"Posture" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the King's Head, at the corner of Smithford Street, is an oaken figure called by the name of the notorious tailor. It is in reality a statue of a man in armour, dating no further back than the reign of Henry the Seventh; and, as a local antiquary notes, "to favour the posture of his leaning out of window, the arms have been cut off at the elbows."[47] This statue, now generally believed to have been intended for St. George, could not have been thus appropriated and adapted to its present purpose until its original design had been forgotten and the incongruity of its costume ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... digger, raising himself to a sitting posture, "'e shook me for five quid. The wily ol'e serpint. 'E never done nothin'—'e only ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... Wrapped in white fabric made from filaments of the fan mussel, the body was lowered into its watery grave. Captain Nemo, arms crossed over his chest, knelt in a posture of prayer, as did all the friends of him who had loved them. . . . My two companions and I ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... of water in a vain effort to cleanse the blood from his features, and now sat there, pillowing his head upon her knee, although the old man was stone dead with the first touch of the ball. That had occurred fully an hour before, but she continued in the same posture, a grave, pathetic figure, her face sobered and careworn beyond her years, her eyes dry and staring, one brown hand grasping unconsciously the old man's useless rifle. She would scarcely have been esteemed attractive even under much happier circumstances and assisted by dress, yet there ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... near the grave-yard, who watched his motions, again and again carried him food; but he resolutely refused it, and it was never known by what means he existed. While at home he was always dull and sorrowful; he usually lay in a sleeping posture, and frequently uttered long and ...
— Stories about Animals: with Pictures to Match • Francis C. Woodworth
... before I did, and jerked himself up to a sitting posture on the seat, exclaiming something in German, which I ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... appearances' sake, accepted a cramped lodging in the cottage. Piers kept very much to himself until the funeral was over; he was then invited by Daniel to join a conference in what had been his father's room. Here the man of law (Jerome's name for him) expounded the posture of things; with all professional, and some personal, tact and delicacy. Will there was certainly none; Daniel, in the course of things, would apply for letters of administration. The estate, it might be said, consisted ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... several companies of the Twenty-Ninth Regiment, under Colonel Carr, promptly appeared in the street, and were formed in three divisions in front of the main guard, the front division near the northeast corner of the Town-House, in the kneeling posture for street-firing. The Fourteenth Regiment was ordered under arms, but remained at ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... seated in the bottom of the canoe, he endeavoured to start to his feet, which would inevitably have upset it. This rash movement was prevented by the bishop, who forcibly pulled him down into a sitting posture, exclaiming, as he did so, "Keep still, my good sir; if you, by your groundless fears, upset the canoe, your protestant friends will swear that the old papist drowned ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... anxious to get back to the ranch. He quite realized that Joe knew what he was about, if his legs were hors-de-combat, for, after delivering himself of this, his unvarnished opinion, he wisely sought the safer vantage-ground of a sitting posture. ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... done enough?" said the girl, slipping into a sitting posture on the floor by her mother's knee. "You work, work, work, all the time. I suppose they'll have to let ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... Britain were subjected to the greatest difficulties, and their debtors in this country were not only suddenly deprived of accustomed and expected credits, but called upon for payments which in the actual posture of things here could only be made through a general pressure and at the most ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... Conde's humble servants repaired to his house, and my friends did the like to mine, particularly the Marquises of Rouillac and Camillac, famous both for their courage and extravagances. As soon as the latter saw Rouillac, he made me a low bow in a withdrawing posture, saying, "Monsieur, I came to offer you my service, but it is not reasonable that the two greatest fools in the kingdom should be of the same side." The Prince came to the House with a numerous attendance, and though ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... only look upwards, the sun began to grow hot, and the light offended my eyes. I heard a confused noise about me, but in the posture I lay, could see nothing except the sky. In a little time I felt something alive moving on my left leg, which advancing gently forward over my breast, came almost up to my chin; when bending my eyes downwards as much ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... opposite us, and squaring himself, called out. "Heigh! What for you stand dare wid your arms so?" placing his arms akimbo, in imitation of ours. Seeing we made no answer, he repeated the question, still standing in the same posture. We took no notice of him, seeing that his supposed insolence was at most good-humored and innocent. Our hostess, a colored lady, happened to step out at the moment, and told us that the man had mistaken us for her son, with whom he was well acquainted, at the same time calling to the man, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... but he kept in touch with medical progress, to the extent of reading about it and availing himself of improved methods and preparations when opportunity offered. He examined the dead man very carefully, indicated how his posture might be rendered more normal, and satisfied himself that human power was incapable of restoring the vanished life. He could discover no visible indication of violence and no apparent excuse for Tom May's sudden end. He listened with ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... myself I discovered that I was no longer in my hammock, but in a bed—a delightful spacious comfortable bed in which there was room for one to stretch oneself, change from one side to the other, and otherwise obtain a little temporary relief when lying long in one posture had become wearisome. Then, instead of being enveloped in stiflingly hot blankets, I lay upon one fragrant, cool, snow-white sheet, with another over me, the bed enclosed by mosquito-netting, and a deliciously cool breeze streaming into the long ward through several wide-open, lofty windows, ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... sank back to a sitting posture on the floor, and, covering her eyes with her hands, gave way to heart-broken ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... effect, I desire your admonition to our vicar and schoolmaster, who in his preaching to his auditors, stretches his jaws so wide, that instead of instructing youth, it rather frightens them: likewise in reading prayers, he has such a careless loll, that people are justly offended at his irreverent posture; besides the extraordinary charge they are put to in sending their children to dance, to bring them off of those ill gestures. Another evil faculty he has, in making the bowling-green his daily residence, instead of his church, where his curate reads prayers every day. If the weather is fair, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... protest on the minutes in favor of their right. Your Committee contended, and do contend, that, by the Law of Parliament, whilst the trial lasts, they have full right to call new evidence, as the circumstances may afford and the posture of the cause may ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... ground of economics, his position seems to me unassailable; but it is a position which suggests the posture of a lecturer in front of his black-board rather than that of a shepherd seeking the lost sheep of his flock. If the socialist must think again, at least we may ask that the Bishop should sometimes raise his crook to defend the sheep against the attack of the ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... general direction that should be given to the speaker is, that he should stand erect and firm, and in that posture which gives an expanded chest and full play to the ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... gathered around her on that occasion, proved how gladly they came to her when she could no longer, with ease, be conveyed to them. The enfeebled state of her bodily frame seemed to have left the powers of her mind unshackled, and she took, though in a sitting posture, almost her usual part in repeatedly addressing the meeting. She urged, with increased pathos and affection, the objects of philanthropy and Christian benevolence with which her life had been identified. After the meeting, and at her own desire, several members of the committee, and other friends, ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... of rabies in the dog are occasionally very obscure. In the greater number of cases, these are sullenness, fidgetiness, and continual shifting of posture. Where I have had opportunity, I have generally found these circumstances in regular succession. For several consecutive hours perhaps he retreats to his basket or his bed. He shows no disposition to bite, and he answers ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... of the pole to the ground and shot upward like a rocket. Kalora saw him give an upward twist and wriggle, fling himself free from the pole and disappear on the other side of the wall, the camera following like the tail of a comet. As he did so, number two, coming to a sitting posture, began to shriek for reinforcements. Number one was up on his elbow, regarding the affairs of this world with ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... containing three large ship biscuits of the coarsest kind. The broth, however, exhaled a distinctly appetising odour, which had the effect of again reminding me that I was hungry; so, with my visitor's assistance, I contrived to raise myself into a sitting posture, and forthwith attacked the contents of the bowl, previously breaking into it a small quantity of biscuit. The "broth" proved to be turtle soup, deliciously made, and, taking my time over the task, I consumed the whole of it, my companion ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... war had now lasted ten years, and both parties were sinking from exhaustion. In this posture of affairs the Romans were startled with the intelligence that Hasdrubal had crossed the Pyrenees, and was advancing to join his brother in Italy. The Romans, in this exigency, made prodigious exertions. Twenty-three ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... imperceptibly, keeping his eyes on the figure which now stood within the shade of the trees in an attitude which might suggest listening, or perhaps merely a posture of ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... each other for foot room, and the noise of their wings is like a great wind.[2] The Aleut himself is what any race of men {73} would become in generations of such a life. His skin is more like bronze than leather. His chest is like a bellows, but his legs are ill developed from the cramped posture of knees in the manhole. Indeed, more than knees go under the manhole. When pressed for room, the Aleut has been known to crawl head foremost, body whole, right under the manhole and lie there prone between the feet of the paddlers with nothing between him and the ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... belonging to the family were laid. After having bundled up these they threw them down upon the floor, tied their ankles to one another, and left them hanging, one on one side, and the other on the other side of the parlour door; in which posture they were found the next day at noon, at the very point of expiring, their blood having stagnated about their necks, which put ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... man was the taller of the two; as he lay on the bank beneath the hedge, he might even in that posture have been seen to own a figure of great strength and beauty. His face, bold of outline, with well curved, wide jaw and strong cheek bones, was shaded by the tangled mat of his wig, tousled in his sleep. His hands, long and graceful, ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... happened even to scream, dropped the knife and bent over him. He did not move. She staggered back and ran through the now open door. As she did so, Long seemed suddenly to come to life. He raised himself and looked after her, then with a subtle smile sank back into his former assumed posture on the floor. ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... place where they lay; they first saw a little smoke and after this the faithful pair—John with one arm about his Sarah's neck, and the other held over her face as if to screen her from the lightning. They were struck dead and already grown stiff and cold in this tender posture. There was no mark or discoloring on their bodies, only that Sarah's eyebrow was a little singed and a small spot between her breasts. They were buried the next day in one grave, in the parish of Stanton Harcourt, in Oxfordshire; where my lord Harcourt, at ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... display of human weakness. Becky came down to him presently; whenever the dear girl expected his lordship, her toilette was prepared, her hair in perfect order, her mouchoirs, aprons, scarfs, little morocco slippers, and other female gimcracks arranged, and she seated in some artless and agreeable posture ready to receive him—whenever she was surprised, of course, she had to fly to her apartment to take a rapid survey of matters in the glass, and to trip down again to wait upon the ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Anderton was sitting by the big desk, clenching his fists and sweating; his whole posture telegraphed his controlled helplessness. Cheyney was bent over a seismograph, echo-sounding for the egg through the river bottom. If that even had a prayer of working, I knew, he'd have had the trains of the Hudson & Manhattan stopped; their rumbling ...
— One-Shot • James Benjamin Blish
... voice was far away, then nearer, and finally quite near. He had the dim impression that somebody was pulling him up to a sitting posture. ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... ocean they have just left. How unconsciously they group themselves in picturesque attitudes, which no artistic eye could improve upon! Their staves, their dangling bundles of coarse canvas or of tied-up handkerchiefs of various colors, their quaint and often grotesque attire, their silent posture and vigilant eyes, their sheep-like dependence on their guides, combined with a watch-dog solicitude for their miserable traps, their household groupings and varied ages, from the baby born on shipboard to the old grandfather come to lay his rheumatic bones in the soil of a strange land,—I have ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... counsel. He had already volunteered to go to Flood's Creek to ascertain if water was still to be procured in it, but I had not felt justified in availing myself of his offer. My mind, however, dwelling on the critical posture of our affairs, and knowing and feeling as I did the value of time, and that the burning sun would lick up any shallow pool that might be left exposed, and that three or four days might determine our captivity ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... me-well-to-do, jaunty, and out in fine weather." The turnstiles were crowded, but at last we got through. We made but one step across the gravel court, the realm of sculpture where antique gods in every posture formed a mythological circle round the modern busts in the central walk. There was no loitering here, for my heart was elsewhere. We cast a look at an old wounded Gaul, an ancestor unhonored by the crowd, and started up the staircase—no ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... your Cock Carefully, or what you have hitherto done, is nothing. And here Observe the Length, and Strength of Cocks. The Length is thus known: Gripe the Cock by the Waste, and make him shoot out his Legs, and in this Posture compare, And have your Judgment about you. The Strength is known by this Maxime, The largest in the Garth, is the strongest Cock. The Dimension of the Garth, is thus known: Gripe the Cock about from the joynts of your Thumb, to the points of your Great Finger, and you will find the ...
— The School of Recreation (1684 edition) • Robert Howlett
... vase modeled to represent a grotesque human figure. It is painted with designs in red and white, the ground color being a reddish yellow. The figure has a kneeling posture. The hands are upraised against the shoulders, with palms turned forward. Height, 10-1/2 inches; width of ...
— Illustrated Catalogue of a Portion of the Collections Made During the Field Season of 1881 • William H. Holmes
... what he meant to do, prevented him by telling him, I perceive Carneades by the books that you have been now shutting, and much more by the posture wherein I found Persons qualifi'd [Errata: so qualify'd] to discourse of serious matters; and so accustom'd to do it, that you three were before our coming, engag'd in some Philosophical conference, which I hope you will either prosecute, and allow us to be partakers of, in recompence of the ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... were crowded in the form of bracelets and chains, and his feet rested on a golden basin. The grandees of the realm lay prostrate on the ground, with their heads covered with dust. A hundred complainers and accused persons were in a similar posture; behind them twenty executioners, with drawn sabres in their hands waited the royal signal, which generally terminated each cause, by the decapitation of one or ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... appearance extremely disagreeable in the eyes of civilized man. A little grating or lattice of very hard wood is formed, and raised one foot from the ground. The monkey is skinned, and bent into a sitting posture; the head generally resting on the arms, which are meagre and long; but sometimes these are crossed behind the back. When it is tied on the grating, a very clear fire is kindled below. The monkey, enveloped ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... rolled over and came to a sitting posture, facing each other and their respective wives. It was as if the act had carefully been rehearsed, and was ludicrous beyond any ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... without design. I had meant only to arouse a feeling of compassion for a young girl half-orphaned; but something more than was in my mind had been suggested to hers. She quickly raised herself from a reclining posture, threw off the concealing handkerchief, and gazed intently in my face, while saying slowly, as if to herself: "Not only motherless, but according ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... has become a mere display of physical agility, a form of exhibition common to all males. As practiced by men and women together we have our social dances, so lacking in all the varied beauty of posture and expression, so steadily becoming a pleasant form ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... to building the lads swiftly passed. In all but one they found ghastly occupants, some stretched out in the posture of sleep, some sitting at table like the first seen, but all showing that death ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... caught and confined till after the funeral. That a necessity prevails for putting the feline animals out of the way, will be understood by the existing generation, when they understand that if a cat cross a corpse, and afterwards pass over a living person in a recumbent posture, that individual will be deprived of sight. When a dead body is dressed and laid out, the relatives would do well to put a Bible below the head, and one plate with salt, and another plate with a piece of green turf, on the breast. The corpse of every ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... and Andy were placed upon their knees, to await the terrific sentence which was about to be executed on them, in that wild and lonely moor, and under such appalling circumstances. When placed in the desired posture, to ask that mercy from God which they were not about to experience at the hands of ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... cunning and simplicity, matched his figure. He gazed a while in silence, but at length he uttered a grunt of satisfaction as the figure of a woman rose gradually into sight. She came slowly towards him in a stooping posture, dragging behind her a great load of straw, which completely hid the little sledge on which it rested, and which was attached to her waist by a ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... the door when there is a sound of voices on the path outside. Joe has just time to put himself in the posture in which the pirates left him. The pirates and Darlin' enter in dejection. ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... my hip was so inflamed that I could only sleep in a sitting posture. Seated with my back against a tree, the smoke from the fire almost enveloping me in its suffocating folds, I vainly tried, amid the din and uproar of this horrible serenade, to woo the drowsy god. My imagination ...
— Thirty-Seven Days of Peril - from Scribner's Monthly Vol III Nov. 1871 • Truman Everts
... skin, in his cheerful aspect, and the lightness of his bearing. The lower half of his forehead was wrinkled, and when he did not fix his look on anything in particular, his eyelids drooped, giving him for the moment an air of languor. On sitting down, he at once abandoned himself to a posture of the completest ease, which his admirable proportions made graceful. From his appearance one would have expected him to speak in rather loud and decided tones; but he had a soft voice, and used it with all the discretion of good-breeding, so that at times it seemed ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... supposedly professional posture, Bertram wrought with hammer and last, while putting off, with lame, blind and halting, excuses, such as came to call for their promised footgear. By a triumph of tact he had just disposed of a rancid-tongued female who demanded her husband's boots, a satisfactory explanation, ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... a score of eligible and attractive young men, his moral, mental, and physical superiors in every conceivable particular, faultlessly arrayed, scintillating with wit, and surpassingly skilled in the way to win a woman. The conservatory was full of them. He saw them in every imaginable posture: feeding the gold-fish, watering the begonias, looking up into Dorothy's eyes as they sat at her feet, looking down at her slender fingers, as she pinned gardenias to their lapels. And these had been granted the long hours, he only the short. Inwardly, young Nisbet groaned; aloud, as was ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... the lights were turned on again, and the room was full of brilliancy. Betty jumped up from her posture on the floor. The ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... also, that to see the sort of women who sometimes had the responsibility of training girls must make the angels weep; none but a heartless mortal like himself could laugh where conventionality and insincerity were taught in every hint as to posture and speech. It was bad enough, he said, to shape yourself into your own ideal; but to have to fashion yourself after the ideal of one whose sole object in teaching was to make money, was ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... practised. [002] [See note B, at the end of this Vol.] He assured them he should never take any step that would diminish the good opinion they had conceived of his integrity. He told them that Holland was in such a situation as required their immediate attention and assistance; that the posture of affairs at home likewise demanded their serious consideration; that a good settlement was necessary, not only for the establishment of domestic peace, but also for the support of the protestant interest abroad: that the affairs of Ireland were ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... wavered for a whole hour in fluctuations with which there was certainly mingled some struggle. Three o'clock struck. He opened his eyes again, drew himself up abruptly into a sitting posture, stretched out his arm and felt of his knapsack, which he had thrown down on a corner of the alcove; then he hung his legs over the edge of the bed, and placed his feet on the floor, and thus found himself, almost without knowing it, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... the Marechal de Villeroy almost slipped off his chair. As soon, at least, as he heard the Words, "Superintendence of the King's education," he rested his forehead upon his stick, and remained several moments in that posture. He appeared even to understand nothing of the rest of the speech. Villars and D'Effiat bent their backs like people who had received the last blow. I could see nobody on my own side except the Duc de Guiche, who approved ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... whimsy, she entered the cabin. There was no one there but the cook. In his dingy linen suit he was standing at the table peeling potatoes and whistling. He stopped as Pauline entered, a tall powerful man, though of slouching posture, he bowed deferentially. ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... taking the lead, preceded by Captain Bellew, who hurried forward to blow open the gate—but missing the gate, he blew open a small wicket, through which not more than two or three men could enter abreast, and these in a stooping posture. A sharp fire was kept up from the walls, and many of the bravest fell in attempting to force their entrance through the wicket; but Colonel Mackerell of the 44th, and Lieutenant Bird of the Shah's 6th infantry, with a handful of Europeans and a few sepoys, forced their way in—the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... gold. She was just going to give it to Irena when the white bundle that was Hadj made a sudden, though slight, movement, as if the thing inside it had shivered. Irena noticed it with her half-closed eyes. Domini leaned forward and held out the money, then drew back startled. Irena had changed her posture abruptly. Instead of keeping her head thrown back and exposing her long throat, she lifted it, shot it forward. Her meagre bosom almost disappeared as she bent over. Her arms fell to her sides. Her eyes opened wide and became full of a sharp, peering intensity. Her ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... nearly every other friend Jaime possessed on the island, but Pablo had lived little in Majorca; he had traveled widely; he was not like those of his race, working stationary like automatons in the same posture for centuries, reproducing themselves in their cowardice, lacking courage and ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... and Vogelstein no better foil could be imagined than Brush. If they recalled the tusked monsters that charged in the van of Asiatic armies, his analogue was the desert horse. Small, spare, sensitive, shy, his every posture suggested race, training, spirit, and docility. His flair for classical art had become proverbial. By mere touch he detected those remarkable counterfeits of Syracusan coins. It was he who segregated ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... this horrendous confusion, stands man—naive and powerless. But he has his sanity. He blows it up carefully like a soap bubble and strikes a defiant posture in its center. And against the walls of his bubble, his phantoms storm in vain. Within his bubble he proceeds ...
— Fantazius Mallare - A Mysterious Oath • Ben Hecht
... in the middle, and one end lifted up until it looked like a letter L, with the shorter part extending across the projectile and the longer part reaching up the side. I could sit in it in a half reclining posture. The doctor then pulled out a fan-like, extending lattice-work of steel slats, to form a sort of false floor over the port-hole. This was full of diamond-shaped openings between the slats, so that the view out of the rear window was not obstructed. Then ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... chief, as if sure that nothing more of importance was going to happen that day, spread his fine green blanket upon some leaves, and then settling himself in an easy posture upon it, fell asleep, while many of his warriors, and some of the rangers too, imitated his example. But Robert and Tayoga had slept enough, and, though they moved about but little, they were all ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... better bred nor wiser than you and me, though we knelt to hand her a letter or a washhand basin. Why shall History go on kneeling to the end of time? I am for having her rise off her knees, and take her natural posture, not to be for ever performing cringes and congees like a Court chamberlain, and shuffling backward out of doors in the presence of the sovereign. In a word, I would have ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... looking far and wide, of endeavoring to stand erect, and of adopting this habit constantly from generation to generation, there is no doubt that their feet would gradually and imperceptibly assume a conformation adapted for an erect posture, that their legs would develop calves, and that these creatures would not afterwards walk as they do now, painfully on ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... it was averred, received positive accounts of her having fifty lacks of dollars on board, and that her figure-head was of solid gold. As, however, we had no such treasure, and the meeting was unavoidable, and might be hostile, I put myself into a complete posture of defense, with a determination neither to show backwardness nor suspicion. The day arrived, and the pirates swept up the river; eighteen prahus, one following the other, decorated with flags and streamers, and firing both cannon and musketry; the sight was interesting and curious, ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... back, in the posture customary to her, the arms being stretched down by the sides under the bed-quilt. Her features were drawn slightly askew; the skin was shiny; the eyes stared as though Mrs. Maldon had been a hysterical subject. It was evident that she had passed through a tremendous physical ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... it was unpretending in fashion and colour, but of admirable fit. Every detail of her appearance denoted scrupulous personal refinement. She walked well; you saw that the foot, however gently, was firmly planted. When she seated herself her posture was instantly graceful, and that of one who is indifferent ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... hoisted upon the leaf of the desk. Susan's charms of person and manners so wrought upon him that, during the exchange of preliminary questions and answers, he slowly took down first one foot then the other, and readjusted his once muscular but now loose and pudgy body into a less loaferish posture. He was as unconscious as she of the cause and meaning of these movements. Had he awakened to what he was doing he would probably have been angered against himself and against her; and the direction of Susan ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... sprang into a posture of defence, which was lost as quickly as it was taken, one great arm shot out like a piston-rod; there was the sound of bare fists beating on naked flesh; there was an exultant indrawn gasp of savage pleasure and relief from ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... made its way into the great constructive arcades, but not into any of the smaller arches. But the taste of those who designed its capitals must have been singular. Any kind of man, beast, or bird, it has been said, can put himself into such a posture as to make an Ionic volute. When the volutes are made by the heads of eagles, well and good; but it is certainly strange to make them out of the heads of cranes, who are holding down their long necks to peck each one at a human skull which ...
— Sketches of Travel in Normandy and Maine • Edward A. Freeman
... with? What Schemes have they laid on purpose to be broken? What vast Contrivances, on purpose to be ridicul'd and expos'd? The Men are not Fools, they had never V—-d to Consolidate a B—- but that they were willing to save the Dissenters, and put it into a posture, in which they were sure it would miscarry. I defy all the Wise Men of the Moon to show ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... was afraid to let go for fear of losing his balance on the slippery ice, and so, wild-eyed and erect, he slid along, clinging for dear life to the line. Pretty soon he managed to attain a sitting posture, and with his legs spread before him, but still holding desperately on, he skimmed along after the komatik. The next and last evolution was a "belly-gutter" position. This became too strenuous for him, however, and the line was jerked out of his hands. I was afraid he might ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... there could be no doubt. As evening prayers were about to begin, we accompanied him to the cathedral. An old woman opened the door for us as we passed out. "Have my chocolate ready when I return," said the bishop, "Si, padrecito!" said the old woman, dropping upon her knees, in which posture she remained for some minutes. As we passed along the street, the sight of the reverend man had the same effect; all fell on their knees as he passed, precisely as if the host were carried by, or the shock of an earthquake were felt. Arrived at the door of the cathedral, he gave us ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... some way of escape,—as though, were it possible, she would get to the street through the window. There was no mode of escape, unless she would pass out through the door to the man who, as she knew, must still be there. Then she heard him move. She heard him rise,—from what posture she knew not, and step towards the stairs. She was still standing with the pistol in her hand, but was almost unconscious that she held it. At last her eye glanced upon it, and she was aware that she was still armed. Should ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... said Prospero, "and I will set you free." He then gave orders what further he would have him do; and away went Ariel, first to where he had left Ferdinand, and found him still sitting on the grass in the same melancholy posture. ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Lothair, he saluted him with the grace which had been before remarked; and Lothair, who was by nature courteous, and even inclined a little to ceremony in his manners, especially with those with whom he was not intimate, immediately rose, as he would not receive such a salutation in a reclining posture. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... he was greeted by a prolonged stare from the dazed ranchman, who had, indeed, been able to drag his body to a sitting posture, but vainly sought to ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... the alien officer had read his thoughts, for the warrior uncrossed his black legs and got nimbly to his feet with a lithe movement, which Raf, cramped by sitting in the unfamiliar posture, could not emulate. No one appeared to notice their withdrawal. And when Raf hesitated, trying to catch Hobart's eye and make some explanation, the alien touched his arm lightly and motioned toward one of the curtained doorways. ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... sacrificed at his father's grave, but that not daring to enter the city, he wishes to find his sister, who, he is aware, is married and dwells somewhere near on the frontiers, that he may learn from her the posture of affairs. He sees Electra approach with the water-pitcher, and retires. She breaks out into an ode bewailing her own fate and that of her father. Hereupon the chorus, consisting of rustic virgins, makes its appearance, and exhorts her to take a part in a festival of Juno, which she, however, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... When first he had glimpsed her off there on that narrow strip of rock-bound coast he was mildly surprised, for it was a desolate spot and seldom frequented by bathers so late in the season. Now he was aroused to startled attention by the unnatural posture of the slender body that had just been erect and outlined sharply against the graying September sky. He switched off the ignition and sprang ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... eccentricity they displayed. They were provided by the best writers of the time, and in many cases were rich in poetic merit. Still they were expressly designed to afford valuable opportunities to the musical composer, to the ballet-dancers, mummers, posture-makers, and costumiers. The regular dramas, such as the Elizabethan public supported, could boast few attractions of this kind. It was altogether without movable scenery, although possessed of a balcony or upper stage, used to represent, now the walls of a city, as in "King John," now the ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... to create sensation in House. Doubted whether, as he was not about to move the Address, he would be permitted to enter with sword by his side. But he would be free of the smoke-room; might posture in the Lobby; might read an evening paper in the tea-room, whilst others enviously glanced ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 18, 1891 • Various
... for me," was the conclusion of the boy, who grasped his pistol more rigidly, and rose to the standing posture. ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... taste, I suppose for some of us. There's something else." She came slowly to a sitting posture and fixed her questioning, baffling eyes on his. "Ban, don't you want to make a ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... disappointments, of his wayward youth: he got up from the bed: threw open the window, and looked out into the night: and then, by some impulse, which we hope was a good one, he went up and kissed the picture of Fairoaks, and flinging himself down on his knees by the bed, remained for some time in that posture of hope and submission. When he rose, it was with streaming eyes. He had found himself repeating, mechanically, some little words which he had been accustomed to repeat as a child at his mother's side, after the saying of which ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... girl eased the sheet as the wind freshened. Far away on Golden Bar thousands of wild geese, which had been tipping their sterns skyward in plunging quest of nourishment, resumed a more stately and normal posture, as though at a spoken command; and the long ranks, swimming, and led by age and wisdom, slowly moved away ...
— Blue-Bird Weather • Robert W. Chambers
... who had been lying down when this tirade began, slowly raised his head, then placed himself in a sitting posture, and ended by staring at Billy, till Jack gave a more piteous howl than any he had before uttered, when the dog gave vent to one low growling bark, and ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... a half-recumbent posture, with her elbow resting on a couch covered with green silk. The back of this piece of furniture, which was pretty high towards the fireplace, sloped down insensibly towards the foot. A sort of light, semicircular trellis-work, in gilded bronze, raised ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... in some instances a painful undertaking. Every movement was a work of deliberation. Having by much care, and with some anxiety, made good our descent to the top of the secondary hills, we took our way down one of the steepest banks, and slid forward with great facility in a sitting posture. Towards the foot of the hill, an expanse of snow stretched across the line of descent. This being loose and soft, we entered upon it without fear; but on reaching the middle of it, we came to a surface of solid ice, perhaps a hundred yards across, over which we launched with astonishing ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... stooping over the nearest figure. All about them were the battered trenches of that thin force of noble Frenchmen who had fought hand to hand with the Brandenburgers. There were the bodies of the slain—of friend and foe—lying in every sort of posture, some half in and half out of the trenches; some, alas! unrecognizable, for such is the effect of high explosives; and others, yet again, almost buried already by upheavals of earth as shells burst close beside them. There were not a few wounded, too, who lay waiting the succour which ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... clutched at the arm of his companion, with difficulty articulating, "I breathe." Smollett refused to be hypnotized by the famous Venus discovered at Hadrian's villa, brought from Tivoli in 1680, and then in the height of its renown; the form he admired, but condemned the face and the posture. Personally I disagree with Smollett, though the balance of cultivated opinion has since come round to his side. The guilt of Smollett lay in criticizing what was above criticism, as the contents of the Tribuna were then held to be. And in defence of this point of view ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... were unfortunate enough to reside within the regions harassed by the Civil War. This was especially the case in the county of Oxford. Still you may see avenues of venerable trees that lead to no house. The old mansion or manor-house has vanished. Many of them were put in a posture of defence. Earthworks and moats, if they did not exist before, were hastily constructed, and some of these houses were bravely defended by a competent and brave garrison, and were thorns in the sides of the Parliamentary army. Upon the triumph of the latter, revenge ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... looking his best. He knew in a vague, impersonal way that his eyebrows were still somewhere in the middle of his forehead, whither they had sprung in the first moment of surprise, and that his jaw, which had dropped, had not yet resumed its normal posture. Before committing himself to speech he made a determined effort ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... an opportunity to broach the question of investments to Mr. Dale, Aunt Agnes added her quota to my sense of wrong. One evening when she came to dinner I divined, from the intense rigidity of her posture at table, that she was offended with me. To tell the truth, I felt a trifle guilty. My visits to her during the winter had been spasmodic and hurried. What was worse, so greatly was I carried away by my social success, that whenever ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... in the darkness, as if the man within was endeavoring to draw his body into a sitting posture. Then he swore savagely, pounding his fist into the side of the bunk, as though seeking ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... arrangement made use of by the old people to support the back in lieu of an arm-chair. Each person had a cord knotted by the ends so as to form an endless loop or hoop. The size depended upon the measurement required, so that if the hoop were thrown over the body when in a sitting posture upon the ground, with the knees raised, the rope would form a band around the forepart of the knees and the small of the back, which would ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... cliff top, broke through the wall of the cave, high up, close to the roof. He turned, and his eyes followed Vashti, who had caught up Eli's lantern, and was picking her way across the rocky floor. Presently she bent to a kneeling posture, as the rays fell on what at first appeared to be a long bundle. He hurried after her, but stopped ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Lords, this, which in shew is brave attendance And love to me, is the worldes posture right, Where one man's falling downe setts up another. My sorrowes are their triumphes; so in kings courts, When officers are thrust out of their roomes, Others leape laughing in while they doe mourne. I am at ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... position, he had no control over the horse by pulling the reins. He only pulled the horse's head upwards, and made him more uneasy and impatient than before. He then attempted to get down into a sitting posture again, but in doing so, he fell off upon the hard road and sprained his ankle. The horse trotted rapidly on, until the bags fell off, first one and then the other. Finding himself thus wholly at liberty, he stopped and began to eat the grass at the road-side, wholly ...
— Mary Erskine • Jacob Abbott
... Roome and strip him, her, or them, starke naked."[22] The clergyman Gaule has given us further particulars:[23] "Having taken the suspected Witch, shee is placed in the middle of a room upon a stool, or Table, crosse-legg'd, or in some other uneasie posture, to which if she submits not, she is then bound with cords; there is she watcht and kept without meat or sleep for the space of 24 hours.... A little hole is likewise made in the door for the Impe to come in at; and lest it might come in some lesse discernible shape, they that watch are taught ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... Santos in full, and accompanies his article with an illustration. At this time he was said to have developed double genitals, and possibly a double bladder communicating by an imperfect septum. At adulthood the anus was three inches anterior to the os coceygeus. In the sitting or lying posture the supernumerary limb rested on the front of the inner surface of the lower third of his left thigh. He was in the habit of wearing this limb in a sling, or bound firmly to the right thigh, to prevent its unseemly dangling when erect. The perineum proper ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... her worn figure into a singular posture. Standing perfectly straight, she raised her arms from her sides and spread them stiffly out, the hands turned inward in a peculiar fashion. Then, still with extended arms, she swayed slightly forward until she appeared to lean against, ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... we will immediately put ourselves in the best posture of defence in our power; that to this end we will prevent all unnecessary use of gunpowder or other ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... what those not on duty could snatch, wrapped only in the extra covering of a waterproof sheet, in a sitting posture on the fire-step. At dawn, when the men at last could have slept heavily, came morning stand-to. This meant standing and shivering for an hour whilst it grew light and attempting to clean a mud-clogged rifle. Those Englishmen in England (and in France) who ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... this hesitation he explained more fully to Clarice herself some half an hour afterwards. He found her standing by herself upon the terrace. She started nervously as he approached, and it seemed to him that her whole figure stiffened to a posture of defence. She said nothing, however, and for a while they stood side by side looking seawards across the breadth of the island. The ground stretched away broken into little hollows and little hills,—downs in vignette. ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... satisfaction, but the Rajah's gaze was rivetted on Atma, whilst his features were distorted as if by a moment's uncontrollable rage. The transport passed as quickly as it had come, and he sank back to his former negligent posture. But the Ranee had seen, and a look of startled and angry ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer
... little room fitted up with the efficient and institutional unprivacy of public service. On a couch, her face to the wall, a woman in a traveling duster lay stretched, hat and all, in an attitude of exhaustion, a young girl with a wayward fling of posture, sitting sullen in a corner, her very pointed and heeled shoes toeing in. A three-year-old child with a large tag pinned across his little dress played with railroad-owned blocks; the matron, a sort of stout Lachesis, with a string of keys at her belt, gray with years and the ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... reposed a fat tobacco jar and pipes. The jar was more than half full. Into it, Gavin Brice dumped his valuables, and with a clawing motion, scraped a handful of loose tobacco over them. Then he returned to his former inertly supine posture. ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... that, when this woman, whom he saw every day, came up in his mind, it was always in one posture, one costume. You have noticed that peculiarity in your remembrance of some persons? Perhaps you would find, if you looked closely, that in that look or indelible gesture which your memory has caught there lies some subtile hint of the tie between your ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... precious emblem of Christian faith, and baptised the dreary solitude Cross Island. But these pilgrims, as they now approached the spot, found no worshippers there, while, as if in horrible mockery of their piety, two enormous white bears had reared themselves in an erect posture, in order the better to survey their visitors, directly at the foot of the cross. The party which had just landed were unarmed, and were for making off as fast as possible to their boats. But Skipper Heemskerk, feeling that ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... not very different from beauty; it consists in much the same things. Gracefulness is an idea belonging to POSTURE and MOTION. In both these, to be graceful, it is requisite that there be no appearance of difficulty; there is required a small inflection of the body; and a composure of the parts in such a manner, as not to encumber each other, not to appear divided ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... about it that element of the pantomimic and the absurd, which was the cruellest part of the slaying and the mocking of the real prophets. St. Peter was crucified upside down as a huge inhuman joke; but his human seriousness survived the inhuman joke, because, in whatever posture, he had died for his faith. The modern martyr of the Pankhurst type courts the absurdity without making the suffering strong enough to eclipse the absurdity. She is like a St. Peter who should deliberately stand on his head ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... tray and eatables. She quietly raised him to a sitting posture, and placed a large soft pillow at his back. He submitted to her ministrations like a child. It was long since he had been tended with such care, and the position doubtless seemed a little strange to him. After drinking a cup of tea and eating several morsels of the ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... meant his present pain, and she sought to soothe him as best she could without raising hopes which never could be realized. He understood her at last; knew the heart he offered her was cast back upon him, and rising from his kneeling posture, he felt his way back to his chair, and burying his head upon a table standing near, sobbed as Edith had never heard man sob before, not even Arthur St. Claire, when in the Deering Woods he had rocked to and fro in his great agony. Sobs they were which seemed to ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... "Instead of weeping, rejoice; I am very happy to leave this world and in so good a cause." Then she knelt, and after praying stretched out her neck to the executioner, imagining that he would strike off her head while in an upright posture and with the sword, as in France; they told her of her mistake, and without ceasing to pray she laid her head on the block. There was a universal feeling of compassion, even the headsman himself being so moved that he did his work ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... desire, to provide every possible exquisite sensation. The artist must not be a preacher; he must not tell men what is the good; he must show them the good, which is identical with the beautiful. And he must exhibit the beautiful in every unique and lovely posture which can be imagined, and which he can skillfully realize in color, in word, or in sound. Art is its own justification; "a thing of beauty ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... thought; it is she who wrings his heart. It is not the woman, who, on hands and knees, at tenpence a day, scrubs the floors of the public buildings, or private dwellings, that fills him with anguish for womanhood: that somewhat quadrupedal posture is for him truly feminine, and does not interfere with his ideal of the mother and child-bearer; and that, in some other man's house, or perhaps his own, while he and the wife he keeps for his pleasures ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... marked one. A faint glow spread over his pallid features—they seemed to gain the look of intelligence which belongs to vitality—his eye once more kindled—his lip coloured—and drawing himself up out of the listless posture he had hitherto maintained, he rose without assistance. The doctor and the servant ran to give him their support. He waved them aside, and they were contented to place themselves in such a position behind as might ensure against accident, should his newly-acquired strength decay as suddenly ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... had already prostrated a few, but, a host of men bore him down, and appeared to be trampling on him; at the same moment I was myself seized by eight men, who forced me back into the hut, and down on the log, where they held me in a sitting posture, pressing me against the wall; here I spent a few moments of agony, as I heard my friend's stifled cries grow fainter and fainter. I struggled but little, and that only at first, for at least five-and-twenty men crowded round and laid their hands upon me, rendering any effort to ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... the fat boy, Slipping down until he had assumed a sitting posture. He lay down and was asleep in a short time. Stacy woke with a start when another giant rock smote the wall just above their cave, exploding into thousands of ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon - The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch • Frank Gee Patchin
... Transparent Bodies several Refractive (68, 69) Why the Author thinks the Nature of Colours deserves yet a further Inquiry (69.) First for that the little Motes of Dust exhibited very lovely Colours in a darkned Room, whilst in a convenient posture to the Eye, which in other Postures and Lights they did not (70.) And that though the smaller Parts of some Colour'd Bodies are Transparent, yet of others they are not, so that the first Doubt's, whether the Superficial parts create those Colours, and the second, whether there be any Refraction ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... posture by the mantelpiece, and the lawyer watched his embarrassed countenance as he began a search through his pockets. He succeeded in extracting ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... huge over all, like the flaunting of a black flag. Through the flicker and the shadow the laird was still peering at him, when suddenly, without opening his eyes, the old man raised himself to a sitting posture—all of a piece, like a figure of wood lifted from behind. The laird then saw his face, and upon it the expression as of one suffering from some horrible nightmare—so terrified was it, so wrathful, ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... caused much excitement in the village; it made the strangers popular. Paaaeua, in his difficult posture of appointed chief, drew strength and dignity from their alliance, and only Moipu and his followers were malcontent. For some reason, nobody (except myself) appears to dislike Moipu. Captain Hart, who has been robbed and threatened ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... onto that stay or you'll topple overboard," warned Frank, as Ben, balancing himself, got into a standing posture. ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... spasm seized the girl, and brought her to a sitting posture; again her hand clutched Thyrsis' with a grip like death, and again the veins on her forehead leaped out. Like the surging of an ocean billow, it seemed to sweep over her; and then suddenly she screamed, and sank ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... been so blindly adhered to. Practice may make perfect, but it also may make imperfect. All that practice can do is to make more sure and automatic the activity, whatever it is. It cannot alone make for improvement. A child becomes more and more proficient in bad writing or posture, in incorrect work in arithmetic and spelling, with practice just as truly as under other conditions he improves in the same activities. Evidence from school experiments, which shows that as many as 40 per cent of the children examined did poorer work along such lines in a second test than in the ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... dreamt of opening the door unless told to do so, in which case he would have beheld, with complete indifference, Mrs. Travers extended on the floor with her head resting on the edge of the camp bedstead (on which Lingard had never slept), as though she had subsided there from a kneeling posture which is the attitude of prayer, supplication, or defeat. The hours of the night had passed Mrs. Travers by. After flinging herself on her knees, she didn't know why, since she could think of nothing to pray for, had nothing to invoke, and was too far gone for such a futile thing as despair, ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... least, plausible, for this manner of burying the dead, tied tightly up, with the head between the legs (as in the practice of Scottish and Greenland seers), is very old and widely diffused. Ellis says, of the Tahitians, 'the body of the dead man was ... placed in a sitting posture, with the knees elevated, the face pressed down between the knees,... and the whole body tied with cord ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... was arranged at Beauregard's headquarters in which Davis, Generals Beauregard and J. J. Johnston, and certain of their trusted staff officers considered this plan. Their decision was to adopt a defensive posture and protect the borders of Virginia rather than take the offensive and invade the North. As events turned out, this decision had consequences of the greatest effect, for it was not until Lee marched out of the Valley on the road to Gettysburg in 1863 that there ...
— The Fairfax County Courthouse • Ross D. Netherton
... opened. One night, about ten or eleven o'clock, as he was walking one of the streets of Madrid, two armed men sprang upon him from an alley, and made a furious attack. He instantly drew his sword, put himself in a posture of defence, and while struggling with them, he saw at a distance the lights of the patrols,—French soldiers mounted, who carried lanterns, and who rode through the streets of the city at all hours of the ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... ready to join the Chevalier on his landing; that his person would be as safe there as in Scotland, and that in every other respect it was better that he should land in England; that they had used their utmost endeavours, and that they hoped the western counties were in a good posture to receive him. To this was added a general indication of the place he should come to, as near to ...
— Letters to Sir William Windham and Mr. Pope • Lord Bolingbroke
... pardon me some fears. You have now the pledge of a dear father's life. I am a son—would fain be thought a loving one; You may allow me some fears: do not despise me, If, in a posture foreign to my spirit, And by our well-knit friendship, I conjure you, Touch not Sir Walter's life. [Kneels. You see these tears. My father's an old ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... The room was like a setting in a play, here light, here shadow.... The paintings, the instrument of music, the chairs, they were not things owned and loved. They were properties.... In the golden candle-light, as she moved, she was like an actress of great restraint. Every step, posture, gesture seemed to have an occult significance. Even her bedroom, away off somewhere, he felt, was not a place where one slept easily and dreamed. It would be like the dressing-room of some woman mummer.... It was all like a play, of which he was seeing a fragment from the wings.... What was it ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... right, through his legs below the knees, separating them from his thighs, as he suddenly sank down, shortened, as he believed, to the extent of about a foot in measurement, the trunk of the body falling backwards on the ground, and the senses being completely paralysed by the shock. In this posture he lay motionless during the remainder of the night, not daring to move a muscle for fear of fatal consequences. He experienced no severe suffering; but this immunity from pain he attributed to the stunning effect produced ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... several slender ligatures across my body, from my armpits to my thighs. I could only look upward; the sun began to grow hot, and the light offended mine eyes. I heard a confused noise about me, but, in the posture I lay, could see ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... skin or mat is worn hanging from the waist behind. It really is worn to be sat upon, upon occasion. Nothing else is worn.[1475] In this case, and in some of those mentioned above from Central Africa, a consciousness is sometimes manifested that there is something to conceal, and a posture or mode of walking is adopted which accomplishes the concealment. Amongst the Ja-luo (northeast corner of Lake Victoria) both sexes when unmarried go naked. A man, when he is a father, wears a cape of goatskin ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... suggestions of evil from within, no incursion of evil from without, shall be so swift and sudden that the thought of Him shall not be at least as near to our spirits, intercept the treachery of our infirm nature, and guard that throne which He alone deserves to fill; till, at every turn and every posture of our earthly life, we may realize a mental image of that countenance of divine compassion bent upon us, and that voice of gentle instruction murmuring in our ears its words of heavenly wisdom; till, whenever tempted ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... her eyes again Roaring Bill had her head in his lap, peering anxiously down. She caught a glimpse of the unsteady hand that held a cup of water, and she struggled to a sitting posture with a shudder. Bill's shirt was ripped from the neckband to the wrist, baring his sinewy arm. And hand, arm, and shoulder were spattered with fresh blood. His face was spotted where he had smeared it with his bloody hand. Close by, so close that she could almost ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... the waiters had profited by Lindau's posture to lean over him and put down in the middle of the table a structure in white sugar. It expressed Frescobaldi's conception of a derrick, and a touch of nature had been added in the flame of brandy, which burned luridly up from a small pit in the centre of the base, and represented ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the other grasped by the right hand of the kindly widow, whose tears bedewed the sweet face which her motherly bosom supported, though unfelt by the fair sleeper; and either insensibly to the good woman, or what she would not disturb her to wipe off or to change her posture. Her aspect was sweetly calm and serene; and though she started now and then, yet her sleep seemed easy; her breath indeed short and quick, but tolerably free, and not like that of a dying person.' Allowing for the queer grammar, this is surely a touching and simple picture. ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... s'appelloit l'Orthon, & l'autre Traisnesac.'[97] Two sisters were tried in 1652: one 'dict avoir trouve ung diable en ghuise d'ung home a pied'; the other said that 'il entra dans sa chambre en forme d'ung chat par une fenestre et se changea en la posture d'un home vestu ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... pursued, always in the same posture, and in the manner of the sacred text, "he who stands here and tells the tale had but just time to save himself by leaping into the ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... There is something great and worth saving in France. And if it be too late for legitimacy, it is not for a constitutional throne. After all, there remains to the Duke of Orleans only a choice of danger. In the present posture of affairs, to fly from the possible dangers of royalty is to face a Republic ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... to the character of his correspondent. There is no untruth in this, for man, being a Protean animal, swiftly shares and changes with his company and surroundings; and these changes are the better part of his education in the world. To strike a posture once for all, and to march through life like a drum-major, is to be highly disagreeable to others and a fool for oneself into the bargain. To Evelyn and to Knipp we understand the double facing; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... their neighbor states with spies or set the course of intrigue to bring about some critical posture of affairs which will give them an opportunity to strike and ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... to Mabyn. What would he have been plotting all this time? he wondered; what stand would he take in this new posture of affairs? It was too much to hope, he decided, that one so selfish and so jealous could be persuaded to sink his animosity against Garth, for the purpose of serving Natalie while she lay injured. Garth's business had made him more or ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... Five-burghers. The more turbulent and unquiet made an expedition into France, under the command of Hastings [d]; and, except by a short incursion of Danes, who sailed up the Thames, and landed at Fulham, but suddenly retreated to their ships on finding the country in a posture of defence, Alfred was not for some years infested by the inroads of those barbarians [e]. [FN [d] W. Malm. lib. 2. c. 4. Ingulph. p. 26. ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... a half-sitting posture, leaning her head upon her right hand, with her Bible open before her. She had evidently fallen asleep while reading. Her countenance was beautifully composed and tranquil. A few tears had rolled down her cheek, and (probably unknown to her) dropped upon ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... Mother's illness progressed, she could neither sleep, save by the use of opiates, nor rest, except in a sloping posture, propped up by many pillows. It was my great joy, and a pleasant diversion, to be allowed to shift, beat up, and rearrange these pillows, a task which I learned to accomplish not too awkwardly. Her sufferings, I believe, ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... the ruins of the City of Zion, appeals to my soul. Why, I know not. It may be because I myself once sat in that posture among the ruins of my native City of Baal. But the ruins did not grieve me as did the uncle who slammed the door in my face that night. True, I wept in the ruins, but not over them. Something else had punctured the bladderets of my tears. And who knows who punctured thine, O ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani |
