"Pliant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... goodly frame, Quaint cushions, large and small, Are fitly fashioned, each in place, And pliant, one and all. ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller
... high enough to oblige her to look up to it. She was laughing with all the glee of a child; darting the piece of sugar about incessantly from place to place. Every moment, her head and neck assumed some new and lovely turn—every moment her figure naturally fell into the position which showed its pliant symmetry best. The last-left glow of the evening atmosphere was shining on her—the farewell pause of daylight over the kindred daylight of ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... royalist faction; the latter, which was beginning to be important, would have been listened to had it offered power to him. About the end of July he sent his 'aide de camp' La Vallette to Paris. La Vallette was a man of good sense and education, pleasing manners, pliant temper, and moderate opinions. He was decidedly devoted to Bonaparte. With his instructions he received a private cipher to enable him ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... with pliant shoots the vine Round nearest tree-trunk winds her way, He shall be ever twined in thine Embraces:—yet, lo! wanes the day: 105 Prithee, come forth ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... still quivering Starkad rent away with his steel the remnant of his life; thus disclosing his treachery when he ought to have brought aid. I do not think that I need examine the version which relates that the pliant withies, hardened with the sudden grip, acted like a ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... in all "the pomp and circumstance" of official station, and joined Waddell on the 4th of June, near Salisbury, about eight miles east of the Yadkin river. He then marched by a circuitous route to Hillsboro, where he had court held to try the Regulators, by his pliant tool, Judge Howard. On the 20th he left Hillsboro, and reached Newbern on the 24th; and on the 30th left North Carolina for the colony of New York, over which he had just been appointed Governor. Thus was our State rid of one who had acted the part of an oppressive ruler ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... system of military discipline truly, and shows that my good friend Burd is either made a cat's-foot of himself, or little knows me if he imagines that sixty scoundrels are to direct me in my measures."[650] Bouquet, with a pliant tact rarely seen in the born Briton, took great pains to please these troublesome allies, and went so far as to adopt one of them as his son.[651] A considerable number joined the army; but they nearly ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... But youth is very pliant. Employers of young men are familiar with the fact. Something always came along to quiet Evan's mind before he had gone so far as to write an "indiscreet" letter to head office. What a grand thing it is to be discreet! Why was mention of this attribute, discretion, omitted from the ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... convenience. Five or six men can draw it and manage it. Its small dimensions require but small area, either for work or storage. One hundred feet or more of its light, pliant hose can be carried on a man's arm up any number of stairs inside a building, or, if fire forbids, up a ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... polished with a shoe-brush) entered the kitchen of the hotel, and asked for the largest knife they had. The head-cook gave him a sort of carving-knife, some eighteen inches long, sharp as a razor, and pliant as a foil. The negro looked at it, shook his head as if in doubt whether it would do, but nevertheless took it up stairs with him. Presently he brought it down again, and asked for a larger one. The cook opened all ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... a SERVILE PRINCIPLE. It leads to practical passive obedience far better than all the doctrines which the pliant accommodation of theology to power has ever produced. It cuts up by the roots, not only all idea of forcible resistance, but even of civil opposition. It disposes men to an abject submission, not by opinion, which may be ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... young man, undersized and slightly deformed, with close-cut hair, and a large face, droll, pliant and ugly as a gutta-percha mask. Before he opened his ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... his wrist pliant, and his arm was gaining more and more of his father's strength, so he soon performed ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... a cunning knave! do it again." This time Essper made the very wood echo. In a few minutes a horseman galloped up; he was as spruce a cavalier as ever pricked gay steed on the pliant grass. He was dressed in a green military uniform, and a gilt bugle hung by his side; his spear told them that he was hunting the wild boar. When he saw Vivian and Essper he suddenly pulled up ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... is plainly this,—that rhyme was not his talent; he had neither the ease of doing it, nor the graces of it: which is manifest in his 'Juvenilia,' or verses written in his youth, where his rhyme is always constrained and forced, and comes hardly from him, at an age when the soul is most pliant, and the passion of love makes almost every man a rhymer, ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... not yet remembering himself. For a little he stood by the elm-tree, clutching the ridges of its bark. Even so would he wrestle tomorrow, and Stephen, imperturbable, reply, "My body is my own." Or worse still, he might wrestle with a pliant Stephen who promised him glibly again. While he prayed for a miracle to convert his brother, it struck him that he must pray for himself. For he, ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... deep mourning. Beneath his cap, bordered with fine fur, long locks fell to his shoulders, and he was mounted on a powerful Binzgau charger. At his side, on a beautiful spirited bay, rode a very young woman whose pliant figure was extremely aristocratic in ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... holy man went up to heaven from just such a death-bed as you shall have-a death-bed of fire and ashes. And see, my good Count, how willingly these honest men, whom you hired, with your damnable money, to destroy my father—see how willingly they work to prepare your funeral pile! What a supple and pliant thing, O Count, is human baseness. It has but one defect—it may be turned upon ourselves! And then, O my dear Count, it shocks us and hurts our feelings. But say your prayers, Count, say your prayers. Call ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... long ago discarded the clumsy implement. First it dropped its iron ring and became a clog; afterwards it was fined down into the pliant galoshe—lighter to wear and more effectual to protect—a no less manifest instance of gradual improvement than Cowper indicates when he traces through eighty lines of poetry his 'accomplished sofa' back ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... removal placed the courts under the control of the King and made it possible for him to use them as a means of oppressing the people. A striking example of the way in which this power could be abused was seen in the career of the notorious Jeffreys, the pliant judicial tool of the cruel and tyrannical James II. To guard against a repetition of this experience it was urged that the judges be made ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith
... fighting pitch, and no ruler can withstand it. In the Boer war both governments began with bluff but could n't stay there, the military tension was too much for them. In 1898 our people had read the word "war" in letters three inches high for three months in every newspaper. The pliant politician McKinley was swept away by their eagerness, and our squalid war with ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... adorn the central ridge of the island are very full in foliage, and, in August, showed the tender green and pliant leaf of June elsewhere. They are rich in beautiful mosses and ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... possessed either the arms or the uniform of a soldier, nor the desire of combating any other enemies than hunger and cold; but they still retained perseverance, firmness, the habit of danger and suffering, and a spirit always ready, pliant, and quick in making the most of their situation. Finally, among the soldiers still under arms, the dread of a nickname, by which they themselves ridiculed their comrades who had fallen ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... wrong in this total alienation of an Executive from the possessors of parliamentary power, the officials will incessantly be tempted to make tacks out of their own course; and thus they lose the coherency and continuity of absolutism without gaining the pliant strength of popular government. This is not a presumption of what would be likely to happen, but an account of what does happen, and what justified Mr. Disraeli in adding a weak Executive to the ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... that Evelyn's ignorance of life would prevent her from making the proper allowances. In her affectionate and trusting nature, which suspected little evil anywhere, there was no doubt that her father and mother had her entire confidence and love. But the likelihood was that she would not be pliant. Under Miss McDonald's influence she had somewhat abstract notions of what is right and wrong, and she saw no reason why these should not be applied in all cases. What her mother would have called policy and reasonable ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... forehead; a passable nose of no particular design, but a really beautiful mouth and chin, the latter dimpled, the former with a short curved upper lip, displaying the pearly teeth at the faintest smile; barely medium height, with a figure that was slim yet not thin, rounded, graceful, pliant, with some of the swift dazzling motions of ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... mixed together will form an excellent quality of stuff. It is a herb with long, fibrous stems which when well beaten out and bleached become like a soft mass of wool. After being carded it can be spun into the finest threads as shiny and pliant as ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... prostrate, and every thing that was most appalling and dreadful was most easily believed. In this state superstition unavoidably grew infectious; and the more the seniors inculcated and believed, the more the imagination of the juniors became a pliant and unresisting slave. ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... a nutshell. Examining the matter more closely, he thought it possible. One day this learned man trifled half an hour in demonstrating it. A piece of vellum, about ten inches in length and eight in width, pliant and firm, can be folded up, and enclosed in the shell of a large walnut. It can hold in its breadth one line, which can contain 30 verses, and in its length 250 lines. With a crow-quill the writing can be perfect. A page of this piece ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... Calle de Anloague, and in the Calle Rosario; the exploitation of the opium traffic was shared between him and a Chinese, and, needless to say, brought him great gains. He was purveyor to the prisoners at Bilibid, and furnished zacate to many Manila houses. On good terms with all authority, shrewd, pliant, daring in speculation, he was the sole rival of a certain Perez in the awards of divers contracts which the Philippine Government always places in privileged hands. From all of which it resulted that ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... much interested in the manoeuvring of a raft which was passing by. 'Dear Miss Power,' he resumed, 'before I go and join your uncle above, let me just ask, Do I stand any chance at all yet? Is it possible you can never be more pliant than you have been?' ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... down by taps on a moving plate, the rate of its growth. The application of a chemical instantly arrested this growth, but an antidote timely applied, not only removed the torpor but enhanced the growth at an enormous rate. The life of the plant became pliant at the will of the experimenter, and nothing appeared more marvellous than the realisation that man has the power to pierce the veil that shrouds the mystery that ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
... their homage and their fealty, the approaching Reformation: others as fast reading, trying all things, assenting to the force of reason and convincement. What could a man require more from a Nation so pliant and so prone to seek after knowledge? What wants there to such a towardly and pregnant soil, but wise and faithful labourers, to make a knowing people, a Nation of prophets, of sages, and of worthies?... Where there is much ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... the way And at its limit that) continues yet To operate, that now it moves, and feels, As sea sponge clinging to the rock: and there Assumes th' organic powers its seed convey'd. 'This is the period, son! at which the virtue, That from the generating heart proceeds, Is pliant and expansive; for each limb Is in the heart by forgeful nature plann'd. How babe of animal becomes, remains For thy consid'ring. At this point, more wise, Than thou hast err'd, making the soul disjoin'd From passive intellect, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... desired, she revealed to his astonished eyes a backbone that was evidently made of iron. She was immovable, he admitted, and because she was immovable he was conscious of a sharp unreasonable impulse to reduce her to the pliant curves of her girlhood. After eight years of an absolute supremacy, which had been far from good for him, his will had been tripped up at last by so small a thing as a ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... few to see them, but every eye in range was aware of her and of a refined simplicity of dress adorning a figure whose pliant grace was the finishing touch to her joyous erectness. Hugh's gaze was frankly on her, and his mind on the first night he had ever seen her, when, with her hair wind-tossed in loose curls, she had stood at this spot on the ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... closely around the neck and shoulders that a bee cannot creep under it. Woolen stockings may then be drawn over the hands, or better still, India Rubber gloves, such as are now in very common use, may be worn; these gloves are impenetrable to the sting of a bee, and yet are so soft and pliant as scarcely in the least to interfere with the operations ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... this wild protest of the wilderness? Was it this wide-blown, scattered fire, whose sparks and ashes were sown broadcast, till but stubborn remnants clung under the sheltering back-log of the bivouac hearth? Was it this frail lodge, built upon pliant, yielding poles, covered cunningly with mats and bark, carpeted with robe of elk and buffalo? Yet why should the elements rage at a tiny fire, and why should they tear at a little house of nomad man, since these things were old upon the earth? Was it somewhat else that incited this elemental rage? ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... began to arouse a good deal of interest, and the flaneurs in those circles obtained kudos by pretending to precise information about her. The rumour of riches spread. Tradespeople became sweet and pliant—the plucking of a goose with golden feathers was not ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... the grassy mound Scarce bends its pliant form When overhead the autumnal wood Is thundering ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... It borrow'd ornament, or sought support: No juries here were pack'd to kill or clear, No bribes were taken, nor oaths broken here; No gownsmen, partial to a client's cause, To their own purpose turn'd the pliant laws; Each judge was true and steady to his trust, As Mansfield wise, and as old Foster[21] just. In the first seat, in robe of various dyes, A noble wildness flashing from his eyes, 260 Sat Shakspeare: in one hand a wand he bore, For mighty wonders famed in ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... Greeks, the "river within the river" of Emerson. This tendency is peculiarly marked, of course, in artists possessing the "diffluent" type of imagination, and Romantic poets and critics have had much to say about it. The imagination, said Wordsworth, "recoils from everything but the plastic, the pliant, the indefinite." [Footnote: Preface to 1815 edition of his Poems.] "Shakespeare, too," says Carlye, [Footnote: Essay on Goethe's Works.] "does not look at a thing, but into it, through it; so that he constructively comprehends it, can ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... me? The fool, and knave, 'tis glorious to offend, And Godlike an attempt the world to mend, The world, where lucky throws to blockheads fall, Knaves know the game, and honest men pay all. How hard for real worth to gain its price! A man shall make his fortune in a trice, If blest with pliant, though but slender, sense, Feign'd modesty, and real impudence: A supple knee, smooth tongue, an easy grace. A curse within, a smile upon his face; A beauteous sister, or convenient wife, Are prizes in the lottery of life; Genius and Virtue they will soon defeat, And lodge you ...
— English Satires • Various
... the square dances of England except that it was far more graceful, and the men rivalled the women in their supple glidings and bendings, doublings and swayings. Concha danced with Ignacio Sal, Rafaella with William Sturgis; their pliant grace, as facile as grain rippling before the wind, would have put the best ballet in Europe to the blush. Concha's skirts swept Rezanov's feet, her little slippers twinkled before his admiring eyes, and he lost no sinuous turn or undulation of her beautiful figure; but she never ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... the chest and lungs can be reduced by moderate and continued pressure. This is most easily done in infancy, when the cartilages and ribs are very pliant; yet it can be effected at more advanced periods of life, even after the chest is fully developed. For want of knowledge of the pliant character of the cartilages and ribs in infants, too many mothers, unintentionally, contract their chests, and thus sow the seeds of disease by the ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter
... —The pliant, persuasive body, the dancer, whose symbol and epitome is the self-enjoying soul. Of such bodies and souls the ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... we go wrong, as our consciences tell us; but it is for want of something that can conquer the evil tendencies within, and lift off the burden of a sinful past which weighs on us. As in the carboniferous strata what was pliant vegetation has become heavy mineral, our evil deeds lie heavy on our souls. What we need is not to be told what we ought to be, but to be enabled to be it. Electricity can light the road, and it can drive the car along it; and that is what we want, a dynamic as well as an ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... well apprized, I heard the doctor catechized, And trust he'll profit much thereby! Fain would the girls inquire indeed Touching their lover's faith and creed, And whether pious in the good old way; They think, if pliant there, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the line which they occupied at the moment could be defended with four divisions, whereas the new one could not be held by less than seven or eight. The Council was therefore about to commit another fateful mistake, the consequences of which it was certain to shift to the shoulders of the pliant people. It was then that Rumania's leaders kicked against ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... to his father's lodge, and partook sparingly of the meal that had been prepared for him. But he never for a moment forgot the grave of his friend. He carefully visited it throughout the spring, and weeded out the grass, and kept the ground in a soft and pliant state. Very soon he saw the tops of the green plumes coming through the ground; and the more careful he was to obey his instructions in keeping the ground in order, the faster they grew. He was, however, careful ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... for a boat lay on the shore and the rope which fastened it, was easy to untie. As no one was visible, from whom they could ask permission, they took the boat without hesitation, for Rudy could row well. The oars skimmed like the fins of a fish, over the pliant water, which is so yielding and still so strong; which is all back to carry, but all mouth to engulph; which smiles—yes, is gentleness itself, and still awakens terror—and is so powerful in destroying. The rapid current soon brought the boat to the island; they ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen
... meadow. Then Buondelmonte thrust out straight and sure, in the Italian fashion, and once the mortal wound was in the face, and once in the throat, and many times men felt it in their breasts through mail and gambison and bone. But Gilbert's great strokes flashed like lightnings from his pliant wrist, and behind the wrist was the Norman arm, and behind the arm the relentless pale face and the even lips, that just tightened upon each other as the deathblows went out, one by one, each to its place in a life. The Italian ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... up for a moment a few yards beyond the curve and broke off a long, slender switch from an overhanging bough. Then, urging the horse forward again, she picked off the small branches until at length she had produced a smooth, pliant switch, far more effective than bridle or stirrup. By the help of this new whip, she made a little better speed, but well she knew that her capture was only a matter of time unless she ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... her swing the horse aside from the culvert, and send him at the drain: and, with that danger-begotten fascination by trifles which, in situations like mine, you must often have experienced, I noticed her pliant waist spring in easy undulation to the horse's flying leap. And so, with that thick cable of platted hair flapping and surging down her back, she vanished from the scene. She was a phantom of delight, when first she gleamed upon my sight; but the revulsion of feeling was one of the quickest and fullest ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... to preserve no records. You, I think really look upon it with alarm. It is, no doubt, very desirable to you, that the blame of losing the Indian Country, which, if not already a fact accomplished, is a fact inevitable, should be made to fall upon me. You, as the pliant and useful implement of Gen. Hindman, are the cause of this loss; and you know I can prove it. You and he have left nothing undone, that could be done, to lose it. And you may rest assured, that whether I ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... ground that it would make her hands large. The same vanity would have urged her to it if she had even known of the beauty of a well proportioned, vigorous, active body. She had read and heard of small soft hands as a feminine attraction, but never of a smooth, strong neck, a well set head, a firm, pliant, muscular trunk, and limbs that cannot be beautiful ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... loved and adored him with passionate idolatry. It has just been shown in what terms Louise of Savoy, in her daily collection of private memoranda, used to speak to herself of her son, "My king, my lord, my Caesar, and my son!" She was proud, ambitious, audacious, or pliant at need, able and steadfast in mind, violent and dissolute in her habits, greedy of pleasure and of money as well as of power, so that she gave her son neither moral principles nor a moral example: for him the supreme kingship, for herself the rank, influence, and wealth of a queen-mother, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... which sections it attained its highest development. It was soon found that a commission after the Massachusetts model, when composed of men less competent or less disposed to do their duty, was liable to dwindle into a statistical board or even become a pliant tool in the hands of the railroads. Furthermore, the conditions in Massachusetts, where railroad owners and railroad patrons lived side by side and were in many instances even identical, differed materially from those found in the West and South, where ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... day will also reveal an interesting feature of the marsh. The soft, velvety grass, which abounds in such places, is so pliant and yielding that it responds to every breath, and each approaching wave of air is heralded by an advancing curl of the grass. At our feet these grass-waves intersect and recede, giving a weird sensation, as if the ground were moving, or as if we were walking on the water itself. Where ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... behind the rough stones that formed the jam of the fireplace a rude broom, made by shaving down to near its end long slender strips from a stick of pliant green hickory, then turning these over the end and confining them by a band into an exaggerated mop or brush. With this she swept back from the hearth of uneven stones the live coals flung ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... although the cytisus, unless I am mistaken, has no perfume except in M. de Lamartine's verses. Let us fix our attention on a cytisus with its yellow clusters hanging down, and the goat bending its pliant branches as it browses on the foliage. Here is a very small detail in the ample lap of nature. Let us come closer, and to help our ignorance, let us provide ourselves with a naturalist who will answer for us the questions suggested by this simple ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... the mind is stirred to activity by brisk bodily exercise." The presentable aspects of inmost thought and feeling became evident to him: the structure of all he meant, its order and outline, defined itself: his general sense of a fitness and beauty in words became effective in daintily pliant sentences, with all sorts of felicitous linking of figure to abstraction. It seemed just then as if the desire of the artist in him—that old longing to produce—might be satisfied by the exact and literal transcript of what was then passing ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... "Vigilius, a pliant creature of Theodora, ascended the papal chair under the military protection of Belisarius (538-554)."—"History of the Christian Church," ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer
... the rail, as though she had brought up abruptly against it, making impetuously for the void. He could see her slight pliant form, silhouetted against the jeweled horizon; upon her shoulders, her scarf floated like a vague phosphorescence, and her face was whitely turned toward the stars. He heard her take a long deep breath of the ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... voices are heard, with accents of genuine and natural feeling; the poets begin to treat the old themes with more freshness, and to deal with religion, politics, and morals, as well as with love. The language still possesses, indeed, the quality of youth; it is still pliant, its forms have not become stiffened by age, it is fit for larger use than has yet been made of it, and lies ready and waiting, like a noble instrument, for the hand of the master which shall draw from it ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... little Alexander straightened up and the pliant softness of her body stiffened in his arms. She pushed against his shoulders with steady hands. They were not struggling hands but firm and definite of meaning, and Halloway released her. He released her readily as a man may who can afford to be deferential ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... Indeed, to the latter circumstance might be owing that meekness of spirit which gained him such universal popularity; for those men are most apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad, who are under the discipline of shrews at home. Their tempers, doubtless, are rendered pliant and malleable in the fiery furnace of domestic tribulation; and a curtain lecture is worth all the sermons in the world for teaching the virtues of patience and long-suffering. A termagant wife may, therefore, in some respects be considered ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... said Eliza. Then they spent the whole night in weaving a net with the pliant willow and rushes. It was very large and strong. Eliza laid herself down on the net, and when the sun rose, and her brothers again became wild swans, they took up the net with their beaks, and flew up to the clouds with their dear sister, who still slept. The sunbeams fell on her face, therefore ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... I am dead, to charge me with dishonor; let no man attaint my memory by believing that I could have engaged in any cause but that of my country's liberty and independence; or that I could have become the pliant minion of power in the oppression or the miseries of my countrymen. The proclamation of the provisional government speaks for our views; no inference can be tortured from it to countenance barbarily or debasement at home, or subjection, humiliation, or treachery from abroad. I would not have submitted ...
— Phrases for Public Speakers and Paragraphs for Study • Compiled by Grenville Kleiser
... eating little children. It was boldly stated that a luxurious banquet was spread, and that at its conclusion the candles were extinguished, and a scene of the most indiscriminate lewdness ensued.[635] One of the judges of the tribunal of the Chatelet was found sufficiently pliant to declare, in contradiction to the unanimous testimony of the accused, that preparations for the repetition of similar crimes had been discovered in the rooms of the house in the rue St. Jacques, where the Protestants ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... they 'scape the plagues of Pox and Pills, The Sin is liable to fifty Ills, Of equal Danger, tho' a diff'rent Cure, As he that dreading Claps wou'd Sin secure; For soon the pliant Wretch he has beguil'd Hath to his Charge and wonder prove with Child: At which, 'tmay properly be said a Man, Leaps from the Fire to the Frying-pan, This for his Reputation sake must be reveal'd When Claps are only as a Jest reveal'd She's now Remov'd—Deliver'd—and the Nurse; ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses from Men • Various
... considerable improvement in Elsie before she left Derbyshire, and used to have her company in his morning drives to visit his patients, when her pleasant conversation and winning manner made him ere long prefer her to her graver and less pliant sister. He missed both the girls when they went to London, and even Dr. Vivian paid Jane the compliment of regretting her society a ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... so the mackerel, and still less the bear.... Ah! who has seen the mailed lobster rise, Clap her broad wings, and soaring claim the skies? When did the owl, descending from her bower, Crop, midst the fleecy flocks the tender flower; Or the young heifer plunge, with pliant limb, In the salt wave, and fish-like strive to swim? The same with plants—potatoes 'tatoes breed— Uncostly cabbage springs from cabbage seed, Lettuce from lettuce, leeks to leeks succeed, Nor e'er did cooling cucumbers presume To flower like myrtle, ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... nothing of the oak in the sturdiness of my stature, I imagined that my mortality would remain pliant as long as I pleased. But I have taken so little care of myself this winter, and kept such bad hours, that I have brought a slow fever upon my nights, and am worn to a skeleton: Bethel has plump cheeks to mine. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... her pliant sinews inordinately tensed; with her deep eyes wide and terrified, yet voiceless of any outburst or exclamation, and near her, ill at ease, but seeking to treat the affair as an inescapable matter of business, and consequently a commonplace, the sheriff shifted his weight from foot to foot, and ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... happened to change this charming, if too pliant, personality into the critical, watchful, almost—so at moments it seemed to Malling—aggressive curate who was now, always in a gentlemanly way, making things rather ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... waste-cotton shrub, long useless, disobedient as the thistle by the wayside; have ye not conquered it, made it into beautiful bandana webs, white woven shirts for men, bright tinted air garments wherein flit goddesses? Ye have shivered mountains asunder, made the hard iron pliant to you as soft putty; the forest-giants— marsh-jotuns—bear sheaves of golden grain; AEgir—the Sea-Demon himself stretches his back for a sleek highway to you, and on Firehorses and Windhorses ye career. Ye are most strong. Thor, ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... the district, but he was matched with an adversary who had drawn into himself the endurance of the wilderness and the quick resiliency of the young spruce tree. Were it only a contest of sheer force, Manson had won outright. Now, as his veins swelled and his arms stiffened around Fisette's pliant body, the latter seemed to convert itself into a mass of steel springs that somehow evaded compression. With feet sinking in the soft soil, crashing through the under-growth with no words but only the heart breaking gasp of supreme effort, they ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... of creepers, out of which I could form ropes; and selecting some of the toughest and most pliant, I secured them to the peccaries, which I dragged under the tree. Having, with no little satisfaction, hoisted up my spoils, I set out to return to the camp. On my way I stopped to look at a tree which seemed to bear a great variety of leaves. On examination, I discovered it to be a mora, ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... into the hands of a rascally "dago" known as Anatole that Mrs. Doyle commended her trio of allies, and being rid of them she turned back to her prisoner, their erstwhile companion. Absinthe wrought its work on his meek and pliant spirit, and the shaking hand was nerved to do the woman's work. At her dictation, with such corrections as his better education suggested, two letters were draughted, and with these in her hand she went aloft. In fifteen minutes ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King
... ambition quieted every unpleasant emotion. Conscious, in the state of political feeling, that there was little or no possible chance of maintaining even his present elevation, much less of rising higher, unless he became pliant in the hands of those who had elected him, he suffered all ideas of the general good to recede from his mind, and gave himself up wholly to furthering the schemes and interested views of his own party. ...
— The Last Penny and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... a chariot, and rebuking the Mule: "How slow you are," said she; "will you not go faster? Take care that I don't prick your neck with my sting." The Mule made answer: "I am not moved by your words, but I fear him who, sitting on the next seat, guides my yoke[21] with his pliant whip, and governs my mouth with the foam-covered reins. Therefore, cease your frivolous impertinence, for I well know when to go at a gentle pace, and ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... these fraternities appears to be deception; and particularly if a magistrate or a sheriff should be a conscientious, humane man, their study, their occupation is to deceive him, in which they are very likely to succeed; for a clever gaoler, surrounded by such pliant helpmates, will deceive the very devil, if he be not aware of their tricks; and how easily then may they cheat an honest, unsuspecting country justice! I have been led into this excusable digression from the recollection of Aris's exposure in the ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... curing skins. The principle of each is the soaking of the gelatine fibers of the skin with oil, the union of the latter and the gelatine appearing in the form of oxide, and resulting in the insoluble, undecomposable, pliant, and tough material known to the commercial world as leather. The first step in the oil dressing, after the skins have been duly soaked to render them porous and absorptive, is to cover them with fish ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various
... Where do my affections turn when I am set free? The heart means the will. Is my will all saturated with, and so made pliant by, the will and commandment of Jesus Christ? If He is my treasure, then thoughts, affection, obedience will all turn to Him, and the current of my being, whatever may be the surface-ripple—ay, or the surface-storm—will be ever sliding surely, though it may be silently, towards Himself. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... have drawn. Mr. Macaulay may have painted his story a little too highly. His faults are less in his verbs and substantives than in his adjectives and his adverbs. Penn never in all probability became such an obsequious and pliant-principled courtier as he is represented in this history, but the simple facts which are authentically recorded of his court-life preclude any notion of the high-souled and spotless character which Mr. Forster would ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... the hindrance of the trade in spices, if they get it under their control. What should be still more thought of and defended, since it is in greater danger, is the Catholic faith, because the land is infested with heretics, and the Indians are a very pliant and changeable people. Don Pedro should be informed of what the marques has been commanded to do for his help, in order that he may understand, and arrange and provide for everything as is best, in order that the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XIV., 1606-1609 • Various
... but not from the standards of the ethical text-books. The casuistry of feeling is of everlasting interest to him, and he is never tired of inventing imaginary cases, or pondering real ones, in which pliant feeling is invoked against the narrowness of duty. These are mostly in a kind of matter which modern taste hardly allows us to reproduce; nor, after all, is there much to be gained by turning the ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... but saw nothing on the table to hold a man's words and passions suspended in that strange manner. Nothing was there but the lamp and Joe's old brown hat. That lay there, its innocent, battered crown presenting to Joe's eyes, its broad and pliant brim tilted up on the farther side as if resting on ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... a long, slender pole. It was as pliant as a buggy-whip, and once trimmed and rigged it was far from being a poor tackle. Herky-Jerky watched me with extreme attention, all the time grinning. Then he held ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... genius as if it were a mere knack, and the poet could only express what other men conceived. But in comparison with his task, the poet is the least talented of any; the writer of prose has more skill. See what talent the smith has. His material is pliant in his hands. When the poet is most inspired, is stimulated by an aura which never even colors the afternoons of common men, then his talent is all gone, and he is no longer a poet. The gods do not grant him any skill more ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... mistakes, although it is not a popular attribute of story-book detectives. His carefully kept brown moustache was daintily upturned at the ends. There was grim tenacity written all over the man, but none but his intimates knew how it was wedded to pliant resource and ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... four forms, even as the life springeth up, and yet hath not its dark beginning in the Center as the PHUR hath, but after the flash of fire, when the sour dark form is terrified, where the hardness is turned into pliant sharpness, and where the second will (viz. the will of nature, which is called the Anguish) ariseth, there Mercurius hath its original. For MER is the shivering wheel, very horrible, sharp, venomous, and hostile; which assimulateth ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... water-vessels are merely goat-skins, taken off with as little mutilation of the hide as possible; one of the legs serves as a faucet, and the tying or untying of a piece of string opens or closes the "tap." It is the handiest imaginable contrivance for carrying liquids on horseback, the tough, pliant goat-skin resisting any amount of hard usage and accommodating itself readily to the contour of the pack-saddle, or itself forming a soft enough seat ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... characteristic and congenial train. These were the instrumentalities with which Catharine and Marguerite hoped to bend the will of Henry and his friends to suit their purposes. Catharine had great confidence in the potency of the influence which these pliant maidens could wield, and they were all instructed in the part which they were to act. She was accustomed to call these allies her ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... barbaric music ceased; the orchestra broke forth afresh with a light Parisian waltz, and down between the lines of tables came a negro and a negress—properties of the place, as were the glasses and the table linen—waltzing with the pliant suppleness, the conscious sensuality of their race, and close behind them followed a second couple—a Spaniard, restless and lithe, small of stature and pallid of face, and a young Spanish girl of ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... these difficult trifles. Models of temples, pagodas, and other pieces of architecture, are beautifully worked in ivory; and from the shavings, interwoven with pieces of quills, they make neat baskets and hats, which are as light and pliant as those of straw. In short, all kinds of toys for children, and other trinkets and trifles, are executed in a neater manner and for less money in China, than in any ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... "Poor pliant Prince Max," sighed Jacqueline, "he is still being influenced to stay in Mexico! Come, Berthe, we must make all speed to San ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... intensify a personality, adding to it a distinctness, a power altogether commanding and irresistible, but even in our purest happiness we lose something of ourselves, and become, momentarily at least, less our own masters, and more pliant to the reproof of chance, the sport of destiny. As Robert uttered his passionate confession, he was conscious that much in him which had once seemed strong was conquerable enough, and, in the torture of the indescribable variety of vague, menacing feelings which this suspicion called ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... and so capable of dealing with them—between him and the farmer's boy he had been there was no more resemblance than between a living word and the dead root out of which it has been coined. In Emery Bland's case the word was not only living, but pliant, eloquent, and arresting to ear and eye. He was one of those men who overlook nothing that can be counted as self-expression, from their dress to the sound of their syllables. Superficially genial, but essentially astute, he had made everything grist that came to his ...
— The Letter of the Contract • Basil King
... he now deem himself in having yielded to the counsel of his guide. Had he retained his unbending boot, it must have crushed whatever it pressed; whereas, the pliant mocassin, yielding to the obstacles it encountered, enabled him to pass noiselessly over them. Still, while exempt from danger on this score, another, scarcely less perplexing, became at every instant more obvious; for, as they drew ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... widen and the morning quicken. Islands swam up out of silver space, took form and colour, and there between the islands he saw the girl. She had gotten another oar from Giuseppe and stood delighting in the free motion; her sleeves were rolled up, her hat was off, her hair blew out; alive and pliant she bent to the long sweep of it, and her eyes were on the morning wonder. But when she caught sight of Peter she looked only at him and he knew that her seeing him appearing thus on the shining water was its chief and exquisite wonder, and that she ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... their colts of speed, Their sculptur'd cars full little here they need; From the right side they take the arrow keen, Ne'er to its quiver to return, I ween; The bow, the left side's fitting ornament; The bow, the tough and pliant bow is bent; It yields a sound, like thunder from afar, While flies the arrow, ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... advantageous 'tis, we now will prove: Folks laugh; your wife a pliant glove shall move; But, if you've twenty favourites around, A single syllable will ne'er resound. Whene'er you speak, each word has double force; At table, you've precedency of course, And oft will ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... "pliant hour;" they sprang upon their oars, and pulled back to the wreck with alacrity. The poor captain, who had witnessed all that passed, watched the progress of his cause with deep anxiety. No sooner did the boat touch the ship, than he leaped into her, ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Chac-Mool, which serve to determine the different types, may be a guide to discover whence man and civilization came to America, if the American races can be proved not to be autochthonous. Notwithstanding a few guttural sounds, the Maya is soft, pliant, rich in diction and expression; even every shade of thought ...
— The Mayas, the Sources of Their History / Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan, His Account of Discoveries • Stephen Salisbury, Jr.
... and for some minutes she was unable to hear even the droning roar of the rain-laden tornado that came tearing down from the mountains, snapping off the branches of the gum-trees, bending low the pliant boles of the moaning she-oaks, and lifting the waters of the ...
— Chinkie's Flat and Other Stories - 1904 • Louis Becke
... trouble Mr. Bradlaugh lent me every assistance, furnishing me with legal books and advice and visiting me in Newgate between the first and second trials, while Judge North's underlings were preparing a more pliant jury than the one which had declined to ...
— Reminiscences of Charles Bradlaugh • George W. Foote
... grains, somewhat resembling bunches of currants, but with this difference, that every grain adheres to the common stalk, which occasions the cluster of pepper to be more compact, and it is also less pliant. ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... of Desdemona that if she were called off at any time by household affairs she would despatch with all haste that business, and return, and with a greedy ear devour Othello's discourse. And once he took advantage of a pliant hour and drew from her a prayer that he would tell her the whole story of his life at large, of which she had heard so much, but only by parts. To which he consented, and beguiled her of many a tear when he spoke of some distressful stroke which his youth ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... object approach nearer, and stretching out his hand felt something smooth, and instead of laying hold, as he expected, on the prickles of a hedgehog, he touched a little creature more soft and fine than Barbary wool, more pliant and tender than a marten's tail, more delicate than thistle-down, he flew from one thought to another, and taking her to be a fairy (as indeed she was), he conceived at once a great affection for her. The next morning, before the Sun, like a chief physician, went ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... them, the dramatist fill their lungs with salutary laughter or purge their emotions by pity or terror. The historian 'superinduces upon events the charm of order.' The novelist—well, even the novelist has his uses; and I would warn you against despising any form of art which is alive and pliant in the hands of men. For my part, I believe, bearing in mind Mr. Barrie's "Peter Pan" and the old bottles he renovated to hold that joyous wine, that even Musical Comedy, in the hands of a master, might become a thing of beauty. Of the Novel, at any rate—whether we like it or ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... of the room were two persons—a man resting in a chair high-backed, broad-armed, and lined with pliant cushions; and at his left, leaning against the back of the chair, a girl well forward into womanhood. At sight of them Ben-Hur felt the blood redden his forehead; bowing, as much to recover himself as in respect, he lost the lifting of the hands, ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... the coupling. (2) A good back, wide from neck to tail, well fleshed, and straight. (3) A good front quarter, wide, deep, and full. (4) A good hind quarter, long, wide, and deep. (5) Good handling qualities, as indicated in elastic flesh and pliant skin. ...
— Pratt's Practical Pointers on the Care of Livestock and Poultry • Pratt Food Co.
... will of the people, ought above all things to gaine the people to him, which he may easily effect, when he takes upon him their protection: And because men when they find good, where they look for evill, are thereby more endered to their benefactour, therefore growes the people so pliant in their subjection to him, as if by their favours he had attaind his dignity. And the Prince is able to gaine them to his side by many wayes, which because they vary according to the subject, no certaine rule can be ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... my throat with jacinths, green and glist'ning serpent-wise, My hot, dark throat that pulsed beneath the ardour of your eyes; And centuries have failed to cool the memory of your hands That bound about my arms those massive, pliant golden bands. ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... now, scarcely able to walk; but he could sit under the pliant, caressing leaves of his palm, loving it like an Arab; and there he sat till the grimmest of speculators came to him. But even in death Pere Antoine was faithful to his trust: the owner of that land loses it if ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... very easy to leave Hugues to the dog's death he merits and to take this woman for my own? For I know that she loves me a little. And thinking of this, he kissed her, quietly, as one might comfort a sobbing child; afterward he held her in his arms for a moment, wondering vaguely at the pliant thickness of her hair and the sweet scent of it. Then he put her from him gently, and swore in his soul that Hugues must die, so that this woman might ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... lily rocked hither and thither on the pond, with its blond leaves and petals of blue, and its pliant stem in danger at every tide, did the fond mothers watch it from the bank? That they did, thinking of the time when they were lilies of the pond themselves, with no fears of danger near. But at last it came, and, like blooming flowers, they swung to ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... rendered doubly harmonious by the tender tinkling of the wandering guitar, or the tones of the plaintive flute; while, from every third dwelling, rose the more stately but scarcely sweeter melodies stricken by pliant fingers from the yielding soul of the divine piano. The tastes even of the mechanic were refined by this language, the purest In which passion ever speaks; and an ambition—the result of the highest tone of ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... rods instead of the horizontal layer of willow canes. This answered his purpose just as well and rendered the making of large baskets the work of a few hours. He found, however, that the willow rods or osiers were not pliant enough to work well in fastening his coils of grass cables together. He tried several things and at last succeeded best when he used the long thread-like fibre of the century-like plant. He had, however, to make a stout framework of rods. ...
— An American Robinson Crusoe • Samuel B. Allison
... as the entireness of his limbs was held to be among the Athenians,) superadds the vast power, both actual and virtual, which would flow from the inviolability of the Royal office, and forecloses, so far, the chance which the more pliant Tory doctrine would leave open, of counteracting the effects of the King's indirect personal influence, by curtailing or weakening the grasp of some of his direct regal powers. Ovid represents the Deity of Light (and on an occasion, too, which may be called a Regency question) as crowned with movable ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... each carrying upon his head a huge bundle of some twining plant belonging to a species which we had not observed hitherto during our wanderings in Ceylon. From its appearance we likened it to a giant convolvulus, for, while the pliant stem was as thick as a man's arm, there hung from it huge leaves and petals resembling that flower in shape. We moved cautiously into the undergrowth behind, thus getting a little farther away from the Dhahs, and, lying with our bodies stretched ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... the rope one of those ladders of silk and bamboo. One of the Doctor's servants ascended—probably to ascertain if the hashish had acted successfully. That was the yellow dream-face which West saw bending over him. Then followed the Doctor, and to his giant will the drugged brain of West was a pliant instrument which he bent to his own ends. The court would be deserted at that hour of the night, and, in any event, directly after the ascent the ladder probably was pulled up, only to be lowered again when West had revealed the secret of his own safe and ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... well into the mesquite before he put back the hair in the water the dog had left and went on with his plaiting: As he handled the pliant horsehairs he talked aloud, ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... quick And graceful turned the head on the broad chest Encased in pliant steel, his constant vest, Whence split the sun off in a spray of fire Across the room; and, loosened of its tire Of steel, that head let breathe the comely brown Large massive locks discoloured as if a crown Encircled them, so frayed the basnet where A sharp white line divided clean the ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... urged to order the immediate election of a territorial legislature. The conspirators had already spent some months in organizing their "Blue Lodges," and now desired at once to control the political power of the Territory. But the Governor had too much manliness to become the mere pliant tool they wished to make him. He resented their dictation; he made a tour of inspection through the new settlements; and, acting on his own judgment, on his return issued a proclamation for a simple election of a delegate to Congress. At the appearance ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... an amazing writer," says M. Faguet, "and disconcerted criticism by the impossibility of explaining his methods of procedure; he was luminous, supple, naturally pliant and yielding; beneath his apparently effeminate grace an extraordinary strength of character would suddenly make itself felt; he had, more than any nineteenth-century writer, the quality of ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... in number.(1) Of these the Sanskrit is the oldest, and may truly be called the mother tongue of the country. It is one of the most ancient languages in the world, with a history of more than 3,000 years. It is strong, pliant, expressive—a worthy vehicle of noble thought and religious aspiration. Though not spoken today by any tribe or people, it is not a dead language, for it is the religious tongue of India. The best thought, the deepest philosophy, the highest religious aspiration, the laws, customs and legends ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... done by making a bow of a small willow or other pliant wood, for each hide, and then pulling the hide over it. The hides are thus left until they are dry, when the bows are taken out and the hides are packed in a frame made for that purpose, fifty in ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... was your language. You reprobated those accommodating rules by which I endeavoured to obtain happiness; and urged arguments that made a deep impression upon me. Now that self-interest gives you an impulse, are your principles become as pliant as mine; which ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... school-boy consists in the perpetual motion of thoughtless and playful agility, in which I was never qualified to excel. My name, it is most true, could never be enrolled among the sprightly race, the idle progeny of Eton or Westminster, who delight to cleave the water with pliant arm, to urge the flying ball, and to chase the speed of the rolling circle. But I would ask the warmest and most active hero of the play-field whether he can seriously compare his childish with his ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... change. On speculative points any man may be suddenly converted; for these may depend on facts or arguments which might never have occurred to him before. But when we watch the weathercock chopping with the wind, so pliant to move, and so stiff when fixed—when we observe this "preciousest grueller" clothed in purple, and equally hardy in the most opposite measures—become a favourite with James II., and a furious advocate for arbitrary power; when we see him railing at and menacing those, among whom he had committed ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... obedience should be a surer obligation than duty taught and understood, it is to affirm that a blind man may tread surer by a guide than a seeing man can by a light. And it is without all controversy that learning doth make the minds of men gentle, generous, manageable, and pliant to government; whereas ignorance makes them churlish, thwart, and mutinous: and the evidence of time doth clear this assertion, considering that the most barbarous, rude, and unlearned times have been most subject to tumults, ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... like a horse that takes the bit and the driver was his own will—his own self. She made no resistance when he threw himself down beside her: she was pliant, her cheek cool, she even looked at him haughtily. He did not know that she slipped out of his arms just before he would have released her, nor that she was all one flame of triumphant happiness. She seemed as untouched ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... scarlet, furious nostrils and maddened eyes, the yellow horse was a thing of terror and of beauty. But the lithe figure on his back, bending like a reed in the wind to every movement, firm below, pliant above, with calm inexorable face, and eyes which danced and gleamed with the joy of contest, still held its masterful place for all that the fiery heart and the iron muscles of the ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... characterized their ancestors, but which are too small to assail horned cattle, mark the vanishing stages of this great stock, which will soon be known only in memory. The history of this peculiar herd-dog shows us how marvellously pliant the body and mind of this species has become under the conditions of civilization. The rude process of unconscious selection, acting without steadfastness of purpose or rationally developed skill, serves to sway the qualities ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler |
