"Stature" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and being both excited and earnest, the truth must be owned, a certain family likeness came out. Certainly their eyes were quite unlike. Leicester had his gypsy mother's: black, keen, and restless. Gaunt had his mother's: brown, calm, and steady. But the two men had the same stature, the same manly mould and square shoulders; and, though Leicester's cheek was brown as a berry, his forehead was singularly white for a man in his rank of life, and over his left temple, close to the roots of the hair, was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... thought, with your broad shoulders and deep chest; your massive head that should have gone with a tall stature, not with those short sturdy limbs; with your thick red hair, that should have been black for that matter, as should your wide-set yellow eyes—you would be a real puzzle to one who did not recognize in you equal mixtures of the fair, stalwart and muscular Slav with the bilious-sanguine, ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... Princeton College; where, owing to his extreme youth and smallness of stature, he was forced to commence with the sophomore, although, upon examination, he was found qualified to enter the junior class. This was a source of extreme mortification to him, and especially as he had been prepared, and was every way qualified, to enter the preceding year. From his infancy ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... stood side by side, looking into the fire, while Sweyn the Silent and Erland the Old sat them at either corner of the hearth. The two brothers were much alike in stature, both being tall and broad; but Hamish was gentler, and his every movement showed that he was accustomed to the company of those who deemed a courtly bearing of more account than mere bodily prowess, though in truth he lacked not that either. His hair and beard, ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... ones of the Court, whom I permitted to call me Piccoluomini—a foolish jest on my somewhat diminutive figure, which always distinguished me from ordinary beings, even when I was young—I have now lost much stature by stooping; but, always the ladies had their jest at me.—Perhaps, young man, I had my own amends of some of them somewhere, and somehow or other—I say nothing if I had or no; far less do I insinuate disrespect ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... and tore at each other upon the brink of the pyramid, now and again to vanish down its side, ten or twelve of them together. Some of the priests also joined in the fight, thinking less of their own deaths than of the desecration of their temples, for I saw one of them, a man of huge strength and stature, seize a Spanish soldier round the middle and leap with him into space. Still, though very slowly, the Spaniards and Tlascalans forced their way towards the centre of the platform, and as they came the danger of this dreadful end grew ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... kept Jagerndorf fast clenched, deaf to all pleadings, and monitions of gods or men. Till at length, in the fourth generation afterwards, one "Friedrich the Second," not unknown to us,—a sharp little man, little in stature, but large in faculty and renown, who is now called "Frederick the Great,"—clutched hold of the Imperial fist (so to speak), seizing his opportunity in 1740; and so wrenched and twisted said close fist, that not only Jagerndorf dropped out of it, but the whole ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... or outsteps the faithful truth, it is worth the knowing that there were in old times three kinds of magicians who by diverse sleights practiced extraordinary marvels. The first of these were men of monstrous stock, termed by antiquity giants; these by their exceeding great bodily stature surpassed the size natural to mankind. Those who came after these were the first who gained skill in divination from entrails, and attained the Pythonic art. These surpassed the former in briskness of mental parts as much ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... an Athenian general of exceptionally tall stature; Aristophanes incessantly rallies him for his cowardice; he had cast away his buckler in ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... — N. height, altitude, elevation; eminence, pitch; loftiness &c. adj.; sublimity. tallness &c. adj.; stature, procerity[obs3]; prominence &c. 250. colossus &c. (size) 192; giant, grenadier, giraffe, camelopard. mount, mountain; hill alto, butte [U.S.], monticle[obs3], fell, knap[obs3]; cape; headland, foreland[obs3]; promontory; ridge, hog's back, dune; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... lord and a myghty; and hathe undre him 54 grete yles, that zeven tribute to him: and in everyche of theise yles, is a kyng crowned, and alle ben obeyssant to that kyng. And he hathe in tho yles many diverse folk. In one of theise yles ben folk of gret stature, as Geauntes; and thei ben hidouse for to loke upon; and thei han but on eye, and that is in the myddylle of the front; and thei eten no thing but ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation. v. 8 - Asia, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... was small of stature, but dignified, not to say pompous, in demeanour. His style of writing to one of lower social rank than himself was lofty, almost regal, and full ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... said these words, the young girl glanced into the mirror in order to see whether her brother's hopes had been realized; for her small stature was her sole anxiety. But this glance was as quick as a flash, for she feared that the severe old maid would make this act of coquetry serve as ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... meekly, though Fanny had herself been holding the sitting-room door open. In those days Andrew felt below his moral stature as head of the house. Actually, looking at Fanny, who was earning her small share towards the daily bread, she seemed to him much taller than he, though she was a head shorter. He thought so little ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... to be higher than their ordinary stature; for they do not take to questioning one another, or even to protest, 'No!' but ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... there is nothing to cast up, strains and convulsions, and some astonishing bombast, which men only, till they understand, are scared with. A verse or some such work he may sometimes get up to, but seldom above the stature of an epigram, and that with some relief out of Martial, which is the ordinary companion of his pocket, and he reads him as he were inspired. Such men are commonly the trifling things of the world, ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... The stature of these people is much below that of Europeans in general. One man, who was unusually tall, measured five feet ten inches, and the shortest was only four feet eleven inches and a half. Of twenty individuals of each sex measured ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... presume to mention the illustrious Passages of Your Life, which are celebrated by the whole Age, and have been the Subject of the most sublime Pens; but if I could convey You to Posterity in your private Character, and describe the Stature, the Behaviour and Aspect of the Duke of Marlborough, I question not but it would fill the Reader with more agreeable Images, and give him a more delightful Entertainment than what can be found in the ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... these people followed it, and showed their dexterity in throwing stones and arrows, from which they did not desist, till twice fired on by the crew. These savages are unfavourably described; they are said to have been ugly, of short stature, and ill proportioned; and as they were affected with a disease which Bougainville considered leprosy, this island got the name of Isle of Lepers. The few women that were seen, at best rivalled the men in disagreeable appearance, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory." By setting his ideal high and by looking and longing, Ernest grew daily in spiritual stature and was saved from being the victim of the popular and passing allurements of war, money, and politics, allurements to which his neighbors succumbed because they did not live in vital communion with the Great Stone Face. The poet, it is true, felt the appeal of the Great Stone Face ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... myself, Watson," said he. "It is no joke when a tall man has to take a foot off his stature for several hours on end. Now, my dear fellow, in the matter of these explanations, we have, if I may ask for your cooperation, a hard and dangerous night's work in front of us. Perhaps it would be better if I ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... two daughters, all grown up to manhood and womanhood, in this year, and the parish chapel never saw, in their time, a finer family for stature, symmetry, and comeliness, attend its mass than Michael Boland, his wife, and children. With the growth of his family, his ambition and desire of increased wealthiness grew; and, by the agency of some hundred ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... of the sciences themselves, but fall to the servile office of embellishing certain individual authors and increasing their retinue. And let it not be said that the sciences have been growing gradually till they have at last reached their full stature, and so (their course being completed) have settled in the works of a few writers; and that there being now no room for the invention of better, all that remains is to embellish and cultivate those things which have been invented already. Would it were so! But the truth ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... John have heard the story of the giant who fell in with a company of pigmies, he might have taken a different course. The giant roared with laughter at the insignificant stature and wonderful boastings of the pigmies. He ridiculed their threats when they told what they expected to do to him; but when he fell asleep that night, he was at their mercy. And he did not know until he awoke in the morning that while he was asleep these tiny ...
— How John Became a Man • Isabel C. Byrum
... things, as a child, he should have tumbled about in a library. All men are afraid of books, who have not handled them from infancy. Do you suppose our dear didascalos over there ever read Poli Synopsis, or consulted Castelli Lexicon, while he was growing up to their stature? Not he; but virtue passed through the hem of their parchment and leather garments whenever he touched them, as the precious drugs sweated through the bat's handle in the Arabian story. I tell you he is at home wherever he smells the invigorating fragrance of Russia leather. No self-made ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... not much to look at in respect of stature, being barely three feet high; but he was a fine little fellow for all that, with good strong, sturdy limbs and a frank, fearless face, which his bright blue eyes and curling locks of brown hair ornamented to ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... glances." And then, "so imposing and majestic was his air that those who addressed him must first accustom themselves to his appearance, not to be overawed. No one ever knew better, how to maintain a certain manner which made him appear great." Yet it is said that his stature was small. No one knew better than he how to impress upon his courtiers the idea that kings are of a different blood from other men. He even knew how to invest vice and immorality with an air of elegance, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... "barrigudos," measuring a couple of yards at the swelling, which is found at a few feet above the earth, trees with shining russet bark dotted with gray tubercles, each pointed stem of which supports a horizontal parasol; and "bombax" of superb stature, with its straight and smooth white stem. Among these magnificent specimens of the Amazonian flora there fell many "quatibos" whose rosy canopies towered above the neighboring trees, whose fruits are like little cups with rows of chestnuts ranged ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... man of about forty-seven years of age, small in stature, lively and intelligent. He has written in many of the Democratic journals of Paris and the provinces; and his literary talents are of a good kind. Being connected with Rochefort's journal, the Marseillaise, he was sent by the latter to challenge Pierre Bonaparte, and was a witness ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... clearly now, and how she received this attack. She stood quite still at her full stature, ceasing to speak or to gesticulate, folded her arms and looked at her husband. The look in her hard, dark face, the pose of her gaunt figure, said more clearly than any passionate words, "Hold, if you value your life! ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... in comparison with which those of the fabulous Zeros and Hellofagabaluses were respectable and delectable. This Mob (a foreigner, by-the-by), is said to have been the most odious of all men that ever encumbered the earth. He was a giant in stature—insolent, rapacious, filthy, had the gall of a bullock with the heart of a hyena and the brains of a peacock. He died, at length, by dint of his own energies, which exhausted him. Nevertheless, he had his uses, as every thing has, however vile, and ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... attendants carrying on a stretcher a wounded Union soldier. They halted as I approached, and rested the stretcher on the sidewalk. An old man was with them, apparently about sixty years old, of small stature and slight frame, and wearing the garb of a civilian. I stopped, and had a brief conversation with one of the stretcher-bearers. He told me that the soldier had been wounded in one of the recent assaults by the Union troops on the defenses of Vicksburg, ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... suited to slender folk," replied Alden glancing superciliously at the slight stripling, who, for his part, surveyed with a sort of amused wonder the thews and stature of the young giant striding sullenly at ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... ingenuity, embodying the result of much study, both dramatic and historical. The language is blank verse, not prose, as in the former works; it is more careful and regular, less ambitious in its object, but more certain of attaining it. Schiller's mind had now reached its full stature: he felt and thought more justly; he could better express what he felt ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... right-angled triangle, in which Horus was the side opposite to the right angle. The favourite part of their mythology was the lamentation of Isis for the death of her husband Osiris. By another change the god Horus, who used to be a crowned king of manly stature, was now a child holding a finger to his mouth, and thereby marking that he had not yet learned to talk. The Romans, who did not understand this Egyptian symbol for youthfulness, thought that in this character he was commanding silence; and they gave the name of Harpocrates, Horus the powerful, ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... of mighty stature, and evidently of enormous strength, standing nearly seven feet high; and at first sight the disparity between the two adversaries seemed enormous. But what the English captain lacked in height he made ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... the informer, and the more timid ones were arguing that their elders might not countenance an act of violence against a merchant occupying such a prominent position in the mercantile world as did Master Theophilus Lillie, James Gray, a lad small of stature but fertile in expedients, as had been shown many times under similar circumstances, made a suggestion which met with the ...
— Under the Liberty Tree - A Story of The 'Boston Massacre' • James Otis
... cauldron, lit up the house for a few moments, and then roaring up the chimney left all in greater darkness than before. During these few moments however Bertram had time to observe the whole appearance of the woman with some distinctness. She seemed to have the stature of a well-grown man; but her flesh had fallen away so remarkably that the red frieze gown which she wore hung in loose folds about her. Much as Bertram was shocked at first by the spectacle of her harsh bony lineaments, her fiery eye, and her grey disheveled hair,—he yet perceived in ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... Gratrys, the Phillips Brookses, the Agnes Joneses, Margaret Hallahans, and Dora Pattisons, are successes from the outset. They show themselves, and there is no question; every one perceives their strength and stature. Their sense of mystery in things, their passion, their goodness, irradiate about them and enlarge their outlines while they soften them. They are like pictures with an atmosphere and background; and, placed alongside of them, the strong men of this world and no other seem as dry as sticks, as ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... of eminence, at whom a stranger, wearied with the contact of a hundred moderate celebrities, would turn round to snatch a second glance. Secretary Seward, to be sure,—a pale, large-nosed, elderly man, of moderate stature, with a decided originality of gait and aspect, and a cigar ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... proven fact that if we devote a few moments each day to reaching exercises, standing with loose garments and stretching the body muscles to reach some point above us, we increase our stature. ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... common law with provisions to accommodate Pakistan's stature as an Islamic state; accepts compulsory ...
— The 1991 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... Winland, the Icelanders gave the name of Skraellinger, signifying cuttings or dwarfs, on account of their being of very low stature. These were probably the ancestors of the present Eskimaux, who are the same people with the Greenlanders, and are called Eskimantsik in the language of the Abenaki, on account of their eating raw fish; in the same manner as the Russians, in ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... [37] scholar rested from his labour; when there was introduced into his study, where a lamp burned continually before the bust of Plato, as other men burned lamps before their favourite saints, a young man fresh from a journey, "of feature and shape seemly and beauteous, of stature goodly and high, of flesh tender and soft, his visage lovely and fair, his colour white, intermingled with comely reds, his eyes grey, and quick of look, his teeth white and even, his hair yellow and abundant," and trimmed ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... obliged the man also to run after his horse, and thus between one and the other the whole night was lost, so that at dawn the work had not made the usual progress. The man seing that he had no other means of completing his task, resumed his own gigantic stature, and the gods now clearly perceived that it was in reality a Mountain-giant who had come amongst them. No longer regarding their oaths, they, therefore, called on Thor, who immediately ran to their assistance, and lifting up his mallet Mjolnir paid the workman his wages, not with the sun and ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... Heinz passed whispered eagerly together. The Duchess Agnes's confessor, an elderly Dominican of tall stature, was listening to the provost of St. Sebald's, a grey-haired man a head shorter than he, of dignified yet kindly aspect, who, looking keenly at Heinz, remarked: "I fear that your prior hopes too confidently to win yonder young knight. No one walks with ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... what to say; but yet he dare not thwart Chobei, the powerful chief of the Otokodate. So Chobei took off his clothes and laid himself down upon the carpet. After a while my Lord Jiurozayemon arrived, and going upstairs found a man of large stature lying naked upon the carpet which ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... him for the primitive and elemental character of Whitman's work. No doubt also his familiarity with the great poems and sacred books of the East helped him. At any rate, in this respect, his endorsement of Whitman adds greatly to our conception of the mental and spiritual stature of Thoreau. ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... which Gellert was regarded by all young people was extraordinary. I had already called on him, and had been kindly received by him. Not of tall stature; elegant without being lean; soft and rather pensive eyes; a very fine forehead; a nose aquiline, but not too much so; a delicate mouth; a face of an agreeable oval,—all made his presence pleasing and desirable. It cost some trouble to reach him. His two ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... In stature Van Dyck was short, but of a very compact build. He carried the crown of his head high, his chin in, and his chest out. His name is another added to that list of big-little men who had personality plus, and whose presence filled a room. Caesar, Napoleon, Lord ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... back to her present possession, the satisfaction of her heart that she had in Jesus. With the growth of Jesus there would come the unfolding of the answering love, which was but another mode in which the love of God she had experienced all her life was manifesting itself. Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and we are able to enter a little into the over-flowing love of Mary as she watched the advance, this unfolding from day to day. The wonder that was hers in guiding this mind and will, in teaching our Lord His first prayers, in telling Him ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... manly and prepossessing demeanour; being generally of a good stature, and remarkably well formed in their limbs. The men shave their heads, but wear long beards, and are extremely proud of their mustaches, which are usually turned downwards, and which give the other ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction - Vol. X, No. 289., Saturday, December 22, 1827 • Various
... changed," said he. "When you left Mistassini he was but so high..." With a hand he indicated the stature of a child. Mother Chapdelaine's face was bright with interest; doubly pleased to receive a visitor and at the chance of talking ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... curiosity to behold this piece of excellence, and when he came, watched him for a night or two, before I made friends with him; for, to tell the truth, I was a little afraid of the stately looking man, whose bed had to be lengthened to accommodate his commanding stature; who seldom spoke, uttered no complaint, asked no sympathy, but tranquilly observed what went on about him; and, as he lay high upon his pillows, no picture of dying stateman or warrior was ever fuller of real dignity than this Virginia ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... Frenchman, who struck me even more forcibly than the wonders of the inner enceinte; and as I am bound to assume, at whatever cost to my literary vanity, that there is not the slightest danger of his reading these remarks, I may treat him as public property. With his diminutive stature and his per- pendicular spirit, his flushed face, expressive protuber- ant eyes, high peremptory voice, extreme volubility, lucidity, and neatness of utterance, he reminded me of the gentry who figure in the revolutions of his ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... poses—-melodramatic, in fact—and do unlikely things. But this fault is the fault of a great nature, grandeur exalted into grandiosity, till the heroes of these plays, "Hernani," "Marion Delorme," "Le Roi d'Amuse," loom and stalk across the scene like epic demigods of more than mortal stature and mortal passions. But Hugo was not only a great dramatist and a great poet, but a most clever playwright. "Hernani" is full of effective stage devices, crises in the action which make an audience hold its breath or shudder; moments of intense suspense like that in the third act, where the ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... of Alo[e]us I you have chosen a worship that admits not a divided heart. But your faith, like the Mystic's, shall also make your strength; and though Aspiro stoops not to your stature, yet she reigns, and she rewards. Be true. Be firm. Even if it be upon the wreck of some frail, temporal heart-hopes, you must reach higher, till, in the sheen of the approving smile, you read the world-lesson: Salvation through ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, appears on some of their engraved gems and seals. Among the earlier fathers—Justin Martyn and Tertullian—there was an impression that the personal appearance of our Lord was ungainly; that he was short of stature; and, at a later period Cyril says, mean of aspect "even beyond the ordinary race of men." But these unsuitable delineations were generally corrected in the fourth century, it being then recognised that God could not dwell in a humble form ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... trophies, with museums of science and galleries of art, with universities and with libraries; the people may be civilized and ingenious; the country may be even famous in the annals and action of the world, but, gentlemen, if the population every ten years decreases, and the stature of the race every ten years diminishes, the history of that country will soon be the history ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... their wandering habits still farther. Few men are more active and strong; they endure the glacial cold of the mountains equally with the burning heat of the plains. They are of small stature, but as brave, as skilful in shooting, as faithful to their promises, as the Belutchis, and have not so ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... the swimmer seems suspended in air as it passes beneath him, before he plunges into the trough beyond. The best swimmer is a young capre who cannot weigh more than a hundred and twenty pounds. Few of the Grande Anse men are heavily built; they do not compare for stature and thew with those longshoremen at St. Pierre who can be seen any busy afternoon on the landing, lifting heavy barrels at almost the full reach ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... this perfect poem in the original text, some are more moved by the one, some by the other. Kalidasa understood in the fifth century what Europe did not learn until the nineteenth, and even now comprehends only imperfectly: that the world was not made for man, that man reaches his full stature only as he realises the dignity and worth of life that is ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... This tragedy, which in most points resembles the ancients, differs from them in this—that it assigns the same honour to lowness of stature which they did to height. The gods and heroes in Homer and Virgil are continually described higher by the head than their followers, the contrary of which is observed by our author. In short, to exceed on either side is equally admirable; and a ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... superstition, to pursue the goat and the deer, and, by the pernicious invention of fire, to pervert their flesh into food, luxury, disease, and premature death were let loose upon the world. From that period the stature of mankind has been in a state of gradual diminution, and I have not the least doubt that it will continue to grow small by degrees, and lamentably less, till the whole race will vanish imperceptibly from the face of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... not changed greatly in stature in the past few months, but there was a very noticeable decrease in the girth of her little arms and body, and her big dark eyes seemed the larger for the whiteness of her face. On her head she wore an old calico bonnet several ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... disclosed the secret instructions—disloyal to his allies and ruinous to the campaign— by which Louis Napoleon shackled his unhappy General. In Canrobert's successor, Pelissier, he met his match. For the first time a strong man headed the French army. Short of stature, bull- necked and massive in build, with grey hair, long dark moustache, keen fiery eyes, his coarse rough speech masking tested brain power and high intellectual culture, he brought new life to the benumbed French army, new hope ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... immature though it was, and modelled after easily recognised Teutonic masters,—a fresh and untrammelled impulse. A new note vibrated through it, a new and buoyant personality suffused it. Thenceforth music in America possessed an artistic figure of constantly increasing stature. MacDowell commanded, from the start, an original idiom, a manner of speech which has been recognised even by his detractors as entirely ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... three most distinguished—partly, perhaps, because the tallest figures of the band—were the Dowager Lady Ingram and her daughters, Blanche and Mary. They were all three of the loftiest stature of women. The Dowager might be between forty and fifty: her shape was still fine; her hair (by candle-light at least) still black; her teeth, too, were still apparently perfect. Most people would have termed her a splendid woman of her age: and so she was, ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... low stature, and broadly built, and wore fur caps and vests, with huge mufflers round their throats. These latter, we observed, were mostly of a saffron colour, which, combined with their fur caps, tawny beards, and long locks, gave them a very quaint appearance. Men, women, and children alike wore skin shoes, ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... it was some time before his good-natured sociableness won in the least upon the station loungers. They held aloof, as from an explosive, not knowing when it would begin to emit sparks. He was short in stature, much shorter than the hulking fellows who stood and surveyed him through the smoke of their pipes, but he had such a cocky little way with him that he overawed them much more than a big man would have done. Out of sheer dulness he took to talking ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... by no means a particularly ungenerous rival in the lists of love. But Aunt Rebecca was hoitytoity upon the Macnamaras, whom she would never consent to more than half-know, seeing them with difficulty, often failing to see them altogether—though Magnolia's stature and activity did not always render that easy. To-day, for instance, when the firing was brisk, and some of the ladies uttered pretty little timid squalls, Miss Magnolia not only stood fire like brick, but with her own fair hands cracked off a firelock, and was more complimented and ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... to be considered," continued Christie, who, tall, handsome, and easy-going, delighted in chaffing his pompous and peppery companion, whose abbreviated stature had only gained admittance to the service through high heels and a powerful influence. "Did you notice that Sir William addressed your 'young ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... that I used to go some with little Jim Pettigrew more or less before you and I became such chums. Jim is considerably older than me, but his stature always made folks think he was a kid. Well, of course you also know Jim he's graduated into a regular cub reporter, as he's so fond of calling it, because that word cub is used so often in the movies, ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson
... himself the trouble of dressing, for he was not missed in the afternoon; but now, they supposed, he came at night as the most suitable time; with other allusions to the meanness of his figure and smallness of stature. All this was addressed to the bride, who sat near him, but spoken out on purpose that he might hear it. My brother, perceiving this was purposely said to provoke an answer and occasion his giving offence to the King, removed from his seat full of resentment; and, consulting with M. de ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... source of the Missouri. His father was a fur-trader, I believe, or at least connected in some manner with the Indian trading-posts on Lewis river. Peter himself was one of the most ferocious-looking men I ever beheld. He was short in stature, not more than four feet eight inches high, but his limbs were of Herculean mould. His hands, especially, were so enormously thick and broad as hardly to retain a human shape. His arms, as well as legs, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... C. Bennet (a new England man) is the prophet's great gun. They call him, though a man of diminutive stature, the 'forty-two pounder.' He might have applied his talents in a more honourable cause; but I am assured that he is well paid for the important services he is rendering this people, or, I should rather say, rendering the prophet. This gentleman exhibits the highest degree ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... and had withdrawn to Berlin a few years ago. He shines there among the fashionable philosophical classes; underhand, perhaps does a little in the volunteer political line withal; being a very busy pushing gentleman. Tall of stature, 'perfectly handsome at the age of sixty;' [Formey, Souvenirs d'un Citoyen, i. 39-45.] great partisan of Wolf and the Philosophies, awake to the Orthodoxies too. Writes flowing elegant French, in a softly trenchant, somewhat too ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... be noticed. Some {260} writers speak of the Spanish as one of the most distinct breeds, and so it is in general aspect; but its characteristic differences are not important. The Malay appears to me more distinct, from its tall stature, small drooping tail with more than fourteen tail-feathers, and from its small comb and wattles; nevertheless one Malay sub-breed is coloured almost exactly like G. bankiva. Some authors consider the Polish fowl as very distinct; but this ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... man of gigantic stature, dressed in coarse canvas breeches, and with a handkerchief of gaudy dye twisted about his head. His bold features wore the usual Indian expression of saturnine imperturbability, and he half sat, half reclined upon the log as motionless as a piece of carven ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... and the doubts of Pitt, his views prevailed; and preparations began for an Anglo-French expedition to the coast of Brittany. During the winter there had arrived in London a Breton leader of gigantic stature and considerable mental powers, the Comte de Puisaye. He had fought devotedly for the constitutional monarchy in that great province and had the confidence of its inhabitants, whether nobles or peasants (Chouans). But French princes and the cliques of "pure" Royalists looked ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... take it out herself, to carry the unconscious sleeping infant among the flowers and blossoms which should one day smile so brightly on its childhood—among the young shrubs and plants, which, by their youth, seemed designed to grow up with the young lord to their after-stature. When she looked about her, she did not hide from herself to what a high position that child was born: far and wide, wherever the eye could see, all would one day belong to him. How desirable, how necessary it must therefore ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... Bowling, only grown a bit since then in stature and likewise in years; for none of us can manage to work a traverse on old Father Time and grow younger," said the other, laughing lightheartedly and showing his white teeth as he stretched out his hand to father in the most cordial way, like a real gentleman, as if he were a friend ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... the noblest of all the elements. To the second son, whose wisdom and prudence made amends for his being rather dull, she gave the government of the earth. The third was wild and savage, and of monstrous stature; and the Fairy, his mother, who was ashamed of his defects, hoped to hide them by creating him King of the Seas. The youngest, who was the slave of his passions and of a very uncertain temper, became ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... could have added another four feet to one's stature. Four or five feet only. There seemed to be nothing but a thin veil between me and the moon. No more than a thin haze. But at the level of my eyes everything was hidden. From behind the white veil came the crying of the strings, a screeching, lugubrious and fierce in its ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... solicitude; in other words, we must not be confident of getting the necessaries of life by our own efforts without God's help: such solicitude Our Lord sets aside by saying that a man cannot add anything to his stature (Matt. 6:27). We must not anticipate the time for anxiety; namely, by being solicitous now, for the needs, not of the present, but of a future time: wherefore He says (Matt. 6:34): "Be not . . . ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... handsome—but how unlike! Belle fair, with blue eyes and flaxen hair; Mrs. Petulengro with olive complexion, eyes black, and hair dark—as dark as could be. Belle, in demeanour calm and proud; the gypsy graceful, but full of movement and agitation. And then how different were those two in stature! The head of the Romany rawnie scarcely ascended to the breast of Isopel Berners. I could see that Mrs. Petulengro gazed on Belle with unmixed admiration: so did her husband. "Well," said the latter, "one thing ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... the square niche, the statue of Eumachia, or, at least, a moulded model of that statue, is still erect upon its pedestal. It is of a female of tall stature, who looks sad and ill. An inscription informs us that the statue was erected in her honor by the fullers. These artisans formed quite a respectable corporation at Pompeii, and we shall presently visit the manufactory where they worked. ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... endeavours after academical preferments. It is observable, that Mr. Wood, in his Athenae Oxonieuses, ascribes the repulse he met with at Wadham college, where he was competitor for a fellowship, either to want of learning, or of stature. With regard to the first objection, the same writer had before informed us, that he was an early riser and studious, though he sometimes relieved his attention by the amusements of fowling and fishing. As it is highly probable that he did not want capacity, we may, therefore, conclude, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... family likeness as Herbert's brother, Randal Linley was nevertheless greatly Herbert's inferior in personal appearance. His features were in no way remarkable for manly beauty. In stature, he hardly reached the middle height; and young as he was, either bad habit or physical weakness had so affected the upper part of his figure that he stooped. But with these, and other disadvantages, there was something in his eyes, and in his smile—the outward expression ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... unseemly word which the young man had spoken to his father: neither himself nor his wickedness has grown to maturity in a day. The habit of dishonouring his parents had sprung from a seed of evil in his infancy, and grown with his growth until he and it had reached full stature together. The father seems not to have spoken a word in reply. Probably he knew by experience that an altercation on the spot would only have made matters worse: perhaps he sighed, perhaps he wept as he turned gently round and ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... background stay back where it belonged, my figure sometimes had a way of clinging to it in a kind of smudgy weakness, as if it were afraid to come out like a man and stand the inspection of my eye. How often have I squandered paint upon the ungrateful object without adding a cubit to its stature! It refused to look like flesh and blood, but resembled rather some half-made creature flung on the passive canvas in a liquid state, with its edges running over into the background. There are a good many of these people in literature, too,—heroes who, like home-made ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of stature moderately tall; of a straight and equally-proportioned body, to which all his words and actions gave ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... handicapped by political causes. Physically the Italian troops were equal to any in Europe. The Alpini were perhaps the best mountain soldiers in the world. The Italian soldier is not impressive as to stature, but he is tough and enduring. He is cheerful and obedient under discipline and hardship, and the relations between officers and men were such as to produce the best ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... front." Then Merlin rode forth and cried with a loud voice, "Now shall be shown who is a knight." And the knights, seeing Merlin, exclaimed that he was "a full noble man"; and "without fail," says the legend, "he was full of marvellous powers and strength of body and great and long stature; but brown he was and lean and rough of hair." Then he rode in among the enemy on a great black horse; and the golden dragon which he had made and had attached to the banner gave out from its throat such a flaming fire that the air ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... remained to be seen if I had lost my identity beyond redemption and must flee before daylight from a house that was no longer mine; and hurrying back to my cabinet, I once more prepared and drank the cup, once more suffered the pangs of dissolution, and came to myself once more with the character, the stature, and the face ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... were the two apart from the pressure of the crowd, and in a place where no eaves-dropper could overhear their discourse without detection, than the stranger stopped. He appeared to examine the person, stature, and dress of Jacopo, from beneath his mask, with singular caution, closing the whole with a sign that meant recognition. Jacopo returned his dumb show, ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... balustrade, vague emotions stirring her, when she heard McKeith's step on the gravel. Presently he stood beside her, his tall form, in the well-cut evening suit which always became him best, towering head and shoulders above her small stature. It was always a satisfaction to Lady Bridget, fastidious in such masculine details, that he was particular about his tailoring, and tonight he exhaled the scent of one of Sir Luke Tallant's excellent cigars. There used ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... smelt to heaven' more offensively, than that in the Temple, which took sixteen days to shovel into Kidron. No doubt ceremonial bulked more largely in the days of the Old Covenant than it does in those of the New, and both the then stage of revelation and the then spiritual stature of the recipients of revelation required that it should do so. But the true religious reformers, the prophets, were never weary of insisting that, even in those days, moral and spiritual reformation should ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... femur. Although an ungainly deformity, it is much less frequently the source of complaint than knock-knee, because it scarcely interferes with locomotion—as a matter of fact, the subjects of bow-knee, although short in stature, are unusually sturdy on their legs. An extreme example of the deformity is shown ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... respects he was of great stature. His contemporaries called him a colossus, the literary Goliath, the Giant, the great Cham of literature, a tremendous companion. His frame was majestic; he strode when he walked, and his physical strength ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... own increased stature he had never dreamed that like processes of Nature produce ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... I stayed in Missouri was at De Kalb. A gentleman who had come from St. Joseph stayed over night at the hotel where I put up. He was tall of stature, with a flowing beard sprinkled with gray, and was of a remarkably dignified and impressive presence. We conversed during the evening on general topics, but no allusion was made to the one exciting topic, on which almost all seemed ready ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... hills, planted on all sides with the vine, and although the summer is already so far advanced, wild-flowers abound. What a paradise this would be for the botanist in spring, or for the portrait painter! The good looks of the people, their rich colouring, fine stature, and dignified bearing, strike us ever with a ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... made of some of the gold of the celebrated Lunebourg table; her bosom was uncovered, as all the English ladies have it till they marry; and she had on a necklace of exceeding fine jewels; her hands were small, her fingers long, and her stature neither tall nor low; her air was stately, her manner of speaking mild and obliging. That day she was dressed in white silk, bordered with pearls of the size of beans, and over it a mantle of black ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... Her father, Dietlof Siegfried Mare, for many years Landdrost of Zoutpansberg, that northern territory of the Transvaal, was a direct descendant of the Huguenot fugitives, and was a typical Frenchman, short of stature, dark, vivacious, and exceedingly humorous, a man remembered by all who knew him for his great hospitality and for the shrewd, quaint ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... through brother's description, and a few letters she had written me since her marriage, and I was quite unprepared for the exquisite, fairy-like creature I now beheld. A slight, girlish figure, rather petite in stature, dressed in clouds of white muslin, cut low, and her neck and shoulders covered by massive dark curls, from which gleamed out an Oriental-looking coiffure, composed of strands of large gold and pearl beads. Her eyes were large, dark, and pensive, ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." Ver. 13. By stature is meant the height of any one. Christ is the stature or height of perfection, and we are to measure up to it. This accords with what the Savior himself said: "The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... in August and the sultry air compels us to take shelter in a grove of swaying maples. Beneath their shade every square yard of ground bears a score of infant trees, very few of them as much as a foot in stature. How vain their expectation of one day enjoying an ample spread of branch and root, of rising to the free sunshine of upper air! The scene, with its quivering rounds of sunlight, seems peace itself, but the seeming is only a mask for war as unrelenting ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... "Of queenly stature, as the society reporters used to put it," says Old Hickory. "She had her court, too, even if some of the sessions were ...
— Torchy and Vee • Sewell Ford
... I was getting the great leading figures on the political stage, who had been presented to me in my schooldays not so much as men as the pantomimic monsters of political caricature, while I was getting them reduced in my imagination to the stature of humanity, and their motives to the quality of impulses like my own, I was also acquiring in my Tripos work a constantly developing and enriching conception of the world of men as a complex of economic, intellectual and ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... strongly convex upper lip frequently seen among the lower classes of the Irish is a modified quadrumanous character. Many people, especially those of the Sclavic races, have more or less embryonic noses. A retreating chin is a marked monkey character. Shortness of stature is mostly due to shortness of the femur, or thigh; the inequalities of people sitting are much less than those of people standing. A short femur is embryonic; so is a very large head. The faces of some people are always partially embryonic, in having a short face and light lower ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various
... under the tail of his short sack coat, his head in the air, tortured by the excessive height of his stiff, shining collar, throwing out his chest so as to show off better his velvet waistcoat. His thinness and his small stature were made up for by the length of his blond mustache that curled around his pink little nose as if it were trying to reach the straight, scraggly bangs on his forehead. This Soldevilla was Renovales' favorite pupil—"his weakness" Cotoner called him. ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... a man of no small importance judging from his dress and manner, sits on the seat of honour, a species of chair, the only one in the building, and is perhaps the most notable man of the party. He is tall of stature, his limbs those of a giant, his fist ponderous as a sledge hammer; a tunic of skins confined around the waist by a belt of untanned leather, in which is stuck a hunting knife, adorns his upper story: short breeches of skin, and leggings, with the undressed fur of a fox outside, ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... the Byres was rather touched than stricken with years. His upright stature and strong limbs, still showed him fully equal to all the exertions and fatigues of war. His thick eyebrows, now partially grizzled, lowered over large eyes full of dark fire, which seemed yet darker from the uncommon depth at which they ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... with a German officer of huge stature, who was endeavoring to bring the lad to earth by fierce sweeping blows of his officer's sword. Hal was ...
— The Boy Allies At Verdun • Clair W. Hayes
... village in an easterly direction towards the Cordilleras. The inhabitants of this province are distinguishable by their faces and figures, and also by their manners and language, from the Indians of the coast and the mountains. In stature they are small. They have expanded foreheads, animated eyes, prominent cheek-bones, and wide mouths. Their limbs are slender, and their skin is of a swarthy brown. Their dialect, the Cauqui, contains many radical words of the Quichua language. After this nation was subjugated by the Incas ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... the exactest discipline." This is the statement of their candid and upright enemy. "Yet," says the bishop, "with all these martial qualities, if you except the grenadiers, they had nothing to catch the eye. Their stature, for the most part, was low, their complexion pale and yellow, their clothes much the worse for wear: to a superficial observer, they would have appeared incapable of enduring any hardship. These were the men, however, of whom it was presently observed, that they ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... of her personal appearance, says: "She is low of stature, but well formed; her hair the darkest shade of flaxen, and her eyes large and light-blue." A friend who saw her frequently at the time of her accession, said to me the other day: "It is a great mistake to suppose that the Queen owed all the charming portraits ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... thapostle sayd I. Ye sayd he. Than I dyd better beholde the ioynte, whiche for hys greatenes myght well haue be a Gyates ioynte, rather than a mannes. Than sayd I, saynt Peter must nedys be a great man of stature. But at that word, ther was one of the gentleme that stode by, that could not forbere lawghynge, for the which I was very sory. For if he had holden hys pease, we had sene all the relyques, yet we metely well ...
— The Pilgrimage of Pure Devotion • Desiderius Erasmus |
