"Posture" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... which is at the present moment being executed in copper by Houwald, in Brunswick, is the work of a Frankfort sculptor, Herr Gustav Herold. In the arch itself, near the clock, we see two allegorical female figures, over life size, in a sitting posture, modeled by Prof. Gustav Kaupert in Frankfort, and representing Day and Night. In front of the pillars supporting the arch, two other female sitting figures, also above life size, will be perceived. These were modeled by Professor Calandrelli in Berlin, and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 664, September 22,1888 • Various
... smaller and dingier than when I had examined it by the light of my match some hours before. The young Marquis lay unconscious in his corner just as I had last seen him, but with the widening light I discovered that his curious posture was due more to extraneous circumstances than to his own weakness, for I could see that he was fastened to the wall by a similar collar ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... not bathing, they are accustomed to anoint their heads for comfort and adornment, especially the women and children. Through modesty, they bathe with their bodies drawn up and almost in a sitting posture, with the water to the neck, taking the greatest care not to be seen, although no one may be near to see them. The most general hour for bathing is at the setting of the sun, because at that time they have finished ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... there was worse to follow. The horse, astonished at such treatment, bolted a little way, Savage sawing at its mouth. Lord Ragnall and I cantered after it past the wagons, fearing disaster. All of a sudden it swerved violently and Savage flew into the air, landing heavily in a sitting posture. ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... darling, where are you after going to?" though, before the words were well out of the speaker's mouth, down came flop on the top of the leg of mutton the rotund form of Mrs Major Molony, fortunately head uppermost, in a semi-sitting posture,—the joint of meat serving as a cushion to that part of her body which is usually thus accommodated, while one of her feet stuck into a dish of potatoes and the other into one of curry and rice, the gravy flying on all sides like the contents of a ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... in the affirmative, and the man fell backwards as though about to faint from sheer joy. But it was not so, for he struggled up once more to his former sitting posture, ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... report; Friedel leaped back, staggered, fell; Ebbo started to a sitting posture, with horrified eyes, and a loud shriek, calling on his brother; Moritz sprang to his feet, shouting, ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... thoughtful Posture; in his Hand, Plato's Book on the Immortality of the Soul. A drawn Sword on ...
— Cato - A Tragedy, in Five Acts • Joseph Addison
... consciousness and was coming back to life.... She asked herself could she possibly be alive? Fantomas had threatened her with death, and yet she lived.... Where was she?... Bobinette felt so weak and giddy that she remained in a sitting posture.... What exactly had happened?... Ah!—yes!—when Fantomas had announced she was to die, she had fallen down on the road: her skirt was still wet and muddy, her testing fingers told her that! She was cold! What had happened since?... Bobinette ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... of the street, stopped opposite us, and squaring himself, called out. "Heigh! What for you stand dare wid your arms so?" placing his arms akimbo, in imitation of ours. Seeing we made no answer, he repeated the question, still standing in the same posture. We took no notice of him, seeing that his supposed insolence was at most good-humored and innocent. Our hostess, a colored lady, happened to step out at the moment, and told us that the man had mistaken us for her son, with ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... Sphinx elpenor.—The caterpillars of the Elephant feed on the plant called Ladies' Bedstraw, (Galium palustre), from which they are often shaken by the wind into the water. When this happens, they dexterously turn themselves on their backs, make head and tail meet, and float in this posture till they can contrive to save themselves by clinging to some part of the plant. They possess the power of drawing the head and three first joints within the body at pleasure. The moth flies very late at ...
— The Emperor's Rout • Unknown
... the youth lay in front of the pillars of the Custom-house, his head resting on his right arm, and his eyes riveted in a vacant stare upon the sea, without movement or change of posture. An observer might well have fancied that he was devoid of life, or that death had fixed him there whilst turning him into an image of stone, had not a deep sigh escaped him from time to time, as if wrung from him by unutterable pain. And they were in fact occasioned by the pain of his ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... will everyone who worthily engages in this study; perhaps indeed he will not commit violence on himself, for that they say is not allowable." And as he said this he let down his leg from the bed on the ground, and in this posture continued during the remainder of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... said Stryver, coming slowly into a sitting posture. "Sydney, I rather despair of making myself intelligible to you, because you are such an ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... to the male attire after this; but being yet in the prime of my womanhood, and as fond as ever of athletic diversions, I engaged myself to a French mountebank posture-master to dance Corantoes on the Tight and Slack Rope, accompanying myself meanwhile by reveilles on the Drum, an instrument in which I had become a proficient. The Posture Master, finding out afterwards that I was agile and Valiant, not only at Dancing but at Fighting, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... upon him.... She was straight, and slender, and perfectly formed. A single garment covered her, running across one shoulder, reaching to her knees. It left one breast exposed, and the white, slender legs and perfect feet. She stood in a posture of infinite grace—of infinite ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... Ned Rector, suddenly raising himself to a sitting posture. "You've done nothing but stretch your mouth in yawns ever since we reached Montana. See, you've waked up ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... listening to the minister pray for those of unclean lips. And the minister prayed especially for one among them that he might cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord. He knew this to mean himself, for his mother glared over at him where he knelt; he was grateful for the kneeling posture at that moment; he would not have cared to sit. But all he had learned was that if you are going to use words freely it had much better be when you are alone; this, and that the minister had enormous feet, kneeling there with the toes ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... Clown proceeded to the front of the principal and submissively drank to his health. A beastly fellow, this! Hubbard Squash made a round of all the guests, drinking to their health. A very onerous job, indeed. When he came to me and proposed my health, I abandoned the squatting posture and sat up straight. ...
— Botchan (Master Darling) • Mr. Kin-nosuke Natsume, trans. by Yasotaro Morri
... conscientious fairy. Society, moreover, had no drawbacks for her; she liked even the tiresome parts—the heat of ball-rooms, the dulness of dinners, the crush at the door, the awkward waiting for the carriage. During the day, in this vehicle, beside her stepmother, she sat in a small fixed, appreciative posture, bending forward and faintly smiling, as if she had been taken to ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... this custom, in view of its prevalence among the Village Indians, would afford no cause of surprise. I think we may, not without reason, recognize in this artificial basin of clay a cremation bed, upon which the body was placed in a sitting posture, covered with fuel, and then burned—in some cases partially, and in others until every vestige of the body had been burned to ashes—after which, or even before the burning, a mound was raised over them as a mark of honor and respect. These mounds have yielded a large number of copper and stone ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... between them. Gladys mechanically sat down, then Walter walked away slowly out of the ward. With a low cry, Teen flung herself on her knees, laying her face on the white, wasted hand of Liz as it lay outside the coverlet. The figure in the bed, raised up in a half-sitting posture, had an unearthly beauty in the haggard face, a brilliance in the eye, which struck her chilly to the heart; it was like Liz, and yet strangely unlike. Gladys felt a strange thrill pass over her as she bent towards her, trying to smile, and to ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... other eminently worthy people, by many ascribed to that intense congenital hatred for goodness which distinguishes human nature from that of the brute, but perhaps as readily accounted for by considering it as the yawning and stretching of a young soul cramped too long in one moral posture. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... their scrambles for the prize while the apple bobbed about like a thing of life. Several little accidents afforded us good-natured diversion. At the moment of changing horses the tow-rope caught a Massachusetts farmer by the leg and threw him down in a very indescribable posture, leaving a purple mark around his sturdy limb. A new passenger fell flat on his back in attempting to step on deck as the boat emerged from under a bridge. Another, in his Sunday clothes, as good luck would have it, being told to leap aboard from ...
— Sketches From Memory (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... afternoon he appeared to be in great pain and distress, from the difficulty of breathing, and frequently changed his posture in the bed. On these occasions I lay upon the bed and endeavored to raise him, and turn him with as much ease as possible. He appeared penetrated with gratitude for my attentions, and often said, ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... girl's approach, the elder woman rose from her stooping posture, and came forward, wearing a frown, which, after the first minute, Molly saw was directed at the sunlight, not at herself. Kesiah's long, sallow face under the hard little curls of her false front, had never appeared more grotesque than it did in the midst of the delicate spring landscape. ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... each with his hunting-knife in his hand, and the wooden bowl before him, which was to receive his share of the bear's or buffalo's meat, or the corn boiled in fat, with which he was to be regaled; while such was the posture of the company, their host arose and began a long speech. He told the Frenchmen that he had invited them to his lodge less to refresh their bodies with good cheer than to cure their minds of the dangerous purpose which possessed them, of descending the Mississippi. ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... curious, that, when this woman, whom he saw every day, came up in his mind, it was always in one posture, one costume. You have noticed that peculiarity in your remembrance of some persons? Perhaps you would find, if you looked closely, that in that look or indelible gesture which your memory has caught there lies some subtile hint of the tie between your ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... "Ready! present!" But at this instant his vociferous daring forsook him. As the men levelled their muskets at him, with inconceivable rapidity he sprang bodily round, still preserving his squatting posture, and received the fire from behind; while the less noisy, but more brave, Ogston looked the firing-party full in the face as they discharged ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... and rendered him homage[68] by placing his hands between those of the lord and declaring himself the lord's "man" for such and such a fief. Thereupon the lord gave his vassal the kiss of peace and raised him from his kneeling posture. Then the vassal took the oath of fidelity upon the Bible, or some holy relic, solemnly binding himself to fulfill all his duties toward his lord. This act of rendering homage by placing the hands in those of the lord and taking the oath of fidelity was the ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... at his desk, Wrapped in appropriate gloom; His posture was pensive and picturesque, Like ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... falcon, and the bases; and had stood gazing blankly at the whitened skull of Wituwamat above the gate of the Fort until the wrens who nested there began to fly restlessly in and out, fancying that the captain planned an invasion of their territory. He still stood in this posture when the rustle of a footfall among the dried herbage reached his quick ear, and turning he confronted Barbara, whose down-dropt eyes hid the gleam of amusement the sight of his melancholy attitude had ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... He readjusted his posture. It was very bright outdoors; people went by briskly, full of life and importance; children whirled along on ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... trail-worn pads and to strip the ice-pellets from between their toes. But the "wheelers" were too tired to make the effort, so Emerson went forward and performed the task for them, while Fraser floundered back and sank to a sitting posture on the sled. ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... resumed his lolling posture, placed another cartridge in his revolver and lit a fresh cigarette. By and by his eyes closed and Major Starland saw that he slept. The American arose to his feet, yawned and stretched his arms over his head, holding the tiller in place ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... and with so much of the sheet turned aside as might show his lean, pale, and death-like face, which was purposely turned towards the East, from whence he expected the second coming of his and our Saviour Jesus." In this posture he was drawn at his just height; and when the picture was fully finished, he caused it to be set by his bedside, where it continued, and became his hourly object till his death, and was then given ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham
... stand near her, nearer yet, thou shalt perceive almost as much, and love less, as [5744] Cardan well writes, minus amant qui acute vident, though Scaliger deride him for it: if he see her near, or look exactly at such a posture, whosoever he is, according to the true rules of symmetry and proportion, those I mean of Albertus Durer, Lomatius and Tasnier, examine him of her. If he be elegans formarum spectator he shall find many faults in ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... remaining quietly seated in the bottom of the canoe, he endeavoured to start to his feet, which would inevitably have upset it. This rash movement was prevented by the bishop, who forcibly pulled him down into a sitting posture, exclaiming, as he did so, "Keep still, my good sir; if you, by your groundless fears, upset the canoe, your protestant friends will swear that the old papist drowned ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... My second trip took me up the Pasig to the great Lagoon of Bay. I left Manila at night in a banca, a boat hollowed out of a tree-trunk, with a vaulted roof made of bamboo and so low that it was almost impossible to sit upright under it, which posture, indeed, the banca-builder appeared to have neglected to consider. A bamboo hurdle placed at the bottom of the boat protects the traveller from the water and serves him as a couch. Jurien de la Graviere ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... with the widow, but, for appearances' sake, accepted a cramped lodging in the cottage. Piers kept very much to himself until the funeral was over; he was then invited by Daniel to join a conference in what had been his father's room. Here the man of law (Jerome's name for him) expounded the posture of things; with all professional, and some personal, tact and delicacy. Will there was certainly none; Daniel, in the course of things, would apply for letters of administration. The estate, it might be said, consisted of certain shares in a prosperous newspaper, an investment which could ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... evidently at one of the remotest periods of the Cathedral, is adorned with bas-reliefs and statues; according to tradition, it is reported that two of these statues are the work of Sabina of Steinbach. One is a woman in a triumphal posture holding in her hands a communion cup and a cross; she is the symbol of the church that vanquished the synagogue; the other, a symbol of the latter, is a woman looking down, blindfolded and leaning with pain on a broken spear, ...
— Historical Sketch of the Cathedral of Strasburg • Anonymous
... (1) expose, compose, purpose, posture, position, composure, impostor, postpone, post office, positive, deposit, disposition, imposition, deponent, opponent, exponent, component; (2) depose, impost, composite, apposite, repository, preposition, interposition, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... Hermes, attributes of Hesiod on Plutus "Hestia, addressing first" Hiero, of Syracuse Hieronymus, the argive Hippias, tyranny of Hippocrates, theories of Hipponicus, the orator Homer's text corrupted "Horse, the," an erotic posture Horses, devoured ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... away. The complete details of the most important society event of the season were at her fingers' ends. She closed her eyes for a moment to enjoy the satisfaction which success leaves in its train, and when she opened them again found Lord Donal in his old posture, absorbed in the contemplation of ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... of the dance does not pretend to be a history of the subject, except in the most elementary way. It may be taken as a summary of the history of posture; a complete dance cannot be easily rendered ...
— The Dance (by An Antiquary) - Historic Illustrations of Dancing from 3300 B.C. to 1911 A.D. • Anonymous
... that might be done; and if any body would make me a present of a Welch mountain, and pay the workmen, I would undertake to see it executed. I have quite formed it sometimes in my imagination: the figure must be on a reclining posture, because of the hollowing that would be necessary, and for the city's being in one hand. It should be a rude unequal hill, and might be helped with groves of trees for the eye brows, and a wood for the hair. The natural ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... the tone of that response that Mariana involuntarily raised herself from her listening posture, and the dishes clinked. "What's that? Didn't you hear suthin'? Why, Jake Preble's a kind of a hind wheel. He goes rollin' along after t'others, never askin' why nor wherefore, and he thinks it's his own free will. ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... principles, it put their followers upon a necessity of receiving SOME doctrines as such; which was to take them off from the use of their own reason and judgment, and put them on believing and taking them upon trust without further examination: in which posture of blind credulity, they might be more easily governed by, and made useful to some sort of men, who had the skill and office to principle and guide them. Nor is it a small power it gives one man over another, ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... Berlioz and a Chateaubriand because of the many beauties, the veritable grandeurs of their styles, we cannot quite learn to love yours. For in you the disease was aggravated by the presence of another powerful incentive to strut and posture and externalize and inflate your art. For you were the virtuoso. You were the man whose entire being was pointed to achieve an effect. You were the man whose life is lived on the concert-platform, whose values are those of the concert-room, who finds ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... Arnaud's followers, and it required all his skill and energy to inspire them with courage to make the passage through the defile of the Bonhomme. Indeed, the descent of the column was more hazardous than the ascent. To accomplish this in many cases they were compelled to assume a sitting posture, and slide down the face of the rocks. On the evening of the fourth day the patriots reached the town of Sey, on the Isere, and met with a good supply of provisions. On the evening of the fifth day Arnaud and his colleague, Montoux, for the first time since they had started, ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold
... have shown the use of spells, and the Druid was believed to possess powerful incantations to discomfit an enemy or to produce other magical results. A special posture was adopted—standing on one leg, with one arm outstretched and one eye closed, perhaps to concentrate the force of the spell,[1122] but the power lay mainly in the spoken words, as we have seen in discussing Celtic formulae of prayer. Such spells were also used ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... every able-bodied member of the militia into whose hands arms could be placed, or to provide a volunteer force large enough to use all the arms that could be procured. In his letters to these Governors, he plainly presents his view of the posture of affairs on December 24th, points out impending dangers, and shows that to his applications the response had not been such as ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... father exclaimed, "you do not take up a bad posture, Albert. You have looked at Edgar often enough at his exercises to see how you ought to place yourself. I have never seen you look so manly since the day you were ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... realize after you've known me a little longer. But a death like that, suffocated in that mud, that filthy, dirty water that smells so bad, doesn't at all appeal to me. If it were some green, transparent Swiss lake!... I want beauty even in death; I'm concerned with the 'final posture,' like the Romans, and I was afraid of perishing here like a rat in a sewer.... And nevertheless, I couldn't help laughing at my aunt and our poor servants to see the fright they were in!... Now the water is no longer rising, and the house is strong. Our only ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... will, also partook of the refreshing beverage; thereupon they left the room and went into the entrance-hall. The clergyman, however, continued to discuss the affairs of the community with the Justice, who, with his hat in his hand all the time, stood before him in reverential posture. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... precision. He wore a white waistcoat and a flowing black tie, which helped to carry out the impression of his being a boy whose hair had accidentally turned gray. As he danced he put every possible embellishment of posture and step into his task, and when he bowed to Roberta his attitude expressed the deepest reverence, offset only by his laughing face as he ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... the salt sea. Extra attention was paid to the awning and then we waited. Warren, Martin, and Hermann made a vivid picture. Grouped together, holding on to the rigging, swaying to the roll, they were gazing intently at the squall. Strain, anxiety, and yearning were in every posture of their bodies. Beside them was the dry and empty awning. But they seemed to grow limp and to droop as the squall broke in half, one part passing on ahead, the other drawing astern and going ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... from affecting the injured part. This done, he poured through his closed lips a few drops of whisky from the canteen, and then raising him gently on his left shoulder, he rose from his stooping posture, and seizing in his right hand his musket, which he continued at the trail, pursued his route to ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... I rose suddenly from my arm-chair, and going up to his majesty, after a profound courtesy cast myself at his feet. Louis XV would have raised me, but I said, "No, I will remain where I am until you have accorded me the favor I ask." "If you remain in this posture I shall place myself in a similar one." "Well, then, since you will not have me at your knees I will place myself on them"; and I seated myself in his lap without ceremony. "Listen to me, sire," I said, "and repeat what I say ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... founder of the temple having been Rameses II, that the sculpture refers to the circumcision of two of his children. The knife appears to be a stone implement, and the operator kneels in front of the child, who is standing, while a matron supports him in a kneeling posture, and she holds his hands from behind him.[2] In this bas-relief we can see the great difference that existed between the two forms of the operation, that of the Hebrews being performed, as a rule, on the eighth day after birth, while ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... title of A Startling Introduction. This belonged to Charles I., for his cypher is branded on the back of the panel on which it is painted, and it was sold by the Commonwealth as "a souldier making a strange posture to a Dutch lady by Bott." The painter's monogram H.P. appears on the large chimney piece before which ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... I one morning ordered a chair, with an intention to make my usual circle of morning visits. Where I first stopped I saw two footmen lolling at the door, who told me without any change of posture, or collection of countenance, that their master was at home, and suffered me to open the inner door without assistance. I found my friend standing, and, as I was tattling with my former freedom, was formally entreated to sit down; but did not ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... not; for the fire of hell is a searching, endless, destroying—" here Mr. Dyceworthy, by plunging one oar with too much determination into the watery depths, caught a crab, as the saying is, and fell violently backward in a somewhat undignified posture. Recovering himself slowly, he looked about him in a bewildered way, and for the first time noticed the vacant, solitary appearance of the Fjord. Some object was missing; he realized what it was immediately—the English yacht Eulalie was gone from ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... and once more brought the breakfast-tray to the bed. Ste. Marie raised himself to a sitting posture and took the thing upon his knees, but his ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... the territory of Avignon was styled by the kings of France the "derriere du Pape," from the convenient posture in which it lay for their correction, one may fancy the same scenes to have taken place on a larger scale, which are described as occurring at the bridge of Kennaquhair, the same struggle between secular and monastic authority, the same ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... So little is the elephant inclined to lie down in captivity, and even after hard labour, that the keepers are generally disposed to suspect illness when he betakes himself to this posture. PHILE, in his poem De Animalium Proprietate, attributes the propensity of the elephant to sleep on his legs, to the difficulty he experiences in ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... this compliance would do no harm it could do no good, Madame Cardinal poured out half a glass, and while she gave it with one hand to the sick man, with the other she raised him to a sitting posture that he ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... tub-shaped clay dish. On the dish there was frequently an ornamental design, but beyond this, there was no attempt at decoration. The body was frequently pressed together in order to be brought within the compass of the dish. Sometimes, the knees were pulled up or the body placed in a semi-sitting posture, and there are indications that the bodies were often divided into two or three parts prior to burial. On the stele of vultures,[1261] representing the triumph of Eannatum over his enemies, attendants are seen building a mound over the symmetrically ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... Ufa,'—'Your office as dragoman is finished;' and repeated several times, with a broken voice, 'Forza mafishe, forza mafishe le-koul,'—'I have no strength, I have no strength, I tell you,' at the same time laying Mahommed's hand on his shoulder. Feeling death approaching, he got up in a sitting posture, being supported by Mahommed, and soon expired, after three times deep breathing. He was entirely worn out, and died quietly, about two after midnight, Tuesday, 4th March (Jumed-el-awel), without the least struggle. His servant then called into the tent the other people and the ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... measurement. She was heading straight for the reef, with her stern pointing toward the island. And as Leslie lay there intently studying her every detail, he presently made out a stout rope cable leading from her starboard hawse-pipe toward the reef, the end of it being buried in the sand. Her posture was such as to suggest to the experienced eye of the sailor that she had driven over the reef, somewhat in the same way as the Mermaid had done; but, unlike the latter craft, had cleared it altogether and had there ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... searched, and some passages in them, unfortunately, seemed to confirm the statements of Oates. To impartial eyes, these papers simply indicated a desire and a hope that the Catholic religion would be reestablished, in view of the predilections of Charles and James, and the general posture of affairs, just as some enthusiastic Jesuit missionary in the valley of the Mississippi may be supposed to write to his superior that America is on the ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... the posture of sitting his parchment-covered matter of bones, and carrying in one hand a brocaded bag of black velvet and in the other a staff, with bowed head and mutterings started deeper into the jungle of cactus ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... apartments under their palaces, which the heat of the climate rendered necessary. They are now used as granaries by the country people. While I sat here, from the town of Tents not far off, many of the women flocked in to see me, and we were equally entertained with viewing one another. Their posture in sitting, the colour of their skin, their lank black hair falling on each side their faces, their features, and the shape of their limbs, differ so little from their country-people the baboons, 'tis hard to fancy them a distinct race; I could not help thinking ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... almost imperceptibly, keeping his eyes on the figure which now stood within the shade of the trees in an attitude which might suggest listening, or perhaps merely a posture ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... the candle down on another Early Victorian chair, there being no occasional table at hand, and very slowly lowered himself to a sitting posture on a third. ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... sailors seemed to feel assured that their captain would be saved: they were as confident of their own doom, and to him they entrusted a thousand messages of love. They would lie around him—for few of them had strength to assume a sitting posture—and reveal to him the story of their lives. It was most pitiful to hear the confessions of these dying men. One said: "I wronged my friend; I was unkind to this one or to that one; I deserve the heaviest punishment God can inflict upon me;" and then he paused, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... glittering with the wild lights of delirium; fever burned on his cheeks and seemed to scorch his parched lips. The fair, clustering curls were matted and tangled about his brow; his arms were tossing restlessly about. He sprang up into a sitting posture as Gaston appeared at the door, and gazed at him eagerly; then stared around, peering into every corner of the chamber, as though in quest of some one. Those searching glances were followed by a look of blank despair that settled ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... execrable aim by a fellow who had caught sight of me from the hillside above. The smoke of his rifle betrayed him, and I was no sooner on my feet than he was off his and rolling down the declivity. Then I ran in a stooping posture, dodging among the clumps of sage-brush in a storm of bullets from invisible enemies. The rascals did not rise and pursue, which I thought rather queer, for they must have known by my trail that they had to deal with only one man. The reason for their inaction ...
— Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories • Ambrose Bierce
... head of the couch reposed a fat tobacco jar and pipes. The jar was more than half full. Into it, Gavin Brice dumped his valuables, and with a clawing motion, scraped a handful of loose tobacco over them. Then he returned to his former inertly supine posture. ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... when I went up, said she must go down and release the good folks from their knees; for, half an hour before, they declared they would not stir from that posture till they heard how it went with their lady; and when the happy news was brought them of her safety, and of a young master, they were quite ecstatic, she says, in their joy, and not a dry eye among them, shaking hands, and congratulating one another, ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... in swoons or convulsions, the poor old woman was made to touch them, and they immediately sprang to their feet. Samuel Parris had his minions well trained. On any special action of her body, shaking of her head, or the turning of her eyes, they imitated her posture and seemed ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... the fire, opposite the one window, whence he saw a little patch of yellow sand over which the spent waves spread themselves out listlessly. Under this window was a bench, upon which the daughter threw herself in an unusual posture, resting her chin upon her hand. A moment after the youth caught the first glimpse of her blue eyes. They were fixed upon him with a strange look of greed, amounting to craving, but as if aware that they belied or betrayed her, she dropped them instantly. The moment she veiled them, her face, ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... beside her and raised her to a sitting posture, so that she leaned against him. Holding her so, he gently rubbed ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... his breath short from a walk in the cold wind. He had come to see the lawyer about selling a bit of church land; Mr. Denner hastily slipped his penny into his pocket, and felt his face grow hot as he thought in what a posture the rector would have found him had he ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... sooner gone than I met another gentleman with a ticket, i. e., an amber-headed cane in his hand. I first fee'd him, and then acquainted him with the name of the disease. He cast himself for two or three minutes into a thoughtful posture, then pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, on which he wrote something in one of the Oriental languages, I believe, for I could not read a syllable: he bade me carry it to such a particular shop, and, telling me it would do my business, ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... muscular movement and to the diminution in the amplitude of respiration. The duty of the heart is to deliver the blood to the capillaries. From the veins the blood is, for the most part, returned to the heart by the compressive action of the muscles, the constant change of posture and by the respiration acting both as a force and suction pump. All of these factors are at their maximum during bodily activity and at their minimum during rest. On exciting a sleeper by calling his name, or in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various
... length, and then describe a sort of square, as it is formed by passing lines along the extremities of this strange figure. But it appears very clearly to me that the human figure never supplied the architect with any of his ideas. For, in the first place, men are very rarely seen in this strained posture; it is not natural to them; neither is it at all becoming. Secondly, the view of the human figure so disposed, does not naturally suggest the idea of a square, but rather of a cross; as that large space be tween ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... of general assent succeeded to his stirring accents; and a quick fluttering sound ran through the whole assemblage, as every man, released from the constraint of deep and silent expectation, altered his posture somewhat, and drew a long breath at the close. But the conspirator paused not. He saw immediately the effect which had been made upon the minds of all, by what had passed. He perceived the absolute necessity of following that impulse ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... the clouds.4 Vast mounds of an irregular, or, more frequently, oblong shape, penetrated by galleries running at right angles to each other, were raised over the dead, whose dried bodies or mummies have been found in considerable numbers, sometimes erect, but more often in the sitting posture, common to the Indian tribes of both continents. Treasures of great value have also been occasionally drawn from these monumental deposits, and have stimulated, speculators to repeated excavations with the hope of similar good-fortune. ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... arranged at Beauregard's headquarters in which Davis, Generals Beauregard and J. J. Johnston, and certain of their trusted staff officers considered this plan. Their decision was to adopt a defensive posture and protect the borders of Virginia rather than take the offensive and invade the North. As events turned out, this decision had consequences of the greatest effect, for it was not until Lee marched out of the Valley on the ...
— The Fairfax County Courthouse • Ross D. Netherton
... "one cause of it ought to be that the glory of turning the tide of arms is not immediately due to the commander-in-chief.... If it had, idolatry and adulation would have been unbounded." James Lovell asserted that "Our affairs are Fabiused into a very disagreeable posture," and wrote that "depend upon it for every ten soldiers placed under the command of our Fabius, five recruits will be wanted annually during the war." William Williams agreed with Jonathan Trumbull that the time had ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... In this posture, Sir, things stood at the beginning of the session. About that time, a worthy member,[19] of great Parliamentary experience, who in the year 1766 filled the chair of the American Committee with much ability, took me aside, and, lamenting the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... heard, so we saw, in the city of the Lord of Hosts, in the city of our God.'[L] For as we had read that the venerated body of Cecilia had been found and laid away by Paschal the Pope, so we found it." He describes at length the posture of the virgin, who lay like one sleeping, in such modest and noble attitude, that "whoever beheld her was struck with unspeakable reverence, as if the heavenly Spouse stood by as a guard watching his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... been gone half an hour, but she was still in the drawing-room when Nanda came back. The girl found her, on the sofa, in a posture that might have represented restful oblivion, but that, after a glance, our young lady appeared to interpret as mere intensity of thought. It was a condition from which at all events Mrs. Brook was ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... again broadly uttered, in last words as he turned over with a grunt, for easier posture, near me, "hooray! If it simmers down to you ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... decayed. Within these vaults and beside the illustrous dead, were found more than 3,000 shell-beads, ornaments of mica, copper bracelets, and other stone carvings. Around the lower vault were found ten much decayed skeletons, all in a sitting posture. ...
— Mound-Builders • William J. Smyth
... great shriek or two, and a horrid look; then he fetches two or three large stately strides, and falls to work. He holds his broad Sword in one Hand, and his Lance in the other, and traverses his Ground, leaping from one side of the Ring to the other; and in a menacing posture and look, bids defiance to the Enemy, whom his Fancy frames to him; for there is nothing but Air to oppose him. Then he stamps and shakes his Head, and grinning with his Teeth, makes many ruful Faces. Then he throws his Lance, and nimbly snatches out his Cresset, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... should be complied with, even from the commencement of the funeral service; and, in fact, the manner of adhering to the established practice of exhibiting in the church to the people the bodies of the deceased clergy, clad in vestments, prior to their interment (on which occasions an altar-ward posture was naturally selected for the head, in order that the remains might be more easily seen), appears to have originated the idea of the fitness of retaining an unjustifiable priestly prerogative at ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 57, November 30, 1850 • Various
... would not. To him the posture was one unfitting to the dignity of a mighty werowance, ruler over thirty tribes and lord of sixty villages. He would accept presents sent him, and he had no objection to wearing a glittering ring upon his head if the white men chose to give him ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... great carpet spread before him, and we halted, he raised himself to a sitting posture, fixing his dark, gleaming eyes upon us. At sight of Omar a sudden frown of displeasure crossed his features, but an instant later a grim smile of ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... saw that he was lying with his head upon her knee, and with a hot flush, the man's shame for his weakness in the presence of a woman, he struggled into a sitting posture and looked at her, looked at her with the forced cheerfulness of a man who has come an unforeseen, unexpected cropper of ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... were displayed with an extravagant but not ungraceful foppery. His gown waved in loose folds; his long dark curls were dressed with exquisite art, and shone and steamed with odours; his step and gesture exhibited an elegant and commanding figure in every posture of polite languor. But his countenance formed a singular contrast to the general appearance of his person. The high and imperial brow, the keen aquiline features, the compressed mouth; the penetrating eye, indicated the highest degree of ability ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... reclining on a bank on a clear day, looking up into the sky and watching the ascent of a skylark while you listen to his song. That is a posture in which several poets of repute have placed themselves from time to time: so we need not be ashamed of it. Well, you see the atmosphere reaching up and up, mile upon mile. There are no milestones planted there. But, wave on wave perceptible, the atmosphere stretches ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... Peale's portrait of Washington, and the House ordered a full length picture of him from Vanderlyn, a celebrated New York artist. A commission was also given to Horatio Greenough for a colossal statue of Washington in a sitting posture, to be placed on a high pedestal in the centre of the rotunda of the Capitol. The Washington National Monument Association, after consultation with men of acknowledged artistic taste, selected from among the numerous designs submitted a simple obelisk, five hundred feet in ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... part of prayer. Some choose to pray standing, others prefer to kneel. It is not the posture of body God looks at, but the posture of the heart. Reverence there must be, but such reverence as comes from the inner sanctuary of the soul, and which only finds outward expression in the body. ...
— The King's Cup-Bearer • Amy Catherine Walton |
