"Stiff" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was probably the hardest part of it all. The horse gathered its four feet under it and rose straight up in the air, coming down with legs stiff as sticks. Jack was not prepared for this and the resulting jar nearly knocked the breath ...
— Jack Ranger's Western Trip - From Boarding School to Ranch and Range • Clarence Young
... Prince was smiling over his thoughts, and giving himself up to all these agreeable anticipations, he was striding up and down his cabinet, at the door of which General Fontana still remained standing, erect and stiff as a soldier at carry-arms. Seeing the Prince's flashing eye and recalling the Duchess's traveling dress, he prepared for a dissolution of the monarchy. His confusion knew no bounds when he heard the Prince's order: "Beg Madame the Duchess to wait a small quarter of an ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... got myself loose," was the reply. "I was almost scared stiff when you didn't come up, Dave. After this we'll have to ...
— On the Trail of Pontiac • Edward Stratemeyer
... give you a little advice," his friend said, "and I can assure you that I know something of these matters, for I have been on the sea a great deal. Let me mix you a stiff brandy and soda. Drink it down and eat only a dry biscuit. I have some brandy ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... height to speak, or rather swing the stiff upper half of his body down to his hearer's level and back again, like a ship's mast on a billowy sea. He was neither rough nor abrupt, nor did he roar bullmouthedly as demagogues are expected to do, though his voice was deep. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... chancel. At each of the four corners is a similar tower, and in each of the two sides are three large windows separated by buttresses like square towers. Round the top of the building as well as of the towers extends a balustrade of stiff sculpture resembling acanthus leaves. The large buildings in the neighbourhood are convents. Alittle eastward is the "Observatoire Gay," from which a steep path, the Monte des Carmes Dchausses, 536 yards long, descends to the city, reaching it by the side of ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... ceased to be much lived in. The curtains drooped sorrowfully, the carpet had a lonely, untrodden look; the chairs had an air of not expecting to be sat upon, some Elizabethan portraits on the walls showed stiff wooden personages, who seemed to have driven all the living persons out of the room. When the piano was opened, the black and white keys appeared cold and ...
— Terry - Or, She ought to have been a Boy • Rosa Mulholland
... that Socrates is unjust to his master, Protagoras; but he is too old and stiff to try a fall with him, and therefore refers him to Theaetetus, who is already driven out of his former opinion by the arguments ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... salt, sugar and butter into a large bowl, pour on the warm water, stir until they are dissolved. Add the flour gradually until it forms a thin batter, then add the yeast; beat vigorously for at least five minutes. Add more flour until the dough is stiff enough to knead. Turn out on the board and knead for half hour. Cover and let rise until double its bulk. Form into separate loaves, put into the pans, cover, and let rise again till double its bulk. Bake in a hot oven about an ...
— Public School Domestic Science • Mrs. J. Hoodless
... by stirring. Then pour in the milk slowly, stirring all the while to prevent curdling. Pour carefully over the top of the mixture the whites of the Eggs, which have been beaten to a stiff froth. Fill Punch glasses from the bowl with ladle and sprinkle a little Nutmeg over ...
— The Ideal Bartender • Tom Bullock
... watched the proceedings of the visitors with great attention. During the poor baby's fit of coughing, he was so absorbed that the sandy kitten slipped through his arms and made off, with her tail as stiff as a sentry's musket; and now that the miller took the baby into his arms, Jan became excited, and asked, ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... pacing the deck of the Burrawalla, playing with the children or chatting with some of the passengers. He walked up and down, with his hands sunk deep in his pockets, and cap tied firmly under his chin, for there was a pretty stiff breeze blowing, which developed later on in the voyage into the furious gales and storms which made that autumn so memorable for its numerous wrecks and casualties. Cardo was a great favourite on board, his frank and genial manner, ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... Color, play of feature, the varying modulations of voice, the laugh, the smile, the informing inflections, everything that gave that body warmth, grace, friendliness, and charm, and commended it to your affection, or at least to your tolerance, is gone, and nothing is left, but a pallid, stiff and repulsive cadaver. ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... "Barred" Gate), once the principal, or Winchester, entrance to the town. It dates from about 1350, though its base is probably far older. The upper portion, forming the Guildhall, bears on the south or town side a quaint statue of George III in a toga, that replaced one of Queen Anne in stiff corsets and voluminous gown. The various armorial bearings displayed are those of noble families who have been connected with the town in the past. Within the upper chamber are two ancient paintings said to represent the legendary ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... locomotion; the other arm, the right, was twisted out from his body in the shape of an inverted V, the palm of his hand, with half curled, contorted fingers, almost touching his chin, as his head sagged at a stiff, set angle into his right shoulder. Hair straggled from the brim of a nondescript felt hat into his eyes, and curled, dirty and unshorn, around his ears and the nape of his neck. His face was covered with a stubble of four days' growth, his body with ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... should not be moved until a doctor comes (or a person trained in first aid), unless it is absolutely necessary to move him to prevent further injury. If a person with a back injury has to be moved, he should be placed gently on his back on a stiff board, door or stretcher. His head, back, and legs should be kept in a straight ...
— In Time Of Emergency - A Citizen's Handbook On Nuclear Attack, Natural Disasters (1968) • Department of Defense
... searched for a good stick. He tried the temper of a couple by whipping the air, and when he found one stiff enough, ran it through the string about the bundle and looked around for Topaz. To his astonishment the dog had disappeared. He whistled, but there was ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... the assistance, for her limbs were stiff and almost powerless, and she gasped a little when she passed into the drowsy warmth and brightness of the great log-walled hall. The chilled blood surged back tingling to her skin, and swaying with a creeping faintness ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... and always ignorant crowds, who gathered around the chair on which he stood; able without difficulty to hold their attention when he had won it, and drive the truth home to their souls, in spite of the counter-attractions of a busy thoroughfare, he took very hardly to the stiff, cold process of sermonising and sermon-making such as was then in vogue, and it was some time before he had much liberty or made ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... meself looks to you to be kind and patient wid him, for he's a furriner," says she, a kind o' lookin' off. "Sure, an' it's little I'll hinder nor interfare wid him, nor any other, mum," says I, a kind o' stiff; for I minded me how them French waiters, wid their paper collars and brass rings on their fingers, isn't company for no gurril brought up dacent and honest. Och! sorra a bit I knew what was comin' till the missus walked into ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... commotion near the wagon, and a man pushed his way through and climbed up on the wheel. He offered a stiff wrist for treatment. The vendor tipped up the bottle and poured out some pungent volatile oil from the bottle, the odor of which was far-reaching. He rubbed the wrist briskly for a moment, then gave it a slap saying, "Now see what you can do ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... thus. A pretty stiff breeze, amounting almost to half a gale, was blowing on the night in question, and the emigrant ship was running before it under close-reefed topsails. For some days previously the weather had been "dirty," and the captain had found it impossible to obtain an observation, so ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... you will," she said. "These rim bolts are fearfully stiff. I daresay I could manage it though. I've done it on a lighter car. But it's a ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... cried. "How? For Heaven's sake, man, tell me all!" He went to a cupboard, got out some brandy and drank a stiff portion. ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele
... Rogaciano were not much tired; I was somewhat tired, but was perfectly able to go for several hours more if I did not try to go too fast; and we three walked on to the river, reaching it about half past four, after eleven hours' stiff walking with nothing to eat. We were soon on the boat. A relief party went back for the two men under the tree, and soon after it reached them Kermit also turned up with his hounds and his camaradas trailing wearily behind him. ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... solemn stiff-backedness, which was more amusing than dignified, and extended her hand as I approached her, without moving from ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... fellow? well, I guess I will, if you'll jest say what's to be done. I'll lend a hand, to be sure, if there's no trouble to come of it. He's a likely chap, and not so stiff neither, though I did count him rather high-headed at first; but after that, he sort a smoothed down, and now I don't know nobody I'd sooner help jest now out of the slush: but I can't see how we're ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... to view them as they pass—I am quite overcome—It will be a novel experience, and won't it be warm! It means top hat, frock coat and an extra high collar for the afternoon, and in the evening a hard, hot, stiff shirt and black hot clothes, and a crush and the thermometer at pucca hot-weather temperature, and damp at that, but who cares, if we actually ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... haste away; Shifts the scene again to her: She is found by friends next day Stiff and gory as she lay, And they ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... examples of Egyptian sculpture consist of bas-reliefs and figures in the round, carved from limestone and granite or cast in bronze. Many of the statues appear to our eyes very stiff and ungraceful. The sculptor never learned how to pose his figures easily or how to arrange them in an artistic group. In spite of these defects some Egyptian statues are ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... had the field covered with about 400 cartloads of alluvial gravel (from the bed of the river) to the acre, and the land was then ploughed two furrows deep, one plough following the other. Previous to this gravelling, the land was a stiff, obdurate clay nearly to the surface. The subsequent effect was the doubling, or more probably trebling the value of the land, which has now ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... hedgehog stretches itself, sticks out its paws and makes other movements. I remember one winter when, because of some delay, a commission on which I was serving had failed to reach a village not far from the capital. We had gone to investigate a murder case and had found the body frozen stiff. The oven in the room was heated and the grave-digger placed the stiff body near the oven in order to thaw it out. We at this time were examining the place. After a while I was instructed by the examining justice ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... fairly tall, fairly full-bodied, grizzled man of about forty; he carried his cap and one gauntleted glove in one gloved hand, and his long, stiff green overcoat slanted down from his neck to his knees in an unbroken line. He had the impassivity of ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... Hampton at the usual time. The passengers had ridden all night, and now descended glum and stiff to stretch their limbs for breakfast. A nice double wagon stood waiting. It was driven by the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... spassums,—sech spassums! And ketchin' at her throat, 'n' sayin' there was a great ball a risin' into it from her stommick. One time she had a kind o' lockjaw like. And one time she stretched herself out 'n' laid jest as stiff as ef she was dead. And she says now that her head feels as ef a nail had been driv' into it,—into the left temple, she says, and that's what makes her ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... home homelike we must have room enough, but not too much room. This is rather a vague statement, I know, but the actual measurements of a house should vary with circumstances; for example, a large room with few people in it will always be stiff, even if it is splendid; while a small room filled with useless bric-a-brac will be uncomfortable even with a solitary occupant. On the subject of bric-a-brac I feel strongly, and I will speak of ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... when that to-morrow dawned, were lying stiff and stark in their tents. God's help comes, not too soon, lest we should not know the blessedness of trusting in the dark; and not too late, lest we should know the misery ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... point of explosion, and was bedecked all over with embroidery a little tarnished. Above the petticoat, and parting in front so as to display it to the best advantage, was a figured blue damask gown. A wide and stiff ruff encircled her neck, a cap of the finest muslin, though rather dingy, covered her head; and her nose was bestridden by a pair of gold- bowed spectacles with enormous glasses. But the old lady's face was pinched, ...
— An Old Woman's Tale - (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... for some distant place. When the traveling kit was first bestowed in the lower drawer of one of the deep bureaus, Betty felt as if it might have to come out again next day, but there it stayed, and was abandoned to neglect unless its owner needed the tumbler in its stiff leather box for a picnic, or thought of a particular spool that might be found in the traveling work-bag. But with all the quiet and security of her surroundings, sometimes her thoughts followed ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett
... these stray cats," I said. "Stiff with microbes. Tribes of mangy lovers prowling round the house. A nest of kittens in ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, October 20, 1920 • Various
... roosting all by herself on a sofy in the parlor. She was fleshy, but terrible stiff and proud, and when she moved the diamonds on her shook till her head and neck looked like one of them "set pieces" at the Fourth of July fireworks. She was deef, too, and used an ear-trumpet pretty nigh as ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... but an ugly look of malicious chagrin appeared upon the face of Nathaniel Puntz. Was he foiled in his anticipated revenge upon the girl who had "turned down" his Absalom? Mr. Getz sat stiff and motionless, his ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... venerable grave. Two things strike the modern visitor: the variety of the fresco decorations of the house, which begin with pagan genii holding festoons, a tolerably good work of the third century, and end with stiff, uncanny representations of the Passion, of the ninth and tenth centuries; second, the fact that such an important monument should have been buried and forgotten, so that its discovery by Padre Germano took us by surprise. ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... very end of the long lane, she came upon a blanket spread on the blood-stained floor. On it lay a man, blond and straight, closed eyes with a line between them, hand across his breast touching his shirt where it was stiff with dried blood. "Air you thirsty?" began Christianna, then set the bucket ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... I just lay there scared stiff hearing things an' seeing 'em! Come morning, in walked Peneluna looking still and high and she didn't say nothing till she'd gone and fetched those togs of hers, black 'uns, you know, that Aunt Polly gave her long back. She put 'em on, bonnet and veil an' everything. ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... sight; but as the days crept by while the blackness of night hung about me I grew alarmed, and one day I asked the O.C. hospital why he was constantly lifting up my right eyelid. Truth to tell, I was scared stiff with the thought that they were contemplating removing my remaining eye, but I gave no outward sign of my fear. No matter how "windy" one is, it would never do to let the other fellow know it, at least not while you are wearing the uniform of the Canadians. I, therefore, quickly followed ...
— Through St. Dunstan's to Light • James H. Rawlinson
... me through every retreat, was such as to bereave me of all consistent thinking, much more of the power of coming to any resolution. As soon as this giddiness and horror of the mind subsided, and the deadly calm that invaded my faculties was no more, one stiff and master gale gained the ascendancy, and drove me to an instant desertion of this late cherished retreat. I had no patience to enter into further remonstrance and explanation with the inhabitants of my present residence. I believed that it was in vain to hope to recover ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... house till two o'clock nearly. Came home, corrected proof-sheets, etc., mechanically. All well, would the machine but keep in order, but "The spinning wheel is auld and stiff." ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... without my host, a lean, wiry old fellow, a bit stiff about the knees. First of all he proudly showed me his soldier's book—three campaigns in Algeria. A crowd of smelly women pressed round us—luckily we had finished our meal—while with the help of a few knives and plates he explained exactly what a strategical movement was, ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... regarded me. My front-stud fretted; A stiff slow smirk belied my deep unrest; My tea-cup trembled and my cake was wetted; My beauteous tie worked round toward the West; My brow—forgive me, but it really sweated; I ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 17, 1914 • Various
... receiving it, shouts a ballad of his master's method of paying tribute to Ireland with the head of his enemy; for the battle between Tristan and Morold had grown out of the effort made by the latter to collect tribute-money from England. It is a stiff stave, rugged, forceful, and direct, in which the spirit of the political ballad of all times ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... the first who tried it; But Mellish could never abide it. But it signifies very little what Mellish said, Because he is dead. For who can confute A body that's mute?— Or who would fight With a senseless sprite?— Or think of troubling An impenetrable old goblin That's dead and gone, And stiff as stone, To convince him with arguments pro and con, As if some live logician, Bred up at Merton, Or Mr. Hazlitt, the Metaphysician— Hey, Mr. Ayrton! With all ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... requests to Newman Noggs, Mr Squeers betook himself to the little back-office, and fitted on his child's hat with parental anxiety, while Newman, with his pen behind his ear, sat, stiff and immovable, on his stool, regarding the father and son by turns with a ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... arrive at two or three, with green painted bedsteads and a bench; the walls bare, or ornamented with a few old pictures of Saints and Virgins, and bare floors ornamented with nothing. To this add a kitchen and outhouses, a garden running to waste and overrunning with flowers, with stiff stone walks and a fountain in the middle, an orchard and an olive-ground; such are most of the haciendas that I have yet seen. That of the Countess C—-a, which seems to be the handsomest in Tacubaya, is remarkable for commanding from its windows one of the most beautiful views ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... Paris exquisites, who aped the London cockneys in the first French Revolution. Their dress was top-boots with thick soles, knee-breeches, a dress-coat with long tails and high stiff collar, and a thick cudgel called a constitution. It was thought John Bull-like to assume a huskiness of voice, a discourtesy of manners, and a swaggering vulgarity of speech ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... mud boundary between two fields, or any kind of bank. The sharp claws of the bee-eaters enable the birds to obtain a foothold on an almost vertical surface; this foothold is strengthened by the tail which, being stiff, acts as a third leg. In a surprisingly short time a cavity large enough to conceal the bird completely is formed. The bee-eater utilises the bill as pickaxe and the feet as ejectors. The little clouds of sand ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... seat, very unceremoniously, and began his story. It was very disconnected; the prince frowned, and wished he could get away; but suddenly a few words struck him. He sat stiff with wonder—Lebedeff said some ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... She was stiff and tired after the long journey and want of proper food, and every trifle took upon itself huge dimensions. She was daintily fastidious as to cleanliness, and everything seemed to her filthy beyond belief. The universal squalor customary in Spanish ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... shrub, tree, and stone within a mile of Fort Severn in any direction, after the summer spent there, and to-night he relied upon his recognition of inanimate objects to lead him aright. A ghostly spruce with a wedge-shaped bite out of its stiff foliage told him he was a hundred feet to the right; a flat-topped rock, suddenly stumbled upon, convinced him that for five minutes he had been ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... they were lame and stiff, do you think they would know what made them so? Think of as many things as you can that they might do to make themselves ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... to show, that laws prescribing, or magistrates exercising, a very stiff and often inapplicable rule, or a blind and rash discretion, never can provide the just proportions between earning and salary on the one hand, and nutriment on the other: whereas interest, habit, and the tacit convention, that arise ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... Nolan felt as sure that Jack Quinn had perished in the storm as if he had seen him prone and stiff under the drifting snow. The fool had left the harbor that night, sometime before the onslaught of the blizzard, but after midnight to a certainty. He had gone out—and he had not returned! There could be no doubt about his miserable ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... marchlike tune; and the dancers paired off. They performed a kind of lancer figure, very stately and solemn, seemingly interminable, with scant variation, small progressions, and mighty little interest to me. We sat in a stiff row and shed the compliment of our presence on the scene. It was about as inspiring as a visit to a hospital ward. What determined the duration of the affair, I cannot tell you; whether the musicians' fingers ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... the mission of the poet and the romancer—to sponge out of existence, for a time, the stiff, refractory, and unlovely realities and give in their place a scene of ideal mobility and charm. The two women reveled in Gaspard Roussillon's revelations. They saw the brilliant companies, the luxurious surroundings, ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... not bent to the southwest. The explanation given was, that the south winds prevail in the time of sap, when the trees are supple with life and heavy with foliage, and consequently, that they yield before them. But when the winter comes they are hard and firm, rigid and stiff, and even the fury of the tempest affects them not. Thus is it with human souls. When humility fills the heart, when its gentleness renders susceptible its thoughts and feelings, the softest breath of God's Spirit can bend it earthward to help the needy, and downward to supplicate and welcome ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... from Thessaly and Georgia, and bones torn from the jaws of a famished dog, to be burned in flames fed with perfumes from Colchis. Of the assistant witches, one traces with hurried steps the edifice, sprinkling it, as she goes, with drops from the Avernus, her hair on her head stiff and erect, like the quills of the sea-hedge-hog, or the bristles of a hunted boar; and another, who is believed by all the neighbourhood to have the faculty of conjuring the stars and the moon down ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... his name from the suavity of his countenance, the inveterate politeness of his language, and the unassailable composure of his manner. He was in the prime of life, but very bald—had been in the army and the coal trade—wore very stiff collars and prodigiously long wristbands—seldom laughed, but talked with remarkable glibness, and was never known to lose his temper under the most aggravating circumstances of ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... clasp-knife. He had heard evidently the cry of alarm, had sprung to his feet, and had struck the top of his head with fatal force against a projecting lance of rock immediately above him. There had been a speedy end to his troubles, poor fellow, and he sat there stiff and cold and pallid, staring before him like a figure ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray
... him up! That goes, do you hear? I'm gonna' flatten the big stiff. He made a monkey outa me, and he ain't gonna' get away ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... was always thus with Nares and Pinkerton—the two vainest men of my acquaintance. And having thus reinstated himself in his own opinion, the captain rose, and, with a couple of his stiff nods, departed. ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... was immediately seized by the panther, who reduced it to atoms; nor could he venture to open a bottle of perfume when the animal was near, he was so eager to enjoy it. Twice a week his mistress indulged him by making a cup of stiff paper, pouring a little lavender water into it, and giving it to him through the bars of the cage; he would drag it to him with great eagerness, roll himself over it, nor rest ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... dear?" said Mrs. Myrtle, her face growing crimson. This was really the last straw. "I don't understand you, miss," she said in a stiff tone. "I have nothing whatever to do with ...
— Red Rose and Tiger Lily - or, In a Wider World • L. T. Meade
... flirted it briskly across the hearth, a tiny fluff of down detached itself from one of the stiff quills, and floated to the rug. When she picked it up it clung to her fingers, and only after repeated attempts did she succeed in dislodging it, and in blowing it ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... deeply religious man, and the mainspring of his efforts was the desire to bring back to the Church the educated classes, who had been repelled by the stiff Lutheran orthodoxy; but this only increased hostility to him. Opposition met him in Germany at every turn; and in England, Lloyd, Regius Professor of Hebrew at Cambridge, who sought patronage for a translation ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... and I must have looked with four yards of stiff black silk attached to our little hats I can imagine, if I cannot clearly remember. My dear mother dressed us and saw us off (for, with some curious relic of pre-civilized notions, women were not ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... was his son who lay on the bier. The pale face was stiff and cold. The eyes were glassy and on the breast was a ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... I didn't want to be bothered; besides, there was always something very attractive about Sterling. I don't mind telling you that if he had fallen in love with me instead of the stiff-necked woman he married, I'd have tumbled over ...
— The Climbers - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... shaded so soon as they peep: But the more expeditious way is by layers or sets, of about an inch diameter, and cut within half a foot of the earth: Thus it will advance to a considerable tree. The places it chiefly desires to grow in are in cold hills, stiff ground, and in the barren and most expos'd parts of woods. We have it no where more abounding in the south, than in the woods of Hartfordshire; ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... the core of his being. Physically, he was still stiff and sore from the plank bed. Mentally, he was a volcano. He had been marched up the Haymarket in the full sight of all London by a bounder of a policeman. He had been talked to like an erring child by a magistrate whom nothing could convince that he had not been under the influence ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... lasted, with varying fury, for three days. The Curlew proved herself a stanch and buoyant craft, easily controlled and as stiff under sail ...
— Ralph Granger's Fortunes • William Perry Brown
... Cambridge, in 1583. He became a fellow, and in 1592 was incorporated of the university of Oxford. About 1502 he produced at Trinity College his Latin tragedy of Roxana.1 It is modelled on the tragedies of Seneca, and is a stiff and spiritless work. Fuller and Anthony a Wood bestowed exaggerated praise on it, while Samuel Johnson regarded it as the only Latin verse worthy of notice produced in England before Milton's elegies. Roxana is founded on the La Dalida (Venice, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... encumbered with underwood, except near the river side. It is entirely covered with the same sorts of trees as grow near Sydney; and in some places grass springs up luxuriantly; other places are quite bare of it. The soil is various: in many parts a stiff and clay, covered with small pebbles; in other places, of a soft loamy nature: but invariably, in every part near the river, it is a coarse sterile sand. Our observations on it (particularly mine, from carrying the compass by which we steered) were not so numerous as might have been wished. ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... old man; "but my poor bones are stiff, and indeed the fire is too hot for a body to kneel over with these short straws. St. John the Baptist, but the young man ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... but I don't mind saying myself to myself with no one present except myself that in all my life I have never seen anything so masklike as the stolid little square head on that Jap. I have never seen anything I dislike more than the oily, stiff, black hair standing up on it like menacing bristles. I have never had but one straight look deep into his eyes, but in that look I saw the only thing that ever frightened me in looking into a man's eyes in my whole life. And there is one thing that I have to remember to caution Donald ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... old mansion of their earliest friends, The chapel of their first and best devotions; When violence or perfidy invades, Or when unworthy lords hold wassail there, And wiser heads are drooping round its moats, At last they fix their steady and stiff eye There, there alone—stand while the trumpet blows, And view the hostile flames above its towers Spire, with a ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... old trench look good when we tumbled in? Oh, Boy! The staff was tickled to pieces and complimented us all. We were sent out of the lines that night and in billets got hot food, high-grade "fags", a real bath, a good stiff rum ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... the bottom, and her morning had been a levee. Even poor little Mrs. Jardine, whose boy had been killed before he had been over two weeks, had spoken to Marjorie brightly, and said how glad she was, and silent, stiff Miss Gardner, who was said never to have had any lovers in her life, had looked at her with an envy she tried to hide, and said that she ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... divisible into "compasses" five feet wide and 150 feet long, making one sixtieth of an acre. The standard tasks for full hands in rice culture were scheduled in 1843 as follows: plowing with two oxen, with the animals changed at noon, one acre; breaking stiff land with the hoe and turning the stubble under, ten compasses; breaking such land with the stubble burnt off, or breaking lighter land, a quarter acre or slightly more; mashing the clods to level the field, from a quarter to half an acre; trenching the drills, if on well prepared land, ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... and drier bank some few slender square stems of betony, with leaves in pairs like wings, stand up tall and stiff as the summer advances. The labiate purplish flowers are all at the top; each flower is set in the cup by a curve at the lesser end, like a crook; the leaves and stalk are slightly rough, and have an aromatic bitter perfume when crushed. On the flower of a great thistle a moth ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... and rumpled and bent down with his forefinger the stiff short feathers on his arrow-head, but replied not. Although he frowned worse than ever, and at me, I dreaded him less and less, and scarcely looked towards him. The milder and calmer Genius, the third, in proportion as ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... Areskoui have protected me once more," replied the Onondaga. "The exertion has made my shoulder stiff and sore a little, but I have ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... paper, and Northwick read it carefully over. He folded it up with a deep sigh, and took a long stiff envelope from his breast-pocket, and handed it to Pinney, with the warrant. "Here is the money ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... the "health aura," or "physical aura." It is colorless, or rather about the shade of clear glass, diamond, or water. It is streaked with very minute, bristle-like lines. In a state of good health, these fine lines are stiff like toothbrush bristles; while, in cases of poor health, these lines droop, curl and present a furlike appearance. It is sometimes filled with minute sparkling particles, like tiny electric ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... but her back grew stiff, something like Mrs. Ridge's; and when she saw Uncle Stanley in the outer office a few minutes later and he smiled without looking at her—smiled and shook his head to himself as though he were thinking of something ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... state of matters we sat one warm summer evening before the mess-room, under the shade of a canvas awning, discussing, by way of refrigerant, our eighth tumbler of whiskey punch. We had, as usual, been jarring away about everything under heaven. A lately arrived post-chaise, with an old, stiff-looking gentleman in a queue, had formed a kind of 'godsend' for debate, as to who he was, whither he was going, whether he really had intended to spend the night there, or that he only put up because the chaise ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... with a kind of honeyed, friendly whine, not far off singing, that was eminently Scottish. He laughed not very often, and when he did, with a sudden, loud haw-haw, hearty but somehow joyless, like an echo from a rock. His face was permanently set and coloured; ruddy and stiff with weathering; more like a picture than a face; yet with a certain strain, and a threat of latent anger in the expression, like that of a man trained too fine and harassed with perpetual vigilance. He spoke in the richest ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a hijious thing—a very hijious thing if, when I come a-gatherin' watercress in the marnin', I should find you a-danglin' on t' stapil, cold and stiff—like t' other, or lyin' a corp wi' your throat cut; 'twould be a hijious—hijious thing, Peter, but oh! 'twould mak' a ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... a red cap and immaculately white gloves, paced up and down the platform with a stiff official air and did not glance ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... of age was tall and strong, with magnificent eyes and a sweet voice; his bristles were no longer stiff but his hair was soft as silk, and those who loved him could embrace him without being scratched, as Passerose had been the day of his birth. Ourson loved his mother tenderly and Passerose almost as well ...
— Old French Fairy Tales • Comtesse de Segur
... (at 10.30) blows a pretty stiff gale, and the sea has also risen, and the Elba's bows rise and fall about nine feet. We make twelve pitches to the minute, and the poor cable must feel very sea-sick by this time. We are quite unable to do anything, ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... proceeded to his hut, and saw the Indian who was said to be asleep, with his eyes closed—for ever; a sad spectacle, for it was evident that the death of the poor wretch had been caused by intemperance; he was found in the morning lying on his face, and his body already stiff. We were both alike involved in the same awful responsibility, for the Indians drank as much at one house as the other, though his death occurred at the establishment of the other party. The Company only ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... a violent start that Hugo awoke, feeling chilled to the bone in spite of his heavy blankets. His injured shoulder was so stiff that for some minutes he was scarcely able to move it. He got out of his bunk, his whole frame shaking with the cold, and managed to kindle a fire in the stove. But presently he felt warm again, rather unaccountably warm, in fact, and his face grew quite red. ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... a sad and hungry silence, and got little stiff necks with holding their little heads back to look up the inside of the tall grey tower, to see ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... you are married, it may be much better, for the marriage bed doth for the most part change the ten sences into five. But she answered, may it please your Grace, he is no such man to do that, for all that he can do is only to-follow his own round-head-like stiff-neckedness, and e'en nothing else. Whereupon he again answered, may it please your Grace, I have no mind ever to try it with such a creature as she is; I should be then fast enough bound to her; neither would I willingly go alive headlong to the Devil, ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... searchin'," he said, "an' fightin', and fire-stoppin' an' dancin' you've had a pretty stiff time of it, Jacob. But you're a strong man—leastwise you used to be—an' I daresay there's plenty of go in ...
— The Thorogood Family • R.M. Ballantyne
... beacons of surrounding foes— A King must lay his limbs at length. 30 Are these the laurels and repose For which the nations strain their strength? They laid him by a savage tree,[251] In outworn Nature's agony; His wounds were stiff, his limbs were stark; The heavy hour was chill and dark; The fever in his blood forbade A transient slumber's fitful aid: And thus it was; but yet through all, Kinglike the monarch bore his fall, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... assembled there the guests invited to meet us. Some few spoke French, and with these we managed to exchange an occasional remark; but as the greater number stood about in silence, the affair, thus far, was undeniably a little stiff. Just before the dinner was announced, all the Turkish officers went into an adjoining room, and turning their faces to the east, prostrated themselves to the floor in prayer. Then we were all conducted to a large salon, where each being provided with a silver ewer and basin, a little ball ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 6 • P. H. Sheridan
... on a stiff chair, his hand hanging over the back, his long legs crossed, was a young man, graceful, lean and shabby. He was clean-shaven, with brown skin and golden hair, an unruly lock lying athwart his forehead. His face, intent, alert, ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... growing private sector, yet the state still plays a major role in basic industry, banking, transport, and communication. The largest industrial sector is textiles and clothing, which accounts for one-third of industrial employment; it faces stiff competition in international markets with the end of the global quota system. However, other sectors, notably the automotive and electronics industries, are rising in importance within Turkey's export mix. Real GNP growth has exceeded ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... that name which is ever the same, and changeth not. 'The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin.' This was his name among a stiff-necked people, an idolatrous, ungrateful people; this is his name to me alike in character. O how he has magnified this name to me, a backslider in heart and life; multiplying pardons while I have multiplied transgressions: still he has been last with me, healing my backsliding; restoring my soul; ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... on horseback, do not go lolling with thy body on the back of the saddle, nor carry thy legs stiff or sticking out from the horse's belly, nor yet sit so loosely that one would suppose thou wert on Dapple; for the seat on a horse makes gentlemen of some ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... out of the saddle. She was stiff and awkward, and she let herself slide. Kells handled her gently and like a gentleman, and for Joan the first agonizing moment of her ordeal was past. Her intuition had guided her correctly. Kells might have been and probably was the most depraved of outcast men; but the presence of a girl like ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... profound meditation, during which Mr Welton frowned inquiringly at the dark driving clouds above him, he said, "It'll be pretty stiff." ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... a fleeting glimpse of the horses disappearing among the trees that galvanised him into action. Running back into the shack, he satisfied himself with a hasty glance in the mirror, stuck a jaunty stiff hat askew on his head, and sped away up the path his feet had worn through the months ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... Evelyn would make the first sign. Her pride was equal to, if not greater, than Jean's. She, who abhorred prying and inquisitiveness, had been accused by Jean of meddling in her affairs. Evelyn vowed inwardly never to forgive Jean. So these two young girls, each stiff-necked and implacable, dressed, studied and slept in the same room in stony silence, passing in and out like two offended shadows. Gradually this strained attitude became so intolerable to Jean that she longed for some pretext on which to make peace. As she sat at the window wondering ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... would pass on his way, shattering the peaceful air at half-minute intervals with his bilingual disharmonies. He was pallid, meagerly built, stoop-shouldered, bristly-haired, pock-marked, and stiff-gaited, with a face which would have been totally insignificant but for an obstinate chin and a pair of velvet-black, pathetically questioning eyes; and he was incurably an outlander. For five years he had lived ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... dignity. The meeting was an affecting one, touched with a humanity which has survived the intervening centuries, as a touch of true humanity will when details of mere parade and etiquette have long perished. Perhaps the Admiral, inspired with a deep sense of his wrongs, meant to preserve a very stiff and cold demeanour at the beginning of this interview; but when he looked into the kind eyes of Isabella and saw them suffused with tears at the thought of his sorrows all his dignity broke down; the tears came to his own eyes, and he wept there naturally like a child. ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... his heart that he was waiting for that summons, and he turned and followed as Percival began a slow progress through the crowd toward that uncompromising stiff-lined bench of the kind that Mr. Early affected, where sat the girl like a cameo, beside a woman somewhat ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... accompanied him in the solitude. He gazed with astonishment at the face of his wife, which seemed to rise from all sides of the parlor. Little studies of women of the people or ladies of the 18th century; water-colors of Moorish women; Greek women with the stiff severity of Alma-Tadema's archaic figures; everything in the parlor, everything he had painted, was Josephina, had her face, or showed traces of her with the vagueness ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... bearing vases of many-coloured sherbets, and surrounding a superior domestic, who carries the strong and burning coffee in small cups of porcelain supported in frames of silver fillagree, all placed upon a gorgeous waiter covered with a mantle of white satin, stiff and shining ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 566, September 15, 1832 • Various
... hovered over the household. An absent son returned who had been teaching several miles distant, and among other gifts were some for the little one, but those little eyes were closed, and those little hands that used to be raised with so much fondness, were now stiff and cold in death; but how lovely! Her grave was made in the headland of the garden; a tall lilac stood upon one side of it, and a fragrant rose bush stood upon the other No stone marked the spot, but will she be forgotten on the morning ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... have already described (figs. 5 and 1) the appearance of a dog approaching another dog with hostile intentions, namely, with erected ears, eyes intently directed forwards, hair on the neck and back bristling, gait remarkably stiff, with the tail upright and rigid. So familiar is this appearance to us, that an angry man is sometimes said "to have his back up." Of the above points, the stiff gait and upright tail alone require further discussion. Sir ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... foreman answered. "Anyway, I never did. It's a little animal all covered with sharp things. It's just as if your kitty's fur was about three or four times as long as it is, and every hair was stiff and sharp. There's a great rattling as they walk, I'm told. The Indians used to sew the quills—the sharp things—on their soft leather ...
— The Doers • William John Hopkins
... pull at his drink before he spoke again. "But Dworken is never down for long. Dis time it is show business. You remember, how I haf always been by de t'eater so fascinated? Well, I decided to open a show here in Luna City. T'ink of all the travelers, bored stiff by space and de emptiness thereof, who pass through here during the season. Even if only half of them go to ...
— Show Business • William C. Boyd
... predominant key is a serious one, there is nevertheless considerable humor in Charlotte Bronte's work. In 'Shirley' especially we find many happy scenes, and much wit in repartee. And yet, with all these merits, one will find at times her style to be lame, stiff, and crude, and even when strongest, occasionally coarse. Not infrequently she is melodramatic and sensational. But through it all there is that pervading sense of reality and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various |
