"Figure" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... relations of things, extension, magnitude, figure (triangular, quadrangular, cubic), combination, distance, etc., obtain their peculiar character; the forms and proportions of things can all be reduced to number. Therefore, it was concluded, since without form ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... was broadening along the horizon. As he passed the stile with his head bent, and his eyes on the ground, something white started out from the black shadow of the hedge, and in the strange twilight, now tinged with a flush from the west, a figure seemed to swim past him and disappear. For a moment he wondered who it could be, the light was so flickering and unsteady, so unlike the real atmosphere of the day, when he recollected it was only Annie Morgan, old Morgan's daughter at the White House. She was three years older ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... was a rough-looking sea-dog, with a yellow face—parched and wrinkled by many years of exposure—a square figure; a red handkerchief tied about his black hair; a sash about his waist in which was stuck a brace of evil-barrelled pistols. He looked grimly at the big-boned man ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... It was too late to rein in her pony. She and Dixie dared not take that risk. She saw a huge monster bearing down upon her. A shriek from the engine, a hoarse call from the engineer as he swept around the curve and saw the pretty figure on the track so close to his train. Madge felt the wave of heat from the locomotive. It seemed almost to scorch her, it was so near. She felt her fingers stiffen with fear; her hold on her pony's mane relaxed. She knew she was slipping ...
— Madge Morton's Secret • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... figure grew vague in the darkness. Came the crack of a revolver. A bullet tore a splinter from the wall of the shack in front of which Dave was standing. A jeering laugh floated to the two men, carried on the light ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... had been a dramatic character, an individual revelation of theatric passion, a figure-piece single and alone; but the climax was at hand. The achievement of American independence had been an object-lesson most potent. Louis and his queen, Marie Antoinette, could not check the storm, and for the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... Martin's bent figure was hastily coming along the road from the house, making unintelligible signs. When he was quite close he explained in a low discontented voice, and as if washing his hands of all responsibility, that I had been robbed. ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... whose portrait Brantome thinks he draws by saying that her complexion was as beautiful and delicate as the ladies of her suite were charming and agreeable, and that her figure was fine though rather short, was of little account at her own court. Suffering from a double grief, her saddened attitude added another gloomy tone to a scene which most young queens, less cruelly injured, might have enlivened. The pious Elizabeth proved at this crisis that the ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... the eyes of Rose-Marie travelled past the figure of Mrs. Volsky. There was nothing in that figure to hold her gaze—it was so vague, so like a shadow of something that had been. She saw the few broken chairs, the half-filled wash tub, the dish-pan with its freight of soiled cups and plates. She saw the gas stove, with its ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... they do not agree, each of them forms, in our minds, a separate idea, and is to that extent considered as a whole, not as a part. For instance, when the parts of lymph, chyle, etc., combine, according to the proportion of the figure and size of each, so as to evidently unite, and form one fluid, the chyle, lymph, etc., considered under this aspect, are part of the blood; but, in so far as we consider the particles of lymph as differing in figure and size from the particles ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... the front-door as I opened it. One of them smiled up at me and said, "He thinks he's going to be bit." She appeared to be amused by the idea. Down by the gate was a small muffled figure carrying a Chinese lantern. "Come on back, Alfy," she called again, "and let's sing to the gentleman. You see," she explained to me in confidence, "he's got addleoids and can't sing loud, so we let him ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 29, 1920 • Various
... different times represented to bear that name; and much confusion was caused in the testimony by that artifice. The interview continued about two hours, during which the Canadians made a very sorry figure, entirely failing to gain any advantage, and exposing their own weakness. At the close, an Episcopal clergyman from Canada, one of the company, said: "Miss Monk, if I had had any doubts of your truth before this interview, they would now have been ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... the responsibility for that yacht's discipline and safety rested on his shoulders and he went about his duties. He called two of the crew and ordered the gangway steps down and the port dinghy cleared and lowered. Then he went to the chart-room and sat on a locker and tried to figure out whether he was ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... Then a tall figure appears standing on the shore, waving his hand triumphantly. A mighty cheer from all the onlookers and a waving of hats and kerchiefs. "There ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... pass the sign to the ever ready "Stockie." Then he would obtain permission to leave the room on some pretext, and the other, by some clever maneuver, would soon be after him. Then down to the dark, cool pine woods to visit their "figure four" traps which they had set in different places to catch squirrels. This trap consisted of a square box placed on a piece of board and set with a little wooden trigger. When a squirrel would enter to get the walnut fastened inside, ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... darted out from behind the twisted root of an alder, black all over with the stinking mire of the marsh, and with the air of a conqueror sniffed at Laska. Behind Krak there came into view in the shade of the alder tree the shapely figure of Stepan Arkadyevitch. He came to meet him, red and perspiring, with unbuttoned neckband, still limping ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... showed evidence of a long voyage and stress of weather. She had lost one of her spars, and her starboard davits rolled emptily. Nevertheless, her rigging was taut and ship-shape, and her decks scrupulously clean. Indeed, in that uncertain light, the only moving figure besides the two motionless shadows at the wheel was engaged in scrubbing the quarter-deck—which, with its grated settees and stacked camp-chairs, seemed to indicate the presence of cabin passengers. For the barque Excelsior, from New York to ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... French people call well preserved. She will look no older for the next ten years. She has a girl's figure and a girl's face, but a woman's heart, Edgar, I ...
— Coralie • Charlotte M. Braeme
... evening, at Donaldson Manor, and its light was thrown upon faces bright with good-humored merriment, yet not without some touch of deeper and more earnest feeling. That party would of itself have made an interesting picture. There was Col. Donaldson, tall, gaunt, his figure slightly bent, yet evincing no feebleness, his curling snow-white locks, his broad bold forehead, and shaggy brows overhanging eyes beaming with kindness. Beside him sat Mrs. Donaldson, still beautiful in her green old age. Her face was usually pale, yet her clear complexion, and the bright eyes ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... a year older, seemed to Gervaise really an old man with thin, compressed lips and bowed figure. He was in his shirt sleeves, and his naked feet were thrust into slippers down ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... Oswald; and, as soon as you can make out your father's figure, bring me down news. I have not closed an eye for the last two nights, for 'tis a more dangerous enterprise than usual on ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... This figure is but a summary one and half exact, the right angle, which is the customary angle of this species of subterranean ramifications, being very ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... her little traps and lines and baits had been all out to no sort of purpose for three or four weeks. She danced in the parlor, exhibited all the lines of a plumptitudinous figure at the bowling alley, which is a place I never saw, but have heard about; walked on the beach with a Leghorn hat on, curled up at the ears, and in front too, and Japanese umbrella, brown outside and yellow in the interior, which looked as if she had lots of money and ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... middle was perforated with a hole, through which the distant landscape was seen much clearer—a well-known law, an ancient trick, but it made the quirt prized as a thing of rare virtue, and Josh had refused good offers for it. Then a figure afoot was seen, and coming nearer, it turned out to be a friend, Jack Day, out a-gunning with a .22 rifle. But game was scarce and Jack was returning to Gardiner empty-handed and disgusted. They stopped for a moment's greeting when Day said: ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... exploits and wilder rumors of those crucial days when Belgium was the central figure in the world-war, the calmness of the natives was a source of constant wonder. In the regions where the Germans had not yet come they went on with their accustomed round of eating, drinking and trading with a sang froid that was distressing ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... your pardon,' Maria Nikolaevna repeated with the same smile. She nodded to Sanin, and turning swiftly, vanished through the doorway, leaving behind her a fleeting but graceful impression of a charming neck, exquisite shoulders, an exquisite figure. ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... fashionable people went in parties to Bedlam to laugh at the lunatics. I myself have had a village idiot exhibited to me as some thing irresistibly funny. On the stage the madman was once a regular comic figure; that was how Hamlet got his opportunity before Shakespear touched him. The originality of Shakespear's version lay in his taking the lunatic sympathetically and seriously, and thereby making an ...
— Bernard Shaw's Preface to Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... figure, though perhaps not the heart, of this centre, was unquestionably Mr. Carewe, and about him the neat and tight aristocracy of the place revolved; the old French remnant, having liberally intermarried, forming the nucleus, together with ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... any one person among the sorrow-stricken multitude. A faint, half-sobbing cheer went up for the King, as his private brougham was recognised, making its way slowly through the press of people,—and it was with a kind of silent awe, that they watched his tall figure alight and pass into the house where lay the dead. Sergius Thord had already entered there,—the King and his new Deputy would meet! And with uneasy movements, rambling up and down, talking of Lotys, of her gentleness, patience and never-wearying sympathy for all the suffering ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... cleared as though for a royal personage. Sonia, in white from head to foot, a dream of white lace and chinchilla, with a Russian crown of pearls in her glossy black hair, and a rope of pearls around her neck, came like a waxen figure, with scarlet lips and flashing eyes, towards her table. And behind her—Lutchester! Pamela felt her fingers gripping the tablecloth. Her first impulse, curiously enough, was one of wild fury with herself for that single instant's pity. Her face grew cold and hard. She felt herself sitting ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... When all was over, however, he perceived that the girl had expected him to make advances, and he proceeds to describe and discuss his own feelings of indifference under such circumstances. "Though without gazing on the girl's figure, I had seen enough to recognize that she had all that a man can desire to find in a woman: a beautiful face, lively and well-formed eyes, a beautiful mouth, with good teeth, a healthy complexion, well-developed ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... been the attention of the hearers that at this unexpected interruption the women screamed and the men made a wide path for the figure that burst through them ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... middle of the studio, wearing a silk hat, a morning coat, striped trousers, yellow gloves, and boots with spats, stood a smiling figure. ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... of the engine grew faint a figure in European clothes and a long-tasselled chechia crept out from the dark of a door arch along the street. It advanced toward the gate. It started back at a sound. It rallied again, a figure bedeviled by vacillation. It came as far as the well in the centre ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... my feet and turned in some embarrassment (for I must have looked unspeakably ridiculous) to confront the sombre figure of a rather tall and strikingly handsome girl, who, as she stood with her hand on the knob of the door, saluted me with a formal bow. In an instantaneous glance I noted how perfectly she matched her strange surroundings. Black-robed, black-haired, with black-grey eyes ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... rapid strides, his mind tortured by such painful reflections, a tall figure suddenly stood before him, and a ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... smash rum-jugs when we get the chance, and stand by our flag as our men did in the war," said Frank, with sparkling eyes, as they went home in the moonlight arm in arm, keeping step behind Mr. Chauncey, who led the way with their mother on his arm, a martial figure though a minister, and a good captain to follow, as the boys felt after hearing his ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... confessed; he saved the Senate and thereby the nation to his party, and his rule was established unchallenged over his people, his least opinion becoming their cloud and their pillar of fire to guide them day and night. He was made far and away the dominant figure of the Senate. ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... After that extraordinary figure of speech, "Good-nights" were somewhat hastily exchanged; and Fairthorn was left; behind the curtain with feelings towards all his master's guests as little, it is to be hoped, like those of a Christian Bishop towards his fellow-creatures, as they possibly ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... For three years he has not spoken to me. I am not aware of his motives, and indeed have not cared to ask. He began by rudely refusing to conduct one of my concerts. His behavior towards me has been as inexplicable as it is uncivil. However, as I see plainly that he wishes on the present occasion to figure at Marshal Damremont's ceremony, and as it would evidently be agreeable to you, I consent to give up the baton to him, on condition that I have at least one ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... yelled, his yell nearly drowned by the cheers of the spectators, some of whom climbed on chairs and tables to look at Tom and Tim standing, one next to Howard and the other next to Jack, with Eloise the central figure, her ermine cape thrown back, and drops of sweat upon her forehead ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... a germinator or in any box in which one glass side has been arranged and allow the oats to grow till they are two or more inches high. Now examine the roots and you will see very fine hairs, similar to those shown in the accompanying figure, forming a fuzz over the surface of the roots near the tips. This fuzz is made of small hairs standing so close together that there are often as many as 38,200 on a single square inch. Fig. 17 shows how ...
— Agriculture for Beginners - Revised Edition • Charles William Burkett
... used to describe an evening passed in the company of Londos at Vostitza, when both were young men. After supper Londos, who had the face and figure of a chimpanzee, sprang upon a table, and commenced singing through his nose Rhiga's "Hymn to Liberty." A new cadi, passing near the house, inquired the cause of the discordant hubbub. A native Mussulman replied, "It is only the young primate Londos, who is drunk, and is singing hymns to the ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... similar waggish endings to phrases in the 'Lysistrata'; the figure is called [Greek: para prosdokian]—'contrary ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... life, nothing growing, nothing moving. For days together we saw no yurts, and more than one day passed without our meeting any one. Once there appeared suddenly on the white track before us a solitary figure, looking very pitiful in the great plain. When it came near it fell on its face in the sand at our feet, begging for food. It was a Chinese returning home from Urga, walking all the seven hundred miles across the desert to Kalgan. ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... She was looking very handsome herself, in her own grim, black-browed style. The new black velvet dress, with its train and V-neck, which she had made purposely for the party, became her stately, massive figure. She wore coiled around her neck the rich heavy necklace of amber beads which was a family heirloom. Her walk in the frosty air had stung her cheeks into a glowing scarlet. But her steel-blue eyes were as icy and unyielding as the sky of the winter night. She ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... "The grandest figure," thought Calhoun, "that I have seen in the North. He is a man to beware of. No wonder the Knights stand in fear ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... reader to be informed of the person of the hero of whom they are reading is so natural, we should be guilty of a great neglect, were we to omit satisfying our readers in this respect, more particularly as we can, without making use of a figure in rhetoric, (which is of very great service to many authors,) called amplification; or, in plain English, enlarging, present our readers ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... the hens' eggs instead of swelling to goose eggs, and even to ostrich eggs (as some that laid them so enthusiastically anticipated when they were so closely packed), have shrunk to pigeons' eggs, if not to the diminutive sparrows'. To keep up the figure, I am thankful there are ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... 1 a all the pieces of rattan happen to be equal, there being no short piece. Moreover, there are enough pieces to complete the figure. This combination is not inauspicious in so far as it does not augur evil, but it is thought to be a sure indication of a failure ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... the canoe, for, strangely enough, the thought never entered my head that her occupants might be enemies. I ran down below and got up our club ensign, which I hoisted at the peak, and as it blew out in the fresh morning breeze, we saw the figure in the stern of the canoe rise to his feet and wave his hat. I took up my glass once more, and was now able to make out that this figure was tall, deeply bronzed by the sun, and had grey hair and a thick bushy ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... hour she was still sitting by the drawing-room window, straining her eyes across the Square, noting every figure that passed into the radiance of the moonlight, her mind becoming clearer as her indomitable will, which had never failed her in domestic crises, began ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... old-fashioned and gouty aspect, with hair as white as his own, but with shaved, florid cheeks, wearing a necktie—almost a neckcloth—whose stiff ends projected far beyond his chin; with round legs, round arms, a round body, a round face—generally producing the effect of his short figure having been distended by means of an air-pump as much as the seams of his clothing would stand. This was the Master-Attendant of the port. A master-attendant is a superior sort of harbor-master; a person, out in the ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... abandoned the custom of building them were content like Autuabri I. Horu with a modest tomb, close to the gigantic pyramids of their ancestors. In style the statues of this epoch show a certain inferiority when compared with the beautiful work of the XIIth dynasty: the proportions of the human figure are not so good, the modelling of the limbs is not so vigorous, the rendering of the features lacks individuality; the sculptors exhibit a tendency, which had been growing since the time of the Usirtasens, to represent all their sitters with the same smiling, commonplace type of countenance. ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... After an anxious wait of three hours, we saw him coming. I was about to run out to meet him, but M held me back, pointing out the danger of such a step; so we sat still our eyes fixed on the approaching figure. But when my brother-in-law reached the inn, I could restrain my impatience no longer, but rushing out of the room met ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Robert saw a gallant figure appear in his place, a figure taller and younger, none other than St. Luc himself, the Chevalier, arriving in time to help his own, just as Daganoweda, Willet and the others had come in time to aid theirs. The Chevalier ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... else. Arndt was a very handsome boy and everybody had told him so, until he was rather vain. Many a time, when he worked in the field, he used to look at himself in a clear, still pool, and think how golden his hair was, and how lithe and graceful his figure. Now the Hill-man knew all this; and so he led the boy to a crystal mirror and showed him his own beautiful form, set off with every advantage of rich dress. And then, by fairy spells, Arndt saw beside it the image of ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... Military expenditures—dollar figure: $2.12 billion (1998); note—includes earnings from CODELCO Company and costs of pensions; does not include funding for the National Police ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... considers three thousand dinars (the figure in the Bres. Edit.) "a more probable sum." Possibly: but, I repeat, exaggeration is one of the many characteristics of ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... M. de Lesseps is very striking. Though long past middle age, he has a fresh and even youthful appearance. Both face and figure are well preserved; his slightly curling gray hair sets off in pleasing contrast his bronzed yet clear complexion, his bright eye, and genial smile. He is somewhat over the medium stature, possessed of a compact and well-knit frame, carries his head erect, and moves about ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... Governor Brown and General Toombs continued strained. The latter never lost an opportunity to upbraid him in public or in private, and some of his keenest thrusts were aimed at the plodding figure of his old friend and ally, as it passed on its lonely way through the shadows ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... It was a bitter fling, and his thoughts worked rapidly. It took a long moment for his tall figure to get up ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... our worst fears were realized. It was late one evening, I stood at the cloister gate, and on the white road that led to the chateau I saw a figure I seemed to know; but kind heavens, what a figure I It was good Brother Ralf indeed! But his white skirts were slit in rags, his ankles bleeding with sore wounds; he stooped and tottered as he walked, and, horror! that women's ...
— The Fall Of The Grand Sarrasin • William J. Ferrar
... course of time the worm is changed into the beautiful winged butterfly, which breaks its case and emerges soft and wet; but it quickly dries and spreads its wings to commence its life in the air and sunshine. The chrysalis is represented in the figure on the left. The butterfly, it will be recognized, is one of the common insects so familiar to all, with strongly veined white wings, bearing three black spots, two on the upper and one on the lower wing, and dark coloring on the corner of the upper wings. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various
... It may be added that Hermann Muller has shown good grounds for believing that mutual specialisation of this kind is beneficial both to insect and plant.) after the Duke's attack; for I believe the principle in this case may be widely applied. I like the figure, but I wish the artist had drawn a better sphinx. With respect to beauty, your remarks on hideous objects and on flowers not being made beautiful except when of practical use to them, strike me as very good. On this one point of beauty ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... who seemed to be about thirty years old appeared on the threshold of the door, spinning as she came. She was an Auvergnate, a high-colored, comfortable-looking, straightforward sort of person, with white teeth; her cap and dress, the face, full figure, and general appearance, were of the Auvergne peasant stamp. So was her dialect; she was a thorough embodiment of her district; its hardworking ways, its thrift, ignorance, and heartiness all met ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... numbered sixteen. Taylor especially is seldom at a loss for conversation and his remarks are generally original, if sometimes crude. Most of us were glad to listen when the discussions in which he was a leading figure raged round the blubber stove. Scott and Wilson were always in the thick of it, and the others chimed in as their interest, knowledge and experience led. Rash statements on questions of fact were always dangerous, for our small community ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... in the beam, this Viking vessel must have looked the real thing as she scudded before a following wind or dashed ahead when her thirty-two oars were swept through the water by sixty-four pairs of the strongest arms on earth. Her figure-head has gone; but she probably had a fierce dragon over the bows, just ready to strike. Her sides were hung with glittering shields; and when mere landsmen saw a Viking fleet draw near, the oars ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... he babbled commonplaces. The truth is that the sight of the girl had unsettled his resolutions a little. While he was away from her, he could figure to himself how he would push her into taking him at once, or how, if she refused him, he would let loose upon her the dogs of fate. But once face to face with her, he found that his resolutions had dispersed like a globule of mercury under a hammer, and that he needed a few ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... There rose in her mind the picture of his tall figure bending over her, with anguish in his eyes, with expressions of endearment on his lips. She could not, she would not tell them ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... it can perform at least waste. The pleasure we take in curves, especially "the line of beauty," is because our eyes can follow them with a minimum action of its muscles of attachment. The popular figure called the Grecian figure or the walls of Troy, is pleasant because each straight line is shorter, and at right angles to the preceding one, thus giving the greatest possible change of action to the muscles ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... drowned, and was one of the witnesses at the cremation of his remains. He took part in the Greek war of independence, and m. the sister of one of the insurgent chiefs. After various adventures in America he settled in London, where he was a distinguished figure in society, and enjoyed the reputation of a picturesque, but somewhat imaginative, conversationalist. He wrote The Adventures of a Younger Son (1831), a work of striking distinction, and the intensely interesting Records ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... that walls the sleeping porch on the end toward Number Five, and she made out the figure of a man coming from the front of Number Five and going toward the back fence. He had just passed the sleeping porch. She turned on the little flashlight we keep out there and ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... calm, chaste scholar! I can see thee now, The first young laurels on thy pallid brow, O'er thy slight figure floating lightly down In graceful folds the academic gown, On thy curled lip the classic lines that taught How nice the mind that sculptured them with thought, And triumph glistening in the clear blue eye, Too bright to live,—but O, too ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... face and figure she remembered as last standing before her, holding back the crowding grain in the San Antonio field. But here he was appareled and appointed like a gentleman, and even seemed to be superior to the garish ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... fable, but it is more than probable that the assertion that he was a swineherd is correct. It is certain that to the day of his death he could neither read nor write. He never even learned to sign his own name, yet he was a man of qualities who made a great figure in history in spite of these disabilities, leaving behind him an immortal if unenviable name. His career was humble and obscure to the vanishing point for forty years, of which practically nothing is known. It is alleged that he made a campaign in Italy with his father, but this is ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... its original sense; and here we seem to come to the first appearance in jurisprudence of this famous term, Equity. In examining an expression which has so remote an origin and so long a history as this, it is always safest to penetrate, if possible, to the simple metaphor or figure which at first shadowed forth the conception. It has generally been supposed that AEquitas is the equivalent of the Greek [Greek: isotes], i.e. the principle of equal or proportionate distribution. The equal division of numbers or physical magnitudes is ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... son!" he replied, laying a finger upon his lip: "Nay, nay, I am not of the shabby order, when I have the strings of government. Kill your sheep at famine prices, and knead your bread at a figure expressing the rigours of last winter. Let Annie make out the bill every day, and I at night will double it. You may take my word for it, Master John, this spring-harvest shall bring you in three times as much as last ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... quaint, and in two senses an absorbing, figure. The rest of the issue is given over to the Muses of poesy. "The Saturday Fray" is a clever piece by Daisy Vandenbank. The rhyming is a little uneven, and in one case assonance is made to answer for true rhyme. "Cream" and "mean" cannot make an artistic couplet. "The Common Soldiers", by John ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... at this part of his career to have been slight in figure and person, but to have been well made, active, sinewy, and graceful. Despite the fact that he was thus noted among his schoolfellows and indulged at home, he does not appear to have been in sympathy with his surroundings. Already dowered with the "hate of hate, the scorn of scorn," he ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... puffy face. Square head with staff cap set carelessly upon it. Heavy moustaches covering a somewhat mobile mouth, at the moment inclined to smile. Eyes just anyhow; heavy, but not overpowering eyebrows. In fact, a very ordinary face of a man scarcely past his prime. Hardly a figure that you would have remarked if it had not been for the gilt upon his hat—in fact it was all a disappointing discovery. He was pacing up and down with his hands on his hips, and elbows pointing backwards, talking good-naturedly to a colonel ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... Dublin: "The rain was so heavy that I was forced to come back in a covered car. While in this detestable vehicle I looked rapidly through the correspondence between Pliny and Trajan and thought that Trajan made a most creditable figure." It may be that Macaulay did not always digest his knowledge well. Yet in reading his "Life and Letters" you know that you are in company with a man who read many books and you give faith to Thackeray's remark, "Macaulay reads twenty books to write a sentence; ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... his way to the edge, peered down, and gasped. Below him, on the grassy slope at the foot of the scarp, was a figure clad in khaki. It ...
— David and the Phoenix • Edward Ormondroyd
... she bought a bed of brass, A bureau and some chairs and things and such a lovely glass To reflect her little figure—with two candle brackets near— And a little dressing table that she said was simply dear! A book shelf low to hold her books, a little china rack, And then, of course, a bureau set and lots of bric-a-brac; A dainty little escritoire, with fixings all her ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... not desire to kill for the sake of killing... but to conquer at all hazards, remain masters, and ensure the sway of our principles."—That is true,—they are subjects as well as despots. At the Committee table, during their nocturnal sessions, their sovereign presides, a formidable figure, the revolutionary Idea which confers on them the right to slay, on condition of exercising it against everybody, and therefore on themselves. Towards two o'clock, or three o'clock in the morning, exhausted, out of words and ideas, not knowing ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... wittiest and keenest of modern satirists, and his comic poems are deathless. The Danish literature owes Baggesen a great debt for the firmness, polish and form which he introduced into it—his style being always finished and elegant. With all his faults he stands as the greatest figure between Holberg and Oehlenschlager. Of all his poems, however, the loveliest and best is a little simple song, There was a time when I was very little, which every Dane, high or low, knows by heart, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... tall, thin, grey-haired figure, That looked as it had been a shade on earth[hi]; Quick in its motions, with an air of vigour, But nought to mark its breeding or its birth; Now it waxed little, then again grew bigger[hj], With now an air of gloom, or savage mirth: But as you gazed upon its features, they ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... saw that it was hopeless to contend any longer with the powerful strangers, and, by words and actions, he was evidently persuading the Chief to retire. The settlers had ceased to fire the moment that their enemies fled; and there was a deep silence, while every eye was fixed on the striking figure of the enraged Chief, whose every feature was distorted by excited passions. He stood with his tomahawk uplifted, and his tall and muscular figure in an attitude of command and defiance; while, in a loud and distinct ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... not be surpassed for whiteness and beauty. The bedgown was frilled about the shoulder, which it covered, leaving the neck only, and the upper part of her snowy bosom, visible. A dark ribbon, tied about her waist, threw her figure into exquisite outline, and gave her that simple elegance which at once bespeaks the harmony of ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... for a kitchen-garden is given in Fig. 292. In Fig. 293 is a plan of a fenced garden, in which gates are provided at the ends to allow the turning of a horse and cultivator (Webb Donnell, in American Gardening). Figure 294 shows a garden with continuous rows, but with two breaks running across the area, dividing the plantation into blocks. The area is surrounded with a windbreak, and the frames and permanent plants are ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... have been so violently perturbed by a proposal to teach SHAKSPEARE histrionically, or by the spectacle of boys enjoying modern poetry, surely supposes conditions almost incredibly archaic. This, however, does nothing to detract from the admirably-drawn figure of Quirk himself, bursting with energy, enthusiasm and intolerance, overcoming passive resistance on the part of the boys, only to be shipwrecked upon the cast-iron prejudice of the staff. That his apotheosis should have been translation to Rugby, where ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 4, 1919. • Various
... mention of water in the Old and New Testaments, as for instance: "O God, whose Spirit at the very beginning of the world was borne upon the waters, that the nature of water might even then conceive the power of sanctification; O God, who washing with waters the crimes of a guilty world, didst sign the figure of regeneration in the very out-pouring of the deluge; may this font receive of the Holy Ghost the grace of ...
— The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome • Charles Michael Baggs
... motionless; then his figure swayed slightly. He lifted the music, as if to shield his features from the others—his many auditors; but they didn't mind that brief interruption; it afforded a moment for that rough and ready dialogue which a gathering of this kind ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... [Illustration: Figure 2.—DR. JOSEPH M. TONER, a leading physician in Washington, D.C., and founder of the "Toner Lectures" for the promotion and advancement of medical education and research. In 1873, Dr. Toner became president ...
— History of the Division of Medical Sciences • Sami Khalaf Hamarneh
... portion of St. Thomas's skull. One window contains old glass, and in the centre of the floor is placed the chair of Purbeck marble in which the Archbishops are enthroned. As it is no longer considered as old as the days of Augustine the title St. Augustine's Chair must be regarded as a figure of speech. ...
— Beautiful Britain • Gordon Home
... can do to help you,' said Totty, looking at Jack's distant figure, 'you'll tell me, I know. There might be some sewing. I've got plenty of time. Window blinds, ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... of these wind-tossed bird scarers is the ki'-lao. The ki'-lao is a basket-work figure swung from a pole and is usually the shape and size of the distended wings of a large gull, though it is also made in other shapes, as that of man, the lizard, etc. The pole is about 20 feet high, and is stuck in the earth at such an angle that the swinging ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... way cautiously through the bushes. The branches sprinkled his forehead and cheeks with the cold drops of the evening dew; a distant roll of thunder was heard murmuring from the other side of the mountains; everything looked so strange that he began to feel a dread of the white figure, which now lay only a short distance from him on the ground. Still he could plainly see that it was a female, either asleep or in a swoon, and that she was attired in long white garments, such as Bertalda ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... their simple statement and explanation of scientific facts and laws. The biographical details are compiled from all readily available sources, there is no novelty or originality about them; though it is hoped that there may be some vividness. I have simply tried to present a living figure of each Pioneer in turn, and to trace his influence on the progress ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... sunlight, of autumn leaves, of amber grapes, seemed fused by some lost alchemy of the brush. As he gazed, the scene changed, and he saw himself in a darkened room with cabalistic hangings. He saw Heiligenstern's tall figure, towering in supernatural light, the Duke leaning eagerly forward, the Duchess with set lips and troubled eyes, the little prince bent ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... a great, unwavering heart, whether in the midst of his fellow-citizens, cheered by their voices, or communing with his own heart, when driven from his home, his eyes were still fixed upon his first, last hope, the community independence of Massachusetts! Always a commanding figure, we see him, at a later period, the leader in the correspondence which waked the feelings of the other colonies to united fraternal association—the people of Massachusetts with the people of the other colonies—there we see his letters acknowledging the ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... King, the kinsman and the sovereign of all the needy, is not God. A human figure is rising before the prophet-psalmist's eye, whose meekness as well as His majesty, and whose kingdom as well as His redeeming power, seem to pass beyond human limits. Divine offices seem to be devolved on a man's shoulders. Dim hopes are springing which ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... limit of an interesting figure in geometry.: If we take a circle, inscribe a triangle, then incribe another circle inside the triangle, then inscribe a square inside the inner circle, then inscribe another circle inside the square, then ...
— Miscellaneous Mathematical Constants • Various
... his pipe, and while he smoked, his figure shrank slowly in his chair. He went to bed finally, but sleep would not come, and he rose again and built up the fire and sat by it, waiting for day. His own doctrine, sternly taught for many a year, had come home to ...
— The Last Stetson • John Fox Jr.
... end of the barrier which divides the gymnasium into two parts on these occasions. He felt very lonely. Mr Spence and the school instructor were watching the gymnastics, which had just started upon their lengthy course. The Wrykyn pair were not expected to figure high on the list this year. He could have joined Mr Spence, but, at the moment, he felt disinclined for conversation. If he had been a more enthusiastic cricketer, he would have recognised the feeling as that which attacks ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse
... she stole out on a misty night and at the appointed place found him like a grey carved figure on a grey carved horse. Only his lips moved when she peered at him through the mist. He said, "This is the fifteenth night. If you'd waited till tomorrow, you wouldn't have ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... through the doors. A common rush followed him, and those who reached the open first saw Buck Daniels leaning far forward in his saddle and spurring desperately into the gloom of the night. Instantly he was only a twinkling figure in the shadows, and the beat of the hoofs rattled back at them. Dan Barry stood with his gun poised high for a second or more. Then he turned, dropped the gun into the holster, and with the same strange, unearthly cry of eagerness, he raced off ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... drawn on Germany) was not redeemable in gold, and it fell in price. In normal times a bill could not fall below the shipping point in gold, (par with us for 4 marks is 95-1/4 cents in gold;) but, since gold could not be sent, exchange on Germany could fall to any figure, set only by a declining demand. Already bills on Germany have been quoted in New York at 82, showing a depreciation of German money in the international field of about 13 per cent. Likewise, as early as the first week of September, the ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... But the figure of the old grandmother was the most remarkable of the sorrowing group. Seated on her accustomed chair, with her usual air of apathy, and want of interest in what surrounded her, she seemed every now and then mechanically to resume the motion of twirling ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... Percy from a piece in the Pepys Collection. The girl warrior is a favourite figure in popular romance. Often she slays a treacherous lover, as in Billy Taylor. Nothing is known of Mary Ambree as an historical personage; she may be as legendary as fair maiden Lilias, of Liliarid's Edge, who "fought upon her stumps." In that case ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang
... fell on the racing tide; the weird lights flickered in the brown depths of the water; and the swirling eddies gurgled darkly and flung the boats hither and thither. In the stern of each boat was a crouching figure; for the little cabin-boy had to wait in the cold until the pleasures of rum and conversation had palled upon his master. Sometimes the boy fell asleep; there came a lurch, he fell into the swift tide, and was borne away into the dark. Over and over again did little boys lose their lives in this ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman
... figure of the infant Christ wrapped in swaddling bands, the infant in pictures surrounded by ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... conspicuous figure all through the French Revolution, the Consulate, and the Empire, who thought in his simplicity that the salvation of France and the world at large depended on sound political institutions, in the drafting ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... at his feet; this odour of youth that came up from the sweet figure thus bent before him! There he saw, as it were again, the beautiful light locks he had so fondly caressed in the days gone by. She, whose memory still distressed him after twenty years of penitence, had the same fresh youthfulness, the same ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... interior of a broad hall with a stairway mounting out of it and a screened dining-room at one side, welcomed the girl. A bustling young woman in checked gingham, which fitted her as though it were a mold for her rather plump figure, met the visitor. ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... drawing up the pointed beard. While he thought, he watched the man extended on the chair, watched him like an alert cat, to extract from him some hint as to what he should do. This absorption seemed to ignore completely the other occupants of the room, of whom he was the central, commanding figure. The head nurse held the lamp carelessly, resting her hand over one hip thrown out, her figure drooping into an ungainly pose. She gazed at the surgeon steadily, as if puzzled at his intense preoccupation over the common ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... his ribs and waistcoat-buttons? If so, he may venture to look upon an Esquimaux woman walking,—which I take to be the most ludicrous spectacle in the world. Conceive of this short, squat, chunky, lumpish figure in the costume described,—grease ad libitum being added. The form is so plump and heavy as very much to project the rear dangler at the point where it leaves the body, while below it falls in, and goes with a continual muddy slap, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... winning. We remember with a certain amusement the time that Grant Robertson got off one of his annual gags to the effect that, according to the principle of strict legitimacy, there were in Europe several hundred (we forget the figure) people with a greater right to the British throne than the family at present occupying it. The roomful of students roared with genial mirth, and the unhappy prince blushed in a way that young girls used to in the good old ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... As he stepped from behind a clump of trees he saw, standing not far away, a figure that seemed strangely familiar. A moment later the figure turned and Tom saw Andy Foger confronting him. At the sight of our hero the bully turned red and walked quickly away, while Tom's fingers touched the ring of keys in ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-boat - or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa • Victor Appleton
... tall, and not ill-made. His feet and hands are large, as has ever been the case with all his family, but he has a broad chest and wide shoulders to carry off these excrescences, and on the whole his figure is good. His countenance, however, is not specially prepossessing. His hair is lank and of a dull pale reddish hue. It is always formed into three straight, lumpy masses, each brushed with admirable precision and cemented with much grease; two of them adhere ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... record for the same period in any past year. You must remember that we have to cover a very vast area. I do not know that these figures would startle us if we took the area of the whole of Europe. It was in 1896 that this plague first appeared in India, and up to April, 1907, the total figure of the human beings who have died is 5,250,000. But dealing with a population of 300,000,000, this dire mortality, although enormous, is not at all comparable with the results of the black death and other scourges, that spread over Europe ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... gangster picture. Rand had a heated argument with an over-zealous Justice of the Peace, who wanted to impound the pistols and jackknife-mark them for identification, but after hurling bloodthirsty threats of a damage suit for an astronomical figure, he managed to retain ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... mean in his appearance. His bony figure was covered by a woolen tunic and a coarse serge gown that reached to the bare feet. From the neck drooped a monk's hood. His thin, haggard face, burned brown by long exposure to the hot sun and winds of the East, would have been ugly but for ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... building, and in a public work such as this is, durability is the first object to be aimed at. He says that there is in the Vatican a compartment of which the middle portion has been painted by Giulio Romano[107] in fresco, and at each of the ends there is a figure painted by Raphael in oil. The fresco painting has been so often repaired in consequence of decay, that not a vestige of the original work remains; while the two figures painted by Raphael in oil still stand out in all their ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... aroused the slumbering energies of the taller officer. Again he drew up his commanding figure, extended his hand to the governor in silence, and turning abruptly round, hastened to follow close in the footsteps ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... Street with Maria, and she let fall her purse, and nothing in it but a pocket-piece to save her gentility. Harry was strolling off to my Lord Cappoquin's, from mounting guard at the Castle (for at that time his Lordship lived in Merrion Square); and indeed Mr Lepel was as fine a figure of a young man as a girl could wish to see, in his regimentals all laced with gold and his handsome head above them—a brown man with dark eyes. And seeing a young madam drop her purse, he stooped for it and, coming up behind them, saluted very stiff and offered ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... Gatewood, a rhapsody on a girl's mouth is proper in poetry, but scarcely germane to the record of a purely business transaction. Please answer the next question tersely, if you don't mind: 'Figure?'" ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... determined upon and successfully performed. Convalescence was prompt, and in three weeks the case was dismissed. The child was a female of 7 1/2 pounds which inherited the deformities of its mother. It thrived for nine and a half months, when it died of angina Ludovici. Figure 15 represents the mother ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... he seems likely to receive, and it would probably have fared hardly with our young hero but for the sudden appearance on the scene of another figure—a young fellow in shirt-sleeves and wearing a ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... and left Dorothy standing looking after him with something very like tears in her brown eyes. Such a quaint figure he looked in his long blue smock, his worn hat pushed to the back of his head, his sandy beard sweeping his breast; jogging beside his beloved team, doing his duty simply as he found it "in that state of life to which it had ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... statue known as La Diane de Gabies, which moved him differently, and to this presently he insisted on going. With a laugh Margaret remonstrated, but secretly she was not displeased. She was aware that his passion for this figure was due, not to its intrinsic beauty, but to a likeness he had ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... ocean, than to support or tolerate a rascally rabble of people that will not lend. These fellows, I vow, do I hate with a perfect hatred; and if, conform to the pattern of this grievous, peevish, and perverse world which lendeth nothing, you figure and liken the little world, which is man, you will find in him a terrible justling coil and clutter. The head will not lend the sight of his eyes to guide the feet and hands; the legs will refuse to bear up the body; ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... away. Prescott watched him a minute or two, but he could see no signs of haste or excitement in the compact, erect figure. Then he ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... a distinguished American poet and prose writer, born in Baltimore in 1809. He was an entirely original figure in American literature, his temperament was melancholy, he hated restraint of every kind and he gave way to dissipation, and his life is a wretched record of poverty and suffering. But the Bells, The Raven and Annabel Lee, his ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... life one sole figure of a man, that of a music-master, stood vigorously forth. The confessors had decided that music was a Christian art, born of the Catholic Church and developed within her. The two Maries were therefore permitted to study music. A spinster in spectacles, who taught singing and the ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... Mrs. Cameron said to her daughters that afternoon, when talking with them upon the subject. "Wilford tells me Katy and Bell are about the same size and figure, and Ryan shall make up a traveling suit proper for the occasion. Of course there will be no one at the wedding for whom we care, but in Boston, at the Revere, it will be different. Cousin Harvey boards there, and she is very stylish. I saw some elegant gray poplins, ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... what you know, you have not yet begun to act according to the immensity of the knowledge that is in you, then he who builds his house and lays up his treasure on the edge of a crater of molten lava is a sane, sensible person in comparison with yourselves. I say this as no figure of speech or bugbear with which to frighten you, but as an unvarnished unexaggerated statement which will be no more disputed by yourselves than ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... take to a kilt. From the portal thus decorated, one Sunday after an early dinner of baked viands, Young John issued forth on his usual Sunday errand; not empty-handed, but with his offering of cigars. He was neatly attired in a plum-coloured coat, with as large a collar of black velvet as his figure could carry; a silken waistcoat, bedecked with golden sprigs; a chaste neckerchief much in vogue at that day, representing a preserve of lilac pheasants on a buff ground; pantaloons so highly decorated with side-stripes that each leg was a three-stringed lute; and a hat of state very high and hard. ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... by the tempest to the fatal rock-shore sped. She has parted in the middle! Oh, the half of her goes down! God have mercy! Is His heaven far to seek for those who drown? So when next the white shocked faces looked with terror on the sea, Only one last clinging figure on a spar was seen to be. Nearer the trembling watchers came the wreck tossed by the wave, And the man still clung and floated, though no power on earth could save. "Could we send him a short message! Here's a trumpet, shout away!" 'Twas the preacher's hand that took it, and he wondered what to say. ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... proficient performer that he was called upon with the town drummer to furnish music for the militia musters, which were then the pride of the town. These were happy days for the lad, but his pleasure was marred by the ridicule which the contrast between his slender figure and the stalwart frame of the "six-foot drummer" caused the fun-loving towns-people to indulge in. Soon after this he learned to play on the clarionet, and when only seventeen or eighteen years old, was so advanced in his art ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... legend on the front of the building to indicate the character of the business carried on there; but instead, above the portal, standing out from the front of the building, a majestic life-size group of statuary, the central figure of which was a female ideal of Plenty, with her cornucopia. Judging from the composition of the throng passing in and out, about the same proportion of the sexes among shoppers obtained as in the nineteenth century. As we entered, Edith said that there was one of these great ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... all those melancholy graces which give beauty additional power, by blending sympathy with admiration. Her figure was interesting, and her countenance expressed at once dignity and dejection. She appeared to be in the last stage of her pregnancy. I told them that, for the future interests of their children, and to prevent the intrusion of any other settler, ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... would dispose of the cloth at a moderate figure because it was 'cronk.' The word 'cronk,' Mr. Finlayson explained, meant 'not honestly ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... can advance he is impressed with the littleness of all that can be done in one short life. He feels the same want of successors to pursue his work that the founder of a dynasty may feel for heirs to occupy his throne. He has no desire to figure in history as a Napoleon of science whose conquests must terminate with his life. Even during his active career his work may be such a kind as to require the co-operation of others and the active support of the public. If he is disappointed ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... into the room. A brief stir succeeded his entrance, as Penelope and one or two other non-players exchanged greetings with him. Then he crossed over to where Nan was playing. She was acutely conscious of his tall, loose-limbed figure as he threaded his way carefully ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... "Beside those of colour, figure, and hair, there are other physical distinctions, proving a difference of race. They have less hair on the face and body. They secrete less by the kidneys, and more by the glands of the skin; which gives them a very strong and disagreeable odour. This ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest
... the money nor part with his work; what and how great satisfactions may we then suppose to have been reaped from geometry and astronomy by Euclid when he wrote his Dioptrics, by Philippus when he had perfected his demonstration of the figure of the moon, by Archimedes when with the help of a certain angle he had found the sun's diameter to make the same part of the largest circle that that angle made of four right angles, and by Apollonius and Aristarchus who were the inventors of some other things of the ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... Hebrides, records on Oct. 26, 1773:—'Dr. Johnson roused my zeal so much that I took the liberty to tell him that he knew nothing of the [Douglas] Cause.' Lord Shelburne says: 'I conceived such a prejudice upon the sight of the present Lord Douglas's face and figure, that I could not allow myself to vote in this cause. If ever I saw a Frenchman, he is one.' Fitzmaurice's Shelburne, i. 10. Hume 'was struck,' he writes, 'with a very sensible indignation at the decision. The Cause, though not in the least ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... was born old. He had the face and figure of a voter at fifteen. His skin did not fit his face,—it wrinkled and resembled a piece of rawhide that had been left out in the rain ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... and could merely perceive the objects which lay within the immediate reach of my vision. The place was cold, calm, and still as the grave. A lamp, which hung high above my head, threw a faint light around, and showed me, within a niche of the opposite wall, the figure of a gorgeously dressed female; she appeared to be standing motionless, but as the pale light flickered upon her features, I thought I could detect the semblance of a smile. The splendor of her costume and the glittering gems which ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... cried Bert, starting to run. Just then a figure skated away from the craft, and Bert ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Snow Lodge • Laura Lee Hope
... have had occasion to stop at Pocock for water or for harbor shelter during eastern cruises, will remember a long, listless figure, astonishingly attired in blue army pants, rubber boots, loose toga made of some bright chintz material, and very bad hat, staggering through the little settlement, followed by a rabble of jeering brats, and pausing ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... hand, and he never pretended to rely on them. He knew The Cat would answer to the least pressure of the leg, and by way of showing off—for his shoulder hurt him very much—he bent the little fellow in a close figure-of-eight in and out between the goal-posts. There was a roar from the native officers and men, who dearly loved a piece of dugabashi (horse-trick work), as they called it, and the pipes very quietly and scornfully ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... you!" said the soldier with confidence, examining us fixedly. "You haven't the bearing for it . . . the figure—you haven't the appearance, I mean! And a woman likes a good appearance in a man. To her it must be perfect, everything perfect! And then she respects strength. . . . A hand should be like this!" The soldier pulled his right hand out of his ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... of the Rue de Babylone the tall, somewhat stooping figure of Hulot, stealing along close to a boarding, and he ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... essential. All his clothes, and his dagger and cap and torn boots, were carefully put away in a loft; he was dressed in clean linen, slippers, and some clothes of mine, which, as is always the way with poor relations, at once seemed to adapt themselves to his size and figure. When he came to table, washed, clean, and fresh, he seemed so touched and happy, he beamed all over with such joyful gratitude, that I too felt moved and joyful.... His face was completely transformed.... Boys of twelve have faces like that on Easter Sundays, after ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... with her, when she called to her daughter, and in the most obliging terms introduced me to her, with many kind speeches of her wish that we should cultivate much acquaintance. Lady Charlotte is very handsome, and has a very good figure: she unfortunately lisps very much, which, at first, never prejudices in favour of the understanding; but I have conversed with her too little to know anything more of her than that she is well bred, and seems to ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay |
