"Pliability" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... action was taken by the First Raad, and a change of front was effected by a measure alteration, which hung the question up for another year. Everyone realized that this was secured by the influence of the President in the first place and by the pliability of Raad members in the second, on the ground that the matter was too profitable to them personally to be disposed of until ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... coarsest quality and most uncouth forms; together with every other common article that the art of man has devised for his wants, not forgetting the luxuries of looking-glasses and Jews- harps. With this collection of valuables, Monsieur Le Quoi had stepped behind a counter, and, with a wonderful pliability of temperament, had dropped into his assumed character as gracefully as he had ever moved in any other. The gentleness and suavity of his manners rendered him extremely popular; besides this, the women soon discovered that he had taste. His calicoes were the finest, ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... obnoxious to that bitterest of American reproaches, the charge of being unpractical. The directness of aim of scientific training and the lofty code of honor among students of science, with their fair share of cis-Atlantic pliability, makes them, however, most useful and trustworthy people whenever it becomes requisite to entrust to them the mixture of commercial and scientific labor which is needed by heads of boards of weights and measures, of lighthouses, of coast surveys, and for the affairs and mere business conduct of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... wanted my wife's soul self, and I believe that if I could have you back, my conquered body self would never need to wander from home. A little more pliability—all you ever lacked, and which your trouble should have brought you, could make it so that we could live together in very perfect harmony. Then I could release a lot of good plays and good writings, much of which I know already has been completed by my ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr
... made vital by the approaches of a grand passion. It took only a few visits to make her as familiar as a child at the cottage; and the whole air of the Faubourg St. Germain seemed to melt away from her, as, with the pliability peculiar to her nation, she blended herself with the quiet pursuits of the family. Sometimes, in simple straw hat and white wrapper, she would lie down in the grass under the apple-trees, or join Mary in an expedition to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... innocence prompting him continually to recoil from the detestation of mankind as a thing totally unallied to his character, yet the imperiousness of his temper and the constant experience he had had of the pliability of other men, prepared him to feel the general and undisguised condemnation into which he was sunk with uncommon emotions of anger and impatience. That he, at the beam of whose eye every countenance fell, ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... wonderful, beautiful and useful of Nature's gifts to uncivilized man. And yet one more use has been found for it. In the East a new industry has sprung up, viz., the making of "Panama" hats of bamboo strips or threads. In texture and pliability these hats are said to even surpass the genuine "Panamas," are absolutely impervious to rain, and can be produced at a ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... of the pliability of some consciences, of this apparently rigid class, where interest or inclination demands it, has often been told by the late Governor Morrow, of Ohio. An old Scotch "Cameronian," in Eastern Pennsylvania, became ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... work must possess an intrinsic quality of pliability: it must grow, expand, and be capable of development in a hundred ways. Small points of method must be adjusted to the particular class and pupil, and a generous recognition of the useful parts of other people's 'methods' ...
— Music As A Language - Lectures to Music Students • Ethel Home
... Softness. — N. softness, pliableness &c. adj.; flexibility; pliancy, pliability; sequacity[obs3], malleability; ductility, tractility[obs3]; extendibility, extensibility; plasticity; inelasticity, flaccidity, laxity. penetrability. clay, wax, butter, dough, pudding; alumina, argil; cushion, pillow, feather bed, down, padding, wadding;foam. mollification; softening ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... seem as if the very feelings, benumbed and congealed as they may hitherto have been, were suddenly dissolving under some happier influence, and that,—with the external sign—the weakness and pliability of childhood—we were magically regaining its singleness of feeling, and its gentleness ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... forms of "Purushayit," when the man lies supine (see the Abbot in Boccaccio i. 4), becomes thirty-two, approaching the French quarante faons. The Upavishta, majlis, or sitting postures, when one or both "sit at squat" somewhat like birds, appear utterly impossible to Europeans who lack the pliability of the Eastern's limbs. Their object in congress is to avoid tension of the muscles which would shorten the period of enjoyment. In the text the woman lies supine and the man sits at squat between her legs: it is a favourite from Marocco to China. A literal translation of the Ananga ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... be placed RAFFANELLI, the same whom I have just mentioned. He is a consummate comedian, and more to be commended in that point of view than as a singer. RAFFANELLI has a countenance to which he gives any cast he pleases: his features, from their wonderful pliability, receive every impression: his eye is quick; his delivery, natural and correct; and his action, easy. Sometimes he carries his buffooneries too far, merely to excite laughter; but as he never fails ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... between hair and wool is rather arbitrary than natural, consisting in the greater or less degrees of fineness, softness and pliability of the fibres. When the fibres possess these properties so far as to admit of their being spun and woven into a texture sufficiently pliable to be used as an article of dress, they are called wool. The sheep, llama, Angora goat, and the goat of Thibet, ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... anarchistic completeness, she has renounced the idea of compromise or adaptability as finally as if she had seen and passed the end of the world. There is no more pliability in her with regard to Asbury than there is in a steel rod. How different she used to be with Brandt! How she consulted his wishes and accommodated herself ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell
... are given; that we almost forget verses and song, and actually see the pulling, twisting, and cutting of the gold-threads; that we see and hear the shoemaker's hands smoothing down the leather of the shoe in his hand, to convince his customers of its pliability; that we see and smell the dear little pale yellow pasties nestling in the neat white baskets, after having stood by and watched the dough being kneaded, chopped, and floured over, the iron plates heated in the oven, the soft, ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... ear, put on while fresh and wet, and allowed to dry in the sun, sets matters right again, and binds the fragments together as if they were enclosed in iron. Sometimes the ear seems to be a protection to the animal; for it is so tough and strong, despite its pliability, that the hunter will occasionally find several bullets lodged in the ear, which have not been able to penetrate through a substance at once tough ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... naturalist has his mathematics, as well as the geometer and the astronomer; and if the mathematics of the Animal Kingdom have a greater flexibility than those of the positive sciences, and are therefore not so easily resolved into their invariable elements, it is because they have the freedom and pliability of life, and evade our efforts to bring all their external variety within the limits of the same structural law which nevertheless ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... material—comes in black, white, and ecru, one yard wide—a very popular material on account of its great pliability and lightness. It is used for blocking frames and copying, the lines being much softer than when ...
— Make Your Own Hats • Gene Allen Martin
... supremacy of Rome was not yet shaken off; and until it was so, there was constant danger that her actual supremacy would revive. The monarch's chief anxiety concerned Archbishop Magni. That prelate owed his appointment mainly to the pliability of his temper, and to the assumption on the monarch's part that he would prove a ready tool. In this assumption Gustavus had soon discovered he was wrong. Magni, though of pliant temper, was a thorough Papist, and, ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson
... in the pliability and moisture of the parts. Drink water by pailfuls; it is a universal dissolvent; water liquefies all the salts. Is the course of the blood a little sluggish? This grand principle sets it forward. Too ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... had continual opportunities, from about the year 1859, of observing Mr. Hope-Scott's character in its professional aspect, furnishes some very interesting reminiscences, on a part of which, however, it may be worth while to observe that the versatility and pliability of intellect which the writer so well describes in Mr. Hope-Scott is no doubt more or less common to every great barrister, and is a habit to which all who are actively engaged in the profession are obliged to train their minds as they can. Still, it is equally ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... at the office of the Revolution an invitation to meet Mrs. Moulton in the Academy of Music, where she was to try her voice for the coming concert for the benefit of the Woman's Medical College. And what a voice for power, pathos, pliability! I never heard the like. Seated beside her mother, Mrs. W.H. Greenough, I enjoyed alike the mother's anxious pride and the daughter's triumph. I felt, as I listened, the truth of what Vieuxtemps said the ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... shrank in fear. Horace Lord, good-looking and not uneducated, yet so far from formidable, suggested a new hope; even though he might be actuated by the ordinary motives, she discerned in him a softness, a pliability of nature, which would harmonise with her own timid disposition. To the thought of deceiving him on the subject of her past, she was reconciled by a resolve to make his happiness the sole object of her existence in the future. Horace was amiability itself, and seemed, if not to love her ardently ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... character of the Duke of Sudermania, who was created King on Thursday the 6th, I confess also that I place much confidence, more perhaps than in that of his ministers. His conduct has been loyal and frank, nor does he seem to exhibit that pliability in principles too common among ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... predominance than that which Nature teaches—namely to subject him to the competition of other and better species. He is well equipped for the struggle—hardy, pugnacious, numerous, and in possession. He would not be in possession and so predominant if he had not these qualities, and great pliability of instinct and readiness to seize on vacant places. Nevertheless, even with the sturdy sparrow a very small thing might turn the scale, particularly if we were standing by and putting a little artificial pressure on one side of the balance; for it must be borne in mind that the ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... his youth and courage that supported him under these successive disappointments, but the continual affluence of new disciples. The man had the tenacity of a Bruce or a Columbus, with a pliability that was all his own. He did not fight for what the world would call success; but for "the wages of going on." Check him off in a dozen directions, he would find another outlet and break forth. He missed one vessel after another, and the main work still ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... extraordinary strength; the result of its round shape, and the regularity of the joints in its stem. The parallel position and toughness of its fibers render it easy to split, and, when split, its pieces are of extraordinary pliability and elasticity. To the gravelly soil on which it grows it owes its durability, and its firm, even, and always clean surface, the brilliancy and color of which improve by use. [Convenience.] And finally, it is a great thing for a population with such limited means of conveyance ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... venerable old man, we might have had more conversation; but his forcible spirit; and impetuosity of manner, may be said to spare neither sex nor age. I have seen even Mrs Thrale stunned; but I have often maintained, that it is better he should retain his own manner. Pliability of address I conceive to be inconsistent with that majestick power of mind which he possesses, and which produces such noble effects. A lofty oak will not bend like a ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... profusion of light hair waving in soft curls over his shoulders, a light elastic step, and a frame, which, though it showed the promise already of strength to be attained with maturity, was conspicuous as yet for ease and agility and pliability rather ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... varieties would succeed better under a climate warmer than ours. With fruit-trees, it is well known that certain varieties, for instance of the peach, stand forcing in a hot-house better than others; and this shows {311} either pliability of organisation or some constitutional difference. The same individual cherry-tree, when forced, has been observed during successive years gradually to change its period of vegetation.[790] Few pelargoniums can resist the heat of a stove, but Alba multiflora will, as a most skilful gardener ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... house-dogs take very quickly to their heels. In a similar manner a whole pack of the hungry wild dogs will scarcely ever (and I was told by some never) venture to attack a flock guarded by even one of these faithful shepherds. The whole account appears to me a curious instance of the pliability of the affections in the dog; and yet, whether wild or however educated, he has a feeling of respect or fear for those that are fulfilling their instinct of association. For we can understand on no principle the wild dogs being ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... grasses, etc., the smaller strands were doubled to secure uniformity of size, and when a number of parts were used they were combined into one by twisting or plaiting. In time the advantage in strength and pliability of twisted strands came to be recognized, and this led to the general utilization of fibrous substances, and finally to the manufacture of suitable fibers by manipulating the bark of trees and plants. Spinning was probably not devised until the weaver's art had made considerable advance, but its ...
— Prehistoric Textile Art of Eastern United States • William Henry Holmes
... afternoon in January, Mrs. Fairfax had begged a holiday for Adele, because she had a cold; and, as Adele seconded the request with an ardour that reminded me how precious occasional holidays had been to me in my own childhood, I accorded it, deeming that I did well in showing pliability on the point. It was a fine, calm day, though very cold; I was tired of sitting still in the library through a whole long morning: Mrs. Fairfax had just written a letter which was waiting to be posted, so I put on my bonnet and cloak and ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... stiff. It was not easy for him to get into the state of political pliability that he ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... of the deception the old lady had played on Bates, and that added weight to the vague convictions once more alive in his brain. Mrs. Floyd's smile implied a certain confidence in his credulity and pliability that was galling to ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... were members of the Christian communities, and, being so, they still insisted that Judaism was to be eternal. They demanded that the patched and stiff leathern bottle, which had no elasticity or pliability, should still contain the quick fermenting new wine of the kingdom. And certainly, if ever man had excuse for clinging to what was old and formal, these Judaising Christians held it. They held by a law written with God's own finger, by ordinances awful by reason of divine appointment, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... temperament," said Genji, "gives far greater beauty to women than all beside, for to have no natural pliability ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... the hope of restoring you to your calmer and truer self. Let me do every justice to Lord Harry. I believe, sincerely believe, that his miserable life has not utterly destroyed in him the virtues which distinguish an honourable man. But he has one terrible defect. In his nature, there is the fatal pliability which finds companionable qualities in bad friends. In this aspect of his character, he is a dangerous man—and he may be (forgive me!) a bad husband. It is a thankless task to warn you to any good purpose. A wife—and a loving wife more than another—feels the deteriorating ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... Archduke possessed no experience, power, or wealth. He brought, therefore, no strength to a cause which was itself feeble. He could hope for no protection, nor inspire any confidence. Nevertheless, he had courage, pliability, and a turn for political adventure. Visions of the discomfited Philip conferring the hand of his daughter, with the Netherlands as her dowry, upon the enterprising youth who, at this juncture, should succeed in overturning the Spanish authority ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... less serious in their nature, such as indecision, exaggerated scrupulousness, extreme pliability, hypochondria. All of these should be ruthlessly supprest the moment we become aware of them, for they are one and all the forerunners of that mentally diseased condition which gives rise to the phobias of which we ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke
... times that we might be granted to be together. You would certainly have been more courageous to engage in battle and stronger to despise envy, and disregard false accusations. In this way, too, the wickedness of many would have been restrained whose audacity to revile grew from your pliability, as they called it. O Philippe Melanchthon! Te enim appello, qui apud Deum cum Christo vivis, nosque illic exspectas, donec tecum in beatam quietem colligamur. Dixisti centies, quum fessus laboribus et molestiis ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... regret to say, was not a good Oriental. He lacked the Semite's pliability. He was graceful, but not gracious. A consequence, doubtless, of having inhaled for some time past the rarefied atmosphere of the Chief, and swallowed a few pokers during the process, his manner towards me was freezingly non-committal—worthy of the best ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... by others' (p. 166). This was in some sort the type at which he aimed in the formation of his own character—a type that should combine organic with critical quality, the strength of an ordered set of convictions, with that pliability and that receptiveness in face of new truth, which are indispensable to these very convictions being held intelligently and in their best attainable form. We can understand the force of the eulogy on John Austin (p. 154), that he manifested 'an equal devotion to ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 3 (of 3) - Essay 2: The Death of Mr Mill - Essay 3: Mr Mill's Autobiography • John Morley
... horses thoroughly (by school methods understood), because experience shows that this preparation alone gives them a chance against the more highly-priced animals with which they are called on to compete. Only this thorough training guarantees good individual riding, and insures the 'pliability' which alone makes it possible to correct disobedience rapidly should it arise. And, further, there can be no question that this prolonged preparation improves the endurance of the horse—on that point at least experience leaves no room for doubt. The thoroughly ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi
... carriers show clearly that certain of the instincts of these birds can be readily modified. There is every reason to suppose that their mental capacities in other directions have something of the same pliability. ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... a row of eight of these snug-built machines, all the same type and monogram, all with machine guns strapped solidly to the fuselage of each, and with motors of great power and pliability. ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... stuff"; nervous and sensuous; it opened up too many vistas, philological and social, for his positive mind to assimilate with comfort. Those particles alone—there was something ambiguous, something almost disreputable, in their jocund pliability, their readiness to lend themselves to improper uses. But Latin—ah, Latin was different! Even at his preparatory school, where he was known as a swot of the first water, he had displayed an unhealthy infatuation for that tongue; he loved ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... mould thee into entire conformity to His will, He must have thee pliable in His hands, and this pliability is more quickly reached by yielding in the little things than even by the greater. Thy one great desire is to follow Him fully; canst thou not say then a continual "yes" to all His sweet commands, whether small or great, and trust Him to lead ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... softer with this venerable old man, we might have had more conversation; but his forcible spirit, and impetuosity of manner, may be said to spare neither sex nor age. I have seen even Mrs. Thrale stunned; but I have often maintained, that it is better he should retain his own manner[783]. Pliability of address I conceive to be inconsistent with that majestick power of mind which he possesses, and which produces such noble effects. A lofty oak will not bend ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... having died unlamented, was succeeded by Alexander Farnese, a son of the ex-regent Margaret {273} of Parma. [Sidenote: Farnese, 1545-92] Though an Italian in temperament he united a rare diplomatic pliability with energy as a soldier. Moreover, whereas his predecessors had despised the people they were sent to govern and had hated the task of dealing with them, he set his heart on making a success. By this time the eyes of all Europe were fixed on the struggle in the Low Countries and it seemed ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... secreting and excreting fluid vital and destructive. By its action we live, and by its failure we shrink, or swell, and die. Each muscle plays its part in active life. Each fiber of all muscles owes its pliability to that yielding septum-washer, that gives all muscles help to glide over and around all adjacent muscles and ligaments, without friction or jar. It not only lubricates the fibers but gives nourishment to all parts of the body. Its ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still
... however, be too abrupt a transition from the most fatiguing exercises to a state of absolute rest. Whereas that dancing, of which they were so fond, afforded them, not only a pleasing employ of vacant hours, but, withall, in its keeping up the pliability of their limbs, made them find more ease in the application of themselves to more athletic, or to more violent exercises, either of war or of the chace: while all together bred that firmness of their ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... Their great pliability of form has, too, very important advantages for our purpose: first, that they can be divided very accurately into very small parts, and that the volume of every part corresponds exactly to the value of the part;(731) and secondly, that they take an impression at very little cost, an impression ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... The leather must not be permitted to become hard and stiff. If it is impossible to procure a good shoe dressing[15], neat's-foot oil or tallow are the best substitutes; either will soften the leather and preserve its pliability. Leather requires oil to preserve its pliability, and if not supplied will become brittle, crack, and break easily under strain. Inferior dressings are always harmful, and no dressing should be used which contains acid or varnish. Acid burns the ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... was of 'such a character that people would drive a coach and six through precedents and everything else in order to get rid of it.' He was irritated by an appeal to practical consequences from what he considered to be established principles. Then, too, his massive intellect made him wanting in pliability. 'He could not change front in presence of the enemy'; and rather despised the adaptations by which clever lawyers succeed in introducing new law under a pretence of applying old precedents. As I have already said, he was disgusted ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... occur to her that it might yet be problematic whether Okoya would ever become a traitor to his own people. She could not conceive how anybody might be different from her and from Tyope, and of course she had no doubt concerning his ultimate pliability. And she relied also upon the influence Mitsha would exert upon her future husband, taking it for granted that her child had the same low standards as her parents. That child Hannay regarded merely as a resource,—as valuable property, marketable and to ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... In the latter you will notice one length of bolt placed on a round faced pulley. That belt must either bend or break, and in any case it will not give satisfaction; but, on the other hand, examine Fig. 2; here two half length bolts are used, and ingeniously joined in the center. It gives just pliability enough to lay the belt flat upon the pulley. We experimented for some time ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 601, July 9, 1887 • Various
... popularity more unalloyed than Vetranio's. Gifted with a disposition the pliability of which adapted itself to all emergencies, his generosity disarmed enemies, while his affability made friends. Munificent without assumption, successful without pride, he obliged with grace and shone with safety. ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... too unyielding, but cartilage, or gristle, meets the case exactly. The entire framework of the larynx—its skeleton, so to speak—is made up of a series of cartilages united together so as to ensure sufficient firmness with pliability. ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills
... together, until the talismanic syllables gave to each her individuality. The peculiarity gave rise to a little good-humoured ridicule; but for our part, we thought it quite wonderful how well they played their part in conversation with so small a stock of words. There is much pliability of meaning, however, in an interjection; and in company, where there are always several persons who are anxious to be heard, it is a positive virtue. In Miss Constantia's intonation of her favourite 'impossible!' it seemed to me that there mingled a dash of sadness, a ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various
... stiffness, and toughness. 2. Of muscular tissue, contractility and irritability. 3. Of nervous tissue, irritability and conductivity. 4. Of cartilaginous tissue, stiffness and elasticity. 5. Of connective tissue, toughness and pliability. 6. Of epithelial tissue, ability to resist the action of external forces and power ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.
... darkling shores, found the glimmering lanterns of Mrs. Owen's landing. Sylvia was there! It was Sylvia he had come to see, and the coldness with which Morton Bassett turned his back upon him did not matter in the least. It was his pliability in Bassett's hands, manifested at the convention where he had appeared as the boss's spokesman, that had ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... unfortunately, he seldom knew on the morning of the fair-day the name of the party or faction on whose side he was to fight. This was merely a matter of priority; for whoever happened to give him the first treat uniformly secured him. The reason of this pliability on his part was, that Phelim being every person's friend, by his good nature, was nobody's foe, except for the day. He fought for fun and for whiskey. When he happened to drub some companion or acquaintance ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... carefully studied, it will be found that immediate circumstances greatly influence it; anxiety or great excitement of any kind, illness or any violent emotion, will for the moment greatly affect the writing. Writing depends upon so many things—a firm grasp of the pen, a pliability of the muscles, clearness of vision and brain power—even the writing materials, pens, ink and paper, all make a difference. It is not strange, then, that with so many causes upon which it depends, writing should be an excellent test of personality, ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay
... are marked in much the same manner on the breast. The back is a dark brown, while the wings, still darker, are slightly bronzed at the tips. Their singularly long legs are of a pale flesh colour, while the web on the foot is very much arched near the toes, giving greater pliability to the foot and a power of grasping, which enables them to perch on trees. The head and bill, the latter of a pale ash colour, are both large. When on the wing they make a peculiar though pleasing whistling sound, that can be heard at a great distance,* ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... feminine occupations, and drawing, or painting, are by no means consistent with an earnest, practical musical education; not only because both those occupations require so much time, but because they deprive the fingers of the requisite pliability and dexterity, while knitting, according to the latest discoveries, produces an unnatural nervous excitement, which is unfavorable to healthy progress in music. I at least, in my instruction on the piano, have never been ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... the formidable rival with whom Ichabod Crane had to contend, and, considering all things, a stouter man than he would have shrunk from the competition, and a wiser man would have despaired. He had, however, a happy mixture of pliability and perseverance in his nature; he was in form and spirit like a supple-jack—yielding, but tough; though he bent, he never broke; and though he bowed beneath the slightest pressure, yet, the moment it was away—jerk!—he ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving
... leather alum is the astringent curative agent. Its operation is accompanied by that of others whose purpose is to secure elasticity and pliability, and mainly to preserve that beautiful texture which makes kid leather superior to all others. These assistants in the process are eggs, flour, and salt. They are combined into what is called a custard. A proper quantity of the custard and a number of skins ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various
... undoubtedly the best for the purpose of wool scouring, as, owing to its ready solubility in water, it quickly penetrates the fibres, is easily washed out, and produces a good "feel" so essential in the best goods, and tends to preserve the lustre and pliability of the fibre. ...
— The Handbook of Soap Manufacture • W. H. Simmons
... tender, fragile, solicitous, unripe; appealing to sensibility, not to passion, by feminine charms in nerveless and soulless boyhood. The most distinctive mark of Adonis is that he has no character, no will, no intellect. He is all sentiment, sighs, tears, pliability, and sweetness. ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... pliableness &c adj.; flexibility; pliancy, pliability; sequacity^, malleability; ductility, tractility^; extendibility, extensibility; plasticity; inelasticity, flaccidity, laxity. penetrability. clay, wax, butter, dough, pudding; alumina, argil; cushion, pillow, feather bed, down, padding, wadding; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... measured, unimpeachably correct. It would be difficult to think of a man more completely the antithesis of Gordon. His temperament, all in monochrome, touched in with cold blues and indecisive greys, was eminently unromantic. He had a steely colourlessness, and a steely pliability, and a steely strength. Endowed beyond most men with the capacity of foresight, he was endowed as very few men have ever been with that staying-power which makes the fruit of foresight attainable. His views were long, and his patience was even ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... crowded, and far too exacting day are clipping you out of all time for prayer, then what should you do? What do you do when you simply cannot get your proper fresh air and exercise everyday? Do you not fall back on the plasticity and pliability of nature and take your air and exercise in large parcels? You take a ride into the country two or three times a week. Or, two afternoons a week you have ten miles alone if you cannot get a godly friend. And then two or three times a year, ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... naturally imbibed in the course of his perilous and daring profession. In the presence of that fair and pure-minded girl he was as a child, impressible, and ready to follow her simplest instructions. All this betokened a native refinement of soul, else he could never have evinced the pliability which had rendered him so pleasant and agreeable a companion to her ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... proved to be all pliability and indulgence, after the truly considerate manner in which the explosion had conducted itself; and Betteredge was accordingly informed that we were all four to travel back together by the morning train. I fully expected that he would have ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... evermore dead, lifeless, and useless, in art as in poetry, and though you built as many of them as there are slates on your house-roofs, you will never care for them. They will only remain to later ages as monuments of the patience and pliability with which the people of the nineteenth century sacrificed their feelings to fashions, and their intellects to forms. But on the other hand, that strange and thrilling interest with which such words strike you as are in any wise connected with Gothic architecture—as for instance, Vault, Arch, ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... of Bray; one who frequently changes his principles, always siding with the strongest party: an allusion to a vicar of Bray, in Berkshire, commemorated in a well-known ballad for the pliability ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... confessional, he knew of no other relation between man and man than that of rule and subjection; and the innate consciousness of his own superiority gave him a contempt for others. His policy wanted pliability, the only virtue which was here indispensable to its success. He was naturally overbearing and insolent, and the royal authority only gave arms to the natural impetuosity of his disposition and the imperiousness of his order. He veiled his own ambition beneath the interests ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... of this freshly-important ridicule on the sensitive mind of Cass might have been foretold by Blazing Star had it ever taken that sensitiveness into consideration. He had lost the good-humor and easy pliability which had tempted him to frankness, and he had gradually become bitter and hard. He had at first affected amusement over his own vanished day dream—hiding his virgin disappointment in his own breast; but when he began to turn upon his feelings he turned upon his ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... result. These products are non-crystalline bodies easily soluble in water, and are coloured bluish-violet by ferric chloride and precipitate gelatine. Solutions of the free acids and acidified solutions of the salts convert pelt into firm and white leathers possessing great softness and pliability.[Footnote: Austr. Pat, 66,895.] ...
— Synthetic Tannins • Georg Grasser
... and to give suppers. Let us then bid him adieu! La Fayette, to consummate the greatest revolution that a nation ever attempted, we required a leader, whose mind was on an equality with so great an event. We accepted you; the pliability of your features, your studied orations, your premeditated axioms—all those productions of art that nature disavows, seemed suspicious to the more clear-sighted patriots. The boldest of them followed you, tore the mask from your visage, and cried—Citizens, this hero ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... pagodas near the Cottage Grove end of the Midway. Entrance to the theater is through a big tea house, where decent-looking Chinamen who do not look like rats and whose fluent English proclaims their long sojourn in "Flisco," serve the cheering cup at from 10 to 60 cents, according to the pliability of the victim. They are doing a business worthy of a better cause. The tea house is but the ante-chamber to a joss house overhead, mendaciously advertised to be "the biggest outside of China," and to the theater proper. ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... railway companies was the same as that of the Alton tramp. They had found Congress as generous as the tramp had found the Mayor of Alton, and now reproached themselves for their modesty and resolved to bring the pliability of Congress to a severer test. They again appeared before that body in 1864 and asked that their charter be so amended as to grant to them ten alternate sections instead of five on each side of the road, and also all the iron and coal found within ten miles ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... discovers above all what has been called "the extraordinary pliability of human nature," and it seems impossible to set any bounds to the moral capabilities which might unfold under ideal civic and educational conditions. But in order to obtain these conditions, the Settlement recognizes the need of cooperation, both with the ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams |
