"Stiffening" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... up. Well, he would do all the damage he could before the stiffening limb permitted Garman to catch him in that horrible gorilla ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... stiffening her figure to its full height, her dark-red hair falling in ruffling ringlets about her ears and neck, as she rubbed her arm where his hand had left ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... somewhat but not greatly less romantic than those which first lifted him above the flood. He came during a moment of national expansiveness. Patriotism and jingoism, altruism and imperialism, passion and sentimentalism shook the temper which had been slowly stiffening since the Civil War. Now, with a rush of unaccustomed emotions, the national imagination sought out its own past, luxuriating in it, not to say wallowing ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... me, she's gone," I said. "Oh! what a boy," and she kissed me, saying, "let me go now—your mamma is coming." It came into my mind that I had had my hand up her clothes, and had felt hair between her legs. My prick stiffening in thinking of a women. I clutched her hard, put one hand on to her and did something I know not what. She said: "You are rude, Wattie." Then I pinched her and said: "Oh! what a big bosom you have." "Hish! hish!" said she. She was a tallish woman with brown hair; I have heard my mother ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... Madame," replied the captain, kneeling. He gently loosed the sword from the stiffening fingers. The master ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... stiffening their muscular legs, hold back with all their might the heavily loaded little cars which would run down by themselves if let alone, and that so rapidly that they would rush into empty space with my most valuable chattels. Chrysantheme walks by my side, and expresses, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... efforts, raised himself by a number of yards, slipped, recovered the lost ground, clutched a bunch of roots that came loose in his hand, slipped once more and was abandoning the game in despair when, suddenly, stiffening himself and contracting his whole frame, his muscles and his will, he stopped still: a sound of voices seemed to issue from the very rock which he ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... after this they remained silently in their exposed position, their limbs stiffening with cold, drenched continually with spray, and occasionally overwhelmed by the crest of a monstrous wave. Sometimes a rocket from the lightship shot athwart the dark sky, and at all times her lights gleamed like faint ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... something that struck Barnabas motionless; that brought him back slowly, slowly across that awful room to sink upon one knee above that pale, clenched hand, while, sweating, shuddering with loathing, he forced open those stiffening fingers and drew from their dead clutch something that he stared at with dilating eyes, and with white lips suddenly compressed, ere he hid it away ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... the sergeant. He has a racking cough, but endeavours, by stiffening himself up, to hide how it is wasting away his life. He halts, and looks back, till the remains of the Forty-third are abreast, to the number of some three hundred, about half of whom are crippled invalids, the other half ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... dictation. Sometime the situation would be reversed; he would be leader instead of underling, taking the lion's share of the profit of their enterprises instead of the left-overs, and when that time came he would not be obliged to endure Neilson's jests in silence. Neilson himself, as he eyed the stiffening figure, had no realization of Ray's true attitude toward him. He thought him a willing helper, a loyal partner, and he would not have sat with such content in his chair if he could have beheld the smoldering fires ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... expecting nothing, when suddenly, out of the darkness, so terribly that I was scared beyond screaming, two large red eyes glowed, over a mouth that trembled in fire. I started back in my seat, sick with fright, but I could not take my eyes away. I watched that horrid thing, with my hair stiffening on my head. Then in the room below it, the luminous figure of an owl gleamed out. That was not the worst, either. I heard that savage, "chacking" noise which brown owls make when they are perched. ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... hair. It was dark and stiff, and he brushed it straight back in a pompadour. When he was angry or excited, it actually rose on his scalp like wire. Hap's counsel made a great fuss over Mart's pompadour and the part it sort of played in egging Hap on. The sight of it, stiffening and rising the way it did maddened Ruggam so that he beat it down hysterically in retaliation for the many grudges he fancied he owed the officer. No, it was all right to make the sentence life-imprisonment, only it should have been an asylum. Hap's not right. You'd know it ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... resisting join in every {85} timber, with the inevitable result of loosening the whole. To meet these strains longitudinal strength must be supplied. The keel supplies much of it, so does the planking (or skin) to a lesser degree; but not enough; and the ribs, by themselves, are for transverse stiffening only. Four means are therefore employed to hold the parts together lengthwise—keelsons, shelf-pieces, fillings, and ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... when we think what humiliation Christ suffered, that He might reconcile us to God, and make us friends again with our heavenly Father, and renew our broken love. Whatever be our faith and works, and however correct be our creed and conduct, if we are giving place to anger, if we are stiffening ourselves in strife and disdain, we are none of His, who was meek and lowly of heart. We may come to the Sanctuary with lips full of praises and eyes full of prayers, with devotion in our hearts and gifts in our hand, but God will spurn our worship ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... ranch, the boys were enthusiastically blistering palms and stiffening the muscles of their backs, turning the water away from the ditches that crossed the disputed tracts so that the trespassers there should have none in which to pan gold—or to pretend that they were panning gold. Since the whole ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... returned, it was accompanied by a sensation of almost unendurable agony from my numerous smarting, inflamed, and stiffening wounds; and to this was added the torture of a ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... the group. There was a concerted stiffening of bodies, a general sigh from lungs in process of deflation. And then the group stood silent, every man watching Harlan with that intent curiosity that comes with one's first glimpse of a noted character, ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... this dark inclement sky How many wanderers faint and die! One, flouncing o'er the treacherous snow, Sinks in the pit that yawns below! Another numbed, with panting lift Inhales the suffocating drift! And creeping cold, with stiffening force, Extends a third, ...
— Cottage Poems • Patrick Bronte
... up at him in a flushed, bewildered sort of way, not resisting; but his eyes were so gay and mischievous, and his quick smile so engaging that a breathless, uncertain smile began to edge her lips; and it remained stamped there, stiffening even after he had jumped into his cutter and had driven away, jingling joyously out into the ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... they have taken their due place in the depths of the past, will be, by a wise and clear-sighted futurity, perhaps well comprehended under a common name, as the ages of Starch; periods of general stiffening and bluish-whitening, with a prevailing washerwoman's taste in everything; involving a change of steel armor into cambric; of natural hair into peruke; of natural walking into that which will disarrange no wristbands; of plain language into quips and embroideries; and of human life ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... of her house were just before her, offering succor, stiffening courage. It would be but a dash from the door of the cab to her own door. There was no second course, once the cab stopped. She felt that to lurk in its gloom would mean robbery, perhaps death. She thought without ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... and Doret slowly, thoroughly, covered his lower face with lather, through which the blade drew with a clean smooth rip. A fever burned in the standing man's brain, he fought constantly against a stiffening of his employed fingers—a swift turn, a cutting twist. Subconsciously he called noiselessly upon the God that had sustained him and, divided between apprehension and the increasing lust to kill, his lips held the form in which they had pronounced ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... instant's examination, he called out, "Dead as a door-nail! come and look at him." So I came, with great caution, and a more repulsive and disgusting sight cannot be imagined than the huge carcass of our victim already stiffening in death. The shot had been a fortunate one, for only an inch away from the hole the bullet had made his shoulders were regularly plated with thick horny scales, off which a revolver bullet would have glanced harmlessly, and he bore marks of having fought many ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... lid the keys were stiffening with the damp. The hammers were swelling, sticking together. She tried not to think ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... received a better education," adds the Princess, "he would have been an accomplished man." The suite of the Czar were not less surprising than their master; the Muscovites danced with the court ladies, and took the stiffening of their corsets for their bones. "The bones of these Germans are ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... brook becomes a smooth black canal between two steep white banks; and the glassy water seems momentarily stiffening into the solider blackness of ice. Here and there thin films are already formed over it, and are being constantly broken apart by the treacherous current; a flake a foot square is jerked away and goes sliding beneath the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... details of Vaillant's execution left me in a thoughtful mood. I imagined him expanding his chest under the ropes, marching with firm step, stiffening his will, concentrating all his energy, and, with eyes fixed upon the knife, hurling finally at society his cry of malediction. And, in spite of me, another spectacle rose suddenly before my mind. I ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... marry him if I loved him?" demanded Abby, stiffening herself into a soldier-like straightness. "Do you think? I tell you what it is," she said, "I was lookin' only to-day at David Mendon at the cutting-bench, cutting away with his poor little knife. I'd like ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... that over there?" inquired Hal, coming out of a brown study as he felt some reproach in the stiffening attitude of ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Spies - Dodging the Sharks of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... darkness, the discomfiture of his train, he turned to flee in real earnest. As he did so, Hikozaemon, despairing of success, hurled his dirk. Deep into the fellow's shoulder it went. "Atsu!" Savagely he turned on the old man. Hikozaemon was skilled in defence, but stiffening with age. His opponent showed himself an able warrior. "Ah! Ha! 'Tis Hikozaemon Dono. With him there is no quarrel. Deign to receive a wound." The old fellow's sword dropped helpless under a sharp rap over the wrist from the back of the blade. ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... presented to Captain Vauvenarde. I went to-night to make sure of my man, to play the first card in my gigantic combination—but, alas! But no!" He rose and thumped his little chest. "I feel my courage coming back. My will is stiffening into iron. When the carissima signora arrives in Algiers she will find ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... did its meaning some injustice. And with this there happened that which dismayed many and puzzled all. Wesley's fists went up, but hung, as it were impotent for the moment, while his eyes glanced aside from his adversary's and rested, with a stiffening of surprise, on the corner of the ring where the old gentleman stood. A cry went up from the King's Scholars—a groan and a warning. At the sound he flung back his head instinctively—as Randall's left shot out, caught him on ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... coldly, stiffening a little. 'I can't see that they were even playing at killing. I suppose one boy said to the other, "You look down the barrel while I pull the trigger, and see what happens." It seems to me the purest form ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... he's an old buster," said Jimmy. And he straightened up, holding by the legs a fine cock partridge whose stiffening wings still beat his sides spasmodically. He had been scared-up in the neighboring woods, frightened by some hunter out of his native coverts. When he reached the unknown open places he was more frightened still and, as a frightened grouse always flies straight, ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... it was costly, fine, and beautiful, used for church vestments, veils for covering lecterns, cathedral flags, and in the 16th century for the lining of velvet gowns. The coarse, heavy, plain-woven linen or cotton material known as buckram today is used for stiffening, etc. ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson
... described may take the form of a thin paste or stiffening, but upon silk or other such ...
— Art in Needlework - A Book about Embroidery • Lewis F. Day
... than if he had not heard, but the slight stiffening of his face and raising of his eyebrows as he turned to Sir Samuel, made him look supremely proud and distinguished, incomparably more a gentleman in his dusty leather livery, than Bertie in his well-cut ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... had been nothing quite so definite. He had met her at the tea room—there had been one final week of closing after his arrival—and he had not quite made up his mind about her before she had left for Bloomfield, beyond a certain stiffening of fibre, an aloofness that was new, and a business-like air that seemed to say "Come across," that he did not exactly like. But then a week is not a very long time to get down to bed-rock with a person, especially when that person is busy ten hours out of the day and thinking the other ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... his smooth chin, looked down at Mr Dombey with the evil slyness of some monkish carving, half human and half brute; or like a leering face on an old water-spout. Mr Dombey, recovering his composure by degrees, or cooling his emotion in his sense of having taken a high position, sat gradually stiffening again, and looking at the parrot as she swung to and fro, in her ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... shrank from the duty before me, and, as I knelt down sorrowfully by the dead form and respectfully composed his stiffening limbs, I thought that it was unjust of fate to place a well-meaning man, whose nerves were not of iron, in such ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various
... tincture of Calvinism for stiffening a line of battle,' said Saxon. 'Look at the Swede when he is at home. What more honest, simple-hearted fellow could you find, with no single soldierly virtue, save that he could put away more spruce beer than you ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... for you," Roy answered, stiffening in his turn. But because of old days—because this unpromising specimen of manhood had incidentally brought him and Desmond together, he held out his hand. "'Fraid I lost my temper," he said casually, for form's sake. "But you ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... older men, some of whom had already begun to feel their joints stiffening with rheumatism, she said: "Fishing's a hard game, boys, for the best of us. And it doesn't get any easier as we get older. There's a lot of you who will have to go into dry-dock before long and get patched up. And there's some that can't afford to lay up. You've been working with your hands too ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... of the 12th of October, 1492 (Copernicus, at the age of eighteen, was then a student at Cracow), beheld the shores of San Salvador; like that when the law of gravitation first revealed itself to the intellect of Newton; like that when Franklin saw by the stiffening fibers of the hempen cord of his kite, that he held the lightning in his grasp; like that when Leverrier received back from Berlin the tidings that ...
— The Uses of Astronomy - An Oration Delivered at Albany on the 28th of July, 1856 • Edward Everett
... telephones, and while the roundhouse, the superintendent, and the master-mechanic were getting the news the Special engine steamed slowly into sight through the whirling snow and stopped at the semaphore. So a liner shaken in the teeth of a winter storm, battered by heading seas, and swept by stiffening spray, rides at last, ice-bound, ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... a big thing of it," answered Howe, as he left the room to look into others, in all of which it is safe to say that the strong-minded rebels were engaged in stiffening the backs of the weaker ones, for a large portion of them were ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... as the light breeze comes over, the wheat rustles the more because the stalks are stiffening and swing from side to side from the root instead of yielding up the stem. Stay now at every gateway and lean over while the midsummer hum sounds above. It is a peculiar sound, not like the querulous buzz of the honey, ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... along a dreadful chaos of snow-drifts, or snow-chasms, towards a point of rock, which, being turned, should expose only another interminable succession of the same character—might that be endured by ebbing spirits, by stiffening limbs, by the ghastly darkness that was now beginning to gather upon the inner eye? And, if once despair became triumphant, all the little arrear of physical strength ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... would have offered them water to quench their agony of thirst; Englishmen, in crowds, rifling the pockets of the men they had slain or wounded, taking their few shillings or roubles, and discovering among the plunder of the stiffening corpses images of the 'Virgin and the Child.' You have read this, and your imagination has followed the fearful details. This is war,—every crime which human nature can commit or imagine, every horror it ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... can't allow you to tire yourself tonight, and run the risk of stiffening in the wrist tomorrow. In strength you are superior to de Mezy, and in wind far better. You should have no trouble with him. Watch his eye and stand for a while on the defensive. One of his habits, will soon wear himself down, and then he will be ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... made for the thick of the woods. My resolution was to stick to them though they should be thick as fish glue. Under good cover Munson dressed my wound. My fingers had begun stiffening up a bit, and I worked them to keep the trigger finger in good trim, thinking at the time what a ludicrous shot I'd be with the left hand. A thought for soldiers in training: Are you ambidextrous? I've never fired a shot ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... your commands?" asked Sir Norman, turning away, with a sigh, from the beautiful form already stiffening in death. ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... was already stiffening in death; the breath from her lips would scarcely have dimmed a mirror; the eyes only, wide-open, were fixed and brilliant, as though the whole remaining life of the body, dead before its time, were centred, there. Roland had heard of this strange state called ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... plan some ill, Thwarted by thunder growling still. All in the darkness of the place With lightning playing on its face, I fumbled with the corpse's ring To which the dead hands seemed to cling; The stiffening joints were loth to play— After ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
... evil results of the movement were checked by the introduction of a supporting ship, midway between frigates and true ships-of-the-line. Sometimes classed as a battleship, and taking her place in the line, the 50-gun ship came to be essentially a type for stiffening cruiser squadrons. They most commonly appear as the flagships of cruiser commodores, or stationed in terminal waters or at focal points where sporadic raids were likely to fall and be most destructive. The strategical effect of the presence of such a vessel ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... the Com-tech's place as if some of the stiffening had vanished from his thin but sturdy legs. "They wouldn't do that—" he protested, but his eyes said that he knew that ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... Buller set about his task in a slow, deliberate, but pertinacious fashion. It cannot be denied, however, that the pertinacity was largely due to the stiffening counsel of Roberts and the soldierly firmness of White who refused to acquiesce in the suggestion of surrender. Let it be acknowledged that Buller's was the hardest problem of the war, and that he solved it. The mere acknowledgment goes far to soften criticism. But the singular ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... an American critic who was busily engaged in discovering the talents of unrecognized geniuses of the European provinces. When reproached with his migratory enthusiasm, he would reply, with that quick, stiffening military click with which he ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... sighed the elderly woman. "Your last bit of land—and to think it should go like that. I never dreamed I should have to say those words to my son." Then stiffening and turning to Collins. "But I did not come to complain, I came to see if justice cannot be done. This is robbery. That terrible man with the German name has robbed Arthur. It is quite ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... the pioneer sickened as he recognized the clustering curls of Genevra. In a moment his rifle was at his shoulder, and with a sharp "ping" Muck- a-Muck leaped into the air a corpse. To knock out the brains of the remaining savages, tear the tresses from the stiffening hand of Muck- a-Muck, and dash rapidly forward to the cottage of Judge Tompkins, was the ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... be affirmed with perfect confidence, that all forms of protoplasm are liable to undergo that peculiar coagulation at a temperature of 40 deg.-50 deg. Centigrade, which has been called "heat-stiffening," though Kuehne's beautiful researches have proved this occurrence to take place in so many and such diverse living beings, that it is hardly rash to expect that the ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... sped the faithless messenger, tearing up the water in his mad flight, while the brave Guidala struck in vain at his huge body. Suddenly a roar of thunder sounded and the thunderbolt fell on the back of the monster, bearing him down beneath the waves and then, stiffening like a bar of iron, pinning him to the bottom far below. In vain he struggled to free himself; the bar held him fast and sure. In his struggles the shell fell from his mouth, but a little Tamban caught it and brought it safely ...
— Philippine Folklore Stories • John Maurice Miller
... carry him." The girl looked at him with a question and then with a faint smile beginning. "Easily," said Donnegan, stiffening in his chair. ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand
... not impossible to remove from a table set for a guest a large napkin employed in lieu of a table cloth, without disarranging the objects placed upon it. To this effect, it suffices to give the napkin a quick horizontal jerk in stiffening the edges ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1082, September 26, 1896 • Various
... Kennedy stiffening suddenly in backbone, as he saw the outlet opened by Maguire, between antagonizing Peter, and retracting his consent. "I don't ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... at me. I thought that he was going to speak. But his eyes became suddenly hard. Under the lustrous veil I saw his features stiffening. ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... was sufficient to chase away the imaginative notions that had beset Pen's awakening. His hand went at once to the water-bottle slung to his side, and, as he held the mouth to his comrade's lips and forgot the pain he suffered in his strained and stiffening joints, he watched with a feeling of pleasure the avidity with which the boy drank; and as he saw the strange bird flit by once more he recalled having heard of such a bird ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... green; Ere chill October shakes the latest down, They, like the foliage, change their tint to brown; On the blue flower a bluer flower you spy, You stretch to pluck it—'tis a butterfly; The flattened tree-toads so resemble bark, They're hard to find as Ethiops in the dark; The woodcock, stiffening to fictitious mud, Cheats the young sportsman thirsting for his blood; So by long living on a single lie, Nay, on one truth, will creatures get its dye; Red, yellow, green, they take their subject's hue,— Except when squabbling turns ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... saw quite clearly what Gerald's intentions were. Althea was dazed; she did not know what the bright object that had come so overpoweringly into her life wanted of her. She had feared—sickeningly—with a stiffening of her whole nature to resistance, that he wanted to flirt with her as well as with Lady Pickering. Then she had seen that he wasn't going to flirt, that he was going to be her friend, and then—this ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... loud tones proceeding from the veranda at the front of the house; of masculine voices raised in anger; and then she heard the sound of a blow, followed instantly by a heavy fall. Almost at the same instant, the sharp crack of a pistol smote upon the air, for an instant stiffening her with horror. She started to her feet in terror, her face gone white, her eyes dilated with apprehension. Then, she somehow stumbled to her feet, and stood there, trembling in every nerve, until she could ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman
... property of being able to evolve. As life evolves, that is to say changes, by being handed on from certain forms to certain other forms, a partial rigidity marks the process together with a partial plasticity. There is a stiffening, so to speak, that keeps the life-force up to a point true to its old direction; though, short of that limit, it is free to take a new line of its own. Race, then, stands for the stiffening in the evolutionary process. Just up to what point it goes in any given case ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... wheeling days Until the cord goes slack, Until the very heartstring frays, Until the stiffening back Can ply no more; keep then the door, And, thankful in the sun, Watch you the same unending war Ontaken by ...
— The Village Wife's Lament • Maurice Hewlett
... said that his hands were soiled (I shuddered, for it might be with life-blood), and he would go and cleanse them; but some bitter jest turned his purpose, and he left the room with the other two—left it by the gallery door. Left me alone in the dark with the stiffening corpse! ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... it rather displeased him to find his own sentiments shared by the vulgar. The man with the cigar kept it glowing all the time. The mail-bags were not demanded on this occasion. Stingaree had no time to waste on them. He was still collecting purse and watch, when Oswald's young blood froze in the stiffening limbs ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... glance had travelled beyond Lawrence and her features were stiffening into a mask of fear. "Oh, the dog, the dog!" she pointed past him. ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... his weight, tight as a bow-string, and swift as the arrow it speeds. He fell for five-and-thirty feet. There was a sudden jerk, a terrific convulsion of the limbs; and there he hung, with the open knife clenched in his stiffening hand. ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... says Ellabelle through her teeth and stiffening in her chair. Young Angus just set there with ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... no answer. His kingdom silently awaited his coming so he struck out at a sharp pace. The run of the day before, in place of stiffening him, had put him in racing trim and he went like the wind. He was in playful mood. He danced and shied as each cloud-shadow struck him, a dim figure in the shade but shining red-chestnut in the sun patches. ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... muzzle of the pistol up, his body stiffening, his eyes glittering with the malignance that had been in them when he had been looking out at Lawler through the aperture ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... fallen, who, with helpless faces Low in the dust, in stiffening ruin lay, Felt the hoofs beat, and heard the rattling traces As o'er us drove ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... sort of fear of living ladies," the scald said, "how much more, therefore, of their ghosts! I had rather meet Danes. For when one sees them there comes a stiffening of back ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... stiffening frost benumbs Her limbs, and clouds her heavy eye— And hark! her feeble moan becomes A shriek of ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various
... boat," said Moise, smiling; "we'll fix heem easy." So saying, he took his ax and sauntered over to a half-dead cedar-tree, from which, without much difficulty, he cut some long splints. This they managed to lash inside the gunwale of the canoe, stiffening it considerably. The rent in the bottom they patched by means of their cement, and some waterproof material. They finished the patch with abundant spruce gum and tar, melted together and spread all over. When they were done ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Trail • Emerson Hough
... bad hour of it; but he held his own, keeping silent while they screamed, and stiffening as they began to wobble from exhaustion. Finally he took his mother apart, and tried to reason with her. His arguments were not much use, but his resolution impressed her, and he saw it. As for his father, nobody was afraid of Monsieur de Rechamp. When he said: "Never—never ...
— Coming Home - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... slowly got to his feet, his face paling, his body stiffening. From Virginia! Who should be come from Virginia, save she to whom he ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... our twisting buttocks. Mary evidently meant to pay out her mistress as hard as she could now she was at her mercy, making her fairly gasp as the stinging thuds whacked on that glorious bottom, making it writhe and flinch at each blow, causing the maternal cunt to quiver and grip my stiffening member more ...
— Forbidden Fruit • Anonymous
... the cavalryman and Versatilia set off, the others followed as best they might, the beauty "going to pieces" in a minute or two, according to the master, the society young lady stiffening visibly, losing the cadence of the trot very soon, but making no outcry as she was tossed about uncomfortably, and not bending her head to look at ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... Dicky dubiously, "is all right, so far as her intentions go. But she'd be the better for a little stiffening. Would ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... soldiers and other uniformed members of the A.E.F. For the latter two classes, the cap will be of 20 ounce olive drab cloth, or perhaps a little heavier. There will be no show of coloring on the cap, and the stiffening of the flap will be the same color as the cap itself. When the cap is issued to a man, he will be expected to turn in his service hat to ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... boat was to be reconstructed was not likely to be overflowed more than a foot by the next high tide, a month later, an excavation was made wherein to build the steamer that she might certainly come afloat at the desired time. Sixty holes had to be made in the iron plates so that the four stiffening timbers could be attached to the bottom to prevent the craft from breaking in two under the extra-heavy boiler. Inside, cross timbers were also added to resist the strain. On, December 17th, two steamers appeared from the fort, in command, respectively, of Johnson ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... breast, dripped on the glistening grass. The surgeon who knelt beside him took the pistol from his clenched fingers, and gently pressed the lids over his glazing eyes. Not a word was uttered, but while the seconds sadly regarded the stiffening form, the surviving principal coolly drew out a cigar, lighted and placed it between his lips. The child's eyes had wandered to the latter from the pool of blood, and now in a shuddering cry she broke ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... now before the show would close for the season. Even in Texas, where they were showing, the nights had begun to grow chilly, stiffening the muscles of the performers and making them irritable. All were looking forward to the day when the tents should be struck for the ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... the last words. She felt herself stiffening slowly, while the living room almost faded from her sight. Perhaps, in that instant, some additional new circuit had closed in her mind, or some additional new channel had opened, for TT's purpose in tricking her into contact with the reckless, mocking ...
— Novice • James H. Schmitz
... calculated from the mechanical theory of heat. His discovery of the true method of preventing the tendency of tubes to collapse, by dividing the flues of long boilers into short lengths by means of stiffening rings, arising out of the same investigation, was one of the valuable results of his minute study of the subject; and is calculated to be of essential value in the manufacturing districts by diminishing the chances of boiler explosions, and saving the lamentable loss of life which has ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... Billy's back was not particularly straight this sudden question introduced a stiffening into it which made it more upright than it had ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... they laugh at thee "These boyish follies, which alone the boy Can idly act, or gracefully enjoy, Add new reproaches to thy fallen state, And make men scorn what they would only hate. "What pains, my brother, dost thou take to prove A taste for follies which thou canst not love! Why do thy stiffening limbs the steed bestride - That lads may laugh to see thou canst not ride? And why (I feel the crimson tinge my cheek) Dost thou by night in Diamond-Alley sneak? "Farewell! the parish will thy sister keep, Where she in peace shall pray and sing and sleep, Save ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... alone, stopped short, betraying disconcertion in the way he instinctively assumed the stand of a soldier at attention, bringing his heels together with an undeniable click, straightening his shoulders, stiffening both arms to rigidity at his sides. And for a bare thought his eyes rolled almost wildly in their deep sockets. Then he bowed twice, from the hips, with mechanical precision, profoundly to Victor, with deep ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... Johnny until his mother's return. Standing beside the crib, and gazing down at the rosy cheeks and curling locks, nestled against the pillow, Beulah's thoughts winged along the tear-stained past, to the hour when Lilly had been placed in her arms, by emaciated hands stiffening in death. For six years she had held, and hushed, and caressed her dying father's last charge, and now strange, ruthless fingers had torn the clinging heart-strings from the idol. There were no sobs, nor groans, to voice the anguish of the desolate orphan. The glittering eyes were tearless, ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... STIFFENING ORDER. A custom-house warrant for making a provision in the shipping of goods, before the whole inward cargo is discharged, to prevent the vessel getting ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... shoving the little raccoon aside, and picked the pig up in his arms. Ebenezer was amazed, having never before been treated as a lap-dog, but he made no resistance beyond stiffening out all his legs in a way that made him most awkward to handle. Placed in the Boss's great arms, he lifted his snout straight up in the air and emitted one shrill squeal; but the sight of Ananias-and-Sapphira, perched coolly beneath his captor's ear, in a measure reassured him, and he made no further ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... A stiffening raced over Mrs. Kantor, so that she sat rigid on her chair-edge, lips compressed, eye darkly upon ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... replied Uncle Ben with a slight stiffening of wounded pride. "On'y yourself, Mr. Ford, and the young feller Stacey from the bank—ez was obligated to know it. In fact, I wos kalkilatin' to ask you to help me talk to him about ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... strengthened to resist this demand, some arrangement of a distinctly terminable nature might be made. The United States, Great Britain, and Japan, joining hands for that purpose, did succeed in so far stiffening China's backbone that her show of resolution finally induced Russia to sign a treaty pledging herself to withdraw her troops from Manchuria in three installments, each step of evacuation to be accomplished ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... result, the vocalist or speaker must begin by taking breath through the mouth, as we have already insisted, and at once, before there is time for any stiffening of parts, commence to intonate—i.e., as soon as enough air has been inhaled for the purpose intended. The correct position is facilitated when one taking breath through the mouth acts as if about to yawn. If this act be well imitated, the student will find, on looking into ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills
... rifle rang out, and the heavy bullet found its mark just back of his fore-shoulder. He sank forward upon his outstretched muzzle and his knees, his tail stiffening straight up, and quivering. Then he rolled ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Tears flow then that would not flow When our sorrow was our own, And the deadly, stiffening blow Was upon our own heart given In the moments that ...
— Along the Shore • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... the caisson took 2-1/2 months, and on April 2d lowering was started. Inverted brackets were bolted temporarily to the cutting-edge stiffening brackets, and the sinking was carried on by methods similar to those used at Long Island. The jacks and blocking supporting the caisson are shown in Fig. 4, Plate LXIV. As soon as the cutting edge entered the rock, which was drilled about 6 in. outside of the neat lines, the space surrounding ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 • James H. Brace, Francis Mason and S. H. Woodard
... illness. I do not know whether Dr. Funk ever mixed his favorite drink for R.L.S., but his own fame has spread, not as a healer, but as a dram-decocter, from Samoa to Tahiti. "Dr. Funk!" one hears in every club and bar. Its particular merits are claimed by experts to be a stiffening of the spine when one is all in; an imparting of courage to live to men worn ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... John B. Jameson (Democrat). Mr. Moses was known as an uncompromising opponent while Mr. Jameson was a sincere suffragist. The prospects were good for Mr. Jameson's election when President Wilson issued an appeal for the election of a Democratic Congress, which had the effect of stiffening the Republican ranks and Mr. Moses was elected by a small majority. After his election the National Association sent a representative to interview him. He told her that he was not interested in the question but that if the Legislature should instruct him by resolution to vote for the Federal Amendment ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... Chinese mind; and it has often been urged against foreigners that because they are so careless as to what becomes of their written and printed paper, the matter contained in foreign documents and books must obviously be of no great value. It is even considered criminal to use printed matter for stiffening the covers or strengthening the folded leaves of books; still more so, to employ it in the manufacture of soles for boots and shoes, though in such cases as these the weakness of human nature usually carries the day. Still, from the point of view of the Taoist faith, ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... party of sheriff's searchers came upon Driggs, not far from the old mill site. The fellow, fearing prompt pursuit, had endeavored to get away, but the pain in his stiffening knee had prevented his going very far. Ab. Dexter had started with his injured confederate, but had finally played the sneak and fled. However, Dexter, too was caught later that night, while endeavoring to board a train two ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... and along the over-familiar road to the station. The old Clarence must have recognised with a sigh that its roaming days were definitely over, and that henceforth, as long as its creaking axles and stiffening springs held together, it could only look forward to an uneventful life of monotonous routine in a cold, grey Northern land; and, between ourselves, these feelings are not ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... ozs. per yard. Bottom fabric 1/12's cotton; filling 1/16's cotton; 12 picks to the inch. Weight per yard, 1.8 ounces. These fabrics depend a great deal on the finishing. The men's wear requires less sizing on account of the hair it contains. The goods are piece dyed. Buckram is used principally for stiffening garments, and to give them shape or form. It is placed between the lining and the surface cloth of the garment in particular parts, such as the lapels, etc. It is used in the millinery trade, and is made into hats. Millinery buckram is sized ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... front part of the corset is stiffened by a stay that slides in a pocket to provide for stooping. A central front and lacing admit the front part of the corset to expand. The lower extension part of the corset has short stiffening stays, and it is connected independently of the upper stays by short side lacing and elastic straps to the side or hip parts of the corset. A hernial band extends from the lowermost part of the corset-extension between the legs to the rear, and is attached ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various
... virtue of necessity, I consented to accompany them to the regular out-post of Greenland, stipulating that I should have a horse to carry me and my saddle-bags; for my knee was still bleeding, and stiffening fast. ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... northeasterly wind had been stiffening the mud of the morning's thaw into a rigid record of that day's wayfaring on the Baskingridge road. The hoof-prints of cavalry, the deep ruts left by baggage-wagons, and the deeper channels worn by artillery, lay stark and cold in the waning light of an April day. There ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... years of the eighteenth century there was a sudden awakening among the bishops to the growing abuse of non-residence and pluralities on the part of the clergy. One prelate of distinction devoted his triennial charge to the subject, and a general "stiffening" of episcopal good nature set in all round. The Bishop of Lincoln addressed Crabbe, with others of his delinquent clergy, and intimated to him very distinctly the duty of returning to those few sheep in the wilderness at Muston and Allington. Crabbe, in much distress, ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger
... trick with some High School boys thus to address a girl student by her last name only, but it is not the act of a gentleman. Belle resented it by stiffening at once, and glancing coldly at Ripley without ...
— The High School Pitcher - Dick & Co. on the Gridley Diamond • H. Irving Hancock
... been so carried away by the charms of this beautiful sorceress, that thou wouldst have helped her to escape from her prison-house, and lent her thine arm again to ascend the throne, which she had made a place of abomination?—Nay, stir not from me—my hand, though fast stiffening, has yet force enough to hold thee—What dost thou aim at?—to wed this witch of Scotland?—I warrant thee, thou mayest succeed—her heart and hand have been oft won at a cheaper rate, than thou, fool that thou art, would think thyself happy to pay. But, should a servant of thy father's ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... time he got up and walked stiffly and painfully up and down the deck, knowing that this was the best plan to prevent the limbs from stiffening. The corsair did not return until night set in; he was accompanied by an Arab, whose dress and appearance showed that he was a person of importance. The other slaves had all been sent below, but Gervaise still remained on deck, as the ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... the night, when deepest sleep Falls upon men, fear seiz'd me, all my bones Trembled, and every stiffening hair rose up. A spirit pass'd before me, but I saw No form thereof. I knew that there it stood, Even though my straining eyes discern'd it not. Then from its moveless lips a voice burst forth, "Is man more just than God? Is mortal man ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... replied, placing her finger on her lip, while the little terrier that stood at her feet, as if comprehending the signal, crept stealthily to the door, and laying his nose on the floor, drew in his breath; and then erecting his ears, and stiffening his short tail, ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... emotion save amusement. Miss Guile was watching through half-closed eyes. There was a noticeable stiffening of the ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... was standing before His mirror fumbling with His moustache, which seemed unwilling any more to point upwards, but had a persistent droop. "Donner und blitzen!" He exclaimed irascibly as he added more and more stiffening paste. ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, September 9, 1914 • Various
... impossible to describe my sensations as I witnessed the various unsuccessful attempts to relieve Belanger. The distance prevented my seeing distinctly what was going on and I continued pacing up and down upon the rock on which I landed, regardless of the coldness of my drenched and stiffening garments. The canoe in every attempt to reach him was hurried down the rapid, and was lost to view amongst the rocky islets with a rapidity that seemed to threaten certain destruction; once indeed I fancied that I saw it overwhelmed in the waves. Such an event would ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... not brook the idea of confessing that she was vanquished by the persecution she endured. She certainly earned her bread, she did not steal the Rebufats' hospitality; and this conviction satisfied her pride. So she remained there to continue the struggle, stiffening herself and living on with the one thought of resistance. Her plan was to do her work in silence, and revenge herself for all harsh treatment by mute contempt. She knew that her uncle derived too much advantage from her to listen readily to the insinuations ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... wept not as she gazed upon that lifeless clay. She wept not as she laid the little form upon the bed, and straightened the limbs already stiffening in the embrace of death; but when her husband clasped her to his bosom, and uttered words of endearing affection, a wild scream burst from her lips, and she sunk back in his arms, apparently as unconscious as the ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... he said, lifting his hand adjuringly. His companion solemnly drew his finger across his throat, as if cutting it, and the oath was taken. The one who had lost the cap, hitched up his trousers and pulled himself together, his whole figure stiffening with determination; then he put his hands upon the fence, vaulted it, and walked with bent head and firm step across the yard, looking like one who had staked his all upon one card. When he had secured the cap, and turned his back upon the House, ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... emotions which had usurped her office. My rush for freedom had ended, as such sallies often do, in exhaustion, capture and despair; upon the thrill and thunder of the charge followed the silence of the dungeon and the anguish of stiffening wounds. The truth, so simply written that a child might have spelled it, lay clear before me: I had left reformation till too late. I ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith |
