"Rigid" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... understanding of this subject, to connect with the right to buy and possess, as property, the amount of authority to govern, which is granted by the law-giver; this amount of authority is implied, in the first place, in the law which prohibits the exercise of rigid authority upon the Hebrews, who are allowed to sell themselves for limited times. "If thy brother be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond servant, but as a hired servant, and as a sojourner he shall be ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... Sunday, May 27, Latitude 16 degrees 0 minutes 5 seconds; longitude, by chronometer, 117 degrees 22 minutes. Our fourth Sunday! When we left the ship we reckoned on having about ten days' supplies, and now we hope to be able, by rigid economy, to make them last another week if possible.[1] Last night the sea was comparatively quiet, but the wind headed us off to about west-north-west, which has been about our course all day to-day. Another flying-fish came aboard last night, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... difficult access. You see how strict our judges are in enjoining the punctual observance of the severe laws that lay women under such a burdensome constraint; and they are yet more strict in the observation of their own families: nay, the cadi you saw is more rigid than all the other magistrates put together. They are always preaching to their daughters what a heinous crime it is to show themselves to men; and by this means the girls themselves are so prepossessed with the notion, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... with my whole hand[28]." Other little delicate turns of phrase may be found in the mine of Euphues—for the digging. Our author was no genius, but he had a full measure of that indefinable quality known as wit; and, though the stylist's mask he wears is uncouth and rigid, it cannot always conceal the twinkle of his eyes. Moreover a certain weariness of this sermonizing on the stilts of antithesis is often visible; and we may suspect that he half sympathises with the petulant exclamation of the sea-sick Philautus to ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... Adare; the nearest well-explored region. It had proved otherwise, only too well endorsing the scanty information supplied by D'Urville and Wilkes of the coastline seen by them. A glance at the austere plateau and the ice-fettered coast was evidence of a rigid, inhospitable climate. It was apparent, too, that only a short summer could be expected in these latitudes, thus placing limitations upon ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... was a wall, having a small, massive, and closed door. From a distance this grave and dismal residence appeared like a prison; it was, however, a convent, full of young Augustines, subject to a rule lenient as compared with provincial customs, but rigid as compared with those ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... faith, pledged for the redemption of the public debt, must be kept inviolate, and that for this purpose we recommend economy and rigid responsibility in the public expenditures, and a vigorous and just system of taxation: and that it is the duty of every loyal State to sustain the credit and promote the use ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... notable picture. The Lady Desdemona stood now, tense, rigid, immobile as any rock, though instinct with life in every hair. Finn became the very personification of action, eager movement, alert interest. Inside of one minute he had examined the motionless Desdemona (by means of the most searchingly ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... to the freedom enjoyed by their masters. In Greece, none were so proud of liberty as the Spartans; and they were a proverb among the neighboring States for their severity to slaves. The slave code of the Roman republic was rigid and tyrannical in the extreme; and cruelties became so common and excessive, that the emperors, in the latter days of Roman power, were obliged to enact laws to restrain them. In the modern world, England ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... and Alex stood rigid, scarcely breathing. Then a voice exclaimed, "Up de stair!" quick footsteps crossed the floor towards the ladder, and in a panic of fear Alex threw himself bodily against the door, in a mad endeavor to force it. But it still held, and with a thrill of despair ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... of the day! It rules in philosophy as elsewhere, and we are now about to see the most rigid and arid of analysts, the leader of the so-called realist school, or school of exact science in Germany in the nineteenth century, plunge ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... very afternoon he drove out to Winetka along the lake shore. He had himself gotten up in his stiffest best. He held the reins high and tight, his body erect in the approved form; while now and then he glanced back to see if the footmen were as rigid as my lady demanded. For Mrs. Stuart loved good form, and he felt nervously apprehensive, as if he were again suing for her maiden favors. He was conscious, too, that he had little enough to offer her—the last months ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... it is opposed to natural rights and, therefore, fit only to be put down.-This is what the Girondists have done during the Legislative sessions; we know how they, armed with the illusions[3342] of their new philosophy and triumphing through a rigid, rash and hasty ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... quantity taken might be doubled, if there were a ready market for them. The Kantar, of five hundred and eighty pounds weight, is sold at about four pounds sterling. The fish are salted on the spot, and carried all over Syria, and to Cyprus, for the use of the Christians during their long and rigid fasts. The income derived from this fishery by the governor of Kalaat el Medyk amounts to about one hundred and twenty purses, or three thousand pounds sterling. Besides the black fish, carp are also taken with nets, and carried to Hamah and Homs, where the Turks are very fond of them. ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... not given any formal education, however, Mullen's master was not as rigid as some of the slave-holders in prohibiting the slaves from learning to read and write. Mrs. Snellings, the mistress, taught Mack's mother to read and write a little, and Mr. Snellings also taught Mack's father how to read, write and figure. Having learned a little they would in ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... he had spoken I had read in his rigid face, in his eyes fixed with such a passion of regret on the screen, why we were there—whose voice it was we had ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... excitement of having for the first time spoken to him in violence. By this time it had grown almost dark, and she ended by losing sight of him. But she kept her course, and after a little, the valley making a sudden turn, she gained the road, where the carriage stood waiting. In it sat her father, rigid and silent; in silence, too, she took her place ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... retired tamely into the background. It had been conceivable that rush of passion might drive him to break all the rules of conduct his New England conscience had set over him; but what Alma Marston did overwhelmed him with such stupefaction that he stood there as rigid and motionless as a belaying-pin in a rack. She put up her arms, pressed her two hands on his shoulders, stood on tiptoe, and kissed ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... brutal enough, Heaven knows; but no one yet has held her non-human side to be dishonest, and even in the human sphere deliberate deceit is far rarer than the "classic" intellect, with its few and rigid categories, was ready to acknowledge. There is a hazy penumbra in us all where lying and delusion meet, where passion rules beliefs as well as conduct, and where the term "scoundrel" does not clear up everything to the depths as it did for our forefathers. The ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... Marcia stood, rigid and pale. All her plans seemed shivering about her. She was doomed to fail then—fail after all, through the cunning of these vermin. Still she ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... schools. From Leipsic Mile. Sontag went to Berlin, where the demonstrations of delight which greeted her singing rose to fever-heat as the performances continued. Expressions of rapture greeted heron the streets; even the rigid etiquette of the Prussian court gave way to receive the low-born singer as a royal guest, an honor which all the aristocratic houses were prompt to emulate. It was at Berlin that Sontag made the acquaintance of Count Rossi, a Piedmontese nobleman attached to the Sardinian ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... restless expression. He did not look like a man who had found peace. Lady Charteris told him of her last visit to Earlescourt—how his mother never ceased speaking of him, and his father still preserved the same rigid, unbending silence. ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... Englishman or Irishman, Frenchman or German, Japanese, Italian, Scandinavian, Slav, or Magyar. What we should desire to find out is the individual quality of the individual man. In my judgment, with this end in view, we shall have to prepare through our own agents a far more rigid inspection in the countries from which the immigrants come. It will be a great deal better to have fewer immigrants, but all of the right kind, than a great number of immigrants, many of whom are necessarily of the wrong kind. As far as possible we wish to limit the immigration ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... system was the rigid link between legal tender currency and gold. This was secured by the provisions of the Bank Act of 1844, which laid down that above a certain line—which was before the war roughly L18-1/2 millions—every ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers
... not comply at first. She tried to wrench herself free, pulling this way and that with more strength than might have been expected from one so slight. But finding herself helpless in those rigid bonds, she slowly relaxed the fingers of her right hand, and let the dagger drop point downward into the loose soil, where it ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... 50: J. Bryce, Flexible and Rigid Constitutions, in Studies in History and Jurisprudence (London and New ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... of the railroad, Mr. Kirkman says: "Superseding every other form of inland conveyance, it determines the location of business centers, and vitalizes by its presence, or blasts by its absence." He contends that rigid and scrutinizing supervision should be exercised by the Government over the location of railroads, and that only such lines should be permitted to be built as afford reasonable grounds for profitable enterprise. "It should ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... empire; but the final destruction of the kingdom of Bulgaria appears, since the time of Belisarius, the most important triumph of the Roman arms. Yet, instead of applauding their victorious prince, his subjects detested the rapacious and rigid avarice of Basil; and in the imperfect narrative of his exploits, we can only discern the courage, patience, and ferociousness of a soldier. A vicious education, which could not subdue his spirit, had clouded his mind; he was ignorant of every science; and the remembrance ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... in a rigid practice of the formalities: 'I think I may guess that you have something to tell ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... he to do with these things? He sought only his soul's annihilation. Something in this terrible silence communicated itself to his companion. She looked at his face in the light of a lamp; it was white, locked, and rigid. Child of the Stars, no less, though long forgetful, she shuddered at this association. She recoiled from him crying out "You brute—you brute!" and then fled away. The unhappy man turned homeward ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... refuge in the technicalities of the law, and were supported by rulings of the presiding judge. When Oxenford took the stand in his own behalf, there were not a dozen persons present who believed the perjured statements which fell from his lips. Yet when his testimony was subjected to a rigid cross-questioning, every attempt to reach the truth precipitated a controversy between attorneys as bitter as it was personal. That the defendant at the bar had escaped prosecution for swindling the government out of large sums of money for a mail service never performed was well ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... for another hour before she reached the end of her own patience. She stood up almost rigid with anger. James never knew how close Mrs. Bagley was to making use of a hairbrush on her daughter's bottom. But Mrs. Bagley also realized that Martha had to go into this process willing to cooperate. So, instead of physical punishment, ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... rigid form of the antagonism between the Jew and the Christian is the religious antagonism. How is this antagonism resolved? By making it impossible. How is a religious antagonism ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... pink, pale purple, or white, small, clustered in axils of upper leaves. Calyx tubular, bell-shaped, with 5 rigid awl-like teeth; corolla 2-lipped, upper lip arched, woolly without; lower lip 3-lobed, spreading, mottled; the tube with oblique ring of hairs inside. Four twin-like stamens, anterior pair longer, reaching under ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... there was a regular crowd round Beatrice all intensely interested, and in less time than it takes to tell old Doctor Holden was bending over Beatrice's white rigid face. ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... flat on the floor, face downward, with the elbows bent and the palms of the hands flat on the floor by the sides, body fully extended. Then, keeping the body perfectly rigid, raise it up by the muscles of the arms alone, until it only rests on the arms and toes, then lower the body gradually until the chest touches the floor, at the same time exercising the lungs to their fullest extent. This may be practiced ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... to have entered upon this new course of life with his usual enthusiasm, and for a time to have borne the rigid rules of the place with unusual steadiness. He entered the institution on the 1st July, 1830, and by the following March had been expelled for determined disobedience. Whatever view may be taken of Poe's conduct upon this occasion, it must be seen that the expulsion from West Point ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... are but few instances on record of a Rapparee having been arrested in a state of intoxication. Their laws, in fact, however barbarous they were in other matters, rendered three cases of drunkenness a cause of expulsion from the gang. O'Donnel, however, had now relaxed from the rigid observation of his own rules, principally for the reasons we have already stated—by which we mean, a conviction of his own impunity, as falsely communicated to him by Sir Robert Whitecraft. The sheriff had not at first intended to be personally present at his capture; but upon second consideration ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... would have been requisite in his case had he remained in his own country. All the circumstances requiring attention from the invalid at home should be equally attended to abroad. If in some things greater latitude may be permitted, others will demand even a more rigid attention. It is, in truth, only by a due regard to all these circumstances that the powers of the constitution can be enabled to throw off, or even materially mitigate, in the best climate, a disease of ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... felt tense and rigid when Telzey laid her arm across it, and except for an absent-minded dig with her forehead against Telzey's shoulder, TT refused to let her attention be distracted from whatever had absorbed it. Now and then, a low, ominous rumble came from her furry throat, a half-angry, ...
— Novice • James H. Schmitz
... used for the purpose of shielding and protecting Catholic criminals, and for the purpose of Catholic dignitaries to glut their lust upon the female inmates of these institutions, and will exact and demand laws that will force a rigid examination every thirty or sixty days of these institutions, then the world at large will know and thoroughly understand that these institutions are practically the homes of depravity ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... stood in the doorway rigid as a statue. The little cortege went past her. No one saw her, for the landings in the Hotel de Marny are very wide, and Matthieu's lantern only threw a dim, ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... were set hard upon her lower lip. Within a stone's throw of Uncle Carter's outer gate she brought the horse down to a walk, then to a full stop, and slipped to the ground. Her face was so pale and rigid as she set me upon my feet that I began ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... kind of pluck that Stevenson particularly admired. He was best when he was at sea, and although Mrs. Stevenson was a poor sailor and often suffered greatly from seasickness, she accompanied him on all his wanderings in the South Seas and on rougher waters, with the greatest spirit. A woman who was rigid in small matters of domestic economy, who insisted on a planned and ordered life, ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... resting in between, he dragged him over the ground and up a broken rubble of ice to the side of the boat. But into the boat he could not get him. Elijah's limp body was far more difficult to lift and handle than an equal weight of like dimensions but rigid. Daylight failed to hoist him, for the body collapsed at the middle like a part-empty sack of corn. Getting into the boat, Daylight tried vainly to drag his comrade in after him. The best he could do was to get Elijah's head and shoulders on top the gunwale. ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... Castro, with one end of the twisted cloak in his hand, went first; I held the other; and between us, Seraphina, the rope at her back, imitated our movements, with her loosened hair flying high in the wind, and her pale, rigid head as if deaf to the crashes. I saw the drawn stillness of her face, her dilated eyes staring within three inches of the strata. The strain on our prudence was tremendous. The knowledge of the precipice behind must have affected me. Explain it as you will, several times during that ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... rounded brown forehead with a colored silk handkerchief; and Aristide Dumeny, with half-closed eyes, ironically examined the crowd, whispered to a member of his Embassy who had accompanied him into court, folded his arms and sat looking down. Beadon Clarke's face was rigid, and a fierce red, like the red of a blush of shame, was fixed on his cheeks. His mother had pulled a thick black veil with a pattern down over her face, and was fidgeting perpetually with a chain of small moonstones set ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... glance towards them. He was a tender-hearted boy, and he felt his face grow pale, and a strange feeling of sickness come over him, even at the momentary glance which he had at first taken at the rigid figures. ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... of Doctor Cook's claim to have travelled some eleven hundred miles, from Etah to the North Pole and back, with a team of dogs hauling their own food. It is possible, however, on fair trails, with rigid economy, to travel five hundred miles and haul dog food and man food and the other indispensables of a long journey; and that is twice as far as it is ever necessary to travel in the interior of Alaska without ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... freedom, and by the time that she had reached womanhood she had very decided convictions touching her duty with regard to escaping. Thus growing to hate slavery in every way and manner, she was prepared to make a desperate effort to be free. Having saved thirty-five dollars by rigid economy, she was willing to give every cent of it (although it was all she possessed), to be aided from Norfolk to Philadelphia. After reaching the city, having suffered severely while coming, she was invited to remain until ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... sat a gaunt, tall man, dressed in black broadcloth, his rigid hands incarcerated in yellow kid gloves. On the back seat was a lady who triumphed over the June heat. Her stout form was armoured in a skin-tight silk dress of the description known as "changeable," being a gorgeous combination of shifting hues. She ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... advantage in maintaining with easy-minded wives a rigid and inflexible behaviour, viz. that if they DO by any chance grant a little favour, the ladies receive it with such transports of gratitude as they would never think of showing to a lord and master ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... not, for the moment, averse to either theory; but it will save time to call it righteousness. By so doing I intend no subterfuge to beg a question; I am indeed ready, and more than willing, to accept the rigid consequence, and lay aside, as far as the treachery of the reason will permit, all former meanings attached to the word righteousness. What is right is that for which a man's central self is ever ready to sacrifice immediate or distant interests; ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... art; and in spite of his earlier addictions to business-like speculations he appears to have been a singularly accomplished, high-bred gentleman. Some years before his son's marriage, Mr. Fletwode had been afflicted with partial paralysis, and his medical attendant enjoined rigid abstention from business. From that time he never interfered with his son's management of the bank. He had an only daughter, much younger than Alfred. Lord Eagleton, my mother's brother, was engaged to be married to her. The wedding-day was fixed,—when the world was startled by the news that the ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... ironically decked with the picked, featherless plumes of a few dying pines. One, stripped of all but two lateral branches, brought a boyish recollection to his fevered brain. Against a background of dull sunset fire, it extended two gaunt arms—black, rigid, and pathetic. Calvary! ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... shoes had never been changed. For six months his bed was not made, and the unhappy child, consigned to this living burial, remained silent and immovable upon the impure pallet, breathing his own infection. By long inactivity his limbs became rigid. His mind, by the dead inaction which succeeded terror, lost its energy, and became, not only brutalized, but depraved. The noble child of warm affections, polished manners, and active intellect, was thus degraded far below the ordinary ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... hyenas, as they glided, like shadows, from one thicket to another." The following afternoon they arrived at Joag, in the kingdom of Kajaaga, where they took up their abode at the house of the chief man, here called the dooty. He was a rigid Mohammedan, but distinguished for his hospitality. The town was supposed to contain about two thousand inhabitants; it was surrounded by a high wall, in which were a number of port-holes for musketry. ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... sleep, that he would run no risk of falling down as prey for the murderous pack below. He wondered if he would be able to stand the cold night or whether when Pierre came in the morning he might not find him stark and rigid, tied to the branch ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... lord?" he said calmly, turning a face rigid with hidden conflict, and gleaming white, from the framework of the arch, upon his master, whose eyes seemed to ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... reply! Then he listened intently for his breathing, but all was as silent as the tomb. With an irresistible impulse, yet instinctive shudder, he laid his hand on the man and passed it up until it reached the face. The silence was then explained. The face was growing cold and rigid in death. ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... say," replied Anson dreamily. "I only know that I don't think he has any." And, as it happened, the most rigid examination failed to discover any of the gems. But, all the same, the culprit was set aside for punishment, two of the watchers present at the examination declaring that they had seen him put his hand to his ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... now bring into the field about 800 vocal performers, the immense majority of them amateurs, and their concerts take place alternately—Exeter Hall being invariably crammed upon either occasion. The Costaites, no doubt, have the pas. The discipline of their chief is perfect, and as rigid as it is excellent. The power which this gentleman possesses over his musical troops is very curious. The whole mass of performers seem to wait upon his will as the spirits did on Prospero. At the spreading of his arms, the music dies away to the most faintly-whispered murmurs. A crescendo or musical ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... listened with eager interest, sometimes completing Hermon's acknowledgments by an explanatory or propitiating word, as the leeches subjected him to a rigid examination, but the latter felt that his statements were not to serve curiosity, but an honest desire to aid him. So he spoke to them with ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... also states (Coel. Hier. viii) that the name "Domination" means first "a certain liberty, free from servile condition and common subjection, such as that of plebeians, and from tyrannical oppression," endured sometimes even by the great. Secondly, it signifies "a certain rigid and inflexible supremacy which does not bend to any servile act, or to the act of those who are subject to or oppressed by tyrants." Thirdly, it signifies "the desire and participation of the true dominion which belongs to God." Likewise the name of ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... at Skagway, and the lady who was known by us told us there was much stress there placed upon the most formal attention to rigid conventionalities, calls made and returned, cards left and received at just the right time, more than is expected in Boston. And yet that town was hardly started, and dirt and disorder and ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... One of the drawers, wider than any of the others, and in the center, was obviously the one to which Gypsy Nan referred. She pulled out the drawer, and in the act of reaching inside, suddenly drew back her hand. What was that? Instinctively she switched off the flashlight, and stood tense and rigid ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... beautiful in her life before; at such times her face was joyous and innocent as a little child's, but there were also hours of gloom, that transformed it into an expression of sullen apathy; then a dull glassy look took possession of her eye, the full lip drooped and the form seemed rigid and stiff; obstinate determination neither to move nor speak characterised her in what Louis used to call the young squaw's "dark hour." Then it was that the savage nature seemed predominant, and her gentle nurse almost feared to look at ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... enthusiastic when, with great diplomacy, Marmaduke suggested the bagpipes as an addition to the programme. The Hendersons were very rigid concerning certain worldly amusements, and a Piper was always associated with dancing and kindred foolishness. When it was made clear that Lauchie would draw a crowd, which a Piper always did, he yielded, and Marmaduke and Trooper borrowed ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... [251] The Arabian general persuaded his soldiers to relinquish their claim, in the reasonable hope that the eyes of the caliph would be delighted with the splendid workmanship of nature and industry. Regardless of the merit of art, and the pomp of royalty, the rigid Omar divided the prize among his brethren of Medina: the picture was destroyed; but such was the intrinsic value of the materials, that the share of Ali alone was sold for twenty thousand drams. A mule that carried away the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... have searched, who have had recourse, perhaps, to graver measures—it is impossible that they should not have called forth many sentiments of anger and indignation. Even when practised with the most rigid formalities, even when confined within the limits of the strictest legality, the right of search cannot fail to produce a feeling of annoyance. The recent search of the Jules et Marie, the yards of which ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... blue tilbury passed across the square at a rapid trot. Emma uttered a cry and fell back rigid ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... female detectives is generally light. Zeal and discretion are the principal requisites, though conscientious devotion to duty, and rigid obedience to orders, are also essential. They are expected to win the confidence of those from whom information is desired, and to lose no opportunity of encouraging them ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... Kate stood rigid, overcome by a terror that paralysed her: what did she know? She became glowing hot and then icy cold. "Not from such a rude boy—what has he got to do here?" oh, God, was that the ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... aghast at the resplendent figure of the chevaliere at the head of the procession. This was very different from what he had thought of when his village respectability was tortured by the idea of his girl among the troopers, yet probably the rigid peasant had never changed ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... the work of the three respective parties, and this re-acted in various ways on the Women's Suffrage propaganda. It might seem that this had a depressing effect, for the rigid neutrality in regard to party which always had characterised the National Societies for Women's Suffrage might easily seem dull and tame to the ardent party enthusiasts, and many of the Liberal women threw their energies by preference into the Women's Liberal Associations, but the ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... reaches my ear. He is speaking, and that which I hear him say, I write: no more, no less, no different. His voice dies away, inarticulate. I see his lips whiten and draw back upon his teeth. His hands clutch me as a convulsive spasm wrenches his muscles. There is a tense, rigid silence, and then one deep-drawn groan. Nerve, limb, muscle, and flesh collapse as the Life is set loose. The damp body sinks back, leaving its death sweat on my arms, its gasp in my ears. Tomkins is dead. But the impulse is not done with me yet. I cannot ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... her back in the deadest of faints. Her limbs were rigid, her eyes glassy; what had Jerry been doing? It must have been something very bad, for her to take on like that. I scrutinised him carefully, while Charlotte ran to comfort the damsel. He appeared to be whistling a tune and regarding the scenery. If I only possessed ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... afar off in the sky seemed to float across the sun. They cut the two rigid bodies down at noon. Shawn and Burney returned to the boat. A rain-crow was calling softly from a willow tree, and the ripples murmured sorrowfully on the shore. Shawn touched Burney on the arm as they stood by the boat: "Mr. Burney, there's a Memphis packet due up here ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis
... Nagasaki, from the westward, is like sailing on to a line of high, rigid, impenetrable rocks, for, apparently, we are heading blindly on to land which discloses not the slightest indication of an opening; but, relying on the accuracy of our charts, and the skill of our officers, ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... of caste, after millenniums of teaching, of rigid observance and custom, has become even more than second nature to the Hindu,—it has grown into a sweet necessity of his life, from whose claims and demands he neither expects nor desires relief. To the ordinary Hindu a change of caste would be as unexpected, yea as impossible, ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... tried rhymes, such as love, dove; heart, part; fame, name; with a view to embodiment in her poems—letters from young friends, telling all about the parties of their respective mammas, and how interesting the last baby was: to think of these being subjected to the rigid scrutiny of a council of either Ten or Three, was too whimsical. To the count, on the other hand, everything was grave and official. He said he could well believe, that she was innocent of all that had been ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various
... tempted. Young John Hanson, Commander of the Special Patrol ship, Ertak, had his good share of natural curiosity, the spirit of adventure, and the explorer's urge. But at the same time, the Service has a discipline that is as rigid and relentless as the ...
— The Terror from the Depths • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... rigid—that curious smile on his blood-smeared face, his eyes bent toward the end of the ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... had no need to be told what it was—it, so to say, introduced itself. And it was answered by another yell, more formidable still, and again by a chorus of yells. Then it seemed to Bucks's unaccustomed ears as if a thousand lusty throats were opened, and scared rigid he looked behind him and saw the canyon below ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... Egypt, those of Ceylon regulated the mode of delineating the effigies of their divine teacher, by a rigid formulary, with which they combined corresponding directions for the drawing of the human figure in connection with sacred subjects. In the relics of Egyptian painting and sculpture, we find "that the same formal outline, the same attitudes and postures ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... step and laid a hand familiarly on his rigid shoulder. "Quit it, Mig. We would do a lot for the outfit; that's the God's truth. And I played the game right up to the hilt, I admit. But nobody's killed. I told Happy to play dead. By gracious, I caught him just in the nick uh time; he'd been setting up, in ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... laughed grimly. "Mustn't I? How are you going to stop me?" He stared hard at her, his face growing slowly rigid. "There's just one way to stop me from saying such wicked things," he told her. "You can tell me you don't care anything about me, and never could, not even if that down-east conscience of yours didn't butt into the game. You can tell me that, and swear it's the ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... sitting very still, his lips rigid, not from defect, but from excess of sympathy. The restaurant was empty now, save for a man, four tables down, safely ensconced behind the pink pages of an evening paper, and for a couple, at the far end, in the window—a young Frenchwoman, whose coquettish hat and trim rounded ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... admittance except on business." In time he reaches the goal of his hopes; but now insulted Nature begins to claim her revenge. That which was once unnatural is now natural to him. The enforced constraint has become a rigid deformity. The spring of his mind is broken. He can no longer lift his mind from the ground. Books and knowledge and wise discourse, and the amenities of it, and the cordial of friendship, are like ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... octoroon was a corporeal fact; it is more than likely that she had brothers of the same complexion, though curiously enough the male octoroon has cut no figure in fiction, except in the case of the melancholy Honore Grandissime, f.m.c; and that she and her brothers often crossed the invisible but rigid color line was an historical fact that only an ostrich-like ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... of the world were drawn into one camp or the other. For purposes of internal security, all countries relied upon the newest propaganda and indoctrination techniques. All countries felt they needed, for survival's sake, a rigid ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley
... efficiency of his operations, or the physical and mental condition of his labourers. The portion of his gains which he may appropriate to his own use, must be decided by himself, under accountability to opinion; and opinion ought not to look very narrowly into the matter, nor hold him to a rigid reckoning for any moderate indulgence of luxury or ostentation; since under the great responsibilities that will be imposed on him, the position of an employer of labour will be so much less desirable, ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill
... eyes at the little figure which stood with its back turned towards them, in an attitude of rigid stillness. There was something pathetic about that stillness, with just the flutter of the tell-tale handkerchief, to hint at the quivering face that was hidden from view. The hearts of Peggy's companions were very tender over her at that moment; but even as they planned words of ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... for Cavor I think I should have remained rigid, hanging over this margin and staring into the enormous gulf below, until at last the edges of the slot scraped me off and hurled me into its depths. But Cavor had not received the shock that had paralysed me. He had been a little distance from the edge when the lid ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... was clear in his head by this time, and he told it well, with the journalist's sense of its drama. As he spoke she drew up her knees and clasping her hands round them sat rigid, now and then as she met his eyes, raised to hers to see if she had caught a point, nodding and breathing a ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... means the locks are driven backward and forward, the latter motion forcing the cartridges into place, and the former withdrawing the empty cartridge case after firing. The extractor hook pivoted to the lock plunger rises, as the lock advances, over the rim of the case, but is rigid as the lock is withdrawn, so that the action is a positive one. The cartridges, which are contained in a suitable frame attached to the forward part of the breech chamber, pass through openings in the top plate of the latter, an efficient distribution being ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 433, April 19, 1884 • Various
... exceeded the application of metaphysics. Through mind alone we have prevented disease and preserved health. In cases of chronic and acute diseases, in their severest forms, we have changed the secretions, renewed structure, and restored health; have elongated shortened limbs, relaxed rigid muscles, made cicatrized joints supple; restored carious bones to healthy conditions, renewed that which is termed the lost substance of the lungs; and restored healthy organizations where disease was organic ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... was not nearly so rich as her neighbours were, not nearly so rich as her position in society exacted that she should be. She was still not rich enough to be spared the sordid, nerve-racking effort to make two ends meet without a visible break. Her small economies, to Gabriella's surprise, were as rigid as Mrs. Carr's; and though she lived in surroundings which appeared luxurious to the girl, there was almost as little ready money to spend as there had been in Mrs. Carr's household. Bills were made recklessly, and dinner parties were given at regular intervals; ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... Tarrant first smiled, then laughed. Nancy kept her lips rigid. It happened that he again saw her face in exact profile, and again it warmed the ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... abstruse details with which the statute-books abound, and to be well grounded in which is essential to soundness or eminence in jurisprudence. In 1858 Mr. Gordon entered upon the responsible duties of Sheriff of Perthshire. In that capacity his decisions were awarded with an impartiality and rigid adherence both to the letter and to the spirit of the lex scripti that caused them to be often quoted in the inferior courts. By his superiors his talents were so far recognised that in 1866 he received the appointment of Solicitor-General for Scotland, and ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... agreed the Mother-Superior, "which even the most rigid disciplinarians of the body have found difficult ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... and had the management of great affairs when he was but a child, and when it would have been better for his soul's and his body's health, had he been engaged in acting as an esquire of some good knight, and subjected to rigid discipline. The jealousy that his father felt was the natural consequence of the popularity of the Prince, who was young, and had highly distinguished himself in both field and council, was not a usurper, and was not held responsible for any of the unpopular acts done ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... may add that he regarded Bethlem as, at this period, well conducted, but as having "too much of the leaven of the dark ages in its constitution, and too rigid a system of quackery, in regard to its being seen and visited by respectable strangers." He adds that in some respects "it is little better than when, in fact, it formed one of the lions of the metropolis, and the patients as wild ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... discussion has all taken place beforehand among the Communists themselves. Something like this must happen with every representative assembly at which a single party has a great preponderance and a rigid internal discipline. The real interest is in the discussion ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome
... various parts in life with the greatest vigour. As a man of pleasure, for instance, what more active roue than he? As a jeune homme, who could be younger, and for a longer time? As a country gentleman, or an l'homme d'affaires, he insisted upon dressing each character with the most rigid accuracy, and an exactitude that reminded one somewhat of Bouffe, or Ferville, at the play. I wonder whether, when is he quite old, he will think proper to wear a pigtail, like his old father? At any rate, that was a good part which the kind fellow was now acting, of reverence ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... had this while been sitting rigid upon a flat black box, "don't drop him down a coal-mine. That's ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... has it from birth. Occasionally the gaucho sleeps in the saddle; the Indian can die on his horse. During frontier warfare one hears at times of a dead warrior being found and removed with difficulty from the horse that carried him out of the fight, and about whose neck his rigid fingers were clasped in death. Even in the gaucho country, however, where, I grieve to confess, the horse is not deservedly esteemed, there are very remarkable instances of equine attachment and fidelity to man, and of a fellowship ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... Prophet cast. "He lies there," said the Earl of Morton at his grave, "who never feared the face of man." He resembles, more than any of the moderns, an old Hebrew Prophet. The same inflexibility, intolerance, rigid, narrow-looking adherence to God's truth, stern rebuke in the name of God to all that forsake truth: an old Hebrew prophet in the guise of an Edinburgh minister of the sixteenth century. We are to take him for that; not require ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... right to accept the results which may be offered in the premises by a careful induction. But the right to assail the commonly received opinions of mankind, especially the right to assail a people's religion, has other and very rigid conditions, which will not, we are persuaded, justify this new outbreak of the restless spirit of Infidelity. Certainly, it would have become Prof. Agassiz, before venturing upon the course he has adopted, to dissociate himself from a University to which ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... "La Riviere has snatched with insolence and acknowledged with treachery." I excused myself by saying that I had taken a resolution never to accept of the cardinalship by any means which seemed to have relation to the civil wars, to the end that I might convince the Queen that it was the most rigid necessity which had separated me from her service. I rejected upon the same account all the other advantageous propositions he made me, and, he still insisting that the Queen could do no less than confer upon me something ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... actual rings of solid matter required so nice an adjustment of so many narrow rings as to render the system far more complex than even Laplace had supposed. 'A stable formation can,' he said, 'be nothing other than a very great number of separate narrow rigid rings, each revolving with its proper relative velocity.' As was well remarked by the late Professor Nichol, 'If this arrangement or anything like it were real, how many new conditions of instability do we introduce. Observation tells us that the division ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... made up to her again, and was tormenting her sweet ear once more with his whispers. She stood rigid like a statue with her eyes before her, showing only by the heaving of her bosom that she was aware of ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... mattresses, sofas, and all sorts of stuffing purposes,—which, in my opinion, it answers better than any other material whatever that I am acquainted with, being as light as horse hair, as springy and elastic, and a great deal less harsh and rigid. It is now bed-time, dear E——, and I doubt not it has been sleepy time with you over this letter, long ere you came thus far. There is a preliminary to my repose, however, in this agreeable residence, ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... I ordered a rigid search of the deck, but the axe was gone. Nor was it ever found. It had taken its bloody story many fathoms deep into the old Atlantic, and hidden it, where many crimes have been hidden, in the ooze and slime of ...
— The After House • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... poor in the hospitals, went about in rags, starved himself almost to death, and often sallied into the streets, mounted on stones, and, waving his hat to invite the passers-by, began to preach in a strange jargon of mingled Castilian and Tuscan. The Theatines were among the most zealous and rigid of men; but to this enthusiastic neophyte their discipline seemed lax, and their movements sluggish; for his own mind, naturally passionate and imaginative, had passed through a training which had given to all its peculiarities a morbid intensity and energy. In his early life ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... with rigid attention, marvelling at the calm, dispassionate, unflinching manner in which she stated her case and Viola's,—indeed, she had stated his own case for him. Apparently she had not even speculated on the outcome of her revelations; ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon |
