"Flexible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... grasping organs. All human arts base themselves ultimately upon the human hand; and even the apes approach nearest to humanity in virtue of their ever-active and busy little fingers. The elephant, again, has his flexible trunk, which, as we have all heard over and over again, usque ad nauseam, is equally well adapted to pick up a pin or to break the great boughs of tropical forest trees. (That pin, in particular, is now a well-worn classic.) The squirrel, once more, ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... first half of this year were few, and relate chiefly to those aspects of the Christian life with which her own experience was still making her so familiar. "God's plan with most of us," she wrote to Mrs. Humphrey, "appears to be a design to make us flexible, twisting us this way and that, now giving, now taking; but always at work for and in us. Almost every friend we have is going through some peculiar discipline. I fancy there is no period in our history when we do not need and get the sharp rod of correction. The thing is to grow strong ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... to take lessons on the spinet. I was so glad she did not appeal to Chilian, though he was out. I said, 'No,' very decidedly, 'that she had a good many things to learn before she tackled that.' And she said she ought to be trained while her fingers were flexible, and I said I thought washing would make them flexible enough. ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... in which she found her: "Her feet were crossed like the feet of a crucifix. The places of the stigmas were more red than usual. When we raised her head blood flowed from her nose and mouth. All her limbs remained flexible and with none of the stiffness of death even till the coffin was closed." On Friday the 13th of February she was taken to the grave, followed by the entire population of the place. She reposes in the cemetery, to the left of ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... high cheekbones, straight nose, and wide blue eyes that looked to be drawn with ink, because of their sharply pencilled brows and long, thick, black lashes. But the feature that Mrs. Carriswood noticed was Tommy's mouth, a flexible and delicately cut mouth, of which the lips moved lightly in speaking and ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... gave peremptory directions that the fetter should not be replaced upon that leg, till a cure had been effected. It was a full month before the leg was perfectly healed, and made equally strong and flexible ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... the next street. These arrangements enabled her to admit an experimenter on hypnotism, a mental healer who had been much abused by the orthodox members of her cult, and was evolving a method of her own, an ostensible delegate to an Occidental Conference of Religions, and a lady agent for a flexible celluloid undershirt. For a few days Mrs. Grubb found the society of these persons very stimulating and agreeable; but before long the hypnotist proved to be an unscrupulous gentleman, who hypnotised the mental healer so that ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... to the theme. A vain, ill-mannered, and untrustworthy egotist, defending his own sordid doings with his own cheap and weather-beaten philosophy, is very likely to express himself best in a language flexible and pungent, but indelicate and without dignity. But the peculiarity of these loose and almost slangy soliloquies is that every now and then in them there occur bursts of pure poetry which are like a burst of birds singing. Browning does not hesitate ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... The orthography of the two differs materially, and in this respect Dikele more resembles the languages of the eastern coast than its western neighbour, at the same time less than the Fiote or the Congoese. It has a larger number of declensions, and its adjectives and pronouns are more flexible and complicated. On the other hand, it possesses few of the conjugations which form so conspicuous a feature in the tongues of the Lower River, and, reversing the usage of the Mpongwe, it makes very little use ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... is made of a metal, not so hard as flexible: his shoulders are large, fit for a load of injuries; which he bears not out of baseness and cowardliness, because he dare not revenge, but out of Christian fortitude, because he may not: he has so conquered himself that wrongs ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... of Pedagogics must be extremely flexible, so that they may be adapted to the great variety of minds, and since an infinite variety of circumstances may arise in their application, we find, as we should expect, in all educational literature room for widely differing opinions and the wildest theories; ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... four miles up the creek, and found a crossing at a fishing place of the natives; in an old camping place near this fishery, I saw a long funnel-shaped fish trap, made of the flexible stem of Flagellaria. Hence we travelled about north-west by west, towards a fine mountain range, which yesterday bore W. N. W. After six miles of undulating scrubby country, and broad-leaved tea-tree forest, ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... clairvoyant vision may actually perceive this astral extension, under favorable circumstances. They perceive the astral arm of the person stretching out, diminishing in size as it extends (just as a piece of flexible rubber shrinks in diameter as it expands in length) and finally coming in contact with the physical object it wishes to move or strike. Then is seen a strong flow of prana along its length, which ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... this question. Judging by his long white beard, one should say he is an old man, and his face completely covered with hair should almost confirm one in this opinion, but then again he has such bright, youthful eyes, such a smooth, flexible back, that one cannot understand him. He appears to be a wealthy man; for he is wearing a pair of fine boots and as far as I can infer from his exterior he seems to be ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... Signore (pointing out the interlaced ladders in the wrought-iron railings), l'echelle, la scala, c'est tout flexible—(He shakes the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 19, 1891 • Various
... Whittier. His genius is Hebrew, Biblical,—more so than that of any other poet now using the English language. In other words, he is organically a poem of the Will. He is a flower of the moral sentiment,—and of the moral sentiment, not in its flexible, feminine, vine-like dependence and play, but in its masculine rigor, climbing in direct, vertical affirmation, like a forest-pine. In this respect he affiliates with Wordsworth, and, going farther back, with Milton, whose ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... after him, however, and to the horror of the onlookers it extended its great flexible tentacles, enveloped the entire boat, man and all, and then dragged the whole down into the clear depths. The diver's horrified comrades rushed to his assistance, and an attempt was made to kill the octopus ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... epoch-marking peculiarity already mentioned. As a melodist he stands in a rank by himself. His melodies move easily, now within the diatonic mode, and now in the chromatic, but generally, within the limits of each period, in the diatonic mode. The melodies are flexible, well balanced, very singable, and natural. Each comes up, lives its day, and dies away into silence, like a lovely flower unfolding from its own germ in the moment of the year when the sunshine and ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews
... else that it required a complex method of preparation. Witness "Judge" Walter Rumsey's Electuary of Cophy, which appeared in 1657 in connection with a curious work of his called Organon Salutis: an instrument to cleanse the stomach.[73] The instrument itself was a flexible whale-bone, two or three feet long, with a small linen or silk button at the end, and was designed to be introduced into the stomach to produce the effect of an emetic. The electuary of coffee was to be taken by the patient before ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... purpose, namely, in the famous "Essay on Murder considered as one of the Fine Arts," published in Blackwood,—an effort which, admired and admirable though it be, is also, it must be allowed, somewhat strained. His style, full and flexible, pure and polished, is peculiarly his own; yet it is not the style of a mannerist,—its charm is, so to speak, latent; the form never obtrudes; the secret is only discoverable by analysis and study. It consists simply in the reader's assurance of the writer's ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... county courts the authority to order warehouses inconvenient to the landings discontinued. These two pieces of legislation brought all of the public warehouses near convenient landings and made the warehouse movement flexible. From this point on, as the tobacco industry shifted from one area to another, the warehouse movement kept pace. From time to time established warehouses were ordered discontinued, or new ones erected; and occasionally ...
— Tobacco in Colonial Virginia - "The Sovereign Remedy" • Melvin Herndon
... conceive how creatures with long sharp claws, though provided with flexible wrists or joints, should be able to take up the newly produced little lump of inanimate flesh, and thrust a long, soft, yielding nipple down into the depths of the stomach. I collected a number of FACTS to prove the contrary — but the question ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... When beginning to take systematic exercise, do not make the separate movements too vigorous or continue them too long. If any of them cause pain or considerable strain, omit them until the body becomes stronger and more flexible. The muscular soreness often resulting from exercise at the beginning is, as a rule, of little consequence and disappears before long. The different movements should be practiced in spite of it, because that is the only way to relieve and overcome this condition. Stop when you begin ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... sadness was rather in seeing those who, not having the spectacles, thought that the iron rod was flexible, and the ice statue warm. I saw many a gallant heart, which seemed to me brave and loyal as the crusaders sent by genuine and noble faith to Syria and the sepulchre, pursuing, through days and nights, and a long life ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... was now sinking into that feeble and flexible shape, which has always characterised the predominance of Whig councils. The Marquess Wellesley had made some showy speeches on emancipation; and in 1822, and as if with the object of showing him the utter vanity of attempting to reform the bitterness of Popish faction by ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... both in his mental habits and in his manner of life, yet the main part of him was original and unadulterated Thoreau. His literary style is in many respects better than that of Emerson; its logical texture is better; it has more continuity, more evolution, it is more flexible and adaptive; it is the medium of a lesser mind, but of a mind more thoroughly imbued with the influence of the classical standards of modern literature. I believe "Walden" will last as long as anything Emerson has written, if not longer. ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... "I'm sure he does not expect us to be happy here. But I'm going to fool him and have just as good a time as I can." As she spoke they both turned around—an easy thing to do with a single flop of their flexible tails—and Cap'n Bill uttered a cry of surprise. Just across the room stood a perfect duplicate of himself. The round head, with its bald top and scraggly whiskers, the sailor cap and shirt, the wide pantaloons, even the wooden leg, each and ...
— The Sea Fairies • L. Frank Baum
... this from a variety of causes. They are not so soon sent from under the paternal eye into the bustle of the world, and so early exposed to the contagion of bad example: their hearts are naturally more flexible, soft, and liable to any kind of impression the forming hand may stamp on them; and, lastly, as they do not receive the same classical education with boys, their feeble minds are not obliged at once to receive and separate the precepts of christianity, and the documents ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... as Meriem had speared Korak's antagonist. The exultation of the old ape was keen. He strutted, stiff-legged and truculent about the body of the fallen enemy. He growled and upcurved his long, flexible lip. His hair bristled. He was paying no attention to Meriem and Korak. Back in the uttermost recesses of his little brain something was stirring—something which the sight and smell of the great bull had aroused. The outward manifestation of the germinating idea was one ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... warrior, with the help of some of the young men, removed the monstrous hide. He did not care for any of the flesh, although he knew that the people would use large portions of it. Then he and Inmutanka scraped it carefully, and, when it was well cured until it was soft and flexible, they put it in their lodge, where it spread so far over the bark floor that they were compelled to roll it back partly, to keep it out of the fire in the centre. It was the finest trophy in the village, and many came to ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... very flexible instrument, which can be employed at pleasure to deduce anything from anything. And Philo regards these "points of construction" as the excuse, not as the motive, of his ethical and philosophical teaching. He does ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... weir, and shaken by the thunder below, lilies, golden and white, were swaying at anchor among the reeds. Meadow-sweet hung from the banks thick with weed and trailing bramble, and there also hung a daughter of earth. Her face was shaded by a broad straw hat with a flexible brim that left her lips and chin in the sun, and, sometimes nodding, sent forth a light of promising eyes. Across her shoulders, and behind, flowed large loose curls, brown in shadow, almost golden where the ray touched them. She was simply ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... french disciple of his well expresses it: 'Bergson claims of us first of all a certain inner catastrophe, and not every one is capable of such a logical revolution. But those who have once found themselves flexible enough for the execution of such a psychological change of front, discover somehow that they can never return again to their ancient attitude of mind. They are now Bergsonians ... and possess the principal thoughts of the master all at once. They have understood in the fashion in which one loves, ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... Geniality, the President becomes a formality, and the burden of his duty is to make himself a pleasant nobody, yet natural to the position. Like the apprentice of the armorer, it is my task only to hold the hot iron on the anvil while the skilled craftsmen strike out the flexible sword-blade. There is no need for me to praise or analyze the character or fame of the great poet whose centennial we celebrate. This will be done presently by abler hands, in eloquent verse and prose. Tom Moore was a poet of all lands, and it is fitting ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... which are called dingding, are made of excellent timber. The walls of the Indians' houses are made of bamboo, inasmuch as they are poorer. The roof is made of palm-leaf, called nipa. Instead of nails, the natives use certain strong ligaments, made from flexible roots, called bejuco [i.e., rattan], where we use nails. These houses, then, are considered more healthy; for as it is usually very hot in the islands, these houses are much more cool, and the winds blow through them with greater ease. When ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIII, 1629-30 • Various
... animal held by black sticky bands which had chafed the skin to bleeding point. These bands were branches of a newly-discovered carnivorous plant which had been aptly named the 'land octopus.' The branches are flexible, black, polished and without leaves, ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... together had come—a cloudy evening with wind—which indeed was very seldom absent in this elevated place. How permanently it was imprinted upon his vision; that look of her as she glided into the parlour to tea; a slim flexible figure; a face, strained from its roundness, and marked by the pallors of restless days and nights, suggesting tragic possibilities quite at variance with her times of buoyancy; a trying of this morsel and that, and an inability to eat either. ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... Life is enormously flexible—look at all that we've done to our dogs,—but we carry our hairy past with us wherever we go. The wise St. Bernards and the selfish toy lap-dogs are brothers, and some things are possible for them and others are not. So with us. There are definite limits to simian civilizations, ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... a dark church, but could flame with light like a conflagration. Her face scarcely ever altered from its look of brooding. She might have been one of the women who went with Mary when Jesus was dead. Her body was not flexible and living. She walked with a swing, rather heavily, her head bowed forward, pondering. She was not clumsy, and yet none of her movements seemed quite THE movement. Often, when wiping the dishes, she would stand in bewilderment and chagrin because she had pulled in two halves a cup or a tumbler. ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... you are naturally a fool—a weak, flexible fool. A man with a tenth of your gifts would lead you by the nose into temptation. But I warn you if you fall now conscience will prick you as it never yet has; you will be miserable, and yet though miserable ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... J. Bryce, Flexible and Rigid Constitutions, in Studies in History and Jurisprudence (London and New ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... and Eskimo. Harris explained that he intruded these hostile verbs and nouns to adorn his page, and justified himself by saying that 'they all do it. Everybody that writes elegantly'. Whereupon Mark Twain, whose own English was as pure as it was rich and flexible, promptly read Harris a needed lesson: 'A man who writes a book for the general public to read is not justified in disfiguring his pages with untranslated foreign expressions. It is an insolence toward the majority of the purchasers, ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 5 - The Englishing of French Words; The Dialectal Words in Blunden's Poems • Society for Pure English
... do not resemble a Chukchi or a Korak any more than a Chinaman resembles a Comanche or a Sioux. Their dress is very peculiar. It consists of a fur hood, tight fur trousers, short deerskin boots, a Masonic apron, made of soft flexible buckskin and elaborately ornamented with beads and pieces of metal, and a singular-looking frock-coat cut in very civilised style out of deerskin, and ornamented with long strings of coloured reindeer hair made into chenille. You can never see one without ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... enemies. His policy was liberal, but he intended to go slowly. "Piedmont must begin by raising herself, by re-establishing in Europe as well as in Italy, a position and a credit equal to her ambition. Hence there must be a policy unswerving in its aims but flexible and various as to the means employed." Cavour's character was summed up in these words. He distrusted violent measures, and yet could act with seeming rashness in a crisis when prudence ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... was very young; he might be flexible if properly handled; and in case the boy, whose father was already a Koshare and completely under Tyope's influence, could be induced to join the society of the Delight Makers, it would be a gain fully compensating for the other disadvantages of the situation. One more Koshare in ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... like a Morville, but Mr. Shene had shown all that art could convey of his individual self, with almost one of his unearthly looks. The beautiful eyes, with somewhat of their peculiar lightsomeness, the flexible look of the lip, the upward pose of the head, the set of that lock of hair that used to wave in the wind, the animated position, 'just ready for a start,' as Charles used to call it, were recalled as far as was ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... after the de Hauteville ball Lady Esmondet and Vaura met at the breakfast-table, at noon, Lady Esmondet not looking paler than usual. Vaura was pale for she had slept none, her eyes looking larger and her dainty and flexible lips a deep red. She was quite like her own sweet self though, in spite of fatigue, and her soft cardinal silk morning robe, loose at the throat, and turned down collar of white muslin and lace. In her belt the pink, heliotrope, ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... in the chest portion of the esophagus, and so beyond reach, or because too firmly seated, can not be dislodged from the neck by pressing and manipulating that part externally. In such event we must resort to the use of the probang. (Pl. III, figs. 2 and 3.) A probang is a flexible instrument and adapts itself to the natural curvature of the gullet, and if used cautiously there is not much risk of injury. Before passing the probang, a gag which has an aperture at each end, from which straps pass to be ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... upon browning foliage, merry country folk and song; a gleam of a better world after the dull and solemn North: a glorious sensation of being at home among people who like myself dared to say something graceful and to do something wanton; the beloved flexible and vigorous sounds of my mother tongue, and the great joy of the people's craving for beauty and elegance down into the very lowest circles: roughness and wildness not without a certain dignity, not simply rude and coarse as with the Northern barbarians: a poor lad in rags who sings something ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... as the democratic; this is true, and it strongly supports the view under consideration. Nothing is more startling than the contrast between the heavy, formal, lifeless slang of the man-about-town and the light, living, and flexible slang of the coster. The talk of the upper strata of the educated classes is about the most shapeless, aimless, and hopeless literary product that the world has ever seen. Clearly in this, again, the upper classes have degenerated. We have ample evidence that the old ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... than the blind laws of insensate matter. Nay, even Socialism, just a little disguised, might begin to build and teach for the benefit of the young, secure of being backed and assisted in its work by the civil magistrate. Further, should the grant scheme be rendered more flexible, i.e. extended to a lower grade of qualification, and thus the public purse be applied to the maintenance and perpetuation of a hedge-school system of education,—or should it be rendered more liberal, i.e. should the Government be induced to do proportionally more, ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... believed that I discovered wonders of which the world was as yet ignorant. I remember well the thrill of delight and admiration that shot through me the first time that I discovered the common wheel animalcule (Rotifera vulgaris) expanding and contracting its flexible spokes, and seemingly rotating through the water. Alas! as I grew older, and obtained some works treating of my favorite study, I found that I was only on the threshold of a science to the investigation ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... for she failed to take advantage of it, occupying the opposite end of the sofa. A modern addition to a woman's toilet is a large square of chiffon, edged with narrow metal or crystal fringe, or a gold or silver flexible cord. This scarf is always in beguiling contrast to the costume, and when not being worn, is thrown over the chair or end of sofa against which our lady reclines. To a certain degree, this portable background makes a woman decorative when the wrong ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... benevolent, though a commanding countenance, dark brown hair, which he wears in a cue. His mouth is large and generally firmly closed, but which from time to time discloses some defective teeth. His features are regular and placid, with all the muscles of his face under perfect control, though flexible and expressive of deep feeling when moved by emotion. In conversation he looks you full in the face, is deliberate, deferential and engaging. His voice is agreeable rather than strong. His demeanor at all times composed and dignified. His movements and gestures are graceful, ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... that admitted her was not the door that admitted some of the others (she should never forget the tipped-up nose of Mrs. Farrinder), and the superior portal remained ajar, disclosing possible vistas. She had lived with long-haired men and short-haired women, she had contributed a flexible faith and an irremediable want of funds to a dozen social experiments, she had partaken of the comfort of a hundred religions, had followed innumerable dietary reforms, chiefly of the negative order, and had gone of an ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... a narrow strip of paper. The paper, when thus prepared, is passed rapidly through an instrument attached to a telegraph-wire, at the other end of which is a similar instrument which runs in unison. The first instrument is provided with a flexible metallic comb, which presses through the perforations in the paper and thus closes the circuit at each dot and line, while the second instrument is provided with a metallic stylus, or pointer, which rests upon a fillet of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... His voice was flexible and melodious (in singing it was a baritone); though his utterance was perceptibly marked by a Lancastrian "burr"; his gestures were free and graceful, though never violent; every muscle of his face seemed to play its part in his nervous declamation; and ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... when he saw one of our number, present himself somewhat before the rest, he drew forth a little scroll of parchment (somewhat yellower than our parchment, and shining like the leaves of writing tables, but otherwise soft and flexible,) and delivered it to our foremost man. In which scroll were written in ancient Hebrew, and in ancient Greek, and in good Latin of the school, and in Spanish, these words: Land ye not, none of you; and ...
— The New Atlantis • Francis Bacon
... beginning of the arm movement, being from the body, is in the upper arm; the finish of it is at the tips of the fingers, with the forefinger leading, or bringing the gesture to a point. There is generally a slightly flexible, rythmical movement of the arm and hand. This should not, as a rule, be very marked, and in specially energetic action is hardly observable. In this arm action there is an early preparatory movement, which indicates or suggests, what is coming. Often a moment ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... by Fenelon's "Lettre a l'Academie."[186] This work is very important with regard to the subject that now occupies us, not only because Sidney gives in it his opinion on works of fiction in general; but because here we have at last a specimen of flexible, spirited, fluent prose, without excessive ornament of style, or learned impedimenta, a specimen of that prose which is exactly suited to novels and that no one—Roger Ascham perhaps excepted—had ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... undesirable method of progressing; how can they be avoided? Only by organising elastic institutions in which new ideas of amelioration can easily be incorporated, and laws which can be accommodated without struggle or friction to the rise of new opinions. What is needed is a flexible government open to the penetration of ideas, and the key to such a government is ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... spine. Then attach the positive cord; that is, the cord connected with the negative post, to another sponge-roll, to be held in the operator's right hand; or, what is better, attach it to a thin, flexible, metallic wristband, (brass is good, but metallic lace—such as is used in trimming regalia, is best), underlaid with wet muslin, and fastened around the right wrist. This brings the operator's hand into the circuit as the negative electrode or pole. Next, pass a ...
— A Newly Discovered System of Electrical Medication • Daniel Clark
... William Strachey's "True Reportory of the Wrack of Sir Thomas Gates, Kt., vpon and from the islands of the Bermudas" may or may not have given a hint to Shakespeare for the storm-scene in "The Tempest." In either case it is admirable writing, flexible, sensitive, shrewdly observant. Whitaker, the apostle of Virginia, mingles, like many a missionary of the present day, the style of an exhorter with a keen discernment of the traits of the savage mind. George Percy, fresh from Northumberland, tells in a language as simple as Defoe's ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... with it, the present estimation they stand in is a state of honour and respect, consider, Sir, in what manner you will afterwards proceed. Can you conceive that the people of this country will long submit to be governed by so flexible a House of Commons? It is not in the nature of human society that any form of government, in such circumstances, can long be preserved. In ours, the general contempt of the people is as fatal as their detestation. Such, I am persuaded, would be the necessary effect of any base ...
— English Satires • Various
... the same continuous murmur seemed to awake him into a peaceful world. Through the open window came in the scents of summer, the freshness of a new day. How sweet and light was the air! It was indeed the height of summer. The corn, not yet tasseled, stood in green flexible ranks, moved by the early breeze. In the river-meadows haying had just begun. Fields of timothy and clover, yellowing to ripeness, took on a fresh bloom from the dew, and there was an odor of new-mown grass from the sections where the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Jeanie had an inward conviction that the feelings of her father, however just, and upright, and honourable, were too little in unison with the spirit of the time to admit of his being a good judge of the measures to be adopted in this crisis. Herself more flexible in manner, though no less upright in principle, she felt that to ask his consent to her pilgrimage would be to encounter the risk of drawing down his positive prohibition, and under that she believed her journey could not be blessed in its ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... knowledge of Mayfair ... redolent of humanity at its best ... fluid and flexible style ... suitable for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 15, 1914 • Various
... impede its movements. The position of the hand is as easy to feel as it is to see. I do not feel each letter any more than you see each letter separately when you read. Constant practice makes the fingers very flexible, and some of my friends spell rapidly—about as fast as an expert writes on a typewriter. The mere spelling is, of course, no more a conscious act than ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... medicate the entire canal, never give the slightest pain, never stain the clothing, are rapid, pleasant and cleanly in their action, could be used by a child without danger of injury, are perfectly soft and flexible, and ...
— Manhood Perfectly Restored • Unknown
... of some saintly well, cool and pure down to the unblemished sand at the bottom. The small lips had a gentle compression which indicated a repressed strength of feeling; while the straight line of the nose, and the flexible, delicate nostril, were perfect as in those sculptured fragments of the antique which the soil of Italy so often gives forth to the day from the sepulchres of the past. The habitual pose of the head and face had the shy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... The finished structure could hardly be called a thing of beauty. We have only one of the stable-ladders to mount it from the rear, and instead of toboggans we have only Poppsy's home-made hand-sleigh and Dinkie's somewhat dilapidated "flexible coaster." But when water had been carried out to that smooth runway and the boards had been coated with ice, like brazil-nuts glace, and the snow along the lower course had been well packed down, it at least gave you a ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... well. Her hair was arranged simply; her head was set beautifully on her shoulders. She was dressed in black, the bodice covered with spangles that with her slightest movement shimmered and reflected the light like a coat of flexible mail. A number of men were standing about her, and many women, as they passed, held out their hands to her in the way that ladies of fashion have. Keith saw Mrs. Wentworth approach her, and a very animated conversation appeared to take place between them, and the lady in black turned quickly ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... for the 'formulation of a new banking law, affording a flexible currency bottomed largely upon commercial assets.... He also proposed making corporations share with the government and states a certain part ...
— The Invisible Government • Dan Smoot
... moment and disappeared in the shadows. When she returned, she carried a curved band of flexible steel. Quest took it from her, attached it by means of a coil of wire to the battery, and with firm, soft fingers slipped it on to Lenora's forehead. Then he stepped back. A rare emotion quivered in ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... features indicated his southern blood, and an indescribable expression and manner told of one accustomed to command. His face bore the traces of scars, doubtless honourably gained; seen beneath a scarlet cap, lined with steel, but trimmed with fur. A flexible coat of mail, so cunningly wrought as to offer no more opposition to the movements of the wearer than a greatcoat might nowadays, was covered with a thick cloak or mantle, in deference to the severity of the weather; the thighs were similarly protected by linked ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... shoulder of the mantle there was cut, in white cloth, a cross of a peculiar form. This upper robe concealed what at first view seemed rather inconsistent with its form, a shirt, namely, of linked mail, with sleeves and gloves of the same, curiously plaited and interwoven, as flexible to the body as those which are now wrought in the stocking-loom, out of less obdurate materials. The fore-part of his thighs, where the folds of his mantle permitted them to be seen, were also covered with linked mail; the knees and feet were defended ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... so goot" merits particular notice. It is an expression that seems to me capable of extension and distension. It is a flexible, comfortable, jovial, rollicking expression. To give a perfect translation of it is not easy; but I cannot think of a better way of conveying its meaning, than by saying that it is a compound of the phrases—"be so good," "by your leave," "what's your will," "bless your heart," "all serene," and ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... beautiful gauze and rich lace,—a style most becoming to a girl of her age. Health, activity, decision were written full upon her, whether in the small foot which planted itself on the ground, firm but flexible, or in the bearing of her body, agile ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... result has certainly been that he is one of the best-known of English prose writers on the Continent, and one whom foreigners most readily comprehend. This peculiarity, of which he himself was fully aware, we may agree with him in ascribing to his residence at Lausanne. At the "flexible age of sixteen he soon learned to endure, and gradually to adopt," foreign manners. French became the language in which he spontaneously thought; "his views were enlarged, and his prejudices were corrected." In one particular ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... monoplane, 1911, was a brilliant attempt at high speed for low power; it presented certain advantages as a scout. A 50 h.p. Gnome, fitted behind the pilot's seat in the streamlined fuselage, was cooled through louvres. The propeller at the end of the tail was connected with the engine by a flexible coupling. This machine was, in its day, the fastest for its power in the world, doing 80 miles per hour. Viking 1 was a twin tractor biplane driven by a 50 h.p. Gnome engine through chains. It was built by the ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber
... in mind, as I have already shown, that the manifestations of the shoulder in the street by no means accord with those of people ruled by the fashions of society. There is very little harmony or relation between the exquisite joints of a refined nature, the swift and flexible movements of an elegant organism, and the evolutions clumsily executed by torpid limbs, ankylosed, as it were, by labor at once hard ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... to the arts of space; the arts of time—music, poetry, and the (written) drama—employing vehicles more flexible, have been more fortunate, though they too suffer in some degree from worshipping, instead of the god of order, the ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... Provang (which was a flexible whalebone from two to three feet long, with a small linen or silk button at the end, which was to be introduced into the stomach to produce the effect of an emetic), the reader may find some account in Wood's Athen. (Bliss's edit., ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 35, June 29, 1850 • Various
... breeding and repose, he looked both a man of the great world and an intolerant leader of men. His long oval face was thin and somewhat lined, the mouth heavily moulded and closely set, suggestive of sarcasm and humor; the nose long, with arching and flexible nostrils. His eyes, seldom widely opened, were light blue, very keen, usually cold. Like many other men of his position in Europe, he had discarded wig and queue and wore his ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... so— though rapture blind my eyes, and hunger crisp dark and inert my mouth, not honey, not the south, not the tall stalk of red twin-lilies, nor light branch of fruit tree caught in flexible ...
— Hymen • Hilda Doolittle
... Miss Seward, of Litchfield, who, to her numerous accomplishments, added, in a remarkable degree, the power of narrative in private conversation. In its present form, the tale must necessarily lose all the interest which was attached to it, by the flexible voice and intelligent features of the gifted narrator. Yet still, read aloud, to an undoubting audience by the doubtful light of the closing evening, or in silence, by a decaying taper, and amidst the solitude ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... comparatively modern, when they adopted the term, would have taken it in the sense which was current at their own day. Now, though the common people were not permitted to wear high bonnets, nor of any other than a soft and flexible material, the kings and personages of distinction had theirs of a lofty form, and stiffened for the express purpose of making them stand up at an imposing elevation above the crown of the head. In the national collection at Paris there is preserved an antique gem, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 69, February 22, 1851 • Various
... succeed any better in getting through or around Gridley's line of flexible human steel. Until within ten minutes before the close of the second half, it looked like a tie between giants ...
— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock
... Tests of this welded joint by R. H. Wyrill, Waterworks Engineer, Swansea, showed it to be quite as strong as the unwelded steel cut from the shell. The circumferential joints of the tube were made by turning up the edges of the sheets and welding them; this gives a flexible watertight joint. The tube was made in lengths of 9 ft. 9 ins. and its ends were turned up all around; just back from the turned-up ends a vertical sheet steel collar was welded to the tube to form a strip end for the external coating. These details ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette
... diameter. There is scarcely any difference in their size to the very top, where observe that curious crown of leaves, which has the fruit—the double cocoa-nut—inside it. If there was a breeze we should see the trees bending about like whips, of so flexible ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... have naturally the deepest interest. The history of responsible government affords another illustration of a truth which stands out clear in the history of nations, that those constitutions which are of a flexible character, the natural growth of the experiences of centuries, and which have been created by the necessities and conditions of the times, possess the elements of real stability, and best ensure the prosperity of a people. The great source ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... a peduncle, flexible, and provided with muscles. Scuta[3] furnished only with an adductor muscle: other valves, when present, not ...
— A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) - The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes • Charles Darwin
... enduring the Weather, is chosen for all sorts of Works that are exposed thereto. It bears a Leaf nearest the Liquorice-Plant. 'Tis a pretty tall Tree. Of this the Indians make their choicest Bows, it being very tough and flexible. We have little or none ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... family reasons, and was permitted to remain on condition that he did not actively set himself in opposition to the Empire. M. Gindriez looked upon his own political career as ended, though he could have made it prosperous enough, and even brilliant, by serving the power of the day. A more flexible instrument had been put into his prefecture, a new legislative body had been elected to give a false appearance of parliamentary government, and an autocratic system had been established which M. Gindriez ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... can declare: Government is not the problem, and government is not the solution. We—the American people—we are the solution. Our founders understood that well and gave us a democracy strong enough to endure for centuries, flexible enough to face our common challenges and advance our common dreams in ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... torpedo travels below the surface of the water is regulated by means of a flexible diaphragm, M, secured in the outer casing and connected to a rod sliding freely in fixed bearings. A spiral or other spring, O, is compressed between a color on the rod and an adjustable fixed nut, by which the tension of the spring is regulated so that the pressure ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 481, March 21, 1885 • Various
... was only necessary to destroy the internal movements. I unscrewed the long mouth-piece, and gently withdrew from it the little membrane-covered cylinder, not six inches in length, which formed the soul of my invention. I took it in my hand and gazed upon it. Through its thin, flexible, and almost transparent outer envelope I could see, as I held it to the light, its framework, fine as the thread-like bones of a fish, its elastic chords, its quivering diaphragms, and all the delicate organs of its inner life. It seemed as if I could feel the palpitations ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... marriage tie is made more flexible, marriage will always be a risk, which men particularly will undertake with misgiving.' —H. ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... that I ought to have declined the invitation Sally had given. A sense of outrage—of resentment—swelled hot and strong in my heart. What was this social barrier—this aristocratic standard that could accept the General and reject such men as I? If it had sprung back, strong and flexible as a steel wire, before the man, would it still present its irresistible strength against the power of money? In that instant I resolved that if wealth alone could triumph over it, wealth should become the weapon of my attack. Then my gaze met Sally's over the ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... other objects; namely, to wonderful slave women who were waiting for the bathers. Two of them, Africans, resembling noble statues of ebony, began to anoint their bodies with delicate perfumes from Arabia; others, Phrygians, skilled in hairdressing, held in their hands, which were bending and flexible as serpents, combs and mirrors of polished steel; two Grecian maidens from Kos, who were simply like deities, waited as vestiplicae, till the moment should come to put statuesque folds in the togas ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... of her affectionate anxiety for Maggie, Lucy could not persuade herself to defer a conversation about her with Tom, who, she thought, with such a cup of joy before him as this rapid fulfilment of his wish about the Mill, must become pliant and flexible. Her nature supplied her with no key to Tom's; and she was puzzled as well as pained to notice the unpleasant change on his countenance when she gave him the history of the way in which Philip had used his influence with his father. She had counted on this ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... a singular appliance, of his own manufacture, somewhat like a miniature vacuum cleaner. It had been made from a bicycle foot-pump, by reversing the piston-valve, and was fitted with a glass nozzle and a small detachable glass receiver for collecting the dust, at the end of a flexible metal tube. ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... from a tin cup. He reminded Billie of one of Shakespeare's wise fools. All he lacked were the cap and bells. His whimsical, humorous eyes were rather far apart; his dark hair, cropped close, stood up straight over his forehead. His nose was distinguished in shape and his flexible mouth turned up at the corners. He talked slowly with a sort of twang like a farmer from the east coast and there was a kind of hidden humor under whatever he said. He had charming old-world manners, and an old-fashioned ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes
... sluggish atom in his whole body, nor a slow-going faculty in his whole soul. He had eyes like fire; and his face was the most expressive I ever looked upon. And his voice was loud as the fall of mighty waters. And it was wonderfully flexible, and full of music. And he always spoke in natural tones. There was nothing like cant or monotony in his utterance. Yet he would raise his voice to such a pitch at times that you could hear him half a mile away. He was ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... entered the room gaily with the breezy assertiveness of persons who were assured of their welcome and very much at home. Hilda Ashhurst was tall, blonde, aquiline and noisy; the Countess, dainty, dark-eyed and svelte, with the flexible voice which spoke of familiarity with many tongues and rebuked the nasal greeting of her more florid companion. Hermia met them with a sigh. Only yesterday Mrs. Westfield had protested again about Hermia's growing intimacy with the Countess, who had quite innocently taken unto herself ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... affected by climate in his bodily development than any other animal; his frame is at the same time so hardy and flexible, that he thrives and increases in every variety of temperature and situation, from the tropic to the pole; nevertheless, in extremes such as these, his complexion, size, and vigor usually undergo considerable modifications.[229] ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... after food, had slid quietly into the forest to spy out the enemy. Robert, flexible, vivid, his imagination always alive, was with Tayoga, helping him with the breastworks, and keeping an eye at the same time on the forest. The lake behind him stretched away, vast, peaceful and beautiful, but he seldom looked at it now. He did not anticipate ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... it. In this way; whilst the parasite of furuncles is arranged in pairs, very rarely in chains of three or four elements, the new one, that of the culture of the fifteenth, occurs in long chains, the number of cells in each being indefinite. The chains are flexible and often appear as little tangled packets ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... mutually devised, and those specially designed for secrecy are often deciphered. So, if any one of the more conventional signs is not quickly comprehended, an Indian skilled in the principle of signs resorts to another expression of his flexible art, perhaps reproducing the gesture unabbreviated and made more graphic, perhaps presenting either the same or another conception or quality of the same object or idea by an ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... I beheld so powerful an exhibition of natural eloquence as Marnoo displayed during the course of his oration. The grace of the attitudes into which he threw his flexible figure, the striking gestures of his naked arms, and above all, the fire which shot from his brilliant eyes, imparted an effect to the continually changing accents of his voice, of which the most accomplished orator might have been proud. At one moment reclining ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... inability to get any further. Going out to the scene of difficulty I found the wagon at the base of a steep hill, stalled. Taking up a whip myself, I directed the men to lay on their gads, for each man had supplied himself with a flexible hickory withe in the early stages of the trip, to start the team, but this course did not move the wagon nor have much effect on the demoralized oxen; but following as a last resort an example I heard of on a former occasion, that brought ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... countess often fixed her unrestrained gaze on the manly yet youthful countenance of the heroic Wallace. His plumed helmet was now laid aside; and the heavy corselet unbuckled from his breast, disclosing the symmetry of his fine form, left its graceful movements to be displayed with advantage by the flexible folds of his simple tartan vest. Was it the formidable Wallace she looked on, bathed in the blood of Heselrigge, and breathing vengeance against the adherents of the tyrant Edward! It was, then, the enemy of her kinsmen of ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter |
