"Poised" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the support of liberty itself, by maintaining the laws, which can alone regulate and protect it. What madness, while every thing is so happily settled under ancient forms and institutions, now more exactly poised and adjusted, to try the hazardous experiment of a new constitution, and renounce the mature wisdom of our ancestors for the crude whimseys of turbulent innovators! Besides the certain and inconceivable ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... such an attractive girl," goes on Sadie, "so well poised, graceful, dignified, all that! And she has such exquisite coloring, and such ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... first time, what a difference lay between the queenly young woman of society and the simple little country girl who had been absorbing such a dangerously large amount of his time and thoughts. Helen, so composed, so elegantly poised, so thoroughly at home in the best social circles of the city, would be a perfect companion for him, one in every way suited to take her place at his side in the brilliant career he had mapped out for himself. ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... scene. The expression her face had worn at the cathedral entrance was on it now, and seemed to put a new soul into her features, varied by the beaming smiles as she cried out joyously at each new object-the gliding sails on the water, the curious forms of the crags, or the hawks that poised ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a curious gray, and his lips blue and apparently stiff for he only murmured, "Buenas dias, senor," and gulped and stared at Conrad. But the surprise of Conrad, while apparent, was easily accounted for, and he was too well poised to be startled ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... eyes on him with a grave, inquiring look of surprise,—a look that seemed to challenge him to stand and defend himself. From time to time, too, she let fall little bits of independent opinion, well poised and well turned, that hit exactly where she meant they should; and Harry began to stand a little in awe ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... he borrows his surname. He keeps the sportsman well in sight; and should the latter succeed in espying him, the argus knows well when he is discovered, and the moment a cock clicks or a barrel is poised upward, he is off with a loud whirr that causes the woods ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... fire of her scorn, to brave by him. But the man, all emotion having receded from his eyes, was once more like so much rock, but rock endowed with dormant power of aggression. She felt as though she had to do with a great poised boulder which offered no menace so long as she let it alone, but which needed but an unwary step of hers to destroy its equilibrium and thus bring it crashing down upon her, crushing her. She began by wondering if she had mistaken his ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... disregard of the tragic forces that had closed in on his ill-fated venture that was astounding. What could be its secret? It was something more than the coolness and poise of a brave Ulan. His manner was not cool. His mind was not poised. ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... filled with the ready tears as she caught the look on Judith's thin face, raised in adoring admiration to the great Winged Victory that stood poised at the top of the wide flight of stone stairs, showing triumphant in the misty light that seems to ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... Stamboul fades to a level mass of smoky purple, out of which a few minarets rise black against a gray sky with bands of orange fire. Last night, after a golden sunset, a fog of rusty iron came down, and hung poised over the jagged level of the hill. The whole mass of Stamboul was like black smoke; the water dim gray, a little flushed, and then like pure light, lucid, transparent, every ship and every boat sharply ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... character like hers is always seeking for its completeness the strengthening sympathy of love, although its relations are very far from personal. Thus she seems as if she ought to love Albert, and that she will at last. Her life is too self-poised and true to allow you a moment's anxiety. The waves of circumstance roll and break at her feet, and she walks queen-like over the waters. The characters are grouped around her as friends or courtiers; and so she preserves the unity of the book as the figures of ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... they had high leather boots just like their husbands', and if they wore a hat it was of the same tall, peaked sort. The sight of a Mongol woman astride a galloping pony was not a thing to be forgotten; ears of hair flapping, high hat insecurely poised on top, silver ornaments and ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... further and further into that heart so defenceless against its ravages, until he made up his mind that, should he have to suffer another twenty-four hours of this misery, there would no longer be a Chichikov in the world. Yet over him, as over every one, there hung poised the All-Saving Hand; and, an hour after his arrival at the prison, the doors of the gaol ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... needs throw myself into the melee, like a romantic fool! Did I do any good? They would have gone away without me I dare say.' But this was over-leaping the rational conclusion,—as in an instant her well-poised judgment felt. 'No, perhaps they would not. I did some good. But what possessed me to defend that man as if he were a helpless child! Ah!' said she, clenching her hands together, 'it is no wonder those people thought I was in love with him, after disgracing ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... beauty, dainty tending in personal use to an excessive scrupulousness which is more fully expressed by fastidious. Nice and delicate both refer to exact adaptation to some standard; the bar of a balance can be said to be nicely or delicately poised; as regards matters of taste and beauty, delicate is a higher and more discriminating word than nice, and is always used in a favorable sense; a delicate distinction is one worth observing; a nice distinction may be so, or may be overstrained and unduly subtle; fine in such use, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... hopelessly. She thought I was captured at last. I was past saving. And as I looked at the agent I saw "grim conquest glowing in his eye!" So I sat down not a little embarrassed by my exhibition—when I had intended to be self-poised. ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... it were a great rock of pointed crystal, white and unearthly. Serapion's eyes brightened with eagerness, and the Sea-farers gazed long at the peak, which rather seemed a star, or a headland on some celestial shore, so bright and dreamlike was it and so magically poised in ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... was a rattling of dishes, but no further speech from Belle. Georgina, not knowing what to say or do, stood poised uncertainly on the door-sill. ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... so young that it was tranquilly fixed in the joy of its first awakening, knowing very little yet, guessing nothing of its beginning nor of its end; still infantile, with all life before it, its voice merely the tiny shrilling of a grasshopper. The rocks were poised so precariously above the quivering plain of the sea that they appeared to tremble in mid-air, being things of no weight, in the rush of the planet. The distant headlands and moors dilated under the generating sun. It was then that I pulled Ecclesiastes out of my pocket, leaned ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... Justinian, it is true, re-consolidated dominion into one, but then it was the partially reformed system of the Western Empire, and not Justinian's jurisprudence, with which the barbarians were in contact during so many centuries. While they remained poised on the edge of the Empire, it may well be that they learned this distinction, which afterwards bore remarkable fruit. In favour of this theory, it must at all events be admitted that the element of Roman law in the various bodies of barbarian ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... The Earth is self-centred. Poised on an imaginary toe, she pirouettes round her self-centre, at the rate of over a thousand ...
— This Giddy Globe • Oliver Herford
... divinely sacred from human touch, should be there in his arms, with her head on his shoulder, where his kiss could reach her lips, not only unforbidden, but eagerly welcome, was impossible, and yet it was true.. But it was no more impossible and no truer, than that a being so poised, so perfectly self-centred as she, should already be so helplessly dependent upon him for her happiness. In the depths of his soul he invoked awful penalties upon himself if ever he should betray her trust, if ever he ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... The flitter hung poised in air, motionless, upon softly hissing under-jets. Cloud knew to a fraction his height above the ground. He knew to a fraction his distance from the vortex. He knew with equal certainty the density ...
— The Vortex Blaster • Edward Elmer Smith
... Festetics, a leading house in Hungary. Also, she was one of those marvelously beautiful women peculiar to that country. Waving a small jeweled hand, she begged me to take a chair beside her. A cigarette was daintily poised in ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... practicing with a rope, while the patient man called attention to several wrist movements which lent assistance in forming a perfect loop. The slightest success was repeated to perfection; unceasing devotion to a task masters it, and before the visit ended, the perfect oval poised in the air and the rope seemingly obeyed the hand of ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... his touzled yellow head, and turned to his wife, who was looking at him as she poised a forkful of fat ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... was clogged so that he could not use it, and he called out for some one to spear the Sunlander, who had turned and was running for safety under the protecting fire. The little old hunter poised his spear on the throwing-stick, swept his arm back as he ran, and ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... there was no involuntary, galvanic reaction; no sudden gasp and flame of wonder. He simply held his cigarette still poised in his fingers, half-way to his lips, with the minutest relaxing of the smile that still hovered about them, while a dull and ashen grayness crept into his face, second by ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... greatly, and as she took her seat at the table, the sight of the haughtily poised head and eagle eyes of the portrait made her laugh. Things were indeed taking a turn when that ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... appetite in no seemly fashion, resembling his friend Dr. Samuel Johnson in many notable ways. Handel as a man was of the earth, earthy, in the extreme, and marked by many whimsical and disagreeable faults. But in his art we recognize a genius so colossal, massive, and self-poised as to raise admiration to its superlative of awe. When Handel had disencumbered himself of tradition, convention, the trappings of time and circumstance, he attained a place in musical creation, solitary and ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... all this there lie, as under the cultivated crust of this fair world, deep abysses of soul, where volcanic masses of molten lava surge and shake the tremulous earth. In the gay and bustling Boulevards, a friend, an old resident of Paris, poised out to me, as we rode, the bullet marks that scarred the houses—significant tokens of what ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... He bent himself over the table, poised for a stroke, which she saw him execute a second later with a delicacy that thrilled her strangely. Full well did she remember the deftness and the steadiness of those brown hands. Had they not held her up, sustained her, in the ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... lowest step, a figure poised for swift eager motion, a flushed excited girl, a queen with palpitating heart and eyes full of dancing merriment. The steps, blazing white in the sunshine, led up to a broad platform where a tall flagstaff stood. Behind ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... wish to be rude with a gentleman as polite as yourself, Captain Passford; but you interrupted my remarks by rising from your chair," said Captain Flanger, with the revolver still poised in his hand, while he dropped the other with the handcuff upon it ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... ever in her light fantastic robe of white and spangles, with silver bracelets on her wrists and little anklets hung with bells about her slender ankles. Round and round and round galloped the white horse, the fairy figure on his back now standing, now lying, now on her knees, now poised on one small foot, or, again, dancing to the music on top of the broad saddle, keeping exact time, every movement graceful and light as that of a happy elf. Hoops, wreathed with roses and covered with silver paper, were raised across her path. ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... more admiration from everybody except the faculty than any amount of legitimate industry. He was a fluent and ready debater; he wrote for the college journal; his high animal spirits brought everybody about him, and his mind seemed ever eager and poised for flight: he was ready in wit; decried trifling subjects, yet would dispute for two hours over an absurdity; was dexterous and unanswerable in his syllogisms; would advance the crudest and most untenable theory, defend it, reducing the arguments of his opponents to meaningless ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... and endure—she will but "weep and sigh" and say twice o'er "a century of prayers." She is only sorry for the woman who was her deadly enemy and who hated her for her goodness—so often the incitement of mortal hatred. She loses without a pang the heirship to a kingdom. An ideal thus poised in goodness and radiant in beauty might well have sustained—as undoubtedly it did ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... Gray Pelican, poised where yon broad shallows shine, Know'st thou, that finny foison all is mine In the bag below thy beak — yet thine, not less? For God, of His most gracious friendliness, Hath wrought that every soul, this loving morn, Into all things may be new-corporate born, And each live whole in all: I sail ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... at the coming ship, and justified his pride. A white sail was bent to the low mast, and the oars dipped, arose, poised a moment, then dipped again, with wing-like ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... himself upon a trunk in the midst of a scene of fluffy chaos. Marie had swooped in from the next room, seized one armful, and returned in consternation as her mistress stood poised at the threshold. Then, with her face white, Marjory closed the ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... but when the wary chief Had poised and shrewdly scanned the mighty bow, Then, as a singer, skilled to play the harp, Stretches with ease on its new fastenings A string, the twisted entrails of a sheep, Made fast at either end, so easily Ulysses ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... on the smooth water; they look as if holding in their breath, and communicate by signs only. As they come near the prey the harpooner in the bow lays down his paddle and rises slowly up, and there he stands erect, motionless, and eager, with the long-handled weapon poised at arm's length above his head, till coming close to the beast he plunges it with all his might in towards the heart. During this exciting feat he has to keep his balance exactly. His neighbour in the stern at once backs his paddle, the harpooner sits down, ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... Here this young fellow, who, though only seventeen years of age, and about sixty-five inches high, with a constitution naturally rickety and much impaired by premature brandy and water, had an undoubted courage and a lion's heart, poised, tried, bent, and balanced a weapon such as he thought would do execution amongst Frenchmen. Shouting "Ha, ha!" and stamping his little feet with tremendous energy, he delivered the point twice or thrice at Captain Dobbin, who parried ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the valour of the boy he had trained to arms,—of the son of the beloved York. "His father little thought," muttered the earl, "that that arm should win glory against his old friend's life!" And as the half-uttered word died on his lips, the well-poised lance of Gloucester struck full upon his bassinet, and, despite the earl's horsemanship and his strength, made him reel in his saddle, while the prince shot by, and suddenly wheeling round, cast away the shivered lance, and assailed him sword ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... blood-drops among their glossy leaves. In places the pathway was underpinned with timber against the side of an almost sheer descent, and he noticed that one could have dropped a vertical line from the fish-hawk, which hung poised a few feet outside one angle, into the water. They descended cautiously to the first sharp bend, and here Geoffrey turned around in advance of his companion. "Do you mind telling me how long it is since you or anybody else has used this path, Miss ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... I am here, at this hour, beneath the sculptured steeds of Marly, more high-spirited than those aristocratic quadrupeds themselves; this is why I am setting foot in the avenue whose entrance is marked by their hoofs of stone perpetually poised in air. The carriages flow past endlessly, like a sombre scintillating stream of lava or molten asphalt, whereon the hats of the women seem borne along like so many flowers, and like everything else one sees in Paris, at once extravagant and pretty. I light up a cigar and looking ...
— Marguerite - 1921 • Anatole France
... portraits of danseuses, with little gauzy wings, and wands tipped with magic stars; one large, full-faced likeness of a pet actress, taken in just the right attitude to show the rounding shoulders, the lightly poised head, and the heavy hair, to the best advantage; some charming French prints, among them "Niobe and her Daughters" and "Di Vernon;" and a half dozen pictures of the fine old English stage-coach days. Over the fireplace were suspended several ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... dormer window one day a man standing at the big archway opposite, and clanking the brass knocker on the wicket that was in one of the doors. He was a smooth man, with his hair parted in the middle, and his cigarette poised on a tiny gold holder. He waited a moment, politely cursed the dust, knocked again, threw his slender sword-cane under his arm, and wiped the inside of his hat ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... high, the Poet at his will Lets the great world flit from him, seeing all, Higher through secret splendours mounting still Self-poised, nor fears to fall, ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... such strength! And he came on like a young tiger, his eyes ablaze, his nostrils quivering, his arm poised, his full chest expanding, perfectly aware the officer was feeling for the pistol at his belt, when, quick and noiseless, a small hand, white and delicate as a woman's, reached out and drew the clenched fist down; a soft voice, softened by despair, said: "It isn't any use; they'll down you ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... baton poised, but the Navy spectators broke into such a riot of joy that he let the ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock
... Colombia: Colombia is poised for muted growth in the next several years, marking continued recovery from the severe 1999 recession when GDP fell by about 4%. President PASTRANA's well-respected economic team is working to keep the economy on track, maintaining low interest rates, for example. ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... half-hour was an exhausting one for poor Chris. It was an impossibility for him to keep for long at a time, either his own, or the shape of the porpoise. He had to enter the water under the eyes of the sailors waiting with their oars poised above the sea, in the shape they knew; Christopher Mason. But once he dived under, in order to seek out the treacherous channel in the half-light, he needed his fish's eyes and senses. He therefore would swim a few yards as a fish, but had to surface again as himself in order ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... poised above Frank's heart, and in another moment the blade would have been buried to the ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... innocence by the coating of gold that it has acquired, its devotion to style by its single, graceful flying scarf, its candour and artlessness by its habit of ever drawing the long bow, its metropolitanism by its posture of swift flight to catch a Harlem train—remained poised with its arrow pointed across the upper bay. Had that arrow sped truly and horizontally it would have passed fifty feet above the head of the heroic matron whose duty it is to offer a cast-ironical welcome to the oppressed ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... eyes roved about and he saw, sitting in a natural niche of the stone, not far from him, a greasy Indian, who held his hand poised to toss ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker
... soothing, enchanting was the apparition, in Queen's Hall, ten years later, of this unchanged creature with the tortured Burne-Jones face, level and bewildering eyes, the web of gold hair still poised like a halo. Beauty grew up around him like a sudden, exuberant growth, more vigorous and from a deeper root than before. I realised, more than ever, how the musician had always been the foundation of the virtuoso. I have used the word apparition advisedly. There is something, ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... rigid. The brush remained poised in her hair. Kent, too, heard the sound that she had heard. It was a loud tapping at one of the curtained windows, the tapping of some metallic object. And that window was ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... turned from the kitchenette to find Adoree Demorest poised, a salad-bowl in one hand, a wooden spoon gripped in the other, on her face a rapt expression ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... the transepts are richly decorated in harmony with the style of the western faade. A graceful spire rises from the eastern part of the roof. It is called "The Angel's spire," from the fact that poised upon its summit is an angel covered with gilt and holding aloft a cross. This turret rises 59 feet above the roof of the church. The church itself is 486 feet in length, and from the vaulting of the roof to the pavement is 125 feet. The towers are 272 feet high. I noticed the church is built in ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... was it long ere he became equally convinced that his power was balanced by that of Sully; that a Bourbon was measured with a Bethune; a Prince of the Blood with a parvenu minister; and that such must continue to be the case so long as he permitted money to be poised against influence. ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... prowess, and with all the vanity of his kind he exulted in this opportunity of displaying his fitness for his place. Yet in him natural bravery had a qualifying caution, which was here obviously well justified. The Mexican made direct assault, rushing on with battle axe poised as though to end it all with one immediate blow. With guard and parry he was more careless than the wild bull of the Plains, which meets his foe in direct impetuous assault. White Calf was not so rash. He stepped quickly back from the attack, and as the mozo plunged forward from the ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... six-shooter nor rifle. He drew out a short knife which might be used to skin a beef or carve meat, though certainly no human being had ever used such a weapon against a five-foot rattler. He stooped and rested both hands on his thighs. His feet were not two paces from the poised head of the snake. As if marvelling at this temerity, the big rattler tucked back his head and sounded the alarm again. In response the cowboy flashed his knife in the sun. Instantly the snake struck but ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... hurled it at the advancing car. Swift through the air the missile sang: The giant from the chariot sprang, Ere crushed by that terrific blow Lay pole and wheel and flag and bow. Hanuman's eyes with fury blazed: A mountain's rocky peak he raised, Poised it on high in act to throw, And rushed upon his giant foe. Dhumraksha saw: he raised his mace And smote Hanuman on the face, Who maddened by the wound's keen pang Again upon his foeman sprang; And on the giant's head the rock Descended with resistless ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... in her grandfather's arm-chair, drawing her great-uncle's malacca cane smoothly through her fingers, while her background was made up equally of lustrous blue-and-white paint, and crimson books with gilt lines on them. The vitality and composure of her attitude, as of a bright-plumed bird poised easily before further flights, roused him to show her the limitations of her lot. So soon, so ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... Deshuttes and Varigny! Their fate surely was sad. Whirled down so suddenly to the abyss; as men are, suddenly, by the wide thunder of the Mountain Avalanche, awakened not by them, awakened far off by others! When the Chateau Clock last struck, they two were pacing languid, with poised musketoon; anxious mainly that the next hour would strike. It has struck; to them inaudible. Their trunks lie mangled: their heads parade, 'on pikes twelve feet long,' through the streets of Versailles; and shall, about noon reach the Barriers of Paris,—a too ghastly ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... of our history not by going back but forward to the dreams their vision foresaw. My fellow citizens, this nation is poised for greatness. The time has come to proceed toward a great new challenge—a second American Revolution of hope and opportunity; a revolution carrying us to new heights of progress by pushing back frontiers of knowledge and space; a revolution ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... hopes, joys and aspirations; now what remained? Bitter, rebellious feelings hardened her heart when she remembered that even while she was kneeling, thanking God for his preservation from illness, he had already passed away; nay, his sanctified spirit probably poised its wings close to the Eternal Throne, and listened to the prayer which she sent up to God for his welfare and happiness and protection while on earth. The souls of our dead need not the aid of Sandalphon to interpret the whispers that rise tremulously from the world of sin ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... responsible for all his misery; who—Mr. Worthington believed—had taken advantage of his son's youth by feminine wiles of no mean order so as to gain possession of him. I can almost bring myself to pity the first citizen of Brampton as he sits there with his pen poised over the paper, and his enemy waiting to read those tender epistles of forgiveness which he has yet to write. The clock has almost got round to the half-hour again, and there is only the date—and a ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the streets. Bonfires were blazing everywhere, at which the people roasted "geese, pigs, capons, partridges, and chickens," while upon all sides were the merriest piping and dancing. Of a sudden, a fiery dragon was seen flying through the air. It poised for a while over the heads of the revelling crowd in the Grande Place, and then burst with a prodigious explosion, sending forth rockets and other fireworks in every direction. This exhibition, then a new one, so frightened the people, that they all took to their heels, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... most unpopular man in the trenches is undoubtedly the Trench Mortar Officer. His apparatus consists of what looks like a section of rain-pipe, standing on legs. Upon its upturned muzzle is poised a bomb, having the appearance of a plum-pudding on a stick. This he discharges over the parapet into the German trenches, where it causes a comforting explosion. He then walks ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... "Oh!" she dropped the olive poised between her fingers, and as she did so, he looked across and ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... passing east and west through Comrie. The phenomena of earthquakes in the latter district are now being systematically observed and recorded, under the direction of a committee appointed by the British Association, seismometers being employed on the two principles of vertical pendulum and delicately poised cylinders. Arrangements have been made to ascertain whether shocks in this region can be traced to any common central point, there being reason to believe them to be connected with a mass of granite in Glen Lednoch, whose position was indicated on a map exhibited by the ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... the red sun hung poised on the shoulder of Blanco, far away, as though to receive the ghostly worship of those who once lived and loved, and prayed here, in the long ago. So now he ate as he might, and drank at the Rio Bonito, a dozen miles farther on, ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... oars were poised for a minute and then at a word dropped to starboard and larboard with a splash before beginning to dip with rhythmic regularity, the midshipman seizing the lines and steering her for her ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... would it budge, but stood with its long, javelin-like beak poised, ready to strike into the fisher's eye, uttering, from moment to moment, that menacing, guttural quock, which had first attracted ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... diversified by grunts and coughs—all coming up from below. Turning their eyes that way, they see ascending what appears to be a human figure, but stooped forward so as more to resemble a creature crawling on all fours. At the same instant the Indian girl has caught sight of it; and standing poised on the platform's edge, she silently awaits its approach, knowing the ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... the Holy Cross Mountain turning the snow gullies pure gold against the luminous peak. Just for a moment the white cornice of snow forming the bar of the apparent cross flushed to the Alpine glow, flushed blood-red and quivering like a cross poised in mid-air. An invisible hand of silence touched them both. The sunset became a topaz gate curtained by clouds of fire and lilac mist; while overhead across the indigo blue of the high rare mountain zenith slowly spread and faded a light—ashes of roses on the sun altar ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... the side door; while one of these figures locks the door, the other, who seems to have a music book under his arm, comes out, with a strange, screwy motion, as though through an opening much too narrow for him, and, having poised a moment to nervously pull some imaginary object from his right boot and hurl it madly from him, goes unexpectedly off with the precipitancy and equilibriously concentric manner of a gentleman in his first private ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... He poised himself grotesquely, in an attitude of mirth, On a damask-covered hassock that was sitting on the hearth; And at a magic signal of his stubby little thumb, I saw the fireplace changing ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... and style, "Heidi" may none the less lay claim to rank as a world classic. In the first place, both background and characters ring true. The air of the Alps is wafted to us in every page; the house among the pines, the meadows, and the eagle poised above the naked rocks form a picture that no one could willingly forget. And the people, from the kindly towns-folk to the quaint and touching peasant types, are as real as any representation of human nature need be. Every goat even, has its ...
— Heidi - (Gift Edition) • Johanna Spyri
... fragile china on the low stool before her, the restraint she imposed upon herself as she struggled with the excited happiness that manifested itself in the rapid heaving of her bosom, and the transient smile on her lips, and a heavy frown gathered on his face. She looked up suddenly, the tiny cup poised in her hand midway ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... equally the aim in culture of the adult voice, but in that case it is consistent with development of strength and brilliancy of voice, while with young children it is not. If the tone is clear, beautiful, well poised, and under the singer's control, then the training is along safe lines. If the tone is bad, harsh, pinched or throaty, then the training is along unsafe lines. When the parts act harmoniously together, and there is a proper and normal adjustment ...
— The Child-Voice in Singing • Francis E. Howard
... effete upon tottering thrones Unsteadily poised upon dead men's bones, Walk up! walk up! the circus is free, And this wonderful spectacle you shall see: Millions of voters who mostly are fools— Demagogues' dupes and candidates' tools, Armies of uniformed mountebanks, And braying disciples of brainless cranks. Many a week they've bellowed ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... distress, the setting sun disappeared in the west, and the shades of night gathered gradually round, accompanied with the roar of savage beasts. Sophron found himself beset with terrors, but his soul was incapable of fear; he poised his javelin in his hand, and forced his way through every opposition, till at length, with infinite difficulty, he disengaged himself from the forest just as the last glimmer of light was yet visible in the ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... the savage stopped also, and more than once he poised his deadly spear, while his glaring eyeballs shone amid the green foliage like those of a tiger. Yet upon each occasion he exhibited signs of hesitation, and finally lowered the weapon, ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... by the hundreds now, their knives poised, screaming at the Earthmen. As they came within range, each native stabbed himself, tumbling on a quickly growing pile of bodies. In minutes the Earthmen were surrounded by a heap of bleeding Cascellan flesh, which was ...
— Warrior Race • Robert Sheckley
... there was applause when he set the bright blade whirling, and passed the haft from hand to hand. Most of the loungers could do a good deal with the ax themselves, and the lean, muscular demonstrator made rather a striking figure as he stood poised in statuesque symmetry under the lamplight with the bright steel flashing ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... impressive looking woman, tall, slender, and with the traditional long green eyes and red hair. Her face was very white, but she was calm and well-poised, and seemed to feel a great sense ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... heath-clad land, an outlying spur of the moor, lay in front of us. On the summit, hard and clear like an equestrian statue upon its pedestal, was a mounted soldier, dark and stern, his rifle poised ready over his forearm. He was watching the road ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle
... than half set to fight, the priest was clawing at his throat, and a gnarled old fist was poised to drive the knife in ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... and hearts beat quick, as those two stand there, face to face, the large-boned, solid Culver, and the compact, light- footed Dick, with his clean, fresh skin, and well-poised head, and tight, determined lips; and the signal goes forth that the battle ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... half finished before the Star made her appearance. Suddenly the door of the chalet opened, and a young woman emerged, attired in peasant costume, carelessly swinging a hat in her hand, her bright face smiling, her slender figure perfectly poised. She advanced to the very centre of the wide stage. The myriad of lights rippled over her, revealing the deep brown of her abundant hair, the dark, earnest eyes, the sweet winsomeness of expression. This was the moment for which that vast audience had been waiting. Like ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... through media and at a distance, as well as in contact; and it has an especial attraction for iron, the more so when the conducting medium is solid, such as a table; and so when the magnet is horizontally suspended, or poised, in the vicinity of iron, its tendency to point north and south is seriously disturbed. The disturbance of the bar, or needle, in such a case, is called its deflection; and it is corrected by so ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness
... a launch, various modes of landing are required by the vagaries of the tide, the outlying reefs, and the position of the ports. A wobbling erection of crossed oars, a plank insecurely poised on the shoulders of two men, a rocking bloto, and an occasional wade to shore, with shoes and stockings in hand, vary the monotony of the proceedings. Landing at Batjan is accomplished in a chair, borne aloft on two woolly black heads, but the shore, being cut off ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... odd corner, and as there generally is an odd corner at every party, and I do not stand at a short notice, I eat more good dinners than most people. I am not a fool, and yet not too clever, so that poised in that happy medium, I hear all, see all, know a great deal of what is going on, and hold my tongue. When people inhabit their town houses, I spend the whole day going from one to the other. I consider a house the only safe part of the metropolis. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 552, June 16, 1832 • Various
... were alone, and it was a loneness such as an eagle might feel when it held itself poised high in the curve of blue. And they sat and watched. They saw the sun go down and, shade by shade, deepen and make radiant and then draw away with it the last touches of ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Jock, and Mhor into the car. Peter was poised on one of the seats that let down, a cushion under him to protect the pale fawn cloth from his paws. All the presents found places, the luggage was put on the top, Stark took his seat, David, his coat pocket bulging with maps, got in beside him; and ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... intrepid and dignified manner that is frequently habitual with men inured to disaster, and fitted by nature to stand unmoved before a furious mob and to face the greatest dangers. He seemed to move in a sphere apart, where he poised above humanity. His gestures, no less than his look, were full of irresistible power; his lean hands were those of a soldier; and if your own eyes were forced to fall before his piercing gaze, you were no less sure ...
— The Exiles • Honore de Balzac
... agreed; "one hundred and thirty-six and three-quarter carats, cut as a brilliant, worn by Napoleon in his sword-hilt, now in the Louvre at Paris, the property of the French Government—valued at two and a half million dollars." His hand disappeared into the leather packet again; poised on his finger-tips, when he withdrew them, was another huge jewel. He dropped it into Mr. Schultze's hand. "There is further proof that the diamond ...
— The Diamond Master • Jacques Futrelle
... guard to receive their onslaught, his eyes alert, his lips tight set, his knees like springs of steel, slightly flexed to support his well-poised body. ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... living picture of health and beauty, without pausing on it with pleasure. The traveller stopped his weary horse on the eve of entering the city which was the end of his journey, to gaze at the sylph-like form that tripped by him, with her milk-pail poised on her head, bearing herself so erect, and stepping so light and free under her burden, that it seemed rather an ornament than an encumbrance. The lads of the neighbouring suburb, who held their evening rendezvous for putting the stone, casting the hammer, playing ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... we ought to put in?" Carolyn June asked, pulling the cork from the bottle and holding it poised over the pan of water in which the shirt, a slimy, dingy mass, ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... old-timer, jumped up with his gun poised, ready for business. "Why, he's daid!" he exclaimed, poking the lion with the muzzle ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... these elfin worshippers, with flushed cheeks and flashing eyes, tossing arms and panting bosoms, whirl in their witching waltz. He is a man to be wondered at,—stony and grim, his huge hands resting on his knees in statuesque repose, as though he supported on his well-poised head the whole weight of the Maha Mongkut [Footnote: "The Mighty Crown."] itself, while at his feet these brown leaves of ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... photograph of her husband in his boyhood, was orderly and deserted; but the broad couch across the western window was strewn with sheets of manuscript which overflowed to the floor, while in the midst of them Theodora sat enthroned, a book on her knee and her ink insecurely poised on one of the cushions beside her. Across the lawn she could see The Savins among the tall, bare trees, and she paused now and then to watch the yellow sunshine as it sifted down through the branches. All at once she stopped, with ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... hour were gone, and he was warm and thirsty when he topped the last of the densely-wooded lower slopes and came out on a high, rock-strewn terrace thinly set with mountain cedars. Here his feet were on familiar ground, and a little farther on, poised on the very edge of the terrace and overtopping the tallest trees of the lower slopes, was the great, square sandstone boulder which was his ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... rider came rapidly forward, and presently drew rein beside the miner and his super. He was a young man, tall, well muscled, and with a well-poised head, but his eyes were set rather too close, and there was something about that clean-shaven chin that rather made you ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... Could it be that Europe of the twentieth century was to be thrust back into the ancient barbarism of a general war? It was like a dreadful nightmare. There was the head of the huge dragon, crested, fanged, clad in glittering scales, poised above the world and ready to strike. We were benumbed and terrified. There was nothing that we could do. The monstrous thing advanced, but even while we shuddered we could not make ourselves feel that it was real. ...
— Fighting For Peace • Henry Van Dyke
... help keep the President! To him all Lincoln's tenderness be lent, The grave, sweet nature of the man that saw Most power in peace and let no claptrap awe His high-poised duty from its primal plan Of rule supreme for ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... clumsy, and unserviceable. The Cuban negroes make, so far, a very different impression upon me. One sees among them considerable beauty of form, and their faces are more expressive and better cut than those of the Nassau blacks. The women are well-made, and particularly well-poised, standing perfectly straight from top to toe, with no hitch or swing in their gait. Beauty of feature is not so common among them; still, one meets with it here and there. There is a massive sweep in the bust and arms of the women which is very striking. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... raised her veil, and was leaning back in a chair, with a sandwich poised in the fingers of one hand and a glass of Burgundy in the other. She was looking a little less bored, and was chatting gayly to Spencer, whose French was ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... place of refuge, but not so noiselessly that the gangman did not detect his presence. Jerry swung round in the chair and leaped up with cat-like activity. He stood without moving, poised on the balls of his feet, his deep-set eyes narrowed to shining slits. It was in his thought to hurl himself headlong on the man ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... the stealthy motion of the pursuer, swiftly gained upon him, overtaking him just as he had the sand-bag poised aloft, ready to be brought down upon ...
— Joe's Luck - Always Wide Awake • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... in silence to a cave deep in the bowels of the theater, where he went behind a little desk, took up a pencil as if it were a club, held it poised over a sheet of grimy paper, ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Paphia silver-queen; With every filmy fly from mead or bower, And hungry Sphinx who threads the honey'd flower; She o'er the Larkspur's bed, where sweets abound. Views ev'ry bell, and hums th' approving sound; Poised on her busy plumes, with feeling nice She draws from every flower, nor tries a floret twice. He fears no bailiff's wrath, no baron's blame, His is untax'd and undisputed game: Nor less the place of curious plant he knows; He both his Flora and his Fauna shows; For him is blooming in its rich array ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... were always about; occasionally one poised on the mast to look the Spray over, wondering, perhaps, at her odd wings, for she now wore her Fuego mainsail, which, like Joseph's coat, was made of many pieces. Ships are less common on the Southern seas than formerly. ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... the hollow, crept partly up the side of the hill of Mulrady's shaft. A disused trail, almost hidden by the waxen-hued yerba buena, led from the highway, and finally lost itself in the undergrowth. It was a lovers' walk; they were lovers, evidently, and yet the man was too self-poised in his gravity, the young woman too conscious and critical, to suggest an ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... exquisite. The Chinese are expert at making artificial flowers which are true to nature in every detail. Often above the flower a beautiful butterfly is poised on a delicate spring, and looks so natural that it is easy to be deceived into believing it to be alive. When the jasmine is in bloom beautiful creations are made of these tiny flowers by means of standards from ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... was plucked from her by a resistless force and hurled violently to the ground. Dazed and half-stunned he looked up and saw the elephant standing over him with one colossal foot poised over his prostrate body, ready to crush him to pulp. Brave as the Chinaman was he trembled with terror at the imminent, ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... communications were received for a period of some years after. In December, 1866, I went to the Marshalls', entering as an entire stranger, and sitting down at the table. I saw some strong physical manifestations—a large table being poised in space, in full light, for some seconds. It was signified there was a spirit present who wished to communicate, and the message given by raps to me was—"Will you try to think of us more than you have done?" ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... before him, each produced a book of accounts, written in a language and character that would have puzzled any but a High-Dutch commentator, or a learned decipherer of Egyptian obelisks. The sage Wouter took them one after the other, and having poised them in his hands, and attentively counted over the number of leaves, fell straightway into a very great doubt, and smoked for half an hour without saying a word; at length, laying his finger beside his nose, and shutting his eyes for a moment, with the ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner |
