"Stiffen" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... visage pale and wan; A sketch of life, a remnant of a man! Whose livid lips, as now he moulds a grin, Like charnel doors disclose the waste within; Whose stiffen'd joints within their sockets grind, Like gibbets creaking to the passing wind; Whose shrivell'd skin with much adhesion clings His bones around in hard compacted rings, If veins there were, no blood beneath could force, Unless by miracle, its trickling course;— ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... groans and dismal sounds Stun my scared ears, and pierce hell's utmost bounds. No more my heart the dismal din sustains, And my cold blood hangs shivering in my veins; Lest Gorgon, rising from the infernal lakes, With horrors arm'd, and curls of hissing snakes, Should fix me stiffen'd at the monstrous sight, A stony image, in eternal night! Straight from the direful coast to purer air I speed my flight, and to my mates repair. My mates ascend the ship; they strike their oars; The mountains lessen, and retreat the shores; ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead! In peace, there's nothing so becomes a man, As modest stillness, and humility: But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger; Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, Disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage: Then lend the eye a terrible aspect; Let it pry through the portage of the head, Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... the use of ties and by the barrel vaults of the cross arms, and these in their turn depend on the thickness of the walls. The lower buildings attached to the church in the form of side-chapels and the narthex also helped to stiffen and buttress the cross walls. The system is by no means perfect in these late churches. It was apparently found impossible to construct drum domes of any size, except at the extreme risk of their ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... got down to work, and presently had a regular production line under way; stapling the wood splints, then wetting them with a resin solution and shaping them over a mandrel to stiffen, cutting the plastic film around a pattern, assembling and hanging the finished kites from an overhead beam until the cement had set. Pete Cope had located a big roll of red plastic film from somewhere, and it made a wonderful-looking kite. Happily, I didn't ...
— Junior Achievement • William Lee
... and tried to make her distinguish between the public and the private virtues. But the word "responsibility" slipped from him and he felt her stiffen. This was preaching, and she hated preaching even more than history. Her attention strayed again and he rallied his forces in a last appeal. But he knew it was a lost battle: every argument broke against the close front of her indifference. He was talking a language she ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... time, as she watched him, she saw his features stiffen, as though a suspicion, a foreboding ran ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... feasting is that it expands you beyond your common sense. One excess induces another, and a finer one. This acceptance of the ridiculous is good for you. It is particularly good for an Anglo-Saxon, who is so self-contained and self-controlled that his soul might stiffen as the unused limb of an Indian fakir stiffens, were it not for periodical excitements like that of the Christmas feast. Everybody has experienced the self-conscious reluctance which precedes the putting on of the cap, and ...
— The Feast of St. Friend • Arnold Bennett
... their brains boil, scorches the ground, dries up the springs, and brings forth endless numbers of mosquitoes to sting their bodies and try their patience. The Promised Land!... At night they have the terrible cold to make their eyes smart, to stiffen their joints and ruin their lungs. ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... its dusty wheat or barley field adjacent, the crop, not the product of the rains of heaven, but of the muddy overflow of "Irrigating Ditch No.2." Then comes a road made up of many converging wagon tracks, which stiffen into a wide straggling street, in which glaring frame houses and a few shops stand opposite to each other. A two-storey house, one of the whitest and most glaring, and without a veranda like all the others, is the "St. Vrain Hotel," called after ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... felt her shoulders stiffen, and all the fighting blood which was in her as truly, if less offensively than in himself, leaped in her pulses. Defiant words rushed to her lips, but remained unsaid, because something grotesque about his attempted ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... his misused body stiffen, that when he was called it required another ten minutes and a second glass of whisky to unbend his joints ...
— Lost Face • Jack London
... then saw the white youth stiffen with swift decision, saw him whirl to face the crag. For a moment he stood with eyes riveted upon the Agong till the little knob swung toward him, then he bent slightly at the knees and his hand swept back with a swiftness that seemed to bring the pistol leaping to meet the ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... did not neglect any precaution which might save his strength for the morrow. He lay down upon his bed, stretching himself at full length, and carefully keeping his right arm free, lest, by letting his weight fall upon it as he lay, he should benumb the muscles or stiffen the joints; from time to time he rubbed a little strengthening ointment upon his wrist, and he was careful that the light should not shine in his eyes and weary them. At six o'clock his seconds appeared with the surgeon they had engaged, and the four men ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... one. The author has considered it hardly worth his while, therefore, relentlessly to impale the story with its moral as with an iron rod,—or, rather, as by sticking a pin through a butterfly,—thus at once depriving it of life, and causing it to stiffen in an ungainly and unnatural attitude. A high truth, indeed, fairly, finely, and skilfully wrought out, brightening at every step, and crowning the final development of a work of fiction, may add an artistic glory, but is never any truer, and seldom any more ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... a coward, really," I went on; I smiled painstakingly into his stupid pink face that seemed suddenly to have grown pinker; and then I felt my smile stiffen upon my lips, for he had whirled around on the piano stool on which he was sitting, and he smiled back at me, but not as he would have done in Mrs. Whitney's ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... the thunder-oak of Geismar to worship their god, Thor. Strange things will be seen there, and deeds which make the soul black. But we are sent to lighten their darkness; and we will teach our kinsmen to keep a Christmas with us such as the woodland has never known. Forward, then, and stiffen up ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... golden-winged, iron-scaled, long-tusked, brazen-clawed, snaky-haired monster, but he must do it with his eyes shut, or, at least, without so much as a glance at the enemy with whom he was contending. Else, while his arm was lifted to strike, he would stiffen into stone, and stand with that uplifted arm for centuries, until time, and the wind and weather, should crumble him quite away. This would be a very sad thing to befall a young man who wanted to perform a great many brave deeds and to enjoy a great ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... yellowish-red in colour, and do not stiffen the cloth. The iron may be dissolved by placing the stain in a dilute solution of hydrochloric acid, when, on adding ferrocyanide of potassium, ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... hour passed. I resolved, under the pressing circumstances, to resort to extreme measures. I threw a pitcher of cold water over Rouletabille's head. He opened his eyes. I beat his face, and raised him up. I felt him stiffen in my arms and heard him murmur: "Go on, go on; but don't make any noise." I pinched him and shook him until he was able to stand ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... duration. To the wondrous dexterity of his adversary, Sintram opposed his far superior size; and he dealt so fearful a blow on the horned helmet, that a stream of blood rushed forth, the small man fell as if stunned, and after some frightful convulsive movements, his limbs appeared to stiffen ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... white face of that child Mary Traill as she fled in horror before the jeering ruffian whom he had slain, and other things even more unspeakable seen on that dreadful evening rose now before the eyes of his memory to stiffen his faltering purpose. The Spaniards had shown themselves without mercy or sentiment or decency of any kind; stuffed with religion, they were without a spark of that Christianity, the Symbol of which was mounted on the mainmast of the approaching ship. A moment ago this ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... face. His hands were numb, dead. He lay supported by his elbows, his eyes gazing blankly at the unlit fire. Five minutes passed; he did not rise. He seemed dazed, stupid, terror-stricken. Five more minutes passed. He did not move. He seemed to stiffen, to grow rigid, and ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... darkened the flame in the Mormon's gaze. For an instant his face worked spasmodically, only to stiffen into a stony mask. It was the old conflict once more, the never-ending war between flesh and spirit. And now the ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey
... dear. It has to be done; and the braver you are, the sooner it will be over. You are bound to suffer the first few times, but it would be ten times worse to allow the joint to stiffen. Now be brave, and try to take just two steps with me! I will support you on one side, and—" Nurse looked round questioningly—"Mr Harold will take the other. You can lean all your weight on us. We won't let ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... of a painter who wished his arm to be fixed in a straight position, and of a turner whose knee at his own request was permitted to stiffen at a right angle, as that position allowed him to turn ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... to the lad countless years the vise-like grasp was maintained upon his windpipe. He began to understand that his struggles were useless, and spent his entire energy in an effort to stiffen the cords of his neck, hoping to assist his breathing by so doing. Presently, as he ceased his struggles, the soldier who had so skillfully captured him set ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... standing well in the centre of our force, it was possible to see the uniforms of that band of renegades which Sir John had armed and equipped that they might kill their neighbors, as the men came up to take the place of the retreating redskins, and, if anything had been needed to stiffen the backs of our people, surely they got it when seeing those whom they had once called friends, moving into ...
— The Minute Boys of the Mohawk Valley • James Otis
... your breath. You'll want it when the muscles stiffen. 'Cre nom d'un pipe! To think that I, Furneaux of the Yard, should queer the finest pitch I ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... could no longer move along fast enough to keep the warmth of life in his body. To add to his trouble, his foot, which had been broken in Tennessee previous to his capture, was now giving him great pain, and threatened to cripple him wholly; indeed, it would stiffen and disable the best of limbs to compass the journey he had made in darkness over strange, uneven, and hard-frozen ground, and through rivers, creeks, and bogs, and ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... the snow! An easy death! Gentle surcease of mortal breath! I sink, I stiffen, I'm foredone! The feeling though's a pleasant ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, February 6, 1892 • Various
... Tired as I was I could not forbear a smile when this Mohican saluted the noble river by its Algonquin name in the presence of those haughty Iroquois who owned it. And it seemed to me as though I could hear the feathered crests stiffen on the two Oneida heads; for this was Oneida country, and they had been maliciously reminded that the Lenape had once named for them their river under circumstances in which no Iroquois took any pride. Little evidences of the subtle but ever-living friction between my Mohican and the ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... 27th he met the proposal more directly by pointing out that, so far from such a policy conducing to the maintenance of peace, it would merely offend the pride of the Germans and stiffen them in their present attitude.[147] Two days later Sir Edward Grey pointed out to M. ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History
... his head. If the whole thing were not disposed of within the next few months the fellow would turn up again like a bad penny. It saved a thousand a year at least to get rid of him, besides all the worry to Winifred and his father. 'I must stiffen Dreamer's back,' he thought; 'we ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... indeed: that came out more and more with every word he said and with the particular way he said it, and Maisie could feel his monitress stiffen almost with anguish against the increase of his spell and then hurl herself as a desperate defence from it into the quite confessed poorness of violence, of iteration. "You're afraid of her—afraid, afraid, afraid! Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!" Mrs. Wix wailed it ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... must be admitted that the Christian religion has something astonishing in it. Some will say, "This is because you were born in it." Far from it; I stiffen myself against it for this very reason, for fear this prejudice bias me. But although I am born in it, I cannot help finding ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... them, they have a power over us, just because of their natural offensiveness. They are like the sight of human blood. Experienced soldiers tell us that at first, men are sickened by the smell and newness of blood, almost to death and fainting; but that as soon as they harden their hearts and stiffen their minds, as soon as they will bear it, then comes an appetite for slaughter, a tendency to gloat on carnage, to love blood (at least for the moment) with a deep, eager love. It is a principle ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... assembling an army. In the winter small units of this Archangel army began co-operating in various places, and as the winter wore on, began to take over small portions of the line, as at Toulgas, Shred Mekrenga, Bolsheozerki, usually however with a few British officers and some Allied soldiers to stiffen them. Although many of these men had been drafted by the Archangel government and as we have seen by such local county governments as Pinega, they were fairly well trained under old Russian officers who crept out ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... as he doubtless did the beaters, huntsmen, and keepers of the estates over which he formerly shot. It has been his ambition to make Europe one vast Kaiserdom estate. But the sands are running out, and each "bag," whether by Zeppelin or submarine, serves but to stiffen the backs of the Allies and horrify neutral nations. Some day the accumulated horrors of the Kaiser's ideas of sportsmanship will have taught the latter the lesson that Kaiserdom with Europe as a Kaiser estate ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... they came out into the busy mart. The old mahout congratulated himself upon the docility of his find. It would stiffen the bidding to announce that she was gentle. He even went so far as to pat her on the shoulder. The steel film did not cover all her nerves, so it would seem; the patted shoulder was vulnerable. ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... resistance of some sort? He knew he would be shot down instantly if he did, and they would be glad of an excuse, but that would be only cutting short the agony. The veins swelled on his forehead, and he felt his limbs stiffen. He made a sudden movement, but the big breed caught his arm and whispered in his ear. It was an Indian saying which meant that until the Great Spirit Himself called, it was folly to listen to those who tempted. It was not so much the hope these few ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... seemed for an instant taken aback by these bold words, and by the high and strenuous voice in which they were uttered. But the sterner sacrist came as ever to stiffen his will. He held up the old parchment ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the fish house on the dock, Henderson could only advance a few steps at a time. He was straining every nerve to protect and assist Edith. He saw no one he recognized near them, so he slipped his arm across her back to help support her. He felt her stiffen against him and catch her breath. At the same instant, the clearest, sweetest male voice he ever had heard called: ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... down and back. Chest out. Stomach up. Thumb along the seams of trousers. Knees straight, not stiff. Heels on line and together. Do not stiffen the fingers: The mind ought also to ...
— The Plattsburg Manual - A Handbook for Military Training • O.O. Ellis and E.B. Garey
... scream at the sound of a gun, Which we POINTERS consider as part of the fun. We range the wide fallows, or quarter the stubble, While the labouring sportsman, alive to each double, Hails the high stiffen'd tail, and the motionless joint, And cautiously warns the whole field of the point; As by magic transfixt, all the signal obey— With the death dealing tube, he hastes up to his prey." To the Pointer a bandy leg'd TURNSPIT replied, "All you've said, worthy ...
— The Council of Dogs • William Roscoe
... long enough to lose the lovely entrance of Dublin Bay, stiffen her limbs, and confuse her brains, and she stood still as the stream of passengers began to rush trampling by her, feeling bewildered and forlorn. Her cousin's voice was welcome, though over-loud and somewhat piteous. 'Where are you, stewardess? ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... work in the kitchen Vaniman sat with the Squire in front of the fireplace and smoked his pipe, but not with his customary comfort; the tobacco seemed to be as bitter as his ponderings; he was trying to stiffen his resolution to go away ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... know what to do. I called an ambulance. But the moment the door opened, his body seemed to stiffen again. He had one other convulsion—and when he grew ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... alone again," he whispered passionately, but to his horror he felt her stiffen and fall to the ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco
... stiffen and his eyes go to the door. He waited a second, then rising noiselessly, crossed the wooden floor of the veranda quickly and pushed open the door, to find himself face to face with the ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... gaze made him stiffen in his chair. Lawler's smile, cold and mirthless, brought a pulse of apprehension through him, and Lawler's voice, slow, clear, and distinct, forced the blood from his face, ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Dan Boggs, breakin' loose all at once, like he's so honest he can't restrain himse'f, an' jest as Texas heads out for the Red Light; 'you're a heap onknown to me, but I takes a chance an' stands your friend. Now yere's what you do. You stiffen yourse'f up with a Colt's '44, an' lay for this Texas Thompson. He's a rustler an' a hoss-thief, an' a murderer who, as he says, has planted forty-two, not countin' Injuns, Mexicans an' mavericks. He oughter be massacred; an' as it's come ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... an absent, far-away look, his arms and legs seemed to stiffen, and a tremor ran through his limbs. Chris ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... who steals jam in the pantry ought not to get poisoned. She should get after a pot of warm glue, which should be made to miraculously stiffen the moment she gets it into her mouth, and have to be gouged out of her with a ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... years ago we met," he resumed, "in the Wabash Avenue place. I noticed her when the bidding on a rocking chair started. A pretty girl. And as is often the case among women who attend auctions—a bug, a fan, a fish. You know, the kind that stiffen up when they get excited. The kind that hang on your words and breathe hard while you cut loose with the patter, and lose their heads when you swing ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... Stiffen to mix and then rub in three tablespoons of shortening and work to a dough with one-half cup of cold water. Roll out one-quarter inch thick and spread with cranberry mixture. Roll like for jelly roll and then wrap in a pudding cloth. Plunge in a saucepan containing boiling ...
— Mrs. Wilson's Cook Book - Numerous New Recipes Based on Present Economic Conditions • Mary A. Wilson
... draggled swans most eagerly eat The green weeds trailing in the moat; Inside the rotting leaky boat You see a slain man's stiffen'd feet. ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... figure seemed, while she spoke thus to him, to stiffen still more, the strong mouth hardened, a look of relentless obstinacy crept into the ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... child is usually a letter of thanks; somebody has sent him a box of chocolates. The thanks tend to stiffen a child's style; but in any case a letter is the occasion of a sudden self-consciousness, newer to a child than his elders know. They speak prose and know it. But a young child possesses his words by a different tenure; he is not aware of the spelt and written aspect of the things he says every ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell
... presence of Tikhon and the doctor the women washed what had been the prince, tied his head up with a handkerchief that the mouth should not stiffen while open, and with another handkerchief tied together the legs that were already spreading apart. Then they dressed him in uniform with his decorations and placed his shriveled little body on a table. ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... hats have in part supplanted it today among stockmen. The boardlike felt was practically indestructible. The brim flapped a little and, in time, was turned up and perhaps held fast to the crown by a thong. The wearer might sometimes stiffen the brim by passing a thong through a series of holes pierced through the outer edge. He could depend upon his hat in all weathers. In the rain it was an umbrella; in the sun a shield; in the winter he could tie it down about ...
— The Passing of the Frontier - A Chronicle of the Old West, Volume 26 in The Chronicles - Of America Series • Emerson Hough
... of fishing is very novel. The guns, heavily loaded with powder, are fired as nearly over the fish as it is possible to be done from the canoe. The concussion of the air seems to so stun them that they stiffen out on their backs, and there lie apparently dead for a minute or so. The men hunting them, aware of this, the instant they have fired immediately set to work with their long-handled gaff hooks, and gather in as many as they can ere the fish return to consciousness, and those ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... the machine tolerably fairly and propel it and steer it, then comes your next task—how to mount it. You do it in this way: you hop along behind it on your right foot, resting the other on the mounting-peg, and grasping the tiller with your hands. At the word, you rise on the peg, stiffen your left leg, hang your other one around in the air in a general in indefinite way, lean your stomach against the rear of the saddle, and then fall off, maybe on one side, maybe on the other; but you fall off. You get ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... perambulator, they briskly pick themselves up, briskly scramble up a leg and make their way to the top. It is a splendidly nimble and spirited performance. Besides, once seated, they have to keep a firm balance in the mass; they have to stretch and stiffen their little limbs in order to hang on to their neighbours. As a matter of fact, there is no absolute rest for them. Now physiology teaches us that not a fibre works without some expenditure of energy. The animal, which can be likened, ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... below the knee, lay the boy on his back and put a pillow or a bag stuffed with grass lengthwise under it. Then put a board or a hewed sapling on the under side of the pillow to stiffen it, and bandage the pillow and the board or sapling firmly to the leg. If the boy has to be ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... them for life. One elects to stand on one foot until it becomes impossible for him ever to put the other to the ground. Another determines to raise his arms to heaven, never taking them down. In a short time, after excruciating pain, the joints stiffen so as to render any change impossible, and the arms shrivel until little but bone is left. Some let their nails grow into their flesh and through their hands. The forms of these penances are innumerable, and those who undergo them are regarded as holy men ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... Pudneys. I knew at last what I meant—I had ceased to wince at my responsibility. I gave this supreme impression of Saltram time to fade if it would; but it didn't fade, and, individually, it hasn't faded even now. During the month that I thus invited myself to stiffen again, Adelaide Mulville, perplexed by my absence, wrote to me to ask why I WAS so stiff. At that season of the year I was usually oftener "with" them. She also wrote that she feared a real estrangement had set in between Mr. Gravener and her ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... asked Sylvia. "I'd rather have someone besides Pat, but the others are either away or worse than Pat. You're good for Pat if she isn't for you. You sort of stiffen her up—she told me so. Pat needs whalebone. When her purse gets flat her morals dwindle; mine always get scared stiff. I'll write twice a week, Joan, my lamb, Sunday and Wednesday. ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... the civilised nations of the world." It need not be said that any attempt to apply this stigma in practice would be extremely difficult to carry out, would involve all kinds of difficulties and complications in trade and in finance, and that the threat of it is more likely than anything else to stiffen the resistance of the Germans and to force them to rely on their militarist leaders as their only hope of salvation. However, the Committee points out that recent legislation shows a desire to ascertain and record the extent to which aliens are ...
— War-Time Financial Problems • Hartley Withers
... hall rug. He should spend the night shut in with me, out of mischief yet comfortable. Purring in the curve of my arm, he was carried upstairs without objection on his part. Until we reached my room! On its threshold I felt his body stiffen; his yellow eyes snapped open alertly. Cat antipathy to a strange place, I reflected, amused, as I switched on ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... man's hat. It was turned up on one side with a big breastpin. I noticed it wasn't any eight-dollar hat; she had to fix it that way to stiffen the brim in front. It was ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... but the difficulty was to get them of any truthful sort whatsoever, for the babies regarded the photographer—the kindest and mildest of men—with the gravest suspicion: and the moment he appeared, little faces, all animation before, would stiffen into shyness, and the light would slip out of them, and the naturalness, so that all the camera saw, and therefore all it could show, was ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... that ground. "Child, the properties both of wax and pitch I am well acquainted with. With wax I stroke the silken threads with which I stitch your dainty shoes; the shoes I am at this moment making, I sew with coarse cord, and use pitch to stiffen it, for the hard-fibred customer who is to wear them."—"Who is it? Some one of great consequence, I suppose?"—"Of consequence, indeed! A proud master, on wooing bent, who has no doubt whatever of coming ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... dog! Everybody has noticed it. Let a dog turn away from a hostile circle, and his crisp and wary tail not merely defends him, it menaces; it is a weapon. Man has no choice but to surge and boil, or stiffen preposterously. Knowing the popular sentiment about his marketing—for men can see behind their backs, though they may have nothing to speak with—Tinman resembled those persons of principle who decline ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... pass over the driving axle. Hard cast iron blocks are riveted between the guard plates to serve as guides for the axle bushes. The side frames are connected across the ends, and cross stays are introduced beneath the boiler to stiffen the frame sideways, and prevent the ends of the connecting or eccentric rods from falling down ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... stood quite still looking at her. He saw her start for a moment as she recognized him, and her eyes swept him over with a half incredulous, half startled expression. She drew a little breath. And then Andrew saw her suddenly and instinctively stiffen. She looked him in the face and bowed very slightly, without ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... nerves of our company, and they had all regained their composure and self-command. But this new and unexpected disaster, following so close upon the fear which had recently overpowered them, produced a second panic, the effect of which was not to stiffen them in their tracks as before, but to send them scurrying in every direction in ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss
... Washington at the end of the first five minutes. Marie was white with rage. Was this a girl she was trying to guard, or was it an eel? She would get her cornered with the ball, Sahwah would measure Marie's height with her eye, locate the basket with a brief glance, stiffen her muscles for a jump, and then as Marie stood ready to beat down the ball, as it rose in the air, Sahwah would suddenly relax, twist into some inconceivable position, shoot the ball low to center and be a dozen feet away before Marie could get her hands down from ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... find yourself inclined to change your mind before morning, just murmur over to yourself, 'England expects every man to do his duty.' That will stiffen your back." ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... must—stiffen my back," he said sternly to himself, as he neared the dingy schoolhouse toward which, from all directions, he could see his audience making its way. It was not the first time he had addressed these girls and women, in so informal and unostentatious ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... meeting him in the park." The detective leaned forward in his chair and spoke gently, as if merely reminding the girl of some insignificant fact which she had presumably forgotten, yet there was that in his tone which made her stiffen, and she replied impulsively, with a ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... produced tasty dishes that have been handed down from mother to daughter for generations. Their cooking was truly a folk art requiring much intuitive knowledge, for recipes contained measurements such as "flour to stiffen," "butter the size of a walnut," and "large as an apple." Many of the recipes have been made more exact and standardized providing us with a regional cookery we ...
— Pennsylvania Dutch Cooking • Unknown
... her up tenderly; Lift her with care; Fashion'd so slenderly, Young, and so fair! Ere her limbs frigidly Stiffen too rigidly, Decently,—kindly,— Smooth and compose them; And her eyes, close them, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... and rules. Next, with the tendency of its greatest, most arresting personalities either to revolt from these organisms or to reform, rekindle them from within. So that the institutional life of religion persists through or in spite of its own constant tendency to stiffen and lose fervour, and the secessions, protests, or renewals which are occasioned by its greatest sons. Thus our Lord protested against Jewish formalism; many Catholic mystics, and afterwards the best of the Protestant reformers, against Roman formalism; ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... of poetry about them. The toil that produces those kindly gifts of nature which are not the substance of life, but its luxury, is unlike other toil. We are inclined to fancy that it does not bend the sturdy frame and stiffen the overwrought muscles, like the labor that is devoted in sad, hard earnest to raise grain for sour bread. Certainly, the sunburnt young men and dark-cheeked, laughing girls, who weeded the rich acres of Monte Beni, might well enough have passed for inhabitants of an unsophisticated Arcadia. ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... determination not to let them see her flinch at any kind of horror. That was the spirit of sahibdom that is not always quite commendable; it is the spirit that takes Anglo-Saxon women to the seething, stenching plains and holds them there high-chinned to stiffen their men-folk by courageous example, but it leads, too, to things not quite so womanly ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... from fust to last!" burst out Billy. "If a angel from heaven comed down-long and tawld 'e the truth 'bout un, you wouldn't b'lieve. God stiffen it! You make me mad! You'd stand 'pon your head an' waggle your auld legs in the air for un if he ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... moment he had been dreading had come. Some one who knew him! He turned his head slowly, and Elsa, who had not dropped her hand, could feel the muscles of his arm stiffen under the sleeve. He held the stranger's eye defiantly for a space. The latter laughed insolently if silently. It was more for Elsa's sake than for his own that Warrington allowed the other to stare him down. Alone, he would have surrendered to the Berserk ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... war weapon, a stone tied in a crotched stick, from the heap of wedding gifts, and smites PADAHOON to the earth, standing threateningly over him. The others stiffen into tense attitudes, drawing their blankets tighter, their eyes burning bright. PADAHOON draws the knife that hangs in a sheath ...
— The Arrow-Maker - A Drama in Three Acts • Mary Austin
... cocked jauntily up from the higher corner, that sometimes droops from the lower;—it was as eloquent as a dog's tail, and he removed it only for the more emphatic modes of speech. He assumed a broad black ribbon for his glasses, and wore them more and more askew as time went on. His hair seemed to stiffen with success, but towards the climax it thinned greatly over the crown, and he brushed it hard back over his ears where, however, it stuck out fiercely. It always stuck out fiercely over his forehead, ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... need will almost overcome the impossible. I would now ask through what mechanism it happens that exactly these movements result from these feelings, that just these organs are affected by these passions? Might I not just as well want to know why a certain wounding of the ligament should stiffen the lower jaw? ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... we can do," she said, "doin' ain't easy. Not when you're well along in years. Your ways seem to stiffen up some. When I was a girl, I could 'a' been quite an elocutionist if I could 'a' had lessons. I had a reg'lar born sense o' givin' gestures. But I never took. An' now I declare I don't know of anything I could do. It's the same way, I guess, with quite ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... the form of Mrs. Julian Jones stiffen, although she kept her gaze fixed balefully upon two mud-hens that were prowling along the lagoon shallows below us. "The hussy!" she hissed, once and implacably. Jones had stopped at the sound, but ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... very slowly and carefully to from 1,800 to 2,000 deg.F. and forge thoroughly and uniformly. If the forging operation is prolonged do not continue forging the tool when the steel begins to stiffen under the hammer. Do not forge below 1,700 deg.F. (a dark lemon or orange color). Reheat frequently rather than prolong the hammering ...
— The Working of Steel - Annealing, Heat Treating and Hardening of Carbon and Alloy Steel • Fred H. Colvin
... crag, crystal, quartz, granite, adamant; bone, cartilage; hardware; heart of oak, block, board, deal board; iron, steel; cast iron, decarbonized iron, wrought iron; nail; brick, concrete; cement. V. render hard &c adj.; harden, stiffen, indurate, petrify, temper, ossify, vitrify; accrust^. Adj. hard, rigid, stubborn, stiff, firm; starch, starched; stark, unbending, unlimber, unyielding; inflexible, tense; indurate, indurated; gritty, proof. adamant, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... distant from the road. The negroes by themselves would never have consented to this plan, so great was their dread of bugaboos, but they derived courage from the companionship of white men, and, to stiffen their resolution, I told them how, when wearing the crown piece about my neck, I had escaped by night with nine companions from a place with stone walls ten feet thick. This impressed them greatly—Noah in particular; and in the evening, when we halted for our bivouac in the forest, he ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... that the cavern was of an enormous length, and the words "Long Gallery" in the note which Soma had dropped came up before my mind. There was no doubt that the cave was the meeting spot which Leith had mentioned, and as I felt Holman's body stiffen as he shouldered against me for a share of the peephole, I knew that he believed that the treacherous brute was one of the three that were approaching ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... age we live in Shall stiffen round my careless rhyme, Who made the vagrant tracks may puzzle The savants ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... now almost forgotten busk was a small slip of steel or wood, used to stiffen the stays. Florimel threatens to employ it as ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... thumped the ground, then they felt it stiffen, and were again on the alert. Venning ran his fingers lightly along the jackal's back till he reached the nose, which was pointing straight up. Without a moment's delay he raised ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... pestilent fellow who, under the pretense of recording some particular stage in the development of a language, does what he can to arrest its growth, stiffen its flexibility and mechanize its methods. For your lexicographer, having written his dictionary, comes to be considered "as one having authority," whereas his function is only to make a record, not to give ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... air. "Three!" he thought, his eyes fixed steadily on Antone's right hand, as he still advanced toward the angry man. For he had noticed that the Mexican wore no cartridge belt. Again he sprang to one side as he saw Antone's finger stiffen upon the trigger, and the ball rattled through the bushes behind him. "Four!" he thought, veering toward the west. The Mexican turned his horse to follow, and Mead, with eyes fixed on the trigger, and noting, too, the slant of the barrel, ...
— With Hoops of Steel • Florence Finch Kelly
... literally held its breath as the girl paused before replying. Her hands shut hard at her sides, her body seemed to stiffen and rise, then she turned formidably with the fires of slumbering vengeance burning in her wonderful eyes—vengeance for her mother, for her lover, for her rescuer, for herself—she turned slowly toward the cowering nobleman and said distinctly: ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... would break they would curse and tremble, but immediately go out and repair it accurately, slowly, no skimped work, repeating the performance again and again. There is in our spirit some reserve force which on occasion the will uses to stiffen resolution—the second wind ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett
... water. Fell the rain, And to the fosses came all that the land Contain'd not; and, as mightiest streams are wont, To the great river with such headlong sweep Rush'd, that nought stay'd its course. My stiffen'd frame Laid at his mouth the fell Archiano found, And dash'd it into Arno, from my breast Loos'ning the cross, that of myself I made When overcome with pain. He hurl'd me on, Along the banks and bottom of his course; Then in ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... the 26. Scheme; the one is a quilly or finny substance, consisting of several long, slender and variously bended quills or wires, something resembling the veins of leaves; these are, as 'twere, the finns or quills which stiffen the whole Area, and keep the other part distended, which is a very thin transparent skin or membrane variously folded, and platted, but not very regularly, and is besides exceeding thickly bestuck with innumerable small ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... splendid corpse of a royal tiger has been brought in in a bullock-cart, the driver claiming the reward of fifteen dollars, and its claws were given to me. It was trapped only six miles off, and its beautiful feline body had not had time to stiffen. Even when dead, with its fierce head and cruel paws hanging over the end of the cart, it was not an object to be disrespected. The same reward is offered for a rhinoceros, five dollars for a crocodile (alligator?) and five dollars for a boa-constrictor ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... him all the time she was speaking, and only half realised that her indignation was warmly simulated in order to produce an effect upon him and stiffen a wavering determination. For a moment Gaga did not speak. He was turning the matter over in his mind, and Sally saw the changes of opinion that passed across his face. Weakness, submission, obstinacy, ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... faces and thick necks were hirsute, as if overgrown with moss, tangled or crispy. Their feet were tied up in the raw hides of hogs or beeves just slaughtered, from which they also frequently extemporized drawers, cut while reeking, and left to stiffen to the shape of the legs. A heavy-stocked musket, made at Dieppe or Nantes, with a barrel four and a half feet long, and carrying sixteen balls to the pound,[6] lay over the shoulder, a calabash full of powder, with a wax stopper, was slung behind, and a belt of crocodile's skin, with four knives ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... this kind Manlia felt rather than heard or saw a change in Brinnaria next her, felt her stiffen and grow silent, rigid and tense. Manlia glanced at her, followed her gaze and became interested in the fight Brinnaria was watching. Before them, not immediately below them, but some distance out in the arena, fought a conspicuous pair of gladiators. One was a great hulking full-armored ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... or four days the feet lose their natural elasticity, and the knees begin to stiffen. When you observe this, it is time to give the legs any angle you wish, and arrange the toes for a standing position, or curve them to your finger. If you wish to set the bird on a branch, bore a little hole under each foot ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... Gardo carried the same heavy weather from Barnegat Light to the Virginia capes. Beyond Cape Henry the blow began to stiffen and increased every hour as the freighter plowed steadily southward. Bucking head seas every mile of the way, she picked up Diamond Shoals four hours behind schedule. As she plunged past the tossing light-ship, Larry, squinting through a forecastle port, wondered how long its anchor chains ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... jealous quails or village-cocks inspect Each other's necks with stiffen'd plumes erect; Smit with the wordless eloquence, they know The rival passion of the threatening foe. So when the famish'd wolves at midnight howl, Fell serpents hiss, or fierce hyenas growl; Indignant ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... are here, should mean continuous unfoldment, advancement, and this is undoubtedly the purpose of life; but age-producing forces and agencies mean deterioration, as opposed to growth and unfoldment. They ossify, weaken, stiffen, deaden, both mentally and physically. For him or her who yearns to stay young, the coming of the years does not mean or bring abandonment of hope or of happiness or of activity. It means comparative vigour combined with continually ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... and private existence, he has a singular tenderness for the stone-incrusted institutions of the mother-country. The reason may be (though I should prefer a more generous explanation) that he recognizes the tendency of these hardened forms to stiffen her joints and fetter her ankles, in the race and rivalry of improvement. I hated to see so much as a twig of ivy wrenched away from an old wall in England. Yet change is at work, even in such a village as Whitnash. At a subsequent ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... night, startled many a wakeful warrior and timorous mother from their repose. But such sounds in a disorderly hamlet of barbarians were too common to create alarm or uneasiness; and the wary and the timid again betook themselves to their dreams, leaving the corse of their chief to stiffen on the floor of his ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... a hoarse call from the engineer as he swept around the curve and saw the pretty figure on the track so close to his train. Madge felt the wave of heat from the locomotive. It seemed almost to scorch her, it was so near. She felt her fingers stiffen with fear; her hold on her pony's mane relaxed. She knew she was slipping off her horse's back ...
— Madge Morton's Secret • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... brusquely, not waiting for the gasp of pained surprise of the little Clerk to end. He was glad to see the figure beside him presently straighten itself, as though to be braced for a task of difficulty. Indignation and resentment were good things to stiffen a man's back. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... from the wire cables by the ordinary connecting rods, and giving stiffness to it by a trussed railing, a latticed framing of wood hung directly from the cables, and the timbers of the roadway being fastened to this by stirrups, the wooden lattice served both to suspend and to stiffen the road. It was a serviceable and cheap structure, built in two weeks, and answered our purposes well till it was burned in the next autumn, when Colonel Lightburn retreated before a Confederate invasion. [Footnote: ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... spoke, he felt his legs stiffen and turn to marble. And when he went on to relate the affair of the horse in the same manner, he became visibly stone up to the waist, stiffening miserably—a thing which at another time he would have paid in ready money, but which now his heart ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... horses, thereby impeding and in some instances totally arresting the process of digestion. These balls, almost circular in form, are composed of minute and rather stiff hairs, and several have been found in one animal. These hairs, numerous on the heads; do not stiffen sooner than the period of full bloom; hence, until that stage is reached in the growth of the plants, the danger from feeding cured hay made from ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw
... Miss Ladd replied. "I see no reason for delay. I'd rather tell them now than just before or after we get to Hollyhill. If we tell them now they'll have a couple of hours in which to stiffen their courage. There are eleven girls besides you two. Suppose you call them here in three lots in succession, four, four, and three, and we'll tell them quietly what has occurred and give them a little lecture as to how ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... these words upon Grassette was remarkable. His body appeared to stiffen, his face became rigid, he stared at the Governor blankly, appalled, the colour left his face, and his mouth opened with a curious and revolting grimace. The others drew back, startled, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... meet. For another thing, they've had a heavy crop in Manitoba, Dakota, and Minnesota, and I suppose some folks have an idea they'll get in first before the other people swamp the Eastern markets. I think they're foolish. It's a temporary scare. Prices will stiffen ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... making out how easy it was. Make out it was the very devil. Show yourself weak, just about to collapse from the strain. Give at the knees. Make your shoulders cave in. The ringmaster will half step forward to catch you before you faint. That's your cue. Beat him to it. Stiffen up and straighten up with an effort of will-power—will- power's the idea, gameness, and all that, and kiss your hands to the audience and make a weak, pitiful sort of a smile, as though your heart's ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... Page's features and his shirt front, but his whole personality seemed to stiffen. He sat up and made an outward movement on the seat of his chair which signified, "My hat and overcoat are in the hall, and if you do not at ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... enough," answered Molly, with the air of one who had experience; "just stiffen yourself out and fall over. But I don't believe you could ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... had better walk for the present," suggested Tad. "We shall stiffen up if we ride in ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin
... blood between them—you see that? And I heard the toff tell Zahn that the next time 'e saw 'im he'd about stiffen 'im. I heard it, or words to that effect. Now, I want you to bear witness that what I ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... said Moran, with a grin. Nor did he flinch when the weapon in Wade's hand seemed actually to stiffen under the tension ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... know that, in riding mules down steep or long hills, you do much to stiffen them up ...
— The Mule - A Treatise On The Breeding, Training, - And Uses To Which He May Be Put • Harvey Riley
... Mrs. Laden started bringing in the dinner. Mrs. Laden is a widow; she has been with us since my mother died, the year after I was born. She is violently anti-liquor. Reluctantly, she condones Dad taking a snort now and then, but as soon as she saw Bish Ware, her face started to stiffen. ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... eyes, brimming with light and laughter, were on his face, but she failed to see him slowly stiffen to hide the sudden, wild leaping of his heart. Could it be that he saw the far-off vision of ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... the explanation of the change that had passed over you, and had given me so much pain!—my little Alma, who loved so dearly to give, and who has lately been so hard and cold that the very idea of an appeal from a poor family seemed to close her heart and stiffen her face into determined opposition. You cannot be a princess, dear, and do some great thing. I am afraid there was more pride than holy love in your plan. You should not think of yourself when you want to do good, but of your heavenly Master and his suffering ...
— The Golden House • Mrs. Woods Baker
... A policeman, I was informed, was a being to hold in fear, not in respect. He was to be avoided, not to be made friends with. The result was that, as did all boys, I came to regard the policeman on our beat as a distinct enemy. His presence meant that we should "stiffen up"; his disappearance was the signal for us ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok
... the first pause, "you are in trouble." She could feel him stiffen, and hurried on: "What can I do? You know you can ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London |
