"Posture" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... out, and the next moment his ankle was gripped and held by a row of keen teeth. He yelled again, and tried to free his leg by kicking with the other. Then he realised he had the broken water-bottle at his hand, and, snatching it, he struggled into a sitting posture, and feeling in the darkness towards his foot, gripped a velvety ear, like the ear of a big cat. He had seized the water-bottle by its neck and brought it down with a shivering crash upon the head of the ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... the kangaroo, oppossum, bandicoot, &c. They are passionately fond of their dogs; so much so, that the females are frequently known to suckle a favourite puppy instead of the child. They rarely ever move at night, but encircle themselves round a large fire, and sleep in a sitting posture, with their heads between their knees. So careless are they of their children, that it is not uncommon to see boys grown up with feet exhibiting the loss of a toe or two, having, when infants, been dropped into the fire by the mother. The children are generally carried (by the women) astride across ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 368, May 2, 1829 • Various
... shows a bad posture. Sitting thus three hours a day must soon produce round shoulders. Various devices have been proposed to help the pupil out of this difficulty. Our booksellers furnish a simple rack, which is shown in Fig. 9. It holds one or two books. In Fig. 10 two books are seen resting upon it. Fig. 11 shows ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... scream, Will caught him by the arm, dragging himself slowly into a sitting posture. "I'll hang myself if you let them get me," he urged hysterically. " I'll hang myself in gaol rather than let them do it. I can't face it all I can't—I can't. It isn't grandpa I mind; I'm not afraid of him. He was a devil. ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... not at home." No sooner is she gone than the statues come to life, sing, dance, jump and play havoc in general. On the return of the sculptor she counts, "One, two, three," and any player who is not in her former posture at "Three" receives a beating with the knotted handkerchief from the sculptor. Should the sculptor punish the wrong statue all the players rush at her with knotted handkerchiefs and drive her to a goal previously ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... become of thee? Whither canst thou fly for refuge against the unjust prince who persecutes thee? Was it not enough to be afflicted by the death of so dear a father? Must fortune needs add new misfortunes to just complaints?" He continued a long time in this posture, but at last rose up, and leaning his head upon his father's tombstone, his sorrows returned more violently than before; so that he sighed and mourned, till, overcome with heaviness, he sunk upon the floor, and ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.
... the natural folds of the drapery, showing that Giotto was born to throw light on the art of painting. Finally he has introduced into this work a portrait of the Signor Malatesta in a ship, which is most life-like; and his excellence is also displayed in the vigour, disposition, and posture of the sailors and other people, particularly of one figure who is speaking with others and putting his hand to his face spits into the sea. Certainly these things may be classed among the very best works in painting ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari
... went through the airlock out to the grey plain. The thin air, still scarcely warmed by the rising sun, bit flesh and lung like needles, and they gasped with a sense of suffocation. They dropped to a sitting posture, waiting for their bodies, trained by months in acclimatization chambers back on earth, to accommodate themselves to the tenuous air. Leroy's face, as always, turned a smothered blue, and Jarvis heard his own breath rasping and rattling in his throat. But ...
— Valley of Dreams • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... dressing-gown, and, having adjusted your bonnet grec towards the right side of your head, so as to allow the glossy curl to escape and hang pendant on the left; when all this is done, to "light the brown cigar," to put yourself in an elegant reclining posture between your opening jalousies, and, with both elbows resting on the red velvet cushion that crowns the hard edge of the balustrade, to puff forth light wreaths of blue vapour into the balmy air, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... I woke, aroused by Salva's song, from troubled sleep; and, as I rose to a sitting posture, a troop of sea-birds that had been swooping overhead, fled ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... Heitman Michael, "that is the end of your nonsense. Why, no, there is not any occasion to posture like a statue. I do not intend to kill you. Why the devil's name, should I? To do so would only get me an ill name with your parents: and besides it is infinitely more pleasant to dance with this lady, just as I first intended." And he turned gaily ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... of this chapter we come to quite a different theme. Like a fever-tossed patient, Ecclesiastes has turned from side to side for relief and rest; but each new change of posture has only brought him face to face with some other evil "under the sun" that has again and again pressed from him the bitter groan of "Vanity." But now, for a moment, he takes his eyes from the disappointments, ...
— Old Groans and New Songs - Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes • F. C. Jennings
... praise. "Worship, mostly of the silent sort," worship, that finds no expression in word or gesture,—worship away from pealing organs and chants of praise, or the simpler music of the human voice, where no hands are uplifted, nor tongues loosened, nor posture of reverence assumed, becomes with most mortals a vague, aimless reverie, a course of distraction, dreaminess, and vacancy of mind, no more worth than the meditations of the Lancashire stone-breaker, who was asked what he thought of during his ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... felicity to the commonwealth. I think I see a path, as clear and as direct as a ray of light, which leads to the attainment of that object. Nothing but harmony, honesty, industry, and frugality, are necessary to make us a great and happy people. Happily, the present posture of affairs, and the prevailing disposition of my countrymen, promise to co-operate in establishing those four great and essential pillars of ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... devout intent of the slave acknowledging the Deity." Q "What are the obligatory conditions which precede standing in prayer?" "Purification, covering the shame, avoidance of soiled clothes, standing on a clean place, fronting the Ka'abah, an upright posture, the intent[FN300] and the pronouncing 'Allaho Akbar' of prohibition."[FN301] Q "With what shouldest thou go forth from thy house to pray?" "With the intent of worship mentally pronounced." Q "With what intent shouldest thou enter the mosque?" "With an intent ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... went to Amherst, I was fortunate in passing into the hands of John Lovell, a teacher of elocution, and a better teacher for my purpose I can not conceive of. His system consisted in drill, or the thorough practise of inflections by the voice, of gesture, posture and articulation. Sometimes I was a whole hour practising my voice on a word—like justice. I would have to take a posture, frequently at a mark chalked on the floor. Then we would go through all the gestures, exercising each movement of the arm and throwing open the hand. All gestures ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser
... about him or his feelings when Steingall touched an electric switch and revealed a bound and gagged man fastened to a leg of the bed. At first, owing to the extraordinary posture of the body, it was feared that another tragedy had been enacted. The victim of an uncanny outrage was lying on his side, and his arms and legs were roughly but skillfully tied with a stout rope in such wise that he resembled a fowl trussed for the oven. After securing him in this fashion, ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... and, spreading his hands upon the ground, perked up[FN586] his bottom. His stepmother looked at him and marvelling much said in her mind, "Would Heaven I knew of this froward youth what may be his object!"[FN587] However he never looked at her nor ever turned towards her but he abode quiet in the posture he had chosen. She stared hard at him and at last could no longer refrain from asking him, "Wherefore dost thou on this wise?" He answered, "And why not? I am doing that shall benefit me in the future, but what that is I will never tell thee; no, never." She repeated ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... away to the front door, and stood looking out at the quiet starlight. When he came back she was lying in her usual posture, the quiet eyes looking at the lion's claw. He came close to ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... to the bed she brightened, for she saw that Jude was apparently sleeping, though he was not in the usual half-elevated posture necessitated by his cough. He had slipped down, and lay flat. A second glance caused her to start, and she went to the bed. His face was quite white, and gradually becoming rigid. She touched his fingers; they were cold, though his body was still warm. She listened ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... reclining posture, looked straight in his companion's face for a moment, and exclaimed, "That would be glorious! How I should like to go to London, to Canton, to Holland, where the old folks came from,—to travel all over the world! ...
— The Runaway - The Adventures of Rodney Roverton • Unknown
... every shutter wide, and let the hot sun stream into the room. He expeditiously made a sling for the injured hand, slipped it painlessly into place, put a strong arm under Allison's shoulders, and lifted him to a sitting posture on the edge of the bed. "Now then, forward, march! ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... remained. He was a young Eskimo with a clean-cut intelligent face. Lucile, by his posture, recognized the one who had championed their cause ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... the mother's great desire to see him, set himself to pray, prostrating himself on the earth with great humility and tears, where he remained a long time. And he, who was of a great age, would not rise from that posture till God had, at his request, resuscitated the child. He then, taking it in his arms, presented it to the mother, who gave it nourishment before all the people, who, full of wonder, gave thanks to God ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... from his stooping posture, turned and made Lady Ostermore a bow, his whole manner changed again to that which was habitual to him. "And no less decidedly, my lady," said he with a tight-lipped smile, "may I congratulate your ladyship's son upon that ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... Hobbes says that "though there had never been any time wherein particular men were in a condition of war one against another, yet at all times kings and persons of sovereign authority because of their independency, are in continual jealousies and in the state and posture of gladiators, having their weapons pointing, and their eyes fixed on one another..." [Footnote: Leviathan, Ch. XIII. Of the Natural Condition of Mankind as ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... slowly rose to their feet, and patiently trudged out into the road. Smith gave them a hand, and they climbed upon the footboard of the ambulance, and over into the interior. One of the black men called harshly to the man in the ditch down the road. He turned from his sitting posture, fell over on his face, and then came crawling on his hands ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... dishes of various dimensions being arranged between them in a diminuendo passage. These three dishes he vigorously attacked, not only on his own account, but also on behalf of his neighbours, more especially Miss Fanny Green, who reclined by his side in an oriental posture, and made a table of her lap. The disposition of ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... luscious kiss, almost sucking her breath away, and my hand was in possession of one of the small firm globes of her bosom, still more increasing her confusion, as I rubbed and played with the rosy nipples and moved my hand from one to the other little strawberry tips. This could not go on in a standing posture, so I pushed her against the edge of the bed—kissing and groping till she seemed quite oblivious of what was happening to her, laying back on the coverlet in a dazed kind of state—and, devil that I was, it took no time to part her beautiful legs, which I found protected ...
— Forbidden Fruit • Anonymous
... of you willingly stay till part of the meeting be come,[145] especially such who should be examples to the flock. One or two things are omitted about your comings-together, which I shall here add. I beseech you, forbear sitting in prayer, except parties be any way disabled; 'tis not a posture which suits with the majesty of such an ordinance. Would you serve your prince so? In prayer, let all self-affected expressions be avoided, and all vain repetitions. God hath not gifted, I judge, every brother to be a mouth to the church. Let such as have most of the demonstration ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... back of the chair against the wall and his knees elevated at a very acute angle. The alarming part of it was that he made no effort to regain his equilibrium, but remained in the unusual, not to say undignified, posture. ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... foolish as he caught her eyes and found them smiling at him. The idea of being discovered in so ridiculous a situation and posture by the most fashionable and elegant woman of his acquaintance! But Mrs. Wright waved to him to go on with his game and the next moment the little arms had clutched him, and, tearing off her bandage, Kitty, with dancing eyes, declared ...
— Santa Claus's Partner • Thomas Nelson Page
... and this feeling is further indicated here by the half-humorous pathos of the diminutive, rounded shoulders of the child. You may note a like pathetic power in drawings of a young man seated in a stooping posture, his face in his hands, as in sorrow; of a slave sitting in an uneasy inclined posture, in some brief interval of rest; of a small Madonna and Child, peeping sideways in half-reassured terror, as a mighty griffin with batlike wings, one of Leonardo's ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... powers of the General Government requires the holding of circuit courts of the United States within the districts where their authority has been interrupted. In the present posture of our public affairs strong objections have been urged to holding those courts in any of the States where the rebellion has existed; and it was ascertained by inquiry that the circuit court of the United ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... began to fumble with the lock. At last he contrived to unlock it, and raised the lid. The duke sprang forward and, catching him by the nape of the neck, crammed his head down into the box, bidding him, "Look—look—look!" And while he said it he laughed, and took advantage of Lafleur's posture to give him ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... salutary consolation does the Lord provide for me in this chapter." The following day, about noon, he once more sat up in bed, but owing to his extreme weakness was not able to remain long in that posture. About three in the afternoon one of his eyes failed, and his tongue performed its office less readily than before. About six in the evening he again said to his wife, "Go, read where I cast my first anchor," referring to the ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... ear, and, excellent bushman that he was, he would not rest content until he had located and defined it. Silently as a shadow he slipped from his saddle and dropped recumbent on the ground. With one ear to the earth beneath he listened. He remained in this posture for perhaps a minute and a half, then he rose abruptly and ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... a report; Friedel leaped back, staggered, fell; Ebbo started to a sitting posture, with horrified eyes, and a loud shriek, calling on his brother; Moritz sprang to his feet, shouting, ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... flung into water the poignancy of what she had implied rather than uttered, spread away with a commotion which grew ever fainter. They sat without change of posture at either end of the couch, she bending towards him, he gazing down into his cup as though by staring into it he could retain his grip on the conventions. There was no sound, save the rustling of ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... royal enclosures, whether as courtiers, under-officers, or domestics, had to be those of discerning minds and intelligence. What exact train of thought occupied the monarch's mind at this time we may better judge, perhaps, from the sequel. He rose from his reclining posture and lightly touched a shining key, which instantly answered in a remote part of the royal palace. The door opened, and an officer ...
— The Young Captives - A Story of Judah and Babylon • Erasmus W. Jones
... duenna had gradually risen to a sitting posture, and drawn nearer and nearer, and as the narrator's voice sank into silence she said with effusion, "Well, you are ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell
... stretcher into a room which, in its fabulous, Oriental splendor represented one of the most beautiful of the Indian mosques. The men carried their burden carefully into the middle of the room and then set it down and looked at one another in embarrassment. The policeman assumed a dignified posture and cleared his throat. Suddenly the heavy gold-embroidered curtain before one of the doors was pushed aside by a brown hand and fell back in heavy folds; an old white-haired man stood for a moment in ...
— Banzai! • Ferdinand Heinrich Grautoff
... of the young huntsman kindled with rapture. He essayed to speak, but the words died upon his tongue. Falling on his knees, he seized the count's hand, and pressed it to his lips and heart. Tekeli raised him from his humble posture. ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... him swimming, there was still some chance of his life; he therefore turned short, plunged into the river about waist-deep, and facing about presented the point of his espontoon. The bear arrived at the water's edge within twenty feet of him; but as soon as he put himself in this posture of defence, the bear seemed frightened, and wheeling about, retreated with as much precipitation as he had pursued. Very glad to be released from this danger, Captain Lewis returned to the shore, and observed him run with great speed, ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... Giafar the grand-vizir, his old and 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.
... painfully into a sitting posture, uplifting a terribly mutilated face, dazed and half conscious, groping for possession of his wits. He saw them, and grimaced frightfully, cowering ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... his broad shoulders with precision. He wore a white waistcoat and a flowing black tie, which helped to carry out the impression of his being a boy whose hair had accidentally turned gray. As he danced he put every possible embellishment of posture and step into his task, and when he bowed to Roberta his attitude expressed the deepest reverence, offset only by his laughing face as he advanced to take ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... in House. Doubted whether, as he was not about to move the Address, he would be permitted to enter with sword by his side. But he would be free of the smoke-room; might posture in the Lobby; might read an evening paper in the tea-room, whilst others enviously glanced at ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 18, 1891 • Various
... "der Kronprinz" to that of the original obese Teuton, Switzer beside himself with rage comes upon him at the precise moment when he is engaged in tying up his shoe preparatory to making his final entry upon the stage. The posture is irresistibly inviting. The next instant the astonished audience beholds the extraordinary spectacle of the obese Teuton under the impulse of the irate Switzer's boot in rapid flight across the stage upon all fours, bearing down with terrific speed upon the rear ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... that here was a complex of at least a hundred and ten major planets, inhabited by a fairly homogenous, civilized people, speaking from a technological point of view at least. And almost overnight some force changed the entire cultural posture. I made him see that identification of that force is of no small interest to us right now. If it operated once, it could operate again—and would its results be ...
— Cubs of the Wolf • Raymond F. Jones
... Communions, our daily 7 A.M. and 7 P.M. Services, our Baptisms, yes and our burials too, all are so quiet, and there is so much reverence. You see that they have never learnt bad habits. A Melanesian scholar wouldn't understand how one could pray in any other posture than kneeling. ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and countenance directed to one spot, as if in the stillness of death. LA FONTAINE, when writing his comic tales, has been observed early in the morning and late in the evening in the same recumbent posture under the same tree. This quiescent state is a sort of enthusiasm, and renders everything that surrounds us as distant as if an immense interval separated us from the scene. Poggius has told us of DANTE, that he indulged his meditations more strongly ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... aroma of their spiritual atmosphere; and there are some so stately, so correct, that they would paralyze even the friskiest kitten or the most impudent Scotch terrier. At a glance, you perceive, on entering, that nothing but correct deportment, an erect posture, and strictly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... articles consumed at Mr. Ryland's at Birmingham, was the body of the late Mr. Baskerville, who by his will ordered that he should be buried in his own house, and he was accordingly interred there. A stone closet was erected in it, where he was deposited in a standing posture. The house was afterwards sold with this express condition, that it should remain there."—Account of the Birmingham riots in 1791, from the Historical Magazine, vol. iii., where it is said the house was burned ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 209, October 29 1853 • Various
... that, when this woman, whom he saw every day, came up in his mind, it was always in one posture, one costume. You have noticed that peculiarity in your remembrance of some persons? Perhaps you would find, if you looked closely, that in that look or indelible gesture which your memory has caught ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... am sure it doesn't," said Grace in haste, quickly assuming an erect posture. "Pray don't say ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... business. But that is not sufficient. Indeed, we do not consider that walking exercise, exclusive of any other, is sufficient to keep the body in health; but in the instance we are imagining it is especially insufficient. The body ill brooks being kept in one posture for any length of time; and during sedentary occupation some of the muscles are maintained in a state of extension, whilst others are as unduly kept in a state of relaxation. These relative conditions, kept up as they are for hours and hours, cannot fail to have ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 357, October 30, 1886 • Various
... sprang from the bed and rushed downstairs. My mother was running wildly about the room; she had awoke and found my father senseless in the bed by her side. I essayed to raise him, and after a few efforts supported him in the bed in a sitting posture. My brother now rushed in, and, snatching up a light that was burning, he held it to my father's face. 'The surgeon! the surgeon!' he cried; then, dropping the light, he ran out of the room, followed by my mother; I remained alone, supporting the senseless form of my father; the ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... sat down, and when we had drunk to each other's health, Frank requested me to make known to him how I had contrived to free myself from my embarrassments in London, what I had been about since I quitted that city, and the present posture of ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... to replenish his fire until there were only a few live embers shining dimly at his feet. He rose to a sitting posture; and in that same moment there came a confusion of sound—a trampling through bushes—that froze his blood, and robbed his open throat of power to cry. The next instant he knew it was but those same deer. But the first intelligent thought brought a new fear. These most timid of creatures ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... slid from its incline on the pillow to the floor and lay with its leaves crumpled under. The dog fell to snoring. Another while ticked past—loudly. And as if the ticking were against her brain like drops of water, she rose to a half-sitting posture, reached for the small onyx clock on the mantelpiece and smothered it beneath one of the red sateen sofa-pillows. When she relaxed again two fresh tears waggled heavily down her cream-colored cheeks. Then for a while she slept, with her mouth ever so slightly open and ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... him. I rose suddenly from my arm-chair, and going up to his majesty, after a profound courtesy cast myself at his feet. Louis XV would have raised me, but I said, "No, I will remain where I am until you have accorded me the favor I ask." "If you remain in this posture I shall place myself in a similar one." "Well, then, since you will not have me at your knees I will place myself on them"; and I seated myself in his lap without ceremony. "Listen to me, sire," I said, "and repeat what I say to the king of France word for word. He must authorize ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... appears, take a stroll, and when the sun shows itself I reenter and go to bed 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 besides, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... the voice was far away, then nearer, and finally quite near. He had the dim impression that somebody was pulling him up to a sitting posture. ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... some depart and go away, and some Be added new, and some be changed in order, If still all kept their nature of old heat: For whatsoever they created then Would still in any case be only fire. The truth, I fancy, this: bodies there are Whose clashings, motions, order, posture, shapes Produce the fire and which, by order changed, Do change the nature of the thing produced, And are thereafter nothing like to fire Nor whatso else has power to send its bodies With impact touching on the ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... the other girls began to weep. They invoked the heavens and appealed to the earth. Even Chia Cheng was distressed at heart. One and all at this stage started shouting, some, one thing; some, another. Some suggested exorcists. Some cried out for the posture-makers to attract the devils. Others recommended that Chang, the Taoist priest, of the Y Huang temple, should catch the evil spirits. A thorough turmoil reigned supreme for a long time. The gods were implored. Prayers were offered. Every kind ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... him, twitch him up and throw him down, yell and blaspheme, and use the most obscene language that mortals can conceive; they would declare that they were Christ in one breath, and devils in the next; they would tie him head to foot for a long time together in a most excruciating posture; declare they would wring his neck off because he doubted ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith
... sprang into a posture of defense, which was lost as quickly as it was taken, one great arm shot out like a piston-rod; there was the sound of bare fists beating on naked flesh; there was an exultant indrawn gasp of savage pleasure and relief from ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis
... which is a large family comprising the various forms of monkeys, baboons, man-apes, such as the gibbon, gorilla, chimpanzee, orang-outang, etc., all of which have big jaws, small brains, and a stooping posture. This family also includes MAN, with his big brain and erect posture, and his many races depending upon shape of skull, color of ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... of Brandenburg in 1323: of course he had a "STATEHOLDER" (Viceregent, STATTHALTER); then, and afterwards in occasional absences of his, a series of such, Kaiser's Councillors, Burggraf Friedrich IV. among them, had to take some thought of Brandenburg in its new posture. Who these Brandenburg Statthalters were, is heartily indifferent even to Dryasdust,—except that one of them for some time was a Hohenzollern: which circumstance Dryasdust marks with the due note of admiration. "What he did there," Dryasdust admits, "is not written anywhere;"—good, we will ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... applied to, and did, in my individual capacity, communicate to the Colonial Secretary frequently, and in one or two instances at great length, on the posture of Canadian affairs; and the parties and principal questions which have divided and agitated the Canadian public. I repeatedly received the thanks of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, for the pains which I had taken in these matters; but what influence my communications may have ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... be sufficient for him against the force of Herod, who, as soon as he was recovered, took the other fortresses again, and drove him out of Masada in the posture of a supplicant; he also drove away Marion, the tyrant of the Tyrians, out of Galilee, when he had already possessed himself of three fortified places; but as to those Tyrians whom he had caught, he preserved them all alive; nay, some of them he gave presents to, and so sent them away, and thereby ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... of this did Mr. King say. With his better light he was trying to penetrate the mystery of the man's death. That he had not once moved from the corner where he had been stationed; that his posture was that of neither attack nor defense; that he had dropped his weapon; that he had obviously perished of sheer horror of something that he saw—these were circumstances which Mr. King's disturbed intelligence ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... 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, ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... Otobu raised himself to a sitting posture. "So you are not dead after all," exclaimed the ape-man. "Come, how ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... pretty girl under the arms and elevated her to a standing posture. She recovered her breath and her self-possession promptly and glowed upon him with the brightest of smiles. He had ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... falling into an ecstacy he first sung with his wives, then muttered some unintelligible jargon, made strange gestures, blew and foamed at the mouth, twisted his limbs and body together as if convulsed, throwing himself into every possible posture; and at intervals emitting the most frightful shrieks, then again he held his hand on Drachart's face, who was next him, and concluded the first act of his demoniacal pantomime by groaning out, "Now is my Torngak come!" Observing Drachart, who was awake, appear startled when he came ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous
... took breath; and presently—oh, weak man! doomed never to know how to deal with a strong character—fancying that his intercession might avail for his son, and that the pride of Lord Oldborough might be appeased, and might be suddenly wrought to forgiveness, by that tone and posture of submission and supplication used only by the subject to offended majesty, he actually threw himself at the feet ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... sleep, he kept his place and was not rolled off upon the floor. Also, he lightly held a half-smoked cigar in one hand. I watched him for an hour, and knew him to be asleep, and marvelled that he maintained his easy posture and ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... of his policy: yet he was not generally vindictive, was probably quite satisfied with the compromise of the first prayer-book which did not actually contravene the King's Book, and—except when he was commanding troops in Scotland—liked at least the posture of magnanimity. Entirely devoid of statesmanlike qualities, but afflicted with inordinate vanity, he had been an intolerably incompetent ruler: yet his intentions were usually quite commendable; while the government which succeeded ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... should behold the ravenous brute, in spite of our cries, and all the threatening gestures we could think of, actually lay hold of the helpless infant, destroy, and devour it;—to see her widely open her destructive jaws, and the poor lamb beat down with greedy haste; to look on the defenceless posture of tender limbs first trampled upon, then torn asunder; to see the filthy snout digging in the yet living entrails, suck up the smoking blood, and now and then to hear the crackling of the bones, ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... mastery. Loud sound Their hollow sides; the battered chests ring back, As here and there the whistling strokes pelt round Their ears and temples, and the jaw-bones crack. Firm stands Entellus, though his knees are slack; Still in the same strained posture, he defies, Unmoved, the tempest of his foe's attack. Only his body and his watchful eyes Slip from the purposed stroke, and ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... hands were resting on her hips, with the palms turned outward—thin, old woman's hands, awkward and stiff, and swollen with gout at the knuckles and finger joints. Sitting in the huddled, crouching posture that compels old people to raise their heads to look at you and speak to you, she seemed to be buried in all that mass of black, whence nothing emerged but her face, to which preponderance of bile had imparted the yellow hue of old ivory, and the flashing ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... had supposed and in her interest she forgot her precarious footing and pulled hard. The plant gave way unexpectedly, and losing her balance, Linda plunged down the side of the canyon catching wildly at shrubs and bushes and bruising herself severely on stones, finally landing in a sitting posture on the road that ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... raised his eyes and fixed them on the King with a look of eager ardour; then raised them to Heaven with such solemn gratitude that the water soon glistened in them; then bent his head, as affirming what Richard desired, and resumed his usual posture of submissive attention. ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... and Dr. Ebers argue, from the founder of the temple having been Rameses II, that the sculpture refers to the circumcision of two of his children. The knife appears to be a stone implement, and the operator kneels in front of the child, who is standing, while a matron supports him in a kneeling posture, and she holds his hands from behind him.[2] In this bas-relief we can see the great difference that existed between the two forms of the operation, that of the Hebrews being performed, as a rule, on the eighth day after birth, while in the bas-relief they ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... fight.—But cowardice is ever the companion of cruelty—and the Doctor refused. However, by the skilfulness of one Doctor Brady of that place, I began at last to amend; but, although I was so sore and bad with the wounds I had all over me that I could not rest in any posture, yet I was in more pain on account of the captain's uneasiness about me than I otherwise should have been. The worthy man nursed and watched me all the hours of the night; and I was, through his attention and that of the doctor, able to get out of bed in about sixteen or eighteen days. All this time ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... Boston, one of the noblest of patriots, who was dying of consumption, visited London, with instructions to confer with Franklin upon the posture of affairs. He wrote home, in the most commendatory terms, of the zeal and sagacity with which Franklin was devoting himself to the interests of his country. Tory spies were watching his every movement, and listening ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... feel a Rope, I quitted my hold of the Buoy; but my poor Drag at my Heels would not on any account quit his hold of my Leg. And as it was next to an Impossibility, in that Posture to draw us up the Bridge to save both, if either of us, we must still have perished, had not the Alarm brought off a Boat or two to our ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... half-way up the tree, still holding his massive club in one hand. One understands by his movements that the lion has followed him, and, crouched and angry, stops at the foot of the tree. The Sicilian, leaning over, notes the slightest change of posture; then, like a flash of light, he leaps to the ground behind the trunk of the tree; the terrible club makes a whistling sound as it swings through the air, and the lion ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... lean, hard and dry; but that which I tasted in Africa, was white, juicy, and like chicken. Mr. Bowdich had monkeys served whole before him at the table of the king of Ashanti, having been roasted in a sitting posture, and he said, nothing could be more horrid or repugnant than their appearance, with the skin of the lips dried, and the white teeth, giving an aspect ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... fruits and listening to glorious invisible music. In the vaulting of the ceiling, palms, flowers, and groves stood painted, among which little figures of children were sporting and winding in every graceful posture; and with the tones of the music, the images altered and glowed with the most burning colors; now the blue and green were sparkling like radiant light, now these tints faded back in paleness, the purple flamed up, and the gold took fire; ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... ma'am," said Tom, assuming his natural posture; "I couldn't help it, I felt so excited. I ...
— The Young Explorer • Horatio Alger
... the woman to hear her reply; but drew back, instinctively, as she once again rose, slowly and stiffly, into a sitting posture; then, clutching the coverlid with both hands, muttered some indistinct sounds in her throat, and fell lifeless ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... also boldness hath somewhat of the ridiculous: for, if absurdity be the subject of laughter, doubt you not but great boldness is seldom without some absurdity; especially it is a sport to see when a bold fellow is out of countenance, for that puts his face into a most shrunken and wooden posture, as needs it must—for in bashfulness the spirits do a little go and come—but with bold men, upon like occasion, they stand at a stay; like a stale at chess, where it is no mate, but yet the game cannot stir: but this last were fitter for a satire than for a ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... am not, either," I said to myself, as, when Tom moved towards the door, I rose from my recumbent posture, and ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... a wet and bedraggled uniform crawled along the swaying platform to the megaphone rack and, seizing a cone, shouted from a kneeling posture: ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... instituted a strict overhaul of the gunyahs, in hopes of finding something that might give us a clue to the fate of the missing men. When we broke up our circle for this purpose, the component parts of the "heap" assumed an upright posture, and it was remarkable to witness the awe with which they regarded Lizzie. At first they seemed afraid to approach her, and stood some five yards distant, watching her whilst she puffed out the smoke from her relighted pipe, and posed herself in an attitude of becoming superiority, ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... and foot, despite his previous Union utterances, to do the fell bidding of the most rampant Disunionists. And thus, in due time, it befell, as we shall see, that this "saving clause" in his "Union speech," brought him at the end, not to that posture of patriotic heroism to which he aspired when he adjured his Georgian auditors to "let us be found to the last moment standing on the deck (of the Republic), with the Constitution of the United States waving over our heads," but to that ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... out a spacious round basin of white marble, four yards and a half in diameter by about four feet in depth; it might serve to-day—nothing is wanting but the water, says Overbeck. An inside circular series of steps enabled the Pompeians to bathe in a sitting posture. Four niches, prepared at the places where the angles would be if the apartment were square, contained benches where the bathers rested. The walls were painted yellow and adorned with green branches. The frieze and pediment were red and decorated with white bas-reliefs. The vault, which was blue ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... then sat himself down, threw his arm over the railing of the box, and his body in a careless posture, and very coolly answered—'Pray now be asy, and ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... who sat at a distance, saw his last instant come, she threw herself at his feet, and kneeling, pressed his hand to her lips; in which posture she continued under the agony of an unutterable sorrow, till conducted from our sight by her attendants. That commanding awe, which accompanies the grief of great minds, restrained the multitude while in her presence; but as soon as ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... have loved her always had he dared. It was only now, as she interpreted him to the marquis and the marquis to him, idealizing and elevating the thoughts of both, that he surrendered himself to hope. And so, toward the close of the summer, affairs came to this awkward posture that these two sworn ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... In this posture of affairs, both new and delicate, I resolved to adopt general rules which should conform to the treaties and assert the privileges of the United States. These were reduced into a system, which will be communicated to you. Although ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... Alei and Pata, a couple who were said to have come from the heavens and taught their children to build houses. They were very good-looking, and charged their children that when they died they were to be buried in a standing posture, with their faces uncovered, that people might still come and look at them; and from this probably originated the ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... bright,—and he moved them quickly from side to side, as though ever suspecting something. He seemed to be smaller in stature,—withered, as it were, as though he had melted away. And though he stood looking upon his wife and child, he was not for a moment still. He would change the posture of his hands and arms, moving them quickly with little surreptitious jerks, and would shuffle his feet upon the floor, almost without altering his position. His clothes hung about him, and his linen was soiled and worn. Lady Rowley ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... laugh which had followed Buck's grim tale, Sitting Bull, who had been lying near Whitey, rose to a sitting posture, his cave-like mouth open wide and raised at the corners, his ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... and Koniags. The New Caledonians, according to Foley, cohabit in the quadrupedal manner, and so also the Papuans of New Guinea (Bongu), according to Vahness. The same custom is also found in Australia, where, however other postures are also adopted. In Europe the quadrupedal posture would seem to prevail among some of the South Slavs, notably the Dalmatians. (The different methods of coitus practiced by the South Slavs are described in Kryptadia vol. vi, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... at them for himself, and did not say anything about them. He did what Sewell bade him do in admiring this thing or that; but if he had been an Indian he could not have regarded them with a greater reticence. Sewell made him sit down from time to time, but in a sitting posture Barker's silence became so deathlike that Sewell hastened to get him on his legs again, and to walk him about from one point to another, as if to keep life in him. At the end of one of these otherwise aimless excursions Mrs. Sewell appeared, ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... posture, I watched him till he fell asleep, his placid countenance, notwithstanding the dangers he had been in, showing a mind at rest and nerves unshaken. I found, on going on deck, that we had already risen the sails ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... reverie. He would have spoken, but he perceived that the elder of the strangers had risen from his resting-place, and with downcast eyes and crossed arms, was on his knees. The other remained standing in his former posture. ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... Mrs. Nash, the elder, gazed for a moment speechless at the spot where her son had sunk, and then fell upon her knees, the whole family following her example, and prayed fervently to Almighty God for deliverance from their awful danger. Then rising from her kneeling posture, she bade her other son make one more trial ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... it presented. My heart was filled with a deep Melancholy to see several dropping unexpectedly in the midst of Mirth and Jollity, and catching at every thing that stood by them to save themselves. Some were looking up towards the Heavens in a thoughtful Posture, and in the midst of a Speculation stumbled and fell out of Sight. Multitudes were very busy in the Pursuit of Bubbles that glittered in their Eyes and danced before them; but often when they thought themselves within the reach of them their Footing failed and down ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... opened her eyes again Roaring Bill had her head in his lap, peering anxiously down. She caught a glimpse of the unsteady hand that held a cup of water, and she struggled to a sitting posture with a shudder. Bill's shirt was ripped from the neckband to the wrist, baring his sinewy arm. And hand, arm, and shoulder were spattered with fresh blood. His face was spotted where he had smeared it with his bloody hand. Close ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... produced much excitement, and some difference of opinion, among the councillors of William. But the King decided, as in such cases he seldom failed to decide, wisely and magnanimously. He saw that the discovery of the Assassination Plot had changed the whole posture of affairs. His throne, lately tottering, was fixed on an immovable basis. His popularity had risen impetuously to as great a height as when he was on his march from Torbay to London. Many who had been out of humour with his administration, and who ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... 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 hands. ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... than a minute Mr. Folliard and Andy were placed upon their knees, to await the terrific sentence which was about to be executed on them, in that wild and lonely moor, and under such appalling circumstances. When placed in the desired posture, to ask that mercy from God which they were not about to experience at the hands ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... common accompaniment. Though at first the symptoms somewhat resemble those of bronchitis, later they are quite distinctive. Cough is very markedly paroxysmal in character, and though severe is intermittent, the patient being entirely free for many hours at the time. The effect of posture is very marked. If the patient lie on the affected side, he may be free from cough the whole night, but if he turn to the sound side, or if he rises and bends forward, he brings up large quantities of bronchial secretion. The expectoration is characterized by ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... his reclining posture, and discovered a man moving stealthily towards the road. He was creeping with the utmost care: and probably the scraping of his boot against the rock had admonished him to be more careful; at any rate he acted as though ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... be taken into account that Scripture usually represents the Christ as seated at the right hand of God, and that posture, taken in conjunction with that place, indicates the completion of His work, the majestic calm of His repose, like that creative rest, which did not follow the creative work because the Worker was weary, but because He had fulfilled His ideal. God rested because His work was ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... again broadly uttered, in last words as he turned over with a grunt, for easier posture, near me, "hooray! If it simmers down to you and Dan'l, I'll ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... to the people to bury him alive, in a sitting posture, with an open book in his hands, and never to open his grave again under penalty of his wrath and maledictions. After the burial of Maroba, Gunpati incarnated in his first-born, who began a conjuring career in his turn. So that Maroba-Deo I, was replaced ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... in this posture at his return, he applied himself, without loss of time, to a thorough reformation, and resolved to change the whole face of the commonwealth; for what could a few particular laws and a partial alteration avail? He must act as wise physicians do, in the case of one who labors under ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... had attained the crisis of our troubles during the progress of the war. But it has been said that the ground-swell of the ocean after the storm is often more dangerous to the mariner than the tempest itself; and I am inclined to think that this is true in reference to the present posture of our national affairs. The storm has apparently subsided; but, sir, if we fail to do our duty now as a nation—and that duty is so simple that a child can understand it; no elaborate argument need enforce it, as no sophistry can conceal ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... Himself. If it please Him to make Himself known, He can make the heart conscious of His presence. Our posture must be that of holy reverence, of ...
— The Ministry of Intercession - A Plea for More Prayer • Andrew Murray
... had the mulligrubs. It is an awful sensation though, and would have made an enthusiast of me, had I indulged my imagination on devotional subjects. I have been always careful to place my mind in the most tranquil posture which it can assume during ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... to listen patiently, Brother Calvert," said John Cross, clasping his hands together, setting his elbows down upon the table, shutting his eyes, and turning his face fervently up to heaven. Old Hinkley imitated this posture quite as nearly as he was able; while Mrs. Hinkley, sitting between the two, maintained a constant to-and-fro motion, first on one side, then on the other, as they severally spoke to the occasion, with her head deferentially bowing, ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... manner, coming, asleep as she was, to grope in the dark, happened to thrust her finger into her mouth so far that my sister, starting out of her sleep, made her teeth almost meet in her finger. Judge you the amazement they both were in to find themselves in this posture when they were thoroughly awake. My sister was in a grievous fret. The story was told the king the next day, and the court had the divertisement of laughing ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... was never in so bad a posture as in this Campaign. Believe me, miracles are still needed if I am to overcome all the difficulties which I still see ahead. And one is growing weak withal. 'Herculean' labors to accomplish at an age when my powers are forsaking me, my weaknesses increasing, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... 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 ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... a bell across the grounds startled her into sitting posture. No, it wasn't David, after all,—somebody else,—some other woman's David, likely, ringing for the nurse. Carol sighed. How could David get well and strong out here, with all these other sick ones to wring his heart with pity? Were ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... 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 of ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... stood in the door and he looked over her shoulder, six old men, evidently awaiting her arrival, bent themselves almost to the floor in a reverential posture that expressed greeting and adoration. Again Kendric's fancies were drawn back into ancient Mexico. They wore loose white cotton robes; their beards fell on their aged breasts; in their sashes were long knives of itztli, like that upon the sacrificial stone. They might have been ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... of their superstitious worship, with their singing men and boys; they (owing them no reverence) marched up to the place where the altar stood, and staying awhile, thinking they would have eased their worship, and demanded a reason of their posture, but seeing they did not, the souldiers could not forbeare any longer to wait upon their pleasure, but went about the worke they came for. First they removed the Table to its place appointed, and then tooke the seate ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • G. H. Palmer
... night 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 had ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... war with Mexico, assaulting Molino del Rey, he received several wounds, all pronounced fatal, and science thought itself avenged. Again he got well, as he said, to spite the doctors. Always a martyr to asthma, he rarely enjoyed sleep but in a sitting posture; yet he was as cheerful and full of restless activity as the celebrated Earl of Peterborough. Peace with Mexico established, Walker became commandant of cadets at West Point. His ability as an instructor, and his lofty, martial bearing, deeply impressed his new brigade and prepared ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... the Fif or Five-burghers. The more turbulent and unquiet made an expedition into France, under the command of Hastings [d]; and, except by a short incursion of Danes, who sailed up the Thames, and landed at Fulham, but suddenly retreated to their ships on finding the country in a posture of defence, Alfred was not for some years infested by the inroads of those barbarians [e]. [FN [d] W. Malm. lib. 2. c. 4. Ingulph. p. ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... the road he was greeted by a prolonged stare from the dazed ranchman, who had, indeed, been able to drag his body to a sitting posture, but vainly sought to understand ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... tell you," said Stryver, coming slowly into a sitting posture. "Sydney, I rather despair of making myself intelligible to you, because you ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... servant of the house, or farm-labourer, perhaps!—fallen asleep there by chance on the fleeces heaped like golden stuff high in all the corners of the place. A serf! But what unserflike ease, how lordly, or godlike rather, in the posture! Could one fancy a single curve bettered in the rich, warm, white limbs; in the haughty features of the face, with the golden hair, tied in a mystic knot, fallen down across the inspired brow? And yet what ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... eat. What a precious economy of things! Men who are over-crammed with everything under the sun, while others, who have a stomach just as importunate as they, a hunger that recurs as regularly as theirs, have not a bite. The worst is the constrained posture to which want pins us down. The needy man does not walk like anybody else; he jumps, he crawls, he wriggles, he limps, he passes his whole life in taking ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... some skill in soldiering, were a mere Picture of an Army; would only "observe," and would not fight at all. So that the whole fighting fell to Sir Horace and his poor handful of English; of whose grim posture "in Frankendale" [Frankenthal, a little Town in the Palatinate, N.W. from Mannheim a short way.] and other Strongholds, for months long, there is talk enough in ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... cry of pain into a sitting posture, and trembling in every fibre, and with a voice half choked, cried, "Who says that?" Then glaring wildly at the envoy, he ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... Divine Clarina, let me pay my thanks In this submissive Posture, and never rise, [Kneels. Till I can gain so much upon your Credit, As to believe my Passion tends no farther Than to adore you thus—and thus possess you. [Kisses her ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... 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 ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... having received in Fight a mortal Stab with a Sword, which was left in his Body, lay in that Posture 'till he had Intelligence that his Troops [had] obtained the Victory, and then permitted it to be drawn [out], at which Instant he ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... Antananarivo. The nine condemned Christians were taken past Mr. Griffiths' house. "Ramonisa," he says, "looked at me and smiled; others also looked at me, and their faces shone like those of angels in the posture of prayer and wrestling with God. They were too weak to walk, having been without rice or water for a long time. The people on the wall and in the yard before our house were cleared off by the swords and spears of those leading them to execution. ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... say, he knew the classics by heart, had an intimate acquaintance with Buddhism and astrology, and was able to act as interpreter of the Chinese language. With his name is associated the origin of the shirabyoshi, or "white measure-markers"—girls clad in white, who, by posture and gesture, beat time to music, and, in after ages, became the celebrated geisha of Japan. To the practice of such arts and accomplishments Michinori devoted a great part of his life, and when, in 1140, that is to say, sixteen years before the Hogen disturbance, he ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... slowly retreated. He tried again, but with the like success. At last, thinking he had miscalculated the distance, he knelt leisurely down, and put forth his hand, but lo! it again escaped him; on which, slowly rising from his posture, he shambled on towards the chapel, where, meeting the senior lecturer at the door, he cried out, "H——— to my soul, Wall, but I saw the halfpenny ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... between the Rockies and the Pacific, buying wool. On one of these trips he was in a stage-coach wreck in Oregon and nearly lost his life. He received injuries affecting his back from which he never fully recovered, and which caused the stooped posture which marked his carriage through life thereafter. When he recovered, he came to New York seeking employment, and obtained a clerical position with L. Strauss & Sons, importers of crockery and glassware. ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers |
