"Pliable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the home of Warren Hastings. Four delightful years of school life followed. It was a pleasure to me to find that there was no extra charge for birches. The implement that was used to conserve discipline was not made out of the pliable birch tree, but of a very solid piece of leather with some stiffening to it—I fancy of steel—called a "ferrula." This was applied to the palm of the hand, and not to where my old friend the birch found its billet. As the same ferrula not only lasted a long time without detriment to itself, but, ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... was only a dream." His voice fell into real seriousness as he said this; then went back to mock seriousness, after a pause. "However, I am bound to say that 'inexcusable dishonesty' is a strong expression. I should suggest 'pliable conscience,' always keeping in view the motive of ... Yes, Pelides dear, but I have at present nothing for you in the form of cake or sugar. Explain yourself somehow, to the best of your ability." For Achilles had suddenly ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... northern area, the weavers making use of a loom frame, sheds, healds, batten and an improvised shuttle. The Navajo Indians are the most skilled weavers north of Mexico and a description of their weaving is fairly typical of this area. As the warps are of soft pliable threads they must of necessity be stretched between two beams. These are suspended vertically if the weaving is to be of any great size, the distance between them being that of the proposed length of the blanket ...
— Aboriginal American Weaving • Mary Lois Kissell
... Asia Minor. He records in his twenty-fifth year that already he had crossed Amanus seven times; and in the year succeeding we find him again entering Cilicia and marching to Tarsus to unseat its prince and put another more pliable in his room. Since, apparently, he never used Cilicia as a base for further operations in force beyond Taurus, being content with a formal acknowledgment of his majesty by the Prince of Tabal, one is forced to conclude that he invaded the land for its own sake. Nearly three ...
— The Ancient East • D. G. Hogarth
... for harbouring them, but their presence is like to interfere with my projects in my own family. My simple cousin of Orleans hath barely seen this damsel, and I venture to prophesy that the sight of her is like to make him less pliable in the matter of ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... of feature could but have rendered less quaint, less powerful, and less attractive the strangely winsome face. It was only the mouth which he did not feel satisfied with it added character to the face, but he somehow felt that it betokened a nature not easily led, not so gentle and pliable as he could have wished. It shut so very firmly and the under lip was a little thinner and straighter than the other and receded a little from it, giving the impression that Erica had borne much suffering, and had exercised ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... large supply of lumber, which is cut and sawed, dragged to the rivers, and brought down, by the natives. This lumber is very useful for houses and buildings, and for the construction of small and large vessels. Many very straight thick trees, light and pliable, are found, which are used as masts for ships and galleons. Consequently, vessels of any size may be fitted with masts from these trees, made of one piece of timber, without its being necessary to splice them or make them of different ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... and pliable to every new emergency—it may be, too pliable; and her system of justice ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... everybody on this coast. The best made cost 340 dollars, or about sixty guineas, and fifty pounds is not at all an uncommon price to pay, though the inferior kind may be had for two pounds. Those ordinarily worn by the gentlemen here cost from twenty to thirty pounds each, but they are so light, pliable, and elastic that they will wear for ever, wash like a pocket-handkerchief, do not get burnt by the sun, and can be rolled up and sat upon—in fact, ill-treated in any way you like—without fear of their breaking, tearing, or getting out of shape. For the yacht, however, where so many hats ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... to steel; the steel softened and his nerves became pliable as leather; gripping his hands he gratefully found them supple, and taking out knife and pliers he went to work on ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... care should be taken to keep the hose soft and pliable, and to prevent its being affected by mildew. After being used, in order to dry them equally they should be hung up by the centre, with the two ends hanging down, until half dry. They should then be taken down and rubbed over with ...
— Fire Prevention and Fire Extinction • James Braidwood
... agricultural methods under British management, and even by the use of machinery for rolling tea and for firing tea by currents of hot air. Indian laborers now supersede the Chinese workmen, who were not found sufficiently pliable in adapting ...
— Tea Leaves • Francis Leggett & Co.
... dark, with a talent for keeping every one right and sacrificing herself on all hands; neither was she tall and fair and handsome, with manners petulant and somewhat haughty; but she had one quality which is rather coming into fashion among heroines—namely, pliable affections. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... and undergraduates, mustered in New College quadrangle, and were drilled in the Newe Parkes (the Parks of our day) to the number of four hundred, "in a very decent arraye, and it was delightsome to behold the forwardnesse of so many proper yonge gentlemen so intent, docile, and pliable to their business." Town and gown took opposite sides: the citizens were, most of them, ready to support the Parliament, or the King and Parliament, but not the King against the Parliament. Long before the Civil War began there were in Oxford ...
— The Life and Times of John Wilkins • Patrick A. Wright-Henderson
... his father. He did not know what to reply. His mind was still in the pliable state, and he found that he was being infected by his father's passion. But he had been taught at Rumpell's to believe in Invention, in Progress by the Development of Machinery, and so his mind reeled a little under this sudden onslaught on ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... composed of a series of cartilaginous or gristly rings connected together by softer tissues. These rings are not entire, but are completed behind by soft tissues including muscle. It follows that this tube is pliable and extensible—a very important provision, especially when large movements of the neck are made, during vigorous exercise, and also ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills
... the origin of language; JOHNSON. 'It must have come by inspiration. A thousand, nay, a million of children could not invent a language. While the organs are pliable, there is not understanding enough to form a language; by the time that there is understanding enough, the organs are become stiff. We know that after a certain age we cannot learn to pronounce a new language. No foreigner, who comes to England when advanced in life, ever ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... and breathed it all in, enjoying the beautiful sunshine and balmy air impregnated with the pungent odour of the ruins. And there, without thinking of anything in particular, without even phrasing inwardly about something, I dreamed of coats of mail as pliable as gloves, of shields of buffalo hide soaked with sweat, of closed visors through which shot bloodthirsty glances, of wild and desperate night attacks with torches that set fire to the walls, and hatchets that mutilated the bodies; and of Louis XI, of ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert
... bed of fir-boughs. It was perhaps a couple of inches in diameter and heavy, because it was green. Silently, cautious of a twig snapped, she began with her fingers to strip the branch, tough and pliable. Then the limb must be cut into a length which would make it a club to be used in a cramped space. She found a bit of stone, hard granite, which had scaled from the walls and which had a rough edge. With this, working many a quiet hour, she at last cut in two the fir-bough. She ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... element in education as gymnastics, and, strange as it may sound, has an equal share in effecting the perfection of both body and mind. The man who devotes his attention exclusively to music will, if he be of a violent disposition, lose his savage sternness at first; he will become gentle and pliable as metal in the fire. But at last his courage will disappear too; his passionate temper will have changed into irritability, and he will be of little worth as a warrior, the calling and character most desired in your country. If, on the other hand, he confines himself to gymnastics only, he ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... from the ducal accounts, which are eloquent with information about the creators of all this mimic pomp. About six sous a day was the wage earned by a painter, while the plumbers received eight. These latter were called upon to coax pliable lead into all sorts of shapes, often ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... run, and, as he ran, some mocked, others threatened, and some cried after him to return; and, among those that did so, there were two that resolved to fetch him back by force. The name of one was Obstinate, and the other Pliable. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... long-bow, kept their bows in their cases until the rain ceased, and then took them out dry, and in perfect condition; besides which, even if the strings of the long-bows had been wetted, they could not have been materially injured, as they were thin and pliable, while those of the cross-bows were so thick and unpliable that they could not be tightened or slackened at pleasure. In after-days this defect in the cross-bow was removed, but it existed in full force in 1346. When the battle began, the Italian quarrel ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... fortunately, was still pliable and susceptible, still unalarmed and frank. It seemed that he had lost money again—this time to Jack Ruthven; and Selwyn's teeth remained sternly interlocked as, bit by bit, the story came out. But in the telling the boy was not quite as frank as he might have been; and Selwyn supposed he ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... increase in size and become confluent, causing an appearance resembling some varieties of coral. The affected bone may be readily incised with a knife, the cut surface appearing finely porous. This porous area is soft, pliable, and yields easily to the pressure of the finger. It has been shown by chemical analysis that the bone of an osteoporotic horse, when compared with that of a normal horse, shows a reduction in the amount ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... a faded, subdued little woman, sat opposite him and contributed to the conversation twittering little broken phrases of assent. Her life had been made up of scenes like this. She was of the sweet and pliable type, which, with the best intentions in the world, has made ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... sell those?" asked Bill, pointing toward the moccasins. The Indian regarded them thoughtfully, and again the toes wriggled comfortably beneath the pliable moose-skin covering. Bill ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... too pliable for any great solace from his foot, but he was not disappointed; he had expected little, and his thoughts were elsewhere. Rising, he permitted his nose to follow his troubled eyes, with the result that it touched the rim of the last wafer ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington
... love with goodness, whereof Count Constantine was not an example: so she set her face another way, soon discovering that there may be fragility in goodness. And now first her imagination conceived the hero who was to subdue her. Could Prince Marko be he, soft as he was, pliable, a docile infant, burning to please her, enraptured in obeying?—the hero who would wrestle with her, overcome and hold her bound? Siegfried could not be dreamed in him, or a Siegfried's baby son-in-arms. She caught a glorious image of the woman rejecting him and his rival, and it ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... thus crowned his noble efforts, which had continued unceasingly through ten years of self-imposed privation. India-rubber was now seen to be capable of being adapted to at least five hundred uses. It could be made "as pliable as kid, tougher than ox-hide, as elastic as whalebone, or as rigid as flint." But, as too often happens, his great discovery enriched neither Goodyear nor his family. It soon gave employment to sixty thousand artisans, and annually produced articles in ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... determined Knight. But the Knight would leave more than mere travel stains behind, in the scented waters of the bath! He would reappear clothed and in his right mind. A good meal and a flagon of Italian wine would further improve that mind, mellowing it and rendering it pliable and easy to convince; though truly it passed comprehension why the Knight should need convincing, or of what! Even more incomprehensible was it, that a man wedded to Mora, not two weeks since, should of his own free will elect ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... elk, a bit of tobacco. Every Indian carries his individual medicine, and his medicine is good or bad according to his success. If he finds a feather at wrong angle in his path, his medicine is bad for that day. The Indian fasts and dances and chants, using his mind, his spirit, and his body as pliable instruments in the making of his prayer. He finds in the veritable exhaustion of his body the spirit path made clear for his dreams, until the very stars seem as the eyes of the gods, and the sighing of the ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon
... to construct a theory of the universe they commenced by postulating an arche—a first principle or element out of which, by a vital process, all else should be produced. "Accordingly, whatever seemed the most subtle or pliable, as well as universal element in the mass of the visible world, was marked as the seminal principle whose successive developments and transformations produced all the rest."[402] With this seminal principle the living, animating principle seems to ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... wrote to thee about her while she seemed but human. In my hours of sadness, not only her beautiful form, but her very voice bent over me. How girlish in the gracefulness of her lofty form! how pliable in her majesty! what composure at my petulance and reproaches! what pity in her reproofs! Like the air that angels breathe in the metropolitan temple of the Christian world, her soul at every season preserved ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... and the skins found in excellent condition. These were then taken out, and grease and oil worked into them until they were pliable. The thick parts of the hides had been previously cut out, so that they could be used for the soles of contemplated boots and shoes, which they soon ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... clear the doorway and still leave free passage for the air which was being pumped into it, he laid the hose carefully in a slide- covered groove in the edge of the door. The hose did not seem to be quite large enough to fill the groove, and the fellow took something soft and pliable from a pocket and wrapped ...
— Boy Scouts in a Submarine • G. Harvey Ralphson
... will present itself as to the magnitude of this net gain in subordination, or this net loss in self-possession. A doubt may be permitted as to whether the common man in the countries of the Imperial coalition, e.g., will, as the net outcome of this war experience, be in a perceptibly more pliable frame of mind as touches his obligations toward his betters and subservience to the irresponsible authority exercised by the various governmental agencies, than he was at the outbreak of the war. At that time, there is reason to believe, there was ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... the oldest known arrangement of a crown-wheel escapement in a clock. R is the crown wheel or balance wheel acting upon the pallets P and P', which form part of the verge V. This verge is suspended as lightly as possible upon a pliable cord C and carries at its upper end two arms, B and B, called adjusters, forming the balance. Two small weights D D, adapted to movement along the rules or adjusters serve to regulate the duration of a vibration. In Fig. 148 we have the arrangement ...
— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous
... quart of whole-wheat flour mix a large cup of must be very stiff, and rendered soft and pliable by thorough kneading and afterward pounding with a mallet for at least half an hour in the following manner: Pound the dough oat flat, and until of the same thickness throughout; dredge lightly with flour; ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... Archbishop Trolle could be relied on to offer much more strenuous resistance than the prelate talked of as his successor. But the very reason which induced the pope to favor Trolle seemed to the king sufficient ground for supporting his opponent. It was precisely because of Johannes Magni's pliable and compromising temper that Gustavus would have rejoiced to see the mitre on his head. He was determined that Trolle, at any rate, should not wear it. So he sat down, as soon as Adrian's letter came, and wrote a warm reply to the College of Cardinals in Rome. "If our Most Holy Father," ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... was about as easy to handle as a rogue rhinoceros, but away from it—and especially if underground—he became more like a pliable elephant. All his bones dropped out through his feet, as he described it to Daisy. So now he submitted miserably as Fay surveyed him up and down, switched off his blinking headlamp ("That coalminer caper is corny, Gussy.") ...
— The Creature from Cleveland Depths • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... remembered very well; yet there was a difference; not grief had changed them, but life had. The brow had all its fine chiselling and high purity of expression; but now there sat there a hopelessness, or rather a want of hopefulness, that a child's face never knows. The mouth was sweet and pliable as ever, but now often patience and endurance did not quit their seat upon the lip even when it smiled. The eye, with all its old clearness and truthfulness, had a shade upon it that, nine years ago, only fell at the bidding ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... renewed toil. Meanwhile the women also worked at a cable—the largest, the longest, the strongest that Indian hands and teeth had ever made. Scores of them gathered and prepared the cedar fibre; scores of them plaited, rolled and seasoned it; scores of them chewed upon it inch by inch to make it pliable; scores of them oiled and worked, oiled and worked, oiled and worked it into a sea-resisting fabric. And still the sea crept up, and up, and up. It was the last day; hope of life for the tribe, of land for the world, was doomed. Strong hands, self-sacrificing ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson
... are obtained from the front and lateral aspects of the thigh or upper arm, the skin in those regions being pliable and comparatively free ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... quality with which nature had generously endowed her. But the girl was not really bad. She was essentially nervous and craved excitement, so she had drifted into this sort of life because no counteracting influence of good had been injected into her pliable disposition. None, that is, until the friendly editor for whom she worked, anticipating her final downfall, had sought to save her by sending her to a country newspaper. He talked to the girl artist very frankly before ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... are an object of no small consideration. The natives dress them with their wool on, to such great perfection, as to render them more pliable than our buff. They dye them different colours, and cloath themselves therewith. To the French they supply the place of the best blankets, being at the same time very warm and ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... plank her upon the diagonal principle, using three thicknesses of comparatively thin plank, for I had no means by which to steam a single layer of planking of the necessary thickness and so render it pliable enough to bend to the correct shape; while I believed that by using thin plank I could bend it to shape unsteamed. I am getting somewhat ahead of my yarn, however; for the progress outlined above represented nearly three ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... towards the toil of living twenty-four hours longer by the comparative ease with which he found himself going through the usually painful process of bestirring his rusty joints (stiffened by the very rest and sleep that should have made them pliable) and putting them in a condition to bear his weight upon the floor. Nor was he absolutely disheartened by the idea of those tonsorial, ablutionary, and personally decorative labors which are apt to become so intolerably irksome to an old gentleman, ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Romance of the Rose, but men real enough to stop you on the road and to hold your attention. Scene after scene follows, in which are pictured many of our own spiritual experiences. There is the Slough of Despond, into which we all have fallen, out of which Pliable scrambles on the hither side and goes back grumbling, but through which Christian struggles mightily till Helpful stretches him a hand and drags him out on solid ground and bids him go on his way. Then come Interpreter's house, the Palace Beautiful, the Lions in the way, ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... on the part of his usually pliable mother only seemed to infuriate the young man. He walked up to her, and seizing her by ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... and his own signature, with the date of 6th month 4th, 1765. Beneath it is the entry of John Warder and his father, Joseph; for Jack had also been removed from Dove's dominion because of what my father said to Joseph, a man always pliable, and advised to do what larger men thought good. Thus it came about that my friend Jack and I were by good fortune kept in constant relation. Our schoolmate, the small maid so slight of limb, so dark and tearful, was soon sent away to live with an aunt in Bristol, on the Delaware, having become ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... special instrument is made for the purpose of searching for such objects, but one can be easily devised with which the tuner can feel all over the sound board, and remove such articles as well as dust and dirt. Secure a piece of rattan or good pliable hickory, and draw it down to the width of half an inch, thin enough to bend easily, and long enough to reach anywhere under the stringing or metal plate. By putting a cloth over this stick you can remove anything ...
— Piano Tuning - A Simple and Accurate Method for Amateurs • J. Cree Fischer
... out on the quarters of the yard, and made a bunt nearly as square as the mizzen royal yard. Beside this difficulty, the yard over which we lay was cased with ice, the gaskets and rope of the foot and leech of the sail as stiff and hard as a piece of leather hose, and the sail itself about as pliable as though it had been made of sheets of sheathing copper. It blew a perfect hurricane, with alternate blasts of snow, hail, and rain. We had to fist the sail with bare hands. No one could trust himself to mittens, for ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... was so steep, that we walked on the lower edge of the hill, to meet the coach, that went upon a road higher on the hill. Our walk was not long, nor unpleasant: the longer I walk, the less I feel its inconvenience. As I grow warm, my breath mends, and I think my limbs grow pliable. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... still perhaps with some relic (such as a single eye-glass) of the officer and gentleman, they sprawl in palm-leaf verandahs and entertain an island audience with memoirs of the music-hall. And there are still others, less pliable, less capable, less fortunate, perhaps less base, who continue, even in these isles of plenty, to ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... ceased living; the air was heavy and laden with a resinous, dreamy vapour—magnetic, intoxicating. Such a night plays havoc with some women. Under these stifled conditions she is no longer normal; she becomes weak, pliable—she no longer reasons; she craves excitement, deceit, misadventure, confession—quarrels—jealousy—love—stringing their nerves to a tension and breeding a certain melancholy; it tortures by its suppression; a flash of lightning or a drenching ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... discrimination at all. Once you wanted to adopt Sam, now Max. Both as pliable as ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... the visualization, of his obsession. It was over suddenly, with a massing of form and sound; Lee and Savina Grove were pitilessly drowned in light. Crushed together in the crowded, slowly emptying aisle, her pliable body, under its wrap, followed ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... of being salted down with the rest, in the ordinary way whalers preserve them for the furriers; so, now, all that remained for the brothers to do was to make the skins limp and pliable. ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... into which he was to be squeezed and forced like a last into a boot; and he was a hard last, which often would not go farther than the leg, and had to be hammered and knocked the rest of the way, where others more pliable glided smoothly down ...
— One of Life's Slaves • Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie
... Cecilia Halkett herself had so high-bred an air, for Cecilia had not her fineness of feature and full quick eyes, of which the thin eyelids were part of the expression. And Cecilia sobbed, snifed, was patched about the face, reddish, bluish. This girl was pliable only to service, not to grief: she did her work for three-and-twenty hours, and fell to her sleep of one hour like a soldier. Lord Romfrey could not recollect anything in a young woman that had taken him so much as the girl's tossing out of the rug and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the enemy, who doth what he may to suppress the bruit thereof, and yet comforteth himself with the hope that between the factions and partialities nourished by his industry, and musters among the towns, especially in Holland and Zeeland (where he is persuaded to find some pliable to a reconcilement) and the disorders and misgovernment of our people, there will be yet occasion offered him to make his profit and advantage. I find that the gentleman hath here many friends indifferently persuaded of his innocency, notwithstanding the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... at the best what is it? why care about it, think about it, or remind us that it must befall us? Would you take the same trouble, when you see my hair entwined with ivy, to make me remember that, although the leaves are green and pliable, the stem is fragile and rough, and that before I go to bed I shall have many knots and entanglements to extricate? Let me have them; but let me not hear of them ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... their own father, of whom they always speak with the greatest veneration, asked them to lend him fifty francs for a month, they would say to him as they do to every one else: 'We are rather cramped just now; but see that rascal B——.' And that rascal B——, who is the most pliable tool in existence, will, providing father N—— offers unquestionable security, lend the old gentleman his son's money at from twelve to fifteen per cent. interest, ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... no great poet is so uniformly self-conscious as he. We should say of Shakespeare that he had the power of transforming himself into everything; of Milton, that he had that of transforming everything into himself. Dante is individual rather than self-conscious, and he, the cast-iron man, grows pliable as a field of grain at the breath of Beatrice, and flows away in waves of sunshine. But Milton never let himself go for a moment. As other poets are possessed by their theme, so is he self-possessed, ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... in Pax, "Poker'll do for one. He'd be a capital member. Long and thin as a literary c'racter ought to be, and pliable too. We could make a'most anything of him, except a fire-screen or a tablecloth. Then there's Big ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... for a library, speaking of the book as to its wearing qualities and as to the comfort of its users, is printed on paper which is thin and pliable, but tough and opaque. Its type is not necessarily large, but is clear-cut and uniform, and set forth with ink that is black, not muddy. It is well bound, the book opening easily at any point. The threads ...
— A Library Primer • John Cotton Dana
... When Sweeping—Wet the broom before starting to sweep; it makes it more pliable and less hard on the carpet's pile and also ...
— Fowler's Household Helps • A. L. Fowler
... accusation of infidelity as even Fenelon himself could have been. They were men of irreproachable character, the majority religious by nature and scholarly by disposition, and they found in their new field scope for an increased piety and a more enlarged benevolence. Their infinitely pliable philosophy expanded amiably to suit the requirements of any and every sect. The Rev. W. H. Furness, of Philadelphia, though not thoroughly identified with the movement, yet, in several volumes published at that time, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... stripped off and sold for plates. They are carried to distant towns, and stored up for long periods, to form breakfast and dinner plates, and the people in the country use hardly anything else. Plates are formed of them by sewing them together, when required; and they become as pliable as leather, even after being kept for a year or more, by having a little water sprinkled over them. They are long, wide, and tough, and well suited to the purpose. All kinds of food are put upon them, and served up to the family and guests. The cattle do not eat ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... fairly shouted at this change, for slight though it was, it worked magic, and the queen Atta was a queen no more, but a miniature, straddle-legged aeroplane, pushed into position, and overrun by a crowd of mechanics, putting the finishing touches, tightening the wires, oiling every pliable crevice. A Medium came along, tugged at a leg and the obliging little plane lifted it for inspection. For three minutes this kept up, and then the plane became a queen and moved restlessly. Without warning, as if some irresponsible mechanic ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... preexistent civilizations. The first characteristic of this kind is the abundance of outward knowledge. In the pursuit of wealth, the ocean, the desert, the isles of the sea have been ransacked for commodities to gratify the desires of man, and, in order that nature may be pliable for the same purpose in the hands of the artisan, its laws have been studied with the greatest success; the bowels of the earth, the depths of the air, the prison of the arctic seas, have all been subject to the same strict scrutiny in ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... his hands to his ears, and ran on with a cry of Life! Life! The friends of his wife, too, came out to see him run, and as he went, some were heard to mock him, some to use threats, and there were two who set off to fetch him back by force, the names of whom were Obstinate and Pliable. Now, by this time, the man had gone a good way off, but at last they came up ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... she commanded, between laughter and vexation. "I don't care if you do hate dinner parties. I must have them sometimes. I love to see people enjoying themselves as they all did tonight, except that odious Mrs Norton, who doesn't count. You're not pliable enough. That's what's the matter with you. But if I live to a hundred and twenty you'd never make a hermit out ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... as I used to, on that score. He may be rough-built, but moods cluster thick about him, like butterflies on a shelf of broken rock. And he is both pliable and responsive. I can shake him, when in the humor, by the mere telling of a story. I can control his color, I can excite him and exalt him, and bring him to the verge of tears, if I care to, by the ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... species of rhinoceros—two black, or of a dark colour; and two of a whitish hue. The black is supposed to be of a wilder and more morose disposition than the white. It has a peculiar upper lip, which is capable of extension, and is extremely pliable, so that it can move it from side to side, and twist it round a stick. It in this way collects its food, and carries it to its mouth, making use of it somewhat as an elephant does his trunk. The black species are very fierce, and probably, next to the ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... skin-clothing is as soft and pliable as a kid glove. The effect is not produced without patient labor, and again the teeth of the woman are brought into requisition. The raw sealskins or hides of the reindeer and bear are staked out in the sun with the skin-side up ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... tongue which has been accustomed to talk for many years in a certain way can be changed to talk in an opposite one. There may be modifications of the evil, but few real cures. But in the case of young folk it is different. They, being somewhat pliable in that member of the body, may, by seeing the fault portrayed in others, so dislike it as not to fall into it, and covet earnestly the more "excellent way" ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... unfortunately for Flora, that her mother had in her employment a girl, whose pretty feminine face and easy pliable manners, had rendered her a great favourite in the family. Whenever Flora visited the Hall, Hannah had taken charge of the baby, on whom she lavished the most endearing epithets ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... creature as we see him in the fields and in the street; he is always regarded as a simple robot, a well known mechanism. Among writers he was a moment ago a dispenser of commonplaces, among politicians he is now a pliable voter; touch him in the proper place and he responds in the desired manner. Facts are never apparent; only abstractions, long arrays of sentences on nature, Reason, and the people, on tyrants and liberty, like ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... in the constitution of the Roman family a contradiction, which must be well apprehended if one would understand the history of the great ladies of the imperial era. Rome desired woman in marriage to be the pliable instrument of the interests of the family and the state, but did not place her under the despotism of customs, of law, and of the will of man in the way done by all other states that have exacted from her complete self-abnegation. ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero
... hand enough to warrant it in assuming that the main aspirations of the nation would be realized.[94] "Absolutely impossible," was Sonnino's reply. But the Dictator Giolitti, whom Prince Buelow took into partnership, was more confident and pliable. This parliamentary leader, whose will was law in his own country and whose life-work consisted in eliminating ethical principles from politics, made known his belief—nay, his positive knowledge—that by diplomatic negotiations ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... those obsolete old brutes who used to roam about the semi-aqueous world, and live a most uncomfortable life with their great hungering stomachs and huge unsatisfied maws. The elevator itself consists of a big movable trunk—movable as is that of an elephant, but not pliable, and less graceful even than an elephant's. This is attached to a huge granary or barn; but in order to give altitude within the barn for the necessary moving up and down of this trunk—seeing that it cannot be curled gracefully to its ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... imposition on the part of society of a large number of habits of great social value. The human being, born into a world where there are many things to be learned both of natural law and human relations, is, as it were, fortunately born ignorant. He has instincts which are pliable enough to be modified into habits, and in consequence socially useful habits can be deliberately inculcated in the immature members of a society by their elders. The whole process of education is ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... an Italian commonwealth was the Greek of the time of Juvenal and the Greek of the time of Pericles, joined in one. Like the former, he was timid and pliable, artful and mean. But, like the latter, he had a country. Its independence and prosperity were dear to him. If his character were degraded by some base crimes, it was, on the other hand, ennobled by public spirit and by ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... delicious bazaar-kabobs, one of the most tasteful preparations of mutton one could well imagine. The mutton is minced to the consistency of paste and properly seasoned; it is then spread over flat iron skewers and grilled over a glowing charcoal fire; when nicely browned they are laid on a broad pliable sheet of bread in lieu of a plate, and the skewers withdrawn, leaving before the customer a dozen long flat fingers of nicely browned kabobs reposing side by side on the cake of wheaten bread-a most appetizing and digestible dish. Returning to the caravanserai, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... they attended the King, as the Custom was, to the Otan; where, while the whole Company was taken up in beholding the Dancing, and Antick Postures the Women-Royal made to divert the King, Onahal singled out Aboan, whom she found most pliable to her Wish. When she had him where she believed she could not be heard, she sigh'd to him, and softly cry'd, 'Ah, Aboan! when will you be sensible of my Passion? I confess it with my Mouth, because I would not give my Eyes the Lye; ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... adikey made of heavy white woolen cloth, a pair of thick woolen slippers made of heavy blanket cloth, and a pair of knee-high black sealskin boots with moccasin feet. The latter were hard as boards, but by rubbing the skin upon the rounded end of a stick Toby soon had them soft and pliable. ...
— Left on the Labrador - A Tale of Adventure Down North • Dillon Wallace
... Whence they derived such a sense of duty, unless immediately from God, I cannot tell; but it was wonderful to observe the expression of responsibility in their deportment, the anxious fidelity with which they discharged their unfit office, the tender patience with which they linked their less pliable impulses to the wayward footsteps of an infant, and let it guide them whithersoever it liked. In the hollow-cheeked, large-eyed girl of ten, whom I saw giving a cheerless oversight to her baby-brother, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... tools needed will not be any different. The ladle and the wiping cloths, of course will be required. A pair of pliers can be used to advantage in picking up the hot solder. The wiping cloths should receive a little more oil to keep them soft and pliable. Oil the edges of the ...
— Elements of Plumbing • Samuel Dibble
... 78). But if you are in the woods, out of reach of barrels or other civilized lumber, you can make yourself cribs by driving a square or a circle of sticks in the ground a short distance and then twining roots or pliable branches inside and outside the stakes, basket fashion, as shown in Fig. 76. When the crib is complete it may be carefully removed from the ground and used as the barrels were used by filling them with stones to support the uprights. Fig. 79 shows an ordinary portable house such as ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... be moved at all, until it were placed upon some part of the Superficies that was sensibly elevated above the height of the middle part. Now that this may be the true cause, you may try with a blown Bladder, and an exactly round Ball upon a very smooth side of some pliable body, as Horn or Quicksilver. For if the Ball be placed under a part of the Bladder which is upon one side of the middle of its pressure, and you press strongly against the Bladder, you shall find the Ball moved from the middle towards ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... took a dull knife and carefully removed all particles of fat or flesh which here and there adhered to the hide. After this was done to his satisfaction we both took hold and rubbed, and mauled and worked the skins with our hands until the hides were as soft and as pliable as flannel. Thus was the material for ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard
... improve upon the language used so early as 1832 by one of the very few critics who attempted to do justice to Bulwer-Lytton's merits. The Edinburgh Review found in him "a style vigorous and pliable, sometimes strangely incorrect, but often rising into a touching eloquence." Ten years later such was the private opinion of D.G. Rossetti, who was "inspired by reading Rienzi and Ernest Maltravers, which is indeed a splendid ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... fate of his principal, and Judaea was overrun by Babylon, Jerusalem captured, and the poor creature on the throne bound in chains to be carried to Babylon, but, as would appear, discovered by Nebuchadnezzar to be pliable enough to make it safe to leave him behind, as his vassal. His capture took place but a few months after the incident with which I am dealing now. It would appear probable that the confusion and alarm of the Babylonian assault on Egypt had led to a solemn fast ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... losing much or anything of the ungodly helps and advantages. One hardly knows whether to describe him as a bad sort of good man, or a better sort of bad man. He was like those gentlemen in the Pilgrim's Progress whom Bunyan names Mr Facing-both-ways and Mr Pliable. It depended very much on the company he was in, whether he showed a religious face or assumed the ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... edition of Cavalcaselle e Crowe, vol. viii., and to the "Life" by Vasari, whose reliability in this case the researches of the critics so well confirm. Born probably in 1408, he was already a man of mature age when Signorelli himself was a child, but his simple, pliable nature fitted him to be a follower rather than a leader, and we find him now influenced by Pier dei Franceschi, now by Signorelli, and again later by Fiorenzo di Lorenzo. If it be true that the really splendid painting of the Sistine Chapel is due to him ...
— Luca Signorelli • Maud Cruttwell
... plunged into very hot water the nail will become pliable and adapt itself to the new condition of things, thus alleviating agony to some extent. A small hole may be bored on the nail with a pointed instrument, so adroitly as not to cause pain, yet so successfully as to relieve pressure on the sensitive tissues. Free applications ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... have trouble getting the white color to disappear. In that case Buff Leghorns which are a newer breed might be tried and found more pliable material. By such methods the breeder would in three or four generations of crossing get a crude type of what he desired. Henceforth it would be a matter of patience and selection. Five to twenty years is the time usually taken to produce new breeds of ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings
... to be, that Nature is endeavoring to take a new departure in the American, and to produce a race more finely organized, more sensitive, more pliable, and of more nervous energy, than the races of Northern Europe; that this change of type involves some risk to health in the process, but promises greater results whenever the new type shall be established. I am confident that there has been within the ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... Mrs. Makebelieve would at once break out into speech sarcastic and final, or her daughter might scream reproaches and disclaimers of an equal finality. At her he did not dare to look, but the corner of his eye could see her shape stiffened against the fireplace, an attitude so different from the pliable contours to which he was accustomed in her as almost to be repellant. He would have thanked God to find himself outside the room, but how to get out of it he did not know: his self-esteem forbade anything ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... said Dot, whose nature was pliable and sympathetic, as well as fundamentally religious; "but I'm afraid I haven't thought quite as much about it as I should like to, and, if you don't mind, I should like to have a few days to think ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... the firer must be comfortable. You may, at first, feel constrained or cramped in the different positions but by continued practice the muscles and joints will become so supple and pliable that you can easily assume the correct position. Each man who is trying for a high score should utilize all available time to this end. The following photographs illustrate the correct ...
— The Plattsburg Manual - A Handbook for Military Training • O.O. Ellis and E.B. Garey
... purposes the bridges of the city long enough; when I but Potzl's writings study will I ride out and use the glorious endless imperial bridge. But this is a calumny; Potzl writes the prettiest German. Perhaps not so pliable as the mine, but in many details much better. Excuse you these ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... here interposed. When his wife's temper was aroused she was liable to be rash and unreasonable. He thought if they could but get rid of Wallace they could perhaps coax Violet into a more pliable frame ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... troops can only pass in single file, and the climate is very moist and rainy. The inhabitants are armed with long lances, having stone heads about an ell long, which have two edges as sharp as razors, and they are defended by pliable shields which cover their whole bodies. They are extremely nimble, and give signals to each other by loud whistlings, which echo among the rocks with inconceivable shrillness. Their province is named Tiltepeque[2]; which, after its submission, was confided to the charge of a soldier named Ojeda. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... Talleyrand have more than once regretted that Madame Chevalier was not ordered to enter into the conspiracy against Paul (whose inconsistency and violence they foresaw would make his reign short), that she might have influenced the conspirators to fix upon a successor more pliable and less scrupulous, and who would have suffered the Cabinet of St. Cloud to dictate to the Cabinet ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... should find these rambles dull, but that their utter lack of interest amuses me. I will be honest with the reader, though, and any Master Pliable is free to forsake me at this point; for I cannot promise to be really livelier than my walk. There is a Slough of Despond in full view, and not a Delectable Mountain to be seen, unless you choose so to call the high ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... of a black Buprestis (B. octoguttata) in the old stumps of pine-trees left standing in the ground, hard outside but soft within, where the wood is as pliable as tinder. In this yielding substance, which has a resinous aroma, the larvae spend their life. For the metamorphosis they leave the unctuous regions of the centre and penetrate the hard wood, where they hollow out oval recesses, slightly flattened, measuring ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... said to be of a middle nature betwixt man and angel, as were demons thought to be of old, of intelligent studious spirits, and light changeable bodies (like those called astral), somewhat of the nature of a condensed cloud, and best seen in twilight. These bodies be so pliable through the subtlety of the spirits that agitate them, that they can make them appear or disappear at pleasure. Some have bodies or vehicles so spongeous, thin, and defecat [pure] that they are fed by only sucking into some fine spirituous liquors, that pierce ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... paring off all the little particles of flesh or tissue that remained. As fast as a section of hide was stripped it was thickly covered with salt and rolled up. This is the preliminary step. Afterwards the skin, in many places an inch in thickness, is pared down to a condition of pliable thinness. This work requires hours or even days of hard labor by many skilful wielders of the paring knife. The skulls and many of the bones are saved when an animal is being preserved for a museum, but when we arrived they had not yet ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... Constitution, as indicated by a capacious chest, much width through the heart, a broad loin, a full, clear eye, and an active carriage. (5) Downward and yet outward spring and open-spaced ribs, covered with a soft, pliable ...
— Pratt's Practical Pointers on the Care of Livestock and Poultry • Pratt Food Co.
... taught them, and wrote parts to suit their qualities. At Pisa he attended as a stranger the meeting of the Arcadian Academy, and at its close attracted all attention to himself by his clever improvisation. He was in truth a ready-witted man, pliable, full of resource, bred half a valet, half a Roman graeculus. Alfieri saw more of Europe than Goldoni. France, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, England, Spain, all parts of Italy he visited with restless haste. From land to land he flew, seeking no society, enjoying nothing, dashing from one inn ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... and I stand in need of no deliberation to enable me to answer you in the negative. You took me up a raw and inexperienced boy, capable of being moulded to any form you pleased. But you have communicated to me volumes of experience in a very short period. I am no longer irresolute and pliable. What is the power you retain over my fate I am unable to discover. You may destroy me; but you cannot make me tremble. I am not concerned to enquire, whether what I have suffered flowed from you by design ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... was in vain. They, too, succumbed to the inexorable law of Uniformity. That law was liberal in one respect. It did not insist that the stove-pipe form should rule inflexibly. It admitted several variations, including wide-awakes, pliable felts, and that little, squat, lackadaisical, round-crown, narrow-brimmed thing worn by the Prince of Wales in the photographs taken of him and the Princess at Sandringham. But this has come to be the rule: that hats shall no longer represent distinct nationalities; that they shall be interchangeable ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... artistic taste and style and more becoming than the, tightly fitting store suits of a "Broadway dude" he had once "gazed upon." This suit that he was so proud of consisted of a hunting shirt of soft, pliable deer skin, ornamented with long fringes of buckskin dyed a bright vermillion or copperas. The trousers were made of the same material and ornamented with the same kind of fringes and porcupine quills of ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... Tibetan boots is mainly in the quality or texture of the soles; for instance, the Lhassa boots have finer, softer, and more elastic soles than those made in Sigatz (usually written Shigatze), which are quite hard and stiff, and supposed to wear out much sooner than the more pliable ones of the sacred city. Then there are some with leather soles, made specially for wet or snowy regions, and these when greased over are quite waterproof. Two kinds of these are in use, one with pointed and curled toes for cutting one's way into the snow, the other of the usual shape. Men and women ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... elaborate worsted-work that adorns the hem of his gala-pair) an inch or two above the ankle. His feet are thrust into a pair of botas de potro, or colt's-foot boots, manufactured from the hide of a colt's fore-leg, which he strips off whole, chafes in his hand until it becomes pliable and soft, sews up at the lower extremity,—and puts on, the best riding-boot that the habitable world can show. Add a monstrous spur to each heel of this chaussure, and you will have fully equipped the worthy ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... Superiority, I think there will be the fairest Prospect of bringing this great Contest to a happy Conclusion the next year.—Altho' the Enemy have gaind the Possession of Charleston, they have not succeeded to their Wishes in that Quarter. They do not find the People so pliable as they flatterd themselves they should. Notwithstanding Cornwallis' boasting Letter to Lord George, of "a compleat Victory obtaind the 16th Instant by His Majesties Troops under my Command, over the rebel southern Army," that brave Army checkd the Progress of the Troops under his Command ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... much longer and be made tough and pliable, by dipping for a minute or two, in a pail of boiling suds, once a week. A carpet will wear longer if swept with a broom treated in this way. Leave your broom bottom side ...
— Things Mother Used To Make • Lydia Maria Gurney
... cylindrical basket, very neatly plaited of thin and very pliable strips of rattan, is used for carrying the few articles which a man takes with him in travelling — a little rice and tobacco, a spare waist cloth, a sleeping mat, perhaps a second mat of palm leaves used as a protection against rain, a roll of dried banana leaves ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... and tried to fall in with it, but she soon detected that his mind was not pliable enough for the game. She was compelled at last to dismiss him, though she accomplished the ungracious ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... study this by a comparison of the zodiacal sign, Capricorn, as set forth in the "Light of Egypt," Vol. 1, wherein we read: "This sign signifies the knees, and represents the first principle in the trinity of locomotion, viz., the joints, bending, pliable, movable." The analogy is perfect. The soul, which has been pliant, bending to material forces, now reverses this action, and bows the knee in awe and reverence to the higher powers of its being. When refracted ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... as Naida laughed, and produced from the pouch at the side of her gauzy dress four pliable discs of a substance which ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... free, flexible, and light in movement, not heavy or labored. Never work with articulation; play with it, but let it be distinct and definite. Make no effort of face, lips, or tongue; let all be free and pliable. Show no effort or contraction of the face in sustaining voice or pronouncing words. In other words, never sing on the outside of the face. Mouth and face must be left free and pliable for the outline of form and for expression. Use words ...
— The Renaissance of the Vocal Art • Edmund Myer
... a home-thrust, and for the moment threw the little casuist off the track. She carefully folded up the idea, and laid it away on the inner shelves of her mind till she could think more about it. Pliable as she was to all outward appearances, the child had her own still, interior world, where all her little notions and opinions stood up crisp and fresh, like flowers that grow in cool, shady places. If anybody too rudely assailed a thought or suggestion she ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... offer of a friend of his to sit up with us that night, whom I begged to pay particular attention to the directions, and to watch the proper times the medicines were to be given. This he did with great care, and my dear doctor was very pliable in taking them as they were offered. As for me I was so deeply engaged with the concerns of his soul, I was unfit for ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... statement, or at least to abate it. The other man was sorry, but he simply could not do it. He stood ready to concede almost anything else, but on this particular point he was adamant; in fact, adamant was in comparison with him as pliable as chewing taffy. Much as he regretted it, he could not modify his assertion by so much as one brief jot or one small tittle without violating the consistent principles of a consistent life. He felt that way about it. All his family felt that ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... pliable, a. flexible, pliant, supple, limber, lithesome, lithe, flexile, malleable; irresolute, yielding, facile, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... chalk That yields your outline to the air's embrace, Half-softened by a halo's pearly gloom: Down to the crisp imperious steel, so sure To cut its one confided thought clean out Of all the world. But marble!—'neath my tools More pliable than jelly—as it were Some clear primordial creature dug from depths In the earth's heart, where itself breeds itself. And whence all baser substance may be worked; Refine it off to air, you may—condense it Down to the diamond;—is ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... boot comes half-way up the calf of the leg and the trouser is tucked into its top. They are without laces and pull on to the foot like the American "rubber boot." They are made of heavy, undyed leather, singularly soft and pliable, and thoroughly waterproof. The soles are shod with hobnails, but the boot is not very heavy. We often noted dead Germans who were bootless, their footgear having been appropriated by some victorious Frenchman, who had left near-by ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... body. It soon became accustomed to the routine, then hardened. His mind was less pliable. But that, too, was undergoing a change. He found that the topics of conversation that used to interest his little crowd on the street corner in Chippewa were not of much interest, here. There were boys from every part of the great country. ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... were to ask Leschetizky about the 'Leschetizky Method,' he would probably laugh and tell you he has no method, or he would tell you his 'method' consists of only two things—firm fingers and pliable wrist. ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... air was constantly passing through, though not in any very great quantity; but it does not take much to make itself felt when the air is at a temperature of about -75deg.F., and when one is working with bare fingers. There were always some degrees of frost here. In order to keep the lashings pliable while they were being put on, they used a Primus lamp on a stone close to where they were working. I often admired their patience when I stood watching them; I have seen them more than once working barehanded by the hour together ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... command, permits or commands them to come back to earth, and resume for a time their own body; for when they are exhumed, their bodies are found entire, their blood vermilion and fluid, and their limbs supple and pliable. ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... station had long exceeded the supply, but the operator was able to furnish the length of bale rope Tisdale asked of him. From the office door, where he had curiously followed to see the line put to use, he watched the traveler secure two pliable branches of hemlock, of the same size, which he brought to the station platform, and, having stripped them of needles, bent into ovals. Then, laying aside one, he commenced to weave half of the rope net-wise, filling the space in the frame he ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... but finally she had made them out of thin plates of gold and attached them in place by means of stitches through tiny holes bored in the metal. Gold is the most common metal in the Land of Oz and is used for many purposes because it is soft and pliable. ...
— The Patchwork Girl of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... method of softening sealing compound, making covers and jars limp and pliable. An open flame should never be used for this work, as the temperature of the flame is too high and there is danger of burning jars and covers and making them worthless. With steam, it is impossible to damage sealing compound ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte
... been in long enough the earth was cleared away, and the grass, which was quite soft, taken out. It was then chewed and worked like the Kurrajong bark, than which it was much more pliable. ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... an actual organization of good writers, the French Academy, whose influence all nations feel. Under their authority we see introduced into literary work an habitual grace and perfection, a clearness and directness, a light and pliable strength, and a fine shading of expression, such as no other tongue can even define. We see the same high standard in their criticism, in their works of research, in the Revue des Deux Mondes, and in short throughout literature. What is there in any other language, ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... and an inclination from the hips forward which suggested a floor-walker. In brief, the Governor of Alleghenia seemed the type of a man who turns sideways and slips through narrow places, rather than run the risk of barking his elbows by a face-front advance. In reality he was somewhat less pliable than a ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... would run away. Their flesh was dried and packed in vessels, and would keep in this condition for many months. The hide of the deer was soaked in water and ashes and the hair removed, and then the process of tanning continued until the buckskin was soft and pliable. Perhaps no other animal was more valuable to us ...
— Geronimo's Story of His Life • Geronimo
... egg, with the small end turned towards the earth. The moon, liquid and pliable in the first days of her formation, was originally a perfect sphere. But soon, drawn within the pale of the earth's gravitation, she became elongated under its influence. By becoming a satellite she lost her native purity of ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... the Saxons came over and settled here centuries and centuries ago, and peopled our little country, they brought their weather with them. It has never changed. Like the Breton temperament, it is founded upon a rock—though I often wish it were a little more pliable and responsive. Changes are good sometimes. I am not of those who think what is must always be best. If I were in your Parliament—but you don't have ladies in your Parliament, though they seem to have a footing everywhere else—I should be a Liberal; without going too ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... dissimulation, and his vices displayed themselves, at ease, as his limbs in a bath. He felt himself so powerless against her, that he never essayed to struggle. She possessed him. Once or twice he attempted to firmly oppose her ruinous caprices; but she had made him pliable as the osier. Under the dark glances of this girl, his strongest resolutions melted more quickly than snow beneath an April sun. She tortured him; but she had also the power to make him forget all by a smile, a tear, or ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... mechanic, he was busy creating the newest recruit to the Royal Flying Corps. Tam was thorough and inventive. He must not only stuff the old suit with wood shavings and straw, but he must unstuff it again, so that he might thread a coil of pliable wire to give the figure the ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... rambles, and he made arrows with wood that he seasoned in the smoke, sharpening the heads with great care with his knife, and hardening them by exposure to strong heat, at a certain distance from the fire. The entrails of the woodchucks, stretched, and scraped and dried, and rendered pliable by rubbing and drawing through the hands, answered for a bowstring; but afterwards, when they got the sinews and hide of the deer, they used them, properly ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... to the hills of Oceana, catching their simplicity and music. You were reminded of the measured English of an old and lovable book, just as you grew used to read in his face what he was to say, before the words had begun to flow. Never was there a face more quick to reflect the mind, more pliable to humour, more luminous at some stirring idea or deed, more indignant at the bare notion of a wrong inflicted, softer at the ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... interests, and returned to the province but a very small share of its taxes. But, however this may be, we may take it, without straining facts, that the United States, being unable to bring Colombia to terms, evicted her in favor of a more pliable authority. This is not in accord with Christian morality. Nor are political dealings generally. And, from a practical point of view, it was preposterous that the cupidity of some Colombian politicians ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... so far worse than the individuals composing them, because the official takes place of the moral sense. The nerves that in themselves were soft and pliable enough, and responded naturally to the touch of pity, when fastened into a machine of that sort become callous and rigid, and throw off every extraneous application that can be made to them with perfect apathy. An appeal is made to the ties of individual friendship: the body ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... in this memoir. One may look long to find an instance of more lady-like and graceful accomplishments, of more true refinement, of more liberal and varied cultivation, of more thorough mental discipline, of more pliable and available information, of a more winning and wise adaptation to persons and times and places, than the one presented in these pages. And yet this fair flower grew in a cleft of rugged Calvinism; the gales which fanned it were of that "wind of doctrine" called rigid orthodoxy. We know ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... Motive of his Industry, in Spight of all the Appearances to the Contrary; if, I say, a Man had a Mind to maintain this, and had Euphranor's Capacity, he might make a great Shew for his Client, without the Learning of Crito, and would certainly baffle his Adversaries, if he had such pliable ones as Alciphron and Lysicles to deal with. Come, would Euphranor say, answer me, Alciphron; is it not demonstrable, that the more Money a Man has, the more able he is to buy Wine. Alciphron would answer, I cannot deny ...
— A Letter to Dion • Bernard Mandeville
... passed since Fanny went to live with Aunt Teresa. Those three years had a great influence upon her youthful and pliable disposition. At first Teresa was severe and stony-hearted towards the child; her obstinacy, like a thorny hedge, had to be broken down. The smallest fault was chastised, every moment of her time had its allotted task, of which she had to give an account, not a single contradiction, not the slightest ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... application to the axles of light and heavy carriages of every description, and for all bearings in machinery of any kind, especially where great speed is required. A paste is also prepared from it which renders leather harness soft, pliable, impervious to wet, and free from any tendency to crack, thus increasing its durability. Another preparation is found most useful for the cure of injuries and diseases of cattle and domestic animals. This, which is supplied under the name of Veterinary Vaseline, has ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... filling may be removed from the whole interior of the skin and be replaced with pieces of cotton, dampened as before, and the whole skin wrapped in a cloth or shut in a close box until with some scraping and manipulation it becomes as pliable as when first removed. Any little lumps of dried muscle should be broken up and the edges of the opening cut, scraped and stretched out as they are very apt to wrinkle and curl up, thus reducing the size of ...
— Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit • Albert B. Farnham
... dream." His voice fell into real seriousness as he said this; then went back to mock seriousness, after a pause. "However, I am bound to say that 'inexcusable dishonesty' is a strong expression. I should suggest 'pliable conscience,' always keeping in view the motive of ... Yes, Pelides dear, but I have at present nothing for you in the form of cake or sugar. Explain yourself somehow, to the best of your ability." For Achilles had suddenly placed ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... in his room at the hotel his mind went back to the old days in New York, when he was hand and glove with the biggest set of sharks in the city, and a pliable tool of Tammany when well paid for his nasty work. What little conscience—and most men have some stored away—he possessed revolted at his intentions toward Jane Thrush—not that they were entirely dishonorable, ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... inspire confidence in those minds which they discover accessible to fear. They balance, thus, one passion against another. They hold in suspense the minds of their slaves, in the apprehension that too much confidence would only render them less pliable, or that despair would force them to throw off the yoke. To persons terribly frightened about their state after death, they speak only of the hopes which we may entertain of the goodness of God. To those who ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... the cognisance and exertion of the British court, whose duty it was to see justice done to its own subjects: he desired, however, that Pallet, who was confined in another place, might avail himself of his own disposition, which was sufficiently pliable; but when the governor desired to see his fellow-prisoner, the turnkey gave him to understand that he had received no orders relating to the lady, and therefore could not admit him into her apartment; though he was complaisant enough to tell him that she ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... they were, ranged themselves in a line, after having drawn lots for their places. Whilst they waited the signal to start, they practised, by way of prelude, various motions to awaken their activity, and to keep their limbs pliable and in a right temper.(134) They kept themselves in wind by small leaps, and making little excursions, that were a kind of trial of their speed and agility. Upon the signal being given they flew towards the goal, with a rapidity ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin |
