"Stiffness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Arnot's frank and cordial reception was an agreeable surprise. He arrived quite late in the evening, and she had a delightful little lunch brought to him in her private parlor. By the time it was eaten her graceful tact had banished all stiffness and sense of strangeness, and he found himself warming into friendliness toward one whom he had especially dreaded as a "remarkably pious lady"—for thus his mother had ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... some refreshment. No, no answer." And I walked into the garden, Up and down the patterned paths, In my stiff, correct brocade. The blue and yellow flowers stood up proudly in the sun, Each one. I stood upright too, Held rigid to the pattern By the stiffness of my gown. Up and down I walked, Up ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... sculpture. Single parts of the armor, embroideries, and patterns of dresses, hair, and beards of men, the manes of animals, etc., are indicated by means of dark red lines. This variety of color was required particularly for the draperies, which are stiff and clumsily attached to the body. The same stiffness is shown in the treatment of faces and other nude parts of the body, as also in the rendering of movements. The faces are always in profile, the nose and chin pointed and protruding, and the lips of the compressed mouth indicated only by a line. Shoulders, hips, thighs, ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... to its success in improving the taste and judgment of its contemporaries. The poems of West, indeed, had the merit of chaste and manly diction; but they were cold, and, if I may so express it, only dead-coloured; while in the best of Warton's there is a stiffness, which too often gives them the appearance of imitations from the Greek. Whatever relation, therefore, of cause or impulse Percy's collection of Ballads may bear to the most popular poems of the present day; yet in a more sustained ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... and take notice. She does it regularly. And she is not a docile child any longer, I give you warning. You will find it very difficult to do anything with her in the way of breaking up this religious stiffness of hers." ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... after, one evening, accompanied by Aristo, he set out in his litter to the lodging where she was in custody; not, however, without much misgiving when it came to the point, some shame, and a consequent visible awkwardness and stiffness in his manner. All the perfumes he had about him could not hinder the disgust of such a visit rising ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... have a sun which is not a ray brighter than an English sun. The hedges and ditches wear a familiar livery, and the land which is fully cultivated repays the toil of the husbandman with some of the most luxuriant crops of wheat I ever saw. Barley and oats are not equally good, perhaps from the stiffness of the soil, which is principally of chalk; but flax is abundant and luxuriant. The surface of the ground is undulated, and sufficiently so to make a pleasing alternation of hill and dale; hence it is agreeably varied, ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... shape of cards for women is nearly square (about 2 1/2 x 3 inches). A fine dull-finished card-board of medium weight and stiffness ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... fallen down; and a great portion of what remains seems to indicate rapid decay. The whole stands indeed greatly in need of reparation. Ducarel, if I remember rightly,[108] has made, of this whole front, a sort of elevation, as if it were intended for a wooden model to work by: having all the stiffness and precision of an erection of forty-eight hours standing only. The central tower is of very stunted dimensions, and overwhelmed by a roof in the form of an extinguisher. This, in fact, was the consequence of the devastations of the Calvinists; who absolutely ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... finer, little girl! Barring a little stiffness here and there, she's perfect. So, then, when do we ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... work a greater antiquity. Certainly, as one studies its details, one is convinced that it is not quite a Gothic work, nor yet is it Byzantine; for the figures have all the grace of Greek work prior to the age of Byzantine stiffness. It is embroidered chiefly in gold, on a delicate bluish satin ground, and has not been transferred, although it has been carefully restored. The central ornament on the front is a circular composition, and the arrangement of the figures both ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... and heavily it is woven, is soft and yielding and will fall into folds without sharp angles. This quality of softness is in its very substance. Even a single unwoven thread of silk will drop gracefully into loops, where a cotton or linen or even a woollen thread will show stiffness. ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler
... in the seventh heaven of rapture and vainly endeavours to enlighten him as to the reason of the beauty's stiffness and heartlessness. ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... us down to the rigging. It was hard work making head against them. One after another we got out upon the yards. And here we had work to do; for our new sails had hardly been bent long enough to get the stiffness out of them, and the new earings and reef-points, stiffened with the sleet, knotted like pieces of iron wire. Having only our round jackets and straw hats on, we were soon wet through, and it was every moment growing colder. Our hands were soon ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... throwing all the consciousness of a shining success into the stiffness of the neck which upheld the slight additional weight of the Earl's gold buckle in his cap, found himself, not wholly by accident, in the neighbourhood of his heart's beloved, Maud Lindesay. For, like a valiant seneschal, she had kept her place all ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... down for a week at some vague future date; one of the children was unwell, and until it recovered it was impossible to fix a day. Still, they would be delighted to see him again. Her letters always had a note of stiffness in them, which was purely unintentional, or rather, purely natural, reflecting the one salient ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... Geordie agreed, cordially. "It's worth four shullings to have your mind at ease, man. I'll just go up to the lodge and get a warm bath ready, to tak' the stiffness out of his muscles, and brew a tea from an herb that wee wild creatures know all about and aye hunt for when ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... spirit of honor and confidence was generally high among the young gentlemen, and, consequently, having promised to be friendly to Ferrers, each individual, in duty bound, did his utmost to fulfil that promise, and in a little while the stiffness attendant on the effort wore off, and Ferrers was, in appearance, in precisely the same position as before, to the great satisfaction of the doctor, who was much pleased with his pupils' ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... same as one of ourselves, of course, Sholto. But I believe you delight in stiffness and ceremony. ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... exceedingly the fact, that the universal ignorance prevailing in England of the Russian language, will prevent the possibility of that important merit—strict fidelity—being tested by the British reader. Let the indulgent, therefore, remember, if we have in any case left an air of stiffness and constraint but too perceptible in our work, that this fault is to be considered as a sacrifice of grace at the altar of truth. It would have been not only possible, but easy, to have spun a collection of easy rhymes, bearing a general resemblance to the vigorous and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... attitude is normal; it consists of an equal balance of the weight of the body on the two legs. This attitude is that of the soldier carrying arms, without the stiffness assumed by the wilful regularity of rigid discipline. It is also that attitude taken by a man in the act of salutation; it is also characteristic of the weakness of a child or of old age; it is the sign of ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... out and held up his hand in answer to the yell. The wave of thanksgiving at the sight of this most efficient help took all the stiffness out of the knees of the mail-rider. The tears rolled down ...
— The Mascot of Sweet Briar Gulch • Henry Wallace Phillips
... arm would not rise! At least the man could not extend it far enough to open the shutter. There was a twinge of pain and a strange stiffness of the elbow. The other arm was raised—nothing the matter with that. The man tried to move his legs. The left responded, but the right was as useless as the arm. There was a pain, too, across the loins as Markham sought to turn himself in ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... is said to have essayed, by a collection of the most exact features, to form a perfect face, and to that, a behaviour, so full of grace and sweetness, such easy motions, with an air so majestic, yet free from stiffness or affectation, that I am persuaded, could she be suddenly transported upon the most polite throne of Europe, nobody would think her other than born and bred to be a queen, though educated in a country we call barbarous. To say all in a word, our most ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... place for the family gathering, having a large table as an objective plane for a round game, which also serves as a support for reading matter; while from an economical point of view it preserves the drawing-rooms in reception stiffness ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... you, my own blood, that has never crossed me, and of whom I have reason to be proud? Yes, Harry, it gratifies me to hear you admired and to learn your success. All I want now is to see you in Parliament. A man should be in Parliament early. There is a sort of stiffness about every man, no matter what may be his talents, who enters Parliament late in life; and now, fortunately, the occasion offers. You will go down on Friday; feed the notabilities well; speak out; praise Peel; abuse O'Connell and the ladies of the Bed-chamber; anathematise all ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... deities were incorruptible. It was not possible to starch the sea; and precisely as the stiffness fastened upon men, it vanished from ships. What had once been a mere raft, with rows of formal benches, pushed along by laborious flap of oars, and with infinite fluttering of flags and swelling of poops above, gradually began to lean more heavily into the deep water, to sustain a ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... to his aid—the first occasion, we believe, on which this prodigious power was employed in bridge pile-driving. A temporary staging was erected for the steam-engine and hammer apparatus, which rested on two keels, and, notwithstanding the newness and stiffness of the machinery, the first pile was driven on the 6th October, 1846, to a depth of 32 feet, in four minutes. Two hammers of 30 cwt. each were kept in regular use, making from 60 to 70 strokes a minute; and the results were astounding to those who had been accustomed ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... come back, I'll meet them with my hands free," he said. "Come on, old man; we're like rats in a trap if they catch us in those beastly tubs. At least, out here, we've our knives and our fists. Come out, and get the stiffness out ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... if they would allow me, as I think you will, in consideration of my age and stiffness; let some more supple youth try a fall with you, and do not drag me ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... the very horse he ought to have had—old, weary, infirm, decently hiding its disabilities under a blanket, and, when this was stripped away, confessing them in a start so reluctant that they had to be explained as the stiffness natural to any young, strong, and fresh horse from resting too long. It did, in fact, become more animated as time went on, and perhaps it began to take an interest in the landscape left so charmingly wild wherever it could be. It apparently liked being alive there with its fares, ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... sleeve of my uniformed coat and could not even see the hole where the bullet had entered. Neither was there any sudden flow of blood. At the time there was no stiffness or discomfort in the arm and I continued to use it to work my ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... had betrayed himself. Audrey's maidenly consciousness was up in arms in a moment. The gleam in Cyril's eyes had opened hers. Some instinct of self-defence made her suddenly entrench herself in stiffness; the soft graciousness that was Audrey's chief charm seemed to desert her, and for once in her life she ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... life in Paris is arranged more sensibly than with us. Visiting involves no trouble in the feeding line. People don't go to eat. A cup of tea and plate of biscuit is all,—just enough to break up the stiffness. ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... step, that had in it none of the stiffness or fatigue of a long night's ride, Commines mounted the stairs, answering friendly salutes at every turn. As at all times with the King in residence, the halls, corridors, and ante-rooms were like those of a barrack rather than of a royal chateau. Here and ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... upon one of the hills of Slieve Echtge, but he was not sure how he came there; for all that had happened in the barn had gone from him, and all of his journey but the soreness of his feet and the stiffness in his bones. ...
— Stories of Red Hanrahan • W. B. Yeats
... one second of awful indecision. The boys looked at each other, at the dying man, at the roof above them, in the stiffness of uncertain terror. ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... Thracian and Galatian horse to fall upon their flank, and beat down their lances with their swords. The only defense of these horsemen-at-arms are their lances; they have nothing else that they can use to protect themselves, or annoy their enemy, on account of the weight and stiffness of their armor, with which they are, as it were, built up. He himself, with two cohorts, made to the mountain, the soldiers briskly following, when they saw him in arms afoot first toiling and climbing up. Being on the top and standing in an open place, with a loud ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... waiting for Mme. General Bonaparte on their magnificent prancing steeds in front of the gate through which she was to pass. Even old Count Metternich, the delegate of the Emperor of Austria and ruler of the empire, notwithstanding the stiffness of his limbs, had mounted his horse; by his side the other two ambassadors of Austria were halting—Count Lehrbach, the Austrian member of the imperial commission, and Count Louis Cobenzl, who was acting as a delegate for Bohemia ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... observed old Mr. Delamere, with a touch of stiffness. "The only servant in hearing of the conversation has been my own; and Sandy is as honest as any ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... only of comfort and convenience, and nothing of show, he carelessly invited my attention to the drawing-room, the library, the music-room, and the little sitting-room, all of which were furnished with as much stiffness and hardness and inharmonious coloring as ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... incident that silence reigned in the salon while the three took their coffee, a silence rather annoying to Adam, who was incapable of imagining the cause of it. Clementine no longer tried to draw out Thaddeus. The captain, on the other hand, retreated within his military stiffness and came out of it no more, neither on the way to the Opera nor in the box, where he seemed to ...
— Paz - (La Fausse Maitresse) • Honore de Balzac
... the gracious response of the ladies, Randolph was aware of their critical scrutiny of both himself and Miss Eversleigh, of the exchange of significant glances, and a certain stiffness in her guardian's manner. It was quite enough to affect Randolph's sensitiveness and ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the Gods above, that he might mourn for ever. And now, his blood quite exhausted by incessant weeping, his limbs began to be changed into a green colour, and the hair, which but lately hung from his snow-white forehead, to become a rough bush, and, a stiffness being assumed, to point to the starry heavens with a tapering top. The God {Phoebus} lamented deeply, and in his sorrow he said, "Thou shalt be mourned by me, and shalt mourn for others, and shalt {ever} attend upon those who are ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... ancient times, to discover their attachment to rural nature, and to gardens. His candid and submissive mind thus speaks:—"If we would, therefore, arrive at any greater perfection than we are in gardening, we must cashiere that mathematical stiffness in our gardens, and imitate nature more; how that is to be done, will appear in the following chapters, which though they may not be, as new designs scarce ever are, the most perfect, it will at least excite some after-master to take pen and pencil in hand, and finish what is here thus imperfectly ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... manner, and formed or grouped into the most pleasing and tasteful shapes. The figures are small, with a well indicated outline. How pretty are the little subjects at the foot of each month of the Calendar! And how totally different from the common-place stiffness, and notorious dullness, of the generality of Flemish pieces of this character! This book has no superior of its kind in Europe; and is worthy, on a small scale, of what we see in the superb ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... far from town to learn baseball, Whose only play was what he found himself, Summer or winter, and could play alone. One by one he subdued his father's trees By riding them down over and over again Until he took the stiffness out of them, And not one but hung limp, not one was left For him to conquer. He learned all there was To learn about not launching out too soon And so not carrying the tree away Clear to the ground. He always ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... supper, and the presence of the young people robbed it of all possible stiffness. Aunt Jane helped clear the table and put away the food, while Miranda entertained in the parlor; but Rebecca and the infant Burches washed the dishes and held high carnival in the kitchen, doing only trifling damage—breaking ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... stiffness of which a young back is capable. She saw an old grey-haired priest, with a round face and a pair of chubby hands, which he constantly held crossed or clasped upon his breast. His long irregular-mouth ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... wishes. In England especially, they are completely out of their element. A language nearly impossible for them to acquire, a religion which they consider heretical, outward coldness covering inward warmth, a perpetual war between sun and fog, etiquette carried to excess, an insupportable stiffness and order in the article of the toilet; rebosos unknown, cigaritos considered barbarous.... They feel like exiles from paradise, and live but in hopes of a ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... to admit the body of the fox. Even as the boy looked, the long hairs of Leloo's great ruff stiffened, and stood quiveringly erect, a low growl rumbled deep in the dog's throat, and with a curious tense stiffness of movement, he began to back slowly from the hole. Never for an instant did the low throaty growl cease, nor did the fixed yellow eyes leave the black aperture. Not until he had backed a full twenty feet from ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... these men, it may be sufficient to state that the "NOTES AND QUERIES" is conceived in the exact spirit of those works. The chief difference, besides the usual subject-matter, consists in the greater formality and "stiffness" of those than of this; arising, however, of necessity out of the specific and rigid character of mathematical research in itself, and the more limited range of subjects that were open ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 57, November 30, 1850 • Various
... representation is, of course, far from the perfection of Art. Both the faces and the figures have a certain stiffness, partly due to the very nature of mosaic-work. There is also a sort of child-like simplicity in the treatment, especially of the female figures, which an unsympathetic critic would call grotesque. But, I think, most beholders feel that there is something indescribably solemn ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... the time talking to you—and as you've just recorded your sensations, I'd rather be excused," he said with a touch of stiffness. "Your innings, I suppose, old man?" And, with a friendly nod, he ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... pen with her trusty knife, wrote to the lady in waiting an agreeable and polished letter, one of those letters, careful without stiffness, that one writes, indulging oneself a little with the ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... Isabel's admirers should be desperadoes or laggards; they were not rivals of his and were perfectly welcome to act out their genius. Nevertheless he felt much curiosity as to the result of Miss Stackpole's promised enquiry into the causes of Mr. Goodwood's stiffness—a curiosity for the present ungratified, inasmuch as when he asked her three days later if she had written to London she was obliged to confess she had written in vain. Mr. Goodwood had ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... (p. 258) other officers to keep in the background, I would go over in front of the battalion and tell them that the Colonel had handed the parade over to me, and that they were to break ranks and sit on the ground as close as possible. At once military stiffness was dispelled, and amid much laughter the men would crowd around and squat on the ground tightly packed together. Imagine what a picture that was. Splendid stalwart young men they were, hundreds ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... the Swift-goer, untied his foot from beside his head, put it to the ground, wriggled it a little to get the stiffness out of it, ran off, and was out of sight almost before he had stepped from the ship. Quicker than I can tell it you in words he had come to the water of life, and put some of it ...
— Old Peter's Russian Tales • Arthur Ransome
... instant my arms were about his neck—I felt no stiffness nor soreness now. He folded me to his breast, and cried, as I did. After a long ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... so melted down the rude stiffness of the Tetchy family as this wonderful revolution in my domestic prospects. They became amusingly disposed to sociability, as well as to inquisitiveness. But I was glad to see my mother stiffen up in proportion to their sudden condescension, for she would have ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... contest. I had not, up to this time, the least knowledge of the original cause of the row. I have naturally an aversion to pugilistic contests and tumultuous sports, and yet I found by certain bruises, and bumps, and stains of blood, and stiffness of joints, and exhaustion, and the loss of my upper garment, which I had then only just discovered, that I must have borne a pretty considerable{5} part in the contest, and carried away no small share ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... lengthening when at length he laid down his oars, and felt the boat's nose rub against the sand of the little home-cove. But rowing was no more effort than breathing to Captain January, and it was no fatigue, but only a trifle of stiffness from sitting so long, that troubled him a little in getting out of the boat. As he stepped slowly out upon the firm-grained silver of the little beach, he looked up and around with an expectant air, and seeing no one, a look of disappointment crossed his face. ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards
... and left me to my mysterious fate," said the Count, with a slight degree of stiffness. "I conclude that you did not receive my letter requesting you to meet me at Amsterdam, and stating the reasons for my not rejoining you sooner; however, I am very glad ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston
... stroked his little black mustache with the foreign manner he had inherited. If he had cared to do so perhaps he could have explained Kate Underwood's stiffness. Partly it was embarrassment and partly shyness. He knew that there had been a time—before Valencia's return from college—when Kate lacked very little of being in love with him. He had but to say the word to have ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... no dealings with Lavendar," the Captain said, with sudden stiffness; "he's like all the rest of 'em. I'll get a license in Upper Chester, and we'll go to ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... was wise to the fact that he was the only friend I had in that country, and the sort of friend that sticks closer than a brother, I experienced a sincere desire to beat him over the noodle with my gun and thereby knock a little of the stiffness out of his neck—simply saluted the officer, tipped his hat to her, and passed on. I didn't sabe the play, and when I saw the red flash up into her face it made me hot, and there followed a few seconds when I took a very ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... yardstick out of the question,—even if they are covered by carpets six inches thick, it will not pay to lay poor ones. They should be double for solidity and warmth, well nailed for stiffness, seasoned for economy, and of good lumber for conscience' sake. Seasoned for economy, I say, since nothing is more destructive to carpets, especially to oil-cloth, than cracks in the floor underneath them. Yes,—one thing; the ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... valuable gift of sitting still without stiffness, and not fidgetting with fan, bouquet, or hand-kerchief, as she listened or talked. Rosa's mercurial temperament betrayed itself, every instant, in the bird-like turn of her small head, the fluttering ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... that we were sailing away south, and that the men seemed to be enjoying themselves, for there was a good deal of singing and shouting—strong indications of drinking going on. Mr Frewen was far better, and my pains had passed into an unpleasant stiffness; otherwise, I was ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... an assistant butler in Madame du Barry's hotel at Versailles, was a sharp, sour-natured old fellow, truculent and avaricious. The spine of this man was a sort of social barometer; by its exact degree of curvature or stiffness in the presence of a guest the stable-boys and housemaids knew whether his rank was great or small, and whether, to please their cantankerous master, they were to fly or walk at his beck, or in the case of a mere bourgeois, to drink ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... much upon the hearts of unexperienced girls; and his two cousins respected him greatly. He placed them at the house of an old, out-of-fashion aunt, who had been a keen partizan of the royal cause during the civil wars; she was full of the heroic stiffness of her own times, and would read books of Chivalry, and Romances with ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... this cane were exceedingly thick, giving it great stiffness, and solidity to resist storms of wind. It proved to be hardly ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... voices that Domini could not hear. More close at hand certain roofs in the dancers' street revealed luxurious sofas on which painted houris were lolling in sinuous attitudes, or were posed with a stiffness of idols, little tables set with coffee cups, others round which were gathered Zouaves intent on card games, but ever ready to pause for a caress or for some jesting absurdity with the women who squatted beside them. Some men, dressed like ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... "on the contrary, taken as an ornament, it was the most useful ornament of any belonging to full dress, occupying the hands, giving the eyes something to look at, and taking away stiffness and formality from the figure and ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... through space, and terrific thunderous sounds in my very ears. I was conscious of turning a double or triple somersault, of alighting face-down on the long grass, of a heavy weight leaning upon my neck and spine, of pain, stiffness, semi-consciousness, of a continuous noise as though a motor-car lay and throbbed and whirred on the top of me. ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... to my feet and ascended the companion stairs. Fair weather was over, and there was nothing left but to return to the galley. My left arm was numb, as though paralysed, and days passed before I could use it, while weeks went by before the last stiffness and pain went out of it. And he had done nothing but put his hand upon my arm and squeeze. There had been no wrenching or jerking. He had just closed his hand with a steady pressure. What he might have done I did not fully realize till next day, when he put his head into the galley, ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... and obedient and plastic as the clay in the potter's hands. The tanner takes a stiff hide, and soaks it in bitter waters, and dresses it with sharp tools, and lubricates it with unguents, and his work is not done till all the stiffness is out of it and it is flexible. And we do not lose our lives in the lofty, noble sense, until we can say—and verify the speech by our actions—'Not my will but Thine be done.' They who thus submit, they who thus welcome into their hearts, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... dark and I could see nothing about me in any direction, so I concluded that the only thing to do was to remain standing just where I was until daybreak. It was a long and tedious wait and I suffered much from stiffness and cold, but at last dawn appeared and I anxiously strained my eyes, looking about in every direction. Then my head nearly burst with a feeling of joyousness, for within two hundred yards of me I discerned ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... cleaned in gasoline or soap and water, using a brush. Do not rub or wring. Hang up to drip dry, or wind tightly around a bottle and leave to dry. Do not press until after twenty-four hours, if cleaned in gasoline. To produce extra stiffness, rinse in a weak solution of sugar and water. It is also very easy to change the color of ribbons by using any of ...
— Make Your Own Hats • Gene Allen Martin
... suffering from any infectious disorder. Flannels are rendered softer, and the appearance of lace, fine articles, coloured prints, soiled ribbons, &c., greatly improved by washing them in this solution. A teaspoonful to each pint of starch, when hot, will add to the stiffness and gloss of ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... executed almost too much in the modern manner to be interesting; for the charm of mosaic work is, to my sense, confined altogether to the infancy of the art. The great Christ, in the series of which I speak, is quite an elaborate picture, and yet he retains enough of the orthodox stiffness to make him impressive in the simpler, elder sense. He is clad in a purple robe, even as an emperor, his hair and beard are artfully curled, his eyebrows arched, his complexion brilliant, his whole ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... morning, drying up the damp floors, and turning to gold the scrap of yellow hair that showed through a hole in the old quilt. Presently the small girl shook the covering away from her and stood up, to yawn and stretch herself out of the stiffness from a night spent on the hard floor. She was not a pretty child, unless naturally curling fair hair, that would be fairer when it was washed, could make her so. The long, thin legs that came below her torn ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth
... conscience, so Aristophanes and Petronius are untranslatable for him. Everything ponderous, viscous, and pompously clumsy, all long-winded and wearying species of style, are developed in profuse variety among Germans—pardon me for stating the fact that even Goethe's prose, in its mixture of stiffness and elegance, is no exception, as a reflection of the "good old time" to which it belongs, and as an expression of German taste at a time when there was still a "German taste," which was a rococo-taste in moribus et artibus. ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... outburst of genuine grief for a brother's death to a fugitive epigram of the most voluptuous triviality. His verses display ease and impetuosity, tumultuous merriment and wild passion, playful grace and slashing invective, vigorous simplicity and ingenious imitation of the learned stiffness and affectation of the Alexandrian school. They are strongly national, despite the author's use of foreign materials, and made Catullus exceedingly popular among ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... been taught to consider lawful as eating, was held in abhorrence by those around me; many words to which I had never heard an objectionable meaning attached, were totally interdicted, and the strangest paraphrastic sentences substituted. I confess it struck me, that notwithstanding a general stiffness of manner, which I think must exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees, the Americans have imaginations that kindle with alarming facility. I could give many anecdotes to prove this, but will ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... at the stern, rigid countenance of her father, of whom she had ever thought, as the warm-hearted dwell on the affection of their absent parents; and, as she saw that the muscles of his face were working, notwithstanding the stiffness and method of his manner, her very heart yearned to throw herself on his bosom and to weep at will. But he was so much colder in externals, so much more formal and distant than she had expected to find him, that she would not have dared to hazard the freedom, even ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... dropping of the wrist below the level of the keyboard. A few great players practice this at a public recital, and lo! and behold! a veritable cult of 'wrist-droppers' arises and we see students raising and lowering the wrist with exaggerated mechanical stiffness and entirely ignoring the important end in which this wrist dropping ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... thine eyes," or "Still to be neat, still to be dressed"? Beautiful in form, deft and graceful in expression, with not a word too much or one that bears not its part in the total effect, there is yet about the lyrics of Jonson a certain stiffness and formality, a suspicion that they were not quite spontaneous and unbidden, but that they were carved, so to speak, with disproportionate labour by a potent man of letters whose habitual thought is on greater things. It is ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... golosh—a shade more quickly than the first one. She kicked it off. The stiffness melted out of her; ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... and Ted to everybody but Peter—the three were classmates—shepherds his flock with a few disarmingly personal insults to prevent stiffness closing down again over the four that have already got to talking at the arrival of the two newcomers, and marshals them out to the terrace where they are to have dinner. Without seeming to try, he seats them so that ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... nature, or revolting to decency. These qualifications ensured, a regular initiation into the Cockney mysteries follows as a matter of course, and the novice enlists himself under their banners, proud of his newly-acquired honors, and starched up to the very throat in all the prim stiffness of his intellect. A few symptoms of this literary malady appeared as early as the year 1795, but it then assumed the guise of simplicity and pathos. It was a poetical Lord Fanny. It wept its pretty self to death by murmuring brooks, and rippling cascades, it heaved ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... function of supporting the mechanically weak active material and of conducting the current. It is made of a lead antimony alloy which is melted and poured into a mould. Pure lead is too soft and too easily attacked by the electrolyte, and antimony is added to give stiffness, and resistance to the action of the electrolyte in the cell. The amount of antimony used varies in different makes but ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte
... watched I observed that the discoloration was beginning to fade. First it vanished from the extremities, then from the larger limbs, and lastly from the trunk. Then in turn came the third stage of relaxation, the second stage of stiffness or rigor, and the first stage of after-death collapse. When all these had rapidly succeeded each other, Indaba-zimbi quietly ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard
... the jaw cavity is very small. None the less, it may have been occupied by the muscle or a ligament connected to it. Such an insertion leaves unexplained the great dorsal production of the dentary, surangular and coronoid. This may merely be a device to provide great dorsal-ventral stiffness to the long jaw, but it is possible and probable that some part of the temporal muscle was inserted on the inner surface of the coronoid. Indeed a very well-preserved jaw of D. limbatus? (R. 105: Pl. I, Fig. 2) bears a special depressed area on ...
— The Adductor Muscles of the Jaw In Some Primitive Reptiles • Richard C. Fox
... rather slender man, measuring almost exactly six feet, with sloping shoulders, and he stood so straight, as almost to be the personification of uprightness. No soldier was ever more erect, and this without the least stiffness or conventionality. His head was not large at the base, but high-crowned and finely arched. His eyes were magnificent, and can only be compared to Hawthorne's eyes, though not so clear. Marshal von Moltke had eyes like two brilliant ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... of the issues at stake was floating in Finn's mind as he crept in and out among the tents and wagons of the enclosure: and he was conscious neither of wounds, or weakness, or stiffness; but only of his great resolve, based upon the wonderful chance that had come to him. Once he came to a place where ten feet of brilliant moonlight lay between the black shadow he occupied and the next. He paused for a moment or two, looking about him upon every side with all the cunning of ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... lesser parties, they far excel us. The conversation in these is easy, natural, and often even fascinating. The terms of polite familiarity with which you yourself are regarded, and with which you are encouraged to treat all around you; the absence of every thing like stiffness, or formality; the little interludes of music, in which, either in singing, or in performing on some instrument, most of those you meet are able to take a part; the round games which are often introduced, and where all forget themselves to be happy, and to make others so,—this species of party ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... is not of such nature that I can settle on cutting it off once for all, and never touching it afterward, as I could of concubinage. The bridle of the throat then is to be held attempered between slackness and stiffness. And who is he, O Lord, who is not some whit transported beyond the limits of necessity? whoever he is, he is a great one; let him make Thy Name great. But I am not such, for I am a sinful man. Yet do I too magnify Thy name; and He maketh intercession to Thee for my sins who hath overcome ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... Poland for us. The moment is come for accomplishing that promise. The King is dead [died this very day; see if I lose time in sentimental lamentations!]—with him these grievances of Russia [our stiffness on Courland and the like] must be extinct; the rather as we [the now reigning] will lend ourselves willingly to everything that can be required of us for perfect reconcilement ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... "Its stiffness, if that's what you mean," Carroll answered with a smile. "These big conifers look as if they'd been carved, like the wooden trees in the Swiss or German toys. They're impressive in a way, but ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... anguish when I drew a stiff white amice over my head, instead of the dear old limp and wrinkled one I was used to; and when I feebly tried to push my hands through the lace meshes of an alb, that would stand with stiffness and pride, if I placed it on the floor. I would gladly have called for my old garment; but I knew that I too had to undergo the process of the new reformation; and, with much agony, I desisted. But I drew the line at a biretta which cut my temples with ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... tedium at the camp of Compiegne, the dauphin, it is said, overtaxed his strength, and died at the age of thirty-six on the 20th of December, 1765, profoundly regretted by the bulk of the nation, who knew his virtues without troubling themselves, like the court and the philosophers, about the stiffness of his manners and his complete devotion to the cause of the clergy. The new dauphin, who would one day be Louis XVI., was still a child; the king had him brought into his closet. "Poor France!" he said sadly, "a king of fifty-five and a dauphin of eleven!" The dauphiness ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... ship they burnt her. The boys were kept in the capacity of ordinary slaves until about four years before the coming of the Essington, when Edwards died, and since that time Forbes had been unable to move in consequence of the stiffness in his legs. The scars were caused by the natives when he incurred their displeasure. One of their common modes of punishment was to take hot embers from the fire and place them on some part of his body until it was severely burned. When asked how he was treated generally, he replied ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... parlours and porches (the rented chairs always seen at Cherryvale parties and funerals) were one moment starkly exposed and the next moment hidden by light-hued skirts and by stiffly held, Sunday-trousered dark legs. For a while that stiffness which inevitably introduces a formal gathering of youngsters held them unnaturally bound. But just as inevitably it wore away, and by the time the folding chairs were drawn up round the little table where "hearts" were to be played, voices were babbling, and laughter ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... up bamboo for mast so that we shall be able to fix up a sail when favourable, we proceeded on our way to cross the Barrier. We have now 360 miles to travel geographically to get to Hut Point. Mr. Evans complained to me while outside the tent that he had a stiffness at the back of his legs behind the knees. I asked him what he thought it was, and he said could not account for it, so if he dont soon get rid of it I am to have a look and see if anything is the matter with him, as I know from what I have ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... climates very necessary to keep the sun from scorching a man, they may also be serviceable to keep the rain off; most men of account maintain one, two or three roundeliers, whose office is only to attend their master's motion; they are very light but of exceeding stiffness, being for the most part made of rhinoceros hide, very decently painted and guilded with what flowers they best admire. Exactly in the midst thereof is fixed a smooth handle made of wood, by which the Roundelier doth carry it, holding it a foot or more above his master's ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... volume on the table, tugging the hair on a puckered forehead. Sometimes the depression left him, when he buckled to his work; as his mind became occupied with other things the vision of the Howff was expelled. Usually, however, the stiffness of his brains made the reading drag heavily, and he rarely attained the sufficing happiness of a student eager and engrossed. At the end of ten minutes he would be gaping across the table, and wondering what they were doing at the Howff. ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... lace, and slightly turned down on either side of the face, completed his attire. There was nothing majestic, but the very reverse, in the King's deportment, and he seemed only kept upright by the exceeding stiffness of his cumbersome clothes. With the appearance of being corpulent, he was not so in reality, and his weak legs and bent knees were scarcely able to support his frame. He always used a stick, and generally sought the additional aid of a ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... limp ease that made for rest, his body shifting now and again in the saddle, so as to change the weight and avoid stiffness. ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... offends it on the lips of Socrates, and virtue in the life of Phocion. It is well known that the Romans had to exhaust their energies in civil wars, and, corrupted by Oriental luxury, to bow their heads under the yoke of a fortunate despot, before Grecian art triumphed over the stiffness of their character. The same was the case with the Arabs: civilization only dawned upon them when the vigor of their military spirit became softened under the sceptre of the Abbassides. Art did not appear in modern Italy ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... he gave the impression of being? Audrey considered that all was lost, and she was aware of a most unpleasant feeling of helplessness and inefficiency. Then she seemed to receive inspiration and optimism from somewhere. She knew not exactly from where, but perhaps it was from the shy stiffness of the demeanour of her old acquaintance, Inspector Keeble. Moreover, the Irishman's twinkling eyes ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... monotonous in action, but Mrs. Woffington's delivery has the compass and variety of nature, and her movements are free from the stale uniformity that distinguishes artifice from art. The others seem to me to have but two dreams of grace, a sort of crawling on stilts is their motion, and an angular stiffness their repose." He then cited the most famous statues of antiquity, and quoted situations in plays where, by her fine dramatic instinct, Mrs. Woffington, he said, threw her person into postures similar to these, and of equal ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... you to broach the subject. The fact is, when I begin to talk, she gets her arms round my old neck and falls to weeping and kissing me at such a rate as makes a fool of me. If the child would only be rebellious, one could do something; but this love takes all the stiffness out of one's joints; and she tells me she never wants a husband, and she will be content to live with me all her life. The saints know it isn't for my happiness to put her out of my old arms; but I can't last forever,—my old back grows weaker every ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... cottage, Feathertop strode manfully towards town. Mother Rigby stood at the threshold, well pleased to see how the sunbeams glistened on him, as if all his magnificence were real, and how diligently and lovingly he smoked his pipe, and how handsomely he walked, in spite of a little stiffness of his legs. She watched him, until out of sight, and threw a witch-benediction after her darling, when a turn of the road snatched him from ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... contain a very pleasing account of many parts of their journey.' 'The style of Madame de Sevigne,' wrote Mackintosh (Life, ii. 221), 'is evidently copied, not only by her worshipper Walpole, but even by Gray; notwithstanding the extraordinary merits of his matter, he has the double stiffness of an imitator and of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... the soprano had sung exactly to key, the alto had shrieked "Beware!" to thrilling purpose, Arkwright had shown all his old charm and vim, and the chorus had been prodigies of joyousness and marvels of lightness. Even the lovers had lost their stiffness, while the two earth-bound fairies of the night before had found so amiable a meeting point that their solos sounded, to the uninitiated, very like, indeed, a duet. The operetta was, in short, a glorious and gratifying success, both artistically ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... the inertia that some deep thought imparts to the attitude. Thus standing, she presented a living model of those ingenuous works of statuary a taste for which prevailed at that period,—works which obtained admiration for the harmony of their lines, straight without stiffness, and for the firmness of a design which did not exclude vitality. No swallow, brushing the window-panes at dusk, ever conveyed the idea of ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac
... I am turned out in this pasture because I am too old to work. Horses pass here every day drawing heavy loads, older by half a dozen years than I am, poor broken-down hacks too, most of them, while I—well, if it wasn't for a little stiffness in the joints and a giving out of wind, now and then, I can't see but what I'm as well able to travel as ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... glance. Standing there, in the fire-light of the guard-room, was the tall figure of Anthony Unziar, waiting with haughty stiffness for the appearance of ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... only working by touch, but Sam made good use of his muscles, forgetting all about his stiffness, and for quite a couple of minutes the panting and scuffling of the wrestling pair went on, till Sam found himself upon his back with the black sitting upon his chest and a pair of hands in ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... easier, freer, and more genuine than the cumbrous rhetoric, partly derived from the allegorising style of the Roman de la Rose and its followers, partly influenced by corrupt following of the re-discovered and scarcely yet understood classics, partly alloyed with Flemish and German and Spanish stiffness, of which Chastellain, Cretin, and the rest have been the frequently quoted and the rarely read exponents to students of French literature. The contents of the Marguerites, to take the order of the beautiful edition of M. Felix Frank, are as follows: Volume I. contains first a long and ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... reduce the number of words in which this more vigorous scheme of expressing degrees is allowed, we must recognize an evidence that the energy which the language had in its youth is in some measure abating, and the stiffness of age overtaking it. Still it is with us here only as it is with all languages, in which at a certain time of their life auxiliary words, leaving the main word unaltered, are preferred to inflections of this last. ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... he had a sharp tussle with the Bank of England, and displayed a toughness, stiffness, and sustained anger that greatly astonished Threadneedle Street. In the spring he had introduced a change in the mode of issuing deficiency bills, limiting the quarterly amount to such a sum as would cover the maximum ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... of you to come—though I thought you would," Miss Gibson said impulsively, as we shook hands. "You have been so sympathetic and human—both you and Dr. Thorndyke—so free from professional stiffness. My aunt went off to see Mr. Lawley directly ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... He was a concentrated force. His white body was knotted with nerves and muscles. The chances were good if—Gordon pictured it to himself—and again the horror and doubt were over him. He himself had acquired a certain stiffness and lassitude from years, and long drives in one position. He would stand no chance unarmed against a bullet. But the dog—that was another matter. The dog would make a spring like the spring of death itself, and that white leap of attack might easily cause the aim ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
... flame that flashed from it. It was a fixed gaze, which was, nevertheless, full of trouble and tumult. And, from the profound immobility of his whole body, barely agitated at intervals by an involuntary shiver, as a tree is moved by the wind; from the stiffness of his elbows, more marble than the balustrade on which they leaned; or the sight of the petrified smile which contracted his face,—one would have said that nothing living was left about Claude Frollo ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... which Mrs. Herndon ushered him to await the girl's appearance—the formal look of the old-fashioned hair-cloth furniture, the prim striped paper on the walls, the green shades at the windows, the clean rag carpet on the floor. The very stiffness chilled him, left him ill at ease. To calm his spirit he walked to a window, and stood staring out into the warm sunlight. Then he heard the rustle of Naida's skirt and turned to meet her. She was pale from her weeks of nursing, ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... locality,—as all men well versed with London are aware,—lies within one minute's walk of the top of Gray's Inn Lane. Gager, during his conference with his colleague Bunfit, had been dressed in plain black clothes; but in spite of his plain clothes he looked every inch a policeman. There was a stiffness about his limbs, and, at the same time, a sharpness in his eyes, which, in the conjunction with the locality in which he was placed, declared his profession beyond the possibility of mistake. Nor, in that locality, would he have desired to ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... world is at your feet. I dread two things for you,—that you should marry unworthily, and that you should injure your prospects in public life by an uncompromising stiffness. On the former subject I can say nothing to you. As to the latter, let me implore you to come down here before you decide upon anything. Of course you can at once accept Mr. Gresham's offer; and that is what you ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... at last, the coat repaired. Dick with difficulty concealed the growing stiffness of his shoulders, while Dolly turned up the lamp, which bluntly hinted bedtime, and Mrs. Ward successfully devoured six gapes behind her hand, but was detected in the seventh by Mr. Bopp, who glanced at the ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... dash now and then of biting sarcastic humour, we see the remains of a great and noble nature, out of which all the genial sap of humanity has been pressed by accumulated injuries. With as much elasticity of mind as stiffness of neck, every step he takes but the last is as firm as the earth he treads upon. Nothing can daunt, nothing disconcert him; remonstrance cannot move, ridicule cannot touch, obloquy cannot exasperate him: when he has not provoked them, he has been forced to bear them; ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... can tell you, about everything. There was no humbugging him. The fellows liked him because he was really so earnest about everything, and always just and fair. But he didn't look a bit like a soldier except as to his stiffness, and when the fellows who had been at Lexington heard that he was in command here they did not think he would have made much hand at it; but I tell you, he did. You never saw such a fellow ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... capable of responding except Mr. Bultitude, who dashed into the breach with an almost pathetic effort to maintain his accustomed stiffness. ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... spread out their fichus more proudly, but there is no longer that sweet flower of old-fashioned pudicity in their costume that made them resemble Holbein's virgins. They are more coquettish, more graceful. The correct style in the old days was a sort of unbending stiffness which made their infrequent smiles ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... tunes Old fellow ought to seem wise whether he really be so or not Please all who are worth pleasing; offend none Pleasures do not commonly last so long as life Polite, but without the troublesome forms and stiffness Prejudices are our mistresses Quarrel with them when they are grown up, for being spoiled Read with caution and distrust Ruined their own son by what they called loving him Secret, without being dark and mysterious Seeming inattention ...
— Widger's Quotations from Chesterfield's Letters to his Son • David Widger
... conventionalities so as not to fetter her own free spirit. It may be her mission to show the world a social order free from the forward independence and smartness of which she has been accused, and yet relieved of the dull stiffness of the older forms. It is enough now to notice that a change is going on, due to the effect of foreign society upon American women, and to express the patriotic belief that whatever forms of etiquette she may bow to, the American Girl ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the door, his sensations painful enough in the mingled tumult of suspense, hope, and fear. There was no bell, only an old-fashioned brass knocker, which, with a kind of surly stiffness, resisted his attempt to use it. He managed to wrench one knock out of it, and left it suspended ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... whom I now knew to be Lady Fitzgraham. She hardly acknowledged my look of recognition, and out of the tail of my eye I saw Connie Stapleton glance quickly at each of us in turn, as though Lady Fitzgraham's unmistakable stiffness surprised her. ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... the first splendour of their coming faded—faded imperceptibly day after day; Denton's eloquence became fitful, and lacked fresh topics of inspiration; the fatigue of their long march from London told in a certain stiffness of the limbs, and each suffered from a slight unaccountable cold. Moreover, Denton became aware of unoccupied time. In one place among the carelessly heaped lumber of the old times he found a rust-eaten spade, and with this he made a fitful attack on ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... nerves and irrepressible life—no hint of arriving at her typical American grace in the most usual way. She was pretty without emphasis and as might almost have been said without point, and your fancy that a little stiffness would have improved her was at once qualified by the question of what her softness would have made of it. There was nothing in her, however, to confirm the implication that she had rushed about the deck of a Cunarder with a newspaper-man. She was ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... the strange camp was astir, and one by one the boys painfully crawled out, to try to get some of the stiffness from their limbs ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster
... boundary lines or at buildings, the taller ones should be used at the back, but the semi-tall ones—say three feet in height—should occasionally be brought well toward the front in order to avoid stiffness and to add irregularity to the general effect. If a house or fence is at the back, flowering vines like the Clematis paniculata, or C. flammula, or any annual flowering vine, may be used here and there. In detached beds which may be seen from all sides, the taller ...
— Making a Garden of Perennials • W. C. Egan
... croaking tale? If they bloomed on with the same crimson flaunt of color, though the rockers beneath them had grown warped and the body of the chair creaked and groaned every time one ventured to sit in it, why should she not ignore the stiffness which the years seemed to bring to her joints, the complaints which her body threatened every now and again to utter, and fare on herself, a hardy perennial bravely facing ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund |
