"Poise" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he whispered, and led her away down the hall, that she might recover the poise the singing of the old ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... most goodly of men, though you had for your model the most abject you must depend on him, and can depend on him for the structure of the human body, for its movement and poise. The proof of this is that Raphael used his pupils in his studies for the movements of the figures in ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various
... would seem as if the dew must be their only beverage. But there are springs upon the neighboring plains whose precious liquid is brought up the steep trail daily on the heads of women, in three or five gallon jars, the carrying of which gives to the poise of the head and neck a native grace and elegance, as characteristic of Pueblo women as of the girls of Capri. Moreover, on the summit of the mesa there are, usually, hollows in the rock, partly natural, partly artificial, which serve as reservoirs to retain rain water and keep it fresh ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... expression, to choose only one example, reveals to us, the necessity of a right poise of the body. One of the leading teachers of science in this country, after fighting tuberculosis for three years, changing climates and using all the help that science has provided, determined at last to go back to his ...
— How to Add Ten Years to your Life and to Double Its Satisfactions • S. S. Curry
... are tall, vigorous, and superbly rounded. The men, often more than six feet or even six and a half feet in height, have a mien of natural majesty and bodily grace. They convey an impression of giant strength, reserve power, and unconscious poise beyond that made by any other race. American Indians I have known had much of this quality when resident far from towns, but they lacked the curving, padded muscles, the ease of movement, and, most of all, the smiling faces, ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... de Mersch with her upon his arm. De Mersch himself hardly counted. He had a way of glowing, but he paled ineffectual fires beside her maenadic glow. There was something overpowering in the sight of her, in the fire of her eyes, in the glow of her coils of hair, in the poise of her head. She wore some kind of early nineteenth-century dress, sweeping low from the waist with a tenderness of fold that affected one with delicate pathos, that had a virgin quality of almost poignant intensity. And beneath it she stepped ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... gaze again he found her face half averted and a stain of red in the gold tan of her cheek. That touch of embarrassment somehow removed her from this strong, raw, wild woodland setting. It changed her poise. It detracted from the curious, unabashed, almost bold, look that he ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... Dalcroze has shown, through his Rhythmic Gymnastics, the extraordinary effect that rhythmic movements can have, not only on physical health, but on mental and moral poise. For highly nervous children some such work is of especial benefit, but for all children it is of great value. It should be supplemented in the ear-training class by constant practice in beating time to tunes. The teacher begins by playing simple tunes, with ...
— Music As A Language - Lectures to Music Students • Ethel Home
... sweeping towards the orange with head thrown back over her left shoulder. Momentarily the poise of her head recalled the attitude of the portrait of Lady Hammerton, beckoning her unseen companions to that far-off mysterious mountain country, where the torrents shine so whitely through the mist and the red line of sunset speaks ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... conspicuous as his body; and, so far from appearing a burden, seems to contribute to his lightness and buoyancy. It softens the outline of his movements, and repeats or continues to the eye the ease and poise of his carriage. But, pursued by the hound on a wet, thawy day, it often becomes so heavy and bedraggled as to prove a serious inconvenience, and compels him to take refuge in his den. He is very loath to do this; both his pride and the traditions of his race stimulate him to run it out, ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... she breathed. She was quite calm about the details. Her perfect poise awed both Margot and the doctor into thinking her quite capable. "Zeb could stay here with Margot, the doctor could take me to the station, Zeb says he didn't come on a boat, just a train. And you know, Margot, when I get ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... of the Captain, he dreaded that other dancers, seeing his prize, would try to capture her; but there was a certain tempered disdain in the poise of his little partner's head, an ability to put up a quick and effective defense against intrusion, that ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... the unhappiness of those first years of my married life. I was awkward and ill at ease in a world that valued social poise above knowledge. From my childhood I had loved honest, sincere people. After my marriage I met distinguished men and women, even a few who might be called great; but they, too, had their affectations and petty vanities. Being young, ...
— The Log-Cabin Lady, An Anonymous Autobiography • Unknown
... heart-throb of exultation. He had deliberately gone about to break down her poise, her only barrier of defense, and it began to look ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... before long, that I'm not quite so stupid as I seem to be. She mustn't imagine she can "vamp" my Kaikobad with impunity. It's a case of any port in a storm, I suppose, for she has to practise on somebody. But I must say she looks well on horseback and can lay claim to a poise that always exacts its toll of respect. She rides hard, though I imagine she would be unwittingly cruel to her mount. Yet she has been more offhanded and friendly, the last two or three times she has dropped over to the shack, and she is kind to the kiddies, especially Dinkie. She seems ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... all the beautiful women that I have seen in years, Jewish or Christian, there's not one can compare with Leah Mordecai—such hair and such eyes are seldom given to woman. Helen says that her hair measures four feet in length! What a queenly poise to that ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... more patience than others, that he had taken more trouble to acquire a certain touch which is really the only way to the secret of his instrument. He could tell you little more; but, if you saw his hands settle on the keys, and fly and poise there, as if they had nothing to do with the perturbed, listening face that smiles away from them, you would know how little he had told you. Now let us ask Godowsky, whom Pachmann himself sets above all other pianists, what he has to tell ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... the absence of emotions. It is not a hallowed feeling that comes over us in church. It is not something that the preacher has in his voice. It is not in nature, or in poetry, or in music—though in all these there is soothing. It is the mind at leisure from itself. It is the perfect poise of the soul; the absolute adjustment of the inward man to the stress of all outward things; the preparedness against every emergency; the stability of assured convictions; the eternal calm of an invulnerable faith; the repose of a heart set deep in God. It is the mood of the man who says, ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... recovered her poise and dignity, and thanked me, in the sweetest of voices, for my slight assistance, and I had found time to note that she was more ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... sun Shining upon thy breast! My scattered passions toward thee run, And poise to ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... the minimum age at which any are admitted, even for the preparatory classes; but no girl of fifteen has the poise, the settledness of nerve and muscle and brain to enable her to bear uninjured the immense strain that the mere living in such a great family necessitates. It is almost impossible for any one who has not tried it to understand this; and parents ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... last he turned and came leisurely towards the tent. He paused at the door to speak to the Frenchman, a picturesque, barbaric figure, with flowing robes and great white cloak, the profile of his lean face clean cut against the evening sky, the haughty poise of his head emphasised by the attitude in which he was standing, arrogant, dominating. He moved his hands when he spoke with quick, expressive gestures, but his voice was slow and soft, pitched in a deep musical key, but with all its softness unmistakably authoritative. He pointed ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... reason it is rather remarkable that the story, which is omitted from the Montessori system of education, is perhaps the most valuable means of effecting that sense-training, freedom, self-initiated play, repose, poise, and power of reflection, which are ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... Gabler had hesitated and her father's pistol hadn't been hard by, she would have recovered her poise and deceived her husband. I believe that if Emma Bovary had escaped that snag of debt she would have continued to fool Charles. And I believe Mildred Lawson married at last and fooled herself into the belief ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... her father replied, with a smile. "His lip quivered as you spoke, and I have learned to read the faintest signs in a man. You have both been overwrought and in no condition for calm, natural action. Mervvyn will relent. You lost your poise through excitement, not cowardice, and he, young and all undisciplined, has witnessed scenes that might appall a veteran. But now all must be courage and action. Since you will remain with me you must be a soldier, and be armed like one. Come with me to my room, and I will give you a small revolver. ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... morning sun. A few white clouds float in the blue expanse, Their forms revealed in the clear lake beneath, Which bears upon its breast a bark canoe, Cautiously guided by a sinewy arm. High in the heavens, three eagles proudly poise, Keeping their mountain eyrie still in view, Although their flight has borne them far away. Upon the cliff which beetles o'er the pool, Two Indians, peering from the brink, appear, Clad in the gaudy dress their nature craves— Robes of bright blue and scarlet, but which blend In happy union ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis
... station clock, and on the very stroke she hurried on to the platform. How could he have strained his eyes after other women, as if a second glance were ever needed when it was really she! The perfectly graceful figure, the trimness and neatness of it, the beautiful womanly poise of the head, the quick elastic step, he could have sworn to her among ten thousand. His heart gave a bound at the sight of her, but he had the English aversion to giving himself away, and so he walked quickly forward to meet her with an impassive face, but ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... tried to spell "architrave" with so many letters that he would have needed no more to have spelled it twice over. So Ruth then became fourth in the line. She continued to spell carefully and serenely. Nothing disturbed her poise, for she neither looked around the room nor gave heed to anything that went on save Miss Cramp's ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson
... moderation wondrous well; And this thy balance-weighing, the white glass And black, with equal poise and steadfast hand, A pattern is to princes and great men, How to weigh all estates indifferently; The spiritualty and temporalty alike: Neither to be too prodigal of smiles, Nor too severe in frowning without cause. If you be wise, you monarchs of the earth, Have two ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... incredible. I have at times caught a villain in the act, and watched with patience until from one of the veins of the hand he had drunk blood enough to blow out his little carcase to the shape of a tennis-ball, when he would poise himself upon his long legs, and, spreading his wings, make an effort to rise, but in vain; bloated and unwieldy, his wings refused to sustain him; his usual activity was gone, and there he stood disgustingly ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... further having proved vain, Lollie, far from being embarrassed, bowed low again with the poise of one who has recited brilliantly, and took his seat amid ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... vain; But now, Usurper, thou hast madly torn From Summer's hand his stores of angry sway; His rattling thunders with thy winds unite, On thy pale snows those livid lightnings play, That pour their deathful splendors o'er his night, To poise the pleasures of his golden day, Soft gales, blue skies, ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... spill, the hostess and the guest must not allow the accident to ruffle their perfect serenity of manner. Nor is it merely a point of etiquette to be thus self-controlled. Serious accidents sometimes happen, like the igniting of fancy lamp-shades or filmy curtains, and then the calm poise of a well-bred man becomes of practical value to himself and others. A habit of keeping cool—formed originally for good manners' sake—may save one's life in some crisis ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... petite Elise. Grey drew back where she could not see her. Blecker peered through his glass at every line and motion, as she came out from the eternal castle in the back scene. Any gnawing power or gift she had had found vent, certainly, now. Every poise and inflection said, "Here I am what I am,—fully what God made me, at last: no more, no less." God had made her an actress. Why, He knows. The Great Spirit of Love says to the toad in your gutter,—"Thou, too, art my servant, in whom, fulfilling the work I give, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... creaking. How could I sleep? I knew very well what the coming day would bring; I knew why Harry Tempest preferred to drive. I had need of something beside rest, for sleep was impossible; I needed calmness, quiet, enough poise to ask myself a momentous question, and be candidly answered. This quiet was not to be found in my room, I well knew; every bit of its furniture, its drapery, was haunted, and in any hour of emotion the latent ghosts came out upon me in swarms; the quaint mandarins with crooked ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... thought, they might not throw, but wait to thrust at him. If so, that would give him longer time; but no, there was no chance of that, for now he saw one of the Malays poise his spear, and draw himself back, to throw ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... Englishwoman, brown-haired, grey-eyed, and she stands about five-feet-eight in her shoes. There's an expression of great malice and humour in her physiognomy, and a kind of devil-may-care haughtiness in the poise of her head. She's a bit of a grande dame, into the bargain—something like an Anglo-Italian duchess, for example; she's monstrously rich; and she adds, you'll be surprised to learn, to her other fascinations that of being a widow. Faith, the men are ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... more serious results. The mere fact of class grouping involves a natural competition, healthful and beneficial and wisely preparatory for future living. More emphasis than this upon rivalry may produce feverish and unhealthful conditions, far removed from the mental poise we desire for our girls. The school can give the girl few things finer than the ability to attack work quietly and yet with determination and a sense of power to meet and ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson
... GIVES MENTAL POISE. The man that can concentrate is well poised. What you must do to be successful today. Concentration that is dangerous. How to make those you come in contact with feel as you do. The man that becomes a power in the world. You can control your ...
— The Power of Concentration • Theron Q. Dumont
... Through Concentration. (Shows the plain road to the top.) Self Mastery. (How to centralize attention.) Training the Will. (A mighty force at your disposal.) Mental Poise. (How to command conditions.) Business Success. (How to coordinate forces by concentration.) Attaining Wealth. (How to attract money bringing factors.) How Courage is Gained. (Use of concentration to drive out fear.) Memory by Concentration. (A very valuable ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... called upon Carlyle he found him in a very peevish mood. Through two hours he listened to this student of heroes and heroism pour forth a savage tirade against all men and things. Never again was the American poet able to associate with Carlyle that fine poise, sanity, and reserve power that belong to the greatest. In his books Carlyle gives his friends, not the peevishness of an evening, but the best moods of all his life, winnowing his ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... etc., to indicate the subdivision which is to be expressed by the corresponding number of steps. Apart from their direct object, the exercises of this group are of value for the training which they give in poise; they might be classed equally well with the group under ...
— The Eurhythmics of Jaques-Dalcroze • Emile Jaques-Dalcroze
... Mount Morris Park in Harlem. The Viberts had taste, and their music-room was charming in its reticent scheme of decoration—a Steinway grand piano, a low crowded book-case with a Rodin cast, a superb mezzotint of Leonardo's Mona Lisa after Calmatta, revealing the admirable poise of sweetly folded hands—surely the most wonderful hands ever painted—while the polished floor, comforting couches and open fireplace proclaimed this apartment as ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... It kills with more certainty and convenience, and there is less danger of the horseman being cut down. As to length, the general opinion seems to be in favour of a shorter spear. This, with a counter poise at the butt, gives as good a reach and is much more useful for close quarters. Major Beatson, one of the most distinguished cavalry officers on the frontier, is a strong advocate of this. Either the pennon ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... remained; and death seemed to lose its terrors and to borrow a grace and dignity in sublime keeping with the life that was ebbing away. The great mind sank to its last repose, almost with the equal poise of health. The few broken utterances that evinced at times a wandering intellect were spoken under the influence of the remedies administered; but as long as consciousness lasted there was evidence that ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... is society that has humanized him—the development of society into a infinitely various school of discipline and ordered skill. He has been made more human by schooling, by growing more self-possessed—less violent, less tumultuous; holding himself in hand, and moving always with a certain poise of spirit; not forever clapping his hand to the hilt of his sword, but preferring, rather, to play with a subtler skill upon the springs of action. This is our conception of the truly human man: a man in whom there is ...
— On Being Human • Woodrow Wilson
... from an unexpected quarter, was thrown still more out of mental poise. "I never said he was one," she declared, wildly. "I only just said there was a—a—I don't know what I said. Anyhow I never said it, 'twas my control talkin'. I'll leave it to 'Phelia Beebe. You ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the uniform of some British infantry regiments, a red coat and white breeches, but instead of a cap, he wears a broad-brimmed, high, pointed hat, and after doing some trick more than usually mischievous, his favorite position is to poise himself on the extreme point of his hat, standing at the top of a wall or on a house, feet in the air, then laugh heartily and disappear. The Lurigadawne wears an antique slashed jacket of red, with peaks all round and a jockey cap, also ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.
... mental tendency as this is just as surely a definite evil to be recognized and combated as would be any epidemic of disease. To rise in the morning confronting a day that is full of exacting demands on his best energies; on his serenest and sunniest poise; that require all the exhilaration and sparkle and radiance which have vanished from his possession, and yet to be forced, someway and somehow, to go through his appointed tasks,—no one can deny that here is a very real ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... the agony and bosom-throe, Let it be measured by the wide vast air, For that is infinite, and so is woe, Since parted lovers breathe it everywhere. Look how it heaves Leander's laboring chest, Panting, at poise, upon a rocky crest! ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... a doublet of Hamper, though it is more probably for Napier (Chapter I) or Knapper (Chapter XII). The common noun hamper is from hanapier in a sense something like plate-basket. With metal-workers we may also put Furber or Frobisher, i.e. furbisher, of armour, etc. Poyser, from poise, scales, is official. Two occupative names of Celtic origin are Gow, a smith, as in The Fair Maid of Perth, and Caird, ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... the over-crowded field hospital at Krugersdorp, and for hours Alice had been in ceaseless attendance upon the surgeon in charge. Little by little, the girl had found her nerves steadying down to the task in hand; nevertheless, the past ten weeks, in return for the increase of her poise, had taken something from her vitality. Quickness of eye, firmness of hand, evenness of temper: all these may be gifts of the gods. Their use is a purely human function, and proportionately exhausting. The girl's one salvation lay in the fact that ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... rise short and slow. How long it took us to make the two miles to our friend's dock we shall never know. Probably only a few minutes. But it was not an experience in time. We had a sense of being at one with the great primal forces of wind and water, and at one with them, not in their moments of poise, but in their moments ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... battle on both sides; imagine Arjuna on the floor of the chariot, despondent, despairing; then come to Sri Krishna, the Charioteer, the Friend and Teacher. Then, fixing your mind on the central figure, let your heart go out to Him with onepointed devotion. Resting on Him, poise yourself in silence and, as before, wait for ...
— An Introduction to Yoga • Annie Besant
... Ignacio's cry of "The devil is out of Senor Don't Care!" and seeing for the thousandth time Mary's horrified face as he pressed Pedro Nogales against the hedge. Now poise was all on the side of the father, who glanced away from Jack at the glint of the library cases in the semi-darkness in satisfaction. But only a moment did the son's absent mood last. He leaned forward quivering, ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... him profoundly, and loved him dearly. I have often heard him speak at gatherings of old soldiers and on a variety of occasions; sometimes those of turbulence. I have marveled at his self-poise and reserved power. Never once did I hear him say ill of any man, nor allude to his own sufferings or deeds, nor utter words of bitterness. He took his lot as it came to him, as a man who does the best he can and leaves the rest to the Disposer of events. His conscience ...
— Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia) • Various
... a pleasant thrill to see the glow in her eyes and the eager poise of her slim, beautiful body as she listened ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... Pathfinder had said, three warriors were in the canoe, two holding their rifles at a poise, as they knelt in readiness to aim the deadly weapons, and the other standing erect in the stern to wield the paddle. In this manner they left the shore, having had the precaution to haul the canoe, previously to entering it, so far up the ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... her young host's arms. She was flushed with dancing; her hair had escaped from its usual calm. He hardly recognized her. As he looked out toward the old garden, he caught a glimpse of a flowing white gown, a lace scarf thrown over a head whose fine poise he could ...
— The Courting Of Lady Jane • Josephine Daskam
... not reply. Presently she stumbled over a hummock, recovered her poise without comment, and slipped her hand into ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... human passion, it's yours to resist it. You're letting this man you hate mould your character; you're letting him burn the kindness out of your soul. He's making you bitter and hard and unjust—and you're letting him. I thought you had more will—more poise. It isn't your affair what he is, even what he does, Dick—it's your affair to keep your own judgment unwarped, your own heart gentle, your own soul untainted by the poison of hatred. We are both churchmen, ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... lovely young matron whose beauty, wealth, and foreign personality, to say nothing of the importance of her husband, gave her something of the standing of royalty in the aristocratic little republic of San Francisco Society. There was a vague threat in that poise, as if at any moment venom might dart down and strike that drooping head with its crown of blue-black braids. Suddenly Helene lifted her eyes, full of appeal, to the round pale blue orbs that at this moment openly expressed a ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... how long he clung there, but his white face and the poise of his strung-up figure impressed themselves indelibly on her memory. Strain was expressed in every line of his body and in his clutching hands. Then the strength and decision that was in her asserted itself, ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... clouds and its dewy freshness, its new awakened hopes and its unworn vigour, climbs by silent, inevitable stages to the hot noon. But its ardours flame but for a moment; but for a moment does the sun poise itself on the meridian line, and the short shadow point to the pole. The inexorable revolution goes on, and in due time come the mists and dying purples of evening and the blackness of night. The same progress which brings April's perfumes ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... social scorn. They shut their doors against him. They elbowed him from every position to which he had a wish or a right, except public respect, and they could not elbow him from that unless they pushed his character from its poise. They cut him off from every friendly regard which would else have been devotedly his, on that level of educated life, and limited him to 'solitary confinement' within himself. They compelled him to walk as if under a ban or an anathema. Had he been a leper in Syrian deserts, or ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... the businesslike directness with which the girl handled the ribbons. She looked every inch the thoroughbred in her well-made covert coat and dainty driving gauntlets. The grace of the alert, slender figure, the perfect poise of the beautiful little tawny head, proclaimed her distinction no less certainly than the fine modeling of the mobile face. It was a distinction that stirred the pulse of his emotion and disarmed his keen, critical sense. Ridgway could study her with an amused, detached ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine
... is Natalie de Santos. The steady self-poise of her nature prevents even a breath of scandal. Frank, daring, and open in her pleasures, she individualizes no swain, she encourages no one sighing lover. Her name needs no defence save the open record of her social ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... presuming to account, by their speculations, for the laws by which he was pleased to create it. It is now discovered, beyond all doubt, that the same great Being who created the universe by his fiat, by the same ordained our earth to keep a just poise, without a corresponding southern continent, and it does so. He stretches out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... freedom, or otherwise, from weariness. Deleah, her face the colour of a wild rose, her loose dark hair curling crisply in the frosty air, shouted greetings to her mother as she flew past, a little erect, graceful figure keeping her elegant poise with the ease of the young and fearless. Now and again she was seen to be fleeing, laughing as she went, from the pursuit of a skater who wished to make a circuit of the flooded meadow holding ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... could still go when she chose, but had been schooled by the years, and kept the trail, giving no trouble to the Virginian who came behind her. He also sat solid as a rock, yet subtly bending to the struggles of the wild horse he led, as a steel spring bends and balances and resumes its poise. ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... carriage. He does not need to turn his face to impress you with the idea that he is handsome; but when he does so, you find that your expectations are more than met by the reality. For though he may not have the strictly regular features we naturally associate with one of his poise and matchless outline, there is enough of that quality, and more than enough of that additional elusive something which is an attraction in itself, to make for handsomeness in a marked degree. He, like his friend, has passed his fortieth year, but nowhere save in his ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... a goblet of water, but his trembling hand caused him to spill its contents upon the floor. No one now ventured to speak except in a whisper; it seemed that a word or a loud noise must disturb the poise of matters. The clock ticked, the blue flames murmured in the grate, and the pellets of sand thrown up by the wind rattled against ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... and critical eye. She seemed healthful and voluptuously contented. Yet no milk came. Bud Shoop, having at that moment arrived with the team, sized up the situation. When he had recovered enough poise to stand without assistance and had wiped the wild tears from his eyes, he instructed the amazed Sundown as to certain manipulations necessary to produce the desired result. "Huh! Folks says cows give milk. But I reckon that ain't right," Sundown had asserted. "You got to take it away ...
— Sundown Slim • Henry Hubert Knibbs
... her poise, sank hissing to the ground. "My neuralgia's worse than ever this evening," she complained, affecting not to ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... was she at the forceful character the girl had developed. She went away a gentle, loving, clinging child; her nature, like her voice, belonging to the order of birds,—bright, flitting, merry, confiding. She returned a woman, still loving, still gentle in her manner, but with a new poise in her bearing, a resoluteness, a fire, of which her first girlhood had given no suggestion. It was strange to see how similar yet unlike were the comments made on her in the manse and in the farmhouse by the two couples most ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... friend, therefore, became a most peculiar one. He had been given an important preliminary advantage, if he chose to aspire to the love of the sweet one at his side; but he thought hard, and did not lose his self-poise or sense ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... ci estes venu Petit et grant, jone et chenu, Il vos est trop bien avenu Sachiez de voir; Je ne vos vueil pas decevoir Bien le porroz apercevoir Ainz que m'en voise. Asiez vos, ne fetes noise Si escotez s'il ne vos poise Je sui ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... scarce-audible that trembles, As if a little child, called Purity, Sang heedlessly on of his dear Imogen? Surely if some young flowers of Spring were put Into the tender hollow of her heart, 'Twould faintly answer, trembling in their petals. Poise but a wild bird's feather, it will stir On lips that even in silence wear the badge Only of truth. Let but a cricket wake, And sing of home, and bid her lids unseal The unspeakable hospitality of her eyes. O childless soul—call once her husband's name! And even if indeed from these ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare
... succeeded; and in its way toward the starboard quarter threw up a rolling wave thirty feet high, crowned by a blue square mass of many tons, resembling the entire side of a house, which, after hanging for some time in doubtful poise on the ridge, at length fell with a crash into the hollow, in which, as in a cavern, the after-part of the ship seemed embedded. It was, indeed, an awful crisis, rendered more frightful from the mistiness of the night and dimness ...
— The Ocean and its Wonders • R.M. Ballantyne
... ship that is stranded in gentle circumstances. But the feeling is more as if the ground had taken hold of her. It is for those on her deck a surprising sensation. It is as if your feet had been caught in an imponderable snare; you feel the balance of your body threatened, and the steady poise of your mind is destroyed at once. This sensation lasts only a second, for even while you stagger something seems to turn over in your head, bringing uppermost the mental exclamation, full of astonishment and dismay, "By ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... who came frequently to inquire, was quieted before her friend, and the frank and jesting tongue was silent in that presence. Anne Brinsmade came with her father and wondered. A miracle had changed Virginia. Her poise, her gentleness, her dignity, were the effects which people saw. Her force people felt. And this is why we cannot of ourselves add one cubit to our stature. It is God who changes, —who cleanses us of our levity with ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... credulity. The Protestant labors of Frederick Spanheim (Historia Imaginum restituta) and James Basnage (Hist. des Eglises Reformees, tom. ii. l. xxiiii. p. 1339-1385) are cast into the Iconoclast scale. With this mutual aid, and opposite tendency, it is easy for us to poise the balance with philosophic indifference. * Note: Compare Schlosser, Geschichte der Bilder-sturmender Kaiser, Frankfurt am-Main 1812 a book ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... Overture in C minor. To his surprise and disappointment, Rubinstein disapproved of the work in every way. This was a shock, after the lack of encouragement in St. Petersburg. But he recovered his poise, though he made up his mind to try his next work in St. Petersburg instead of Moscow. He called the new piece a Symphonic Poem, "Winter Daydreams," but it is now known as the First Symphony, Op. 13. About the ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... unsatisfactory for their appearance in the rector's prim study. So the berries hung in their place, left to ripen, and he went on till a great dragon-fly came sailing along the moist lane to pause in the sunny openings, and poise itself in the clear air where its wings vibrated so rapidly that they looked like a ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... principles Horse could ever so far forget himself in such a place I won't ever want what you can't give If only there were no chains, no walls Impossible to get him to look at things in a complicated way Insinuations about the private affairs of others Insolent poise of those who are above doubts and cares Lest they should lose belief in their own strength Man who gives advice is a fool Man who knows his own mind and is contented with that knowledge Mayn't they love each other, if they want? Never talked of women, and none talked of women in his ...
— Quotations from the Works of John Galsworthy • David Widger
... Grandmother Latham when I first saw her, as a girl of twenty-one can be like a woman of fifty," said Miss Lavinia, from the lounge close at my elbow. "Not in colouring or feature, but in poise and gesture. The Lathams were of Massachusetts stock, and have, I imagine, a good deal of the Plymouth Rock mixture in their back-bones. Her father has the reputation, in fact, of being all rock, if not quite of the Plymouth variety. Well, I think ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... soldier's career. I have often thought of that talk. Barlow was really not unlike the youthful Napoleon, in frame he was slender and delicate, his complexion verged toward the olive, his face was always beardless. I never saw him thrown off his poise in any emergency. The straits of course are not great in which a college boy is placed, but such as they were, Barlow was always cool, with his mind working at its best in the midst of them. He was never abashed, but had a resource and an apt one in every emergency. He was ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... the library he had quite recovered his poise, at least to the eyes of those in the library. Zita had joined Eva with ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... low-browed, impassive, silent country youth, with a face the colour of the soil. JINKS—An old soldier, red, lean, wrinkled, with very blue eyes. His face is rough-hewn, almost grotesque like a gargoyle. In his eyes there is a perpetual glint of humour, and in the poise of his head a certain ...
— A Student in Arms - Second Series • Donald Hankey
... the one who is calling becomes, no matter how profane he may be, no matter what he says, she must not answer back, and she must not slam the receiver down while he is talking. Perfect poise, an even temper, patience, and a pleasant voice under control—if she has these, and a vast number of the telephone girls have, she need not worry about the rules of courtesy. They will take care ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... welcome it from all available sources, and ought not to be handicapped by bias or prejudice. Tolerance and a willingness to entertain questions—a constant effort to view a subject from every possible angle—a poise that attends self-control even under stress of annoyance—these things are all involved in a truly scholarly attack upon ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion
... city outlined on the horizon, a hazel shaw upon the left, comes Madam Wanton dancing with her fair enchanted cup, and Faithful, book in hand, half pauses. The cut is perfect as a symbol; the giddy movement of the sorceress, the uncertain poise of the man struck to the heart by a temptation, the contrast of that even plain of life whereon he journeys with the bold, ideal bearing of the wanton—the artist who invented and portrayed this had not merely ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... made the blue bird comparison not altogether unapt,—the bird was hardly more fair and dainty in his way than the lady in hers. She stood still for a minute, shading her eyes with her hand, and looking off down the road; a slight, delicate figure, with that sort of airy grace which has a natural poise for every position,—then she turned abruptly and knocked at ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... shrieking at the sun, and the moon, and stars, as profane spectra:—a company of the blind, beseeching those they lead to remain blind also. "The heavens and the lights that rule them are untrue; the laws of creation are treacherous; the poles of the earth are out of poise. But we are true. Light is in us only. Shut your eyes close and fast, ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... band of whites who were redeeming a people from their prehistoric lethargy. He was fit to lead; the sweep of line from temple through jaw bespoke an uncompromising force of character, but was gentled by the deep cleft of chin: something in the poise of head gave him the manner best described as aristocratic but it was toned down by the mischievous gleam which flickered, often without obvious reason, in ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... regarded the race as useful, intelligent creatures, strictly utilitarian in looks, as in attire, but to-day it was impossible to deny that the beauty was on Ralph's side more than on that of his companions. The poise of the tall, slim figure was so graceful and easy that it was a pleasure to behold; the perfect lines of aquiline nose, and dented chin, the little kink and wave which refused to be banished from the clipped hair, the long narrow eyes, and well-shaped lips made up ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Ironsyde himself appreciated the silence which fell upon her. His speech, indeed, showed lack of sensibility, yet it could hardly be blamed, since only through acceptation of realities might any hopeful action be taken. But the harm was done and the delicate poise of the situation between Abel's parents upset. Sabina said no more, and in the momentary silence that followed she rose and ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... of her splendid poise was gone. "Please don't go back," she said. "I am afraid it would be of no use. And I don't want ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... by which this work was carried through, lay in a character of penetration. His face expresses it. His very keen and ready eyes, his high lifted brow, his sharp nose, and the few active lines of his cheek and forehead, the poise of his head, the disdain of his firm mouth, all build him back alive for us. His talk, which stammered in its volubility, was incessant and varied; his temper ready; his bodily command of gesture and definition perfect in old age: he was of ...
— Avril - Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance • H. Belloc
... the truth of the lad's assertion. It spoke in the dignity of his whole figure; in the proud poise of his head; in the unflinching gaze with which he ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett
... more questions, but left the influence of the hour to work. It was a moment of delicate poise, and Rolf knew a touch would open the door or double bar it. He wondered how he might give that touch as he wished it. Skookum still slept. Both men watched the mouse, as, with quick movements it crept about. Presently it approached a long birch stick that stood ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... everywhere; it is in the earth's green covering of grass; in the blue serenity of the sky; in the reckless exuberance of spring; in the severe abstinence of grey winter; in the living flesh that animates our bodily frame; in the perfect poise of the human figure, noble and upright; in living; in the exercise of all our powers; in the acquisition of knowledge; in fighting evils; in dying for gains we never can share. Joy is there everywhere; it is superfluous, ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore
... word of God requireth. A man may give his body to be burned for God's truth, and yet be none of God's martyrs (1 Cor 13:1-3). Yea, a man may suffer with a great deal of patience, and yet be none of God's martyrs (1 Peter 2:20). The one, because he wanteth that grace that should poise his heart, and make him right in the manner of doing; the other, because he wanteth that word of the Holy One that alone can make his cause good, as to matter. It is, therefore, matter and manner that makes the martyr; ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... girl's stately and exquisite poise forsook her. Her eyes wore a hunted look for a moment. She even felt obliged to laugh ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... him, singularly, a more even poise. There was never a fighter who was not a nervous man; there was never a fighter who in a crisis was not ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... on that contested strand; The same which dead Protesilaus bore,(242) The first that touch'd the unhappy Trojan shore: For this in arms the warring nations stood, And bathed their generous breasts with mutual blood. No room to poise the lance or bend the bow; But hand to hand, and man to man, they grow: Wounded, they wound; and seek each other's hearts With falchions, axes, swords, and shorten'd darts. The falchions ring, shields rattle, axes sound, Swords flash in ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... out her white arm with the thin sleeve wrinkled over it, and helped herself again to water. In every gesture there was the poise and distinction of perfect self-command, a highly wrought self-consciousness, as far removed from pose as from Nature's simplicity. Natural she could never be again. No woman is natural who has a secret experience to guard, whether of grief or shame, ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... only the mental evolution of new ideals, the struggle of an ethical revival, and the satisfaction of a livelier spirit of scruple. In face of all delirations, Emerson kept on his way of radiant sanity and perfect poise. Do not, he warned his enthusiasts, expend all energy on some accidental evil, and so lose sanity and power of benefit. 'It is of little moment that one or two or twenty errors of our social system be corrected, but of much that the man be in his senses. Society gains nothing whilst a ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley
... his ease. Roberts had been embarrassed before Ramona Wadley that morning, but he was not in the least self-conscious now. In the course of a short and turbid life he had looked too many tough characters in the eye to let any mere man disturb his poise. ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... coasting craft were there, mostly ketches; but we had topsail schooners also and barquantines, those ascending and aerial rigs that would be flamboyant but for the transverse spars of the foremast, giving one who scans them the proper apprehension of stability and poise. ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... a paralyzing affront to her consciousness of reverence by some strange, irresistible twist of thought wherein she saw this Bishop as a man. And the train of thought hurdled the rising, crying protests of that other self whose poise she had lost. It was not her Bishop who eyed her in curious measurement. It was a man who tramped into her presence without removing his hat, who had no greeting for her, who had no semblance of courtesy. In looks, as in action, he made her think of a ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... being astonished, marvelled at the unconcern with which she submitted to his critical inspection. She stood and walked easily, and looked neither uncomfortable nor unnatural in her boyish array, in which the perfect poise ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... stared at the speaker with a new and suddenly awakened interest, and beholding in him that lithe assurance of poise, that indefinable air that bespeaks the trained pugilist and which cannot be mistaken, elbows were nudged, ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... to bear herself with such dignity over all jolts of circumstances that she might almost convince others of her own exemption from them. Her mental bearing disproved the evidence of the senses, and she could have committed a crime with such consummate self-poise and grace as to have held a crowd in abeyance with utter distrust of their own eyes before such unquestioning confidence in the sovereignty of the situation. Cynthia Lennox had always had her own way except ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... slight and symmetrical backward slope of the whole head; the powerful level brows, and beneath these the dark, deep eyes, so fun of shadowed fire; the Arabian complexion; the sharp-cut, intense lines of the face; the light, tall, erect stature; the quick, axial poise of the movement,—all these traits reveal ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... very striking paragraph Professor James has shown the reason why poise and efficiency of mind are incompatible with ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... shamed; Never seduced through show of present good By other than unsetting lights to steer New-trimmed in Heaven, nor than his steadfast mood More steadfast, far from rashness as from fear, Rigid, but with himself first, grasping still In swerveless poise the wave-beat helm of will; Not honored then or now because he wooed The popular voice, but that he still withstood; Broad-minded, higher-souled, there is but one Who was all this ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... and ample, low-browed and large-eyed, dark and pale. Her thick brown hair hung low beside her cheek and ear, and seemed to drape her head with a covering as chaste and formal as the veil of a nun. The poise and carriage of her head were admirably free and noble, and they were the more effective that their freedom was at moments discreetly corrected by a little sanctimonious droop, which harmonised admirably with the level gaze of her dark ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... sputtered his alarm and the newsmen ignored him with professional poise. The A.P. man asked: ...
— The Adventurer • Cyril M. Kornbluth
... to help the cause of liberty, or favored a foreign regime. He was still in Merida when in a proclamation he spoke of avenging the victims, and threatened with war to death. But Bolivar was not only a man of genius but one of equanimity, poise, deep thought and attention. He did not want to carry out his threats immediately, but decided to think at length over the transcendent step he was considering. The night of the 14th of June was ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... a born cowman," said Forrest, as Dell halted before the open tent. "It's an absolute mistake to think that that boy was ever intended for a farmer. Notice his saddle poise, will you, Paul? Has a pretty foot, too, even if it is slightly sun-burned. We must get him some boots. With that red hair, he never ought to ride any other horse than a ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams |
