effect of again reminding me that I was hungry; so, with my visitor's assistance, I contrived to raise myself into a sitting posture, and forthwith attacked the contents of the bowl, previously breaking into it a small quantity of biscuit. The "broth" proved to be turtle soup, deliciously made, and, taking my time over the task, I consumed the whole of it, my companion ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... dark; (4) Relation, shorter or taller than Xanthippe; (5) Where, at Athens; (6) When, two thousand and odd years ago; (7) Action, that he questions or pleads; (8) Passion, that he is answered or condemned; (9) Posture, that he sits or stands; (10) Habit, that he ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... But their perfect silence and deep stillness spoke their satisfaction as plainly as the noisiest joy could have done. The attention of an Indian is more all-absorbing than that of a white man. It is never distracted or divided, he is never listless or absent. With dilated nostrils, and in a posture slightly inclined forward, he listens with his whole soul. Not a word escapes him. While an educated white man would be continually snapping the thread of the narrative by a reference in his mind to parallel passages in his former reading, the savage sees nothing but the present speaker, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... truth a new George Cannon! He left the corner, and sat down on the bed in the hollow made by Hilda, and stared at the wall, his hands in the pockets of his gay suit. His gestures as he moved, and his posture as he sat, made their unconscious appeal to her in their abandonment. He was caught; he was vanquished; he was despairing; but he instinctively, and without any wish to do so, kept his dignity. He was still, in his ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... the merits of Sir Charles Lyell's discussion, we wish to glance at some preliminary matters touching the great debate now pending between science and theology. We wish to review the posture and temper of the parties; and particularly to refer to the tone and spirit of the religious press and the pulpit, respecting the alleged discoveries and claims of science, and their bearing upon the ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... their own aversion, not by condemning a single statute and seeking its lawful repeal, but by heaping abuse on the constitution and on those who are chosen to administer the laws, by avowing their hostility to the government and its policy, or their purpose to resist and war against it,—are in a posture of rebellion. Those who, being in office, commanding the arms and other property of the government, cause them to be removed so as to weaken its power and strengthen those in actual rebellion, or who are threatening the same; those who aid and comfort a population or soldiery ...
— Government and Rebellion • E. E. Adams
... than another. He was well off and did not spend much, except on his books, which were splendid. His rooms were untidy to the last degree, but liberally supplied with the most varied contrivances for obtaining a comfortable posture. Deep chairs and sofas, with devices for books and light, and for writing in any position. "When my mind is at work," he said to me once, "I don't like to be reminded of my body at all. I want to forget that I have one; and so I always say my ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... to assume his squatting posture in the center of the court, as usual, when from out of the sarcophagus rose languidly a form, shrouded in white. The form stretched its lovely arms, white as alabaster, and presently the hands rubbed a pair of sleepy eyes. Then the form sat down within the ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... arm under him, and raised him up into a sitting posture; in which she retained him by kneeling down beside him, and holding him up as if he had been a child. Then she gave him a basin of bread broth, and a drink of water; shook up his pillow, arranged the things over him; and put a fresh cloth, dipped in water, ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... the tranquillity of mind and body, may produce dreams; such are the various kinds of grief and sorrow, exertions of the mind, affections and passions, crude and undigested food, a hard and inconvenient posture of the body. Those ideas which have lately occupied our minds or made a lively impression upon us, generally constitute the principal subject of a dream, and more or less employ our ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... that her original suspicion had proved to be unfounded; secondly, that Mrs. Basil was alive. She had contrived to place her in a sitting posture, with her back against the heavy arm-chair; and now she brought a carafe of water from the side-board, and sprinkled her face ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... sitting in a thoughtful Posture; in his Hand, Plato's Book on the Immortality of the Soul. A drawn Sword on the Table ...
— Cato - A Tragedy, in Five Acts • Joseph Addison
... sit down here, and I'll tell you about my ailment." Upon this the figure took three paces to the front, wheeled to the right-about, and sat down on the edge of the chair, retaining the position of "Attention" as nearly as the sitting posture would allow. When the symptoms had been carefully described, he knitted his brows, and after some reflection remarked, "I can give you a dose of . . . ." Here followed a long word which ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... Schemes have they laid on purpose to be broken? What vast Contrivances, on purpose to be ridicul'd and expos'd? The Men are not Fools, they had never V—-d to Consolidate a B—- but that they were willing to save the Dissenters, and put it into a posture, in which they were sure it would miscarry. I defy all the Wise Men of the Moon to show another good reason ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... manner Loveday—who was not a ladies' man—blushed, and made some alteration in his bodily posture, began a sentence which had no end, and showed quite a boy's embarrassment. Recovering himself, he politely offered his arm, which Anne took with a very pretty grace. He conducted her through his comrades, who glued themselves perpendicularly to the wall to let her pass, and ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... meantime Eustacia, left alone in her cottage at Alderworth, had become considerably depressed by the posture of affairs. The consequences which might result from Clym's discovery that his mother had been turned from his door that day were likely to be disagreeable, and this was a quality in events which she hated as much ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... weak, he half-raised himself in bed at the moment when the stranger rose from her stooping posture. ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... the attendant visual images of past thoughts and experiences and their distorted combination. Somewhat closer to actual dreaming is the rise of images accompanying present bodily and mental states. I sometimes see a body in the posture my own body has that moment assumed and one night, when recalling a passage from Wilhelm Meister, I saw a young man seated bareheaded on a doorstep, plainly a picture of Wilhelm at Marianna's threshold. In the ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... some tribal trait or feeling. It was incomprehensible, but no one could have doubted its potency. Yaqui pointed down the lava slope, pointed with finger and arm and neck and head—his whole body was instinct with direction. His whole being seemed to have been animated and then frozen. His posture could not have been misunderstood, yet his expression had not altered. Gale had never seen the Indian's face change its hard, red-bronze calm. It was the color and the flintiness and the character of the ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... speaking is at once incomparably dignified and graceful. Gestures more admirable and effective, and a play of countenance more expressive and magnetic, we remember in no other public speaker. He stands quite erect, and does not bend forward like some orators, to give emphasis to a sentence. His posture and appearance in repose are imposing, not only from their essential grace and dignity, but from a sense of power they impress upon the beholder. This sense of unused power, this certainty that he is not making an effort and doing ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... students. Like them, he wore, instead of the sandals of our monks, short tight boots; and over the collar of his shirt, which fell on his shoulders, and was as white as snow, hung, in rich golden curls, the most beautiful hair I ever saw. He was tall, and his elegant posture seemed to reveal to me that he was in the habit of commanding. With much respect, and yet uncertain, I half saluted him. He did not return my salute; but he smiled on me with so benevolent an air, and at the same time, his eyes severe and blue, looked ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... he was dragged forth by two of his friends; and, being in a state of wild excitement, ready to fight the world, hit his own mate a violent blow in the eye, and was only quieted by receiving a sound thrashing, and being placed in a sitting posture in the verandah of the public house, from which he saw Doctor Mulhaus come forth from the surgeon's with rumpled ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... heard for three years successively, but nobody was converted: so on the last day of the year, at four o'clock in the morning, all the inhabitants were changed in an instant into stone, every one in the same condition and posture they happened to be then in. The king, my father, had the same fate, for he was metamorphosed into a black stone, as he is to be seen in this palace; and the queen, my mother, had the ...
— Fairy Tales From The Arabian Nights • E. Dixon
... cabin, tossing his hat in the air and trying to catch it on his head. As luck would have it, just before he entered the little rustic home of sorrow, the hat landed plunk on his head, a little to the back and very much to the side, and he let it remain in that rakish posture ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... like those which had preceded it, endured seven days. All the time the land was enveloped in darkness, only it was not always of the same degree of density. During the first three days, it was not so thick but that the Egyptians could change their posture when they desired to do so. If they were sitting down, they could rise up, and if they were standing, they could sit down. On the fourth, fifth, and sixth days, the darkness was so dense that they could not stir from their place. They either sat the whole time, or stood; as they ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... the tree, and slipped in a sitting posture to the ground. Collinson cast himself at her side, and put his arm ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... sir, our worshipped posture we perchance Shall not abandon, though we see not how, Being to that lamp-post fixed, we may advance Beside our lords in any real degree, Unless we move: and to advance is now A sovereign ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and were promising every assistance in prosecuting the war, he observed, "In bidding us order you to furnish us with all things which are necessary for the war, Campanians, you have rather observed the customary mode of addressing allies, than spoken suitably to the present posture of our affairs; for hath anything been left us at Cannae, so that, as if we possessed that, we can desire what is wanting to be supplied by our allies? Can we order a supply of infantry, as if we had any cavalry? Can we say we are deficient in money, as if that were the only thing we ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... bringing no response, he lifted the latch without further ceremony and stepped into the chamber, Mr. Taggett a pace or two behind him. The figure of Father O'Meara slowly rising from a kneeling posture at the bedside was the first object that met their eyes; the second was Torrini's placid face, turned a little on the pillow; the third was Brigida sitting at the foot of the bed, motionless, with her arms ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... had continued some time, those Americans whom panic had not seized, threw themselves into a posture of defence, and resolved to sell their lives dearly. Herkimer, their leader, had been struck down by a bullet, among the first; but, notwithstanding his wound was a disabling one, he continued to direct his men, and encourage them by his firm demeanor ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... who had been lying down when this tirade began, slowly raised his head, then placed himself in a sitting posture, and ended by staring at Billy, till Jack gave a more piteous howl than any he had before uttered, when the dog gave vent to one low growling bark, and sprang ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... the observation of appearances, and in this way began a new era. He was so perfect in the observation of external signs of disease that he has never in this respect been excelled. The state of the face, eyes, tongue, voice, hearing, abdomen, sleep, breathing, excretions, posture of the body, and so on, all aided him in diagnosis and prognosis, and to the latter he paid special attention, saying that "the best physician is the one who is able to establish a prognosis, penetrating ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... from an inward cancer,—Mrs. Sartoris (Adelaide Kemble), who went to sing to her, saw her through the door, which was left open, crouching on a floor covered with mattresses, on her hands and knees, the only posture she could bear,—whilst she with the patience of an angel was enduring her long agony, her husband, engrossed by her, left this lad of seventeen to his sister and the governess. It was a dull life, ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... he swam with slow stroke, could not see motion anywhere. The fires burned low, and now that they were dropping down near the shore he saw the dim outlines of figures beside them. Some of the warriors slept in a sitting posture with their heads upon their knees, which were clasped in their arms, while others lay in their blankets. The canoes, in which Indians also slept, were tied to saplings on ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler
... cargo had slipped off towards the end that was afloat, and to fallen into the water. I did my utmost, by setting my back against the chests, to keep them in their places, but could not thrust off the raft with all my strength; neither durst I stir from the posture I was in; but holding up the chests with all my might, I stood in that manner near half-an-hour, in which time the rising of the water brought me a little more upon a level; and a little after, the water still-rising, my raft floated again, and I thrust her off with the oar ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... eyes, gazed at her, arose up in a sitting posture, and stared around for a moment, and ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... men, each holding with one hand the flowing end of the breechcloth of the one in front or with the hand on his shoulder and the other hand shading the mouth, walk slowly about a circle in a crouching posture, their eyes always cast on the ground. Presently the leader strikes a note, which he holds as long as possible and which the others take up as soon as he has sounded it. This is kept up a few minutes, different ...
— Negritos of Zambales • William Allan Reed
... you some water from the spring," he said eagerly, as she sank again to a sitting posture; "it will refresh you." ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... complied with, even from the commencement of the funeral service; and, in fact, the manner of adhering to the established practice of exhibiting in the church to the people the bodies of the deceased clergy, clad in vestments, prior to their interment (on which occasions an altar-ward posture was naturally selected for the head, in order that the remains might be more easily seen), appears to have originated the idea of the fitness of retaining an unjustifiable priestly prerogative at ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 57, November 30, 1850 • Various
... the man, without changing the posture of one taking his ease against his own door-post, or removing his hands from his pockets, but looking Donal up and down with conscious superiority, then resting his eyes on the bare feet ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... late French Revolution, one of the royalist soldiers having his horse shot under him by a pupil of the Polytechnic School, and finding when thus brought down, that he could not regain his feet and resume a posture of defence, but was entirely at the mercy of his ferocious young adversary, he immediately surrendered his sword, exclaiming, "I am your prisoner, and entreat of you mercy and life." To which the generous and heroic ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 546, May 12, 1832 • Various
... have touched it; but at that time Shark was not proof against temptation. I left the room to hand some lady to her carriage, and as I returned by the window, I looked in. Shark was on his legs, smelling curiously round the table; whilst Smoaker had risen to a sitting posture, his ears pricked, his brow frowning, and his eyes intently fixed on his son's actions. After tasting several viands, Shark's long nose came in contact with about half a cold tongue; the morsel was too tempting to be withstood. For all the ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... Barbara looked again she saw the Mexican rising to a sitting posture and with his hand to his head look around in a dazed manner as though awakening out of a deep sleep. The young woman drew a long breath of relief and, with a faint smile, said to the surveyor, who had drawn nearer: "I'm sorry I ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... returning as soon as possible to Egypt, which he paints as a perfect paradise. Though Mr Montagu hardly ever stirs abroad, he returned the Duke's visit, and as we were not provided with cushions, he sate, while he stayed, upon a sofa with his legs under him, as he had done at his own house. This posture, by long habit, has become the most agreeable to him, and he insists upon its being by far the most natural and convenient; but, indeed, he seems to cherish the same opinion with regard to all customs which ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... viols of lower pitch that were held perpendicularly, to hold the bow underhand as described by Sympson in 1759 (Fig. 45). But the third drawing in Fig. 18 is remarkable alike for the modernness both of the bow and the posture of the hand holding it. This is on a par with the early bows with screw-nut and cambre described in the first section of this work. I cannot think it likely that the sculptor saw anyone playing a ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George
... depth upon the imagination is peculiarly disturbing. But we made up our minds to go on if it were possible. The passage was very narrow, and the sides offered few salient points to which one could cling. We moved along a very narrow ledge in a sitting posture, and then, when we had gone as far as we could in this way, and there was nothing beyond to sit upon, we made a spring. My companion, being the more agile, nearly cleared the pool, but I went in with ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... hand gracefully; and with the same tranquil face he had preserved throughout—even when he had seen his companion so tortured and transported by his passion that his whole frame was shaken—lay in his lounging posture on the seat and watched him as he ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... on observing the change of posture in the Portuguese ships, Malek Azz conceived that they meant to retreat; he immediately came out therefore from the place where he had taken shelter, and boldly charged them, undismayed at the havock which was made among his small ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... to explain the posture of affairs, and a few seconds to transfer the party from its ignoble hiding-place to the open wood behind it; when Roland, casting his eyes to where Nathan lay motionless on the hill, awaited impatiently the expected signal. Fortunately, it was ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... another illusion," he thought; but it brought him to a sitting posture, just as a bell of different tone sounded "ding, ding, ding," and again he counted ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... they left the room and went into the entrance-hall. The clergyman, however, continued to discuss the affairs of the community with the Justice, who, with his hat in his hand all the time, stood before him in reverential posture. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... in man these are no longer than the adjacent incisors or premolars, the whole forming a perfectly even series. In apes the arms are proportionately much longer than in man, while the thighs are much shorter. No ape stands really erect, a posture which is natural in man. The thumb is proportionately larger in man, and more perfectly opposable than in that of any ape. The foot of man differs largely from that of all apes, in the horizontal sole, the ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... that of genuflection. It had failed at one time, but had again appeared. The young girl fell on her knees, clasped her hands, and remained for about a quarter of an hour in the attitude of contemplation. Then she arose and again resumed her sitting posture. ...
— Fasting Girls - Their Physiology and Pathology • William Alexander Hammond
... look around and darted into the porch. There he might escape observation, or—if that were too much to expect—was in a capital posture whether for parley or defence. So thinking, he drew his sword and tried to set his back against the door. To his surprise it yielded behind his weight; and though he turned in a moment, continued to swing back on oiled and ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... repeated firmly. But it hurt him to refuse. One could see that. One imagined, too, that in his life of service there were few refusals. I left them still debating. The abbe's eyes were desperate but his posture firm. One felt that there would be ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the little Duke of Normandy closely to her heart, and quite forgot that she was all this while in the carriage; that near the open portal the hostlers and lackeys were awaiting in a respectful posture the dismounting of the queen; that the drums were all the while beating, and that the guards were standing before the gates in the fixed ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... there before the fire, head bent forward, as though he had an audience. I shrank back closer into the shadows, drawing my coat collar more snugly about my throat. It was incredible that he should play a part before her—and now alone! His very posture suggested a martyred, deserted old man. I felt myself in the presence of something inexplicable.—Then, in a frenzy of suppressed rancor, such as I had never felt before, I climbed the hill, the lumps of mud and ice seeming ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... to make a silent approach, as they might find a band of warriors around the blaze, and they did not wish to walk with open eyes into any such deadly trap. Their delight was great when they saw only one man crouched over the coals in a sitting posture, his head bent over his knees; so that, in effect, only his back was visible, but they knew him ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the partie or parties so suspected into a Roome and strip him, her, or them, starke naked."[22] The clergyman Gaule has given us further particulars:[23] "Having taken the suspected Witch, shee is placed in the middle of a room upon a stool, or Table, crosse-legg'd, or in some other uneasie posture, to which if she submits not, she is then bound with cords; there is she watcht and kept without meat or sleep for the space of 24 hours.... A little hole is likewise made in the door for the Impe to come in at; ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... cleared amidst much applause, and the dead hobbyhorses dragged solemnly away by two Moorish pages in yellow and black liveries, and after a short interlude, during which a French posture-master performed upon the tightrope, some Italian puppets appeared in the semi-classical tragedy of Sophonisba on the stage of a small theatre that had been built up for the purpose. They acted so well, and their gestures ...
— A House of Pomegranates • Oscar Wilde
... crawled! Phil Turner, bound hand and foot, and cruelly cramped in every limb, hitched himself to a sitting posture and began to calculate how long he probably ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... at their chances in this way for a while, at the same time crowding the path in front of me so that I could not proceed, one of them in his greediness almost tore my satchel out of my hands, I responded to his supplication with such a tremendous no, that the next fellow assumed a stooping posture and asked me in a whisper! These people deserve our pity rather than censure. Many of them are evidently sometimes in a famishing condition. But few who have not seen, can form an idea of the poverty which reigns in some sections of Southern Italy, especially between ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... cursing her with every breath. In a few yards he had almost reached her, his hands outstretched to grasp her neck. But, at that instant, the frightened woman's strength suddenly gave way; her knees received the fall of the limp body. For a second she seemed huddled in a posture of prayer, then toppled over, slipped easily forward through a fissure in the wall and plunged headforemost into the ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... pseudonym of Dapper Dicky; yet each would be suitable to the character of his correspondent. There is no untruth in this, for man, being a Protean animal, swiftly shares and changes with his company and surroundings; and these changes are the better part of his education in the world. To strike a posture once for all, and to march through life like a drum-major, is to be highly disagreeable to others and a fool for oneself into the bargain. To Evelyn and to Knipp we understand the double facing; but to whom was he posing in the Diary, and what, in the name ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Prospero, 'and I will set you free.' He then gave orders what further he would have him do; and away went Ariel, first to where he had left Ferdinand, and found him still sitting on the grass in the same melancholy posture. ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... my blow-me-tight?" said Berry. "Darling, you rave. You're going to spend the next four hours afloat upon your beautiful toes, with a large spade-shaped hand supporting the small of your back. I'm not. I'm going to maintain a sitting posture, with one of the 'nests for rest' provided by a malignant Casino directly intervening between the base of my trunk and the floor. Now, I know that intervention. It's of the harsh, unyielding ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... could under that limitation. A man in a grey top hat, grey-bearded, with thin brown, folded cheeks, and a certain elegance of posture, sat there with a woman in a lawn-coloured frock, whose dark eyes were fixed on himself. Soames looked quickly at his feet. How funnily feet moved, one after the other like that! Winifred's voice said ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... L., a specimen of the "palaver" [6] which is supposed to prove the aphorism that all barbarians are orators. Demosthenes leisurely dismounts, advances, stands for a moment cross-legged—the favourite posture in this region—supporting each hand with a spear planted in the ground: thence he slips to squat, looks around, ejects saliva, shifts his quid to behind his ear, places his weapons before him, takes up a bit of stick, and traces ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... step, and looking through an interstice formed by two venerable oaks, she perceived the figure of a young man sitting in her favourite alcove. His back was turned towards the side upon which she was. Having finished the air, he threw his flute carelesly from him, and folded his arms in a posture the most disconsolate that can be imagined. He rose and advanced a little with an irregular step. "Ah lovely mistress of my soul," cried he, "thou little regardest the anguish that must for ever be an inmate of this breast! While I am a prey to ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin
... acknowledge the papal jurisdiction by some formal act, to find sentence immediately pronounced in his favour. Except for his precipitation, and his refusal to depute a proxy to plead for him, his wishes would have been complied with long before. In the existing posture of affairs, and after the measures which had been passed in England with respect to the see of Rome, he himself, the pope said, could not make advances without some kind of submission; but a single act of acknowledgment was all which ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... he was commanded; the bitch that he held in his hand began to cry, and, turning towards Zobeide, held her head up in a begging posture; but Zobeide, having no regard to the sad countenance of the bitch, which would have moved pity, nor her cries that sounded through ail the house, whipped her with the rod till she was out of breath; and having spent her strength that she could strike no more, she threw ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... few exceptions their officers had no Christian zeal. Whence, then, this charge of tampering with their religion? The explanation is to be found in the character of Hinduism. It is intensely outward. It is a matter of rite and ceremony, of meat and drink, of clothing and posture. It may be filched from a man without any act of his own by the act of another, and he may not be aware till informed that the fatal loss has been incurred. Something may be introduced into his food which will deprive him of his religion, and make him an outcast all his days. What more easy ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... they are sure to shew it. Their women are perfect mistresses in the art of shewing themselves to the best advantage. They are always gay and sprightly, and set off the worst faces in Europe with the best airs. Every one knows how to give herself as charming a look and posture as Sir Godfrey Kneller could draw ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... said very brokenly, "let me receive my Heavenly Saviour in a better posture than lying ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... occurrence now took place. He lay in this posture for several seconds, but the amazing pressure of the carcase was more than the head was able to support. He had fallen with his head so short under him that the tusks received little assistance ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... withdraw their forces. Parties of Indians were frequently detached from the main body, as well to obtain a supply of provisions by hunting, as to intercept and cut off any [147] aid, which might be sent to St. Asaph's[15] from the other forts. In this posture of affairs, it was impossible that the garrison could long hold out, unless its military stores could be replenished; and to effect this, under existing circumstances, appeared to be almost impossible. Harrodsburg and Boonesborough were not themselves amply provided with stores; and had it been ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... been astute enough to give out that he came not to claim a crown, but only a right to be put in nomination for it. To the mind of the Londoner, such quibbling failed to commend itself, and the citizens lost no time in putting their city into a posture of defence, determined not to surrender ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... restfulness, after long uneasy rolling to and fro on grass or heather, the whole fashion of the landscape has been changed for him, as though the sun had just broken forth, or a great artist had only then completed, by some cunning touch, the composition of the picture? And not only a change of posture - a snatch of perfume, the sudden singing of a bird, the freshness of some pulse of air from an invisible sea, the light shadow of a travelling cloud, the merest nothing that sends a little shiver along the most infinitesimal nerve of ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... notebook, was absorbed in her work. While the most vital questions of life were being discussed, he was yet always aware of that hand traveling rapidly to and fro, of the pages hurriedly turned, of the quick yet weary-looking change of posture. ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... small figures of his latter pictures, Claude had many a time already taken the hint of a head, the pose of an arm, the attitude of a body from Christine. He threw a cloak over her shoulders, and caught her in the posture he wanted, shouting to her not to stir. These were little services which she showed herself only too pleased to render him, but she had not hitherto cared to go further, for she was hurt by the idea of being a model now that she was his wife. However, since Claude had broadly outlined the large ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... learned masturbation. When he was 13 he used to discuss erotic matters with a schoolfellow who was in the habit of engaging in vulvar intercourse with a girl of his own age. The intercourse was practised on the way home from school, and in a standing posture. B. embraced the girl in the same way. He is not interested in the psychological aspects of the sexual emotion. Although his sex passion was early kindled, he never had commerce with prostitutes. He thinks that his youthful experiences had no ill effect upon him morally, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... shut, and with so much of the sheet turned aside as might show his lean, pale, and death-like face, which was purposely turned towards the East, from whence he expected the second coming of his and our Saviour Jesus." In this posture he was drawn at his just height; and when the picture was fully finished, he caused it to be set by his bedside, where it continued, and became his hourly object till his death, and was then given to his ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham
... same impatience of control, the same ferocity, the same unconquerable pride. In both characters also are mingled, though in very different proportions, some kind and generous feelings. Prometheus, however, is hardly superhuman enough. He talks too much of his chains and his uneasy posture: he is rather too much depressed and agitated. His resolution seems to depend on the knowledge which he possesses that he holds the fate of his torturer in his hands, and that the hour of his release will surely come. But Satan is a creature of another sphere. The might ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... jug containing water upon the ground, and sitting down beside it remained in that posture, and with his face turned in the direction in which they were to proceed, for the space of seven hours, during which time the others made all things ...
— Tales of the Caliph • H. N. Crellin
... he sent to Isabella, Lady Ruthven, and the sage of Ercildown; and then kneeling down in that posture, he wrote his last invocations for the prosperity ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... them all simultaneously. The night was so dark they could see nothing, and, terror-stricken, they sat gazing into the impenetrable darkness of their cave, not even daring to speak to each other, hardly even to breathe. Wolfe gave a low grumbling bark, and resumed his couchant posture, as if nothing worthy of his attention was near to cause the disturbance. Catharine trembled and wept, and prayed for safety against the Indians and beasts of prey; and Hector and Louis listened, till they fell fast asleep in spite of their fears. In the morning, it seemed as ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... they made a great outcry and great rejoicings to God for this miracle, and for the power which he had shown through the body of the Cid in this manner; for it was plain that what the Jew said was verily and indeed true, because the posture of the Cid was changed. And from that day forward Diego Gil remained in the Monastery as longed as he lived, doing service to the body of ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... experience on this head inform us, that there frequently are occasions when days, nay, even when hours, are precious. The loss of a battle, the death of a prince, the removal of a minister, or other circumstances intervening to change the present posture and aspect of affairs, may turn the most favorable tide into a course opposite to our wishes. As in the field, so in the cabinet, there are moments to be seized as they pass, and they who preside in either should be left in capacity to improve them. So often and so essentially ...
— The Federalist Papers
... stained her with dishonor, made of her a chattel; and the sneering brute she faced was by law her master. My hands clinched in the agony of the thought, the knowledge of my own impotence. Yet all this was but the flash of an instant. Before I could change posture, almost before I could draw fresh breath, her voice, trembling slightly with an emotion she was unable wholly to suppress, yet sounding clear as a bell, ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... and made preparations for their removal and subsequent burial. They rest now in that beautiful city near the sea, beneath the great bronze monument. There are two figures, rather larger than life, Burke standing, Wills in a sitting posture. On the pedestal are three bass-reliefs, one showing the return to Cooper's Creek, another the death of Burke, and the third the finding of his remains. This is a fitting tribute to the memory of the brave explorers, but a far nobler and more enduring memorial exists in ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various
... arrived to unlock the gates, and the band of outcasts straggled indolently towards the nearest sheltered seats. Some went to sleep at once, in a sitting posture. Darkey produced a clay pipe, and, charging it with a few shreds of tobacco laboriously gathered from his waistcoat pocket, began to smoke. He was accustomed to this sort of thing, and with a pipe in his mouth could ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... greater amount of brute courage than I had thought it would to spring to a sitting posture on the cot and cover the squatting figure with the rifle slewed into position across my knees. The man made no move to obey when I ordered him to hold up his ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... Secretary Toombs, on the 20th of March, declared that there was no change in the status. "If there is any faith in man," they wrote, "we may rely on the assurances we have as to the status. Time is essential to the principal issue of this mission. In the present posture ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... fondness, which, in the then state of Constantia's feelings, but added to the agony she endured. She could not resist the mute appeal; falling on her knees, she buried her face amid the drapery of his robe. In this posture she continued for a few minutes: her lips uttered no word, but her bosom heaved as if in mortal struggle, and her hard breathings were almost groans. At length, still kneeling, she raised her head, her hands clasped, ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... clutched at his breast, the hand which Roy tried to grasp trembled and was like ice. The two scouts saw that there was no use talking with him. The wretched creature was out of his senses. Huddling in a posture of abject terror he clutched the object which he held tighter against his breast, his head bowed and shaking, his whole form ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... she was fit to struggle alone, and that, half the time, if Verena was away, she wouldn't have the nerve to answer the door-bell; she was incapable, of course, of neglecting such an opportunity to posture as one who paid with her heart's blood for leading the van of human progress. But Verena had an inner sense (she judged her mother now, a little, for the first time) that she would be sorry to be taken at her word, and that she felt safe enough in trusting to her daughter's generosity. She could ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... about it, the little girl seized the shrub with both hands, bestriding it with her plump little legs, and giving so vigorous a pull, that, long accustomed to be transplanted annually, it came up by the roots, and little Pansie came down in a sitting posture, making a broad impress on the soft earth. "See, see, Doctor!" cries Pansie, comically enough giving him his title of courtesy,—"look, grandpapa, the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... he began to work; but he soon found out he could not do the task in the time. He thought therefore the wisest plan would be not to exhaust himself in vain efforts, and he sat quietly down and did nothing. In this posture he was found by Hawes and ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... the hidden dog against his chest. When he sought relief by sitting back over the form, Clem corrected the irregular posture with a pin. At bedtime he undressed in terror lest the creature should jump out and patter on the boards as live things will. But at last the gas was turned off at the main, and he cautiously groped for his pet among his little ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... sacrament and also (according to their mind, and to their full contentment) keep their stations, which were often prorogated till even,(771) but ever and at least till the ninth hour.(772) Finally, from this place, which the Doctor perverteth for kneeling, it appeareth that the gesture or posture in receiving the sacrament used in that place where Tertullian lived, was standing; because, speaking of the receiving of the sacrament, he saith, Si et ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... together a few times, until the dust, which will fly from them in a very palpable cloud, ceases to fall. Then lay them on their ends, with the tops uppermost on the table, and repeat the concussion in that posture, when you will eliminate a fresh crop of dust, though not so thick as the first. After this, let each volume of the lot be brushed over at the sides and back with a soft (never stiff) brush, or else with ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... lantern for a better look, and in the rays of it the two wretches peered forward as if drawn against their will. I cannot well say if they or I first perceived the miracle; that these corpses, as they lay in the posture, so bore the very likeness of the two lovers on my sculptured slab. But I remember that, as John and Grace Magor screamed back and clung to me, and as by the commotion of them clutching at my knees the lantern fell and was extinguished, I heard the young ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... to himself glanced up, glanced round, changed his posture, and finally, rising, blew his preoccupations from him in a deep, ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... ground of economics, his position seems to me unassailable; but it is a position which suggests the posture of a lecturer in front of his black-board rather than that of a shepherd seeking the lost sheep of his flock. If the socialist must think again, at least we may ask that the Bishop should sometimes raise his crook to defend the sheep against the attack of the robber and the wolf. If the sheep are ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... voice had gathered power and his last sentences were spoken with scarcely a perceptible halt or hindrance. With an effort he had raised himself almost without assistance to a sitting posture. But now the fire faded out of his eyes and he fell back exhausted. The papers were brought and held before him, and the answering smile that flitted across his face showed that he was satisfied. He closed ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... players to act like solemn automata. For children are usually quicker than grown-ups to see these droll resemblances. I came by degrees to like the game's variety, its tense excitement, its beauty of posture and curve. And before long I vaguely felt what I later learned consciously: that tennis is a sure revealer of character. Three sets with a man suffice to give one a working knowledge of his moral equipment; six, of ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... breakwater. He was just going to tell her not to jump, but it was too late; without lessening her speed, she had already sprung from the pier down into the boat. Her feet slipped from her, and she fell in a sitting posture on the bottom of the boat, while part of her dress ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... again, where I remain a longer or shorter time, according as the day promises to turn out. If it is bad, and I feel irritation and uneasiness, I have recourse to the method I have just mentioned. I change my posture, pass from my bed to the sofa, from the sofa to the bed, seek and find a degree of freshness. I do not describe to you my morning costume; it has nothing to do with the sufferings I endure, and ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... Harrington's answer, who said that the state of the Roman government was not a settled government, and so it was no wonder that the balance of propriety [i.e., property] was in one hand, and the command in another, it being therefore always in a posture of war; but it was carried by ballot, that it was a steady government, though it is true by the voices it had been carried before that it was an unsteady government; so to-morrow it is to be proved by the ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... States; they are fond of sitting in chairs tilted against the wall, as we sometimes do at home. Indeed they go beyond us in this respect; for in Cuba they have invented a kind of chair which, by lowering the back and raising the knees, places the sitter precisely in the posture he would take if he sat in a chair leaning backward against a wall. It is a luxurious attitude, I must own, and I do not wonder that it is a favorite with lazy people, for it relieves one of all the trouble of keeping the ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... gallery of the commandant's house, the wind blowing her curls back from her shoulders. A bastion of Fort St. Louis was like a balcony in the clouds. The child's lithe, long body made a graceful line in every posture, and her face was ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... the bolt grind in the lock and when he was satisfied that he was alone he slowly rose from his recumbent posture. ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the sleeper. The snoring changed to a series of loud choking snorts, then ceased. Martin, well pleased at the success of his experiment, was about to return to his bed when old Jacob struggled up to a sitting posture. ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.
... resided in Panopea, where he became formidable for rapine and cruelty, till Apollo killed him for offering violence to his mother Latona. After this he was thrown into Tart{)a}rus, and chained down on his back, his body taking up such a compass as to cover nine acres. In this posture two vultures continually preyed upon his liver, which constantly grew with the increase of the moon, that there might never be wanting ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... luckily for his bones was so close behind, galvanized him sharply back into some measure of self-control again. Being provided with powerful springs, it shot him up into the air, whence he relapsed with a series of smaller bounds into a normal sitting posture. Still holding the lighted candle as best he could, the little secretary bounced upon that sofa like a tennis ball. And the violent motion shook him into himself, as it were. His tottering universe struggled back into ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood
... break their jests in mirthful manner, when they saw one looking so poor and so aged approach. He, who expected no better entertainment, was nothing moved at their behaviour, but, as became the character which he had assumed, in a suppliant posture crept by turns to every suitor, and held out his hands for some charity, with such a natural and beggar-resembling grace that he might seem to have practised begging all his life; yet there was a sort ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB
... His cheeks have fallen in; his clothes hang on him like bags; there is a worried, haggard look in his eyes, a nervous twitch in his lips, and every now and then he looks at the handsome Parisian clock on the chimneypiece, and then shifts his posture, snubs his connubial angel, who asks "what ails him?" refills his glass, and stares on the fire, seeing strange shapes in the mobile aspects of ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
