"Stiff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pocket money which he invariably proceeded to get rid of as fast as he could—lavishing it upon the enjoyment of his friends as freely as it had been lavished upon him. He had plenty of pets and toys, went to dancing school, in which his natural love of dancing made him delight, and was given stiff but merry little parties, at which old Cy, the black fiddler played and called the figures, and the little host and his friends conformed to the strict, ceremonious etiquette observed by the children as well as the ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... he began, offering his snuff-box to Mr. Lammeter, who for the second time bowed his head and waved his hand in stiff rejection of the offer, "us old fellows may wish ourselves young to-night, when we see the mistletoe-bough in the White Parlour. It's true, most things are gone back'ard in these last thirty years—the country's going down ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... morning, and shall to-morrow. I feel all the better for it, in spirits, though my arms and shoulders are very stiff from it. Mem. to attend the pugilistic dinner:—Marquess Huntley ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... I had brought with me the pictures you made for my wife and sister, and these I showed them. I pointed out that they were altogether different from the work of our own scribes; that these drew stiff images that looked like representations, not of men and animals, but of wooden creatures, while in your drawings it seemed as if the men and animals were moving across the paper; and that, were you to teach our scribes thus to portray objects, it would make a profound ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... to do, theoretically, is this: Any land that is producing a fair crop of grass or clover, let it lie. Pasture it or mow it for hay. If you have a field of clayey or stiff loamy land, break it up in the fall, and summer-fallow it the next year, and sow it to wheat and seed it down with clover. Let it lie two or three years in clover. Then break it up in July or August, "fall-fallow" it, and sow it with barley ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... lids, Louise shot a rapid glance at Maurice. He, too, had risen; he was standing stiff, pale, and solemn, visibly waiting only till Herries had gone, to make himself disagreeable. ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... the opportunity to pull her broken quills, help her dress herself, and bestow a few extra caresses. He guided her to his favourite place for a sun bath; and followed the farmer's plow in the corn field until he found a big sweet beetle. He snapped off its head, peeled the stiff wing shields, and daintily offered it to her. He was so delighted when she took it from his beak, and remained in the sumac to eat it, that he established himself on an adjoining thorn-bush, where the snowy blossoms of a wild morning-glory ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter
... conjurations and wicked exercises, the which I obtained through the help of the devil, into whose devilish fellowship they have brought me; the which use, the art, and practice, urged by the detestable provocation of my flesh and my stiff-necked and rebellious will, with my filthy infernal thoughts, the which were ever before me, pricking me forward so earnestly that I must perforce have the consent of the devil to aid me in my devices. And to the end I might the better bring ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... combination shown in Plate II, Fig. 3. The piece A F must have the same dimensions as a simple string piece of a length A B—so that it may not yield between B and either of the points A or D. The two braces D F and E F must be stiff enough to support the load coming upon them. Suppose the weight on a pair of drivers of a Locomotive to be 10 tons, then each side must bear 5 tons, and each brace 2-1/2 tons 2-1/2 x 2240 5600 lbs. Now, to allow for sudden or extra strains, call 8000 lbs. the strain to be supported ...
— Instructions on Modern American Bridge Building • G. B. N. Tower
... interlaced with nettle twine. The warrior who wears this cuirass does not use the tunic of elk-skin; he is consequently less protected, but a great deal more free; the said tunic being very heavy and very stiff. ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... soft things to put on," he said; "but imagine a stiff shirt-cuff hitting you in the eye when your maid threw it. The floor of my room would look not so much ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... do," says Olga, defiantly. "You may scold me if you like, but a title isn't everything, and he is worth a dozen of that cold, stiff Rossmoyne." ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... up. The small of his back was stiff from stooping toil, and as he put his hand behind him to soothe the protesting ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... 'Wasn't that rather a stiff speech to make about his sister?' Jerry said, with a slight emphasis upon the last word, as she walked away, leaving Nina to wonder if she ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... well by stirring. Then pour in the milk slowly, stirring all the while to prevent curdling. Pour carefully over the top of the mixture the whites of the Eggs, which have been beaten to a stiff froth. Fill Punch glasses from the bowl with ladle and sprinkle a ...
— The Ideal Bartender • Tom Bullock
... yet," Gloriana retorted spiritedly. "It looks so much different in the summer time, but still seems queer to me with its heaps of rocks and no trees except the stiff old Joshuas. I wonder why they are called that. Even they don't seem like trees to me. They look like giant cactus ...
— Tabitha's Vacation • Ruth Alberta Brown
... assay-piece for aspiring German students to thump and hammer at will. We have heard it sung so often at the piano by soft-voiced maidens, and hirsute musicians, before whose roaring the bull of Phalaris might be dumb, that we have been accustomed to associate it with stiff white cravats, green tea, and a superabundance of lemonade. But to do full justice to its unearthly fascination, one ought to hear it chanted by night in a lonely glade of the Schwartzwald or Spessart forest, with the wind moaning as an accompaniment, and the ghostly shadows of the branches flitting ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... truth." [19] "I know, says Jeremiah, that the way of man is not in himself. It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps." The martyr Stephen acknowledges the teachings of the spirit, both in his own time and in that of his ancestors. [20] "Ye stiff-necked, and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the holy spirit. As your fathers did, so do ye." The Quakers also conceive it to be a doctrine of the gospel. Jesus himself said, [21] "No man can come to me except the Father, ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume II (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... this warmth and this rest, after so long and terrible a flight, and he was conscious of a great relaxation, one which, if he yielded to it completely, would make his muscles so stiff and painful that he could not use them. Hence he stretched his arms and legs many times, rubbed his ankles again, and then, remembering that he had venison, ate ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... with the circumstances attending her death. Mr. Armadale, at his friend's request, saw Miss Blanchard, and induced her to silence old Darch on the subject of the claim that had been made relating to the widow's income. As the claim had never been admitted, even our stiff-necked brother practitioner consented for once to do as he was asked. The doctor's statement that his patient was the widow of a gentleman named Armadale was accordingly left unchallenged, and so the matter has been hushed up. She ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... could to remain serious, and when he could not manage it, he would hide his face in his hat so that people should not see that he was laughing, for it is said that laughter ought never to disturb the grave and stiff countenance of an Infante of Spain, and that he would be dishonoured in Madrid if he did not conceal his mirth. What do you think of that? Can such manners suit us? Here we laugh willingly and heartily! Oh! the good Duke Antonio ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... day's work The Hawk started plunging and rearing, his invariable habit on stopping, which nothing could break, and at a word from the Sheik two men leaped to his head while he transferred Diana to Yusef's outstretched arms. She was stiff and giddy, and the young man helped her to the door of the tent, and then vanished again into the throng of men ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... say, for the young lady's complexion was not wax—far from it. But a glance into the window showed him the wax lady now dressed in a plain black tailor-made suit, and at once he knew the wearer of the Wagnerian plaids was his real love, and not the stiff ...
— The Woggle-Bug Book • L. Frank Baum
... an arm over her shoulders and led her to the big chair before the fireplace. Io let herself be thrust into it, stiff and unyielding as a manikin. Any other woman but Camilla Van Arsdale would have asked questions. She went more directly to the point. Picking up the newspaper she opened it. Halfway across an inside page ran the explanation ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... hard boiling Hiram would "syrup off," having reduced two hundred pails of sap to five or six of syrup. The syruping-off often occurred after dark. When the liquid dropped from a dipper which was dipped into it and, held up in the cool air, formed into stiff thin masses, it had reached the stage of syrup. How we minded our steps over the rough path, in the semi-darkness of the old tin lantern, in carrying those precious pails of syrup to the house, where the final process of "sugaring off" was to be ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... science, excelled in it, and was the first that applied it, together with experiment, to natural philosophy. The former rejected, with the most positive disdain, the system of Copernicus: the latter fortified it with new proofs, derived both from reason and the senses. Bacon's style is stiff and rigid: his wit, though often brilliant, is also often unnatural and far-fetched; and he seems to be the original of those pointed similes and long-spun allegories which so much distinguish the English authors: Galilaeo is a lively and agreeable, though somewhat a prolix writer. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... and it may be justly urged that the roots of this quietism lie so deep in the Chinese character, that the plant cannot have sprung from some chance wind-wafted seed. That character has two sides, one seen in the Chinese Empire and the classical philosophy, excellent as ethics but somewhat stiff and formal: the other in revolutions and rebellions, in the free life of hermits and wanderers, in poetry and painting. This second side is very like the temper of Indian Buddhism and easily amalgamated with it,[607] but it has a ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... with broad smiles of amusement, while, on a dais at the far end of the hall, were seated, in two large armchairs, his captor of the night before, Sir Juden Murray, and a severe-looking lady, in a wondrous head-dress, and a stiff silken gown, whom he took to ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... me,' only Lily wouldn't say it the way She taught me. You see Lily was all alone with her granny when she winked out and it scared her most stiff, so when I got to that 'If I should die before I wake,' line, she just went into fits, and remembering what I'd seen myself, I didn't blame her; so I changed it for her ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... lined the procession through all its length, came a band of fifers, very fine, in scarlet tunics and stiff beaver-hats; shrilling a dirge as they walked; and immediately behind them a funeral herald in black, walking very upright and stiff, with a bell in one hand which he rang, while he cried out in a great ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... filled her disk, by joining her horns; they, according to their custom (for use had made custom), uttered lamentations; among whom Phaethusa, the eldest of the sisters, when she was desirous to lie on the ground, complained that her feet had grown stiff; to whom the fair Lampetie attempting to come, was detained by a root suddenly formed. A third, when she is endeavoring to tear her hair with her hands, tears off leaves; one complains that her legs are held fast by the trunk ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... in his mind till this moment, but he felt certain that Garstin's sharp eyes had noticed the fact sooner, probably directly they had seen Arabian at the street door. No doubt the very stiff whisky-and-soda Arabian had just drunk had made it more obvious. Anyhow, Sir Seymour had no doubt at all about it now. It was not noticeable in Arabian's face. But his manner began to show it to the experienced eyes of ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... the market-place, to which they were accompanied or followed by crowds of old men, women, and children. For a while the progress of the enemy was retarded by barricades of cables. At the entrance of the market-place they met with a "stiff resistance," as it is called by Cromwell. The action lasted about an hour; but the assailants receiving continual reinforcements, obtained at last fell possession of the place, and put to the sword every human being found upon ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... talking; twining stiff fibres of awkward speech—things young men blurted out—plaiting them round his own smooth garland, making the bright side show, the vivid greens, the sharp thorns, manliness. He loved it. Indeed to Sopwith ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... passion, now from heat or from boiling, now from the act of a noisy breaking, now from shivering. Discouragement and despair are expressed by the melting of the heart, fear by the loosening of the reins. Pride is portrayed by the holding high of the head, with the figure straight and stiff. Patience is a long breathing, impatience short breathing, desire is thirst or paleness. Pardon is expressed by a throng of metaphors borrowed from the idea of covering, of hiding, of coating over the fault. In Job God sews up sins in a sack, seals it, then throws it behind him: all to ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... bed as the man was going away somewhere. This I did and was soon sound asleep. At one o'clock in the morning, I was awakened with an impression that some one was in the room near me. I looked up and by the dim rush light saw a tall figure standing by the bedside, upright and stiff, a three cornered hat on his head, a carbine strapped across his back and a sword by his side. In answer to my look of wonder, he simply raised his right hand and gave ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... high in air, then sat down again with hiding, hopeless face, rocking to and fro as sways a man in mortal pain. It was long before he rallied and again wearily arose. Most of the lights were gone; silence had settled down upon the sleeping point; he was chilled with the night air and the dew, and stiff and heavy as he tried to walk. Down at the foot of the stairs he could see the night-watchman making his rounds. He did not want to explain matters and talk with him: he would go around. There was a steep pathway down into ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... from the tomatoes with the butter makes sufficient liquor), and when thoroughly cooked, pour into a shallow pie-dish. Break the eggs and separate yolks from whites, beat the former and stir in the bread crumbs, with which have been mixed a pinch of salt and pepper; then beat the whites to a stiff froth, mix in with the yolks, stir well altogether and place over the stew in the form of crust, and bake a quarter of an hour in a very brisk ...
— New Vegetarian Dishes • Mrs. Bowdich
... printing-presses and circulated in profusion throughout all Christendom. Badly printed, on wretched paper, it was adorned on its blue cover with a little wood-cut of Our Lady of Lourdes, a naive design alike stiff and awkward. The book itself was short, and half an hour would certainly suffice to read it from ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... rest of the case however I say, Sire, that although Captain Esteban Rodriguez possesses the qualities of discretion, valor, ability, competence, and much experience in this work, and is courageous and of honorable estate, yet he is in my opinion very stiff, unchangeable, independent, and fixed in his determination and opinion. Thus he did not wish to discuss or to say anything whatever in regard to this question of subordination. Thereupon, as it was not judged convenient to permit ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume IX, 1593-1597 • E. H. Blair
... something like it when she fed the novelist. Unbalanced by the joy of the situation, he did not accurately observe the garb of the ministering angel, and hence we read of "a clinging white gown" in the days of stiff silks and rampant crinoline; of "the curve of the upper arm" when it took five yards for a pair of sleeves, and of "short walking skirts" during the reign of ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... herself on the extreme edge of a stiff chair. "Mademoiselle Mariposa," her thin voice rang authoritatively, "I had hoped to see you alone for a few moments ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... hope for him. Charles cut and hacked at the ice blocks, regardless of his own personal safety; and after long labour he succeeded in moving some of them, and in dragging out the lifeless corpse, already frozen stiff, of the man he had ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... kind. It seems silly ter mind it at all; only, when it does come, it sort o' takes the backbone right out o' my knees, and they double up so's I have ter set down. There, ye see? I'm pert as a sparrer, now!" And, with stiff celerity, ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... his breast-pocket a document, which he handed to me with a stiff bow. On opening it, I found it was a carefully prepared outline of the proposed cruise up the river, with detours in various ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic
... light streamed into my eyes—it was the sun, just rising, sending his rays darting through the boughs. I felt very unwilling to get up, and when I began to move I discovered that my limbs were somewhat stiff from the hardness of my couch. At length I rose, and, kneeling down, thanked Heaven for the protection which had been afforded me. I now began to feel the sensations of hunger. I hoped, however, that I might be able to find something with which to satisfy my appetite, and enable me to continue ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... never this strong man's way.[13] Gentle reeds and delicate grasses may bow as the storm-wind rushes over them. The sturdy oak-tree, with its tough roots grappling firmly underground, stubbornly faces the blast. George Fox, 'ever Stiff as a Tree,' by the admission even of his enemies, barely waited for his 'yellow, black and blue' bruises to disappear before he came forth again to encounter his foes. Certain priests had however taken advantage of this short ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... stiff, and very anxious she felt, but she was obliged to go down as soon as she was dressed, since she always took charge of her mother before breakfast on Sunday while Sibby went to mass. It was so ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... fastenings instantly, and we all went into the parlour. My mother, contrary to her usual habit, instead of coming to the elbow-chair by the fire, remained at the other end of the room, and sat singing to herself. —'Hope you have had a pleasant evening, ma'am,' said Peggotty, standing as stiff as a barrel in the centre of the room, with a candlestick in ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... I hadn't been told that you would be here, I shouldn't have come to this party. Can't stand these gatherings of nuts in May as a general rule. They bore me stiff." ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... struggle she had undergone. His hot breath close to her own cheek she did remember, and his glaring eyes, and even the roughness of his beard as he pressed his face against her own; but she could not say whence had come the blood, nor till her arm became stiff and motionless did she know that ...
— Aaron Trow • Anthony Trollope
... from her seat, gave me a stiff bow, and sank down again on her seat. "I have no affection for the sea, or generally for those whose profession it is to sail upon it," she said, looking hard at me. "There are exceptions to every rule, and I hope that this young gentleman ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... true bromidian disregard for the outworn and the axiomatic. "Of course, I knew you were in or around Boston somewhere, but to run slap up against you here, when there seemed to be nothing in it for me but to be bored stiff—" He stopped short, finding it difficult to be shiftily insincere with as old a friend as Evan Blount. But in the nature of things it was baldly impossible to tell Blount that the ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... comin' home drunk," he told Ella, "an' he was ran inter by a truck. He was smashed up pretty bad; dead right away, th' cop said. But they took him ter a hospital jus' th' same. Wonder why they'd take a stiff ter a hospital?" ...
— The Island of Faith • Margaret E. Sangster
... along these stately walks; there were many fountains gushing up into the sunshine; we likewise found a rich flower-garden, containing rare specimens of exotic flowers, and gigantic cactuses, and also an aviary, with vultures, doves, and singing birds. We did not see half the garden, but, stiff and formal as its general arrangement is, it is a beautiful place,—a delightful, sunny, and serene seclusion. Whatever it may be to the pope, two young lovers might find the Garden of Eden here, and never desire to stray out of its precincts. ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... 115 ft. high, which forms the chancel. At each of the four corners is a similar tower, and in each of the two sides are three large windows separated by buttresses like square towers. Round the top of the building as well as of the towers extends a balustrade of stiff sculpture resembling acanthus leaves. The large buildings in the neighbourhood are convents. Alittle eastward is the "Observatoire Gay," from which a steep path, the Monte des Carmes Dchausses, 536 yards long, descends to the city, reaching it by the side of the station of the Chemin de Fer ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... and complimented, Ethelyn shook out her skirts, which "draggled half a yard behind," and went downstairs to where Mrs. Jones sat working on Timothy's shirt, and Melinda was crocheting, while Mrs. Markham, senior, clean and neat, and stiff in her starched, purple calico, sat putting a patch on a fearfully large hole in the knee of Andy's pants. As Ethelyn swept into the room there fell a hush upon the inmates, and Mrs. Jones was almost guilty of an exclamation of surprise. She had expected something fine, she said—something ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... reception-room. There Madeleine found herself before two seemingly mechanical figures, which might be wood or wax, for any sign they showed of life. These two figures were the President and his wife; they stood stiff and awkward by the door, both their faces stripped of every sign of intelligence, while the right hands of both extended themselves to the column of visitors with the mechanical action of toy dolls. Mrs. Lee for a moment began to laugh, but the laugh died on ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... door, they found it closed; and Clare, stiff enough by this time, slipped off to open it. Nimrod began to paw the stones, and blow angry puffs from his wounded nose. When Clare got the door open, he saw, to his confusion, a vague dark bulk, another bull, in Nimrod's ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... by which she had been guiding her horse and slipped down to the ground. Her legs were rather stiff from riding. She held on to the saddle ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... think that we were babies, Chris," Harris said. "We could ride to Maritzburg if necessary, though I feel my arm rather stiff, and no doubt it will be stiffer still to-morrow. I felt a bit miserable at sunrise after lying there shivering, and envied you fellows who could keep yourselves warm by working; but I am beginning to thaw out ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty
... venerable grave. Two things strike the modern visitor: the variety of the fresco decorations of the house, which begin with pagan genii holding festoons, a tolerably good work of the third century, and end with stiff, uncanny representations of the Passion, of the ninth and tenth centuries; second, the fact that such an important monument should have been buried and forgotten, so that its discovery by Padre Germano took us by surprise. The upper ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... been in too much of a hurry to print the words. They were written in a stiff hand by ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... stiff manner, and the silence of the others showed the Squire that he was deep in his daughters' black books. Was he also charged with Miss Bremerton's headache? Did any of them guess what had happened? He fancied from the puzzled look in Pamela's eyes as she ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... better," she assured him. "Only rather stiff. Now, won't you sit down and have your breakfast? Please don't bother about me any more; I've wasted quite enough of ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... the corner, into which Mr. Spear says we may look. On the door is a slippery-elm button, and within, hanging on wooden pegs, are dainty dresses; stiff, curiously embroidered gowns they are, that came from across the sea, sent, perhaps, by John Adams when he went to France, and left Abigail here to farm and sew and weave and teach the children. ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... herself more quickly from this phantom than from the last, and, while she did so, called out his name, and stepped to his side, stooping down and even touching him. He was breathing, though he was very cold and stiff, and she did not rouse him. Oh, Joanna was very thankful! But what should she do next? Life must be very faint, and frozen in the muscular, active young man. He had loitered at his sport till the dusk; he ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... near being angry when a Bernese servant-girl, advancing, candle in hand, and stiff in her gilt stomacher and puffed muslin sleeves, inquired if Monsieur would be pleased to take the lift. The proposal to commit a crime would not ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... because his neck was stiff and sore. Laney was sitting on the edge of his bed with two suitcases ...
— The Happy Unfortunate • Robert Silverberg
... that, it is possible that Alwin would have obeyed; but to yield in the face of a threat, that was too low for his stiff-necked pride to stoop. The earl-born answered haughtily, "Have your will,—and I ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... when lawfully naturalised, must be considered as born aliens, not entitled to rank with the king's English. His constant practice of padding out a sentence with useless epithets, till it became as stiff as the bust of an exquisite, his antithetical forms of expression, constantly employed even where there is no opposition in the ideas expressed, his big words wasted on little things, his harsh inversions so widely different from those graceful ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... brief, and I'll try to be. The man in the white hat was described to me, and the exact time and place of the meeting. I just had to grab his white hat, smash it, and face the music. I agreed. I don't deny that I had a couple of stiff drinks before I set out, but the memory of that fifty pounds locked up here in my room and the further hundred promised, bucked me up wonderfully. It was impossible to mistake my man; I could see him coming toward me as I waited just outside a sort of little restaurant called the ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... he said to his companion. "If some bundle-stiff or some drifter from a sheep camp up the line needs the old wagon more than I do, he's welcome ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... heart that he was waiting for that summons, and he turned and followed as Percival began a slow progress through the crowd toward that uncompromising stiff-lined bench of the kind that Mr. Early affected, where sat the girl like a cameo, beside a woman somewhat older ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... matrimony I shall choose a gay soldier laddie. None of your solemn-faced parsons for me! If they were all like our good old vicar, whom I would take to-morrow if he asked me, it would be quite a different thing; but they are not. They are all too steady and starch and stiff now-a-days. They look as if butter would not melt in ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... beginners, to adhere so moderately, as he be a man of the one faction, which is most passable with the other, commonly giveth best way. The lower and weaker faction, is the firmer in conjunction; and it is often seen, that a few that are stiff, do tire out a greater number, that are more moderate. When one of the factions is extinguished, the remaining subdivideth; as the faction between Lucullus, and the rest of the nobles of the senate (which they called Optimates) held out awhile, against the faction of Pompey and Caesar; but when ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... Decorative in the Orient on vase, fan, screen and kakemono; as she struts in the stiff manner of Egyptian bas reliefs, across walls of ancient ruins, or sits in angular serenity, gazing into the future through the narrow slits of Egyptian eyes, oblivious of time; woman, beautiful in the European sense, and decorative to the superlative degree, on Greek vase and sculptured wall. Here ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... manner. He hobbled in walking from lameness of tell-tale origin,—a cleaver falling on his foot in childhood, compelling him to wear an artificial heel—and he was morbidly sensitive over it. His prim formality of manner, his sword and stiff-curled wig, his small and sickly face trying to maintain an expression impressively dignified, made him a ludicrous figure, which his contemporaries never tired of ridiculing and caricaturing. Henderson, the actor, said that "Akenside, when he ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... very early age to spend a year at Oxford with Mrs. Cawley, a sister of Dr. Cooper—a fact which makes it likely that their cousin, Jane Cooper, was also of the party. Mrs. Cawley was the widow of a Principal of Brasenose College, and is said to have been a stiff-mannered person. She moved presently to Southampton, and there also had the three girls under her charge. At the latter place Cassandra and Jane Austen were attacked by a putrid fever. Mrs. Cawley would ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... of heavy redwood was wide, flat, and hard. It was flanked by a marble-topped table and a chair. There were two large, curtained bay windows in this room, too, a faded carpet, a wash-stand with two pallid towels on the rack, several other stiff-backed chairs, and a large bureau with a square mirror and a brown marble slab. Over this slab a thin strip of fringed scarf was laid, and on the scarf stood a brown satin box, with the word "Gloves" painted over the yellow roses that ornamented ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... thoroughly stiff and tired, and knowing, moreover, that Smith would navigate the aeroplane over the sea with much more certainty than himself, he shouted to awaken him. This proving ineffectual, he leant over and nudged his shoulder. Smith ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... a little stiff. Barbara smiled to herself and discovered suddenly that the desire to hurt ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... Franklin, are refreshing breezes. They are quite what breezes should be—warm, kindly, stimulating; not hard, stiff, compelling things, off a granite Northern shore. Anne ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... in the pocket o' Nate's coat," said Tim, shifting the garment on his arm to show a stiff, white folded paper sticking out of the breast pocket. "I reckon when he tole me ter tote his gun an' coat home, he furgot the grant war in his pocket, 'kase he fairly dotes on it, an' won't trest ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... and stiff. Each looked at the other abruptly, then Kendall moved. From the receiver, he ripped out the recording coil, and instantly jammed it into the analyzer. He started it through once, then again, then again, ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell
... hour after, a servant, entering to replenish the faded fire, fled out of the room and startled the household with his shrieks. Two or three domestics rushed in. There lay Sir Jasper Kingsland prone on his face on the floor, stiff and stark as a dead man. A paper, unintelligible to all, was clutched tightly as a death grip in his hand. Reading that crumpled paper, the strong man had fallen there flat on the floor in a ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... not uncommon in size, although disproportionate to the frame which bore it. His forehead was wide and of medium height; on each side long chestnut hair—lanky as we may suppose from his own account of his personal habits—fell in stiff, flat locks over his lean cheeks. His eyes were large, and in their steel-blue irises, lurking under deep-arched and projecting brows, was a penetrating quality which veiled the mind within. The nose was straight and shapely, the mouth large, the lips full and sensuous, although the powerful ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... tom-tom and his dug-out canoe—just as willing to sell as "big curios" the debris of our importations to his ancestors at a high price. Exactly how much he will ask for a Devos patent paraffin oil tin or a Morton's tin, I cannot imagine, but it will be something stiff—such as he asks nowadays for the Phoenician "Aggry" beads. There will be then as there is now, and as there was in the past, individual Africans who will rise to a high level of culture, but that will be all for a very long period. To say that the African race will never ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... three men testing the pipe-line. We both saw them, and Nan was scared stiff at sight of one of them; that's why I put ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... space, out popped the little head with a pair of round brilliant eyes. Then we bethought ourselves of feeding him, and forthwith prepared him a stiff glass of sugar and water, a drop of which we held to his bill. After turning his head attentively, like a bird who knew what he was about and didn't mean to be chaffed, he briskly put out a long, flexible tongue, slightly forked at the end, and licked off the comfortable ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... with a substance much resembling a shawl, sometimes red, sometimes blue, often plaid, and, strange to say, they frequently change skins with one another. On their heads they have a horn very like a stiff brown paper lamp-lighter. Wings of the same substance flap upon their shoulders when they fly; this is never very far from the ground, as they usually fall with violence if they attempt any lofty flights. They browse over the earth, ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... and find his perch on "the big ha' bible," if he would,—and as he did. So did the music of Emerson's words and life steal into the hearts of our stern New England theologians, and soften them to a temper which would have seemed treasonable weakness to their stiff-kneed forefathers. When a man lives a life commended by all the Christian virtues, enlightened persons are not so apt to cavil at his particular beliefs or unbeliefs as in former generations. We do, however, wish to know what are the convictions of any ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... forward worked with a will. The rope was thrown into the tender, to which the end of it was made fast, and the jib, crackling and banging in the stiff breeze, now almost a gale, went up ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... what there is to know," I said, sitting up very straight and stiff, looking as haughty and unapproachable as I possibly could. It was coming very close. I knew it, though I never had the experience before, and I would have given anything in the world to escape. Oh, how can girls like to have ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... The tax on earned incomes tends in certain cases to be passed on to the consumer or deducted from the farmer, and, besides, it is not just that a family living by giving productive service to the community should pay the same as a family that contributes nothing by way of effort. A stiff tax on these latter families might send them to work, and certainly would induce economy. Moreover, the earner of income must provide for old age and dependents while the unearned income taxpayer has this provision ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg
... just dawn when Tom awoke. From his head to his feet, he was sore and stiff. He sat up, rubbing his legs and stretching painfully. "Hey, Wilson! Shadrack! Come on. It's getting light." He went to the door and looked out. "If we drop straight down between the barn and the wagon, they can't see us from the house." He slid over the edge, hung by his fingers ...
— Tom of the Raiders • Austin Bishop
... to wait, he sat now, preternaturally stiff, perched on a heap of trunks, clutching a broken dress-suit case which had ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... hand. Upon that, the Indian took a bottle from his bosom, and poured out of it some black stuff, like ink, into the palm of the boy's hand. The Indian—first touching the boy's head, and making signs over it in the air—then said, "Look." The boy became quite stiff, and stood like a statue, looking into the ink in the ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... lines of Chorda filum, many feet in length, lie aslant in the tideway; long shaggy bunches of Fucus serratus and Fucus nodosus droop heavily from the rock sides; while the flatter ledges, that form the uneven floor upon which we tread, bristle thick with the stiff, cartilaginous, many-cleft fronds of at least two species of chondrus,—the common carrageen, and the smaller species, C. Norvegicus. Now, in the thickly-spread fucoids of this Highland shore we have not a very inadequate representation of the first, or thallogenic vegetation,—that ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... of the egg until creamy, add seasoning and milk. Beat the white until stiff, but not dry, cut and fold into the yolk carefully. Heat an omelet pan, rub the bottom and sides with the butter, and turn in the omelet, spreading it evenly on the pan. Cook gently over the heat until the omelet is set and evenly browned underneath. Put it into a hot oven for a few minutes, ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Household Science in Rural Schools • Ministry of Education Ontario
... the votes between them that are for the Indulgence to the Papists and Presbyters, and those that are against it, which did carry it by 200 against 30. And pretty it is to consider how the King would appear to be a stiff Protestant and son of the Church; and yet would appear willing to give a liberty to these people, because of his promise at Breda. And yet all the world do believe that the King would not have this liberty given them at all. Thence to my Lord's, who, I hear, has his ague again, for which ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... through the Man's-door came the Hall-Sun in that ancient garment, which fell straight and stiff down to her ancles as she stepped lightly and slowly along, her head crowned with a garland of eglantine. In her right hand also she held a great torch of wax lighted, whose flame amidst the bright sunlight looked like a wavering leaf ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... flaccid. By a complex nervous mechanism based on vascular paralysis due to nervous phenomena called inhibition and dynamogeny, the nervous irritations cause an accumulation of blood in the spaces of the cavernous bodies which become so gorged with blood as to form stiff and hard rods. The size of the penis is thereby increased considerably and its stiffness allows it to penetrate the vagina of the female. At the same time and by the same mechanism the verumontanum swells so as to close the ureter from the bladder, while the seminal ducts ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... are Rochester's partner," Ferguson pointed out; his manner was still stiff. "It would be only natural for you to help him disappear out of friendship, or"—with a sidelong glance—"from a desire to ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... and with his own acuteness in making it, the Captain laughed aloud; then in an instant he sat bolt upright, stiff and still, listening intently. For through the barricade had come two sounds—a sweet, low, startled voice, that cried half in a whisper, "Heavens, he 's there!" and then the rustle of skirts in hasty ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... Master of the Horse who rode Closest to him of all, called out to me "Curses this hour on this white stallion's hide, I bought in London for a stiff round sum! I'd part with fifty ducats, I'll be bound, Could I but veil him with a mouse's gray." With hot misgiving he draws near and cries, "Highness, your horse is skittish; grant me leave To give him just an hour ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... talk, tell jokes and stories, as well as riddles, play games, have races and even snowball fights, as they were having one now. But the moment any one looked at them, or came into the room where they were playing, the toys settled back straight and stiff and still. They could listen to what was said, but they dared not speak, and they could take ...
— The Story of a Plush Bear • Laura Lee Hope
... the Sound except that which is caused by the wind, and as high water and a stiff breeze are essential to good sport, it is not possible to have good shooting every day. When the wind comes from the right quarter it makes a full tide, and drives the fowl nearer the shore and up into the ...
— Nick Baba's Last Drink and Other Sketches • George P. Goff
... does not agree with persons: "He saw one or more persons enter the garden."—Murray's Exercises, Rule 8th, p. 54. In his Key, he has it thus: "He saw one person, or more than one, enter the garden."—Oct. Gram., Vol. ii, p. 189. To me, this stiff correction, which many later grammarians have copied, seems worse than none. And the effect of the principle may be noticed in Murray's style elsewhere; as, "When a semicolon, or more than one, have ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... number of great poets. But it also usurped for itself fields which belong to entirely different literary forms. Grammar, lexicography, philosophy, and theology were expounded in verse; but the verse was formal, stiff, and unnatural. Poetic composition ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... wedding was a very cold affair. It seems a thousand years before I shall be in Mantua again, I am so anxious to see your Majesty and my son, and also to get away from this place where I find absolutely no pleasure. Your Excellency, therefore, need not envy me my presence at this wedding; it is so stiff I have much more cause to envy those who remained in Mantua." Apparently the noble lady's opinion was influenced by the displeasure she still felt on account of her brother's marriage with Lucretia, but it may also have been due partly to the character of the festivities themselves, ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... are sure to prevail, all else being the same; and creeds or systems that conduce to a soft limp mind tend to perish, except some hard extrinsic force keep them alive. Thus Epicureanism never prospered at Rome, but Stoicism did; the stiff, serious character of the great prevailing nation was attracted by what seemed a confirming creed, and deterred by what looked like a relaxing creed. The inspiriting doctrines fell upon the ardent character, and so confirmed its energy. Strong beliefs ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... portraying to uninitiated listeners various scenes at which he had been a witness or ably discussing the processes of war with other proved men. Too it was important that he should have time for physical recuperation. He was sore and stiff from his experiences. He had received his fill of all exertions, and he ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... tu, toi, thee, thou, denote either social superiority or familiarity. The same phraseology was also employed in many English comedies of that time, but sounds so stiff at present, that the translator has everywhere ...
— The Blunderer • Moliere
... fuse gave another sputter and one of the Apaches said, 'Un dah.' That means 'white man.' It was harder to turn my head than if I'd had a stiff neck; but I managed to do it, and I see that my ore dump wasn't more than ten foot away. I mighty near overjumped it; and the next I knew I was on one side of it and those Apaches on the other. Probably I flew; leastways I don't seem ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... papier mache, and can be bought at Japanese stores. It should preferably be one with arms suspended by small spiral springs, giving a limp, loose-jointed effect. The method of causing the skeleton to dance is shown in the front view. The figure is hung from the neck by a blackened stiff wire attached to the hammer wire of an electric bell, from which the gong has been removed. When the bell works he will kick against the rear wall, and wave his arms up and down, thus giving as realistic a dance as anyone, could expect from ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... fathers. There are also three Roman Catholic clergymen, including a bishop;—good, exemplary men, whose "constant care" is not "to increase their store," but to guide and direct their flocks in the paths of piety and virtue. But, alas! they have a stiff-necked people to deal with;—the French half-breed, who follows the hunter's life, possesses all the worst vices of his European and Indian progenitors, and is indifferent alike to the laws of God and man. There are, in all, seven places of worship, three Roman Catholic, and four Protestant, ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... Jersey the seal has been modernized, and the surmounting branch omitted, perhaps by the carelessness of the engraver. The said branch is usually styled a laurel branch, but why I know not. It has stiff sprays, and I am convinced was intended for the Plantagenista, the well-known badge used by ...
— The Coinages of the Channel Islands • B. Lowsley
... obviously a tangent to the points which have analogous relations to that centre. The local signs or tensions of the points in such a tangent vary in an unseizable progression; there is violence in keeping to it, and the effect is forced. This makes the dry and stiff quality of any long straight line, which the skilful Greeks avoided by the curves of their columns and entablatures, and the less economical barbarians by a profusion of ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... point in both the similes of the raw cloth stitched on to the old, and of the new wine poured into stiff old skins, is the necessary incongruity between old forms and new tendencies. Undressed cloth is sure to shrink when wetted, and, being stronger than the old, to draw its frayed edges away. So, if new truth, or new conceptions of old truth, or new enthusiasms, are patched ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren |
