"Posture" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pistol over his head he dashed up to the fire, exclaiming: "O, ye murtherin bastes, I'm avin wid ye's now; Oi'll learn ye's how to stake a poor divil down to the ground and thin try to burn him." Then he went up to the girl, cut her loose from the stake, and she raised up in a sitting posture, "Would ye's moind lettin' me help ye to yer fate, Miss?" said Mike. "O, I'm so tired and weak I can't stand," said the girl. "They have almost killed me ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... procession move into the chancel, and saw the members of the choir file into their places. She had no interest now in the bishop's robes or the lighted tapers or cryptic inscriptions. Throughout the long service her attention was riveted on the handsome, white-robed figure which sat in a posture of bored resignation, wearing ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... They are close against each other, and each one indicates with arms or legs some different posture of stiffened agony. There are some with half-moldy faces, the skin rusted, or yellow with dark spots. Of several the faces are black as tar, the lips hugely distended—the heads of negroes blown out in goldbeaters' ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... present tense is perforce adopted; the writer acting as chorus to the drama, and occasionally explaining, by hints or more open statements, what has occurred during the intervals of the acts; and how it happens that the performers are in such or such a posture. In the modern theatre, as the play-going critic knows, the explanatory personage is usually of quite a third-rate order. He is the two walking-gentlemen friends of Sir Harry Courtly, who welcome the young baronet to London, and discourse ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the evil offices of the rival faction. The Queen openly espoused the cause of M. de Conde and his party, while the ministers soon saw themselves utterly deprived of both influence and credit; and at length, seriously alarmed by the posture of affairs, the Duc de Guise wrote to entreat M. de Bellegarde to return with all speed to Paris, in order to assist him in his endeavour to overthrow the rapidly-growing power of their mutual adversaries. M. le Grand was preparing to comply with this request, when an order to the same ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... circular terraces are individually adorned with thirty-two, twenty-four, and sixteen openwork bell-shaped cupolas, or dagobas, each containing a Buddha in sitting posture. Inside this circle rises the central dagoba of huge, imposing dimensions, the final crown to the whole structure. This is modelled after the same type as the smaller ones, but its walls rise perpendicularly from the base, which has the form of a huge ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... I put my hands over my eyes and counted till I could stand it no longer, and then —the pallid face of a man was there, with the corners of the mouth drawn down, and the eyes fixed and glassy in death! I raised to a sitting posture and glowered on that corpse till the light crept down the bare breastline by line—inch by inch—past the nipple—and then ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the attitude of the pack, drew himself painfully to a sitting posture on a large flat rock and from this vantage point glared at his followers who had hitherto been obedient to his will. And though he was old and wounded, the pack quailed for a time before his glance. His advantage could not last, ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... required to form a precise line." (Here there is a sort of involuntary movement all along the line, by which, it is very sensibly straightened.) "They make all the men stand erect," (At this word, heads go up, and straggling feet draw in, all along the class,) "in the true military posture. They allow nothing to be done in the ranks, but to attend to the exercise," (John hastily crowds his apple into his pocket,) "and thus they regulate every thing, in exact and steady discipline, so ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... At last Chase gave over gasping and began to breathe regularly but heavily. The strain had been tremendous; only superhuman strength and will had carried him through the ordeal. He groaned with pain as the two beside him lifted him to a sitting posture. ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... where the denouement of a drama was just ending. A log suddenly rolled from the fire onto the floor, as if presaging some catastrophe. At the sound of it the sick woman quickly rose to a sitting posture. She opened two eyes, clear as those of a cat, and all present eyed her in astonishment. She saw the log advance, and before any one could check an unexpected movement which seemed prompted by a kind of delirium, she bounded from her bed, seized the tongs and threw the coal back into the fireplace. ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... in a day or two. Some other circumstances which he mentioned, with the foregoing ones, gave the story so much the air of truth, that I dispatched Lieutenant Williamson in a boat, to look into Oheitepeha bay; and, in the mean time, I put the ships into a proper posture of defence. For, though England and Spain were in peace when I left Europe, for aught I knew, a different scene might, by this time, have opened. However, on farther enquiry, we had reason to think that the fellow who brought the intelligence had imposed ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... though he does not possess the deliberate ease in which Duveneck rejoices. Sargent's "John Hay" and "Henry James" are absolutely exhaustive as character studies. His "Nubian Girl", however, is woody, no matter how interesting in posture. In nothing does he disclose his marvelous precision of technique so completely as in some of the outdoor studies, like the "Syrian Goats" and the "Spanish Stable". There is nothing like them in the exhibition anywhere, ...
— The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... 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 the bank, forthwith plunged up ...
— Sketches From Memory (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... fifty to seventy years old, assert that the carving was on the tree when they were boys, and that the tradition in the community was that the inscription was on the tree when discovered by the first permanent settlers. The posture of the tree is "leaning," so that a "bar," or other animal could ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... a native of the woods, the other exhibited, through the mask of his rude and nearly savage equipments, the brighter, though sun-burned and long-faced complexion of one who might claim descent from a European parentage. The former was seated on the end of a mossy log, in a posture that permitted him to heighten the effect of his earnest language, by the calm but expressive gestures of an Indian engaged in debate. His body, which was nearly naked, presented a terrific emblem of death, ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... without discovering the universe. Egypt adopted the idea from more scientific Babylon. Amongst the fragments of its civilisation we find representations of the firmament as a goddess, arching over the earth on her hands and feet, condemned to that eternal posture by some victorious god. The idea spread amongst the smaller nations which were lit by the civilisation of Babylon and Egypt. Some blended it with coarse old legends; some, like the Persians and Hebrews, refined it. The Persians made fire a purer and lighter ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... to shew it. Their women are perfect mistresses in the art of shewing themselves to the best advantage. They are always gay and sprightly, and set off the worst faces in Europe with the best airs. Every one knows how to give herself as charming a look and posture as Sir Godfrey Kneller could draw ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... small, till the inflammation begins, and no advice can be at once procured, the steam of water should be applied to it at first, and then a poultice of bread and milk, with a few drops of peruvian balsam. It is absolutely necessary that the injured part should be kept in the easiest posture, and as still as possible. If this does not soon succeed, good advice must be obtained without delay, as an accident of this kind neglected, or improperly treated, may be the occasion of losing a limb. In this and all cases ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... the water a light had come out—Liberty's high-flung torch. Watching it, and quickened by the fife and drum to an erect sitting posture, Mrs. Ross slid forward on her bench, lips opening. The policeman standing off, rapped twice, and when she rose, almost running toward the lights of the Elevated ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... it used to be the custom for the women, on the approach of any one to whom they wished to show especial fidelity, to crouch down on their heels, and, spreading their hands over their faces, to remain for a considerable time in that posture, howling in a sort of cadence, and shedding tears. Among the Sioux, again, it was the duty of the men to perform this ceremony of lamentation on such occasions, which they did standing, and laying their hands on the heads ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... let me through, and I saw him. He stood, spruce, frock-coated, dapper, as he always was, with his face pressed against and into the grill, and either hand raised and clenched tightly round a bar of the trap. His posture was as of one caught and striving frantically to release himself; yet the narrowness of the interval between the rails precluded so extravagant an idea. He stood quite motionless—taut and on the strain, ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... heroic size, executed by Olin L. Warner, of New York, representing Mr. Garrison in a sitting posture, was presented to the city of Boston by several eminent citizens, in 1886, and is placed on Commonwealth Avenue, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... several peculiar expressions, as appears from letters in his own hand-writing; in which, now and then, when he means to intimate that some persons would never pay their debts, he says, "They will pay at the Greek Calends." And when he advised patience in the present posture of affairs, he would say, "Let us be content with our Cato." To describe anything in haste, he said, "It was sooner done than asparagus is cooked." He constantly puts baceolus for stultus, pullejaceus for pullus, vacerrosus for cerritus, vapide se habere for male, and betizare ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... accompany the Faust, we have always been much struck by one which represents the wizard and the tempter riding at full speed. The demon sits on his furious horse as heedlessly as if he were reposing on a chair. That he should keep his saddle in such a posture, would seem impossible to any who did not know that he was secure in the privileges of a superhuman nature. The attitude of Faust, on the contrary, is the perfection of horsemanship. Poets of the first order might safely write as desperately as ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... scream, dropped the knife and bent over him. He did not move. She staggered back and ran through the now open door. As she did so, Long seemed suddenly to come to life. He raised himself and looked after her, then with a subtle smile sank back into his former assumed posture on the floor. ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... 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 Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... Un!'" Detecting no sign of consent she took a ladder, climbed up, and passed the ropes through the rings above. She descended, and the two women began to haul away. Gradually O'Iwa was raised from the sitting posture to her full height of extended arms, until by effort her toes could just reach the ground. In this painful position the slightest twist to relieve the strain on the wrists caused agonizing pains ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... proclaimed the advent of the Kingdom, the presence of the King; he demanded, in the name of God, repentance and reform. Herod was, as usual, impressed and convinced; he assented to the preacher's propositions; already he had settled himself into his usual posture for hearing gladly. It was as when we watch summer-lightning playing around the horizon; we have no fear so long as it is ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... of the room, and began a second tour, when their attention was attracted by a girl who stood in one corner, with her hands clasped behind her. She was gazing very intently on an Ecce-Homo, and, though her face was turned toward the wall, the posture bespoke most unusual interest. Irene looked at her an instant, and held her breath; she had seen only one other head which resembled that—she knew the purplish waving hair, and gliding up to ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... I felt one hand removed from my neck. Orme, half rising from his stooping posture, but with the fingers of his left hand still at the wound, said: "Belknap, let go one of his hands. Just put your hand on this knife-blade, and feel that artery throb! ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... to what those not on duty could snatch, wrapped only in the extra covering of a waterproof sheet, in a sitting posture on the fire-step. At dawn, when the men at last could have slept heavily, came morning stand-to. This meant standing and shivering for an hour whilst it grew light and attempting to clean a mud-clogged ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... most certain, Iras:—saucy lictors Will catch at us like strumpets; and scald rhymers Ballad us out o' tune: the quick comedians Extemporally will stage us, and present Our Alexandrian revels; Antony Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness I' the posture of a whore. ...
— Antony and Cleopatra • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... of a ship, imprisoned by white steel. The lines of bunks, the uprights supporting them, cross each other like the steel framework of a cage. The ceiling crushes down upon the men's heads. They cannot stand upright. This accentuates the natural stooping posture which shovelling coal and the resultant over-development of back and shoulder muscles have given them. The men themselves should resemble those pictures in which the appearance of Neanderthal Man is guessed at. All are hairy-chested, with long arms of tremendous ...
— The Hairy Ape • Eugene O'Neill
... and personally, of the utmost supineness. The lulling sounds of the waterfall, the fragrance, and the dusk, combined to becalm my spirits, and, in a short time, to sink me into sleep. Either the uneasiness of my posture, or some slight indisposition, molested my repose with dreams of no cheerful hue. After various incoherences had taken their turn to occupy my fancy, I at length imagined myself walking, in the evening twilight, to my brother's habitation. A pit, methought, had been dug in the ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... quietly along my own intellectual and ethical trail, taking heed not to touch the sensitive toes of custom, why should it ungenerously insist upon bruising mine? My seer was right when he boldly declared, 'The world has stood long enough under the drill of Adjutant Fashion.' It is hard work, the posture is wearisome, and Fashion is an awful martinet, and has a quick eye, and comes down mercilessly on the unfortunate wight who can not square his toes to the approved pattern. It is killing work. Suppose ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... a simple cube of masonry, some ten feet high, and hollow within. A horizontal wheel of oak was at the top, and to this the victim was bound in a kneeling posture. A very steep flight of stone ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... sky, when Gilbert Potter suddenly raised his head. Above the noise of the water and the whistle of the wind, he heard a familiar sound,—the shrill, sharp neigh of a horse. Lifting himself, with great exertion, to a sitting posture, he saw two men, on horseback, in the flooded meadow, a little below him. They stopped, seemed to consult, and presently ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... conglomerate having worn out from between the masses of rock. The images all occupy niches in the face of the hill: two are gigantic, the rest not very large. They are generally in the usual sitting posture, and rather high up, while the larger ones are erect, and reach the base of the cliffy portion of the rock. They are all male, and all obviously Boodhistical; witness the breadth, proportion, and shape of the head, and the drapery; both are damaged, but the smaller ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... to any expression of a thought. I delight in telling what I think; but if you ask me how I dare say so, or why it is so, I am the most helpless of mortal men. I do not even see that either of these questions admits of an answer. So that in the present droll posture of my affairs, when I see myself suddenly raised to the importance of a heretic, I am very uneasy when I advert to the supposed duties of such a personage, who is to make good his thesis against all comers. I certainly ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... oaken figure called by the name of the notorious tailor. It is in reality a statue of a man in armour, dating no further back than the reign of Henry the Seventh; and, as a local antiquary notes, "to favour the posture of his leaning out of window, the arms have been cut off at the elbows."[47] This statue, now generally believed to have been intended for St. George, could not have been thus appropriated and adapted to its present purpose until its original design had been forgotten and the incongruity of its ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... when he rose in fame, I have this description of his way of going to work. "He spoke a few words to me in his usual brief and kindly way—evidently to put me into an agreeable mood; and then having placed me in a chair on a platform at the end of his painting-room, in the posture required, set up his easel beside me with the canvas ready to receive the colour. When he saw all was right, he took his palette and his brush, retreated back step by step, with his face towards me, till he was nigh ...
— Raeburn • James L. Caw
... by Hamilton, Washington added one which presented the point raised by Jefferson—"Is it necessary or advisable to call together the two Houses of Congress, with a view to the present posture of European affairs? If it is, what shall be the particular object ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... show, to the harmony of the meeting. Not until his guest is seated will the host venture to take up his position on the right hand of the former; and even if in the course of an excited conversation, either should raise himself, however slightly, from a sitting posture, it will be the bounden duty of the other to do so too. No gentleman would sit while his equal stood. Occasionally, where it is not intended to be over-respectful to a visitor, a servant will bring in the tea, one cup in each hand. Then standing before his master and guest, he will cross his arms, ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... the latter became more and more disturbed; and her sister, who watched, with unremitting attention her continual change of posture, and heard the frequent but inarticulate sounds of complaint which passed her lips, was almost wishing to rouse her from so painful a slumber, when Marianne, suddenly awakened by some accidental noise in the house, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... had a fit of coughing, Pelle raised her into a sitting posture and helped her to get rid of the phlegm. She was purple in the face with coughing, and looked at him with eyes that were almost starting out of her head with the violent exertion. Then Ellen brought her the hot milk and Ems salts, and she drank it with a resigned expression and lay ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... very posture and the sweet sense of help and strength it implied, brought her the power to take into consideration such unexpected news, and such unexplained neglect on her lover's part, "General Hyde has returned; that much I feel certain of," she thought, "and Joris must have left Hyde ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... Indian practice of burying the dead in a sitting posture in use among the Nasamonians, tribe of Libyans. Herodotus, speaking of the wandering tribes of Northern Africa, says, "They bury their dead according to the fashion of the Greeks. . . . They bury them sitting, and are right careful, when the sick man is at the point of giving up the ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... to keep it from wasting too fast. The end so lighted he puts into his mouth, and blows the smoke through the whole length of the roll into the face of every one of the company or council, though there be two or three hundred of them. Then they, sitting in their usual posture upon forms, make with their hands held together a kind of funnel round their mouths and noses. Into this they receive the smoke as it is blown upon them, snuffing it up greedily and strongly as long as ever they are able to hold their ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... has become pure the chances of its being ruffled by external disturbances are greatly reduced. At such a stage the yogin takes a firm posture (asana) and fixes his mind on any object he chooses. It is, however, preferable that he should fix it on Is'vara, for in that case Is'vara being pleased removes many of the obstacles in his path, and it becomes easier for him to attain success. ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... had given the members of his daughter's house-party some inkling as to the present posture of affairs. They were gazing at Billy Woods rather curiously. He stood in the vestibule of Selwoode, staring after Margaret Hugonin; but they stared at him, and over his curly head, sculptured above the door-way, they saw the Eagle—the ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... physical condition of the school-house was reflected in the physical condition of the children. For example, a poorly lighted and badly ventilated school-house always housed children with eye strain and nervous disorder, and in a school-house having ill-fitting desks were children of poor posture. ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... stretches, l. 392. During the first six months of gestation, the embryon probably sleeps, as it seems to have no use for voluntary power; it then seems to awake, and to stretch its limbs, and change its posture in some degree, ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... the landing near his room. The door was ajar, she pushed it open. Charles was sleeping; his head hung over the side of the old armchair, and his hand, from which the pen had fallen, nearly touched the floor. The oppressed breathing caused by the strained posture suddenly frightened Eugenie, who entered the ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... think anything could induce him to raise the needful for the prosecution of our object. He says: "Tell Mr. Morse that there is no one I would sooner assist than him if I could, but, in the present posture of my affairs, I am not warranted in undertaking anything more than to make my payments as they become due, of which there ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... each holding with one hand the flowing end of the breechcloth of the one in front or with the hand on his shoulder and the other hand shading the mouth, walk slowly about a circle in a crouching posture, their eyes always cast on the ground. Presently the leader strikes a note, which he holds as long as possible and which the others take up as soon as he has sounded it. This is kept up a few minutes, different ...
— Negritos of Zambales • William Allan Reed
... the sober, sober little face had forgotten its care, and the eyes were alight with intelligence and curiosity, and the lips were unbent in good honest laughter. The doctor raised himself up to a sitting posture. ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... This was done one by one, until the whole number, fifteen, were brought forward, and placed in the midst of the armed body of men; then each youth was made to sit down, holding his head downwards, with his hands clasped, and his legs crossed under him, in which painful posture it was said they were to remain all night, without looking up or taking any refreshment whatever.[39] The Carrahdis, or persons who were to perform the operation, now began some of their strange mummeries. Each one of these, in ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... Communicate his Heat to the Earth, after the same manner as hot Bodies heat those other Bodies which are near them because the Sun is not hot in it self. Nor can it be said that the Earth is heated by Motion, because it stands still, and remains in the same posture, both when the Sun shines upon it, and when it does not, and yet 'tis evident to Sense, that there is a vast difference in it, in respect of Heat and Cold, at those several times. Nor does the Sun first heat the Air, and so the ...
— The Improvement of Human Reason - Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan • Ibn Tufail
... word of command, calling the soldier from the quiescent position of "at ease" into readiness for any exercise or evolution. Also the erect posture due to that word of command, and which is assumed by a private soldier in the presence of an officer. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... resolving itself, with the most perfect ease, into the one following, and designed apparently to show the capacity of a beautiful figure for poetic expression. Wave fell into wave along every line of her body, and occasionally a posture was arrested, to pass away in an instant into some new combination. There was no definite character in the dance beyond mere beauty. It was melody for melody's sake. A remarkable change, too, came over the face of the performer. She looked serious; but it was not a seriousness produced ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... pound him, twitch him up and throw him down, yell and blaspheme, and use the most obscene language that mortals can conceive; they would declare that they were Christ in one breath, and devils in the next; they would tie him head to foot for a long time together in a most excruciating posture; declare they would wring his neck off because he doubted ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith
... caused by inundations, and also in the vast deserted rice plantations: he stands alone on the topmost limb of tall dead cypress trees, his neck contracted or drawn in upon his shoulders, and beak resting like a long scythe upon his breast: in this pensive posture and solitary situation, it looks extremely grave, sorrowful, and melancholy, as if in the ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... Life as liuely mock'd, as euer Still Sleepe mock'd Death: behold, and say 'tis well. I like your silence, it the more shewes-off Your wonder: but yet speake, first you (my Liege) Comes it not something neere? Leo. Her naturall Posture. Chide me (deare Stone) that I may say indeed Thou art Hermione; or rather, thou art she, In thy not chiding: for she was as tender As Infancie, and Grace. But yet (Paulina) Hermione was not so much wrinckled, nothing ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... Posture and Equipage we marched forward. When we were come within a Mile of this River, it being about Four in the Evening, we began to fear, lest any of the People of Anarodgburro from whence we came, should follow ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... immediately withdrawing it, raised it to his mouth. His teeth grated upon the blade of the knife as he opened it, and the next instant Ignacio, with a long deep sob, rolled over among the ashes. The Carlist rose painfully and with difficulty into a sitting posture, and with a grim smile gazed upon his enemy, whose eyes were glazing, and features settling into the rigidity of death. But the conqueror's triumph was short-lived. A deep bark was heard, and a moment afterwards a wolf-dog, drenched with mud and rain, leaped ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... built irascible Irishman, for whom a good shot meant lynching or lasting opprobrium. Visions of Bob Acres and Sir Lucius O'Trigger flit before us. We picture Tierney quoting "fighting Bob Acres" as to the advantage of a sideways posture; and we wonder whether the seconds, if only in regard for their own safety, did not omit to insert bullets. The ludicrous side of the affair soon dawned on contemporaries, witness the suggestion that in all ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... the case Mr Bowen dropped into a sitting posture alongside his commander, and, letting his legs dangle down over the outer edge of the top, filled his pipe, and proceeded to regale himself with what he chose to term "two whiffs ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... Trygaeus is riding to heaven on a dung-beetle, and of course a large fund of amusement is obtained from the literal and metaphorical manipulation of its food. Socrates' disciples are discovered in a kneeling posture, with their heads on the ground. "What are they doing?" inquires the visitor. "They are in search of things below the earth." "And why are their backs up in the air?" "With them they are ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... fear, he was willing to have sprung from bed, but the spectre stood before him in the bright moonlight, its one arm extended so as to master him if he attempted to rise; the other hand held up in a warning and grave posture, as menacing the Lowlander if he should attempt to quit his recumbent position. Thus he lay in mortal agony for more than an hour, after which it pleased the spectre of ancient days to leave him to more sound repose. So singular a story had on its side the usual number of votes from ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... usual at his carving, his eyes closely fixed on it, his figure, as was its wont, rigidly still; and Carlen,—ah! it was an unlucky moment John had taken to search out the state of Carlen's feeling toward Wilhelm,—Carlen sitting in a posture of dreamy reverie, one hand lying idle in her lap holding her knitting, the ball rolling away unnoticed on the ground; her other arm thrown carelessly over the railing of the stoop, her eyes ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... up from his reclining posture, looked straight in his companion's face for a moment, and exclaimed, "That would be glorious! How I should like to go to London, to Canton, to Holland, where the old folks came from,—to travel all over the world! But,"—and he leaned back against the tree again as he spoke,—"but it is of ...
— The Runaway - The Adventures of Rodney Roverton • Unknown
... and managed the directing oar, opened a small window in the canopy which communicated with the interior, and bent to take his master's directions as the boat sprang ahead. Rising from his stooping posture, the practised gondolier gave a sweep with his blade, which caused the sluggish element of the narrow canal to whirl in eddies, and then the gondola glided into the great canal, as ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... reclined in a posture between lying and sitting, his back propped with pillows, his eyes turned with an expressionless stare towards the harbour. Save for its rigidity and a slight drawing down of the muscles on the left side of the mouth, there was nothing to shock or terrify in the aspect of ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... in the atmosphere of a Miss Lizzie's rigid discipline, sometimes rebel. The little girl sitting in front of Emmy Lou was given to spasmodic changes of posture, causing unexpected ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin
... sight of a great cricket, which thoughtlessly approaches along the wire-work of the cover, the Mantis, shaken by a convulsive start, suddenly assumes a most terrifying posture. An electric shock would not produce a more immediate result. The transition is so sudden, the mimicry so threatening, that the unaccustomed observer will draw back his hand, as though at some unknown danger. Seasoned as I am, I myself must confess to ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... in the earth; they dig a four- foot, square, deep pit under the cabin, or couch which the deceased laid on in his house, lining the grave with cypress bark, when they place the corpse in a sitting posture, as if it were alive, depositing with him his gun, tomahawk, pipe, and such other matters as he had the greatest value for in his lifetime. His eldest wife, or the queen dowager, has the second choice of his possessions, and the remaining effects are divided among ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow
... extreme suffering, a beautiful child, dressed in green, with a calm and serene countenance, would approach, and seat himself in a posture of resignation at the side of her bed, allowing himself to be moved from one side to the other, or even put down on to the ground, without the smallest opposition and constantly looking at her affectionately and consoling her. If, when quite prostrate ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... charm. The captain left the door open and had Pander hook it back. A man, who had been lying asleep in a corner—in that half sleep which is the mildest symptom of seasickness—rose to a sitting posture and rubbed his eyes. Hans Fuellenberg and a number of other men hastened out on deck. Doctor Wilhelm and Frederick, who had lost ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... the defeat of their fleet proved a subject of the deepest regret. It was not the loss of men and ships that they deplored; such loss might soon be repaired; but it degraded them in the eyes of Europe, by placing them in the posture of suppliants deprecating the anger of a victorious enemy. In consequence of the importunate entreaties of the merchants, they had previously appointed ambassadors to make proposals of peace to the new government; but these ministers did not quit the coast of Holland till after the battle;[a] ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... of excavating in the solid rock, is in perfect preservation, and is still used by the natives as a place of worship: this is presided over by a priest. Three large images of Bhudda, carved out of solid rock, occupy the positions in which he is always represented; that in the recumbent posture is fifty-six feet long, ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... I woke, aroused by Salva's song, from troubled sleep; and, as I rose to a sitting posture, a troop of sea-birds that had been swooping overhead, fled with ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... Rameses II, that the sculpture refers to the circumcision of two of his children. The knife appears to be a stone implement, and the operator kneels in front of the child, who is standing, while a matron supports him in a kneeling posture, and she holds his hands from behind him.[2] In this bas-relief we can see the great difference that existed between the two forms of the operation, that of the Hebrews being performed, as a rule, on the eighth day after birth, while in the bas-relief ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... succession. Some of the men went down on their knees and pressed their faces close to the ground like Moslems at prayer. They looked for all the (p. 192) world like Moslems, as the pictures show them, prostrate in prayer. The posture reminded me of stories told of ostriches, birds I have never seen, who bury their heads in the sand and consider themselves free from danger when the world ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... at the Last Supper, leaning on Jesus' breast, shows him to us in the posture in which we think of him most. It is the place of confidence; the bosom is only for those who have a right to closest intimacy. It is the place of love, near the heart. It is the place of safety, for he is in the clasp ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... very awkward instrument, as the blade is fixed by a long neck, so as to stand parallel to the short handle, at about the distance or six inches. The labourer, therefore, must either stoop exceedingly, when at work, or must sit on his heels, which is the most usual posture. Still these people use it with great dexterity, and one man in three days digs up a Rupini. After each hoeing, the women and children break the clods with a wooden mallet fixed to a long shaft, which does not require them to stoop. Almost the only other implement of agriculture ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... Such was the posture of the two armies when this great battle began. Gardanne was unable to withstand the shock, and abandoning Padre Bona, fell back to strengthen Victor. A furious cannonade along the whole front of that position ensued; the tirailleurs of either army posted themselves along the margins of the ravine, ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... lift him to a sitting posture when she felt herself grasped around the waist, and before she could make a motion in her own defense, was borne swiftly across the yard, ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... posture of the stranger, when he gained the half-deck of the periagua, was finely nautical, and confident to audacity. He seemed to analyze the half-maritime character of the crew and passengers, at a glance, and to feel that sort of superiority over his companions, which men of his profession were then ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... did not remain that he could defend his station till such time as he could expect their arrival. Thus circumstanced, with the magnanimity peculiar to him, he wrote to Sir Henry Clinton, to acquaint him with the posture of his affairs, and to recommend to the fleet and the army that they should not make any great risk in endeavouring ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... Rochester half closed his eyes, but opened them again almost immediately. A white clad figure was passing down the path on the other side of the lawn. He roused himself to a sitting posture. ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Delgado, from his inert posture in the deep cushions of a divan, "when the time is ripe, I shall strike a decisive blow for ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... recumbent posture, she approached the water at the entrance of the cave till the spray mingled with her long, white locks, and the light falling upon her brow, revealed a sharp beautiful outline of face scarcely touched ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... some Indian bones that he had dug up and laid in a heap. He said that two persons were buried there. From the bones, one must have been very large, and the other smaller. He had been very careful to gather them up. He said he thought they were buried in a sitting or reclining posture, as he came to the skulls first. The skulls, arm and thigh bones were in the best state of preservation, and in fact, the most that was left ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin
... him abruptly. WALLENSTEIN startled and overpowered, continues looking after him and is still in this posture when TERZKY enters.] ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... rights, regarding the actual living people as a beast of burden, and yet worse, as a robot, subjecting their human machine to the cruelest restraints in order to mechanically maintain it in the unnatural, rigid posture, which, according to principles, they inflict upon it. Thenceforth, all ties are sundered between them and the nation; to prey upon, bleed and starve this nation, to re-conquer it after it bad escaped ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... interest than the upper and lower planes. And in New York the enormity of it becomes spectacular. As I passed in Elevated trains across the end of street after street, and street after street, and saw so many of them just alike, and saw so many similar faces mysteriously peering in the same posture between the same curtains through the same windows of the same great houses; and saw canaries in cages, and enfeebled plants in pots, and bows of ribbon, and glints of picture-frames; and saw crowd after dense crowd fighting down on the cobbled roads for ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... at our schoolroom window, lest I should be discovered in so unmanly a posture. It seemed that we were ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... thought Dennis, finding himself between two fires. "I had better lie doggo for a bit while they get on with it." And, stepping inside the ruins of a small shop, he flung himself down on a heap of bricks in the posture of a ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... anecdote which I read in a newspaper, of an ass being found hanging his head over a canal in a wretched posture. Upon examination a dead body was found in the water, and proved to be the body of its master. The countenance, gait, and figure of Peter were taken from a wild rover with whom I walked from Builth, on the river Wye, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... replenish his fire until there were only a few live embers shining dimly at his feet. He rose to a sitting posture; and in that same moment there came a confusion of sound—a trampling through bushes—that froze his blood, and robbed his open throat of power to cry. The next instant he knew it was but those same deer. But the first intelligent thought brought a new fear. ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... upon the king: 'This is the man who makes much of himself For filling the common eyes with palaces Gorgeously bragging out his royalty: Whereas he hath not one that seemeth not In work, in height, in posture on the ground, A hut, a peasant's dingy shed, to mine. And all his excellent woods, metals, and stones, The things he's filched out of the earth's old pockets And hoised up into walls and domes; the gold, Ebony, agate stairs, wainscots ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... camp, awaking the leaders, and contriving all possible methods for the public safety. Menelaus, Nestor, Ulysses, and Diomed, are employed in raising the rest of the captains. They call a council of war, and determine to send scouts into the enemy's camp, to learn their posture, and discover their intentions. Diomed undertakes the hazardous enterprise, and makes choice of Ulysses for his companion. In their passage they surprise Dolon, whom Hector had sent on a like design to the camp of the Grecians. ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... in the same posture some time without answering; but at last lifted up her eyes to look at her brothers, and then held them down again, telling them ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... green as if the beautiful mantle had been cut and fitted to the hidden stone structure. Every few moments the mantle would be lifted by the light breeze, as might a priest's vestment; it would move and waver, as if the building were a human frame, changing its posture to ease its long standing. Between this church of stone and this church of vines there were signs of the fight that had gone on for ages between them. The stones were obviously fighting decay, fighting ruin, fighting ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... superb viaduct across the deep ravine which divides it from Albano. At the risk of seeming to fantasticate I confess that the Pope's having built the viaduct— in this very recent antiquity—made me linger there in a pensive posture and marvel at the march of history and at Pius the Ninth's beginning already to profit by the sentimental allowances we make to vanished powers. An ardent nero then would have had his own way with me and obtained a frank admission that the ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... up, and looked confusedly at them all; but, when she did the feinting business, he thought she was going to faint, and caught her in his arms; and, holding her in them a moment as if she had been a child, he deposited her very gently in a sitting posture at the foot of one of the trees, and, taking her hand, slapped it to ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... is to place the corpse in a sitting posture, without any covering, the face being turned to the eastward, until dried by the sun, after which it is placed in a tree. This mode is adopted with those to whose memory it is intended to shew some respect. The fourth method is to burn the body; but this is only ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... Harkquebus att us, att which wee presented them with a whole Volley; she fier severall small gunns at us, and wounded 3 men. one of them after-wards died. wee laid her aboard and tooke her. She had about 30 hands in her, fitted out for an Armadillo[45] to come downe to the Isle of Plate, to see what a posture wee lay in; their was on Borde 2 very Honorable gentlemen, which came out for ther Pleasure to see us, wee being term'd amounge them a strainge sort of Peopple and cal'd by the name of Laddron. thay tolde us that 4 dayes before thay came out of Yakell saild a shipp bound up for Lymmo, loden with ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... all the measure of their demands or as guarding from the exercise of force our vessels within their power, and to consider how far it will be safe and expedient to leave our affairs with them in their present posture. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 1: Thomas Jefferson • Edited by James D. Richardson
... spring of 1636 the reconstruction of the abbey house was finished, and Sir Hugh moved in with his family. 'My dear wife,' he says, '(who was excellent at dressing and making all handsome within doors) had put it into a fine posture, and furnished with many good things, so that, I believe, there were few gentlemen in the country, of my rank, exceeded it.... I was at this time made Deputy-lieutenant and Colonel over the Train-bands within the hundred of Whitby ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home
... to you, I was in lodgings. I am now in chambers, No. 4, Inner Temple Lane, where I should be happy to see you any evening. Bring any of your friends, the Mandarins, with you. I have two sitting-rooms: I call them so par excellence, for you may stand, or loll, or lean, or try any posture in them; but they are best for sitting; not squatting down Japanese fashion, but the more decorous use of the post——s which European usage has consecrated. I have two of these rooms on the third floor, and five sleeping, cooking, &c., rooms, on the fourth floor. In my best room is a choice ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas |
